East End Murders E-Book

Neil R Storey

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Neil R. Storey has drawn on a vast array of original sources - among them witness statements, coroners' reports and court records - to produce a revealing insight into the East End's darkest moments. As well as the murders of Jack the Ripper, perhaps the most infamous in history, he looks at nine other cases in detail: the still mysterious Ratcliffe Highway Murders of 1811; Henry Wainwright, who dismembered his mistress and rolled up her remains in a carpet in 1874; Israel Lipski, whose name became a term of derision and abuse against Jews in East London for years following his conviction for the murder of a young woman in 1887; the unsolved murder of Frances Coles in 1891; the Whitechapel High Street Newspaper Shop Murder in 1904; the Houndsditch Murders and the Siege of Sidney Street in 1910, in which a robbery potted by Russian anarchists went badly wrong; the throat-cutting William Cronin in 1925; the Bow Road Cinema Murder in 1934; and finally the shooting of George Cornell by Ronnie Kray at the Blind Begger pub in 1966. East End Murders is a unique re-examination of the darker side of the capital's past.

Leseprobe

East End MURDERS

From JACKTHE RIPPER to RONNIE KRAY

East End MURDERS

From JACKTHE RIPPER to RONNIE KRAY

NEIL R. STOREY

First published 2008

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Reprinted 2010, 2011, 2013

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© Neil R. Storey, 2008

The right of Neil R. Storey to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and

conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUBISBN 978 0 7524 8445 7

Original typesetting by The History Press

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1.

The Ratcliffe Highway Murders

1811

2.

The Businessman, the Actress & the Dismembered Mistress

Henry Wainwright, 1875

3.

To Kill an Angel

Israel Lipski, 1887

4.

The Autumn of Terror

Jack the Ripper, 1888

5.

Jack’s Back?

The Murder of Frances Coles, 1891

6.

The Whitechapel Newspaper Shop Murder

Conrad Donovan & Charles Wade, 1904

7.

Blood on the Streets

The Tottenham Outrage, the Houndsditch Murders & the Siege of Sidney Street

8.

Second Time Around

William Cronin (1897 & 1925)

9.

Axe Murder at the Palace

John Frederick Stockwell, 1934

10.

Murder at The Blind Beggar

Ronald Kray, 1966

Select Bibliography

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author would like to express his gratitude to the following: above all my thanks go again to Stewart P. Evans for his enduring friendship, knowledge and generosity. It would be remiss of me not to thank the wonderful Rosie too for her kind and thoughtful hospitality. Again it has been a pleasure and privilege to meet such fascinating people while indulging in some of the darkest research; I would particularly like to acknowledge Don Rumbelow for his advice on the chapter ‘Blood on the Streets’. I would also like to thank Tower Hamlets Local Studies Library, Whitechapel Library, Dr Stephen Cherry, Colin and Rachel Stonebridge, Les Bolland, Clifford Elmer Books, Philip Hutchinson, Robert ‘Bookman’ Wright, Elaine Abel, Great Yarmouth Library and of course my dear family, beloved Molly and son Lawrence for their support and love for this author and his research.

INTRODUCTION

In this volume I shall be taking you on a journey through the history of murder in the East End. Tragically murder, manslaughter, accidents and suicides have brought death to these streets on many occasions, be it wrought in the pursuit of crime – perhaps a theft, a rape, a robbery gone wrong – or perhaps during a drunken brawl; some of these crimes are bizarre, vengeful, gross, debauched, mad or just plain bad. All happened here. I do not attempt to retell every one of them but I have chosen what, I trust you will find, are a selection of the more fascinating cases, from the Regency period to the Swinging Sixties, every one of them infamous, some of them terrifying the populace in their day and all of them with some curious aspects and twists of fate or horror to intrigue the modern reader.

So often while I pursue and investigate the stories of crime in the nineteenth and early twentieth century I would like to be able to travel back in time and ask a question, examine the site for myself before time changed it beyond recall and talk to the investigating officers. When considered in contrast to the long scale of history these cases are often, frustratingly, fairly recent. We can be fairly certain visits were made by criminologists in the days, years or decades after the crimes while events were still in living memory, but these visits are seldom recorded… but I have found one.

