Describe law and order in London in the late nineteenth century

JAMES TOOKMAN: GCSE HISTORY COURSEWORK

JACK THE RIPPER

QUESTION 1: Describe law and order in London in the late nineteenth century [15]

The specific idea of a police force was invented in 1829. Up until this point, law and order was the responsibility of the local justice of the peace helped by watchmen and parish constables as well as the occasional special constable. This was a fairly effective system however the job was part time and there was no rigidity to the force, which meant it had trouble dealing with crimes beyond ‘ small disturbances’. In 1829 the Home Secretary, Sir Robert Peel, set up the Metropolitan police. It was set up to carry out the functions of the watchmen and special constables by patrolling the streets keeping order and deterring crime. They also dealt with major disturbances such as riots, previously the job of the unpopular army who always made things worse. In fact, the metropolitan police grew to appear as far detached from the army as possible. The army wore red so the police wore blue tailcoats, a top hat and as few badges and decorations as possible. Nicknamed ‘bobbies’ the Met was housed in Scotland Yard. They were armed with truncheons, constables with cutlasses, and from the 1840’sinspectors began to carry revolvers. In1839 a two major innovations took place. The City Police was set up responsible to the Corporation of the City of London and the Rural Constabulary Act was set up allowing magistrates to decide whether or not to set up police forces in each county, which by 1856 was a reality. Although all counties had police forces, they would not necessarily be the same so the police acted differently in different parts of the country. A problem of rivalry developed especially between the Met and the City Police. A major problem was that the Met answered to the home secretary and the City Police to the mayor spawning competition as the forces worked separately. This would become a major problem when dealing with big cases like the mystery of Jack the Ripper.

The Met caused no real revolution in law and order. Training for police constables was minimal mostly spent on military drill. Most of the work involved standing at a fixed point, terribly boring job however, the police force was only just about qualified for even this. Up until 1890, recruits were drafted in from the countryside in the hope that they would be stronger than city folk as well as being ‘uncorrupted’. However the naivety of this idea was endless seeing as countrymen would not be streetwise and would have no idea of the area they would be working in. The general qualification for a police officer was on a physical stature. They had to stand 5ft 9in tall. The other qualifying factor was basic literacy, which meant they would have to cope with reading and basic arithmetic. Basically, they didn’t need to be bright at all. 30% of those that made it to the force in 1829 on the grounds of physical fitness were dismissed on the grounds of insufficient literacy, 80% of whom on the basis of drunkenness. Another big problem was sleeping on the job. A policeman named Richard Pearse slept yards from the butchery of Kate Eddowes in 1889. The police force did admirably expect high behaviour although this was expected for very low wages. This wasn’t a ‘human rights’ problem but instead one of exploitation as policemen were very easy to bribe. Low wages also meant it was hard to get a lot of men and coupled with the numbers who were dismissed, the police force was severely undermanned, 13000 police to 5million people. Any one of these five million may have been committing any type of crime however, there was a generalised nature of crime in the nineteenth century.

The nature of crime is an important thing to consider when describing law and order. The police force was initially founded for dealing with rioting. There were many riots before and after the introduction of the Met. In 1819 50000 people rioted in St. Peter’s Fields, an event that became known as Peterloo. This was over a man named Henry Hunt who was speaking in favour of the reform of parliament. Another issue, which caused rioting was unemployment. Unemployment strikes were numerous in the 1880’s with frequent marches. In 1866 and 1887 riots got out of hand and the police were heavily criticised for their subsequent actions. 1886 saw a demonstration of unemplyed in Trafalgar Square and in 1887 there was more serious incident named ‘Bloody Sunday’. The Met charged a demonstration by the Metropolitan Radical Federation. Baton charges made the police very unpopular as many people ended up dead. The problem was that the inexperienced members of the police force wqere simply not equipped for this sort of situation. This led to more problems for the Met as the police became distrusted as working classes felt targeted as the police were seen to be favouring the middle and upper classes. Police working in working class areas had an even more difficult job. The working classes went on strikes, which ended in the police beating them up causing further hatred. Street crime was a separate problem to riots. Street crime included beggars, drunks, muggings, street invaders, burglaries and soliciting prostitutes. Much of street crime was petty theft like pick pockets. The simple appearance of the ‘bobbies on the beat’ was an attempt to end street crime. However police on the streets seemed to be looking for trouble. Another problem was that whenever they confronted crime, they had no experience in investigation. The lack of detective experience meant that any serious crime that developed would simply not be solved. The CID was created in 1878 as a detective division of the police however this was only 10 years old when the murders of 1888 developed. Therefore there was no experience when Jack the Ripper roamed the streets of London.

