behind Warren’s back. Effectively it meant that he was out of the loop for much of the Ripper investigations, which did not enhance his chances of success.
Probably at Francis’s level things were different and the beat policemen were more easily disposed towards a local reporter that they trusted than towards the hordes of out-of-town newsmen and even ones from America and further afield that began to arrive in droves by the middle of October.
His appearance was also in his favour. There are no known pictures of Francis Craig, although there are many of his more famous father. There is a contemporary newspaper illustration of Annie Chapman’s inquest that shows a man looking very much like a younger version of E.T. Craig, of which more later,but descriptions of him at his own inquest used words like ‘nervous’, ‘sensitive’ and ‘reticent’. He was apparently an inoffensive, unremarkable looking man, a man who by his own account was shabby and down at heel during this period of his life. He wore the standard dress of the clerical, lower middle-class man, an Inverness coat and a billycock hat 77 .
Mr. Thomas Bond, Lecturer in Forensic Medicine at the Westminster Hospital and police surgeon to the Metropolitan Police, probably came nearest to it than anyone when he described him thus: ‘… the murderer in external appearance is quite likely to be a quiet inoffensive looking man, probably middle-aged and neatly and respectably dressed. 78 ’ It could hardly have been a better description of Francis.
By Thursday 30th August the stage was set. A mild-mannered, inoffensive looking reporter, 51 years of age, although he probably looked younger, had armed himself with a vicously sharp amputation knife and, driven by a blinding hatred of a much younger woman who he felt had done him a grievous wrong, was about to embark on the most notorious rampage in criminal history.
CHAPTER TEN
Annie
On Monday 3rd September the inquest on Polly Nichols was adjourned for two weeks to allow the police to make further investigations and for Dr. Llewellyn, the less than competent police surgeon, to make another and fuller post-mortem examination. In particular the coroner had asked him to discover whether any of Polly’s internal organs were missing, a detail that had apparently not occurred to him during the first autopsy. But on 8th September, before it had resumed, another murder took place in the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street, less than half a mile from the Working Lads’ Institute, and Coroner Baxter was obliged to open a second inquest.
Number 29 Hanbury Street was a one of a long terrace of dilapidated houses that had long since outlived their purpose but were still used as overcrowded slum dwellings by the wretched inhabitants of Spitalfields. Originally they had been the houses of prosperous Huguenot silk weavers but the growth of the silk mills of Cheshire, coupled with repeal of the duty on imported French silk in 1860, spelled the end of the hand-woven silk industry in East London. By 1888 most of the weavers’ houses were unfit for human habitation yet were still homes to hundreds of people. In September 1888 number 29 – a house thatwas suitable for maybe six people to occupy comfortably – housed 17, including Mrs. Harriet Hardiman and her 16-year-old son, who both lived in a noisome room on the ground floor which they also used for cutting up and selling cat meat. Several other families each occupied a single room in the three-storey building and, in common with most other houses in the street, the front door was never locked to allow them to come and go as they pleased.
The new victim was another unfortunate called Annie Chapman. She was 47 years old and, like Polly Nichols, alcoholic and of very short stature. Her body was found within an hour of her death by an elderly lodger, John Davis, coming down the steps from the back door of number 29 to use the privy at the end of the yard. The body lay just to
Probably at Francis’s level things were different and the beat policemen were more easily disposed towards a local reporter that they trusted than towards the hordes of out-of-town newsmen and even ones from America and further afield that began to arrive in droves by the middle of October.
His appearance was also in his favour. There are no known pictures of Francis Craig, although there are many of his more famous father. There is a contemporary newspaper illustration of Annie Chapman’s inquest that shows a man looking very much like a younger version of E.T. Craig, of which more later,but descriptions of him at his own inquest used words like ‘nervous’, ‘sensitive’ and ‘reticent’. He was apparently an inoffensive, unremarkable looking man, a man who by his own account was shabby and down at heel during this period of his life. He wore the standard dress of the clerical, lower middle-class man, an Inverness coat and a billycock hat 77 .
Mr. Thomas Bond, Lecturer in Forensic Medicine at the Westminster Hospital and police surgeon to the Metropolitan Police, probably came nearest to it than anyone when he described him thus: ‘… the murderer in external appearance is quite likely to be a quiet inoffensive looking man, probably middle-aged and neatly and respectably dressed. 78 ’ It could hardly have been a better description of Francis.
By Thursday 30th August the stage was set. A mild-mannered, inoffensive looking reporter, 51 years of age, although he probably looked younger, had armed himself with a vicously sharp amputation knife and, driven by a blinding hatred of a much younger woman who he felt had done him a grievous wrong, was about to embark on the most notorious rampage in criminal history.
CHAPTER TEN
Annie
On Monday 3rd September the inquest on Polly Nichols was adjourned for two weeks to allow the police to make further investigations and for Dr. Llewellyn, the less than competent police surgeon, to make another and fuller post-mortem examination. In particular the coroner had asked him to discover whether any of Polly’s internal organs were missing, a detail that had apparently not occurred to him during the first autopsy. But on 8th September, before it had resumed, another murder took place in the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street, less than half a mile from the Working Lads’ Institute, and Coroner Baxter was obliged to open a second inquest.
Number 29 Hanbury Street was a one of a long terrace of dilapidated houses that had long since outlived their purpose but were still used as overcrowded slum dwellings by the wretched inhabitants of Spitalfields. Originally they had been the houses of prosperous Huguenot silk weavers but the growth of the silk mills of Cheshire, coupled with repeal of the duty on imported French silk in 1860, spelled the end of the hand-woven silk industry in East London. By 1888 most of the weavers’ houses were unfit for human habitation yet were still homes to hundreds of people. In September 1888 number 29 – a house thatwas suitable for maybe six people to occupy comfortably – housed 17, including Mrs. Harriet Hardiman and her 16-year-old son, who both lived in a noisome room on the ground floor which they also used for cutting up and selling cat meat. Several other families each occupied a single room in the three-storey building and, in common with most other houses in the street, the front door was never locked to allow them to come and go as they pleased.
The new victim was another unfortunate called Annie Chapman. She was 47 years old and, like Polly Nichols, alcoholic and of very short stature. Her body was found within an hour of her death by an elderly lodger, John Davis, coming down the steps from the back door of number 29 to use the privy at the end of the yard. The body lay just to
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