Whitechapel Keegansclannbritain

Local Context of Whitechapel

Whitechapel was one of London’spoorest districts in the 19^th century. It had great problems withgangs, homelessness, immigration and crime.

Pollution and poor sanitation

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·London was a heavilypolluted city. The wind would carry smoke and gas fumes that cause healthproblems. At times, you could not even see your own hand in front of your face.

·Sanitation was very poor.There was little safe drinking water and sewers ran into the streets.

Overcrowded housing

·Most housing was inovercrowded slum areas called rookeries. They were full of dirt, disease andcrime.

·Houses were divided intoapartments- there could be more than 30 people in one apartment.

·In 1877, one rookerycontained 123 rooms, with accommodation for 757 people- families in here wereon the brink of starvation.

·1881 census shows thetotal population of Whitechapel to be 30,709 people, but there were only 4,069occupied houses. This shows how overcrowded and dense the population was.

·Another type ofaccommodation was lodging houses- these offered only a bed in squalidconditions. They would operate on three 8-hour sleeping shifts a day, so bedscould be used by the most number of people.

·These lodging houses weresmelly, full of rats and totally awful. There were over 200 lodging houses inWhitechapel where more than 8000 people lived.

Model housing- the Peabody Estate

In 1875 parliament passes theArtisan’s Dwelling Act as part of London’s earliest slum clearance programme.In Whitechapel, an area of slum was replaced with 11 new blocks of flats. Theywere designed by Henry Darbishire and paid for by George Peabody- a wealthyAmerican who had moved to London.

This estate opened in 1881 andprovided 286 flats. Weekly rents started reasonably at 3 shillings for a one roomflat and went up to six shillings for three rooms. Considering that the average wage was 22 shillings and 6pence a week, some poor working class families could spend as much as a thirdon rent.

Work inWhitechapel

Whitechapel’s most famous factory was the Bell Foundry- thiswas where Big Ben was created. Most of Whitechapel’s citizens worked in‘sweated’ trades like tailoring, shoe-making. The work premises- calledsweatshops- were small, cramped, dark and dusty. Some workers had to worktwenty hours a day and slept on site. Wages were also low.

Workhousesand orphanages

·Workhouses were set up in the 19^thCentury as part of the poor relief system.
·They gave food and shelter to those too poor tosurvive in the community.
·Inmates were the old, sick, disabled, orphans andunmarried mothers.
·Conditions were deliberately made worse that thosea labourer could provide for his family.
·The aim was to keep costs down by putting peopleoff entering the workhouse- it was meant as a last resort.

Inmates of workhouses were expected to do tough manual labourand wear uniform. Families would be split up and could be punished from tryingto talk to each other.

Dr ThomasBarnardo

Thanks to the work of Barnardo, many younger people who wouldnormally have been sent to a workhouse found themselves in a better setting.

·Barnardo’s first project was a school for childrenwhose parents had died in an outbreak of infectious disease.
·In 1870 he opened an orphanage for boys.
·He later opened one for girls.
·By 1905, the year of his death, there were nearly100 Barnardo homes, caring for an average of 85 children each.

Tensions in Whitechapel

Immigration

Irishimmigrants

·TheIrish population expanded rapidly in the East End from the 1840s.

·Thefirst immigrants were young men planning on then moving on to America but whohad run out of money before a ship could take them there.

·Theymade their living working as ‘navvies’ who did labouring jobs on canals, roadsand railways.

·Violenceand drunkenness was common among them and they were not well-liked by society.

·Irishnationalists demanded freedom from the rule of the UK- the Fenians were amainly Catholic group who were seen as a fanatical terrorist movement. Theyorganised a bomb attack on Clerkenwell Prison in December 1867. This caused asurge of anti-Irish and anti-Catholic feeling.

EasternEuropean Jewish immigrants

·In1881, Tsar Alexander II of Russia was assassinated and a Jew was blamed. A waveof violence and abuse followed and many fled from Russia, Poland and Germany.

·Manycame to London.

·By1888 the Jewish population in Whitechapel had grown to 95% of the total area ofthe district.

·Whitechapelbecame a self-segregated community where Jewish settlers chose to liveseparately from others.

·Jewishsettlers were widely resented because of cultural differences and attitudes towork

oComparedto poor working-class local, Jews found employment or set up businesses moresuccessfully and this was resented.

oReligiousand cultural rules about food and clothing made them stand out. They alsosettled with other immigrants, so there was no need to learn English. Localswere suspicious of the unfamiliar customs and language.

oEstablishedimmigrants preferred employing newly arrived immigrants to locals- new arrivalswere desperate for work and would accept a lower wage.

Growth of socialism and anarchism

Anarchists

Social and economicproblems across Europe caused the growth of revolutionary political movementsthat wanted to overthrow the government. Anarchists were one of thesemovements.

