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Leanne Perry
Chief Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 999
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 10, 2003 - 10:38 pm: |       |
G'day,
Someone recently asked about bath time at Bullers. Here is what I found in an article written in 1849 by Henry Mayhew, following a visit to a cheap lodging house at the docks: 'The lodgers never think of washing themselves. The cleanliest amoung them do so in the bucket, and then wipe themselves with their pocket handkerchief or the tails of their shirts.'
WHOOPS! This might go in the book!
LEANNE |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1542
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 11, 2003 - 3:29 am: | |
Leanne, there were public baths in Goulston St, I think.
I believe it would have been technically possible for Joe to have got himself clean, changed his clothes etc. But the whole thing seems to depend on large slices of good luck, and the psychology of it all seems to involve inconsistencies.
Robert |
Shannon Christopher
Inspector
Username: Shannon
Post Number: 321
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 11, 2003 - 3:59 am: | |
Robert, Leanne, all, if you look at the picture of the outside of #13 by the windows you see the drain pipe from the roof (also shown in the artist sketch of the court) running down the side of building and curving outward near the ground. It is possible that it was used to collect the rain water.
Shannon |
thomas schachner
Sergeant
Username: Thomas
Post Number: 21
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 11, 2003 - 8:26 am: | |
hi there,
although mayhew wrote really interesting and helpful stuff about the living conditions in london, let's not forget that he was dead while the ripper murders happened (london labour and london poor was published in 1851) and the times were changing fast.
i found the following on the goulston street baths:
"In 1888 Goulston Street Baths (opened since August 1878) showed a record intake. For the poor there were second-class cubicles, priced at 2s a warm, 1d a cold bath. Admission records in the annual report showed that first-class users had increased to 29,843 and second-class to 89,316. One could argue that this would have had only marginal impact on hygiene since many of the bathers would have returned to unhealthy living conditions." |
Leanne Perry
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 1001
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 11, 2003 - 8:53 am: | |
G'day Thomas,
I've researched all I can into Victorian lodging houses and found that a committee was formed to improve them, but the ones in the East End of London for the 'slop-workers' were the last to be improved. Some weren't.
LEANNE |
Sarah Long
Inspector
Username: Sarah
Post Number: 282
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 11, 2003 - 9:06 am: | |
he was dead while the ripper murders happened
So did he come back to live after they occurred? Sorry I could help myself.
I know this is a silly question, it's just, if they washed themselves in buckets, etc. how did they wash their hair? If they did. I'm sure some of them did. Weren't there public bath houses for them to wash themselves in? Were there many of these in Whitechapel? It's just that I can't imagine people like Mary and Joe (who were said to take pride in their appearance) washing in a bucket.
Sarah |
thomas schachner
Sergeant
Username: Thomas
Post Number: 22
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 11, 2003 - 8:28 pm: | |
hi leanne,
you aren't the only one who has done their homework on victorian times. i've read mayhews works and i personally think it's really interesting, but times changed too fast and i don't think he is the most accurate author to rely on if it comes to the living conditions of the people in the ripper case.
i can't agree with you that the east-enders were the last for improvement.
even in the house of parliament there were lots of discussions on how to improve life in the east-end. not only because of the ripper murders. of course some of the ideas came out not to be really thought through, like "let's get some rich people to buy the lodging houses, especially in dorset street and only rent them out to people who are of good habit."
but..of course, after all..life in the east-end wasn't a piece of cake. but certainly a little better than mayhew described it.
sarah:
sorry..but not everybody is a native speaker here and therefore makes mistakes in spelling and grammar.
greetings from germany
thomas.
(Message edited by thomas on December 11, 2003) |
Leanne Perry
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 1004
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 12, 2003 - 1:09 am: | |
G'day Thomas,
I'm glad I found someone else who has looked into the conditions in low class lodging houses!
In many Victorian London Websites, I've typed the name 'Buller's' and got nothing. Then I typed 'Buller' and drew a blank. I've tried 'New Street', and got a little further, but I can't guess which one was 'Buller's'. Do you have any clues?
I found Mayhew's, (I think), list of all lodging houses, and 'Buller's' wasn't on it, nor 'New Street'. Is it possible that it was unregistered and private?
LEANNE |
Shannon Christopher
Inspector
Username: Shannon
Post Number: 322
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 12, 2003 - 5:20 am: | |
Leanne, here is something you might find interesting about the low class lodging houses. If you want to use it in your book, I can give you the references...
Whitechapel is located to the east of London in the borough of Tower Hamlets. It runs from Bishopsgate Street on the west, Hanbury Street on the north, Brady Street on the east, and Commercial Road on the south. Its name comes from the White Chapel of St. Mary’s church, which serves as an area landmark.
The name alone conjures images of run down buildings, overcrowded tenements, derelicts laying in alleyways, beggars searching for handouts, and prostitutes plying their trade on every street corner. Images; however, pale in comparison to the realities of life in Spitalfields/Whitechapel.
Many of the areas in and around London were known for specialist trades unique to that part of the city. Of these, Spitalfields/Whitechapel, still reveals its former life in the distinctive lofts of the buildings, which were added to house the Huguenot (French Protestants escaping Catholic persecution) weavers, who settled and made their living in the area. They brought their expertise from France and produced beautiful silk dresses, which were in great demand, not only in England, but throughout Europe.
The district also has a long association with Jewish immigrants, the first influx of which came in the 17th century. In the late 19th and early 20th century there was another flood of Jewish immigration, accounting for one third of the population. Other major influences in Whitechapel are Irish and English.
The area was first developed in the 15th century when trades such as metalworking and fish mongering were deemed to be too offensive to be located in the city. These trades, their workers and families, were relocated to the east end districts.
It was during this period Spitalfields/Whitechapel became synonymous with poverty and crime. Much of the housing was poor, and by Victorian times Whitechapel had come to represent the working lower class.
Victorian England was a time of feast or famine. Feast if you resided on the west end, famine if you lived in the east end slums. For the poor, life was anything but the picturesque vision portrayed in literature of turn of the century England with its afternoon tea, nights at the opera, and gala events.
