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As some of you might know, I have been writing for more than two years a book (with the help of the fabulous and invaluable information that is in this forum among other sources) that I hope will be published by 2025. Unfortunately I don't think anyone here is going to buy it since it is being written in Spanish. It is for that very reason, that no one will be able to read it, that I wanted to share some excerpts from it with all of you. The selected extracts, for the moment, are those relating to the background of the lives of Mary Ann Nichols and Annie Chapman. I have done my best to translate them into English, so, please, don't judge them by their harmony or grammar, but by their content, content that I hope will be of interest.
Based on the phenomenal work by Neal Shelden and the controversial book by Hallie Rubenhold, I have been able to recompose the biographies of the victims by removing errors, filling in the gaps with new information, and replacing speculation and assumptions with facts (It may be some slight speculation in order to link events).
In this first part concerning Mary Ann Nichols I have marked new information in bold. I apologize in advance if this information is not new and has been published previously.
Any thought, comment, input or correction is welcome. I can go re-editing the text on the fly with your help.
Hope it is of some use.
Jose Oranto (2022)
BACKGROUND
Mary Ann
" ... She was born on August 26, 1845, at 1 Dawes Court, an alley off Shoe Lane, near Fleet Street [1]. Her father, Edward Walker, the son of a coachman, was a Lambeth-born blacksmith; and her mother, Caroline (née Webb), the daughter of a Southwark sawmill [2]. Edward and Caroline had two other children: Edward, older than Mary Ann, born June 3, 1843, at St Saviour, at 15 Dyer Street [3]; and Frederick Joseph, the youngest, born June 21, 1850, at Holborn, 19 Robin Hood Court [4]. They later moved to nearby Dean Street, number 14, where on November 29, 1852, Caroline, at the age of 32, tragically died of phthisis after suffering for seven long months [5]. On Saturday 5th December she was sadly seen off in the churchyard of St. Andrew's Church, Holborn. It would not be long before Edward returned to the churchyard and had to watch as his youngest son Frederick was buried, when he was just five on April 12, 1854 after battling phthisis for six months [6]. In just a few months Edward had lost his wife and his young son, but he still had two more children who needed him. They moved a few blocks down the street to 19 Harp Alley. Edward was 17 years old when he was working as a an engineer and Mary Ann was still in school at 15 [7], but just, three years later, at 18 years old, on January 16, 1864, married William Nichols, a printer born on April 13, 1840 in Oxford, George Street; the son of a single mother named Elizabeth Nichols who lived with her elderly mother Sarah [8]. The newlyweds made their home very close to Mary Ann's family home, at 17 Kirby Street, where on December 17 they had their first child, a son named William Edward Walker. William took his wife and son, and with his father-in-law and his brother-in-law they moved across the Thames to 131 Trafalgar Street in Wlaworth [9] where, on July 4, 1866, Mary Ann would give birth to another son, Edward John [10]. The joy of Edward's arrival would not last long; five months later, on November 24, little William died of rubella complicated by pneumonia when he was not yet two years old [11]. On July 18, 1868, another son came into the world, whom they named Percy George, [12].
On December 25, 1869, Mary Ann's brother, Edward, married a 23-year-old girl named Mary Ann Ward, who settled with him in the family home, but later moved into their own place, in Holborn, where they had their first child, whom they named Edward John [13]. Mary Ann and William would also be blessed on September 30 with a girl, little Alice Esther [14].
In 1876, William and Mary Ann passed the selection process to stay in the newly built Peabody Workers' Housing Blocks [15], on Duke Street, near the south bank of the river and next to the William Clowes printing and publishing company & Sons Ltd, where William worked. On July 31, they moved into Block D, num 3, a decent four-bedroom house. Edward did not accompany them to his new home, this time moving with his son and his family to 122 Guilford Street [16].