Come back with me to 19 April 1905, when a young barrister named S. Ingleby Oddie met up with his friend Dr Gordon Brown at the Police Hospital, Bishopgate. Oddie was allowed to bring some friends with him, and the entire party consisted of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Professor Churton Collins, Harry Brodribb ‘H.B.’ Irving, Dr Crosse and three detectives from the City of London Police. Thus were gathered together some of the finest crime writers and medical experts of their day – who then embarked upon a tour of the Jack the Ripper murder sites led by Dr Brown, the man who had conducted the post-mortem on Catherine Eddowes. He also examined the body of Alice Mackenzie, and took part in the investigation into the Pinchin Street torso, accompanied by detectives well versed in the case. Tragically one can only imagine the conversation as the group made their journey around the murder sites little changed since the blood first ran across the cobbles in 1888; however, in his book Inquest (1941), Oddie did record his impressions of the places they visited and undoubtedly reflected some the comments and impressions shared by the other members of the group:

The scenes of the murders all presented one common characteristic. They were all dark and obscure and secret as possible. Nearly all of them, however, were evidently selected as being places from which it would be easy to slip away unobserved. In Buck’s Row for example there were easy alternative exits. In Mitre Square there were no less than five. In Hanbury Street, the scene was the back yard of a common lodging-house, approached by a passage giving a ready exit into any one of three neighbouring backyards, and thence into the street… Miller’s Court in Dorset Street seemed to be a trap, yet one had to remember that in this case the Ripper went into the victim’s own single room instead of conducting his operations, as in other cases, in the open street. This latter place was a dismal hole seen on a dark, wet, gloomy afternoon. It consisted of one very small room, with a very small window, a fire, a chair and a bed. It was sombre and sinister, unwholesome and depressing, and was approached by a single doorstep from a grimy covered passage leading from Dorset Street into a courtyard. Indeed, it would be just the sort of mysterious and foul den in which one would imagine dark, unspeakable deeds would be done. Yet it was only a stone’s throw from the busy Whitechapel Road. It was here Mary Kelly was done to death… I saw the police photograph of the mass of human flesh which had once been Mary Kelly, and let it suffice for me to say that in my twenty-seven years as a London Coroner I have seen many gruesome sights, but for sheer horror this surpasses anything I ever set eyes on.

It was to be almost seventy-five years before that same dread picture was seen by the British public for the first time. In this book that now-infamous photograph is reproduced and accompanied by the transcriptions of the post-mortem examinations of the bodies of the other victims. When reading these reports it is hardly surprising that these killings stood out as different, even to East End residents and police who had become hardened to death and murder – they were more explicitly horrible than anything they had ever encountered before. Even in this modern world of criminal profiling so many questions remain unanswered: what was the mental state of Jack the Ripper, for example? Was he truly insane, or was he pretending to be mad? Was he schizophrenic, or a living embodiment of Jekyll and Hyde (a character portrayed on stage by American actor Richard Mansfield at the Lyceum at the time of the murders)? The depiction certainly pricked the darker corners of concern in the minds of upstanding members of Victorian society, perhaps particularly among those who were outwardly respectable but secretly debauched and violent behind closed doors, or at least away from the gaze of decent people… perhaps in the shadows of the East End.

Harry Brodribb ‘H.B.’ Irving – actor and notable crime writer.

What intrigues me is to consider if Jack knew the dark corners of the East End intimately. Could he stalk the streets looking for victims in the most vulnerable places known to him? Did he plan his attacks knowing the escape routes he would use? Or were the warren of back streets and shadowy corners of the East End merely a convenient place to carry out his nefarious deeds, leaving him to get away more through luck than judgement?