Mr. Montagu Williams, Magistrate for the courts was so appalled with the conditions found when he visited the lodging houses after taking office he wrote a newspaper commentary which appeared in the East London Advertiser on October 3rd, 1888 denouncing the lodging houses as, “the haunt of the burglar, the home of the pick-pocket, and the hotbed of prostitution.”
In response to his letter, the Advertiser posted the following editorial in the next edition:
“Mr. Montagu Williams has done well to call public attention to the infamous conditions under which "common lodging-houses" are allowed to exist. A more appalling description than that which he elicited of these dens of infamy cannot well be imagined. It is a disgrace to civilization that to use the magistrate's own words, these haunts of robbers, homes of pickpockets, and hotbeds of prostitution should be permitted to flourish in the midst of what we boastfully call the capital of the civilized world. Fourpence, it appears, is the price of a single bed; eightpence, of what is technically known as a double. For those respective sums of money a single person, or a man and woman together, can pass the night. As many as ninety or a hundred people sleep under the same roof, numbers of them huddled together in the same room. No surveillance is exercised, and a woman is at perfect liberty to bring any companion she likes to share her accommodation. Well might Mr. Williams' remark that those lodging-houses are about as unwholesome and unhealthy, as well as dangerous to the community, as can well be. There are places among them where the police dare not enter, and where the criminal hides all day long. Is it any wonder that vice should ride rampant in such slums and that, bred and fostered by the hideous contagion, crimes of the most ghastly nature should spring from time to time into life to horrify society. The practical question is - What can be done to clean this Augean stable? Even the criminal classes must have places where they can lay their heads at night.”
Even among the poor, there were separate social classes, with the “unfortunate” (a euphemism for prostitute) class being considered the lowest. Most of the “unfortunate” class resided in common lodging (doss) houses in an area of Spitalfields/Whitechapel known as the "evil quarter mile,” consisting of Flower & Dean Street and Thrawl Street. An area described as perhaps the foulest and most dangerous in all of England.
Since the majority living here would choose the same lodging house night after night it made it easier for the police to keep track of where the “unfortunates” resided. Honest poor, criminal poor, made no difference, as the police do not attempt to distinguish between the two.
For many, doss houses provided the only means of escape from spending the night on the streets. These houses were the Victorian equivalent of 20th century “crack” houses; wretched and degrading for all who were forced to reside there. The owners of these establishments did little to ease the misery of the tenants, allowing the dwellings to fall further and further into disrepair in order to maintain their profits.
The east end districts of Spitalfields and Whitechapel in the 1880’s are places of despair, no work, little food, and crime out of control. For those living in the slums, life was hard, conditions were filthy and pay was at a level that would provide the barest of essentials and little else.
Whitechapel had an estimated population of 75,000 with nearly half at or below poverty level. The majority lived day to day on what was earned, with no chance of being able to save enough to move from the slums. It was for the most part a vicious never ending cycle of paucity, resulting in generation after generation condemned to the same fate.
Family life in the east end was extremely harsh. One in four children died before age ten. Medical care, for the largest part, was limited to charity. Education was a luxury a good number could not afford.
Most workers found intermittent employment if they found employment at all. Those who had regular work endured fourteen to eighteen hour days in “sweatshops” in order to keep their jobs. People were at the mercy of the shop owners by day and the streets by night.
Found on the streets of Spitalfields/Whitechapel are people differing as widely from each other in tastes, habits, thoughts and creed, as one nation from another.
Of these, the costermongers form by far the largest and certainly the mostly broadly marked class. They appear to be almost a distinct race, originally of Irish descent, seldom associating with any other class. Their day is spent selling anything and everything about the streets; sometimes wares of questionable origins. Much the equivalent of a modern day “walking flea market.”
The "patterers," or men who loudly tout their wares or skills in the street, and those who help off their wares by long harangues in the public thoroughfares, are again a separate class. Their cries can be heard through out the day and into the evening as they sell their wares, or barter for their labor services.
The street-performers differ from “patterers”; these appear to have many of the characteristics of the lower class of actors. They have a strong desire for appreciation and a fondness for the public drinking houses (pubs), though more for the society and display than for the drink.
Then there are the street mechanics or artisans, quiet, melancholy, struggling men, who, unable to find any regular employment at their own trade, have made up a few things, and taken to hawk them in the streets, as the last resort before they resign to a life in one of the many work houses.
Another distinct class is the blind; mostly musicians in a crude way, who, after the loss of their eyesight, have sought to keep themselves from the work house by any excuse for alms-seeking.
For women, living alone raising children in the east end, conditions were worse. Add to the lower pay, long hours, deplorable sanitary conditions, the high cost of child care, unsafe living environment with constant threats of being mugged, raped, or killed on the streets, you come to understand why more and more were turning to drink as a means of escaping the day to day hell of life in Whitechapel.
Having no state assistance available to provide for families who have come on hard times, more often than not, decent law abiding citizens were forced to use measures not normally accepted by society in order to provide for their families, and in some cases merely to continue to exist.
With so much competition for so few jobs, women resorted to any means available to survive, including occasional prostitution. For some, prostitution was a way of making enough to pay doss money for the night. For others, it was their sole source of support.
Prostitution was not considered a crime in Victorian England. Police could only make an arrest if the prostitutes' solicitation created a public disturbance. The laws were enforced differently depending on which side of town the disturbance took place. On the west end of London, there was little tolerance for “ladies of the evening”; however, due to social conditions on the east end it was often overlooked.
Prostitution had become an accepted institution in and around Spitalfields/Whitechapel with some 60 brothels and close to 1,200 ladies of the night working the streets in an area barely more than two miles wide. Unsafe as this practice was, these women had no choice but to risk the perils in order to provide food or lodging for yet another day. Most, in time would suffer from the affects of venereal diseases, alcoholism, and other maladies brought on by the living conditions.
Shannon |
Leanne Perry
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 1006
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 12, 2003 - 6:49 am: | |
G'day Shannon,
WOW, that must have taken a long time to type! I'll wait until Richard has a read, before I type it in.
