Advanced search

Louisa May Alcott was born on 29 November 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania, USA. She was a writer, known for Little Women (2019), Little Women (1994) and An Old-Fashioned Girl (1949). She died on 6 March 1888 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Mary Jane Kelly's origins are obscure and undocumented. According to Joseph Barnett, the man she had most recently lived with prior to her murder, Kelly had told him she was born in Limerick, Ireland, in around 1863 -although whether she referred to the city or the county is not known-and that her family moved to Wales when she was young. Barnett reported that Kelly had told him her father was named John Kelly and that he worked in an iron works in either Caernarfonshire or Carmarthenshire. Barnett also recalled Kelly mentioning having seven brothers and at least one sister. One brother, named Henry, supposedly served in the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards.

Around 1879, when she was just 16, Kelly was reportedly married to a coal miner named Davies, who was killed two or three years later in a mine explosion. She claimed to have stayed for eight months in an infirmary in Cardiff, before moving in with a cousin. Although there are no contemporary records of Kelly's presence in Cardiff, it is at this stage in her life that Kelly is considered to have begun her career as a prostitute. It is around this time, ca. 1882/83 that Kelly became ill and spent nearly a year in an infirmary.

In 1884, Kelly apparently left Cardiff for London and found work in a brothel in the more affluent West End of London. Reportedly, she was invited by a client to France, but returned to England within two weeks, having disliked her life there. Nonetheless, it is believed to be at this stage in her life that Kelly chose to adopt the French name "Marie Jeanette". Around 1884/86, and gravitating toward the poorer East End of London, she reportedly lived with a man named Morganstone (possibly Morgan Stone) near the Commercial Gas Works in Stepney. She lived with and possibly worked for Mrs Buki, St George's St. She helped Kelly retrieve belongings from a French lady's residence in Knightsbridge. Kelly also resided at Mrs Carthy's, Breezer Hill, Ratcliff Highway. At the end of 1886 Kelly left her and went to live with a mason's plasterer named Joe Flemming near Bethnal Green, but by April of the following year she had left him and moved into either Cooney's or a lodging-house in Thrawl St.

Joseph Barnett first met Kelly on Good Friday April 8th 1887. They agreed to live together on their second meeting the following day. First, they lived in George St, then moved to Little Paternoster Row, Dorset St, and then they lived in Brick Lane. In early 1888 they moved into 13 Miller's Court, a furnished single room at the back of 26 Dorset Street, Spitalfields. Barnett worked as a fish porter at Billingsgate Fish Market, but when he fell out of regular employment and tried to earn money as a market porter, Kelly turned to prostitution again. A quarrel ensued over Kelly's sharing of the room with another prostitute whom Barnett knew only as "Julia" and he left on 30 October while continuing to visit Kelly.

On the morning of 9 November 1888, the day of the annual Lord Mayor's Day celebrations, Kelly's landlord John McCarthy sent his assistant, ex-soldier Thomas Bowyer, to collect the rent. Kelly was six weeks behind on her payments, owing 29 shillings. Shortly after 10:45 a.m., Bowyer knocked on her door but received no response. He reached through the crack in the window, pushed aside a coat being used as a curtain and peered inside-discovering Kelly's horribly mutilated corpse lying on the bed. She was believed to be the victim of the unidentified serial killer nicknamed Jack The Ripper.

Sarah Whitley was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England. She was the mother-in-law of cinematic pioneer Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince and was filmed by him in Roundhay Garden Scene (1888), 10 days before her death, which help to substantiate Roundhay Garden Scene as the oldest surviving film in existence. She is the earliest-born woman known to have appeared in a film, and was also the first known person who had appeared in a film to die.

Elizabeth Stride was born Elisabeth Gustafsdotter on a farm called Stora Tumlehed in Torslanda parish, north of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her father was Gustaf Ericsson and her mother Beatta Carlsdotter. She had an older sister, Anna Christin (b. 1840), and two younger brothers, Carl Bernard (b. 1848) and Svante (b. 1851).

On October 14, 1860 she moved to the parish of Carl Johan in Gothenburg to stay with her sister Anna Christin, who was married to a cobbler. It was her sister that found work for Elizabeth as a domestic. February 2nd of 1862 finds her moving to Cathedral parish in the Ostra Haga area in Gothenburg: in Pilgatan, where in March 1865 she was registered by the police as 'Female Prostitute number 97', and on April 21 of that year she gave birth to a stillborn baby girl result of her seven-month pregnancy. The October 17 entry stated that she was treated for a venereal chancre. In Husargatan, another suburb from Gothenburg, she worked as a maid from November 1865 to February 1866.