Despite attempts to suggest conspiracies and present apparently robust and well-researched theories about who Jack was and why he committed the murders, I do not believe that after this distance of time we will ever be able to conclusively prove this or that person was Jack the Ripper – but I don’t think we will stop looking for him either. So I present the lion’s share of this volume as an overview of the Jack the Ripper crimes, the most infamous murders in history. But, dear reader, do not neglect the other tales in this volume; terror and infamy were nothing new to the East End.

Walk with me to the Ratcliff Highway and read of a series of horrible murders – and consider if you think the man accused of the killings acted alone. Meet Henry Wainwright, pillar of Whitechapel society, with two wives and two families – one public, one very private. When the cost of his high living caught up with him, one of them had to go. Then, after our main investigation of Jack the Ripper, there is the case of tragic Frances Coles, who had her throat slashed in the dingy tunnel passageway known as Swallow Gardens – was she another victim of Jack the Ripper? Other murderers in this volume include the infamous William Cronin – but should he have hanged in 1897 rather than 1925?

Further cases from the twentieth century put the darkest side of life in the East End on the covers of the world’s press – including the Houndsditch Murders, which led to the infamous Siege of Sidney Street. Armed pursuits on foot and by all manner of vehicles took place, bullets rattled through the air, civilians were caught in the crossfire and brave police officers fell in the line of duty, all of which culminated in a siege which drew attention and comments from the international press.

The final story sees the close of a chapter in the East End’s history. The Krays were violent hard men of the East, but they knew ‘their manor’ and abided by a certain ‘code’ among felons and between rival gangs. Despite both being murderers, their killings were seen as gangland actions against those who grossly transgressed ‘the code’, and with their smart suits and high profile, fostered by a series of iconic photographs, the Krays caught the imagination of the wider public. When they died they were given a ‘full East End honours’ send off and thousand lined the streets to watch the funeral cortège pass.

Neil R. Storey 2008

1

THE RATCLIFFE HIGHWAY MURDERS

1811

The Ratcliffe Highway runs from East Smithfield to Shadwell High Street. In Old and New London, Walter Thornbury wrote:

Ratcliffe Highway, now called St George Street, is the Regent Street of London sailors, who, in many instances, never extend their walks in the metropolis beyond this semi-marine region. It derives its name from the manor of Ratcliffe in the parish of Stepney … The wild beast shops in this street have often been sketched by modern essayists. The yards in the neighbourhood are crammed with lions, hyenas, pelicans, tigers. As many as ten to fifteen lions are in stock at any one time, and sailors come here to sell their pets and barter curiosities.

J. Ewing Ritchie was far less flattering when he said in The Night Side of London (1858):

I should not like a son of mine to be born and bred in Ratcliffe-highway…(there) vice loses all its charms by appearing in all its grossness. I fear that it is not true generally to the eyes of the class she leads astray, that:

Vice is a monster of such hideous mien,

That to be hated, needs but to be seen.

Exotic animals may be one fascination, the darker corners of the street the haunt of whores, harpies and footpads, but the Ratcliffe Highway was tainted with blood and infamy years before.

At about midnight on the night of Saturday 7 December 1811 a certain Timothy Marr (24), a wholesale mercer dealing in lace and pelisse at 29 Ratcliffe Highway, sent his servant girl, Margaret Jewell, out to buy some oysters for supper and pay the bill from the baker. As Jewell left the Marr’s, Mrs Celia Marr was suckling their fourteen-week-old baby, Timothy junior, while Mr Marr was preparing to close his shop. Jewell found the oyster dealer had closed: she tried elsewhere but could find no oysters for sale, so she went to the baker to pay the bill. After about twenty minutes the girl returned and rang the bell, but received no answer. No lights were apparent in the building. Wondering what could have happened, she listened at the keyhole and believed she could hear ‘a foot on the stairs and I thought it was my master coming to let me in; I also heard a child cry in a low tone of voice. I rang then again and again, and knocked at the door with my fist.’

The Ratcliff Highway, renamed St George’s Street, pictured around 1896, described as ‘the Regent Street of London sailors’ and scene of the most notorious early nineteenth-century murders in the capital.

Margaret was clearly distressed so George Olney, a nightwatchman who called the time every half hour and knew the Marrs, came over to enquire what was going on. He also knocked on the door and called out to Marr through the keyhole, but received no response. Olney had good reason to be concerned. At midnight he had passed the shop and spoken to Marr and apprentice Gowan as they were shuttering up the shop. On his return he had noticed one of the pins in the iron crossbar of the window shutters was loose. He rapped on the door and called out what he had found, and was answered by what he thought was a strange voice, that said, ‘That’s alright.’ Unperturbed, at least at that time, Olney walked on, but now those events troubled the watchman.

A contemporary map of the scene of the Marrs’ murder.

Next-door neighbour John Murray, a pawnbroker, was woken by the commotion and shouting. He got up and went to the shop front, where Jewell explained that she had been locked out. Hearing what Olney had to say, Murray decided to investigate. He climbed over the dividing wall between his yard and the Marrs’. Once in their yard he was attracted by a light on the landing place and discovered the back door was open. He took the light and – with some trepidation – entered the building. He first encountered the body of the shop apprentice James Gowan (14) lying dead in a pool of blood and gore on the floor and, as stated in the Newgate Calendar (1818), ‘with his brains knocked out, and actually dashed, by the force of the murderous blow, against the ceiling.’

Murray called out for help and made his way to the street door, where he discovered Celia Marr laying face down, dreadfully wounded and lifeless. He let Watchman Olney in and together they searched for Timothy Marr. They found him behind the counter, blood still oozing from his hideously battered head. They then went to the kitchen, where, as the Newgate Calendar continues; ‘petrified with horror they saw the little babe in the cradle, with one of its cheeks entirely knocked in with the violence of a blow, and its throat cut from ear to ear.’

The watchman sounded the alarm by springing his rattle, a hue and cry was raised and the Thames River Police were soon on the scene; the first officer present was Charles Horton. The findings of the investigation of the murder were reported before the magistrates of the Shadwell Police Office. A search of the house first revealed a long iron ripping chisel, about 20in in length, but this had no stains of blood upon it. However, the next tool, a ship carpenter’s maul, with an iron head ‘somewhat in the shape of an anvil’ – and broken at the point – was found covered with fresh blood and a few hairs.

The bloodstained ship’s carpenter’s maul used in the murders at the Marr household.

As two sets of tracks were discovered in the yard, it was deduced that there must have been two attackers. The footprints were of two different sizes and the heels turned to the rear of the houses as if running away. The footsteps were marked with sawdust and blood – the sawdust had been caused by carpenters working in the shop during the day. It was thought the killers had come into the shop under the pretence of purchasing goods, as it was clear Marr had been reaching down for some stockings when he had been struck. No money was found missing from the till and cash to the tune of £160 was found about the house.

Within hours a number of arrests were made (mostly of sailors who had been in the area during the hours in question), but each suspect had a solid alibi and was released – and soon the public were all too aware that two killers were on the loose. As the horrific details of the murders circulated by word of mouth, in the press and on lurid broadsides, the people of London were said to have been gripped by fear. Macaulay recalled the state of panic in London, ‘the terror which was on every face; the careful barring of doors; the providing of blunderbusses and watchmen’s rattles. We know of a shopkeeper who on that occasion sold 300 rattles in about 10 hours.’

Handsome rewards were offered for the apprehension of the killers. The day after the crimes, by order of the churchwardens, overseers and trustees of the Parish of St George, John Clerk the vestry clerk rapidly published bills headed: ‘FIFTY POUNDS REWARD: HORRID MURDER!!’ Stating the circumstances of the murders and weapons used, they asked that, ‘Any person having lost such articles, or any dealer in old iron, who has lately sold or missed such are earnestly requested to give immediate information,’ offering the reward of £50 for the discovery and apprehension of the person or persons responsible – ‘to be paid on conviction.’

On 9 December the magistrates of the Thames Police Office in Wapping repeated the offer of a reward on their bill, and appealed for information appertaining to three men seen loitering near Mr Marr’s shop for about half an hour on the night in question, one of them during that time looking in at the shop window. It gave the following description:

One of them was dressed in a light coloured sort of Flushing coat, and was a tall lusty man; another was dressed in a blue jacket, the sleeves of which were much torn, and under which he appeared to have also flannel sleeves, and had a small rimmed hat on his head. Of the third no description has yet been obtained.

Reward poster for the capture of the perpetrator of the Ratcliff Highway murders.

The Thames Police added a further reward of £20 for the person responsible for the identification or apprehension and commitment of the murderers.

The inquest into the murders was held on Tuesday 9 December before the coroner, William Unwin Esq., at the Jolly Sailor public house, which was situated nearly opposite the Marr’s house; a large crowd lingered outside until about 2 p.m., when the jury began to assemble, and watched with curious expectation as the coroner led the jury to the Marr’s house, where they inspected the scene of the crime and viewed the bodies of the victims.

Mr Walter Salter, a surgeon in the Parish of St George, reported the findings of his examination:

Timothy Marr, the younger: the left external collected artery divided, the left side of the mouth laid open, with a wound 3in in length [remember that this was inflicted on a 14-week-old baby, so it was hardly surprising the initial reports thought the baby’s throat was cut from ear to ear] and several marks of violence on the left side of the face. Celia Marr: the left side of the cranium fractured, the temporal bone totally destroyed, with a wound just above the articulation of the jaw 2in in length, then winding into the left ear, and a wound at the back of the ear. Timothy Marr, the elder: the nose broken, the occipital bone fractured, and a violent blow on the right eye. James Gowan [also spelt Gowen and Goen]: several contusions on the head and nose, with the occipital bones dreadfully shattered, and the brains protruding.

The coroner gave a short address to the jury on the known facts of the case and after a short deliberation returned a verdict of ‘Wilful Murder against some person or persons unknown’ on each of the bodies.

After the inquest the bodies of the Marr family were laid out on beds in their home and the public were allowed to go through the house and view them. Hundreds passed through the room and saw the corpses, displayed with their horrific wounds unsutured and their eyes left open. The Marr’s were finally buried on Sunday 15 December, mother and child in one coffin, Mr Marr in another; the mourners, more curious members of the public than grieving friends and family, lined both sides of the route – and were many rows deep – from 29 Ratcliffe Highway to the door of St George’s-in-the-East.

Thames Police Office published another bill detailing a clue found on the maul – the letters I.P. (other accounts state an alternative of J.P.), ‘in dots on the crown, near the face, [which appear] to have been so marked with a coppering punch.’ More suspects were arrested: even Marr’s brother-in-law was questioned, but all to no avail as solid alibis were provided.

The fear on the streets was palpable, and further rewards were offered on bills by private gentlemen and, significantly, by the Government: first £100, then £500 – a veritable fortune in 1811. But then the murderers struck again.

Shortly after 11 p.m. on the night of Thursday 19 December, the neighbourhood of Old Gravel Lane, Ratcliffe Highway rang with the cries of ‘Murder!’ Crowds gathered as an almost nude man lowered himself from the window of a tall building at No. 81 – the King’s Arms public house – and dropped the last few feet into the arms of a passing watchman. The young man was John Turner, an apprentice who boarded at the pub, who cried out, ‘They are murdering the people in the house!’

The landlord and his wife had run the pub for about fifteen years and were well liked in the area, so when people heard the cry of ‘Murder!’ they wanted to help, and set about hammering on the doors of the pub. Constable Hawse and some men from the crowd – including a butcher from Ashwell’s buildings named Ludgate – forced an entry through the cellar-flap and entered the building. At the same time another man, named Fox, cutlass in hand, managed an entrance through some wooden bars at the side of the house.