On December 7, 1876, Mary Ann gave birth to another baby, a girl they named Eliza Sarah [17]. On June 4 of the following year they moved to number 6 of the same block, a smaller flat, with only three rooms, but cheaper. Right next door, at number 5, Rosetta lived with her mother, a widowed lady named Sarah Vidler, and her brothers William, Jane and Sarah Louise. Rosetta was a 23-year-old girl who made a living as a charwoman. It had been a little over three years since she had married a laborer named Thomas Walls on January 25, 1874, but they were soon separated [18].
On December 4, 1878, William and Mary Ann had another boy, Henry Alfred [19]. Rosetta, her neighbor, was helping and assisting Mary Ann while she was recovering from giving birth.
At some point, William and Mary Ann's married life began to go awry; on the one hand, Mary Ann drank frequently and had left home on several occasions; on the other, William and Rosetta fell in love and began an affair. Whether the first was the cause of the second, or the second of the first, is not known; but there was no doubt that married life began to crumble, until in the early spring of 1880, Mary Ann left her husband and children for the last time, when the little one had only one year and four months [20], and changing their home for the crude workhouse [21].
Mary Ann began a relationship with a man, reason enough for William to withdraw the five shillings a week allowance he had been giving to her. Mary Ann denounced him, and William was summoned by the Lambeth Union authorities, but the charge was dismissed as she was, in fact, living with another man and had left the family home of her own free will. After a long spell of complete destitution and resorting to the shelter of Lambeth Workhouse [22], she was taken in by her father and her brother and his family. This could have been a fresh start for Mary Ann had it not been for her drinking problem. Coexistence began to be unsustainable, until she once again, of her own free will, changed home for the workhouse. She later moved in with an boyfriend from her youth named Thomas Stewart Drew. Thomas was now a widowed blacksmith living with his three daughters: Matilda, Maud and Louisa Clara at Walworth, 15 York Street. This relationship didn't last long, Thomas ended up kicking her out after she stole some of his belongings and sold them for drinking money. [23]
In October 1887 she was sleeping on the cold floor of Trafalgar Square until the police cleared the square of paupers. When the authorities verified that she was homeless and without means of subsistence, she was sent back to the workhouse [24]. Mrs. Fielder, the matron of Lambeth Workhouse, found her a job as a maid in Wandsworth, at a house called Ingleside, 18 Rose Hill Road, in the service of Mr. Francis Cowdry and his wife Martha [25]. This was a real opportunity for a new beginning. On the 12th of May she moved into the house of the Cowdry and put herself in their service. Two months later, on July 12, she Mary Ann disappeared with three pounds ten shillings worth of stolen clothing [26], and that is how she ended up at Willmott and met Mrs Holland... "
Notes and References
I want to thank to outstanding researcher and historian Bruce Collie, but above all, my good friend, for helping me with the arduous (and hated by me) task of locating all those streets on the old maps.
1. Birth record. – “Dawes Court was a small enclosed area, behind and accessible from Gunpowder Alley, a street that ran into Shoe Lane. Today it would be in the area between Printer Street, Little New Street and Shoe Lane.
2. Census of 1861. – Married record.
3. Birth record. – Dyer Street emptied into Gravel Lane (today Great Suffolk Street) and ran parallel to the south of Lavington Street.
4. Baptisms record – Robin Hood Court, a defunct alley off Shoe Lane, Holborn. Today it would connect Shoe Lane with today's Great New Street Square.
5. Missing today. It was a street that ended in Fetter Lane, located parallel, to the south, of the present Plow Place. – Death record. –Burial record. St Andrew, Holborn, London, England.