The part about Montagu Williams will be good for attempting to find a description of Buller's, which will be talked about in the concluding chapter, (which looks at it as Joe's alibi)
Yes please give us the references!
LEANNE |
thomas schachner
Sergeant
Username: Thomas
Post Number: 23
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 12, 2003 - 8:23 am: | |
hello there,
the following is from the palace journal, april 1889.
a really long text, but worth reading!
A DOZEN graphically-written descriptions of Whitechapel, by people who have never seen the place, but have heard as much about it as most have, would probably be as amusing in the reading, to those acquainted with the district, as the most extravagant of the fables once so frequently quoted as articles of current French belief in the matter of English manners and customs ever were to the English people themselves. A horrible black labyrinth, think many people, reeking from end to end with the vilest exhalations; its streets, mere kennels of horrent putrefaction; its every wall, its every object, slimy with the indigenous ooze of the place; swarming with human vermin, whose trade is robbery, and whose recreation is murder; the catacombs of London darker, more tortuous, and more dangerous than those of Rome, and supersaturated with foul life. Others imagine Whitechapel in a pitiful aspect. Outcast London. Black and nasty still, a wilderness of crazy dens into which pallid wastrels crawl to die; where several families lie in each fetid room, and fathers, mothers, and children watch each other starve; where bony, blear-eyed wretches, with everything beautiful, brave, and worthy crushed out of them, and nothing of the glory and nobleness and jollity of this world within the range of their crippled senses, rasp away their puny lives in the sty of the sweater. Such spots as these there certainly are in Whitechapel, and in other places, but generalities are rarely true, and when applied to a district of London so large as that comprised under the name of Whitechapel, never. For Whitechapel, as understood colloquially, goes some distance beyond the bounds set by the parish authorities of St. Mary, and includes much of Aldgate and Spitalfields, besides a not inconsiderable fragment of Mile End. Any visitor with preconceived notions of the regulation pattern, traversing the whole length of this region by the main road, from Houndsditch and the Minories to the London Hospital, is apt to be surprised. The place might be Borough High Street, except that it is wider and airier and busier. In the stretch of road mentioned are four railway stations, and the road itself forms a crowded omnibus and tramcar route. On the right, as we leave the Minories, is the Aldgate Meat Market, a row of shops used by butchers from time immemorial. Says Ralph, in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Knight of the Burning Pestle":- "Ancient, let your colours fly, but have a great care of the butchers' hooks at Whitechapel; they have been the death of many a fair ancient." Hundreds of carcases hang here in rows, and dozens of waggons loaded with hides stand in the roadway. Just along here, in the middle of the road, four days in the week the great hay market is held, and the neighbourhood is full of misplaced-looking countrymen. Nearly opposite Hill's (once Newton's) the old gabled public-house, which looks as little like a public-house and much like an office or warehouse as possible, that realistic old deceiver, De Foe, tells us he lived during the Great Plague, and watched the terrified nobility making all haste from the City away from the infection into Essex.
The line of stalls along the south side of the road is worth studying. A number of them are bookstalls in the proprietorship of misanthropic men of gloomy and grim appearance, who seem incessantly brooding over the decline in the book-stall trade of late years, since the second-hand booksellers who keep shops have increased in numbers and business shrewdness, and leave little saleable to the humble stalls. Now-a-days chances are considerably against one's finding unique first editions in the streets, and these lowly brothers of Quaritch are impelled to label "Blair's Sermons" and odd volumes of "Bell's Poets" as being "rare" and "curious," although inconsistently included in the batch marked, "all these 3d." But Whitechapel need not be ashamed of its bibliographical features, for further down the road, nearly opposite each other, are George's and Gladding's second-hand book shops, which most book-hunters know. Old Mr. Gladding's premises (old Mr. Gladding must be very old now) were specially built for the trade when people lived in Mile End who would be horrified at the suggestion of living anywhere near it now. Mr. George is known for his wholesale purchases.
There are many other evidences of the commercial respectability of Whitechapel. One of its best known establishments must be by a long period the oldest business in London - probably in England. This is Mears and Stainbank's bell foundry, established in 1570. The several other business houses in the neighbourhood, whose ages run into three figures, retire into new-fledged juvenility by comparison with the hoary seniority of the concern with day-books for three hundred and eighteen years. The sweater and vamper in Whitechapel work side by side with houses of quiet, good old English uprightness and independence. If we were in want of any piece or pieces of cabinet-work of the very best quality and most conscientious workmanship possible, we would, rather than anywhere else, go to a certain unpretending and unproclaimed old firm in Whitechapel - not in the main street either.
Many parts of this main road seem fragments of the High Street in some busy, old-fashioned country market-town, and the presence on market-days of the hay wains and their attendants heightens the illusion. The row of gabled shops on the north side, opposite the obelisk, is the most noticeable of these parts.
Down near the London Hospital, and opposite the Pavilion Theatre, is a terrace of shops called The Mount, so called for a very good and plain reason, but one that would scarcely be guessed. Indeed, some of the shopkeepers themselves might be astonished to know that upon the ground under their premises, as comparatively late as well into the last century, there stood a fort or redoubt, bearing the name of their terrace, and constructed for the defence of London.
But let us get out of the main road. Turn back toward the stalls again, but before plunging into any dirty alley, look at this grinning Italian with a white rat. With the aid of a square bit of rag, the cultured rodent is rapidly made to, assume the successive characters of an old woman, a monk, and a stiff, pink-nosed corpse. Then he is stood on a board, covered up, and made to disappear altogether, turning up, upon investigation, in the cap of the most amazed boy among the onlookers. This having been accomplished without a word, but with a great exhibition of white teeth on the part of the impresario, an expeditious evaporation of the surrounding boys is the first indication that the hat is coming round, and almost before his hand can drag it from his head, poor Giuseppe is alone. Bless you, Giuseppe, take these coppers; not given in the sacred name of charity, but in the hope that they may induce you to keep your rat, and not, at this angry moment, resort to the aid of a barrel-organ to extort that which your unobtrusive performance fails to earn!
