August 31st 2013 marks the 125th anniversary of the first Jack the Ripper murder and yet still the case remains unsolved. Whitechapel Real Time aims to portray Victorian society during 1888 in an accurate and engaging way, placing this tragic series of events in a wider context.
Over the next ten weeks, Peter Thurgood will be placing himself in the shoes of Chief Inspector Abberline to imagine how he would have felt and reacted as the Ripper investigation progressed.
Saturday September 22 1888
I have been putting every single ounce of energy I can muster into the Annie Chapman investigation, sometimes working from seven in the morning until midnight or even later. Now today is the final day of the inquest into Polly Nichols death; I felt I had to go, even though I knew within my heart that there would be nothing new I was going to learn from this. Sure enough I was right, after sitting through yet another couple of hours of the Coroner droning on and on, he ended up by summing the case up with a verdict of ‘wilful murder committed by some person or persons unknown’.
Well I could have told him that!
Sunday September 23 1888
I got up extra early today and decided to surprise Emma by cooking the breakfast and serving it to her in bed. She has been absolutely marvellous in the way she has had to put up with me over the past few weeks, and I felt she deserved a little luxury for once. After breakfast I put on my best Sunday suit and accompanied my lovely wife to church.
Monday September 24 1888
There was the usual deputation of reporters hanging around at the station when I got there this morning, “Any news yet Mr Abberline?” I pushed my way past them, telling them they would be the first to know when we did have any information for them.
As I was just about to enter my office I heard another voice call out, “Is it true you now have a major suspect in this case sir – a man known as Leather Apron?” I spun round to see who had said this, but I didn’t recognise the man, although by his accent, he sounded Scottish. I turned quickly to an officer standing near me and told him to get them out of here. I then went into my office and slammed the door behind me.
“How the hell did they get hold of that name?” I shouted at my sergeant. He didn’t know, any more than I did of course. “Don’t give them anything, no names, nothing, until I say so, is that clear?” I shouted. I think I got the message home!
What they didn’t know was that we had arrested a man named John Pizer some days earlier, who was suspected of being ‘Leather Apron’, but he was soon cleared of any suspicion when it was established that he had cast-iron alibis for the times of both murders. We had decided to keep this from the press as Pizer was a Polish Jew, and we decided it could cause racial tension in the area.
Thursday September 27 1888
God help us, I don’t know what they are going to come up with next. It’s bad enough having the press constantly breathing down my neck, but now, to make matter worse, if that is possible, we have some local busy-body named George Lusk, who calls himself a businessman and has set up what can only be described as his own private police force, going under the name of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee.
Mr Lusk claims that he has received a letter from the murderer, starting with “Dear Boss,” and ending with “Yours truly, Jack the Ripper”
So we now have a name for our murderer, do we?
Peter Thurgood is the author of Abberline: The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper, the first and only biography of Frederick George Abberline, the man who led the hunt for Jack the Ripper.