Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 63. Polly Nichols - The Ripper's First Victim

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63. Polly Nichols - The Ripper's First Victim · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You're listening to an airwave media podcast. Hi everybody, and
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: welcome to Hooded What Now the history podcast That's not
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: your history class with me your host Kerry Charlwood, history
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: harlot and reader of books. So this week's episode will
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: start off with a disclaimer, which I think I'm going
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: to have to actually make an official disclaimer for this
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: because I've had a few new listeners sort of join
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: us recently because I was in the paper for stuff
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and things like that, so things have gotten awey. Bit
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Hello new people, Hi, because I was I was in
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: the paper for talking about you know, people in history
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: deserved to be called by their actual names, specially important
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: female figures from history during women's history among Grona always
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: grown ye.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, so that was its own own special thing.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: So, and people who have been listening to me for
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: a while, you are well versed in my use of
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: language and my phraseology and everything that.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: I tend to say.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: So if you were new here, I want to warn
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: you then I swear like a sailor, I curse, I swear.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I use profanity.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Very much. I was gonna say like profanity with pot liberty,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: and then I was like nope, because I keep mixing
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: up that word and mincing on it and it's not working.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: But it's fine.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: So yes, and I have a good few things to
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: talk about today. So I actually have to talk about
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: it giveaway at the end of the show because it's
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: gonna be a giveaway. It's gonna be fun. It's gonna
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: be exciting, is it Maybe it should be? Yes, No,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: promote myself. It's gonna be fun and exciting. So we're
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: gonna talk about that at the end of the show
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: where you can meet me. And it's very good, but
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I should probably given updates to what I've been doing
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: for the past week in a bit that you haven't.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Heard from me.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: So I, well, i had the thing for the paper
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: and then I've got another journalist calling me soon about
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: when I'm currently covering, and yeah, I had two meetings
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: with two separate literary agents. They want to discuss options,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: and I already had a book in mind, but it
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: feels like they don't really feel what I'm doing. And
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: that's fine because like, worst case now, I'll just self
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: publish that one. It's I'm not worried. But they had
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: some really interesting ideas and options about like where things
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: could go and considering the kind of vein that I'm
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: already in, there's some there's some fun ideas floating around.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Oh and people keep like commenting on like videos of
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: mine about something called steps packed lunch on like channel four,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: channel five or something.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: I don't know what it.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Is because I work, so I don't see it, but
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I might try and watch some on YouTube at some
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: point if I have time. I don't watch anything, like
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I'm so behind on so many, so many things, like
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: I still haven't watched season two of ted Lasso, Like
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: that's how far behind watching things I am.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: But anyway, because it's because I'm too.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Busy reading, and I'm not even reading for pleasure. I'm
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: just reading. Well, I say it's not for pleasure because
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I love history. So I mean, okay, so I am.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: I don't read for the sake of reading. Shall we
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: say I read with a purpose?
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, good.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: So longtime listeners will.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Know that there is a very special place in my
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: heart for Harlot's hussies, whores, strumpets, and tarts.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: I love the word strumpet.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: It's just it's big in the mouth, you know what
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I mean. It takes a lot to say it, and
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: I like how it sounds. There was actually a book
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: I saw that was just called strumpet it. I think
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: it was an independently published like local regional story, and
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: I didn't buy it at the time because it was
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: a very expensive book and I didn't have much money
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: on me. But I'm so mad that I didn't because
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: I just want it. But anyway, there is a special
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: place in my heart for people labeled as such, regardless
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: of whether they were or not, that they hold a
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: place dear to me. Also, in addition, furthermore, many of
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: you will be well aware that I have an agenda
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: I do. I do because stories about men and men's
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: lives like that is seen as history just history, and
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: stories about women in their lives is often just pushed
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: to the sidelines. It's specialists, specialized, it's minuscule, it's smaller,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: it's focused, and it's unnecessary, Like quite a lot of
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the time, it's viewed as unnecessary, as if half the
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: population don't matter, like half of human existence irrelevant, like.
