Mary Jane Kelly A.K.A.. Marie Jeanette Kelly, Mary Ann Kelly, Ginger
Mary Jane Kelly was
approximately 25 years old at the time of her
death which would place her birth around 1863. She was 5' 7" tall and
stout. She had blonde hair, blue eyes and a fair complexion.
"Said to have been possessed of considerable personal attractions."
(McNaughten)
She was last seen wearing a linsey frock and a red shawl pulled around
her shoulders. She was bare headed. Detective Constable Walter Dew
claimed to know Kelly well by sight and says that she was attractive
and paraded around, usually in the company of two or three friends. He
says she always wore a spotlessly clean white apron.
Maria Harvey, a friend, says that she was "much superior to that of
most persons in her position in life."
It is also said that she spoke fluent Welsh.
Joseph Barnett says that he "always found her of sober habits."
Landlord John McCarthy says "When in liquor she was very noisy;
otherwise she was a very quiet woman."
Caroline Maxwell says that she "was not a notorious character."
Catherine Pickett claims "She was a good, quiet, pleasant girl, and
was well liked by all of us."
History:
Almost everything that is known about Mary Jane Kelly comes from
Joseph Barnett, who lived with her just prior to the murder. He, of
course, had all this information from Kelly herself. Some is
conflicting and it may be suspected that some, or perhaps much of it,
is embellished.
She was born in Limerick, Ireland but we do not know if that refers to
the county or the town. As a young child she moved with her family to
Wales.
Her father was John Kelly who worked in an iron works in either
Carnarvonshire or Carmarthenshire. Mary Jane claims to have 6 or 7
brothers and one sister. She says that one brother, Henry, whose
nickname is Johnto is a member of the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards. As a
member of this battalion he would have been stationed in Dublin,
Ireland. She also claims to Lizzie Albrook that she had a relative on
the London stage.
John McCarthy, landlord at Miller's Court, states that she received
a letter from her mother in Ireland. Barnett says that she never
corresponded with her family.
John McCarthy was born in Dieppe and is married with four children.
He owns a chandler's shop at 27 Dorset Street on one side of the
entrance to Miller's Court. He is described as a gentlemanly looking
fellow.
Joseph Barnett and Mrs. Carthy, a woman with whom she lived at one
time, say that she came from a family that was "fairly well off"
(Barnett) and "well to do people" (Carthy). Mrs. Carthy also states
that Kelly was "an excellent scholar and an artist of no mean degree."
Mrs. Carthy is the landlady from Breezer's Hill, Ratcliffe Highway.
Barnett refers to her house as "a bad house."
c. 1879: At the age of 16 she marries a collier named Davies.
He is
killed in an explosion two or three years later. There is a suggestion
that there might have been a child in this marriage.
Kelly moves to Cardiff and lives with a cousin and works as a
prostitute. The Cardiff police have no record of her. She says she was
ill and spent the best part of the time in an infirmary.
She arrives in London in 1884.
She may have stayed with the nuns at the Providence Row Convent on
Chrisp Street. According to one tradition she scrubbed floors and
charred here and was eventually placed into domestic service in a
shop in Cleveland Street.
According to Joseph Barnett, on arriving in London, Kelly went to work
in a high class brothel in the West End. She says that during this
time she frequently rode in a carriage and accompanied one gentleman
to Paris, which she didn't like and she returned.
On November 10, one day after the murder, Mrs. Elizabeth Pheonix of
57 Bow Common Lane, Burdett Road, Bow, went to the Leman Street Police
Station and said that a woman matching the description of Kelly used
to live in her brother-in-law's house in Breezer's Hill, off
Pennington Street.
Mrs. Pheonix says that "She was Welsh and that her parents, who had
discarded her, still lived in Cardiff, from which place she came. But
on occasions she declared that she was Irish." She added that Mary
Jane was very abusive and quarrelsome when she was drunk but "one of
the most decent and nice girls you could meet when sober."
