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London Ghosts and Walks.

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

Of all our London walks none is more popular than the Jack the Ripper Tour.

It being Halloween today for our haunted blog we thought we’d take a look at a ghost story that was linked to the Jack the Ripper murders.

At the time the following story was related at the inquest into the murder of Elizabeth Stride, the third victim of Jack the Ripper who was murdered in Berner Street, Commercial Road, in the early hours of 30th September 1888.

In the wake of Elizabeth Stride’s murder a lady by the name of Mary Malcolm contacted the police to say that she was convinced the murdered woman was in fact her sister Elizabeth Watts.

 Having veiwed the body at the mortuary twice she identified the deceased as her sister from a black mark on her leg which, she said, was the result of an adder bite she had received when they were children.

Mrs Malcolm duly appeared at the subsequent inquest and in the course of her testimony the Cotoner asked her about a “SPECIAL PRESENTIMENT” that she had received.

In hushed tones Mary Malcolm launched into a tale of the supernatural by informing the Coroners Court how she had been lying in bed at around 1.20am on the previous Sunday when she suddenly felt a pressure on her breast and heard three distinct kisses.

This made her, she said, sense that something had happened to her sister, Elizabeth Watts.

Consequently when she heard of the murder in Berner Street she contacted the police to tell them of her fears.

On our London walks about this subject we tell how The East London Advertiser on 6th October 1888 informed its readers that the time when Mary Malcolm heard the kisses was around the time that the Berner Street victim was meeting her death.

“Since” the article continued “it is probable that her killer betrayed his victim Judas like with a kiss” this would account for the three kisses that Mrs Malcolm heard.

The pressure on her breast, it explained, was consistent with where the murder would have placed his hand to steady himself as he leant over to slit her throat.

The newspaper went on to tell its readers how there were numerous records of people contacting their loved ones telepathically at times of great stress and this is what appeared to have happened in this case.

Mrs Malcolm went on to paint her sister in a very unflateering light accusing her late sibling of,among other things,adultery, bearing an illegitimate child by a police officer and even hinted that she was a prostitute.

She stcuk to her story even though the police and the Coroner made it quite clear that they didn’t believe it and that they thought the woman wasn’t her sister.

Her story was finally disporoved when her sister actually hobbled in to court very much alive and denounced Mary Malcolm for giving her such a bad character.

What Mary Malcolm’s motive was for persisting with her elaborate yarn is difficult to ascertain but her story of the dream certainly caught the public imagination.

To hear more about this fascinating tale why not join our Jack the Ripper London walks?

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Walks in London - Jack the Ripper

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Today is the anniversary of what has come to be known as “the night of the double murder.”

It was in the early hours of 30th September 1888 that the body of Elizabeth Stride, Jack the Ripper’s third victim, was found in Dutfield’s Yard, off  Berner Street; and the body of Catherine Eddowes, Jack the Ripper’s fourth victim, was found in Mitre Square in the City of London.

Our London walks will be following on the trail of Jack the Ripper tonight at 7pm, and will tell you the full history of this series of East End murders.

The Jack the Ripper Tour is a fascinating look at the social history of a quarter of London that has its own distinctive feel and even flavour.

At the time of the Jack the Ripper murders it was a melting pot for many different nationalities, many of whom were low class Eastern European Jews fleeing persecution in Russia and Poland.

In addition it was also home to a huge criminal underclass who had a vested interest in lending as little assistance to the police as possible.

But the night of the double murder had another impact on society as a whole in Victorian London.

Many of the more “respectable” middle class and upper class citizens of London, who lived a good distance away from the district where the murders were occurring, had long believed that a revolution was inevitable. Furthermore they believed that if that revolution occurred it would come out of the slum districts of the East End of London.

On our London walks that explore the streets where the crimes occurred we explain how, up until 30th September 1888, these middle class citizens might gaze nervously towards the East End of London and the events that were occurring there, but it didn’t impact directly on their lives because there was a very district boundary between the East End and the City of London.

But,as we point out on our City of London walks, in the early hours of 30th September, not only did Jack the Ripper murder twice in less than an hour, and right under the noses of police officers who were searching for him, but he also crossed the boundary and murdered Catharine Eddowes in the City of London.

Thus, in the minds of the middle and upper classes, he became a manifestation of all their nebulous fears that they had about the east End of London. Because if the ripper could cross into the City of London and strike at the heart of polite society, then what was to stop the great mass of dispossessed, poverty stricken East Enders doing likewise.

So the 30th September was a turning point that saw the fear of the unknown miscreant spread all across London and into the national consciousness in a way that no lone killer had done before and would never do again.

So why not join us on one of our Jack the Ripper Tours, or enjoy some of our other East End London walks?

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Jack the Ripper Tour - London walks

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

The 1881 census sheds some interesting light on the victims of Jack the Ripper as covered on our London walks.

Of the five victims four of them were married with children and had led reasonably comfortable lives before an alcohol fueled downward spiral brought them to the East End of London where they solicited on the streets and thus became victims of Jack the Ripper.

Annie Chapman, the second victim, who was murdered on the 8th September 1888 in hanbury Street Spitalfields, is listed in the 1881 census as being a ’stud grooms wife.’ She is shown as living with her parents. She and her husband moved out shortly after the census was taken. Following the death of her daughter in 1884 she turned to drink and began the downward spiral that brought her into the clutches of Jack the Ripper.

Elizabeth Stride, the thirs victim who was murdered on 30th September 1888, is shown in the census as living with her husband. Newspaper reports suggest that she wasn’t still with her husband at the time of her murder.

Catharine Eddowes was murdered in the early hours on the same day that Elizabeth Stride was murdered. According to the census she was living with her husband, John Conway, in 1881.

Our Jack the Ripper London walk takes place seven chilling nights a week and makes a great way to get the feel of the streets as they were at the time of the murders.

Our east End London walks range from Jack the Ripper right through to an intriguing tour of the Jewish East End.

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