Whitechapel 1888The evidence, and its limits

Case · 31 August 1888

Mary Ann 'Polly' Nichols

Buck's Row (now Durward Street), Whitechapel, outside the gateway to Brown's stable yard

Her life

Born
1845-08-26 (Dawes Court, Shoe Lane, off Fleet Street, London)
Died
1888-08-31 (c. 3.15-3.45 a.m., Buck's Row, Whitechapel)
Age
43
Also known as
Polly Nichols; née Walker; Nicholls; Polly

Editorial biographyCompiled by the research team from the sources listed below. It summarises those sources and is not itself evidence.

Mary Ann Walker was born on 26 August 1845 off Fleet Street, the daughter of Edward Walker, a locksmith and later blacksmith, and his wife Caroline. In January 1864 she married William Nichols, a printer's machinist, at St Bride's Church; they had five children between 1866 and 1879 and lived for a time in the Peabody Buildings, Stamford Street. The marriage broke down repeatedly and finally around 1880-81. Her father blamed William's relationship with the nurse at her last confinement; William blamed her drinking. He paid her an allowance until about 1882, when he established she was living with another man; thereafter she drifted between Lambeth and other workhouses, lived for some years with a blacksmith (Thomas Drew/Dew) in Walworth, and slept rough in Trafalgar Square in late 1887. In May 1888 the Lambeth Workhouse placed her as a domestic servant with the teetotal Cowdry family in Wandsworth; she wrote a hopeful letter to her father, but left in July, absconding with clothing worth over £3. By August she was lodging in Spitalfields common lodging houses at 18 Thrawl Street and then the 'White House', 56 Flower and Dean Street, where men and women could share beds. Contemporaries described her as clean, quiet and well liked but a heavy drinker. She was buried at the City of London Cemetery, Little Ilford, on 6 September 1888.

Last known movements

Compiled timelineEntries are the research team's summaries of the cited sources, not quotations. The time on the left is as reported, and the ≈ line is this site's interpretation of it.

Times in 1888 came from witnesses' estimates, church clocks and police beats, and they rarely agree to the minute. Open an entry to see how its time was read and which testimony mentions the people involved.

  1. Thu 30 Aug, c. 11.00 p.m.22:45–23:15

    Seen walking down Whitechapel Road, probably soliciting.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    30 August 1888, 22:45–23:15. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: "c." read as ±15 min. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook: Jack the Ripper, victim page "polly"
    Related testimony
    none linked yetLinked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  2. Fri 31 Aug, c. 12.30 a.m.00:15–00:45

    Seen leaving the Frying Pan public house, Brick Lane / Thrawl Street; returns to the lodging house at 18 Thrawl Street.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    31 August 1888, 00:15–00:45. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: "c." read as ±15 min. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook: Jack the Ripper, victim page "polly"
    Related testimony
    none linked yetLinked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  3. c. 1.20-1.40 a.m.01:20–01:40

    Turned out of the lodging-house kitchen for lack of 4d doss money; tells the deputy to keep her bed, boasting of her 'jolly bonnet'.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    31 August 1888, 01:20–01:40. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: stated range kept as given. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook: Jack the Ripper, victim page "polly"
    Related testimony
    none linked yetLinked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  4. c. 2.30 a.m.02:15–02:45

    Meets Emily Holland at the corner of Osborn Street and Whitechapel Road, very drunk; says she has earned her lodging money three times and spent it, and walks off east along Whitechapel Road. Last confirmed sighting.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    31 August 1888, 02:15–02:45. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: "c." read as ±15 min. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook transcription: Mary Ann 'Polly' Nichols inquest (4 transcribed reports)
    Related testimony
    Linked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  5. c. 3.15 a.m.03:00–03:30

    PC John Thain passes the end of Buck's Row and Sgt Kerby passes along it; nothing unusual seen. PC Neil had been through about half an hour before finding the body.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    31 August 1888, 03:00–03:30. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: "c." read as ±15 min. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook: Jack the Ripper, victim page "polly"
    Related testimony
    Linked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  6. c. 3.40 a.m.03:25–03:55

    Carman Charles Cross (Lechmere) finds the body in the gateway and calls over Robert Paul; they go to find a policeman.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    31 August 1888, 03:25–03:55. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: "c." read as ±15 min. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook transcription: Mary Ann 'Polly' Nichols inquest (4 transcribed reports)
    Related testimony
    Linked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  7. c. 3.45 a.m.03:30–04:00