On February 7th of 1866 she applied to move to the Swedish parish in London, England, to avoid even more social stigma. She entered the London register as an unmarried woman on July 10, 1866 at the Swedish Church in Prince's Square, St. George in the East. On March 7, 1869 she married John Thomas Stride, from Sheerness (Kent) at the parish church, St. Giles in the Fields. Soon after the marriage John and Liz were living in East India Dock road in Poplar. They kept a coffee shop at Chrisp Street, Poplar and in 1870 in Upper North Street, Poplar. They moved themselves and the business to 178 Poplar High Street and remained there until the business was taken over by John Dale in 1875. The marriage of John and Elizabeth ended in 1881.

From 1882 on-wards she lodged on and off at the common lodging house at 32 Flower and Dean Street. Lodgers described her as a quiet woman who would do a "good turn for anyone." However she had frequently appeared before the Thames Magistrate Court on charges of being drunk and disorderly, sometimes with obscene language. In 1885 she was living with Michael Kidney. They lived together for three years although she often left him for periods of time to go off on the town.

She made money by sewing and charring, received money from Michael Kidney and was forced to occasional prostitution to survive. Elizabeth frequently visited the Swedish Church where she begged for money or food.

She was murdered on the night of 30th September 1888 around 12:45/1 AM by the unidentified serial killer nicknamed Jack The Ripper.

Anna Swan was born on 6 August 1846 in Mill Brook, New Annan, Nova Scotia, Canada. She was married to Captain Bates. She died on 5 August 1888.

Mary Ann Walker was born on August 26, 1845 in Dawes Court, Shoe Lane, off Fleet Street (London, England) to blacksmith (former locksmith) Edward Walker and his wife Caroline. She was christened in or some years before 1851. She had a brother. Caroline died in 1852 aged 32 and was buried on 5th December at St Andrew Holborn.

Polly married William Nichols on January 16, 1864. She would have been about 22 years old. The couple had three children: Edward John, born on 4th of July 1866; Percy George, 1868 and Alice Esther, 1870. In 1877 they had their second daughter, Eliza Sarah, and their marital problems began. In 1879 their son Henry Alfred was born. Around 1880/81 William and Polly separated. William retained custody of the children. William paid Polly an allowance of 5/- (25p) a week. After the separation, Polly began a sad litany of moving from workhouse to workhouse (a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment). In 1882, William found out that his wife was living as a prostitute and discontinued support payments to her.

She went to the Lambeth Workhouse and stayed from 21st May to 2nd June 1883. From that day and until the 26th October 1887 she had been living with a man named Thomas Stuart Dew, a blacksmith.

On 12th May 1888 she left Lambeth to take a position as a domestic servant in the home of Samuel and Sarah Cowdry. This was common practice at the time for Workhouses to find domestic employment for female inmates. She worked for two months and then left while stealing clothing worth three pounds, ten shillings.

She was found murdered on August 31st 1888. Her murderer was not identified nor caught, and later was nicknamed as the serial killer "Jack the Ripper". She was believed to be his first victim according to many historians, although some other poor women and prostitutes were murdered in a similar way before.

King Frederick III of Prussia was born on 18 October 1831 in Potsdam, Kingdom of Prussia [now Brandenburg, Germany]. He was married to Princess Royal Victoria. He died on 15 June 1888 in Potsdam, Kingdom of Prussia [now Brandenburg], Germany.

It is not known the exact day of Annie Eliza Smith's birthday, but she was born in September 1841 in Knightsbridge (West London) to George Smith of Harrow Road, a Private, 2nd Battalion of Lifeguards (at the time of his death he was listed as a servant) and Ruth Chapman of Market Street. She had three younger sisters, Emily Latitia (b.1844), Georgina (b.1856) and Mirium Ruth (b.1858), and a younger brother, Fountain Hamilton (b. 1861).