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: No.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Firstly, secondly, we always put the concept of men, the
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: idea of men as the important figure and everyone around
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: them are just like you know, the supporting cast. And
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: this is where I'm bothered, right, So you'll know that
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: I covered the Six Wives of Henry the Eighth for
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Women's Story Month way back, and I specifically did it
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: because every single time there was any kind of podcast
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: or story or whatever, it was always, you know, a
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: massive amount of focus was on Catherine of Aragon, and
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: then a massive focus was on Anne Boleyn, and then
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: the rest of them are kind of smushed together either
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: on like one episode or like it's very bitty, you know,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: there wasn't a lot as if there wasn't enough to
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: tell about their lives. Now, if you're filming like an
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: eight part series, you know, and you're running it chronological,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: then that makes sense. But if you're doing a podcast
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: or it's literally a six part series, then you have
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: time to focus on the specifics of these women because
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: every single one of them deserves to have their story told.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: And this is.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Where I kind of ended up here. So I was
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: looking up this and this has been a weird obsession
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: for me for quite a lot of my life because
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: I I have hmm, okay, so unnatural obsessions. I have
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: a few, clearly, and I have a thing about historical
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: crime and okay, poisonings, but that's not relevant here. But
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: historical crime is just a passion of mine, especially turn
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: of the century crime. But why turn of the century crime? Well,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked, because I'll tell you. You see,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: my speciality, like my main focus is actually what I'm
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: an expert in is the rise of sensationalism and the
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: use of print is propaganda in the late modern period.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: So you really see this like through the Georgian era
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: and then massively through the Victorian era, and it is
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: wild because there's no rules for journalism really like people
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: just wrote stuff and I didn't need to be fact
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: checked or anything. There was no like guidelines you could
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: just it was all about selling. So whoever could sell
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: the most kind of you know, did the best and
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: that was the end of the game. So taking that
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: into consideration and the fact that I meticulously searched through records,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: in documents and everything else that goes with it, I
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: really really wanted to focus on the five canonical victims
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: of Jack the Ripper because they have the most information
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: on them. The other victims will be discussed, but I'm
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: probably going to chat about that on the Patreon or
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: because I don't even think I'm going to have an
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: option for time to do bitty swords, so I think
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: I'm just.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Going to do it over there.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: But the six wives of Henry the Eighth, they're only
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: ever seeing as important or relevant in connection with Henry
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: the Eighth. But the tutor Queen's whether you know before
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: or after Henry, depending how much Queen you know, m
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: m m. The things that happened to them in their lives,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the things that they did in.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: Their lives, that's just as important as the arse that
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: graces the throne.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: It's they mattered. I mean, their arts is also grace
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: the throne. But that's not the point, you know what
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: I mean. And here's the thing. The five victims, the
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: five canonical victims of Jack. There were the five that
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: have been definitely absolutely attributed to him, although I have
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: I have opinions about one of them, but that we'll
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: discuss that later. They are only important to the only matter.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: The only reason anybody wants to hear anything about them
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: is because they were victims of a serial killer, a
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: serial killer that you know has never been unmasked, and
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: people care more about their death than they cared about
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: their lives, And that's why I'm here because I feel
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: that it's important to understand who these women were, why
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: they all ended up where they were, and why is
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: the information that has been continuously regurgitated about them, Why
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: is it incredibly incorrect? And why have we been sold
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: this for years? Why have we been falsely told this narrative?
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Like why and why is it such an issue when
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: we want to correct the story and provide the right
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: information and tell their lives, Because the lives of five
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: women should not be less important than the man who
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: murdered them.
