Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 64. Annie Chapman - The Ripper's Second Kill

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64. Annie Chapman - The Ripper's Second Kill · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

0:00
Speaker 1: You're listening to an airwave media podcast. Hi everybody, and
0:18
Speaker 1: welcome to Hooded. What now the history podcast that's not
0:21
Speaker 1: your history class? With me? Your host Kerry Charlwood, history
0:25
Speaker 1: harlot and reader of books. Apparently now I have to
0:29
Speaker 1: do a disclaimer at the beginning of every episode, So
0:32
Speaker 1: here we go. If you have an issue with my
0:34
Speaker 1: proclivity for a profanity, you might want to get the
0:38
Speaker 1: fuck out because if my use of language is more
0:42
Speaker 1: of an issue to you than the horrible atrocities which
0:46
Speaker 1: I describe many times, then Paul, I do not know
0:50
Speaker 1: what to tell you. You need to sort out your priorities. Okay, okay.
0:56
Speaker 1: Also want to add there's like a trigger warning for
0:59
Speaker 1: this episode. I'm going to be discussing suicide and child
1:04
Speaker 1: mortality and addiction and murder, you know, violence against women.
1:12
Speaker 1: There's all of that involved in this thought you should know. Now,
1:17
Speaker 1: how are things with me? Well, you know, things are
1:20
Speaker 1: really good. I had an article appear in the newspaper
1:23
Speaker 1: which was pretty cool when I was discussing Grondewel and
1:26
Speaker 1: the importance of you know, giving women their names back
1:30
Speaker 1: and their stories back. And so I was chatting to
1:32
Speaker 1: this journalist and I mentioned that, Oh, yeah, no, I'm
1:34
Speaker 1: covering the five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper because
1:37
Speaker 1: you know, their stories are important to me. Frankly, the
1:41
Speaker 1: lives of five women shouldn't matter less than some dude
1:44
Speaker 1: we don't even know. Oh, if you're in the States,
1:48
Speaker 1: I'm going to be at the Heartland Pagan Festival. My
1:51
Speaker 1: brain just skipped a beat there and I'm at the
1:54
Speaker 1: Pagan Festival in Kansas into the night. It's the Memorial weekend.
2:00
Speaker 1: I am really bad with dates. Did I tell you that?
2:03
Speaker 1: I'm like awful with dates, Not just the ones I
2:07
Speaker 1: go on, but yeah, my mom actually said to me,
2:11
Speaker 1: you know, if you go on a date with someone,
2:13
Speaker 1: it'd be nice if you actually had a second one.
2:17
Speaker 1: Thanks mom, Love that love that voter confidence there, Mom,
2:22
Speaker 1: that's great. I mean she's not wrong, not by any
2:26
Speaker 1: stretch of the imagination. I'm not doing well in the
2:29
Speaker 1: dating department. Really, it's it's I don't know. Well, here's
2:34
Speaker 1: the thing. I mean, if I am too much. Yeah,
2:37
Speaker 1: the last day, one of the last dates I was on,
2:39
Speaker 1: my mom was like, were you a bit much? And
2:42
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, clearly yes, it's me, Like I don't
2:48
Speaker 1: I don't do that kind of stuff like halfheartedly. So
2:54
Speaker 1: I am too much. I mean, you know, is the
2:58
Speaker 1: manic pixie dream girl or is she just you're a
3:00
Speaker 1: divergent Whom's to say? But here's the thing, like, if
3:04
Speaker 1: I am too much, you are well within your means
3:08
Speaker 1: to go and find less. Bye bye, you know, it's
3:12
Speaker 1: just go. It's co But yeah, it's been, it's been.
3:17
Speaker 1: It's been not great for me in the romance department.
3:19
Speaker 1: And I don't know if it's gonna get any better.
3:22
Speaker 1: I don't know. Oh, it was Mother's Day. It's a
3:27
Speaker 1: mothering Sunday as it's called n it's here in UK
3:30
Speaker 1: and Ireland, right, And so I got two cards, one
3:37
Speaker 1: of which is a lift of Flap situation with like
3:43
Speaker 1: I had to can like follow a path of flowers
3:45
Speaker 1: to each a flower pot, which was like ha ha,
3:47
Speaker 1: I pranked you, but also I love you, which is nice.
3:49
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll take it. Thanks son. And my girl
3:54
Speaker 1: made me this. She made me this card and it
3:57
Speaker 1: had like cut out unicorns on it, but it also
4:00
Speaker 1: had a drawing of me on the inside with one
4:02
Speaker 1: tiny arm, one big mama arm and a snout, which
4:07
Speaker 1: is fine. I guess thanks, thanks for that, Thanks for that, sweetie.
4:13
Speaker 1: And googly eyes, so everything was forgiven with the googly eyes,
4:17
Speaker 1: I love Google eyes, google eyes. Who doesn't love googly
4:20
Speaker 1: eyes though? Like that's well good? So my children know me.
4:24
Speaker 1: At least they have fun cards and it was good. Also,
4:27
Speaker 1: you know, ah, per me, per per little mother over here.
4:31
Speaker 1: You know, if you want to donate and help me
4:33
Speaker 1: celebrate Mother's Day belatedly, paper dot com stage who had one?
4:39
Speaker 1: Owt or's the hood of whatnopod I don't remember? Link
4:43
Speaker 1: is in the description down below. Help me pay for
4:46
Speaker 1: all of these ridiculous old newspaper subscriptions I have. Do
4:51
Speaker 1: you know how many old newspapers I read? It is ridiculous.
4:56
Speaker 1: I mean it's fun because I do enjoy it, but
5:00
Speaker 1: so I am I am too many and also books
5:05
Speaker 1: by by too many books. But it's for reference. I
5:08
Speaker 1: need it. But I know what you're thinking, you're thinking,
5:10
Speaker 1: what your gibber jabber in fact me, in fact you
5:13
Speaker 1: I will. But first we've got to get our source
5:16
Speaker 1: on Jack the Ripper Just the Facts by Paul Begg.