Further along a female compatriot of Giuseppe - Marina, perhaps - very clean as to her white head-gear, and very bedraggled as to her skirts, stands by a wire cage of lovebirds, and waits for the pennies that rarely come to procure the coloured paper "fortunes" lying in the little box inside the cage. Along the gutter from Giuseppe to Marina a dozen stalls contain the most surprisingly miscellaneous assemblage of celery and comic songs, hairbrushes and fish, ribbons and roasting-jacks, door-keys and cabbages, trousers and tenpenny nails in existence.
We make a small excursion into Mansell Street, which is quiet. All about here, and in Great Ailie Street, Tenter Street, and their vicinities, the houses are old, large, of the very shabbiest-genteel aspect, and with a great appearance of being snobbishly ashamed of the odd trades to which many of their rooms are devoted. Shirt-making in buried basements, packing-case, or, perhaps, cardboard box-making, on the ground-floor; and glimpses of very dirty bald heads, bending over cobbling, or the sorting of "old clo'," through the cracked and rag-stuffed upper windows. Jewish names - Isaacs, Levy, Israel, Jacobs, Rubinsky, Moses, Aaron - wherever names appear, and frequent inscriptions in the homologous letters of Hebrew. Many of these inscriptions are on the windows of eating-houses, whose interior mysteries arc hidden by muslin curtains; and we occasionally find a shop full of Hebrew books, and showing in its window remarkable little nick-nacks appertaining to synagogue worship, amid plaited tapers of various colours.
Beyond these streets, toward the end of Leman Street, in Goodman's Fields - they were fields two hundred years ago, and old Stow, earlier still, used to buy three pints of fresh milk for a half-penny at Goodman's dairy - Goodman's Fields Theatre stood, in which Garrick made his first London appearance, and took the town by storm. "There are a dozen dukes of a night at Goodman's Fields sometimes," the poet Gray remarked in a letter to a friend describing the wonderful success which attended Garrick's early efforts.
We are tired, perhaps, of all this respectability. Petticoat Lane is before us when, in returning, we regain the corner of Mansell Street, and along Petticoat Lane we disappointedly make our way. For Petticoat Lane isn't Petticoat Lane at all, but Middlesex Street, and, this afternoon, as the dusk comes, it is very quiet, and has actually most responsible-looking offices and warehouses all along the right-hand side of its clean and regular width. As Hog Lane, with its sunny hedgerows and one or two pleasant citizens' houses; as Petticoat Lane, with its thievery and squalor and old clothes; and as Middlesex Street, with its warehouses, this thoroughfare has lived through a chequered existence. Nowadays, we fear we must reluctantly confess the most enthusiastic slummer could scarcely achieve the memorable and once proverbial feat of entering Petticoat Lane with his pocket handkerchief safely in its appointed place, and, half-way through, observing it gracefully fluttering from the door-post of a clothes shop, with its marking neatly picked out, because, even if, with patience and perseverance, he succeeded in getting it stolen, there isn't a shop where handkerchiefs of any kind hang at the door in all Petticoat Lane. But one may still enjoy the consolation of having something stolen in Petticoat Lane if a visit be made on Sunday, when the road and pavement is still put to its traditional uses.
But long may Sandys Row remain for the benefit of the disappointed pilgrim to Petticoat Lane. Why the other end of Middlesex Street is called Sandys Row we cannot imagine, unless the sprouting respectability of the former disdains association with the humble grime of the latter. For where Middlesex Street dwindles into Sandys Row, the pavement is narrow and often encroached upon by the stock of the shops, and the intrepid explorer slips and staggers on the foul, greasy slime which carpets the irregular cobble-stones of the roadway. In the murky, dusty gloom of the old clothes-shops, no patch of the walls can be seen, and all but a scant passage-way in each shop seems a solid conglomeration of unhealthy-looking stock. Jewesses of enormous circumference block these passage ways, and unclean Jews, of the very lowest class, with unkempt hair and rancid complexions, keep a sharp look-out over the articles which hang in heavy bunches in the street, occasionally smoothing or re-arranging them with their black-nailed paws. Old military stores and accoutrements, and reasty mildewed saddlery, form a large proportion of the things offered for sale, and who in the world buys them, and what they do with them when they get them, are mysteries we have never penetrated. Mangy busbies, battered lancers' helmets, and even the three-cornered hats Greenwich pensioners wore years ago - who can have any possible use for these? And there are wooden water-bottles in a state of defilement which would prevent a pig drinking from them, and odoriferous knapsacks and wallets over which no respectable slug would crawl. Then there are equally enigmatic bundles of rust-eaten bayonets, bundles of broken spurs, and hammerless pistols of the most useless character. Who in creation wants these things, and how do these shop keepers extract a living from them ?
At the end we have Artillery Lane, Gun Street, and Raven Row. Dirt, ragshops, and small beer-houses. Some times a peep down a clogged grating, or over a permanent shutter, into the contaminated breath of a sweater's lair, where poisoned human lives are spun into the apparel which clothes the bodies of wholesome men. Through White's Row, or Dorset Street, with its hideous associations, into busy Commercial Street, with its traffic, its warehouses, its early lights, and the bright spot in this unpleasant neighbourhood, Toynbee Hall and Institute, and St. Jude's Church, whose beautiful wall-mosaic of Time, Death, and Judgement has its own significance here, in the centre of the scattered spots which are the recent sites of satanic horrors.
Fashion Street, Flower and Dean Street, Thrawl Street, Wentworth Street. Through which shall we go to Brick Lane? Black and noisome, the road sticky with slime, and palsied houses, rotten from chimney to cellar, leaning together, apparently by the mere coherence of their ingrained corruption. Dark, silent, uneasy shadows passing and crossing - human vermin in this reeking sink, like goblin exhalations from all that is noxious around. Women with sunken, black-rimmed eyes, whose pallid faces appear and vanish by the light of an occasional gas-lamp, and look so like ill-covered skulls that we start at their stare. Horrible London? Yes.
