Summary
Overview
Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook explore the origins of the Jack the Ripper murders in Victorian London's Whitechapel district in 1888. They examine the social context of extreme poverty, prostitution, and crime in the East End, before detailing the brutal murder of Mary Ann 'Polly' Nichols on August 31st, 1888 - marking the beginning of the Ripper's reign of terror. The episode establishes how this unsolved case became the world's first modern serial killer phenomenon, while also providing a window into late Victorian society's stark class divisions and the desperate lives of the victims.
The Infamous Jack the Ripper Letter and Victorian London Context
The episode opens with a dramatic reading of the notorious 'Dear Boss' letter sent to the Central News Agency on September 27th, 1888, which gave the killer his enduring name. This mocking, sadistic letter exemplifies how Jack the Ripper became the world's first identified serial killer, creating a phenomenon that merged horror with dark public fascination. The hosts establish that while the killer was never caught, his crimes provide extraordinary insight into 1880s London - a city at the height of imperial power yet plagued by extreme poverty, particularly in Whitechapel's labyrinthine slums.
- The 'Dear Boss' letter was sent September 27th, 1888, giving the killer the name 'Jack the Ripper' and was forwarded to Scotland Yard after two days
- Jack the Ripper is the first person identified as a serial killer in the modern sense, inventing a phenomenon that psychiatrists and newspapers would classify scientifically
- The case remains unsolved and has spawned an entire field called 'ripperology' - a subgenre of true crime with countless theories
- London in 1888 was the world's largest city with 4-6 million people, serving as the capital of the British Empire and global capitalism
" I keep on hearing the police have caught me, but they won't fix me just yet. I've laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. "
" What can be more appalling than the thought that there's a being in human shape, stealthily moving about a great city burning with a thirst for human blood and endowed with such diabolical astuteness as to enable him to gratify his fiendish lust with absolute impunity "
" If a journalist cannot sell anything else in London, he can always sell a story about Jack the Ripper. "
Whitechapel: London's Dark Shadow and the Rookeries
The hosts paint a vivid picture of Whitechapel and Spitalfields as perhaps the grimmest area in Victorian London - a reeking labyrinth of cramped tenements, doss houses, and narrow alleys with names like Blood Alley and Frying Pan Alley. This was one of the last 'rookeries' - tangles of streets seen as literally poisonous, full of sewage, vermin, and violence. While London represented the pinnacle of imperial power and modernity, the East End was its dark shadow, embodying anxieties about what industrial capitalism was creating. The area attracted both thrill-seeking 'young bloods' and humanitarian reformers, all fascinated by this breeding ground of crime and desperation.
- Whitechapel centered on Spitalfields was a labyrinth of decrepit tenements and doss houses on streets like Flower and Dean Street, Dorset Street, and Thrall Street
- Police allegedly only entered the area in pairs due to extreme violence, and it was a center of street crime and prostitution where the desperate ended up
- Three factors changed Whitechapel: Jewish immigration from the Russian Empire, slum clearances pushing people into back alleys, and 1885 brothel crackdowns
- An 1887 economic downturn created moral panic about crime; there were 18,000 missing persons reported in London that year
" In the squalid parts of the metropolis, aggravated assaults attended by flesh wounds from knives are frequently met with, and men and women become accustomed to scenes of violence. "
" We have long ago learned that organic refuse breeds pestilence. Can we doubt that neglected human refuse as inevitably breeds crime? "
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