A Press Association reporter who looked into the Breezer's Hill
District wrote:
"It would appear that on her arrival in London she made the
acquaintance of a French woman residing in the neighborhood of
Knightsbridge, who, she informed her friends, led her to pursue the
degraded life which had now culminated in her untimely end. She made
no secret of the fact that while she was with this woman she would
drive about in a carriage and made several journeys to the French
capital, and, in fact, led a life which is described as that "of a
lady." By some means, however, at present, not exactly clear, she
suddenly drifted into the East End. Here fortune failed her and a
career that stands out in bold and sad contrast to her earlier
experience was commenced. Her experiences with the East End appears to
have begun with a woman (according to press reports a Mrs. Buki) who
resided in one of the thoroughfares off Ratcliffe Highway, known as
St. George's Street. This person appears to have received Kelly direct
from the West End home, for she had not been there very long when, it
is stated, both women went to the French lady's residence and demanded
the box which contained numerous dresses of a costly description.
Kelly at last indulged in intoxicants, it is stated, to an extant
which made her unwelcome. From St. George's Street she went to lodge
with a Mrs. Carthy at Breezer's Hill (off Pennington Street). This
place she left about 18 months or two years ago and from that time on
appears to have left Ratcliffe all together.
Mrs. Carthy said that Kelly had left her house and gone to live
with a man who was in the building trade and who Mrs. Carthy believed
would have married Kelly."
c. 1886: Kelly leaves Carthy's house to live with a man in the
building trades. Barnett says she lived with a man named Morganstone
opposite or in the vicinity of Stepney Gasworks. She had then taken up
with a man named Joseph Fleming and lived somewhere near Bethnal
Green. Fleming was a stone mason or mason's plasterer. He used to
visit Kelly and seemed quite fond of her. A neighbor at Miller's
Court, Julia Van Turney says that Kelly was fond of a man other than
Barnett and whose name was also Joe. She thought he was a costermonger
and sometimes visited and gave money to Kelly.
By 1886 she is living in Colley's lodging house in Thrawl Street,
Spitalfields and it is here that she meets Joe Barnett.
Joseph Barnett is London born of Irish heritage. He is a riverside
laborer and market porter who is licensed to work at Billingsgate Fish
Market. He comes from a family of three sisters and one brother who is
named Daniel. Barnett was born in 1858 and dies in 1926.
Julia Van Turney says that Joe Barnett is of good character and was
kind to Mary Jane, giving her money on occasion.
Barnett and Kelly are remembered as a friendly and pleasant couple
who give little trouble unless they are drunk. She may be the Mary
Jane Kelly who was fined 2/6 by the Thames Magistrate Court on
September 19, 1888 for being drunk and disorderly.
Good Friday, April 8, 1887: Joseph Barnett meets Mary Jane Kelly
for
the first time in Commercial Street. He takes her for a drink and
arranges to meet her the following day. At their second meeting they
arrange to live together.
They take lodging at in George Street, off Commercial. Later they move
to Paternoster Court off Dorset Street. They are evicted for not
paying rent and for being drunk. Next they move to Brick Lane.
In February or March of 1888 they move from Brick Lane to Miller's
Court off Dorset Street. Here they occupy a single room which is
designated 13 Miller's Court.
Miller's Court:
Opposite Crossingham's lodging
house oat 35 Dorset Street, where Annie
Chapman lived, and between numbers 26 and 27 Dorset Street is a three
foot wide opening that was the entrance to Miller's Court. It is the
first archway on the right of Dorset Street coming from Commercial
Street. There were six houses in the court, each whitewashed up to the
first floor windows. The rooms were let by John McCarthy, who owned a
chandler's shop at 27 Dorset Street.
Number 13 Miller's Court was the back parlor of 26 Dorset Street.
Partitioned off from the rest of the building, it was entered from a
door at the end of the arched passageway. It was the first door on the
right in Miller's Court and anyone entering or leaving the court would
have to pass it.
