The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper

by Hallie Rubenhold

Bringing syphilis into the marital home was considered a social disgrace and a tragedy, but it was one for which errant husbands who visited prostitutes and who kept mistresses tended to be blamed. Medical texts generally addressed the problem from this perspective while partially exonerating the man for his conduct by claiming that the true root of the issue lay with the selfish immorality of those in the sex trade.10 The possibility that a man might choose to marry a woman with a sexual past, who had been exposed to the disease, seemed unconscionable.

Daniel was handsomely rewarded with property. His father left him five houses on Stride’s Row and two houses on Victory Street, which included an additional ‘plot of ground, a stable, a coal shed, a workshop and a garden’. William Stride’s daughter, Sarah Ann Snook, who had made her life only three doors down from her father, was also favoured with two houses on Stride’s Row. John’s affluent brother, Edward, who had remained in Sheerness, trained as a surgeon and became the star of the family, was bequeathed a house on Stride’s Row as well.12 John received nothing, not even a mention or acknowledgement.

women in Catherine’s position, forced to contend with the demands of an infant and young children while simultaneously maintaining the home for her husband on ever-diminishing pay, could not permit themselves the luxury of their own pregnancies, or even their deliveries, keeping them from their duties. Even with occasional help from female relations and neighbours, a woman was expected to be on her feet engaged in ‘the incessant drudgery of domestic labour’ up until the moment of birth. If she didn’t possess the means of paying for assistance during her period of recovery, she had no choice but to be ‘back at the stove, at scrubbing and cleaning, at the washtub … lifting and carrying heavy weights’ within days of her delivery. Such strains did not come without serious health repercussions, including haemorrhages, severe varicose veins and crippling back problems.

Given the family’s limited resources, the fate of the other Eddowes children was a sad inevitability. Neither Elizabeth and Thomas Fisher nor Harriet and Robert Garrett had the means of supporting 13-year-old Thomas, 11-year-old George, 7-year-old Sarah Ann, 5-year-old Mary, or 23-year-old Alfred. On 9 December, a week after the death of their father, perhaps even on the day of his funeral, Alfred and the three youngest were sent to Bermondsey Union Workhouse as orphans.