The Thames Torso Murders and Jack the Ripper

       During the late 19^th century London’s East End was overpopulated with refugees from other parts of Europe. There were Irish immigrants fleeing Ireland’s potato famine. In Eastern Europe and Russia there was ethnic cleansing or pogroms (riots focusing on assaulting or killing ethnic groups-Jews in this case) resulting in the Jewish population fleeing for England. At one point there were 150 synagogues in London. The streets of the End East in London saw its population living in deep poverty and overcrowding. The people were living in cold, dirty hovels. The area also had complicated social problems caused by the former issues.

       The East End developed along the Thames River where the ships came in between Bishopsgate and Aldgate. Mapcarta defines the area as, “The East End is a district of inner London. The boundaries of the East End are not well defined, but for the purposes of this page it covers from the edge of the city to the River Lea in the East, and Shoreditch in the North.” (1)  The most prominent feature for this area that benefited immigrants were the docks. People arrived there, worked there, and lived near the docks. It was disproportionately hit disease and pestilence like the black plague in the 1660’s.

          In 1866 Cholera broke out and ran through the East End causing three thousand people to lose their lives. Families already struggling were left in a condition of destitution. They were living ithout male support and their orphaned children begged to survive or went to work in factories. At that same period there was also a revival of Christian churches with William Booth’s tent revivals. The Salvation Army also joined in to spread the good word and aid the poor. The East End would be an area ripe with reformers, but that is a blog for another time. How it affected the community is that women left without support had to find the means to feed themselves and their families. Women were forced into a life of prostitution as a survival mechanism. This circumstance was in direct opposition to the moral dictates of the Christian revival movement.

         During the 1880’s the drastic poverty, and vast social problems created an environment ripe for crime to flourish. Of the crimes that flourished along the docks, one of the biggest targets were the destitute women who were barely surviving. "Whitechapel and Ratcliffe areas alone had 1803 prostitutes; and because of high mortality rates the ‘working girls’ became victims of crime at a disproportionally high rate". (2)

      Whitechapel is a district in the East End defined by two streets that run through them, Whitechapel High Street and Whitechapel High Rd. Historic-UK.com states, “Whitechapel in the East End was like a festering sore on the face of Victorian London in the late 19th century.” (3) In late summer and fall of 1888 Whitechapel would be made famous because of the murders of Jack the Ripper. Though they were not the only murders occurring at that time in East End.

       The Thames Torso Murders were a set of four murders occurring 1887-1889. The first was the Rainham mystery. Late spring of 1887 the remains of a woman’s body were discovered in the Thames. The woman’s torso was found bundled up in a parcel by the workers in the area. Later other parts of her body showed up, all but her head and upper chest. There was specific medical expertise in the dismemberment of the corpse. There was no way to determine death, so they labeled her ‘found dead.’

        The second victim found was called the Whitehall torso murder. In fall of 1888 a set of remains were revealed at three sites in the center of the city. One place she was discovered would later become Scotland Yard Police Headquarters. An arm and shoulder were found first followed by a torso. A police surgeon matched the body parts determining they were from the same victim. A journalist Jasper Waring used a Spitsbergen dog to find the left leg that was thought to be part of the same woman. The leg was buried in a nearby construction site. (4)

Photo 1 Whitehall murder

        Jack the Ripper’s crimes were done in a small area, about a square mile and out in the open. The Torso murders victims were found in different areas of the city and could have come from anywhere. Not ruling out the sixty brothels in East End where widowed and abandoned women struggled to survive their brutal life. (5) Both the Ripper’s and the Torso murders were thought to be prostitutes. The pubs of the East End were the offices where the prostitutes met their johns. Women on the edge of starvation that were so desperate they would take anything to survive. That put the women in positions of vulnerability, with no bargaining power.

Photo 2 Elizabeth Jackson

       June 1889 the remains of Elizabeth Jackson would be found in several places. Her torso was first discovered in the Thames. Her left leg and thigh, her upper body, neck, and shoulders along with her buttocks and pelvis were found off Battersea Park. The first limb was discovered by three boys swimming on the Albert Bridge side of Battersea Park. The tide brought the limb ashore wrapped in a white cloth and the boys immediately took it to the police. Just as the police were examining the first limb a second was discovered at George’s stairs at Horselydown. It turned out the be the lower half of a woman’s torso. The wound’s edges were ragged with blood still oozing around the edges. This told them she had not been dead long. It also contained an umbilical cord and placenta that revealed this woman had also been pregnant. John Regan was a laborer waiting along the water for the offer of work when he notice children throwing rocks at a wrapped-up parcel and flagged a police boat down.  When examined by Dr. Bond the chief surgeon to the Metropolitan police, it seemed the limb and the lower torso were from the same person. It was wrapped in the same material as the first package tied with bootstraps.

      Two days later, June 6, a gardener named Joseph Davis at Battersea Park discovered a package. It was in an isolated area, and he smelled it first. When he opened it, he found body parts and contacted the Battersea police. Telegrams were sent to police headquarters about the remains. They contained the following:

• Upper part of woman’s trunk the chest cavity was empty but had both breasts and was cut through the center. They thought a saw had been used to cut the chest.
• Both kidneys
• Spleen
• A portion of the intestines
• A portion of the stomach

They were obviously more decomposed that the first two discoveries of body parts.

     That same day Charles Marlow was working on a barge at Covington’s Wharf just opposite of where the Whitehall torso murder happened the previous year. He saw a parcel floating in the water. The parcel was wrapped in a dark colored skirt tied with string. It contained:

• Another portion of the upper part of a woman’s trunk. Arms severed at the shoulder and head cut off close to shoulders. Chest cut in center like the one found at Battersea Park by the gardener the same day.
• Some of the windpipe remained, but lungs were missing. The victim had light red or auburn hair as it was found on the body.

     The woman began taking shape with items of clothing present in the package they were beginning to develop a visual piece of evidence.

      The next day was Friday June 7^th and several other body parts were turning up:

• A section of the lower right leg and foot were picked up at Wandsworth Bridge in Fulham, wrapped in the same tweed Ulster coat found in some of the other packages.
• The left leg and foot were found near Limehouse wrapped in the arm of tweed coat.
• A liver and other body parts from the abdomen were found around the Thames. There was also now a search party along the river looking for more evidence.
• A portion of lung was found at Palace Wharf, Vauxhall.
• More pieces of clothing identical to what the police had were being discovered along the bridge area.
• A female newborn baby was wrapped in ragged, filthy clothing and bedding and dumped in an underground station near Edbury Bridge. Based on the understanding there was a recent pregnancy it was thought this was Elizabeth’s baby. Though no cause of death could be determined.

     June 8^th the left arm and hand were found in the Thames off Bankside, they were pale, delicate, and genteel. There was evidence of a ring on her left hand though it had been removed. So, at one time it was thought she was married. She had also been vaccinated. The limb was wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.

      June 9th her buttocks and empty pelvis were discovered near Battersea Park. June 10, 1889, the final arm, and hand were discovered near Bankside. Her murder seemed to be motiveless according to Dr. Bond’s findings. By the June 26, it was identified as Elizabeth Jackson. It was rumored that Jackson was a friend of one of Jack the Ripper’s victims in Whitechapel.

      There were two pieces of information withheld from the public until the inquest:

• A piece of fine linen had been inserted into the back passage of the victim (her butt) It was the practice of some occupations, along with the costermonger’s apron one of her hands was wrapped in.
• She had been operated on after her death and her uterus removed.

       In life they called her Lizzie, she was pregnant and came from Ireland, her father was John Jackson a stone mason and her mother was Catherine. Catherine came to the inquests into Elizabeth’s death. Lizzie had been living with a man named John Faircloth and it was revealed that he was the father of her baby. He abused her or ‘ill-used her” as they called it, did not marry her, and left her pregnant. He did not kill her and was nowhere near London, he was unaware of her death. He was brought down to London to testify to their relationship during the inquest.

        Lizzie was 8 months pregnant and could not work so well, probably it was not comfortable for her to walk around Battersea Park. That is how the homeless lived at that time, they walked. She was unable to afford the “common lodging houses in the Chelsea area she was known to live in.” (6) She slept in Battersea Park after they locked the gates to visitors. It is there they think she met her fate among the rough men that worked the docks. Her friend Ginger Nell warned her off staying at Battersea Park at night and sleeping outdoors.