The room was approximately 12 feet square. Opposite the door was a
fireplace. On the left of the door and at right angles to it were two
windows, one of which was close enough to the door as to be able to
reach through it and unbolt the door. To the right of the door was a
bedside table so close that the door would hit it when opened. Next to
the table was a bed with the head against the door wall, its side
against the right wall. The room contained two tables and a chair and a
cheap print entitled "The Fisherman's widow" hanging over the
fireplace. Opposite the fireplace was a small cupboard which contained
cheap crockery, empty ginger beer bottles and a little stale bread.
The key to the door was
missing. The window closest it was broken and
stuffed with rags and you could reach the spring lock of the door
through the window. A man's pilot coat hung over the window in place
of a curtain. The window, according to Julia Van Turney, was broken
several weeks before the murder by Kelly when she was drunk.
Also found in the room by the police was remnants of clothes in the
grate of the fireplace. They had been burned in a fire so hot that it
melted the spout off a nearby kettle. Mrs. Harvey believes the clothes
are hers as she had left a hat, jacket, two men's shirts, a boy's
shirt and a child's petticoat in Kelly's room. The pilot coat hanging
over the window was also hers.
Kelly had taken the room under her own name and paid 4/6 per week
rent. At the time of her death she was 30 shillings behind in rent.
August or early September, 1888: Barnett loses his job and Mary
Jane
returns to the streets. Barnett decides to leave her.
October 30, between 5 and 6 PM: Elizabeth Prater, who lives
above
Kelly reports that Barnett and Kelly have an argument and Barnett
leaves her. He goes to live at Buller's boarding house at 24-25 New
Street, Bishopsgate.
Barnett states at the inquest that he left her because she was
allowing other prostitutes to stay in the room. "She would never have
gone wrong again," he tells a newspaper, "and I shouldn't have left
her if it had not been for the prostitutes stopping at the house. She
only let them (stay there) because she was good hearted and did not
like to refuse them shelter on cold bitter nights." He adds, "We lived
comfortably until Marie allowed a prostitute named Julia to sleep in
the same room; I objected: and as Mrs. Harvey afterwards came and
stayed there, I left and took lodgings elsewhere."
Maria Harvey stayed with Kelly on the nights of November 5 and 6. She
moved to new lodgings at 3 New Court, another alley of Dorset Street.
Wednesday, November 7: Mary Jane buys a half penny candle from
McCarthy's shop. She is later seen in Miller's Court by Thomas Bowyer,
a pensioned soldier whose nickname is "Indian Harry." He is employed
by McCarthy and lives at 37 Dorset Street.
Bowyer states that on Wednesday night he saw a man speaking to Kelly
who closely resembled the description of the man Matthew Packer claims
to have seen with Elizabeth Stride. His appearance was smart and
attention was drawn to him by his very white cuffs and rather long,
white collar which came down over the front of his long black coat. He
did not carry a bag.
Thursday-Friday, November 8-9: Almost every day after the split,
Barnett would visit Mary Jane. On Friday the ninth he stops between
7:30 and 7:45 PM. He says she is in the company of another woman who
lives in Miller's Court. This may have been Lizzie Albrook who lived
at 2 Miller's Court.
Albrook says "About the last thing she said to me was 'Whatever
you do don't you do wrong and turn out as I did.' She had often spoken
to me in this way and warned me against going on the street as she had
done. She told me, too, that she was heartily sick of the life she was
leading and wished she had money enough to go back to Ireland where
her people lived. I do not believe she would have gone out as she did
if she had not been obliged to do so to keep herself from starvation."
Maria Harvey also says that she was woman that Barnett saw with Mary
Jane and that she left at 6:55 PM.
8:00 PM: Barnett leaves and goes back to Buller's boarding house
where
he played whist until 12:30 AM and then went to bed.
8:00 PM: Julia Van Turney, who lives at 1 Miller's Court goes to
bed.