Annie married her maternal relative John Chapman, a coachman, on May 1, 1869 at All Saints Church in the Knightsbridge district of London. She was 28. Their residence on the marriage certificate is listed as 29 Montpelier Place, Brompton. In 1870 their first daughter Emily Ruth was born. In 1873 their second daughter, Annie Georgina, was born. In 1880 they had a son, John Alfred, who was a cripple and sent to a home or charity school. Sadly, Emily Ruth died of meningitis at the age of twelve. Annie and John separated by mutual consent in 1884 or 1885. John Chapman semi-regularly paid his wife 10 shillings per week by Post Office order until his death on Christmas day in 1886, aged 44.

Sometime during 1886 she was living with a sieve maker named John "Jack" Sivvey (unknown whether this is a nickname or not) at the common lodging house at 30 Dorset Street, Spitalfields. Although they never did marry, she was by then known as Annie Sivvey or Sievey/Siffey). He left her soon after her husband's death, probably when the money stopped coming.

From May or June 1888, Annie was living consistently at Crossingham's Lodging House at 35 Dorset Street, Spitalfields. More recently, Annie had been having a relationship with Edward Stanley, a bricklayer's mate, known as the Pensioner.

On September 8, 1888 she was found murdered at 29 Handbury Street. The police at the time thought that she was murdered by an unidentified murderer, afterwards nicknamed "Jack The Ripper". According to most historians, she would be his second victim, first being Mary Ann Nichols.

Catherine Eddowes was born in Graisley Green, Wolverhampton (West Midlands) on 14 April 1842. Her parents, tinplate worker George Eddowes and his wife Catherine (née Evans), had been married since 1832, and had 11 other children, 5 older that Catherine (Alfred, Harriet, Emma, Eliza and Elizabeth), and 6 younger than her (Thomas, George, John, Sarah, Mary and William). In 1855, when Catherine was around 13, her mother Catherine died. The same year, Catherine's education at St John's Charity School, Patters Field, Tooley Street, ended. Most of her siblings entered Bermondsey Workhouse and Industrial School. In the early 1860s Catherine eventually returned to finish her education at Dowgate Charity School and to care for her aunt in Biston Street, Wolverhampton and to work as a tinplate stamper.

Around 1861, when she was 19, Catherine left home to be with ex-soldier Thomas Conway. She was known as Kate Conway by that time, using her common-law husband's surname even if they weren't legally married. On 1864 they lived together in Wolverhampton and earned a living by selling chapbooks, written by Conway, in Birmingham and in the Midlands. They also wrote and sold gallows ballads. Catherine claimed that they were legally married and she had his initials 'TC' tattooed in blue ink on her arm. Around 1865, Annie, Catherine and Conway's first child and only daughter, was born. Three years later, they had their second child, a son named George. On February 3rd 1877 their son Frederick William was born.

In 1880 Conway and Catherine separated. Catherine took Annie and Conway had custody of the boys. The following year, 1881, Catherine met John Kelly, an Irish jobbing market porter, frequently working for a fruit salesman, Lander. They eventually moved in together at Cooney's common lodging-house at 55 Flower and Dean Street, Spitalfields. By that time Catherine took her common-law husband's surname as was known as Kate Kelly. Every year, during the season, Kelly and Eddowes went hop picking. In the summer of 1888, Catherine and John, with their friend Emily Birrell, a vagrant, and her common-law husband, went hop-picking to Hunton-near-Maidstone, in Kent. At harvest's end they returned to London and quickly went through their pay, although it wasn't a good season, having poor crops. Birrell gave Catherine a London pawn broker's ticket for a man's shirt, because Catherine and John were going to London while she and her man were going to Cheltenham. On Thursday September 27th, Catherine and John arrived to London and split their last sixpence between them; he took four-pence to pay for a bed in the Cooney's common lodging-house, and she took twopence, just enough for her to stay a night at Mile End Casual Ward in the neighboring parish.

Mary Botham, daughter of Samuel Botham and Ann (née Wood), was born at Coleford, Gloucestershire, where her parents lived temporarily, while her father, a prosperous Quaker surveyor and former farmer of Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, looked after some mining property. In 1796, aged 38, Samuel had married 32-year-old Ann, daughter of a Shrewsbury ribbon-weaver. They had four children: Anna, Mary, Emma and Charles. Their Queen Anne house is now called Howitt Place. Mary Botham was taught at home, read widely and began writing verse at a very early age.

On 16 April 1821 she married William Howitt and began a career of joint authorship with him. Her life was bound up with that of her husband; she was separated from him only during a period when he journeyed to Australia (1851-1854). She and her husband wrote over 180 books.

The Howitts lived initially in Heanor in Derbyshire, where William was a pharmacist. Not until 1823, when they were living in Nottingham, did William decide to give up his business with his brother Richard and concentrate with Mary on writing. Their literary productions at first consisted mainly of poetry and other contributions to annuals and periodicals. A selection appeared in 1827 as The Desolation of Eyam and other Poems like "The Spider and the Fly" (1829).

The couple mixed with many literary figures, including Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. On moving to Esher in 1837, Howitt began writing a long series of well-known tales for children, with signal success. In 1837 they toured Northern England and stayed with William and Dorothy Wordsworth. Their work was generally well regarded: in 1839 Queen Victoria gave George Byng a copy of Mary's Hymns and Fireside Verses.

William and Mary moved to London in 1843, and after a second move in 1844, counted Tennyson amongst their neighbours. In 1853 they moved to West Hill in Highgate close to Hillside, the home of their friends, the physician and sanitary reformer Thomas Southwood Smith and his partner, the artist Margaret and her sister Mary Gillies. Mary Howitt had some years earlier arranged that the children's writer Hans Christian Andersen would visit Hillside to see the haymaking during his trip to England in 1847.

Eugène Labiche was born on 6 May 1815 in Paris, France. He was a writer, known for Le voyage de Monsieur Perrichon (1934), L'affaire de la rue de Lourcine (1923) and Two Timid Souls (1928). He was married to Adèle Hubert. He died on 22 January 1888 in Paris, France.

Edward Lear was an English artist, poet, musician and humorist best known for writing the children's poem, "The Owl and the Pussycat." Lear published "A Book of Nonsense" in 1846, which greatly helped to popularize the limerick. As an artist, he produced scientific illustrations of birds and other wildlife. He also composed twelve musical settings of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poetry.

Theodor Storm was born on the 14th of September 1817 in Husum, North Germany, direct on the Northern Sea. As the son of a lawyer he got a very good education (for this time, of course) at Husum and Luebeck, and went to university for studying law between 1837-42. After the occupation of his homeland through the Danish he flew to Potsdam, but went back to his region in 1864. He got a job as a judge and died on the 4th of July 1888 in Hademarschen. The importance of Theodor Storm for the German literature is based on his short novels. Famous for at least five of them, his greatest works, such as the "Schimmelreiter", is read in schools until today as an example not only of literary realism, but also of well done structure.

Allifair McCoy was born on 10 June 1858 in Kentucky, USA. She died on 1 January 1888 in Pike County, Kentucky, USA.

Christian Molbech was born on 20 July 1821 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Christian was a writer, known for Âme d'artiste (1924). Christian died on 20 May 1888 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Auguste Maquet was born on 13 September 1813 in Paris, France. Auguste was a writer, known for Three Musketeers (1932), Monte Cristo (1929) and La maison du baigneur (1914). Auguste died on 8 January 1888 in Paris, France.

Bartley Campbell was born on 12 August 1843 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a writer, known for The Crucible of Life (1918), My Partner (1916) and The Galley Slave (1915). He died on 30 July 1888 in Middletown, New York, USA.

Charles Cros was born on 1 October 1842 in Fabrezan, Aude, France. He was a writer, known for A Very Private Affair (1962), Felicity Lott in Recital (1995) and Banda sonora (2007). He was married to Maria Hjardemaal. He died on 9 August 1888 in Paris, France.

Philip Sheridan was born on 6 March 1831 in Albany, New York, USA. He died on 5 August 1888 in Nonquitt, Massachusetts, USA.

Although forty-five years of age, Emma's life prior to her murder in 1888 remains mysterious. She said she had come 'from the country' around ten years before, leaving her family there and not keeping in touch with them. Police files were gathered during the investigation, but most of these are missing. In the surviving records, Inspector Edmund Reid notes a "son and daughter living in Finsbury Parkarea". Detective Constable Walter Dew later wrote: "Her past was a closed book even to her intimate friends. All she had ever told anyone about herself was that she was a widow who more than ten years before had left her husband and broken away from all her early associations... There was something about Emma Smith which suggested that there had been a time when the comforts of life had not been denied her. There was a touch of culture in her speech, unusual in her class." Once when Emma was asked why she had broken away so completely from her old life she replied, a little wistfully: "They would not understand now any more than they understood then. I must live somehow."