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Law and order in the nineteenth century saw a low level of crime, a mixture of rioting and street crime. The police developed an awful relationship with the working class, the people they would be confronting most. Property crime discriminated against the working class. The police had little experience in dealing with anything and they didn’t have the ‘employees’ to flourish as an institution. It’s no surprise that this happened; the police was created in a time of frequent crime so they grew up in a time of frequent crime, which meant they weren’t ready for each new circumstance that came about. The police were not ready for Jack the Ripper. Add the extra spice of competing police forces and a huge problem is foreseen. Jack the Ripper turned out to be too clever for them. But lets face it, it was no great feet to be cleverer than a police force typified by height and basic literacy. The Ripper didn’t have to be clever to be too clever for the police.

QUESTION 2: Why did the Whitechapel murders attract so much attention in1888? [15]

On the 6th August 1888 the first of the Whitechapel murders had taken place, Martha Tabrum was dead. Almost exactly three months later on the 9th November the last of the six murders credited to Jack the Ripper had been committed. The murders spread shock and panic but there was also an air of excitement altogether attracting dramatic amounts of attention throughout and beyond those three months in1888.

The first thing to consider in understanding exactly why they attracted so much attention is the simple fact of the generalised victim. They were all women, all working as prostitutes. Prostitutes were an easy target because they were usually unattached women and the manner in which they went about their ‘business’ meant there was no consideration for safety or any sort of consequence. Many prostitutes were alcoholics, who had no care except for getting drunk. 19th century Victorian morality was an important factor as to why the murders attracted so much attention.. Victorian attitude towards prostitutes was one of sin but there was a general fascination with sex despite this. The result of this was that when prostitutes were targeted even though the murders were only of six prostitutes out of hundreds in the area, shock was created, in part because the victims were prostitutes. The area in question is the next important factor. The East End was a place where middle classes would go to have fun, a label influenced by the presence of prostitutes. The upper classes, the middle classes and even the government showed a keen fascination with the East End. The area was full of sex, poverty and crime and many people felt sympathy and wanted to rectify the situation due to a feeling of social responsibility. With sympathy, comes attention. This links to another reason why the middle classes come to the East End, which is due to the risk factor. People were both appalled0 and intrigued by it, linking to Victorian moral values and therefore the grotesque nature of the Whitechapel murders.

The Nature of the deaths was an obvious key to why the murders attracted so much attention. It was simply the shock factor that kept people interested. Murders and assaults were committed on prostitutes frequently in the East End, in the 1880’s. However, the Whitechapel murders saw butchering and mutilating of victims. Martha Tabrum, the first victim had thirty-nine stab wounds; Annie
Chapman had her guts removed; Mary Kelly, the last victim was unrecognisable. It was simply disgusting. The thing that connected the murders was their eerily similar nature; the murders in general progressed in the extent of mutilation, the cause of death was decided to always be strangling with a cut to the throat, and basically, the victims femininity was taken away. This meant that there was a serial killer, the first serial killer, as well as the fact that no killer had seemed to be so random and motiveless. Interest was adopted as people guessed the murderers reasons. No answer ever seemed to fit. The number of crimes the ripper committed is another interest factor. The murders ended as suddenly as they began. Why as many as six? Why as little as six? It was a lack of evidence that caused this intense mystery. Such mystery was emphasised and blown out of all proportions by the press.