There are no confirmed sightings of Mary Jane Kelly between 8:00 PM
and 11:45 PM. there is an unconfirmed story that she is drinking with
a woman named Elizabeth Foster at the Britannia Public House.
11:00 PM: It is said she is in the Britannia drinking with a
young man
with a dark mustache who appears respectable and well dressed. It is
said she is very drunk.
11:45 PM: Mary Ann Cox, a 31 year old widower and prostitute,
who
lives at 5 Miller's Court (last house on the left) enters Dorset
Street from Commercial Street. Cox is returning home to warm herself
as the night had turned cold. She sees Kelly ahead of her, walking
with a stout man. The man was aged around 35 or 36 and was about 5' 5"
tall. He was shabbily dressed in a long overcoat and a billycock hat.
He had a blotchy face and small side whiskers and a carrotty mustache.
The man is carrying a pail of beer.
Mrs. Cox follows them into Miller's Court. they are standing outside
Kelly's room as Mrs. Cox passed and said "Goodnight." Somewhat
incoherently, Kelly replied "Goodnight, I am going to sing." A few
minutes later Mrs. Cox hears Kelly singing "A Violet from Mother's Grave" (see below). Cox goes out again at midnight
and hears Kelly singing the same song.
You may listen to "A Violet from Mother's Grave" in RealAudio format [398 Kb] (voice and instrumental), or you may view the sheet music and listen to a much smaller midi version (instrumental only). RealAudio version courtesy Frogg Moody and the production staff of Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper.
Somewhere in this time period, Mary Jane takes a meal of fish and
potatoes.
12:30 AM: Catherine Picket, a flower seller who lives near
Kelly,
is disturbed by Kelly's singing. Picket's husband stops her from going
down stairs to complain. "You leave the poor woman alone." he says.
1:00 AM: It is beginning to rain. Again, Mary Ann Cox returns
home
to warm herself. At that time Kelly is still singing or has begun to
sing again. There was light coming from Kelly's room. Shortly after
one, Cox goes out again.
Elizabeth Prater, the wife of William Prater, a boot finisher who had
left her 5 years before, is standing at the entrance to Miller's Court
waiting for a man. Prater lives in room number 20 of 26 Dorset Street.
This is directly above Kelly. She stands there about a half hour and
then goes into to McCarthy's to chat. She hears no singing and sees no
one go in or out of the court. After a few minutes she goes back to
her room, places two chairs in front of her door and goes to sleep
without undressing. She is very drunk.
2:00 AM: George Hutchinson, a resident of the Victoria Home on
Commercial Street has just returned to the area from Romford. He is
walking on Commercial Street and passes a man at the corner of Thrawl
Street but pays no attention to him. At Flower and Dean Street he meets
Kelly who asks him for money. "Mr. Hutchinson, can you lend me
sixpence?" "I can't," say Hutchinson, "I spent all my money going down
to Romford." "Good morning," Kelly replies, "I must go and find some
money." She then walks in the direction of Thrawl Street.
She meets the man Hutchinson had passed earlier. The man puts his hand
on Kelly's should and says something at which Kelly and the man laugh.
Hutchinson hears Kelly say "All right." and the man say "You will be
all right for what I have told you." The man then puts his right hand
on Kelly's shoulder and they begin to walk towards Dorset Street.
Hutchinson notices that the man has a small parcel in his left hand.
While standing under a street light on outside the Queens Head Public
House Hutchinson gets a good look at the man with Mary Jane Kelly. He
has a dark complexion, a heavy dark mustache, turned up at the
corners, dark eyes and bushy eyebrows. He is, according to Hutchinson,
"Jewish looking." The man is wearing a soft felt hat pulled down over
his eyes, a long dark coat trimmed in astrakhan, a white collar with a
black necktie fixed with a horseshoe pin. He wears dark spats over
light button over boots. A massive gold chain is in his waistcoat with
a large seal with a red stone hanging from it. He carries kid gloves
in his right hand and a small package in his left. He is 5' 6" or 5'
7" tall and about 35 or 36 years old.
