Capturing Jack the Ripper: In the Boots of a Bobby in Victorian London

by Neil R. A. Bell

Overview

During the autumn of 1888 a serial killer stalked, brutally murdering his way through the East End of London. Some called him the ‘Whitechapel Monster’, while locals referred to him as ‘Leather Apron’, but to the world he was known as Jack the Ripper.The responsibility to capture this ‘murderous fiend’ fell upon the men of London’s Metropolitan and City police forces. Capturing Jack the Ripper investigates the working lives of these men, and what it took to become one of Queen Victoria’s police constables, from recruitment to training to life as a bobby.Join the police as they go out into the dank, crime-infested, gaslit abyss known as Whitechapel and try to capture Jack the Ripper.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781445655208
Publisher:	Amberley Publishing
Publication date:	01/15/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Neil R. A. Bell is one of the most respected students of the Ripper case. He has been published extensively in specialist journals such as Ripperologist and Casebook Examiner, as well as for the BBC. Neil has written numerous articles upon the case and was the runner-up for the Jeremy Beadle Prize for the year’s best articles featured in Ripperologist magazine in 2009 and 2010. Neil has also recently been Police Advisor for the Channel Five documentary Jack the Ripper: The Definitive Story.

Table of Contents

Foreword M. W. Oldridge 5

Part 1 The Establishment of the Police Force 7

1 I Beg to Report 9

2 The Birth of the Bobby 11

3 Recruitment 30

4 Police Stations and Section Houses 42

5 Blue Bottles 60

6 Tecs 93

Part 2 The Murders 7 Emma Smith, 4 April 1888 109 111

8 Martha Tabram, 7 August 1888 119

9 Mary Ann 'Polly' Nichols, 31 August 1888 128

10 Annie Chapman, 8 September 1888 141

11 Elisabeth Stride, 30 September 1888 154

12 Catherine Eddowes, 30 September 1888 171

13 Letters, Leaflets, Lusk and a Lull 188

14 Mary Jane Kelly, 9 November 1888 196

15 After the Canon, 1888-91 211

Notes 222

Acknowledgements 246

Index 249