At the time of her murder in 1888 she had been living in a lodging-house at 18 George Street (since renamed Lolesworth Street), Spitalfields, in the East End of London, for a year and a half, with a routine practically set in stone: she'd leave her lodgings between six and seven in the evening, practice her trade for the night, and return in the small hours of the next morning. And so it went on Bank Holiday night, Easter Monday (April 3, 1888) that she left around 6:00 PM searching for trade. She was next seen by Margaret Hayes at around 12:15am talking to a man dressed in dark clothes and a white scarf in Fairance Street, Limehouse.

As she was returning home that night, at least three, maybe four youths began following her from Whitechapel Church. They would stop her on the corner of Brick Lane and Wentworth Street, where they beat, raped, and viciously jabbed a blunt object into her vagina, tearing the perineum. The boys emptied her purse before leaving her to die on the street.

Having just been beaten and raped, and having sustained a sizable and painful injury, Emma Smith stood up and walked back to her lodgings at 18 George Street with her face bloodied and her ear cut. She had apparently removed her shoulder wrap and placed it between her thighs to soak up the blood. It took her 4 hours to get there. The lodging house deputy, Mary Russell and lodger Annie Lee, amazed that she could even have made it this far, rushed her to the London Hospital on Whitechapel Road, apparently against Emma's will. Once there she was seen by George Haslip, the house surgeon and she fought unconsciousness long enough to describe her assailants and the details of her assault. Finally, Emma could no longer stave off the severity of her injuries and succumbed to a coma, in which she would die on April 5th at 9:00am.

Medical investigation by the duty surgeon, Dr G. H. Hillier, revealed that a blunt object had been inserted into her vagina, rupturing her peritoneum. The police were not informed of the incident until 6 April when they were told an inquest was to be held the next day. The inquest at the hospital, which was conducted by the coroner for East Middlesex, Wynne Edwin Baxter, was attended by Russell, Hillier, and the local chief inspector of the Metropolitan Police Service, H Division Whitechapel, John West. The inquest jury returned a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown. Baxter concluded that Emma Elizabeth Smith had been "barbarously" murdered, adding that he had never heard of such a dastardly murder and that "it was impossible to imagine a more brutal case". Baxter had no idea of what was yet to come.

Chief Inspector West placed the investigation in the hands of Inspector Edmund Reid of H Division. Reid noted in his report that her clothing. Walter Dew, a detective constable stationed with H Division, later described the investigation: "As in every case of murder in this country, however poor and friendless the victims might be, the police made every effort to track down Emma Smith's assailant. Unlikely as well as likely places were searched for clues. Hundreds of people were interrogated. Scores of statements were taken. Soldiers from the Tower of London [which stood within H Division] were questioned as to their movements. Ships in docks were searched and sailors questioned."

Smith had not provided descriptions of the men who had attacked her and no witnesses came forward or were found. The investigation proved fruitless and the murderer or murderers were never caught. The police couldn't contact any of her relatives either.

It is believed by most that it was one of the many Whitechapel gangs which killed Emma Smith, and not the Whitechapel serial killer. 'High rip' gangs were known to patrol the area in which the incident occurred, extorting money from prostitutes and other downtrodden women in return for their protection. In fact, it wasn't until September of 1888 that she was first attributed as a Ripper victim by the press.

Vsevolod Garshin was born on 14 February 1855 in Bakhmutsky District, Russia. He was a writer, known for Signal (1918) and Frog the Traveller (1965). He was married to Nadezhda Mikhailovna Garshina. He died on 24 March 1888 in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Franklin Távora was born on 13 January 1842 in Baturité, Ceará, Brazil. He was a writer, known for O Cabeleira (1963). He died on 18 August 1888 in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Lobo da Costa was born on 12 July 1853 in Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. He was a writer, known for Revelação (1929) and Ranchinho do Sertão (1913). He died on 19 June 1888 in Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

Edmond Gondinet was born on 7 March 1828 in Laurière, Haute-Vienne, France. He was a writer, known for True Romance (1993), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life (2003) and Un viaggio di piacere (1922). He died on 19 November 1888 in Neuilly, France.

Louis Buvelot was born on 3 March 1814 in Morges, Switzerland. Louis is known for Australian Landscape Artists (1961). Louis died on 30 May 1888 in Victoria, Australia.