RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Bitza 5 on Saturday 22 September 07 15:11 BST (UK)
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Having a chat about jack the ripper with some friends we got on to talking about the prostitutes and that there must have been more then those in the white chapel area of London.
It was mentioned that some of us have never actually seen on the census 1881-1891(for any boarding house where many prostitutes stayed) occupation prostitute.
Has any one found out otherwise in there search. or found that any ancestor was a prostitute during the time of jack the ripper 1888 and even more to the point around the white chapel area.
Bitza
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"prostitute" certainly has been given as an occupation. search this site for examples.
Pauline
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I'm pretty sure my dad's gr aunt was a "lady of the night" in the Eagle Tavern, Kings road around 1861. She was on the census as being a barmaid - Jane Lawson, b1826. I didn't think much about this until I found some information about the Eagle Tavern (apparently the song pop goes the weasel is about the Eagle Tavern). It doesn't get a very good review. Young impressionable lads going in there, and in their words -
"I have seen women there whom I have recognised next day as common street-walkers."
The owner Benjamin Oliver Conquest employed 160 persons, and was also an entertainer at the theatre.
Ten years later Jane is a coffee shop keeper on Waterloo Road. I wondered if she maybe saved up her ill-gotten gains to afford it. Another ten years later, she was in Middlesex lunatic asylum!!!
Oh well, it's nice to have a bit of character in the family tree :)
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I'm sorry to tell you that one of the late symptoms of syphilis is insanity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syphilis
and, if your gg aunt was indeed a lady of the night, it is possible she contracted it, and hence her demise in the Middlesex... :-\
meles
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Thanks for that Meles :o
I never gave that a thought. I hope she was using her marigolds while she was a coffee shop owner.
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an interesting question - What was Jack the Ripper's occupation, given on the Census??
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Subaru - now that's a death certificate that might be interesting...
Cathaldus - we don't know Jack's real identity, or profession.
meles
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an interesting question - What was Jack the Ripper's occupation, given on the Census??
Well, that's an easy one ;D
All you have to do is enter his name in the search box to get the reference and then look at the image ....
and his name was ..... it'll come to me in a minute ... :P
Bob
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His name was that person called NK = not known !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_the_Ripper for more info !
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If only the detectives had thought about doing that Bob, it wouldn't have been such a mystery ;D
Meles I would love to see Jane's death certificate, but there are too many to choose from around that time.
A kind lady did a search at London Metropolitan Archives for me, but there was nothing about Jane, even though I had the date she was there. The book was very fragile, and she had a private viewing, which was very lovely of her to do for me.
As I don't know London, I wasn't sure which are was closest as the registration district for the asylum. One of these days I may find it.
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I found her. She was in Hanwell Asylum, Southall/Ealing. I hope that narrows it down a bit.
Googling gives you lots of info about that sad place, built for the best of reasons.
meles
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanwell_Insane_Asylum
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Thanks Meles and Lydart. I've already looked into Hanwell, and it was quite sad reading. It looks like it wasn't one of the worst asylums at the time.
I did wonder if she had ended up in there because her son died aged 5 in 1855 (she was named as a single woman in the baptism register), and it had affected her mind, but it makes sense that syphillis could have been her tormentor in the end.
That could help with the district - I'll check out Southall/Ealing
Rosemary
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Here's a likely one:
Q4 1863 West London 1c 51
Where was the birth registered? That gives a strong clue, too.
meles
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It was mentioned that some of us have never actually seen on the census 1881-1891(for any boarding house where many prostitutes stayed) occupation prostitute.
It has been said that 'dressmaker' was often their 'official' occupation.
Which means that many in my family were a load of ... ;)
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Jemaine if that's right, there are heaps of dressmakers in my family :)
Meles, Jane was born in Whitehaven. It looks like between a few rootschatters, we have actually found the right Jane. Apparently she was still there in 1891, and died in 1899. So I'm going to send off for her death certificate. I'll let you know what it says.
I don't know how to do links etc, but I started a thread about Hanwell Asylum registration district on the London/Middlesex forum.
Thanks anyway
Rosemary :D
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I saw it - so pleased you've sorted it! (Fingers crossed)
meles
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My mother was a dressmaker .. and she certainly wasn't a lady of the night ! She was a dressmaker ! She made clothes for the 'court' ... and people like Fanny Craddock !
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Cathaldus: I heard the most likely suspect, and there were quite a few, was a nutcase from the U.S .who fancied himself as a medical doctor. So he may have been on the US census as a doctor?
Francis Tumblety.
There is a bit about him on here, but lost more stuff on the Ripper online. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A704567
Also another interesting article from the US has the alliterative title " Is the Ripper Resting in Rochester ?"
http://www.rochesterdandc.com/news/extra/rochester_history/1031story070808_news.shtml
He seems to have come from a large family although they used different name spellings. I wonder how many of his relatives are still around?
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There are nine John Ripper in the 1901 census. And as Jack is derived from John ......... :o
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Then there was the one in Yorkshire ...
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Fascinating if it really is the man from Rochester. I used to live in Rochester, and while I did, there was a serial killer killing prostitutes. He even dumped a body down the street from where I lived. He was caught soon after. Scary, he used to ride the same bus as me. Good thing i was a market research editor. :-\
My husband's great-grandparents lived in the White Chapel area at the time of Jack the Ripper. I think it was a Rootschatter who pointed that out to me when I was doing some research on his branch.
Kath
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Meles - you've changed your avatar ;D
I love monkeys
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Changed mine too !
We're trying to get Pels to get rid of those slapping penguins and put her chimp back !
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I can't remember what your previous one was Lydart!!
Have you ever been to Monkey World in Dorset? It's a brilliant place :)
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Been there. Enjoyed swinging from the ... er... swings!
meles (who will switch back to his real atavar when pels and lydart do) Oook!
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That's fighting talk, Meles ... or should I call you Pan troglodytes ?
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Hi KathMC,
Wow, that is interesting! Another serial killer murdering prostitutes. Maybe its something in the water in Rochester? ;D or maybe it's a relative of the first one, Francis, and insanity ran in the family.
How scary to hear he used to ride the same bus as you.
I imagine your husband's great grandparents must have passed down some stories about those times. The residents of the area must have been very nervous. The Times archive has some contemporary reports.
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Yes, it was a little scary when we found out. My friends used to talk about it on the bus on the way to work and I told them, they should be quiet. Who knows, he could be on our bus. Lo and behold, he did ride that one.
If my husband's great-grandparents passed down stories, no one remembers them. The great-grandfather died while most of the people around now were too young to remember him and the great-grandmother was a really awful person, quite a shrew from what everyone tells me, so people stayed away from her.
Kath
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It's such a shame so many memories are lost. If only they had all kept voluminous diaries ;D
I remember gatherings at my grandparents' house, (when I was little) especially my paternal one, where there was a lot of story swapping and much laughter. (My paternal grandmother was, before she got married, a dressmaker, and she was a very respectable lady. :) )
I remember their saying things like, "Do you remember when great aunt Eliza did such and such, and her dignified demeanor was much ruffled?" and they would all howl with laughter. They were talking of people long gone and they all knew the stories, and they were told and retold with great affection for these people involved.
I always liked to hear of the escapades of my father when he was a little boy. The quiet and serious man I knew( who died when I had just reached 9 years old) had been a little devil when he was a child. I really liked that. :)
I remember other hilarious stories, and some sad ones about loss and hardship, some from other side of the family too, but oh, how I wish I had listened more when they were talking about people long gone; old people that they had known, or even not known themselves, but had only heard stories about, when they were children.
It was those 'unknowns', those people in the past, that made me lose interest when I was a child, and now they are the ones I want to know about.
One young man, it seems( details now cannot be verified unless I find their descendents) ran away with a married woman to London. In those days, very shocking.
There was something about a member of the family knowing someone who had been hanged for murder in the 1930's. No one would talk about it, so now I will never know.
Nowadays, the few oldest members left of the family, who were young teens and young adults in those old gatherings, do not remember those stories, or are simply not the least bit interested in the past or genealogy. How can anyone not be interested in genealogy?
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Its a good job some of us are !
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Lydart and Meles, what's going on with the avatars? I can't keep up :)
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Lydart and Meles, what's going on with the avatars? I can't keep up :)
Love yours Subaru. Thought it would have been a car :)
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Thanks Roobarb :)
Funnily enough I do drive a Subaru, but don't ask me what engine it is, or anything technical about it. I drive about it in, and like the colour (silver) but that's as far as is goes.
And don't ask me my registration number, cos I haven't got a clue :)