In the cellar the body of Jack Williamson (56), the landlord, lay at the foot of the stairs, his legs on the stairs, his head down. A horrific blow had been inflicted on his head and his throat dreadfully cut. An iron crowbar lay by his side. The men made their way upstairs into the parlour where they found Jack’s wife, Mrs Elizabeth Williamson (60), and the servant girl, Bridget Harrington. Their skulls had been smashed in and their throats cut, blood still issuing from the wounds. As the men searched the house from room to room, they discovered Kitty Stillwell, the Williamson’s granddaughter, still in her bed, alive and untouched. Although the house had been completely surrounded almost from the moment the alarm was raised, the murderers had somehow managed to escape.

John Turner’s escape from the window of the King’s Arms, taken from a contemporary booklet.

At the subsequent inquiry before the Shadwell Police Officer Magistrates the escapee, John Turner, gave his account of events inside the pub on that fatal night:

I went to bed about five minutes before eleven o’clock; I had not been in bed more than five or ten minutes before I heard the cry of ‘We shall all be murdered’, which I suppose was the cry of the woman servant. I went downstairs, and I saw one of the villains rifling Mrs Williamson’s pockets, and I immediately ran upstairs; I took up the sheets from my bed and fastened them together, and lashed them to bed-posts; I called to the watchman to give the alarm; I was hanging out of the front window by the sheets; the watchman received me in his arms, naked as I was.

At the coroner’s inquest, held at the Black Horse tavern, just across the road from the King’s Arms, he enlarged on his account. Turner said he had entered the pub around 10.40 p.m. and gone to his room on an upper floor. He heard Mrs Williamson lock the door. Then he heard the front door bang open ‘hard’, and Bridget shout, ‘We shall all be murdered!’ Mr Williamson was then heard to say, ‘I am a dead man!’ The sound of several blows followed, and then the sound of someone walking about with shoes in which, he believed, there were no hobnails. After a few minutes, he arose and went to see what had occurred. He heard three drawn-out sighs. As he crept downstairs, Turner saw a door standing open with a light burning on the other side. Peering inside, he saw a tall man leaning over Mrs Williamson. Turner estimated him to be 6ft tall and believed he was wearing a Flushing coat. The man appeared to be going through Mrs Williamson’s pockets.

Fearing for his own life, he turned and fled back up to his room, tied two sheets together and lowered himself out of the house. Next to nothing appeared to have been taken from the pub but Turner had noticed that Mr Williamson’s watch was missing. Turner also pointed out he had no recollection of an iron bar in the pub such as the one that was found beside Mr Williamson – it must have been brought there by the killer.

On Monday 23 December an Irish sailor named Williams was apprehended on suspicion of being involved in the murders and brought before the magistrates. He was known to frequent the Williamson’s pub – in fact, he had been there on the night in question. When he was arrested he was found to be in possession of £1 and a considerable amount of silver, even though a sailor who shared his lodgings at the Pear Tree recalled that Williams had complained he was short of money. Williams claimed he had obtained this money, which was a considerable sum in its day, from pawning some of his clothes. The most damning evidence, however, came from the silent witness – the maul which had been used to viciously batter the Marr household to death.

Williams had lodged with Mr Vermilloe. A seaman at the same lodging, a ship’s carpenter by trade, had left some of his tools there for safekeeping, but upon inspection the maul was found to be missing. The seaman’s name was John Peterson, and all his tools were marked with his initials, ‘J.P.’ Comparison between the initials on the maul and the other tools proved a match. At the time of the hearing Mr Vermilloe was unfortunately imprisoned for debt, so the magistrates went with the maul to Newgate. Vermilloe immediately recognised the tool as the one which had been left with him by Peterson and even remembered how the maul’s end had broken when he was breaking up some firewood. At the hearing other witnesses, when they could stand a close examination of the gory exhibit, confirmed it was the one left by Petersen and that they had not seen it for about a month.

On the second day of the hearing, held on Tuesday 24 December, John Turner was brought in as a witness. Although he had seen Williams in the pub on a number of occasions, he could not say on oath that Williams was the man he had seen rifling through Mrs Williamson’s pockets.