First Known Serial Killer Terrorizes The Slums of London
On August 6, 1888, Martha Tabram was stabbed to death in the Whitechapel neighborhood of London--many believe she was the first victim of the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.*
Between August and November, five more women were murdered within a one-mile radius in London's East End. All were prostitutes and all but one were horribly mutilated by their killer.
The East End was a notorious slum. Violence against prostitutes was not unusual. Tabram's death received only a passing mention in the papers, described by The Daily News as a "supposed murder" even though she had been stabbed nearly forty times.* With the discovery of the second murder on August 31, the story became front-page news. The murders caught the public attention not only because of their brutality, but because of gloating letters sent to both Scotland Yard and the Central News Agency by a man calling himself Jack the Ripper. (Some or all of the letters may have been written by a journalist trying to heighten interest in the story.) Public opinion on the subject was so hot that both the Home Secretary and the London Police Commissioner resigned as a result of the failure to make an arrest.
From a historical perspective, the case provides a great deal of information about police procedure and life in the slums in Victorian London. Newspapers reported on the inquests, the investigation, and the appalling conditions prevalent in the East End. Reporters interviewed slum residents and police officers alike trying to keep the story alive.
Jack the Ripper was never caught and the number of his victims remains uncertain. (The police files included a total of eleven women whose deaths shared some of the elements associated with Jack the Ripper.) The case was officially closed in 1892, but his murders continue to fascinate armchair detectives--so much so that entire websites are devoted to "ripperology." In the 125 years since his killing spree ended, Ripper enthusiasts have offered more than 100 possible identities for the killer, ranging from a German sailor on shore leave to Queen Victoria's grandson Albert Victor, the Duke of Clarence.
* AKA The Whitechapel Murderer and Leather Apron. Whitechapel Murderer I get, but Leather Apron???
**Bad copy-editing? An odd variation on describing someone as a "suspected" or "accused" murderer prior to conviction? Because the fact that someone was stabbed 40 times does not necessarily mean she was murdered?
A Few WWI Books From the History in the Margins Archives
Just in case you missed them the first time around:
In The Lost History of 1914, NPR's Jack Beatty takes on what he describes as the "cult of inevitability" surrounding the beginning of the war.
Who Made The Map Of The Modern Middle East? tells the story of how today's Middle East was created from the remains of the Ottoman Empire during the peace negotiations are the end of the war.
Despite its title, The Making of the First World War: A Pivotal History by historian Ian F.W. Beckett is not another account of the events leading up to WWI. Instead Beckett is concerned with what he describes as "pivot points": decisive moments that affected not only the course of the war but that of later history.
Shin-Kickers From History: William Wallace, aka Braveheart
In 1296, Edward I of England forced the Scottish king to abdicate and seized the throne of Scotland. Scottish unrest was immediate and widespread. It flared into full-scale rebellion in May 1297 when William Wallace led a raid against the town of Lanark, killing the English sheriff.* Under Wallace's leadership, the Scots weakened the English hold on Scotland and raided across the border into England.** In late 1297, Wallace and his forces defeated a much larger English force at the Battle of Stirling. Wallace was subsequently knighted and made "guardian of the kingdom", ruling Scotland in the name of its deposed king.
The victory at Stirling was a classic example of "win the battle, lose the war". Edward marched north with his army to exact retribution. Wallace retreated deeper and deeper into Scotland. Edward followed. When the two armies met at Falkirk in July, 1298, the Scots were defeated and Wallace was forced to flee the battlefield.
Wallace resigned the title of guardian but did not give up his quest for independence. Turning to diplomacy, he sought support for the Scottish cause in France--the first step in what would be a centuries-long if occasionally shaky Franco-Scottish alliance against England.*** In his absence, Robert Bruce, Wallace's successor as the guardian of the kingdom, negotiated a truce with Edward. Wallace refused to sign.
When Wallace returned to Scotland in 1303, Edward declared him an outlaw and offered a reward for his capture or death. For two years, Wallace continued to fight against English rule. He was captured near Glasgow on August 5, 1305--thanks to a tip from a fellow Scot--and taken to London where he was charged as an outlaw and a traitor. The result of his trial was a foregone conclusion. There was no jury and he was not allowed to speak in his own defense. Nonetheless, when accused of treason he denied the charge, saying he could not be a traitor because he had never sworn allegiance to the English king.
Wallace was drawn and quartered on August 23. His head was displayed on London Bridge. The quarters of his body were sent Newcastle, which he had savaged, and to Berwick, Stirling and Perth as a warning to would-be rebels.
Scotland regained its independence in 1328 with the Treaty of Edinburgh, only to lose it again with the Acts of Union in 1706-07. In the centuries after his death, William Wallace became an emblem of Scottish independence. (Contrary to popular belief, the winners don't always write the history.)
Scottish independence is an issue once again, with a referendum scheduled for September 15. Polls suggest that a majority of Scots intend to vote yes for independence. Don't touch that dial.
* The sheriff in medieval England was more than the local peace officer. As My Own True love puts it, he was a Big Wheel. The sheriff was the king's officer at the level of the shire, responsible for collecting taxes, protecting the king's hunting preserves, administering justice and, yes, keeping the peace.
**It's only fair to point out that Wallace was a pretty brutal hero. He's reported to have made a sword belt from the tanned skin of a fallen Englishman.
***Think Mary Queen of Scots. Think who supported the Stuart pretenders.
Photograph by Kjetil Bjørnsrud. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons