Flower and Dean Street was a road at the heart of the Spitalfields rookery in the East End of London. It was one of the most notorious slums of the Victorian era, being described in 1883 as "perhaps the foulest and most dangerous street in the whole metropolis", [1] and was closely associated with the victims of Jack the Ripper.
Land was acquired by the Fossan brothers in the mid 17th century. At that time it consisted of the southern part of Lolesworth Field, a tenterground to its south and a spinning and twisting ground with gardens to the south of that. The brothers built a street through the field which was named after them, which became Fashion Street. They split the tenterground into two long parcels and employed two bricklayers, John Flower and Gowan Dean, [2] to build houses along its length. By the nineteenth century the back gardens of the original tenements had been built on for narrow courts and alleys and the area had become a slum. The poverty and deprivation of the area was reflected by the greatest concentration of common lodging-houses in London. In 1871 there were 31 such places in the street. They provided accommodation for the desperate and the destitute and were a focus for the activities of local thieves and prostitutes. Already in 1865 the street was referred to by the artist Ford Madox Brown as the epitome of social degradation in his description of his painting Work . Brown describes a vagabond depicted in the picture as living in Flower and Dean Street, "haunt of vice", "where the policemen walk two and two, and the worst cut-throats surround him". [3]
Slum clearance began 1881–83. In 1888, the Whitechapel murders by the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper prompted further redevelopment. Two of those women murdered, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, resided in two common lodging-houses on the street. A study using geographical profiling suggested that the killer probably lived on the street. [4] The scandal of the killings prompted 'respectable' landlords to divest themselves of property here and all traces of the street were virtually eradicated between 1891 and 1894 in a major slum clearance programme. [5] There is now a housing block where the street used to be.
A 2008 Scotland Yard geographical profile of Jack the Ripper concluded that he most probably lived in the street where two of his victims lived. [6]
The Flower and Dean Walk housing estate is directly across Commercial Street from the historic site of the street.
Commercial Street is an arterial road in the boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Hackney that runs north to south from Shoreditch High Street to Whitechapel High Street through Spitalfields. The road is a section of the A1202 London Inner Ring Road and as such forms part of the boundary of the London congestion charge zone.
Spitalfields is an area in London, England and is located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is in East London and situated in the East End. Spitalfields is formed around Commercial Street and Brick Lane. It has several markets, including Spitalfields Market, the historic Old Spitalfields Market, Brick Lane Market and Petticoat Lane Market. The area has a long attracted migrants from overseas, including many Jews, whose presence gained the area the 19th century nickname of Little Jerusalem.
The Mint was a district in Southwark, south London, England, on the west side of Borough High Street, around where Marshalsea Road is now located. It was so named because a mint authorised by King Henry VIII was set up in Suffolk Place, a mansion house, in about 1543. The mint ceased to operate in the reign of Mary I and Suffolk Place was demolished in 1557. In the late-17th and early-18th centuries, the area was known for offering protection against prosecution for debtors due to its legal status as a "liberty", or a jurisdictional interzone.
Annie Chapman was the second canonical victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper, who killed and mutilated a minimum of five women in the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts of London from late August to early November 1888.
Mary Ann Nichols, known as Polly Nichols, was the first canonical victim of the unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, who is believed to have murdered and mutilated at least five women in and around the Whitechapel district of London from late August to early November 1888.
Emma Elizabeth Smith was a murder victim of mysterious origins in late-19th century London. Her killing was the first of the Whitechapel murders, and it is possible she was a victim of the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, though this is considered unlikely by most modern authors.
Elizabeth "Long Liz" Stride is believed to have been the third victim of the unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, who killed and mutilated at least five women in the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts of London from late August to early November 1888.
Catherine Eddowes was the fourth of the canonical five victims of the notorious unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, who is believed to have killed and mutilated a minimum of five women in the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts of London from late August to early November 1888.
Martha Tabram was an English woman killed in a spate of violent murders in and around the Whitechapel district of East London between 1888 and 1891. She may have been the first victim of the unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper.
Seweryn Antonowicz Kłosowski, better known under his pseudonym George Chapman, was a Victorian era Polish serial killer known as the Borough Poisoner.
Aaron Kosminski was a Polish barber, hairdresser, and suspect in the Jack the Ripper case.
Jack the Ripper, a unidentified serial killer active in and around Whitechapel in 1888, has been featured in works of fiction ranging from gothic novels published at the time of the murders to modern motion pictures, televised dramas and video games.
Chuts is the name applied to Jews who immigrated to London from the Netherlands in the mid-Victorian era (1850s–1860s). They typically came from the cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and brought to London their trades: most notably those of cigar-, cap-, and slipper-making, and as small-time ship chandlers.
Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer was also called the Whitechapel Murderer and Leather Apron.
The Whitechapel murders were committed in or near the impoverished Whitechapel district in the East End of London between 3 April 1888 and 13 February 1891. At various points some or all of these eleven unsolved murders of women have been ascribed to the notorious unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.
Dorset Street, originally known as Datchet Street, was a street in Spitalfields, East London, once situated at the heart of the area's rookery. By repute it was "the worst street in London", and it was the scene of the brutal murder of Mary Jane Kelly by Jack the Ripper on 9 November 1888. The murder was committed at Kelly's lodgings which were situated at No. 13, Miller's Court, entered from a passageway between 26 and 27, Dorset Street.
The Ten Bells is a public house at the corner of Commercial Street and Fournier Street in Spitalfields in the East End of London. It is sometimes noted for its supposed association with at least two victims of Jack the Ripper: Annie Chapman and Mary Jane Kelly.
The Lodger is a novel by English author Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes. The short story was first published in the January, 1911 edition of McClure's Magazine, in 1911. Belloc Lowndes wrote a longer version of the story, which was published as a series in the Daily Telegraph in 1913 with the same name. Later that year, the novel was published in its entirety by Methuen Publishing.
The Jack the Ripper Museum is a museum and tourist attraction that opened in August 2015 in Cable Street, London. It recreates the East end of London setting in which the unsolved Jack the Ripper murders took place in 1888, and exhibits some original artefacts from the period as well as waxwork recreations of crime scenes and sets. The museum was founded by Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe, a former head of diversity for Google.
Carl Ferdinand Feigenbaum, alias Anton Zahn, was a German merchant seaman, occasional florist and alleged serial killer executed at Sing Sing Prison in 1896. His crime was murdering his landlord, and contemporary hypotheses accuse him of being Jack the Ripper.