Uncovering The Five

Who were the women killed by the Ripper?

Mary Ann ‘Polly’ Nichols

Polly was born in London in 1845, the daughter of a blacksmith. Her mother died when she was young and she assumed the domestic duties of her family home. She married her husband, William, when she was 18 and they had five children but she left him after he was unfaithful. When her body was discovered, Polly had two petticoats with ‘Lambeth Workhouse’ labelled on the bands, where she had lived intermittently in the final years of her life.

Annie Chapman

Born in London in 1840, Annie married John Chapman, a gentleman’s coachman and they lived in Windsor with their three children. She struggled with alcoholism and, along with her husband, drank heavily after the loss of their eldest daughter to meningitis. She separated from John in 1884 and to earn money did crochet work and sold matches and flowers. A small-toothed comb and a scrap containing two pills were among the items recovered from her body.

Elisabeth Stride

Elisabeth, the daughter of a farmer, was born in Sweden, 1843. In 1866, she moved to London and began working for a wealthy family. In 1869 she married John Thomas Stride, a carpenter, and they ran coffee houses together, but they eventually separated. She took on sewing work to earn extra money, and when her body was discovered a thimble and a piece of wool wrapped around a card were found among the possessions she was carrying.

Catherine Eddowes

Born in Wolverhampton in 1842, Catherine moved to London when she was 25 with her common-law partner Thomas Conway, with whom she had three children. By 1880, she had a new common-law partner, John Kelly, and she was sleeping in lodging houses when she could afford it, or sleeping rough. Catherine had many items on her when her body was discovered, including a tin of tea and a tin of sugar, as well as a mustard tin with two pawn shop tickets.

Mary Jane Kelly

The details of Mary Jane Kelly’s life are difficult to confirm, considering that she told stories about herself that were a mixture of both truths and lies. Born around 1863,

Mary Jane was a professional sex worker in the West End before she moved to the East End. She was the only victim murdered in her own bed and so no inventory was done of her possessions because she was only wearing a chemise.