·In1871 anarchists briefly took control of Paris, but most attempts at revolutionfailed.
·Whenthis happened, the leaders of these groups would often flee to Britain whichwas seen to be more politically tolerant.
·Somepeople began to feel that East London was a refuge for other nations’terrorists.
·In1893 a Special Branch began a secret operation to monitor the activities ofEastern European revolutionaries.
·Thethreat of bombings was totally exaggerated, and anyone with an Eastern Europeanaccent or name was seen as a potential anarchist.

Socialists

·TheSocialist Democratic Federation (SDF) was the first socialist party in Britain.
·It wasfounded in 1881 to represent agricultural and industrial labourers and therights of women.
·Itsleaders wanted a revolution to bring down the capitalist system.
·Theywere involved in the Trafalgar Square demonstration that led to Bloody Sunday.
·Theyhated the police and used the case of Jack the Ripper to highlight thestupidity of the police.

Rising tensions

By 1888, the highunemployment and housing shortage in the East End focused national attention onimmigration.

·Tensionsbetween immigrant and local populations rose over housing, language and jobs.As such, anti-Semitic attitudes and beatings of Jews became common.
·Policeconsidered the East End to be particularly violent as a result.
·TheJack the Ripper murders led to further violence as sensationalist newspapersportrayed Jack the Ripper as a caricatured Jew with a hooked nose, dark beardand felt hat.
·Peoplecould not comprehend that Jack the Ripper was English so assumed he was aJewish or Irish immigrant.
·Thepolice joined in with this prejudice, but were alarmed at the growth of racialhatred in Whitechapel.

·As aresult Whitechapel was filled with extra police reinforcements during the Jackthe Ripper investigation to prevent a full-scale Jewish riot.

Police Organisationin Whitechapel

H Division

·The Metropolitan Police force was split into 20divisions, each responsible for a district of London and named with a letter ofthe alphabet.

·Whitechapel was covered by H Division.

On patrol- a beatconstables shift

·Much of his role was stopping and questioningpeople to find out what they were up to.

·If he missed a crime on his beat he could befined or dismissed.

·The work was boring, sometimes dangerous and itdid not pay very well.

·Sergeants would follow constables to ensure theywere doing their job properly- not sleeping in doorways or idly chatting.

Attitudes to HDivision

·By the mid-19^th Century, theMetropolitan Police were beginning to enjoy a respectable reputation as keepersof peace and upholders of the law.

·However, in more deprived areas, likeWhitechapel, the police were seen more negatively and attacks by violent gangswere more common.

·The reason for this unpopularity was theeconomic depression and widespread poverty of the 1870s-90s.

·When discontent boiled over into public protestsand the police were called in, they were seen as upholders, not of the law, butof unpopular government decisions.

Policing

Whitechapel was a breeding ground for crime- ranging frompetty theft to murder. This made policing even harder. Many of the crimescommitted were directly linked to poverty and unemployment- people with no workwould resort to crime rather than starve or go to the workhouse.

The Jack the Ripper murders

YouTube Video

In 1888, five women were murdered in and around Whitechapel. The victims were:

Mary Ann Nichols, found in Buck's Row on 31st August.
Annie Chapman, found in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields, on 8th September.
Elizabeth Stride, found in Berners street on 30th September.
Catherine Eddowes, found in Mitre Square, Aldgate, also on 30th September
Mary Jane Kelly, found inside 13 Miller's Court, Dorset Street, Spitalfields, on 9th November.

The police believed that all had been killed by the same person. The murderer was never caught but has been given the nickname 'Jack the Ripper'.

The investigation into the murders provides a case study within which to assess the challenges faced by the police, and methods of investigative policing at this time.

The problem of police and the media

Inspector Frederick Abberline and his CID team were assigned to the Jack the Ripper case by the Metropolitan Police, to assist the uniformed men of H Division. Almost immediately, their task was made much harder by more than 300 letters are postcards sent to them, or to the newspapers, by men claiming to be the murderer.

The problem of police force rivalry

A short time after the discovery of Catherine Eddowes' body, PC Alfred Long of H Division discovered an important clue on Goulston Street half a mile away. It was a piece of Eddowes' apron, smeared with blood and faeces. In the alleyway behind, there was a message scrawled in chalk on the wall: 'The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing'.

Commissioner Warren ordered the message to be washed off before it could be photographed- apparently fearing a backlash against the Jewish community. However, he may have ordered for it to be washed off because Eddowes was killed inside the boundaries of the City of London, which had its own police force, and he did not want to be beaten to the capture of a serial killer by a rival police force. This rivalry between forces was one of the biggest problems in police investigation in and around Whitechapel.

The police investigation

There was much criticism of the police, especially as emotions ran high after a double murder on the 30th September. So Chief Inspector Swanson made a Home Office report on Metropolitan Police methods including:

house-to-house searches
questioning more than 2000 lodging house residents
distributing 80,000 handbills
getting help from the Thames River Police to question sailors in the docks and neighbouring divisions of the Met to search opium dens.

The press heavily interfered with the investigation publishing stories based on the guesswork of journalists and unreliable interviews. The police would then have to follow up these stories wasting valuable time.

Obstacles to police success

Lack of forensic techniques

Without basic forensic techniques, the police's chances of success were severely limited.

It would be another 12 years before fingerprinting was used to detect criminals.
DNA evidence only began to be used in the later part of the 20th century.
Scientists could not yet detect the difference between animal blood and human blood.
Crime-scene photography was only just beginning to be used to record evidence.

This seriously disrupted police efforts. Organised by the local community, the committee took to the streets night after night with burning planks of wood, whistles and hob-nailed boots in the vain attempt that they would catch the Ripper.

It was counter-productive and damaged the police investigation.

Some of these individuals may have been SDF supporters who wanted to make the police and government look stupid. The majority of this committee wanted to embarrass the police by sending false leads and disrupting their work.

Improvements to policing in 1900

This combined physical measurements, photography and record-keeping to identify repeat criminals.

Such physical measurements began to be replaced fingerprint records, however, the Bertillon's photographic method is still used today.

Improvements in communication

In 1888, police could only communicate over distance using a whistle. By the end of the century the Met began to use telephone lines. H Division got their telephone line in 1901 and a telephone exchange was installed at their police station in 1907.

Bicycles were also implemented- H division received these in 1909.

Improvement in environment

The authorities began to improve health and housing in the district and surrounding boroughs with street lighting also being improved.

The Houses of the Working Classes Act (1890) opened the way for the new London County Council to begin developing schemes to replace slums with mass low-cost housing.
The Public Health Amendment Act (1890) gave more powers to local councils to improve toilets, paving, rubbish collection and other sanitary services.

Despite this, although there were no more serial killings, murder continued to occur regularly through the 1890s as youths pretended to be Jack the Ripper.

There was more violence against prostitutes and an increase in burglary in the early 1890s.

YouTube Video

Knoxville, Tennessee's WHITECHAPEL recently parted ways with drummer Kevin Lane and replaced him with Ben Harclerode of the Glendale, Arizona band KNIGHTS OF THE ABYSS. Lane is said to have returned home to Kingsport, Tennessee and is planning to go back to school.

Kevin has released the following statement in response to Internet speculation regarding his departure from the group: 'Over the past years I've had the experience of a lifetime and gotten to travel the world with not only a great band of musicians but some of my best friends. Unfortunately, that time has come to an end. My playing had a falling out over the past year, thus I've decided to come home for good and go back to school full-time.

'The past few tours I had the privilege of my good friend Gavin Parsons to fill my shoes, and now another phenomenal drummer who I believe will do leaps and bounds of improvement to the band as a whole, Ben Harclerode, has moved into the position until the decision for a full-time drummer has been made.'

WHITECHAPEL founding member and guitarist Alex Wade adds: 'It's sad to see Kevin go; he was not just a fellow bandmember, but like a brother to all of us.

'I think it is honorable of him to step down to better the band. He is still, and always will be, an amazing drummer and talented musician; I believe it is just time for a new chapter for WHITECHAPEL.

'That being said, we would like to welcome Ben Harclerode to the band to fill the drumming position. In my opinion, he is one of the most solid and talented drummers in modern metal and we couldn't be more excited for him to be playing with us. Ben will be helping us out until we take further measures to decide on a permanent drummer, but that is just something that is not needed right now, nor are we taking submissions.'

Catch Ben Harclerode and the rest of the WHITECHAPEL guys as they tour across the states as headliners on the 'Welcome to Hell Tour' featuring THE ACACIA STRAIN, VEIL OF MAYA, CHELSEA GRIN, and I DECLARE WAR.

WHITECHAPEL filmed a video for the song 'Breeding Violence' this past Saturday, January 8 at Rocketown in Nashville, Tennessee. The clip was directed by Scott Hansen, who has previously worked on videos for ILL NIÑO, ANIMALS AS LEADERS, WILLIE NELSON, THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA and A DAY TO REMEMBER, among others.

WHITECHAPEL's third album, 'A New Era Of Corruption', sold around 10,600 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 43 on The Billboard 200 chart. Released on June 8 via Metal Blade Records, the CD was recorded at Audiohammer studios in Sanford, Florida with acclaimed producer Jason Suecof (TRIVIUM, ALL THAT REMAINS, THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER, CHIMAIRA, DEVILDRIVER).

WHITECHAPEL's previous album, 'This Is Exile', opened with 5,900 copies in July 2008 to land at No. 117.

New WHITECHAPEL drummer Ben Harclerode:

Whitechapel Keegansclannbritain Project

Old WHITECHAPEL drummer Kevin Lane: