The Worst Street in London: Foreword by Peter Ackroyd (14 page)

Some time in January 1888, one such prostitute arrived in Dorset Street and made her way to Jack McCarthy’s shop. Claiming her name was Mary Kelly, she introduced her male companion as her husband and asked if McCarthy had any suitable rooms to let.

Mary Kelly was unlike the majority of her colleagues inasmuch as she was a good twenty years younger than most of them and was reasonably attractive. Brought up in Wales, she had married very young (about 16) to a man named Davis who worked at the local coal mine. However, soon after their marriage, Davis was killed in a pit explosion and Mary was left to fend for herself. She went to Cardiff and, with her cousin as a companion, got sucked into prostitution.

After a stint on the streets of Cardiff, the bright lights and wealthy punters of London’s West End beckoned and Mary moved to the capital, taking up residency in one of the many brothels that existed close to the theatres and night life. Whilst working there, she met a man who made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.

During the mid-to-latter part of the 19th century, there was a huge demand for English girls to work in brothels across the channel. The ports of Boulogne, Havre, Dieppe and Ostend had large English communities and were also, of course, a stop-off point for sailors. Consequently, an equally large number of brothels or ‘maisons de passé’ existed in these towns and English girls were much in demand to work in them. The only problem was that very few girls wanted to go and work across the Channel, in a land where they didn’t understand the language and were far away from their friends and family. In a bid to satisfy the burgeoning demand (and to line their own pockets) the brothel owners resorted to nefarious methods of procuring English prostitutes.

Men and women representing the brothels were sent to London with the instruction to use any means necessary to entice new girls over to France. Some procurers posed as wealthy gentlefolk looking for below-stairs staff to join them on a trip to the Continent. Others were more direct, explaining that although the establishment they represented was a brothel, the girl could expect to earn so much money that, once they had their fill of Continental life, they could return to England and set up their own business (such as a café) with their earnings.

In reality, the maisons de passé were little more than open prisons. The girls that worked in them were given board and lodging in return for services rendered to their clients, but the fabulous earnings they had been promised never materialised. Worse still, once a girl entered a maison de passé, she found it extremely difficult to leave. Every prostitute in the house was watched closely at all times. They were not allowed out of the house unless chaperoned. In all probability, it was to such a house that Mary Kelly was taken.

Of course, the girls incarcerated in the maisons de passé dreamed of escape and the lucky ones (including Kelly) managed to run away, usually by enlisting the help of one of their clients, without whom they could not evade the beady eye of the chaperone. This obviously meant that a great deal of trust had to be placed on the integrity of the man and no doubt some girls were betrayed. However, if a good relationship existed between girl and client, it was possible to plan an effective escape. Once away from the brothel, most of the escaped girls were forced to rely again on the generosity of their client or the mercy of the British Consul in order to gain safe passage back to England.

Mary Kelly only stayed in the maison de passé for a few weeks before returning to London. However, once back in the capital, she considered it too dangerous to return to the West End for fear of bumping into one of the procurers. Consequently, she eschewed the comparative comfort and safety of Theatreland in favour of the rough, poor and dangerous East End Docks.

After staying at several addresses around St George in the East, Kelly became one of the girls at a house of ill-repute in Breezer’s Hill; a mean side street just off the Ratcliffe Highway. The house at Breezer’s Hill catered almost exclusively for sailors as it was within very easy walking distance of the north quay of the London Docks. The road it stood in was (and still is) very short and contained only four houses. The rest of the street was taken up with warehouses in which the goods from the ships were stored.

No records exist that reveal who was running the brothel at Breezer’s Hill during the time Mary Kelly stayed there. However, by the time the national census was compiled in 1891, the head of the household was one John McCarthy, a 36-year-old dock labourer. McCarthy was living in the house with his wife Mary and three female boarders, all of whom are described as ‘unfortunate’, a Victorian euphemism for a prostitute.

The fact that Kelly had two landlords named John McCarthy over the period of approximately three years could, of course, be pure coincidence. Indeed, no conclusive evidence exists to confirm that both Johns were part of the same family. However, circumstantial evidence suggests that they were related, probably cousins and both working for the same ‘firm’. Firstly, both John McCarthys were brought up in the mean alleys that ran off Borough High Street in Southwark. Secondly, they lived (or had lived) a ten minute walk away from one another in the Docks. Thirdly, both John McCarthys let (or sub-let) their properties to prostitutes. In addition to this, John (known as Jack) McCarthy of Dorset Street had several business interests in this part of town and it is quite possible that, in the mid-1880s, Breezer’s Hill was one of them. Finally, as will become apparent very soon, Jack McCarthy’s (of Dorset Street) behaviour towards Mary Kelly suggests that she was not a complete stranger to him.

As is still the case today, the profession of prostitution was peripatetic and during her time in St George’s, Mary Kelly moved around, sometimes living with boyfriends, sometimes going it alone. During this time, there were two significant men in her life: a man named Morganstone, with whom Kelly lived near the Stepney Gas Works and one Joseph Flemming, a mason’s plasterer who lived on Bethnal Green Road.

By early 1887, Kelly had left the brothel in Breezer’s Hill and was plying her trade up and down Commercial Street, no doubt servicing the market workers that proliferated in that area. It was here that she met the man who was to become a significant figure in her life: Joseph Barnett was a fish porter at nearby Billingsgate Market. He had lived in and around Spitalfields all his life and evidently had few qualms about taking up with a girl who made a living from getting intimate with other men.

Barnett and Kelly’s courtship was brief. When they first met in Commercial Street, Barnett took her for a drink in one of the local pubs and the pair arranged to meet the next day. Days later, they agreed that they should live together. This decision was most probably made out of necessity on Kelly’s part; Barnett had a steady job with enough wages to allow her a break from prostitution. There is little doubt that lust was a deciding factor for Barnett.

The pair immediately took lodgings in George Street, the street that was also home to Margaret Hames and Emma Smith. Due to the proximity of their homes and the fact that these two women shared the same profession as Kelly, it is likely that the four were at least on nodding terms with one another.

For the remainder of 1887, nothing further is known of Kelly and Barnett’s movements. No doubt they, like everyone else in the street, were shocked at the violent attack sustained by Margaret Hames that December. However, whether this precipitated their move to Dorset Street remains a mystery.

By the time Kelly and Barnett showed up on Jack McCarthy’s doorstep, they had been living together for ten months. Although they were not legally married, they presented themselves as man and wife to keep up appearances. McCarthy had learned not to ask too many questions about prospective tenants anyhow. Barnett’s steady job combined with Kelly’s attractiveness and previous experience in prostitution made the couple a comparatively safe bet when it came to letting them a room. No doubt McCarthy reasoned that even if Barnett should lose his job, his ‘wife’ could raise sufficient funds to pay for the room herself. He may even have seen Kelly as a potential educator in the ways of the world for his fourteen-year old son. Whatever, his reasons, McCarthy decided to keep Kelly and Barnett close to his own home at 27 Dorset Street. So close that he could see their comings and goings from the back room of his shop.

McCarthy offered Kelly and Barnett the back room of the house next door to his. This house (officially known as number 26 Dorset Street) had been built at the same time as number 27. Originally designed for the long departed silk weavers, its Mansard roof had large windows that threw light into the attic in which once stood the weaver’s loom. When the silk weavers left in the early 1800s, the house had been home to a variety of people including locksmiths, painters, coal porters and slipper makers. In the 1860s, the house was purchased by a Jewish glass blower named Abraham Barnett.

Barnett worked hard and built up his business until he was able to move west to the leafier, more salubrious surroundings of Maida Vale. However, he kept hold of number 26 Dorset Street as an investment and by 1880, had let the property out to John McCarthy. When necessary, McCarthy used number 26 as an extension of his own home, allowing friends and family to stay there. In 1881, his friend and business associate William Crossingham’s step-daughter Alice lived there with her first husband and children and ten years later, McCarthy’s younger brother Daniel lived there with his new wife while they were waiting to move into their own home.

Whether McCarthy selected number 26 for Kelly and Barnett because he knew them is a moot point. The fact remains that early in 1888, the young couple moved into the back parlour at a rent of 4/6 per week. Their room was quite small, measuring little more than 10-foot square. Nowadays, letting agents would describe it as having character because it retained original features such as wall panelling and a working fireplace, complete with surround. Back in 1888, this room would simply be described as old. It had two windows, which overlooked what had once been the back garden but for many years had been two rows of cottages either side of a narrow alley known as Miller’s Court. What had originally been the back door to the house was now the only means of access to the room because McCarthy had nailed up the interior door, thus blocking any means of escape for tenants who couldn’t afford to pay their rent. Because the door to the room was down the alleyway, McCarthy decided to rename it 13 Miller’s Court.

Like most of the rooms down Dorset Street, 13 Miller’s Court was sparsely furnished, the main pieces of furniture comprising an ancient bed and two rickety tables. The fire was multi-purpose, acting as a room heater, a cooker, a storage cupboard and a clothes drier. Over the mantelpiece hung a cheap print entitled ‘The Fisherman’s Widow’. The floorboards were bare and clothing was hung at the windows in place of curtains. The door had a lock that was most probably a relic of better days; no one renting the room in 1888 would have possessed anything worth stealing. This was Mary Kelly and Joe Barnett’s new home.

While Mary and Joe were settling into their new premises, events in their erstwhile home, George Street, took a turn for the worse. On 7 August 1888, John Reeves, a waterside labourer, left his room at 37 George Yard Buildings in the early hours of the morning. Like so many of his class, Reeves regularly left home at this time in order to join the queues of men at the Docks hoping to be picked to help unload the ships. As he reached the first floor landing, he came across a horrifying discovery. At his feet lay the body of a woman in a pool of blood.

Reeves immediately ran out into the street to find a policeman and quickly returned with PC Thomas Barrett who in turn sent for Dr Killeen, who lived nearby in Brick Lane. Dr Killeen arrived quickly, examined the body and pronounced life extinct. The woman had been victim to a frenzied knife attack, the like of which had rarely been seen before. In total the body had 39 stab wounds, one of which had pierced the heart. That wound alone would have been sufficient to cause death. God only knew what had been going through the perpetrator’s mind as he had clearly lost all control when inflicting the wounds on the poor woman.

One of the saddest aspects of this horrific murder was that for some time, no one seemed to know who the victim was. Three women viewed the body but each one gave a different name. Eventually, the body was identified by Henry Tabram of River Terrace, East Greenwich, as that of his estranged wife, Martha. His wife had left him many years ago and he understood that she had long since been earning her living as a prostitute. Henry Tabram’s identification was further confirmed by a Mary Bousfield, otherwise known as Mrs Luckhurst, of 4 Star Place, Commercial Road, who had been Martha’s landlady for a period of time after she left her husband.

As time went on, Martha’s final movements became known. Immediately prior to her death, she, like Margaret Hames, Emma Smith and, until recently, Mary Kelly and Joe Barnett, had been living in George Street (number 19). As her estranged husband suspected, when money was tight, she worked as a prostitute in order to pay the rent. Until three weeks before her death, she had been living with her long-term partner Henry Turner. Their reasons for splitting up are unclear, but it appears that Turner was the one that moved out. Police found him renting a bed at the Victoria Working Men’s Home in Commercial Street; a popular residence for local men who were single. One would assume that Turner would be the major suspect in the murder enquiry, but it appears he must have had some sort of alibi as the police apparently spent very little time interviewing him.

As time went on, the police assigned to the murder inquiry despaired of ever finding the killer. Like the murderers of Emma Smith, Martha Tabram’s assailant seemed to have vanished into the East End smog, leaving behind no clues to their identity. However, their despondency was temporarily lifted on 9 August when a prostitute named Pearly Poll (real name Mary Ann Connelly) appeared at the police station.