Kelly and the man cross Commercial Street and turn down Dorset.
Hutchinson follows them. Kelly and the man stop outside Miller's Court
and talk for about 3 minutes. Kelly is heard to say "All right, my
dear. Come along. You will be comfortable." The man puts his arm
around Kelly who kisses him. "I've lost my handkerchief." she says. At
this he hands her a red handkerchief. The couple then heads down
Miller's Court. Hutchinson waits until the clock strikes 3:00 AM.
leaving as the clock strikes the hour.
3:00 AM: Mrs. Cox returns home yet again. It is raining hard.
There
is no sound or light coming from Kelly's room. Cox does not go back
out but does not go to sleep. Throughout the night she occasionally
hears men going in and out of the court. She told the inquest "I heard
someone go out at a quarter to six. I do not know what house he went
out of (as) I heard no door shut."
4:00 AM: Elizabeth Prater is awakened by her pet kitten
"Diddles"
walking on her neck. She hears a faint cry of "Oh, murder!" but, as
the cry of murder is common in the district, she pays no attention to
it. Sarah Lewis, who is staying with friends in Miller's Court, also
hears the cry.
8:30 AM: Caroline Maxwell, a witness at the inquest and
acquaintance of Kelly's,
claims to have seen the deceased at around 8:30 AM, several hours after
the time given by Phillips as time of death. She described her clothing
and appearance in depth, and adamantly stated that she was not mistaken
about the date, although she admitted she did not know Kelly very
well.
10:00 AM: Maurice Lewis, a tailor who resided in Dorset Street, told
newspapers he
had seen Kelly and Barnett in the Horn of Plenty public house on the
night of the murder, but more importantly, that he saw her about 10:00 AM
the next day. Like Maxwell, this time is several hours from the time of
death, and because of this discrepancy, he was not called to the inquest
and virtually ignored by police.
10:45 AM: John McCarthy,
owner of "McCarthy's Rents," as Miller's
Court was known, sends Thomas Bowyer to collect past due rent money from
Mary Kelly. After Bowyer receives no response from knocking (and because
the door was locked) he pushes aside the curtain and peers inside, seeing
the body. He informs McCarthy, who, after seeing the mutilated remains
of Kelly for himself, ran to Commercial Road Police
Station, where he spoke with Inspector Walter Beck, who returned to the
Court with McCarthy.
Several hours later, after waiting
fruitlessly for the arrival of the
bloodhounds "Barnaby" and "Burgho," McCarthy smashes in the door with an
axe handle under orders from Superintendent Arnold.
When police enter the room they find Mary Jane Kelly's
clothes neatly folded on a chair and she is wearing a chemise. Her
boots are in front of the fireplace.
Post-mortem
Dr. Thomas Bond, a distinguished police surgeon from A Division was
called in on the Mary Kelly murder. His report is as follows:
"The body was lying naked in the
middle of the bed, the shoulders flat
but the axis of the body inclined to the left side of the bed. The head
was turned on the left cheek. The left arm was close to the body with
the forearm flexed at a right angle and lying across the abdomen.
The right arm was slightly abducted from the body and rested on the
mattress. The elbow was bent, the forearm supine with the fingers
clenched. The legs were wide apart, the left thigh at right angles to
the trunk and the right forming an obtuse angle with the pubes.
The whole of the surface of the abdomen and thighs was removed and the
abdominal cavity emptied of its viscera. The breasts were cut off, the
arms mutilated by several jagged wounds and the face hacked beyond
recognition of the features. The tissues of the neck were severed all
round down to the bone.
The viscera were found in various parts viz: the uterus and kidneys with
one breast under the head, the other breast by the right foot, the liver
between the feet, the intestines by the right side and the spleen by the
left side of the body. The flaps removed from the abdomen and thighs
were on a table.