5:23
Speaker 1: Life and Labor of the People in London. Religious Influences
5:26
Speaker 1: by Charles.
5:27
Speaker 2: Bith About Your Drunkards Act of eighteen seventy nine. The
5:32
Speaker 2: Story of the Household Cavalry by Sir George Arthur. The
5:38
Speaker 2: Prostitute's Body, Rewriting Prostitution and Victorian Britain by Nina Atwood.
5:44
Speaker 2: The Five by Halle.
5:46
Speaker 1: Rubin Holt, The Memorials of the Hamlet of Knightsbridge by
5:50
Speaker 1: George Henry Davis. Family Secrets Living with Shame from the
5:55
Speaker 1: Victorians to the present Day by Deborah Cohen. Living in
5:59
Speaker 1: Sinating his husband and wife in nineteenth century England by
6:03
Speaker 1: Ginger Frost.
6:04
Speaker 2: And of course we have history dot com and biography
6:07
Speaker 2: dot com.
6:09
Speaker 1: I use it in coomfortably good. And let's begin dark
6:15
Speaker 1: Annie Annie Chapman, as she will be one day Mississippi.
6:23
Speaker 1: She is yet another woman to suffer under the fucking
6:27
Speaker 1: Victorian shame regime. And also you know, society, culture, and
6:33
Speaker 1: mental illness, which is super fun, super fun. Now. Ah,
6:40
Speaker 1: the more I read into these stories and the more
6:43
Speaker 1: I'm digging through research, just the angrier I've become, Like
6:49
Speaker 1: I'm just enraged, Like I know we can turn around
6:54
Speaker 1: and be like things are so great now, fuck off,
6:56
Speaker 1: don't start that just because things were shit one hundred
6:59
Speaker 1: years ag go doesn't mean they're perfect now. And I
7:01
Speaker 1: don't have time for your bullshit, frankly, but Annie's story
7:07
Speaker 1: is so fucking tragic, like so many of these women
7:11
Speaker 1: who were just insulted and downtrodden and destroyed in life
7:18
Speaker 1: and in death, and any attempt to reclaim their name
7:24
Speaker 1: or their personhood is shat on and spat on by
7:28
Speaker 1: fucking ripperologists. Anyone who calls themselves yeah, hmmm, that was good,
7:34
Speaker 1: cheered on my words, But I'm mad, so I'm gonna
7:36
Speaker 1: keep it in. Anybody who refers to themselves as a
7:39
Speaker 1: ripperologist is a cunt. And I don't say that lightly
7:43
Speaker 1: because they have no respect for the women and their suffering.
7:48
Speaker 1: And this is from someone who wanted to be a ripperologist,
7:52
Speaker 1: like I am fairly certain that in one of the
7:54
Speaker 1: drawers in my bedroom right now, there is a whole
7:57
Speaker 1: thing about the pause ability of the suspects of Jack
8:01
Speaker 1: the Ripper, Like I have a whole thing on it.
8:03
Speaker 1: I've had books on it. I could probably tell you
8:08
Speaker 1: too many, too many locations of where stab wounds happened
8:11
Speaker 1: in certain people like I know far too much about
8:15
Speaker 1: this case and I felt for a lot of the
8:19
Speaker 1: nonsense too, because a lot of the information we were
8:22
Speaker 1: given was regurgitated by the press. You know, this was
8:30
Speaker 1: a time where newspapers would last like a week, sometimes
8:33
Speaker 1: set a week, a couple of weeks, and then some
8:35
Speaker 1: would last for ages and bias and prejudice and everything
8:41
Speaker 1: that goes with it all flung in together, and of course,
8:45
Speaker 1: huh hm, a less than savory police force. I know
8:50
Speaker 1: you're shocked, you're shocked, but I am getting ahead of myself,
8:56
Speaker 1: and I think it's time to turn back and talk
8:59
Speaker 1: about the person. Annie Smith was born in September eighteen
9:06
Speaker 1: forty one, there or thereabouts. Were not entirely sure exactly
9:12
Speaker 1: of her day of birth, but roughly. See. The thing
9:18
Speaker 1: about Annie is she was illegitimate because she was born
9:23
Speaker 1: to Ruth Chapman and George Smith. Now George Smith was
9:31
Speaker 1: a member of the cavalry. He was a soldier. He
9:35
Speaker 1: was a pretty good one, you know, And the army
9:41
Speaker 1: had this thing back in the day that you know,
9:43
Speaker 1: they I mean, they didn't have that much money, so
9:46
Speaker 1: they didn't want them to be, you know, cohorting with
9:51
Speaker 1: ladies of the night, and instead they wanted them to
9:54
Speaker 1: have you know, good working class girlfriends, right, but the
9:58
Speaker 1: intention was to never marry you know, and yes, so
10:03
Speaker 1: it was like a kind of level of respectability because
10:07
Speaker 1: at the time I think the only approved like one
10:13
Speaker 1: and not as wrong six yeah, six, and everye hundred
10:17
Speaker 1: marriages were like approved, So you would have to be
10:22
Speaker 1: really fucking lucky to get it approved. Now, by all accounts,
10:26
Speaker 1: George must have been, you know, just very well liked
10:30
Speaker 1: by his commanding officers, because after two years of being
10:39
Speaker 1: together he is allowed to marry Ruth. But not only that,
10:44
Speaker 1: not only is their marriage approved, but it was backdated
10:48
Speaker 1: in the military records to make it look like they
10:51
Speaker 1: had been you know, married longer and to basically state
10:58
Speaker 1: that Annie was legitimate. So Annie Eliza Smith, She's born.
11:04
Speaker 1: Five months later, Ruth is pregnant again. Because clearly George
11:10
Speaker 1: and Annie had some great passion, right, they clearly had love.