Brick Lane is a comparatively cheerful, although not a patrician, thoroughfare. The Brick Lane Branch of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association is no longer here, and public-houses occupy the street corners. Here German-Hebrew provision shops display food of horrible aspect; greasy yellow sausages, unclean lumps of batter fried in grease; and gruesome polonies and other nondescript preparations repellant to look upon. Very pleasant, no doubt, for those who have been brought up on them, but not appetising to any person who has never enjoyed that advantage.
Some years ago, it was fashionable to "slum" - to walk gingerly about in dirty streets, with great heroism, and go back West again, with a firm conviction that "something must be done." And something must. Children must not be left in these unscoured corners. Their fathers and mothers are hopeless, and must not be allowed to rear a numerous and equally hopeless race. Light the streets better, certainly; but what use in building better houses for these poor creatures to render as foul as those that stand? The inmates may ruin the cahracter of a house, but no house can alter the character of its inmates.
by Arthur G. Morrison
|
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1547
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 12, 2003 - 8:33 am: | |
Leanne, the material Shannon sent comes from a very good book which I'm currently reading, called "Unfortunates" by some guy named Shannon Christopher.
Robert |
Monty
Chief Inspector
Username: Monty
Post Number: 502
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 12, 2003 - 8:41 am: | |
Thomas,
Worth reading indeed.
Cheers,
Monty
 |
thomas schachner
Sergeant
Username: Thomas
Post Number: 24
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 12, 2003 - 9:25 am: | |
hello leanne,
here is a list where the london lodging houses were located.
no listing of new street nor bishopsgate. i tried to track down "buller's" lodging bouse/boardinghouse, but no success so far.
if it was unregistered, then i think after "the star" mentioned the name in some issues, mrs. buller certainly thought about registering .-))
shouldn't we open a new thread for this topic?
Police Division A
Artillery Row, Westminster
Dacre Street, Westminster
Great Peter Street, Westminster
Great Smith Street, Westminster
Old Pye Street, Westminster
St Ann Street, Westminster
Strutton Ground, Westminster
Police Division B
Cheyne Row, Chelsea
Church Street, Chelsea
Kepple Street, Chelsea
Lawrence Street, Chelsea
Pimlico Road, Chelsea
Turk's Row, Chelsea
Police Division C
Castle Street, St Martin's
George Yard, St Anne's, Soho
Litchfield Street, St Anne's, Soho
St Martin's Street, St Martin's
Whitcomb Street, St Martin's
Police Division D
Barrett's Court, St Marylebone
Bell Street, St Marylebone
Circus Street, St Marylebone
Gee's Court, St Marylebone
Little Grove Street, St Marylebone
Molyneux Street, St Marylebone
Whitfield Place, St Marylebone
Police Division E
Betterton Street, St Giles
Black Horse Yard, St Giles
Dyott Street, St Giles
Kemble Street, St Giles
Kennedy Court, St Giles
Macklin Street, St Giles
Maras Buildings, St Giles
Newton Street, St Giles
Parker Street, St Giles
Queen Street, St Giles
Short's Gardens, St Giles
Fulwood's Rents, Holborn
Took's Court, Holborn
Charlotte Place, St Pancras
Euston Road, St Pancras
Market Street, St Pancras
Tonbrige Street, St Pancras
New Church Court, St Mary-le-Strand
Drury Lane, St Clement Danes
Gilbert Passage, St Clement Danes
Holles Street, St Clement Danes
Sardinia Street, St Clement Danes
Vere Street, St Clement Danes
Wych Street, St Clement Danes
Hanover Court, St Martins
Harvey's Buildings, St Martins
Langley Court, St Martins
Lumley Court, St Martins
Police Division F
Blenheim Crescent, Kensington
Clarendon Road, Kensington
High Street, Kensington
Peel Street, Kensington
Edgware Road, Paddington
Queen's Road, Paddington
Police Division G
Banner Street, St Luke's
Dufferin Street, St Luke's
Golden Lane, St Luke's
Great Arthur Street, St Luke's
Greenarbour Court, St Luke's
Middle Row, St Luke's
New Court, St Luke's
Twister Alley, St Luke's
Brooke Street, Holborn
Great Saffron Hill, Holborn
Greville Street, Holborn
Holborn Buildings, Holborn
Portpool Lane, Holborn
Vine Street, Holborn
Clerkenwell Close, Clerkenwell
Clerkenwell Green, Clerkenwell
Cyrus Street, Clerkenwell
Hermes Hill, Clerkenwell
Pentonville Road, Clerkenwell
Alexandra Buildings, Shoreditch
Craven Street, Shoreditch
Dunloe Street, Shoreditch
Hoxton Street, Shoreditch
Kingsland Road, Shoreditch
Market Street, Shoreditch
Scrutton Street, Shoreditch
Cow Cross Street, St Sepulchre
St John Street, St Sepulchre
Gray's Inn Road, St Pancras
York Road, Islington
Police Division H
Brick Lane, Christchurch
Brushfield Street, Christchurch
Dorset Street, Christchurch
Flower and Dean Street, Christchurch
George Street, Christchurch
Hanbury Street, Christchurch
Heneage Street, Christchurch
Keate Street, Christchurch
Mount Street, Christchurch
Paternoster Row, Christchurch
Pearl Street, Christchurch
Princes Street, Christchurch
Thrawl Street, Christchurch
Wentworth Street, Christchurch
Wheeler Street, Christchurch
White's Row, Christchurch
Church Street, Bethnal Green
Nicoll's Row, Bethnal Green
White Street, Bethnal Green
Bull Street, Whitechapel
Dock Street, Whitechapel
Grace's Alley, Whitechapel
Leman Street, Whitechapel
Osborne Place, Whitechapel
Well Street, Whitechapel
Wellclose Square, Whitechapel
Boundary Street, Shoreditch
Hare Alley, Shoreditch
Gun Street, Old Artillery Ground
Cable Street, St George's-in-the-East
Nort East Passage, St George's-in-the-East
Pell Street, St George's-in-the-East
Princess Square, St George's-in-the-East
Ratcliff Street, St George's-in-the-East
Ship Alley, St George's-in-the-East
St George's Street, St George's-in-the-East
Broad Street, Ratcliff
London Street, Ratcliff
Narrow Street, Ratcliff
Stepney Causeway, Ratcliff
Baroda Place, Shadwell
Cable Street, Shadwell
High Street, Shadwell
King David's Lane, Shadwell
Commercial Road, Mile End Old Town
Greenfield Street, Mile End Old Town
Lady Lake's Grove, Mile End Old Town
Lucas Street, Mile End Old Town
Turner Street, Mile End Old Town
East Smithfield, Wapping
St George's Street, Wapping
Upper Well Alley, Wapping
Police Division J
Bethnal Green Road, Bethnal Green
Globe Road, Bethnal Green
Pritchard's Road, Bethnal Green
High Street, Hackney
Sylvester Road, Hackney
Dunston Street, Shoreditch
Police Division K
St Ann Street, Limehouse
West India Road, Limehouse
Medland Street, Ratcliff
Stepney Causeway, Ratcliff
East India Dock Road, Poplar
Emmet Street, Poplar
Finch Street, Poplar
High Street, Poplar
Manchester Road, Poplar
Pennifields, Poplar
Bow Road, Bow
Burdett Road, Bow
Albert Road, North Woolwich
Police Division L
Broadwall, Christchurch
Collingwood Street, Christchurch
Great Charlotte Street, Christchurch
Stamford Street, Christchurch
Belvedere Road, Lambeth
Broadwall, Lambeth
Cox's Buildings, Lambeth
Granby Place, Lambeth
Hooper Street, Lambeth
Kennington Road, Lambeth
Lambeth Walk, Lambeth
Paradise Street, Lambeth
Tower Street, Lambeth
Gray Street, St George's
Webber Row, St George's
Camberwell Road, Camberwell
Princes Street, Newington
Walworth Road, Newington
Police Division M
Collier's Rents, Southwark
George Street, Southwark
Harrow Street, Southwark
Mint Street, Southwark
Orange Street, Southwark
Queen Street, Southwark
Red Cross Square, Southwark
Red Cross Street, Southwark
Tabard Street, Southwark
Union Street, Southwark
Gravel Lane, Rotherhithe
Princes Street, Rotherhithe
Bermondsey Road, Bermondsey
Long Walk, Bermondsey
Police Division N
Islington Green, Islington
New North Road, Islington
Police Division P
Church Street, Camberwell
Lordship Lane, Camberwell
Meeting House Lane, Camberwell
Old Kent Road, Camberwell
Peckham High Street, Camberwell
East Street, Newington
Lewisham High Street, Lewisham
Arpley Road, Battersea
Police Division R
Baildon Street, Deptford
Church Street, Deptford
Gove Street, Deptford
Mill Lane, Deptford
New King Street, Deptford
Watergate Street, Deptford
Canon Row, Woolwich
High Street, Lower End, Woolwich
Market Hill, Woolwich
Nile Street, Woolwich
Rope Yard Rails, Woolwich
Police Division S
Bank Buildings, Hampstead
Brewhouse Lane, Hampstead
Hampstead Road, Hampstead
Holly Mount, Hampstead
Police Division T
Brook Green Place, Hammersmith
King Street, Hammersmith
Queen Street, Hammersmith
Greyhounds Road, Fulham
King's Road, Fulham
Stamford Road, Fulham
Gayford Road, Starch Green
Police Division V
Church Row, Wandsworth
Grottan Road, Wandsworth
Iron Mill Road, Wandsworth
Princes Place, Wandsworth
Clarence Terrace, Battersea
High Street, Battersea
Usk Road, Battersea
Police Division W
New Park Road, Lambeth
Railton Road, Lambeth
Vauxhall, Lambeth
Wandsworth Road, Lambeth
Police Division X
Church Place, Chelsea
Falcon Terrace, Chelsea
Kensal Road, Chelsea
Latimer Road, Hammersmith
Norland Road, Hammersmith
St Ann's Road, Hammersmith
Bangor Street, Kensington
Bramley Road, Kensington
Clement Road, Kensington
Crescent Street, Kensington
Hesketh Place, Kensington
Mary Place, Kensington
Portobello Road, Kensington
St Clement's Road, Kensington
Walmer Road, Kensington
Wormington Road, Kensington
Clarendon Street, Paddington
Police Division Y
Gordon Place, Highgate
Queensland Road, Holloway
Eve Place, St Giles's
Pancras Road, St Giles's
Circus Road, St Pancras
Harmood Street, St Pancras
Litcham Road, St Pancras
Pratt Street, St Pancras
Prince of Wales' Road, St Pancras
Rochford Street, St Pancras
(Message edited by thomas on December 12, 2003) |
Shannon Christopher
Inspector
Username: Shannon
Post Number: 323
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 12, 2003 - 10:18 am: | |
Robert, thank you... And, Leanne, you are free to use any or all of the material...
Shannon |
Natalie Severn
Detective Sergeant
Username: Severn
Post Number: 63
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 12, 2003 - 11:45 am: | |
Shannon and Thomas;Both these pieces of history are splendid and fascinatihg to read.Thanks a lot
for making them available. |
Leanne Perry
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 1007
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 12, 2003 - 3:44 pm: | |
G'day Thomas,
Thanks for posting that stuff! I've printed it all out and will read it closely today. I have seen that list of all the common lodging houses somewhere on the Internet, and that's how I come to the conclusion that 'Buller's' either had another name, or was unregistered, or both.
I have your book Shannon, and will take another look!
LEANNE |
Leanne Perry
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 1008
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 12, 2003 - 3:48 pm: | |
G'day,
About another thread: There's another thread called 'Bullers', here in the Joseph Barnett board.
LEANNE |
Robert Clack
Inspector
Username: Rclack
Post Number: 178
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 12, 2003 - 6:19 pm: | |
Hi Thomas, Leanne
New Street came under City Police territory, which would explain why it is not on your list Thomas. 24/25 New Street is listed as a lodging house in the 1891 census, unfortunately no proprietor is listed.
All the best
Rob |
Alexander Chisholm
Sergeant
Username: Alex
Post Number: 49
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 12, 2003 - 9:45 pm: | |
I realise this is probably of little interest, but the East London Advertiser was a weekly paper issued on Saturdays, and so no edition appeared on 3rd October 1888. The report relating to Montagu Williams, from which Shannon quotes above, appeared in the ELA on 6 October, 1888. But no commentary from Montagu Williams on lodging-houses appeared in the previous or subsequent editions of ELA, issued on Saturday 29 Sept. and 13 Oct. 1888 respectively.
The case that highlighted Montagu Williams’ concern with lodging-house conditions and regulation was actually reported in daily and evening papers such as the Times, Star, and the Daily Telegraph on 3 Oct.1888 as follows:
“WORSHIP-STREET. - EAST-END LODGING-HOUSES. Mary M'Carthy, a powerful young woman, well known at this court, was charged with stabbing Ann Mason in the face. - The prosecutrix said she was deputy of a lodging-house in Spitalfields, and the prisoner was a lodger. - The Magistrate (Mr. Montagu Williams, Q.C.): Is it one of the common lodging-houses one hears of? - Witness: Yes, sir. - Mr. Williams: Then tell me this: How many beds do you make up there? - Witness: Twenty-eight singles and twenty-four doubles. - Mr. Williams: By "doubles" you mean for a man and woman? - Witness: Yes, sir. - Mr. Williams: And the woman can take any man she likes. You don't know if the couple are married or not? - Witness: No, sir. We don't ask them. - Mr. Williams: Precisely what I thought. And the sooner these lodging-houses are put down the better. They are the haunt of the burglar, the home of the pickpocket, and the hotbed of prostitution. I don't think I can put it stronger than that. It is time the owners of these places, who reap large profits from them, were looked after. - The witness then continued her evidence, and said that because the prisoner had become quarrelsome the "missus" told her, the deputy, to refuse the woman's money for the future, and M'Carthy out of spite stabbed witness in the face and neck with a piece of a skewer. - Mr. Williams: Who's the "missus" you mention? - Witness: Mrs Wilmot. - Mr. Williams: Oh! A woman is the owner then. But she doesn't live there? - Witness: No, sir. In Brick-lane. - Mr. Williams: What is she? - Witness: A baker. - Mr. Williams: Has she any more of these common lodging-houses? - Witness: Yes, sir, two in Wentworth-street, close by where I am in George-yard. - Mr. Williams: And how many beds does she provide there? - Witness: Sixty or seventy, sir. - Mr. Williams: What is the price of a bed? - Witness: Fourpence and eightpence. - Mr. Williams: Eightpence for a double. Was she a double or single? - Witness: Double. She always had a man with her. - Mr. Williams: Is she married? - Witness: No; I don't think so. - Mr. Williams: Then the place is a brothel. - The inspector on duty in the court said that the beds were let for the night. - Mr. Williams: That makes no difference, whether let for a short time or for a night. The witness says that a woman can take any man in there, and so long as 8d is paid no question is asked. What is that but a house carried on for immoral accommodation? - Mr. Enoch Walker, vestry clerk of Shoreditch, said that he had had a good deal of experience with such places, but they could only be touched by one section of the Criminal Law Amendment Act. - Mr. Williams: Then I hope they will not be exempt from future legislation. They are places where, according to the witness, the thief or the criminal can hide all day for the payment of fourpence or eightpence for a bed each night. As a magistrate I have made it my business to go over some of these places, and I say that the sooner they are put down the better. In my humble judgement they are about as unwholesome and unhealthy, as well as dangerous to the community, as can well be. There are places among them where the police dare not enter, and where the criminal hides all day long. I have seen so much that I hope what I have said will do something to call attention to them. The prisoner, after the evidence of a police-constable had corroborated that of the lodging-house deputy, was sentenced to a month's hard labour. - She left the dock threatening the prosecutrix.” (Daily Telegraph 3 Oct. 1888, p.6)
The Daily Telegraph, 5 Oct. 1888, page 3 included:
TO THE EDITOR OF "THE DAILY TELEGRAPH."
SIR - In your report of the proceedings at the Worship-street Police-court on Tuesday last, and which appeared in your columns of yesterday, I am stated to have made an observation to the magistrate, Mr. Montagu Williams, which - in consequence perhaps of addressing the magistrate, and not the reporter - has been somewhat misrepresented. The magistrate denounced in strong language the tendency to immorality and crime which the common lodging-houses of the East-end fostered, and the facilities they afforded for the concealment of the criminals and outcasts of society.
The inspector of police present made a remark to the magistrate, and I, as amicus curia, said, not as reported, that there was only one section in the Criminal Law Amendment Act which could deal with these cases, but that such cases - indiscriminate letting of beds to strangers of both sexes - could not be dealt with under the Criminal Law Amendment Act, unless it could be proved that the premises were used for habitual prostitution. The magistrate suggested that further legislation was required. That may be desirable, but does it not suggest to any ordinary observer that the same law which would prevent a travelling tinker and his wife, or companion, from staying in a common lodging-house in a "double" would also apply to Lord Boldash and Lady Nocash staying at the Grand or any other hotel? I agree with the magistrate that these houses are the haunts of, to a large extent, the criminal class, but these houses are inspected by and are under the eyes of the police.
Suppress the houses, and what becomes of the habituée? They are not suppressed. So long as the class exists they will have their haunts and resorts. You do not destroy the vermin by simply destroying their nests. Neither can you suppress wickedness and crime by driving them into holes and corners. Mr. Montagu Williams professes to have had large experience with this class of people. Suggestions from an authority such as Mr. Williams for the amelioration of the criminal class and for the prevention of criminal practices are what society is now anxiously waiting for. - I am, &c.,
G. WALKER, Vestry Clerk, St. Leonard, Shoreditch.
London, Oct. 4.
