Context
In the late Victorian era, Whitechapel was considered to be the most notorious criminal rookery in London. The area around Flower and Dean Street was described as "perhaps the foulest and most dangerous street in the whole metropolis"; Dorset Street was called "the worst street in London". Assistant Police Commissioner Robert Anderson recommended Whitechapel to "those who take an interest in the dangerous classes" as one of London's prime criminal "show places". Robbery and violence were commonplace. The district was characterised by extreme poverty, sub-standard housing, homelessness, drunkenness and endemic prostitution. These factors were focused in the institution of the common lodging-house, which provided cheap communal lodgings for the desperate and the destitute, among whom the Whitechapel murder victims were numbered. All the identified victims lived in the heart of the rookery in Spitalfields, including three in George Street (later named Lolesworth Street), two in Dorset Street, two in Flower and Dean Street and one in Thrawl Street.
Police work and criminal prosecutions relied heavily on confessions, witness testimony, and apprehending perpetrators in the act of committing an offence or in the possession of obvious physical evidence that clearly linked them to a crime. Forensic techniques, such as fingerprint analysis, were not in use. Policing in London was—and still is—divided between two forces: the Metropolitan Police with jurisdiction over most of the urban area, and the City of London Police with jurisdiction over about a square mile (2.9 km2) of the city centre. The Home Secretary, a senior minister of the United Kingdom government, controlled the Metropolitan Police, whereas the City Police were responsible to the Corporation of London. Beat constables walked regular, timed routes.
Eleven deaths in or near Whitechapel between 1888 and 1891 were gathered into a single file, referred to in the police docket as the Whitechapel murders. Much of the original material has been either stolen or destroyed.
Read more about this topic: Whitechapel Murders
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