11:19
Speaker 1: So growing up Annie is she's an army brat and
11:26
Speaker 1: this family they live in the barracks, like because at
11:29
Speaker 1: the time, you know, separate housing for army wives military
11:33
Speaker 1: wives wasn't a thing, so they would be like in
11:36
Speaker 1: the corner of a room and sometimes it would be
11:41
Speaker 1: like I want to say, like a curtain like some
11:43
Speaker 1: kind of you know, barrier, but army wives they would
11:49
Speaker 1: wash and breastfeed and do all the other stuff in
11:55
Speaker 1: front of other soldiers. Now I'm not saying that is
12:00
Speaker 1: the safest environment, but uh, it's gonna be one of
12:06
Speaker 1: two things, right, And it's either going to be like
12:09
Speaker 1: really fucking dodgy, because you know, blood is thicker than water, which,
12:13
Speaker 1: by the way, is a thing about soldiers. It's about
12:16
Speaker 1: going into battle together. So the brotherhood of you know,
12:20
Speaker 1: the cavalry, whatever the fuck, they would either be standing
12:23
Speaker 1: up for themselves and you know, turn a blind eye
12:25
Speaker 1: to shit happening, or they would be so close and
12:30
Speaker 1: bonded that you know, they would hold each other accountable
12:33
Speaker 1: and they would ensure the safety of each other's families.
12:36
Speaker 1: Because it's very much, you know, this special little bubble,
12:42
Speaker 1: like it's a particular type of community. So Annie growing
12:48
Speaker 1: up Jesus, I mean, proper army brat. They live in
12:51
Speaker 1: like twelve different places because you know, you're in the army,
12:55
Speaker 1: you don't get to have a same where you're going.
12:58
Speaker 1: Luckily he wasn't posted abroad. Again. I think he just
13:02
Speaker 1: add like a really good relationship with his commanding officers,
13:06
Speaker 1: so to aelve locations, but didn't have to like go
13:10
Speaker 1: out to the desert or the jungle, which I think
13:12
Speaker 1: is you know, I mean, that's that's a silver lining. Yeah, definitely.
13:20
Speaker 1: So growing up, Annie would have been sent to this
13:25
Speaker 1: regiment school, so unlike a lot of other working class
13:29
Speaker 1: women or children like, she would learn to like read
13:33
Speaker 1: and write. And then I think at like some point
13:35
Speaker 1: during the day after they did like you know, general learning,
13:39
Speaker 1: like boys would go and do one thing and the
13:40
Speaker 1: girls would learn skills like netting, crochet, embroidery, all that jazz.
13:47
Speaker 1: Because of course women's work, proper lady things, right, proper
13:53
Speaker 1: Victorian ladies were supposed to know how to embroider and
13:57
Speaker 1: other such amazing qualities. I say that as if I
14:00
Speaker 1: don't embroider myself, I do it. I do embroider like
14:04
Speaker 1: I embroider. I can't crochet, I can just about knit,
14:09
Speaker 1: but I can weave, and I can what was the
14:12
Speaker 1: only one I can do? Knit, weave, embroider, and I
14:16
Speaker 1: can darn, so like I can do listen. It's good
14:19
Speaker 1: to have skills, just you never know when they're going
14:22
Speaker 1: to come in handy. When the apocalypse comes, I'll be
14:25
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll be reading old houses for clothes, but
14:28
Speaker 1: I can mend things. It's fine. I'm not saying I'd
14:32
Speaker 1: survive the Hunger Games, but you know i'd survive winter.
14:36
Speaker 1: But anyway, the good thing is because of our father's regiment,
14:39
Speaker 1: you know, she's staying in some pretty decent places. She's
14:42
Speaker 1: in Knightspread, she's in Windsor, so she's at least adjacent
14:46
Speaker 1: to society. So Annie grows up to be well mannered
14:51
Speaker 1: and polite and well spoken and a fairly respectable Victorian girl.
14:58
Speaker 1: You know, things are going okay. I mean it's not
15:02
Speaker 1: the best of situations, but at one point, I think
15:06
Speaker 1: in about eighteen fifty four, when Annie's twelve, they're living
15:10
Speaker 1: in a shared accommodation with like two other families, which is,
15:15
Speaker 1: you know, pretty good. Unfortunately, a disease is spreading through
15:21
Speaker 1: the city, Scarletina as it was called, which is scarlet fever.
15:27
Speaker 1: So scarlet fever is spreading through and at twelve years old,
15:34
Speaker 1: Annie watches four of her siblings die. And if that
15:38
Speaker 1: isn't tragic enough, it's over the course of three fucking weeks.
15:44
Speaker 1: Three weeks she loses her two and a half year
15:49
Speaker 1: old sister, Miriam, followed quickly by her five month old
15:54
Speaker 1: brother William. The next to go is her five year
16:00
Speaker 1: old brother Eli, and well Eli is being buried. Her
16:07
Speaker 1: other brother is diagnosed with typhus. So George Thomas he is.
16:17
Speaker 1: He's he's either just turned twelve or he's about to
16:20
Speaker 1: be twelve. He's on the cusp, and he passes away.
16:29
Speaker 1: Four of her younger siblings because she's the oldest. So
16:34
Speaker 1: her brother who she grew up with, who she's known
16:36
Speaker 1: her whole life, he's gone. The little sister who she
16:41
Speaker 1: probably would have been looking after while her mum, you know,
16:45
Speaker 1: cared for her newborn. She's gone, the new baby of
16:51
Speaker 1: the family. He's gone. And her five year old brother
16:54
Speaker 1: also gone. Three brothers and a sister. So four out
17:04
Speaker 1: of the six Smith children wiped out in three weeks.