Then, the Daily Telegraph, 6 Oct. page 2 reported:
WORSHIP-STREET - EAST-END LODGING-HOUSES. - In the course of an assault case, in which the offence was committed at a common lodging-house, Mr. Montagu Williams remarked that his previous observations with reference to these lodging-houses had conveyed a wrong impression. A person had thought fit to assume that he (Mr. Williams) suggested their abolition. His sympathies were so entirely with the poor that he recognised the value of such houses to them, and had no thought of suggesting what was imputed to him. But from what had been revealed he believed a better supervision of them was necessary, and he hoped it would take place quickly.
Another case was reported in the Daily Telegraph, 13 Oct., 1888, page 2:
WORSHIP-STREET. - THE EAST-END LODGING-HOUSES. - Mary Hawkes, 18, and James Fordham, 21, the latter with several aliases, were charged on remand before Mr. Montagu Williams with having been concerned with others not in custody in assaulting Carl Edwin Hellman, and robbing him of a pair of trousers and a sum of £4. - Mr. Phillips appeared to defend Fordham. - The prosecutor, a Scandinavian, who described himself as a student, met, whilst intoxicated, a woman, with whom he went to Flower and Dean-street, Spitalfields, and was taken by her into a common lodging-house there, where he paid 8d for a “double” bed. On being shown a room he found fault with the accommodation, and was left by the woman, and almost immediately afterwards was attacked by four or five men, who burst into the room, and seized him, throwing him on the bed and rifling his pockets of a purse containing £4 in gold, as well as stealing his trousers. It happened, however, that two police-constables had been informed of the fact of the man being taken to the house by women, and the officers remaining near the spot heard his cries, and entered the place just as he was thrown down the stairs. The room he had been in was searched, and in an adjoining apartment the prisoners were found in bed. The trousers and purse were also discovered there, and £2 10s was missed from the latter. Fordham denied having taken part in the assault on the prosecutor, who, however, identified him. The prosecutor also said that he paid the 8d for the bed to a woman (the deputy). - It was stated by the police that when they entered the house the deputy was not to be seen. The magistrate had ordered the police to produce her, and also desired to have some information as to the supervision of the common lodging-houses of the district. - Margaret Brown, a young woman, now deposed that she acted as “deputy” of the house in question, No. 34, Flower and Dean-street, erroneously stated last time by the witness to be 35. The house was owned by a Mr. Coates, who kept a chandler’s shop in Dorset-street, and lived in Whitecross-street. Replying to the magistrate, the witness said there were nineteen “double” beds and seven “singles” in the place. She remembered letting in the female prisoner and a man - a foreigner - the latter paying 8d. for a double bed. Witness knew Fordham, whom she admitted at a quarter to one o’clock, or about ten minutes after the woman and the foreigner. She could not account for Fordham being afterwards found with the female prisoner in a “double” when he paid for a single bed. She had known him before, he having slept there about once a week for some time past. She did not know the other four men who attacked the prosecutor - there were no other men that she knew of up there. She had heard Hellman calling out, and went up when the prosecutor said the woman had robbed him. That was after the police were in the house. Witness went up with the police. She had sole charge of the place, and was paid 6s per week. - Police-constable Dennis, 57 H, recalled, said that when he entered the place the deputy was not to be seen. After going in a second time she came from the kitchen. - The witness explained that the “single” beds were undivided, and stood in rows in a large room, the “double” beds being in small rooms made by partitioning a large one. The partitions did not touch the floor or the ceiling, a space of about 18in. being left top and bottom. A person might pass from one “room” to another with a good squeeze. - Previous convictions were then proved against both prisoners. The man had been several times sentenced for felony, and the woman twice for cutting and wounding, her latest sentence being twelve months. - Police-sergeant 32 H said he had, with an inspector, to inspect the registered lodging-houses in the district. They were 127 in number - common lodging-houses, accommodating about 6,000 persons. They were all visited once a week on an average. The house 34, Flower and Dean-street had hitherto been a well-conducted house. Of course it was frequented by thieves and prostitutes. He (witness) doubted if a single registered lodging-house would be found without such people among its lodgers. - The magistrate having intimated that he should send the case for trial, Mr. Phillips said Fordham would reserve his defence. - The prosecutor was not in attendance, and it was stated that he was on the eve of sailing for America. - Mr. Williams remarked that he should chance the prosecutor being in attendance at the trial. If he was not, the judge would probably deal with the matter. He directed that the proceedings at the lodging-house in question be reported at Scotland-yard. The prisoners were then committed to the sessions.
Best Wishes
alex
|
Shannon Christopher
Inspector
Username: Shannon
Post Number: 325
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 15, 2003 - 8:04 am: | |
Alex, "I realise this is probably of little interest..."
Alex, quite the contrary, I accept you as one of the leading experts in the field, and welcome your insights. Thank you for the information, and will make the corrections.
Shannon |
Alexander Chisholm
Detective Sergeant
Username: Alex
Post Number: 52
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 15, 2003 - 9:18 am: | |
Hi Shannon
Thank you for your generous comments.
My “little interest” comment was made as Williams’ lodging-house concerns seemed to be of interest to only one or two of the contributors to this particular board, who might regard the highlighting of a minor referencing error, and all the accompanying newspaper extracts as unnecessary. I’m not slow to recognise that I can drone on a bit at times, and occasionally acknowledge this at the outset of my posts.
Best Wishes
alex
|
Natalie Severn
Detective Sergeant
Username: Severn
Post Number: 87
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 15, 2003 - 1:38 pm: | |
Alex many thanks for the above which has raised more questions in my mind and confirmed my thoughts regarding these lodging houses. |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1568
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 15, 2003 - 4:00 pm: | |
Alex, you never drone.
Robert |
help!
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, December 15, 2003 - 3:21 am: | |
G'day Shannon,
If it's alright with you, I'd love to email you privately to discuss your book with you. We can compare notes and find out how we come to various conclusions etc. I'll send you the first email!
Help Stephen! I'm an unregistered guest again because Dad had to fiddle with my computer and take everything off!
LEANNE PERRY
|
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