Media attention was bound to catch on to the Whitechapel murders and this happened in a sensationalist manner when the second victim, Polly Nicholls was murdered. The press played their usual role as almost a stereotyped member of the public, trying to piece together the mystery, attempting to do the work the police couldn’t. Due to the lack of evidence that the police find, the press is forced to speculate. This was also a result of the police not co-operating with the press. Press speculation made things worse not to mention the fact that the press always exaggerates things anyway. The time of the Ripper stories occurring in newspapers is another important factor as it was the same time that the penny dreadfuls were being printed. The media significantly picked up on certain aspects of the murders. A key example of this was the way the press paid particular attention to anti-Semitic evidence noticeably in the Elizabeth Stride coverage where a suspect was named as Lipski. The press printed things such as the anti-Semitic rumours that would create uproar and thus more attention from the public. The letters that the press received and the press got hold of increased this attention, including the infamous kidney letter. Letters may have been fakes and it is argued that the press may have produced the letters themselves however, the press has nothing else to go on. The police gave the press however the press actually gave the police some ‘clues’. In May Kelly’s death, a witness went directly to the press. However, the press also sent the police down dead ends. The police had so little to go on themselves that they needed to look to the press who would send them looking for a man with a leather apron with no results. It was the press that lead the criticism of the police, criticising them as being incompetent and putting attention on to the police by finding obvious flaws in their methods like the use of blood hounds. The press was justified in their criticism and as time progressed, the fact that no-one was caught made underlying fear worse creating further inevitable attention.

QUESTION 3: Why were the police unable to catch Jack the Ripper? [20]

The police never caught Jack the Ripper. The police would never have caught Jack the Ripper. They just weren’t ready. Internal and external factors were a part of this and simply meant the police were in effect clueless. There’s little doubt that the police force was undeveloped and basically filled with stupid officers. There was no way they could catch a person who arguably wouldn’t have been caught easily in today’s modern society. This assumption can be made by looking at current cases. Jack the Ripper only struck six times in just a few months; in the 1970’s the Yorkshire Ripper killed many more over a period of a few years. It seems the 1880’s murderer would have been long gone before they could be caught. Asking a far inferior, police force that don’t have the luxury of over a century of experience in solving the case of Jack the Ripper was asking the impossible.

The internal factors as to why the police couldn’t catch Jack the Ripper seems split into two areas. The first were those that showed the police to be inexperienced namely, their methods. Secondly are those factors that were really just complications including the general nature of the police and the infamous competition between the Met and the City forces. The methods used by the police were, in a word, basic. Old-fashioned springs to mind as the police, mainly Warren who insisted on using bloodhounds despite the surrounding slaughterhouses. The police also insisted on the idea of photographing the victims eyes with the belief that when a person has a violent death, the last thing they see is imprinted on the back of their retinas. This was carried in the investigation of Catherine Eddowes’ death. It simply showed that the police just had no investigative techniques and what they used was based on foolish ideas. The CID was young and unwilling to try new techniques. All they could think of was house to house inquiries and a handbill not even giving a description of the murderer. The police hoped that information would come to them or of course they would have caught the killer red-handed. The police had no way of determining key factors in the murders such as the time of death and there was no real forensic evidence as such but they were aware of fingerprints. This was a logical method but they chose to ignore it.

The police just had no knowledge of what they were doing which meant they had no skill in doing it. Quality was disgracefully low with constables being dismissed for drunkenness and sleeping on the job. Also many police were freemasons, which asks questions when the word “Juwes” appears in chalk, the freemason way of spelling ‘Jews’. Warren rubbed out this message, which appeared after Catherine Eddowes was murdered. This was stupid. Warren was known to be a political animal and this was part of his excuse for his actions; he feared the likely anti-Semitism outbreaks and the riots that would be caused. However, to rub out a key piece of evidence is just absurd. The police were never going to catch Jack the Ripper because internal factors meant they were simply not qualified in any way to do so.

