British history – History Gal

During his “reign of terror” in 1888 – the canonical five were killed between Friday 31 August to Friday 9 November 1888[1] – and continuing to this day, there has been a strong sense of fascination and lure in the Whitechapel murders. Many, from the press at the time to ripperologists and historians today, have debated and reread the evidence over and over in the hopes of finding out who was Jack the Ripper and, at the time, to find out how these women died; the press provided the reading public with as much detail as possible on how these women were found, the scene of their murders and what it was thought had happened to them. After all this time, however, the question remains, why did Jack the Ripper and the Whitechapel Murders cause such fascination and lead to the newspapers of 1888 to sell in record numbers? In this fourth and final part to the examination of society’s almost obsession with Jack the Ripper, I will be focusing on the role of stereotypes; the way that they were relied on when there seemed no hope of finding the murderer and how they impacted the East End at the time will be considered. Continue reading Jack the Ripper and British Attitudes to Sex and Murder: Reliance on and promoting stereotypes

With such persistent interest and fascination in the Whitechapel murders, it must be asked: why? What is it about Jack the Ripper and his murders that have grabbed people’s attention for so long? This series of posts are exploring this question and what it can tell us about people’s fixation on sex and murder and each post has focused on a different point. This particular post will be looking at the importance the location of the murders had on the reading public’s interest. Whitechapel and the East End of London as a whole was an area with a dark reputation; a place thought to breed immorality and thus the geographical alternative to what the common prostitute represented for society. Continue reading Jack the Ripper and British Attitudes to Sex and Murder: Whitechapel and the importance of Location