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: Like.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: It's one of the reasons why I prefer historical crime,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: historical true crime, to modern true crime. And it's because
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: with modern true crime because of this wave of popularity,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: because we.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Tend to have an obsession with the.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Macab in the dark, and especially as a woman, it
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: is a way of protecting yourself because you are aware
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: of everything that can happen to you. It is a
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: very strange it's a very strange situation, but it is
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: what it is. But the issue is that survivors and
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: the families of victims have to relive trauma and rehear
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: the tales, and that people dissect everything, and people who
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: don't want their stories out there, people who have suffered.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: It's all seen as fair game for like a lot
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: of people, and especially individuals who have no proper training
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: or knowledge within like criminology, psychology, sociology, things like that,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: and they have this love passion interest, if you will,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: in true crime, and so they feel that they have
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: a right to discuss it. You know, at least with
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: historical true crime. You know, everybody has been dead for
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: a while, so I generally don't need to worry about
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: hurting anybody's feelings. And it's a little bit easier to
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: take a critical look when going through documents and understanding
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: information of the time and understanding the bias within it.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: But I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, geez, it's
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: been twelve men, and it's Katie. Quit your jibber jabber
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: in fact me, in fact you.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: I will.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: But first we've got to get our source on. Our
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: sources are life and labor of the people in London,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: religious influences and the Trades of East London by Charles Booth,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: the London Metropolitan Archives, including the Lambeth Board of Guardians
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: and the Lambeth Prince's Road Workhouse, Admissions and Discharges, The
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Five by Hallie Ribinholt, Jack the Repper, Just the Facts
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: by Paul Beck and in Shadows The Dark Side of
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: the Victorian City by Drew Gray. The Complete History of
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Jack the Repper by Philip Sutton. Jack the Repper, The
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Definitive Casebook by Richard Whittington Egan. We also have police
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: reports and new super articles. We have The Strand, we
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: have the Evening News, we have The Times, we have
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: the Guardians. We also have our old favorites, History dot
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: com and biography dot com. Now I also did uncomfortably good.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Then let's begin. Pollie Nichols, as she would come to
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: be known, came into this world as Mary Ann Walker
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: on the twenty sixth of August eighteen forty five.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: She is the second.
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: Child that I know of of Catherine and Edward Walker.
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: She has an older brother, and then I think about
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: three years later, four years later, maybe she has.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: A younger brother.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: So when we're in why she started being called Polly,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but it seems to be just very
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: much how it was. So we're just gonna accept that
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: because that's what she called herself, and we're gonna move on.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: So she's the second child and they live just off
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: of Fleet Straight, So Fleet Straight is basically where all
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: the printing happened. And her father was a blacksmith Edward.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: He was a blacksmith, right, and he was the one
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: who made you know, the bits for the printing press.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: So it was a very I wouldn't say like a
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: high I mean it is a high skill because smithing
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: is a very complicated skill. So you know, he earned
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: more money than he would if he was like like
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: a dock worker or working in a warehouse anything like that.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: So he had skilled labor, you know, but you know,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: money's still tight because it's fucking Victorian London.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: And they live in.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: A one room I don't want to say a house.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: It's like apartment, a one room building. They have a
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: fireplace in it where they do their cooking. They all
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: sleep in the same area, and there's probably a chamber.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Pot in the corner, so.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: They have a pot to piss in at least, and
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: so everything happens together.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: They're in a small room.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: It's not really that big in fairness, especially for a
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: family of five. You know, it's cramped. People didn't really
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: know too much about hygiene at the time.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: You know, it's.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Ah and everyone would get sick. This isn't it time
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: where everyone was just ill. You had like cholera and
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: dysentery and tuberculosis, which is going to become important in
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: a few minutes. It would have been called consumption at
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: the time. So Polly growing up, she's about off a
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: fleet street. And even though they're from the lower class,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: it's not even working classes. I mean it is working
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: class because is what it is, but it's the lower
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: working class. They're very, very poor. But because of where
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: they were, and because you know, the church is around
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: doing the teaching thing, both Polly and her brother were
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: sent to school.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: And schooling doesn't.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Become compulsory I think till like the nineteen seventies or
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: something like that. It's a long time before kids actually
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: legally have to go to school, especially.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Girls like you know boys.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Sure, so unlike a lot of people at the time,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: or a lot of girls at the time, we should