The hope that evidence would come to them faded as the reputation of the police fell further. The public was understandably of key importance in the minds of the police however firstly, no reward was offered, a method proven in previous cases to lead to advances. One problem with the public was class bias. The police were arguably biased against the lower classes. The relationship between the two was one void of trust. In Annie Chapman’s murder, evidence from a middle class doctor about time of death was taken over a lower class prostitute who was a witness. Some sense can be seen in this seeing as there’s no telling what state the witness was in, but surely all evidence is useful especially when you’re dealing with a theoretical time of death compared to physically seeing something. The public relates directly to the factor external to the police of the area. The East End was full of people at all times. The time of the Whitechapel murders was always during weekends when the streets were at their busiest full of drunks. The dense population of Whitechapel made it easy to blend in with the crowds, especially in the dark. There were also many alleyways to disappear into. There were slaughterhouses all over the area so a person wearing a blood-soaked apron was strangely not uncommon. People didn’t lock their doors, which meant there was no sense of security. It is believed by some that Jack the Ripper fled his crimes by walking through people’s houses.

Whitechapel was a place filled with anti-Semitism as well as riots; the reason why the police force was originally created. Cries of murder were eerily common and a witness near the scene ignored a cry of “murder” thought to be during Mary Kelly’s death. This leads straight onto another factor of witnesses and if they can be trusted. You have to question the condition of the witnesses such as why were they out at ridiculous hours in the morning, the time when Jack the Ripper struck? The answer is sobering up, something that justifies why the police took the evidence of a middle class doctor rather than a lower class prostitute, Elizabeth Long, in the investigation into Annie Chapman’s murder. Other questions arise with the witness Hutchinson. He gave an amazingly detailed description of Mary Kelley’s murderer unlike any other. But why was he following Mary Kelley? Many witnesses went straight to the press. This raises eyebrows as to what was the press offering that the police weren’t. Letters were sent straight to the press as well as the police and there was only circumstantial evidence to remove the ‘fakes’. Letters received by the press created hysteria, as the press had nothing else to go on. The police also had nothing to go on so they were led astray after following the theories of the newspapers, most famously the stories of ‘leather apron’ forced the police to chase after this figure. Neither the press nor the police had any ideas because of the nature of the murderer. Serial killers are by nature difficult to catch. This killer like many others was motiveless. Materially he apparently had nothing to gain from the victim’s deaths. There is no doubt that the Ripper was a psychopath. Jack the Ripper was the first of this kind so the press didn’t understand him. He left little evidence, none that the police used. Jack the Ripper has it too easy. Take away the problems of the police and you have an area, which is just perfect to escape even the best of detectives in the modern world.

In conclusion the police were unable to catch the Jack the Ripper but the murders acted as a learning curve for the force. This may sound a bit distasteful however it has to be considered. The police were gradually improving from the moment the force was born in 1829. The investigation into the Whitechapel murders boosted the ideas of the police, as after all, they were so bad at the beginning, they could only be better by the end. But there was no real end to the Ripper investigations. The questions didn’t suddenly stop after the three months of terror. The police continued to improve long after Mary Kelley’s murder on 9th November 1888 even though they obviously got nowhere. Serial killers are by nature very difficult to catch and in the 1880’s the police were by nature rather stupid. They were never going to catch the Ripper unless Jack had stumbled over a sleeping bobby on the beat, although this wouldn’t be fool-proof as a policeman – qualified on the grounds of stature and basic literacy- slept yards away from Catherine Eddowes whilst she was being murdered. But perhaps comfort can lie in the assumption that the police wouldn’t be what they are today without the improvements spurned by the autumn of 1888.