The Five

A book review of The Five, by Hallie Rubenhold.

There have been many books written about Jack the Ripper, a nineteenth century serial killer who brutally murdered five women, mutilating four of them. But there have been very few, if any, written about the victims; popularly portrayed as prostitutes plying their trade in the dingy backstreets of the East End of London.

The Five is a fascinating insight into the real women behind the lurid headlines and gruesome sensationalism of the Jack the Ripper killings. Hallie compassionately leads us through the story of each victim from their humble beginnings through to their violent ends.

It makes grim reading. It makes heart-rending reading. And, contrary to popular belief, Hallie shows us that out of the ‘five’ only one woman was actually proven to be a prostitute at all. In fact there are also grave doubts over whether Jack the Ripper even killed one of the victims; Elizabeth Stride on 30^th September 1888, who was murdered on the same night as Kate Eddowes.

The research is exceptional, the prose clear and precise, and the pictures painted by Hallie of the squalor of this period in the Victorian era vivid. An amazing achievement considering that all the official coroners court documentation has been lost, including all the witness statements. Hallie has had to use contemporary media accounts, cross referenced and checked, where possible, with other material. It would be akin to piecing together the Shipman murders in 150 years time from The Sun and The Daily Mail cuttings only!

If there’s a single factor that connects all of the victims it’s alcohol. But for many women their lives were so desperate, so dire and so demeaning that drinking to oblivion was pretty much the only thing that offered some form of protection. Protection in that it enabled them to lower  a curtain of oblivion over their despairing lives—allowing them to forget. At least for a while.

It was estimated that in the approximately one square mile Whitechapel area of the East End of London, the locale where Jack the Ripper hunted his victims, there were approximately 78,000 people living in extreme poverty. Today, the population of Whitechapel is 15,000. One square mile in an area where buildings were rarely more than three or four stories. Whole families shared a room. There was, perhaps, a single lavatory on the ground floor. No running water.

During this period, the mid to late 19^th century, a woman was a chattel, a possession of men. It was normal that a woman received almost no education, not that that many working class men did either, but also girls were expected to raise their younger siblings while their mothers produced a endless chain of offspring. Contraception was available—it was considered the women’s responsibility to avoid pregnancy, not the man’s—but to lower class women, most of whom couldn’t read, or couldn’t afford to purchase it, pregnancy was almost unavoidable.  

And from that, life became a financial balancing act; a child is born, a mouth to feed; the child reaches fifteen, can earn money; the child marries and leaves, less income.  What if, at any point, the scales tip… No husband, no work, meant no home, no food. Just the streets, and begging to survive.

If a woman failed to find a man, as  protector, they were either deemed to be  a misfit, or a loose woman. They had no independence. They couldn’t live their own free and ambitious lives. So, if a woman became a widow, for example, and had not been provided for by her husband, then her only choice was to quickly find another man. Or the dreaded workhouse. Or she starved. It was pretty much as bleak and as black and white as that.

I would thoroughly recommend this book. Not because it’s about Jack the Ripper, but because of the portrayal of the unnecessarily harsh existence that a huge number of people had to endure—not just women, but men and children also.  And in the richest city in the world.

But I would also recommend it because these women deserve a voice. They will always be remembered as prostitutes and victims of Jack the Ripper, rather than as human beings. Hallie goes out of her way to portray these ‘victims’ as real people, women who grew up with dreams and aspirations, however constricted by the times. Women who loved. And lost.

It’s a cliché perhaps, but read it and reflect on just how fortunate we are.