17:10
Speaker 1: And you know, child mortality and inter mortality isn't exactly
17:14
Speaker 1: you know, unsurprising in the era, doesn't make it any
17:19
Speaker 1: less rough on the people that are there, Like it
17:23
Speaker 1: might have been a part of life, but it's still
17:25
Speaker 1: going to be absolutely fucking, got wrenchingly horrific to lose
17:30
Speaker 1: a child. Now, a few years later, in eighteen sixty one,
17:43
Speaker 1: another brother enters the scene. Her mum gives birth to
17:49
Speaker 1: Fontaine Hamilton Smith. He's named after two commanding officers that
17:53
Speaker 1: George Smith had. Clearly he respected them, and they must
18:00
Speaker 1: must have been very They must have mattered, you know,
18:06
Speaker 1: to name his son after these people. It had to
18:08
Speaker 1: be a reason. It can't just have been that they
18:12
Speaker 1: were there, you know. But again, Army life. They must
18:16
Speaker 1: have been there for him and his family in some
18:19
Speaker 1: way during this time, like they would have had to
18:24
Speaker 1: hire doctors that they couldn't afford. So I have a
18:29
Speaker 1: sneaking suspicion that one of the captains, one of these
18:32
Speaker 1: fellas they helped, you know, because also funerals not free,
18:38
Speaker 1: so I have a feeling there was some kind of
18:39
Speaker 1: contribution there. Oh goodness. So yeah, before before Fontaine comes
18:54
Speaker 1: onto the scene, Annie is graced with three more sisters, Emily, Georgina,
19:00
Speaker 1: and Miriam. Clearly they liked that name because they named
19:04
Speaker 1: a second child that But okay, I think it's weird,
19:07
Speaker 1: but to each their own. I'm assuming there was a
19:10
Speaker 1: good reason for this. But you know, by the time
19:15
Speaker 1: Annie is fifteen, chances are you know, school's ending, so
19:20
Speaker 1: that's normally the point where she would be expected to
19:23
Speaker 1: go and do other work. And she had a younger
19:26
Speaker 1: sister who could take over the household so care for
19:31
Speaker 1: the little ones, help her mom out, So there really
19:34
Speaker 1: wasn't a reason for Annie to be there. So Annie
19:38
Speaker 1: gets a job as a domestic servant, and by eighteen
19:44
Speaker 1: sixty one she's actually a housemaid, a living domestic servant
19:51
Speaker 1: for a sixty seven year old successful architect and his
19:54
Speaker 1: retired brother, so William Henry Lewer and whatever retired stockbroker
20:02
Speaker 1: brother's name is, mister Lure. I don't know his name.
20:07
Speaker 1: I couldn't find it. But she was living at their address.
20:10
Speaker 1: She was a domestic servant, and she was like the
20:14
Speaker 1: bottom of the wrong So she was one of three housemaids,
20:18
Speaker 1: and there would have been two above her. So they
20:21
Speaker 1: would have paid her, you know, a fairly okay wage
20:23
Speaker 1: for the time, but they would have taken like Alba
20:26
Speaker 1: off for living, and then they would have given her
20:29
Speaker 1: basically an allowance, or she would buy things for herself
20:33
Speaker 1: like sugar and tea and beer. Why is the beer relevant, Katie?
20:40
Speaker 1: Why do you ask? Well, I'm glad you asked, because
20:44
Speaker 1: I will tell you alcohol is going to be a
20:49
Speaker 1: constant in Annie's life, and she's working a lot, she's
20:57
Speaker 1: far away from family, and she would have got to
21:00
Speaker 1: love to go to like Sunday Mass, to go to
21:02
Speaker 1: church because you know Victorians and they're pieting. But other
21:06
Speaker 1: than that, very little free time, and the free time
21:08
Speaker 1: she did have was probably quite lonely. I mean, there
21:12
Speaker 1: were two other domestics there, but this is a woman
21:17
Speaker 1: who grew up in army barracks and a large family
21:23
Speaker 1: and sharing houses with other people. So I mean this
21:28
Speaker 1: is really going to be one of two ways again,
21:31
Speaker 1: two ways in it. She's either going to be quite
21:34
Speaker 1: happy that she had privacy and time to herself, or
21:40
Speaker 1: she's going to feel secluded and separated from her family
21:46
Speaker 1: and really bloody lonely. And already as a teenager, this
21:52
Speaker 1: girl has suffered trauma like you don't see so many
21:57
Speaker 1: people die and have it not affect you. Speaking of trauma,
22:02
Speaker 1: George Smith had been in the Army for what twenty
22:05
Speaker 1: one years of his life more than that actually, but
22:08
Speaker 1: for twenty one years it had been his life. The
22:12
Speaker 1: Second Regiment Lifeguards had been everything that George and Ruth
22:18
Speaker 1: and their family would have been a part of for
22:22
Speaker 1: the majority of their time together. So when he gets
22:26
Speaker 1: to a certain point in a certain age and he
22:28
Speaker 1: has to retire because of how well he's held in
22:33
Speaker 1: regard and how well he's done and he hasn't caused
22:35
Speaker 1: any shit, he gets a really good position as a
22:41
Speaker 1: gentleman's servant. So a gentleman's valet is, and it is valet,
22:46
Speaker 1: not valets. Valets do car's valets look after gentlemen. They
22:50
Speaker 1: sort their clothes, they take care of them like a
22:52
Speaker 1: personal assistant. They're like above a butler. Really, if one
22:57
Speaker 1: can afford a butler. In the hierarchy of like servitude,
23:02
Speaker 1: being a valet is it's pretty high up there. You're
23:06
Speaker 1: doing well, you are tip top. So he gets into
23:12
Speaker 1: the service of a crimean war hero, right, Roger William
23:18
Speaker 1: Henry Palmer who ends up being elected to parliament. Right,
23:22
Speaker 1: he's a member of parliament. Being a gentleman's valet to
23:29
Speaker 1: you know, a member of parliament, that is, that is
23:33
Speaker 1: a very comfortable life, you know what I say, comfortable
23:36
Speaker 1: life compared to you know, other you know, servantry, servantry,
23:41
Speaker 1: that's not correct, other forms of servitude. Backbreaking labor. You
23:45
Speaker 1: know this is you know, this is upwardly mobile, especially
23:50
Speaker 1: for their station. So he gets to do things that
23:56
Speaker 1: he couldn't do before, and he ends up with a
23:57
Speaker 1: lot more free time. And this is a man who
24:03
Speaker 1: was surrounded by people and is now no longer surrounded
24:06
Speaker 1: by people. So he's gone through a major life change.