The bed clothing at the right corner was saturated with blood, and on the
floor beneath was a pool of blood covering about two feet square. The
wall by the right side of the bed and in a line with the neck was marked
by blood which had struck it in a number of separate splashes.
The face was gashed in all directions, the nose, cheeks, eyebrows, and
ears being partly removed. The lips were blanched and cut by several
incisions running obliquely down to the chin. There were also numerous
cuts extending irregularly across all the features.
The neck was cut through the skin and other tissues right down to the
vertebrae, the fifth and sixth being deeply notched. The skin cuts in the
front of the neck showed distinct ecchymosis. The air passage was cut at
the lower part of the larynx through the cricoid cartilage.
Both breasts were more or less removed by circular incisions, the muscle
down to the ribs being attached to the breasts. The intercostals between
the fourth, fifth, and sixth ribs were cut through and the contents of
the thorax visible through the openings.
The skin and tissues of the abdomen from the costal arch to the pubes
were removed in three large flaps. The right thigh was denuded in front
to the bone, the flap of skin, including the external organs of
generation, and part of the right buttock. The left thigh was stripped
of skin fascia, and muscles as far as the knee.
The left calf showed a long gash through skin and tissues to the deep
muscles and reaching from the knee to five inches above the ankle. Both
arms and forearms had extensive jagged wounds.
The right thumb showed a small superficial incision about one inch long,
with extravasation of blood in the skin, and there were several abrasions
on the back of the hand moreover showing the same condition.
On opening the thorax it was found that the right lung was minimally
adherent by old firm adhesions. The lower part of the lung was broken
and torn away. The left lung was intact. It was adherent at the apex
and there were a few adhesions over the side. In the substances of the
lung there were several nodules of consolidation.
The pericardium was open below and the heart absent. In the abdominal
cavity there was some partly digested food of fish and potatoes, and
similar food was found in the remains of the stomach attached to the
intestines."
Dr. George Bagster Phillips was also present at the scene, and gave the
following testimony at the inquest:
"The mutilated remains of a female were lying two-thirds over towards the
edge of the bedstead nearest the door. She had only her chemise on, or
some underlinen garment. I am sure that the body had been removed
subsequent to the injury which caused her death from that side of the
bedstead that was nearest the wooden partition, because of the large
quantity of blood under the bedstead and the saturated condition of the
sheet and the palliasse at the corner nearest the partition.
The blood was produced by the severance of the cartoid artery, which was
the cause of death. The injury was inflicted while the deceased was
lying at the right side of the bedstead."
Funeral
Buried: Monday, 19 November, 1888
Mary Jane was buried in a public grave at St Patrick's Roman Catholic
Cemetery, Langthorne Road, Leytonstone E11. Her grave was no. 66 in row
66, plot 10.
The funeral of the murdered woman Kelly has once more been postponed.
Deceased was a Catholic, and the man Barnett, with whom she lived, and her
landlord, Mr. M.Carthy, desired to see her remains interred with the
ritual of her Church. The funeral will, therefore, take place tomorrow [19
Nov] in the Roman Catholic Cemetery at Leytonstone. The hearse will leave
the Shoreditch mortuary at half-past twelve.
The remains of Mary Janet Kelly, who was murdered on Nov. 9 in
Miller.s-court, Dorset-street, Spitalfields, were brought yesterday
morning from Shoreditch mortuary to the cemetery at Leytonstone, where
they were interred.
No family member could be found to attend the funeral. (The Daily
Telegraph, November 19 1888, page 3, November 20 1888, page 3)
Mary Jane's grave was reclaimed in the 1950s. John Morrison errected a
large, white headstone in 1986, but marked the wrong grave. Morrison's
headstone was later removed, and the superintendent re-marked Mary Jane's
grave with a simple memorial in the 1990s.
Death Cetificate
Death Certificate: No. 326, registered 17 November, 1888 (HC 08437).
Certificate lists name as "Marie Jeanette Kelly," aka "Davies."
Certificate lists place of death as "1 Millers Court Christ Church."