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: say Polly could read and write, which is massive, you know,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: it's it's a skill, a life skill. But it wasn't
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: everybody who was in.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Her social class would have.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: So she learns to read and write it's all good,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: and she's in school for a good while. But when
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: she turns seven years old, Polly ends up becoming the woman.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Of the house.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: She has to run the household because her mum gets sick.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Starts off as a.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Cough and as we know now many of us who
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: have survived a pandemic, as if it's gone away, hasn't.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: It's still around us.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: But you know, sometimes a cough is indicative of something
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: much worse. And this was because what started off is
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: regular coughing turned into coffee blood because Katherine Walker had
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: consumption otherwise known as tuberculosis, and again people didn't really
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: know how it spread. So her younger brother, who I
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: think was about three at the time, not long after
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: their mom dies, her younger brother dies too. Because women,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: you know, they were the primary caretakers. Men were supposed
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: to go out and work, that was their job, like
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: their purpose was to provide for the family, and the
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: women were supposed to take care of the household. That
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: was their full purpose. So they go and do that
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: and well the mom's looking after the wee fella. They
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: both die, I think within a very short period of
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: each other. I think it's only a few months fire
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: member correctly, So Polly Polly ends up having to be
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: the woman of the household.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: She has to do the.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Cooking, the cleaning, the darning, you know, all the general stuff.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: But here's the funny thing. She doesn't have to just
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: do that because she's basically looking after her dad.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: And her older brother.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: But she is still sent to school, so she still
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: gets schooling up until I think maybe eleven twelve, so
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: she's still getting an education as much as her brother is.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Now, as she gets older, she.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Really has to take on more Judy's home I mean,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: not that she hasn't already done them, but she's running
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: the household. And then when she turns eighteen, she catches
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: the eye of a handsome, round faced printer's machinist. Mechanist
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: machinist one of those is correct. I'm not sure which one.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I read words and I don't know how to
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: pronounce them, so someone will correct me. I'm not sure how.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: So they get married. He proposes, what was it, December
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty three, so it's just before Christmas. He proposes
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: to her, so clearly they've been courting for a while,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: because it's the dune thing. You can't just randomly marry
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: I mean you could randomly married person, I suppose, but
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: it was a dune thing to court and to you know,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: ask permission from the father. So he proposes, she says yes,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: and then they get married in January eighteen sixty four,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: and they have two witnesses to their wedding. You know,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: simple affair. They get married, it's all good, and then
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: he moves in to their family home. So Polly she's
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: looking after the household. And then you have three adult
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: men who are working and bringing an income in.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: So they're actually.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Doing pretty well. I mean not amazing because obviously you know,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: but they're they're working, you've got income coming in, and
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: she's you know, doing a bit. But it doesn't really
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: stay the four of them for long. So what was it,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: like a couple months into getting married, she falls pregnant,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: like pretty quickly, and like for all intents and purposes,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: this is a very very typical Victorian family set up.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: They get married, you know, there's in laws. At one point,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: the brother gets married and moves away, and so it's
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: just Polly, her dad and her husband. And fairly quickly,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: you know, especially when you consider you know that, you know,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: biologically it's not actually that easy to get pregnant. It's
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: not easy. You're only fertile for like so many days.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: And when you consider, you know, the health issues that
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: they would have in that era, you know, silent miscarriages
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: were a thing or our thing that we just don't
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: really talk about either. But yeah, So then in a
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: few months of getting my worried, she's pregnant and she
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: gives birth to their first son, first child, Edward John,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: and that the following year. Unfortunately, as is the way
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: with many many infants in this time period, he only
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: lives to be I think a year and nine months
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: and he passes away, which I don't care who you are. Infant,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: lost child, loss of any kind is fucking horrific. And
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: something that we actually have absolutely no information of is
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Polly's mental state. So we don't know if she suffered
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: from post natal depression or anything like that, which very
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: well could be the case when you consider her actions
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: later on. So but we know that way back when,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: or even as far as ten twenty years ago, nobody
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: was discussing this, or at least no people in authority
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: were discussing this. It wasn't accepted, it wasn't allowed to
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: be discussed. You know, as far as Polly was concerned,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: her duty as a Victorian woman, her duty as a
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: woman at all, was to marry.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: And have children. She was supposed to raise a family.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: She was supposed to get married, fall in love, have babies,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: raise those babies. That was her duty, that was what