24:10
Speaker 1: He's experiencing more alone time, and he's probably having to
24:15
Speaker 1: come to terms with all the shit he's gone through
24:19
Speaker 1: in his life. On the plus side, because he's with
24:25
Speaker 1: the palmer Man, the palmer Man, what the fuck? Anyway,
24:30
Speaker 1: he gets to travel to like Mayo and Ireland and
24:33
Speaker 1: go to castles and estates and manors and gets to
24:36
Speaker 1: just travel a bit, see the world, get to taste
24:41
Speaker 1: their lovely beverages like whiskey and other such delights. See George,
24:47
Speaker 1: unsurprisingly is an alcoholic and you're thinking, wow, that came
24:52
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. It is what it is, but think
24:56
Speaker 1: about it. Victorian era suffer trauma. Thing has booze in it,
25:01
Speaker 1: or probably I'm fetamines. They're like, hey, you got a
25:05
Speaker 1: drinking problem. Take cocaine. No, not cocaine, raisins, No, No,
25:11
Speaker 1: it's cocaine. It's an old jog, but it's a goody
25:16
Speaker 1: and you know, heroin opium. Like they were just like,
25:20
Speaker 1: you're addicted to this, take this other addictive substance. It's fine.
25:24
Speaker 1: It's really fucking weird. But okay, I mean they didn't
25:27
Speaker 1: understand how that worked. But just you know, get to
25:34
Speaker 1: say one thing is a gateway. Drug is more less
25:37
Speaker 1: than a correct It's more drugs. Everything has drugs. You're
25:42
Speaker 1: drinking drugs. Take the drugs. So yeah, he has more
25:48
Speaker 1: alone time and things clearly are starting to weigh on him. Plus,
25:55
Speaker 1: when he was in the barracks and he was with
25:56
Speaker 1: the other soldiers, drinking was probably very much. It's what
26:00
Speaker 1: people did. It's you know, social interaction. Alcohol is the
26:05
Speaker 1: social lubricants, so they say, so him drinking a lot
26:08
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been you know, out of turn. But over
26:14
Speaker 1: the years things get worse for George and the promotion
26:20
Speaker 1: he gets doesn't help. So he ends up balloting for
26:26
Speaker 1: Captain Thomas Naylor Leland and things go well for them.
26:32
Speaker 1: He's a really good valot, he's very well respected and
26:36
Speaker 1: he is really well paid. So for him and Ruth,
26:38
Speaker 1: this is fabulous, you know. But on the thirteenth of
26:45
Speaker 1: June eighteen sixty three, Captain Leyland. He's acting as a
26:50
Speaker 1: steward at these races in Wrexham, right, yes, Wrexham, and
26:58
Speaker 1: he's staying in Officers. And George is staying in this pub.
27:05
Speaker 1: He's sitting in a room of a pub an Elephant
27:06
Speaker 1: and Castle, and he's you know, going to bed for
27:10
Speaker 1: the night. He seems quite cheerful, everybody seems fine. But
27:15
Speaker 1: when they go to look for him in the morning,
27:18
Speaker 1: they find George in a pool of his own blood.
27:23
Speaker 1: Because George has ended his own life, and not any
27:27
Speaker 1: careful way, not in a quiet way, not any pleasant way,
27:30
Speaker 1: by any stretch of the imagination. And you're thinking a
27:33
Speaker 1: pleasant way. You know, people take pills and things. There's
27:36
Speaker 1: easier ways to go. This man slit his own throat. Now,
27:44
Speaker 1: I'm going to stop for a moment to talk about
27:45
Speaker 1: mental illness and addiction, mainly depression and suicidal thoughts, because
27:51
Speaker 1: it can just be a fleeting moment, a tremendous moment
27:56
Speaker 1: of despair, but that moment can be all it takes
28:01
Speaker 1: to snuff out all of someone's existence, and the pain
28:10
Speaker 1: and absolute torture someone must be going through to cut
28:15
Speaker 1: their own throat like that is vicious. Clearly this man
28:23
Speaker 1: was suffering and whether the signs where there or not,
28:29
Speaker 1: his life is over. And this is going to affect
28:32
Speaker 1: everyone in his life, including again his daughter Annie, who
28:39
Speaker 1: has not only watched again four of her siblings die,
28:44
Speaker 1: but now she knows her father has ended his own life.
28:47
Speaker 1: And this is Victorian London. This is you know, blasphemy,
28:53
Speaker 1: a sin, This is horrific. So not only does she
28:56
Speaker 1: have that contend with, she will have this Chris, guilt
29:01
Speaker 1: and shame just smothering her and addiction. In family it's
29:10
Speaker 1: usually herreditary. Not usually, I mean quite often it's hereditary.
29:16
Speaker 1: I'm not going to make any judgments, but it's quite
29:22
Speaker 1: possible that this is the trigger for her, that this
29:26
Speaker 1: is the moment that Annie also starts taking solace in
29:30
Speaker 1: a bottle. Now they do put him down, as you know,
29:34
Speaker 1: suffering from temporary insanity, and that George is fond of
29:39
Speaker 1: a drink. But something peculiar happens because Ruth and her children,
29:47
Speaker 1: like Annie's family, could have very easily ended up in
29:50
Speaker 1: a workhouse. But clearly George had been well respected because Leyland,
29:59
Speaker 1: he had provided some money and then somehow Ruth ends
30:07
Speaker 1: up having a boarding house, and at some point after
30:15
Speaker 1: her receiving this boarding house, a young coachman named John
30:19
Speaker 1: Chapman comes to stay. Now we don't know how Annie
30:23
Speaker 1: came to meet John Chapman, but we do know that
30:28
Speaker 1: somehow their paths crossed, whether she was visiting the lodging
30:32
Speaker 1: house or she was staying there, but they met, they
30:36
Speaker 1: made a connection, They courted, and they got married. May
30:41
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine, the Chapman's are wed and Annie was
30:45
Speaker 1: now missus Annie Chapman, the wife of a gentleman's coachman,
30:51
Speaker 1: which is a step up, like she is working away
30:54
Speaker 1: up in the world, because again this is a very
30:57
Speaker 1: upwardly mobile situation. In eighteen seventy, their first child was born. Now,
31:05
Speaker 1: instead of you know, having her mum come to her,
31:09
Speaker 1: Annie goes back to her mum's house to you know,
31:12
Speaker 1: as soon as she's feels like labors happen and she's like, nope,
31:15
Speaker 1: fuck this for a gemisoldiers, I'm off to my mum's
31:18
Speaker 1: And off she goes, and she gives birth to her
31:20
Speaker 1: first daughter. So little Emily is born, but Emily suffers
31:26
Speaker 1: from epilepsy. Now, at the time this would have been
31:29
Speaker 1: connected to maternal drinking. So if somebody was drinking alcohol,
31:35
Speaker 1: you know, while pregnant, this kind of link was made
31:38
Speaker 1: to epilepsy. In eighteen seventy two, a second daughter is
31:45
Speaker 1: born Ellen Georgina, and she passes away in less than
31:50
Speaker 1: a day. She doesn't survive the day. And in eighteen
31:56
Speaker 1: seventy three and a Georgina she's born with fatal alcohol syndrome.
32:05
Speaker 1: And as someone who has seen this firsthand, not my
32:08
Speaker 1: own kids, my kids are a little tanks, but like it's
32:14
Speaker 1: fairly recognizable. And in an era where boos and drugs
32:21
Speaker 1: were just being thrown at you and in foot, it's
32:25
Speaker 1: not fucking surprising. I mean the Victorian ever know offens
32:29
Speaker 1: really fucking depressing, like great advancements but also shit times.
32:37
Speaker 1: But yeah, Georgina, she's born in eighteen seventy six, she's
32:48
Speaker 1: born in April, and she dies in me. So the
32:52
Speaker 1: first eight years of their marriage, you know, Chapman, he's
32:58
Speaker 1: working in London, he's there, John is a coachman. Things
33:03
Speaker 1: are going well but you know, it's fine. But he
33:10
Speaker 1: does get a better position and gets to leave London.
33:18
Speaker 1: But just before they go, Annie gives birth to George
33:24
Speaker 1: William Harry in eighteen seventy seven and he passes away
33:32
Speaker 1: I think early January and seventy eight. In July eighteen
33:40
Speaker 1: seventy nine, she gives birth to Miriam Lily and she
33:49
Speaker 1: dies at ten weeks old. In eighteen eighty, John Alfred
33:59
Speaker 1: he's born and he suffers from paralysis. According to Annie's sisters,
34:08
Speaker 1: all of this is because Annie drunk. Now Annie's family,
34:12
Speaker 1: a lot of them are part of the temperance movement.
34:14
Speaker 1: They're like so sober anti alcohol, and as we know,
34:18
Speaker 1: alcohol and Victorian times is seen as like big massive sin.
34:21
Speaker 1: There's all this shame and guilt and everything that goes
34:24
Speaker 1: along with it. And yeah, when John gets a job
34:30
Speaker 1: being a coachman or possibly a stud groom, were not
34:34
Speaker 1: entirely sure by the time he's there in working for
34:41
Speaker 1: the Barries, who knew money but wanted to be impressive.
34:45
Speaker 1: So they had lived like pretty close to the royals,
34:49
Speaker 1: and then they had this estate in the countryside. Now
34:54
Speaker 1: they stayed out in this estate and they even they
34:57
Speaker 1: even hosted royalty at times, the Barris obviously, but for Annie,
35:05
Speaker 1: things weren't great because Annie consistently used alcohol as a
35:11
Speaker 1: crutch and Annie not a mean drunk, not an angry drunk.
35:19
Speaker 1: She just seemed to be sad, which given everything she's
35:25
Speaker 1: gone through, I'm not fucking surprised she's upset. She's sad.
35:31
Speaker 1: She's often found wandering, so the police would find her
35:38
Speaker 1: just kind of about. She'd be walking down lanes, sometimes
35:43
Speaker 1: in the middle of the street, sometimes out on a
35:44
Speaker 1: country road. She would just be around. Like. It gets
35:53
Speaker 1: to the point that her sisters, who were avid EA oddlers,
35:58
Speaker 1: they try and get her to take these pledges of temperance,
36:01
Speaker 1: and like at the time, it's basically seen as if
36:04
Speaker 1: you sign your name and you agree that that's all
36:06
Speaker 1: you need, it's gonna make you magically not be an
36:10
Speaker 1: alcoholic and not be addicted to booze. Okay, cool, that's abstinence.
36:18
Speaker 1: Doesn't fucking work, lads, by the way, just saying, but yeah,
36:24
Speaker 1: when Emily, with her oldest daughter is twelve, she gets
36:32
Speaker 1: ill and looks like scarlet fever and clearly something. I
36:39
Speaker 1: think this triggered something in Annie because this reminds her
36:43
Speaker 1: of the time when she lost so much and then
36:47
Speaker 1: when the doctor comes he tells her it's meningitis. So
36:50
Speaker 1: she knows her child's gonna die, and she takes solace
36:53
Speaker 1: in the bottle. Of course she fucking does, because she's
36:55
Speaker 1: an alcoholic. So she starts drinking and off she goes.
37:04
Speaker 1: And one day, when she's drowning her sorrows, Emily dies
37:10
Speaker 1: and she's not with her and she is found wandering
37:18
Speaker 1: between the villages. They find her, and it's this that
37:24
Speaker 1: leads her to go to a sanatorium. So she gets
37:27
Speaker 1: placed in basically a priory. So she goes. She's supposed
37:31
Speaker 1: to detox and get out of it, and appartently, she
37:35
Speaker 1: does pretty well there. She's respectful, she's polite, she doesn't drink,
37:40
Speaker 1: she doesn't try and sneak in stuff. John visits her
37:44
Speaker 1: like things are pretty nice, considering, and she is determined,
37:51
Speaker 1: like she is fully on board. She doesn't want to
37:54
Speaker 1: drink anymore. Her sister is roll like she's a changed woman.
37:58
Speaker 1: She's one of us. She's teetotals, she's fabulous, she's a bioneer.
38:03
Speaker 1: And things are going well for a long time until
38:10
Speaker 1: John gets a cold. He gets a cold one day
38:13
Speaker 1: and he still has to go out and look after
38:16
Speaker 1: the horses and do his bit. That wasn't an intentional
38:20
Speaker 1: pun and he decides, you know what, I'm gonna have
38:24
Speaker 1: a little sniff a wee hot toddy and he does.
38:28
Speaker 1: But before he leaves, he does what he does every
38:31
Speaker 1: day and gives his wife a kiss just before he
38:36
Speaker 1: steps out the door. And it is then that she
38:40
Speaker 1: tastes the whiskey on his lips. And this this just
38:45
Speaker 1: starts a downward spiral. She one way or another, she
38:51
Speaker 1: starts drinking. I don't know if there was any booze
38:54
Speaker 1: in the house. Well there must have been some, because
38:55
Speaker 1: he had a whiskey. But she ends up drinking, and
39:01
Speaker 1: she ends up wandering. And at this point the Barris
39:05
Speaker 1: they are doing pretty well for themselves, and it would
39:08
Speaker 1: be worse than disrespectful, worse than everything else, and they
39:15
Speaker 1: had to get rid of Annie. And John had a choice.
39:20
Speaker 1: He had to choose his wife or his occupation, and
39:25
Speaker 1: the two of them they make a decision to separate,
39:29
Speaker 1: and so they do, and she leaves and she heads
39:33
Speaker 1: for London. But things ended, I don't want to say amicably,
39:38
Speaker 1: but probably as amicably as they could because John is
39:41
Speaker 1: paying her ten shillings a week, which is more than
39:45
Speaker 1: most would have gotten in any form of separation. He
39:48
Speaker 1: is ensuring that he is supporting her because it seems
39:52
Speaker 1: like John truly did love her, and so Annie although
39:58
Speaker 1: having you know, enough money to cover those like middle
40:01
Speaker 1: class treats that she'd become accustomed to that ten shillings
40:07
Speaker 1: generally went towards booze. And when she's living with her family,
40:13
Speaker 1: her pioneering, teetotal, abstinate family, Yeah, that's that's gonna go.
40:19
Speaker 1: It's gonna go really fucking well. No, it's absolutely not.
40:22
Speaker 1: It did not go well. So she gets the heck
40:24
Speaker 1: at a dodge and she ends up well out of Knightsbridge.
40:31
Speaker 1: And this is a woman now who is on the
40:34
Speaker 1: streets of London. She's had to leave her husband and
40:38
Speaker 1: her children. She can't go back to her family. Everything
40:44
Speaker 1: about her is shameful according to Victorian standards. She's not
40:50
Speaker 1: a good wife, a beautiful wife, a good mother. She
40:53
Speaker 1: has an addiction and that is just a fucking sin.
40:57
Speaker 1: How dare she like, Oh, I'm so mad at Victoria,
41:00
Speaker 1: so mad. She just was seen as less than And
41:06
Speaker 1: then she finds comfort in a man, John Sivy, and
41:12
Speaker 1: she gets called missus Sivey. They end up lodging together
41:17
Speaker 1: and a lot of their money goes to booze. Because
41:23
Speaker 1: both of them are alcoholics. They lean on each other.
41:27
Speaker 1: It's a toxic codependent relationship, I guess, but it's all
41:34
Speaker 1: she has, and so she's with him, and she's got
41:39
Speaker 1: her ten shillings from John, but she's also got her
41:44
Speaker 1: crochet and embroidery and her needlework which she sells markets
41:49
Speaker 1: like she sells this. She's got a skill. You know,
41:53
Speaker 1: something came handy told you would come back around. And
41:56
Speaker 1: that's how she supplements like her life style, her living.
42:01
Speaker 1: But also in addition, furthermore, again remember that according to
42:06
Speaker 1: you know, Victorian standards, she's an adultress at this point.
42:12
Speaker 1: Because by eighteen eighty six, you know, they should be fine.
42:16
Speaker 1: They've got John's money, Sivy's working, she's selling her crochet
42:21
Speaker 1: and shit like they should be very comfortable. But they're
42:24
Speaker 1: staying in like the dodgy part of London because they're
42:29
Speaker 1: buying loads of booze. But in December eighteen eighty six,
42:34
Speaker 1: the money stops, the ten shillings, it just ceases. And
42:39
Speaker 1: it's then that Annie finds out that John Chapman is
42:42
Speaker 1: ill deafthely ill. On his deathbed in fact, and Annie
42:47
Speaker 1: walks twenty five miles in two days, like in fucking
42:53
Speaker 1: winter in England. She is going to see her husband,
42:57
Speaker 1: like she has to go to him, and she does,
43:01
Speaker 1: and she sees him and I mean, it's not going
43:05
Speaker 1: to be a pleasant reunion, but clearly the two of
43:07
Speaker 1: them cared for each other. So she finds out that
43:10
Speaker 1: he had retired six months earlier, and it was only
43:14
Speaker 1: when he could not physically get out of his bed
43:17
Speaker 1: that he stopped sending her her support. And when she
43:22
Speaker 1: visits him, she says that he too has succumbed to
43:27
Speaker 1: alcoholism and he's suffering psoriasis of the lover. When John
43:32
Speaker 1: dies and Annie returns to London, she is distraught. She
43:37
Speaker 1: is distressed, she's sobbing, and it's not just the money.