    PC John Neil finds the body independently; signals PC Thain, who fetches Dr Llewellyn. Cross and Paul tell PC Mizen at Baker's Row.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    31 August 1888, 03:30–04:00. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: "c." read as ±15 min. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook transcription: Mary Ann 'Polly' Nichols inquest (4 transcribed reports)
    Related testimony
    Linked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  8. c. 4.00 a.m.03:45–04:15

    Dr Llewellyn pronounces her dead, believing she had been dead no more than half an hour.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    31 August 1888, 03:45–04:15. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: "c." read as ±15 min. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook transcription: Mary Ann 'Polly' Nichols inquest (4 transcribed reports)
    Related testimony
    Linked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  9. c. 4.30-5.00 a.m.04:30–05:00

    Body taken to the Old Montague Street workhouse mortuary; Inspector Spratling discovers the abdominal mutilations while taking a description.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    31 August 1888, 04:30–05:00. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: stated range kept as given. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook transcription: Mary Ann 'Polly' Nichols inquest (4 transcribed reports)
    Related testimony
    Linked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.

Investigate this case

Follow the evidence: places on the map, times on the timeline, each claim back to its source passage, then compare suspects and stress-test a theory.

Base map: Booth's poverty map, published 1889 (a year after the murders), georeferenced by this site to about ±10–15 m. Colours are Booth's social classes, not crime data. Details and limits

Charles Booth, Descriptive Map of London Poverty 1889, North-Eastern sheet (Whitechapel and Spitalfields extract). Wellcome Collection (L0074439), via Wikimedia Commons. Charles Booth, Life and Labour of the People. Licence: CC BY 4.0. Source file.

Derived image Georeferenced by this site: the 1889 scan was warped to fit modern coordinates using 9 surviving street junctions (RMS error about 10 m, worst 15 m).

Published 1889, the year after the murders, and drawn on an Ordnance Survey base: details may differ from August 1888. Colours show Booth's 1889 classification of each street's inhabitants (his own, now-dated categories, from black 'lowest class' to gold 'wealthy'); they are not records of the murders. Location markers are positioned from this site's readings of the 1891-5 OS 1:1,056 plan, not from this image, so marker and image can disagree by 10-30 m.

  1. Scene: Buck's Row — Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols, as an interactive schematic plan
  2. Map: places, movements and uncertainty
  3. Timeline: who was where, and when
  4. Reconstruction: Cross and Paul accounts accepted (mainstream / coroner)
  5. Reconstruction: Mizen's account accepted
  6. Reconstruction: Lechmere-as-killer (as proposed by Stow, Holmgren and the 2014 Channel 5 documentary)
  7. Reconstruction: Neil-first (early press version)
  8. Suspects: compare on the evidence, focused on this case
  9. Workbench: stress-test this case's reconstructions
  10. Workbench: which crimes are linked (all five)

Inquest

Editorial summary

Baxter opened the inquest on Saturday 1 September, the day after the murder, at the Working Lads' Institute on Whitechapel Road. After the jury viewed the body at the workhouse mortuary, the first day heard Nichols's father, PC John Neil, who found her, and Dr Rees Llewellyn, whose post-mortem evidence of a throat cut to the spine and deep abdominal wounds made with 'a long-bladed knife, moderately sharp, and used with great violence' caused a sensation. The adjourned sittings on 3 and 17 September established the timeline: Emily Holland's sighting at 2.30 a.m., and the discovery at about 3.40-3.45 a.m. by the carmen Charles Cross (Lechmere) and Robert Paul and, minutes later, by PC Neil. A conflict emerged between PC Mizen, who said a carman told him another policeman wanted him in Buck's Row, and Cross, who denied it. Residents, watchmen and slaughtermen nearby had heard nothing, and it emerged that two workhouse inmates, Robert Mann and James Hatfield, had stripped the body at the workhouse mortuary without instructions, so that the evidence of the clothing was compromised; the coroner also remarked on Whitechapel's need for a proper mortuary. Summing up on 22 September, Baxter concluded that the body had been found at about 3.45 a.m. and that she had been killed on the exact spot where she was found, and noted that hers was one of four murders 'presenting many points of similarity' in five months, while reasoning that the killer's bloodstains could have passed unnoticed in a district full of slaughterhouses. The jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against some person or persons unknown, with a rider supporting the call for a proper Whitechapel mortuary.

Read the inquest: 19 witnesses, with verbatim reports

Police photographs

Mortuary or scene photographs taken in 1888. They are hidden until you choose to see them.

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Mortuary photograph, 1888 (head and shoulders)

This is a photograph of a deceased person taken by the police in 1888. Some show severe injuries.

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