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: was expected of her. She was to do that for
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: her husband and to God and to everything else in between,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: and to not be that it was basically sin incarnate,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: which is absolutely disgusting, but it is what it is.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: So over time their family grows, so they have I
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: think more children. Yeah, no, I'm wrong, three more children.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: So they have three more children. And with each child,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: the two wedge packets that are coming in.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Are they're getting pretty slam.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: They're getting just thiner and thinner over the years. And
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: again we have absolutely zero fucking information about Polly's mental
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: state throughout this. So they have three more children. Percy
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: George in eighteen sixty eight, Alice Esther in eighteen seventy,
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: Eliza Sarah in eighteen seventy seven, So three children together,
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: and I can only assume I can only assume that
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: in the years between eighteen seventy and eighteen seventy seven
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: that there was definitely miss scarage is happening, because for.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: A married couple, especially in Victorian era, to go seven
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: years without producing any children, there's got to be something
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: it could have been.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: There could be a number of reasons.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Really, it could be their health for either party. It
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: could just be that she started to become.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Aware of when she was fertile.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: She could have studied it up hymns to say, but
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: it's just a very strange thing that they weren't conceiving
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: during this time. I mean, there could be there's a
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: bunch of reasons why people don't conceive. You know a
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: lot of people don't have their periods because of an
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: entire s Morga's board of reasons, including but not limited
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: to stress, malnutrition, ill health. You know, all of these
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: are factors. And let's face it, you're a woman in
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: victim in London, chances are you're gonna be a wee
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: bit stressed. I mean, you have a pot to piss in,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: but it's in the corner of the room. So like
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: they are stretched thin. But luckily for them, a lifeline
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: is on the way. So there was this American philanthropist,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: we'll say a philanthropist. He was a businessman and basically
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: things hadn't gone too well for him. There was a
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: situation we call it the Trent disaster. I'll cover it
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: in another episode, but with regards to Britain, he wasn't
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: really popular due to this situation, and he also you know,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: felt like he wanted to give something back coincidentally to
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: his adopted city of London, and his board of trustees,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: who were also suffering from the Trent affair, agreed with this.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: So when he passed away, he had this agreement. Because
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: he had no heirs aront them, there was nobody to contest,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: there was nobody to you know, take the money. He
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: wanted to invest and build these properties in London for
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: the poor, to house the poor. You know, So how
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: did I put this? You know, the poor but people
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: who weren't like two poor, but people that were like
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: uh poor ish and who were like good poor, like
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: low class, but were they of you know, better treatment,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: the deserving poor. Okay, the Peabody buildings were this lifeline,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: this step, this opportunity for a better life for the nickels.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: So in order to get, you know, into the Peabody buildings.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: In order to be allowed entry into them, you had
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: to be you know, poor, but you had to be working.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: You had to earn money but not too much and
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: not too little. You had to be able to afford
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: to still live there. You had to have a family,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: but not too big a family, because you had to
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: be responsible, even though they don't believe in birth control
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: because they're all like reallying to Jesus and stuff, but whatever,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: it's fine. You had to be clean and helpful and
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: kind and respectable and sober. So like if you were
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: doing dodgy dealings on the side, if you had any
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: criminal history, you know, you would automatically be like nope,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: you would get inspected. So somebody would show up at
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: their house, which they would. Then they would have cleaned
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: up and they would have had themselves all dressed all nice,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: probably in their Sunday best because like they probably only
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: had like one good out for each. If that the
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Peabody people they would come in, they would have.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: A chat with them. They would look at this.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Shack, I say, shack, it's not a shack, it's a
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: fucking building. But it's you know, one room and there's
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: a hearth, and it's not great. You know though, I
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: think at this point they're like in a two room
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: building or whatever. So when they get accepted and they
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: get moved into the Peabody buildings, which is like a
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: lap of luxury in comparison. So they went from living
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: in this just very less than hygienic sort of option
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: to living in a building which had a stove, so
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: no more kicking on the fire. It had working toilets,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: which again used to pissing a pot in the corner,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: you know, so you don't have the smell of urine
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: and faces like wafting through the air. They had several rooms.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: It meant that parents didn't have to share room with
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: their children. People could get like a wee bit of privacy,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: which is nice.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: It's nice.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: So when they moved into the Peabody buildings, they were
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: paying I think what was it five shilling nine pence
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: like that was the rent, which you know, I wouldn't
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: mind paying that now, to be honest, a buyer's market anyone, No,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: it's fine. So anyway they move into the pea bodybuildings
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: and there's rules, you know, you can't have the children
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: running through the corridors. There can't be like lariness loudness.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Everyone has to act with some decorum. Everyone has to
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: have like a high level of cleanliness. Everybody's going to
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: be clean, everyone's going to be respectful. And so they
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: had they had baths downstairs and I think the basement
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: of the buildings, and I mean they were called baths,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: but they could wash every single day if they wanted. Now,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: some enterprising young person might think, hmm, I can make
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: some money out of this and do some like laundry
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: work out of these baths.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: But if you were doing that, you would.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Be kicked out of the Peabody buildings. And in these
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: tenement buildings for the Peabody worthies, there would be a superintendent.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: So the superintendent would.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Keep a watchful eye and a watchful ear out. That's
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: right Eriewigs and the Rabarb right, you know, just to
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: make sure everybody was following the Peabody rules. So if
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: you were well, as the fucked on the reasons, you
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: would get kicked out. Right. So if you were dirty,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: like if your hygiene wasn't at an appropriate level that
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: they deemed, you know, out you go. If you were
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: having improper relations, if your circumstances changed if you decorated
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: your like rooms, Like some of the Peabody buildings had
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: like little rails so that you could hang pictures like
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: on them, but like most of them, you weren't allowed
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: to put pictures up.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: You weren't allowed to decorate in any way.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, I know these people are poor, but per
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: people are still allowed to have nice things. You know,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: if you were doing like side businesses, if you were
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: you know, doing any dodgy dealings, if you were drunk,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: like if members of your family died, you could be
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: moved or you could be kicked out, like there's just
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: a Smorger's board of issues. So they move into the
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: four room tenement building. And again they've got a stove,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: they've got toilets, they've got baths, like they could wash
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: every single day if they want to. I mean, the
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: water was cold, but it is just several like it's
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: not even steps. It's a fucking ladder above where they were,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: you know, so you know, things are strained obviously because
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: you know there's a woman looking after the family, chances
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: are I mean, if this is a traditional Victorian family,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: he's not really helping out. I mean let's just call
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: a spade a spade. All of the childcare that's being
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: thrown on Polly because her purpose as a Victorian woman
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: was to take care of the children. And William his
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: whole thing was to provide financially, like that's his job
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: as a husband. Right. But over the years things get
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: strained because they have how many kids? Now they have
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: their three kids, and I still something is going on
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: that they did not have kids for seven years, right,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying, clearly there was already some issues there.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know what they were. Was it malnutrition, was
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: it illness?
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Was it hmm? Whatever it was?
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Right? Was it him?
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Was he out doing stuff he shouldn't have been doing?
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Hymns to say, But for seven years they don't have kids.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: But they've got three now, and over their time there
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: in the Peabody buildings, you know, they're struggling with what
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: they have, and Polly becomes pregnant again, so they have
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: to move because they're just like it's just not working
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: for them financially.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: They need to downsize.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: So they end up downsizing and moving into a three
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: room tenement next to the Widdler family. So the Viddlers
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: are a widow, and I think her four daughters, one
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: of whom is married, Like they're all teenagers, I think
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: at this point. And Rosetta, her oldest daughter, she married
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: a ship's cook who sailed from Glasgow and was like,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: don't worry, it won't be long. Ah it was long.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: So Rosetta is married, but her husband's off somewhere else.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: So she's estranged, and and maybe she's lonely.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Maybe, you know, married life isn't what it's meant to be.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: And her and her mother, they're both working as charming women,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: which is like just grueling work. So when their neighbors
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: move in and Polly needs assistance with you know, being
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: heavily pregnant and having several small children, the fiddler step
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: into help. And it's very much you know, community, it's
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: very much family.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, isn't it.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Good to have such kind kind neighbors? So like they're
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: helping out. You know, the doors are always open. You know.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: There's movement between these two, a little bit too much movement,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: if you will, because Risetta, this young, you know, forlorn,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: just young women, is spending quite a lot of time
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: with William Nichols and hmm and the Nichols already starts
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: to break down. Now, William says it's because of Pollie's drinking,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: but Polly's father says it's because he William was having
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: an affair with Rosetta. Now, her father also says that
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: William had an affair previously, but William denies this, obviously
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: because he's a respectable Victorian man. And hmm, was Pollie drinking?