43:43
Speaker 1: This is someone who was an important part of her life,
43:45
Speaker 1: the father of her children. It mattered to her. And
43:48
Speaker 1: not long after her return, Civie leaves. Their relationship is over,
43:53
Speaker 1: whether because she didn't have the extra money or because
43:56
Speaker 1: she was clearly inconsolable over this. The following year, Annie
44:02
Speaker 1: is clearly suffering from tuberculosis. She had consumption and it
44:07
Speaker 1: is really really affecting her to the point where she
44:09
Speaker 1: can't crochet or knit or embroider. She's not able to
44:13
Speaker 1: sell her wares, and she is struggling on the streets
44:17
Speaker 1: of Whitechapel, and every penny is spent on the demon drink,
44:24
Speaker 1: Dark Annie's demon drink. And she couldn't bring herself to
44:28
Speaker 1: go back to her family. She couldn't even consider staying
44:32
Speaker 1: in the tuberculosis ward anything that could have helped her.
44:37
Speaker 1: But when things are dark and awful and you're struggling
44:43
Speaker 1: and suffering, you don't make good decisions. And Annie, now
44:48
Speaker 1: a widow, she starts a relationship up with the stood Stanley,
44:54
Speaker 1: who ends up you know, fitting her bill for like
44:56
Speaker 1: her lodging house and things like that, to the point
44:59
Speaker 1: where he she tells the owner, like the deputy manager,
45:04
Speaker 1: the steward, if you will, whatever you know to make
45:07
Speaker 1: sure she doesn't go with any men, because he's just like, Nope,
45:10
Speaker 1: she is mine. And by all accounts, Annie didn't go
45:14
Speaker 1: with any men. Like there's no record of her anywhere
45:18
Speaker 1: of her soliciting or selling sex or any of that.
45:23
Speaker 1: There is no record of her being a prostitute during
45:26
Speaker 1: her life, not one. But for whatever reason, on the
45:31
Speaker 1: seventh of September. Annie, she doesn't have the bill footed
45:38
Speaker 1: for her. Stanley isn't paying and Annie had managed to
45:43
Speaker 1: get a couple of pennies of her brother Fonteine, and
45:48
Speaker 1: instead of paying for her lodgings, she got beer. And Donovan,
45:54
Speaker 1: who ran the lodging house, he kicked her out and
45:58
Speaker 1: he sent her out onto the streets. And Dannie was
46:00
Speaker 1: no stranger to sleeping rough like a lot of these women.
46:03
Speaker 1: Sometimes he just had to do what you had to do.
46:07
Speaker 1: And so she heads to the yard near Hanbury Street.
46:13
Speaker 1: She goes through the gate and she goes to sleep,
46:16
Speaker 1: and it is then her life is ended, and so
46:22
Speaker 1: ends the story of Dark Annie. Annie Chapman, the second
46:28
Speaker 1: canonical victim of Jack the Ripper, a woman whose life
46:34
Speaker 1: was not just dotted with tragedy. It was rained on,
46:39
Speaker 1: it was showered on. It was a fucking monsoon. And
46:45
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure if there was anything that could
46:47
Speaker 1: have been done to combat that, not with the way
46:50
Speaker 1: society was, not with the way they were conditioned, not
46:54
Speaker 1: with the way women were treated. And that makes me
46:58
Speaker 1: so fucking mad. So what did we learn today? We
47:04
Speaker 1: learned that Victorian society fucking sucks. That John Chapman was,
47:09
Speaker 1: by all accounts, a good husband, and that if you
47:13
Speaker 1: were struggling from mental illness or addiction problems, no matter
47:16
Speaker 1: how hard, no matter how difficult, no matter how desperate
47:19
Speaker 1: they may seem, please get help. Please reach out to somebody,
47:26
Speaker 1: like I'm the worst person to talk to you, because
47:29
Speaker 1: I have struggled with many issues in my life. But
47:34
Speaker 1: even God even talk to me Jesus if it helps,
47:39
Speaker 1: Like I am not the most relatable or you know,
47:42
Speaker 1: considerate person in the world. But fuck, you're struggling, call
47:46
Speaker 1: the Samaritans, call somebody Jesus, email me, like, I will
47:49
Speaker 1: talk to you if you need it, Like I am
47:54
Speaker 1: not the best person at giving advice because clearly I
47:59
Speaker 1: am a puddle of despair. But it's fine. Just take
48:09
Speaker 1: a moment longer. That's all you need. Just one moment
48:14
Speaker 1: after another after another. It's just moments. Let's keep going.
48:22
Speaker 1: But okay. So that so ends the story of Dark Hannie.
48:27
Speaker 1: And if you fuck liked this retelling, liked my information,
48:31
Speaker 1: liked me getting really mad, please rate and review five
48:34
Speaker 1: stars on Spotify, Apple podcasts all that jam, leave good reviews,
48:39
Speaker 1: Please say nice things. If not just talk about how
48:41
Speaker 1: shit people are, like I don't care. I do care.
48:44
Speaker 1: I actually care quite a lot too much, some might say,
48:47
Speaker 1: but let's just skip to the reviews because I'm too
48:51
Speaker 1: mad for reading. You know what, read China Rich Girlfriend,
48:57
Speaker 1: because honestly, if you need some joy and life, the
49:00
Speaker 1: Crazy Rich Asians trilogy is just fantastic. For watching, there
49:07
Speaker 1: is a show called roar on on Apple and it
49:12
Speaker 1: makes me mad, but it's it's it's a good venting thing.
49:16
Speaker 1: And for listening, just listen to Taylor Swift because I
49:17
Speaker 1: think we all need that in our lives. Okay, good,
49:20
Speaker 1: good talk everybody. Now I am going to bid you
49:26
Speaker 1: all farewell. Adios au revoir of What is There? My friends,
49:31
Speaker 1: Bye bye,