Twenty-one-year-old Emma Wakefield was described in newspaper reports as “a good looking, well-conducted girl” with a steady job as a shell box maker at a factory in Charrington Street. She was engaged to her boyfriend of five years, Thomas Price, and was due to get married the following May. He… You must be a paid …
Category archives: 1888
Year of the Ripper: Frank Reynolds
Mary Ann Reynolds was by all accounts a kind and affectionate mother to her four children. However, shortly after her youngest, Frank, was born in around March 1888 her mental health appeared to rapidly deteriorate. Her sister, who attempted to persuade her to go to the doctor, described her as… You must be a paid …
Year of the Ripper: George Best
In 1888 Clare Market was still just about clinging to existence between Lincoln’s Inn Fields and the Strand, just to the west of the new Royal Courts of Justice (officially opened by Queen Victoria in 1882). One observer described it as an area of “streets and lanes, where the shops… You must be a paid …
Year of the Ripper: Henry Talbot
Watney Street market once had more than 100 shops selling cheese, meat, fruit, shoes and clothing at the heart of the East End. One of those businesses was distinguished by a cast iron sign reading ‘J Sainsbury Ltd’, part of a growing enterprise which would become the largest grocery retailer… You must be a paid …
Year of the Ripper: James Langley
A local guide book for 1888 described the horse-driven omnibus as “the most convenient and cheapest form of travelling from one London street to another”. Many of the services passed through Piccadilly every few minutes from early morning until midnight on the way to Hammersmith, the Strand, Liverpool Street, London… You must be a paid …