6. Death record. – Frederick Joseph Walker was buried on April 19, 1854 in the churchyard of St Andrew's – Burial record. – His mother did not give him the disease as has been suggested. Between Caroline's death and her son's infection, 11 months passed
7. Census of 1861.
8. Birth record. – William's father's name appears in the marriage recordas "William Nichols, heraldpainter", but no trace of this person has been found anywhere else (Marriage record. St Bride Fleet Street, City of London, England). – Interestingly enough, there are two baptism certificates, one in the name of a certain Elizabeth, born in the same neighborhood as Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas and Sarah Nichols, and another in the name of a certain William, born in the same neighborhood as the previous one, and also the son of Thomas and SarahNichols. (Baptism records. Oxfordshire, England. St Aldate, Oxford. Elizabeth Nicholls. Baptism. January 21, 1801. – William Nichols. Baptism. December 27, 1803). – Baptism record. St Mary Magdalen, Oxfordshire, England. William Nicholls May 15, 1840.
9.Edward, Mary Ann's brother, does not appear in the 1871 census living together with his brother-in-law, sister and father, however, when he married, he gave his address as the family home, 131 Trafalgar Street (Marriage record).
10. Baptism record (Thanks to Chris Phillips).
11. Death record. (Thanks to Gary Barnett).
12. Birth record.
13. GRO Index.
14. Birth record.
15. The Peabody Donation Fund, founded in 1862 by the London-based American banker George Peabody, was established as a company to build model houses, that is, basic and decent houses at a minimum price designed to improve the living conditions of the honest working poor.
16. Guildford Street was a long street in Newington, divided by Southwark Street into Great Guildford Street and Little Guildford Street. Today the whole street has been renamed Great Guildford Street.
17. Birth record.
18. Census of 1881. – Marriage record. St Mary, Lambeth.
19. Birth record.
20. The Daily Telegraph, September 3 and 10, 1888. William stated in a Daily Telegraph article of September 10, 1888, that he had to support the family alone for two and a half years before he found someone who could help you. However, Edward, Mary Ann's father, testified at Mr. Wynne E. Baxter's inquest on September 1 that the cause of the separation was her son-in-law's infidelity with the nurse. Whether William was unfaithful to his wife, or the relationship with Rosetta began after Mary Ann left, we cannot know, but what we do know is that in 1883 William and Rosetta had the first of several children they would have together, and that in 1888 , after Mary Ann's death, they married.
21. Under review https://www.jtrforums.com/forum/ripp...ve-2019/page13 [Jack the Ripper The Facts by Paul Begg. There are still some records of several workhouses where Mary Ann Nichols appears: Lambeth Workhouse (Renfrew Road), from September 6, 1880 to May 31, 1881. – Lambeth Workhouse, from April 24, 1882 to March 24, 1883 (from 18 to 20 January she was admitted to Lambeth Infirmary). – Lambeth Workhouse, from May 21 to June 2, 1883. – St. Giles Workhouse (Endell Street), October 25, 1887. – Strand Workhouse (Silver Street, Edmonton), from October 26 to December 2, 1887. – Lambeth Workhouse, from December 19 to 29, 1887. – Holborn Workhouse (Western Road, Mitcham), from January 4 to April 16 from 1888 – Lambeth Workhouse, from April 16 to May 12, 1888.]
22. Charles Chaplin, in his autobiography, relates how as a child, his mother, having fallen into destitution, had no choice but to seek refuge in the Lambeth Workhouse with him and half his brother Sydney. Today, the portion of the building that still survives is occupied by the Cinema Museum (Cinema Museum, 2 Dugard Way, Renfrew Road).
23. Today the name of the street is Browning Street. – Matilda died in March 1884 at the age of 35, leaving her husband and her three children: Matilda, about 16 years old; Maud, about 12; and little Louisa Clara, about 5 years old. – 1881 Census. – Nunhead Cemetery Burial Record Book. – Lloyd's Weekly News, September 2, 1888.
24. Research conducted by Debra Arif. – https://www.jtrforums.com/forum/ripp...146#post497437
25. Research conducted by Gary Barnett. http://www.jtrforums.com/forum/victo...-samuel-cowdry.
26. Report of Inspector Joseph Henry Helson. September 7, 1888. MEPO 3/140, ff. 235-8.
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