       At the inquest on June 17, Mr. Braxton Hicks stated, “the division of the parts showed skill and design: not, however, the anatomical skill of a surgeon, but the practical knowledge of a butcher or a knacker.”  A knacker was a person that removed or cleared away animal carcasses. The person who dismembered Elizabeth knew enough anatomy to separate body parts into pieces. The plugging of her pelvis and the costermonger apron ‘hinted’ at the killer’s work. Costermongers sold fruits, vegetables, fish etc. from carts and barrels in the street. Elizabeth was identified, but her killer never was. She was identified by her missing status, hair color, the fact she was pregnant, her clothing and a scar from childhood on her wrist.

Photo 3

       The last of the Torso Murders was the one that most resembled the work of Jack the Ripper. It was called the Pinchin Street Torso Murder. It occurred on September 19, 1889, when P.C. William Pennett discovered a woman’s torso and arms under the railway arch on Pinchin Street, Whitechapel. Her womb had been cut out. There were no head or legs, and they were never found. There was no evidence the murder occurred where he discovered the torso. The remains were recent, meaning within a few days. A prostitute by the name of Lydia Hart had been missing for a few days and it was thought the remains could be hers. This fact was never sufficiently proven. So, the body of the woman could have been deliberately placed there to fuel Jack the Ripper hysteria. No cause of death was determined, and she was buried in East London Cemetery.

      There were other well known murder cases in the later part of the 19^th century. The Battersea murders 1873-1874 with body parts strewn across the same area as Elizabeth Jackson. I would argue for same murderer, but this was a time of diminished life expectancy due to poverty, and disease. These murders would have been 25 years earlier so probably not. Tottenham Court Road and Bedford Square Mystery also had similarities to other torso murders. In 1884 there was a skull found, along with flesh from a thigh bone. At the same time an arm was found in Bedford Square. The arm had a tattoo, so it was thought to belong to a prostitute. It was determined to belong to a woman.

       Another interesting fact about these cases is that the person who dismembered the victims also had knowledge of how to divide a body like livestock. Remember this was late 19^th century and the skill set might not have been so unusual. They carved up their own protein cows, sheep, chickens and alike. They did not get meat at Kroger’s.

       During this period women and children who were fighting for survival were the victims of horrendous crimes. It is why I stress throughout the blog I am that these were ordinary people at times thrust into extraordinary circumstances, like poverty, overcrowding and disease with little or no options. All these murders remain unsolved though many have tried to link them to Jack the Ripper. The Battersea murders were 15 years earlier, that alone could have taken him out of the picture. Jack the Ripper had a different, more precise skill set that seemed to focus on vivisection as opposed to that of a cattle butcher. For a reliable source of information about Jack the Ripper and other murders around the same time check out casebook.org.

 

1. Staff, 2021, East End, Mapcarta, https://mapcarta.com/London/East_End

1. Staff, (2007), Prostitution in Maritime London,  https://web.archive.org/web/20071028091736/http:/www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConNarrative.111/chapterId/2347/Prostitution-in-maritime-London.html

3. Johnson, Ben, (2007), Jack the Ripper, https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Jack-the-Ripper/

1. Bell, Neil R. A.; Bond, Trevor; Clarke, Kate; Oldridge, M.W. (15 July 2016), The A-Z of Victorian Crime, Amberley Publishing Limited
2. Cullen, Tom A. (1965). Autumn of Terror: Jack the Ripper: His crimes and times,  Bodley Head.

6. Arif, Deborah, (2008), The murder of Elizabeth Jackson, org, https://www.casebook.org/victims/ejackson.html

1.  "The Thames Mystery". Times [London, England]. 17 June 1889. p. 6.

8. Gordon, R. Michael (26 October 2009). The Poison Murders of Jack the Ripper: His Final Crimes, Trial and Execution. McFarland.
9. Gordon, R. Michael, (1952), The Thames Torso Murders of Victorian London, McFarland, and Company

        Photo's 1, 2, 3 from Casebook.org, https://www.casebook.org/victims/