Jack the Ripper’s victims ‘were not prostitutes’
Historian blames sexism for unfair labelling of working class women
IT REMAINS one of the most enduring mysteries in British criminal history, with budding detectives desperate to unveil the true identity of Jack the Ripper.
But less is known about the serial killer’s victims, who are assumed to have been prostitutes.
Now, Dr Hallie Rubenhold, a historian, has gone back to the archives to uncover the true backgrounds of the women killed in 1888.
Dr Rubenhold discovered the women were in fact poor, working-class women – for example, servants and laundry maids – blaming “sexist” policemen and researchers for erasing their stories.
Dr Rubenhold, who is writing the first comprehensive history of the victims, told The Sunday Telegraph: “We glorify the Ripper, we have a whole industry based around Jack the Ripper, a fascination with him, an unsolved murder mystery going on for 130 years.”
For decades numerous enthusiasts have tried to solve the mystery of the identity of the killer whose crimes have fascinated the world. Patricia Cornwell, the US crime writer, spent 11 years researching the attacks.
“We have fixated on this and never really thought about the women, who they were when they were killed,” said Dr Rubenhold.
The historian found that one of the women was living in the residence of a friend of the Prince of Wales, before going to a rehabilitation centre for alcoholism, and another moved to London from Sweden in search of a better life, spending much of her time running a coffee shop in Poplar with her husband.
While it has been accepted by history that all five of the Ripper’s victims were likely prostitutes, Dr Rubenhold said at least three of them were not, and there is no proof that the ones who had previously taken part in sex work were soliciting when they were murdered.
“We have never questioned 19th century orthodoxy – the world in which they were killed was a world in which women were disrespected and treated as second-class citizens. We have never changed that narrative – they have been overlooked by society,” she said.
“They were poor, working -class women – one of them was more middle-class actually – they got married and had children, they were mothers and they were wives. When they fell on hard times they worked in laundry, they worked as servants ... but the accepted narrative is that all five were prostitutes and that he was a prostitute killer.”
History has ignored these women, she argued, and labelled them all as prostitutes, because the profession has long been sexist.
The researcher explained: “We have to question a lot about our narratives in history – misogyny and sexism runs very deep… These are five women who have been completely dehumanised for 130 years by our culture. And we need to redress the balance”.
Dr Rubenhold’s The Five has been optioned for a drama series and will be released as a book next March.