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Quite possibly, quite probably was William having an affair? Oh no,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: he was definitely having an affair. He says that the
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: affair didn't like the relationship, didn't occur until after they
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: had separated, But mm hmm, it's m hm sure, sure, honey, sure.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: So the way I see it is, two things can
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: be true at once. You know, if there was an affair,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: if there was a relationship bird between you know, your
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: husband and this young you know neighbor, you know you're struggling.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: You're the main caretaker for these children, and for all
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: we know, she had some form of depression, and she
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: is supposed to shut up and just deal with it, right,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: And so, in a twist that will surprise absolutely fucking nobody,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: Polly and William they start having marital spats like things
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: aren't going well in the home to the point that
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: their arguments cause her to leave. So she leaves, and
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: she would head over to her brother or her father,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: who would then tell her to basically suck it up
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: and go back because like your wife, you're a mother,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: this is your responsibility. Off you go, right, and off
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: she would go, returning back to her unfaithful husband. Now
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: imagine this, like, you have work hard to be the
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: epitome of what you're supposed to be. You're supposed to
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: be a wife, you're supposed to be a mother. You
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: have spent your life caring for family. You've cared for
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: your father and your brother, and your husband and your children,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: and now your husband is shagging the next door neighbor
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: and you have gone to the only family you have
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: left asking them for help, and they tell you to
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: go back to the situation where you are suffering. Let's
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: take that into consideration for a moment, because she is
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: in a very unhappy home life. She is being treated
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: like shit, and we don't know if she was suffering
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: postnatal depression or any kind of postpartum issues. We don't
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: know if she had any physical issues, like if she
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: had cuts, or stitches or anything like that. We know
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: none of it because why would women's health need to
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: be recorded?
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: Mm?
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, why the fuck?
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: So she is suffering, she's in a horrific situation, and
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: it gets to the point where she just can't take
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: it anymore, and she does the only thing she can do,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: which is leave the Peabody buildings for good, which means
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: not only is she leaving her husband, but she has
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: to leave her children. And this is the thing like
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Victorian times, just because the way the divorce laws were
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: just so fucking cruel, it was very difficult, if not impossible,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: for women to get a divorce. Like men could get
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: divorced if well.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: If they could afford it.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: It's all about, you know, if you're rich, fine, and
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: men could get a divorce on the grounds of adultery alone,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: just once, just one count of adultery, right, Their wife
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: could just have one dalliance and done. Women, on the
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: other hand, needed adultery and another thing. So there needs
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: to be adultery plus abuse, adultery plus bestiality, you know,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: like there's yeah, like there had to be this plus
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: this because it had to be more difficult for women.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: Because of course it did of course it did. And
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: under you know, Victorian law, she did not have custody, guardianship, ownership,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: if you will, of the children. The children belonged to
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: the husband, so even if she had taken them with.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: Her, he could claim them back.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Like and even if she had taken her children with her,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: how would she support them if it was an option,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: how could she support them? She relied on William's income,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: and yeah, wage gap. Of course there was a fucking
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: wage cap. Of course there was. So during this era
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: it all worked, was deliberately was deliberately designed to pay
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: women less than men so that women could become, you know,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: part of the household, to be good wives and mothers,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: and men could do the earning.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: Like that was it.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: So even if she was busting her ass, you know,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: out working, she wouldn't have earned enough to support all
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: of her children. And we do have to take into
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: consideration the fact that she might have a drinking problem.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Probably does have a drinking problem, because you know, it's
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: a depressing era, you're struggling. Alcohol is a crutch and
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: alcoholism is a fucking disease. So yeah, you know it's
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: not the best way of things, you know, So she
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: does the only thing she can do, which is enter
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: the Lambeth Workhouse. Now, the workhouse exists basically as a
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: last resort. No one wants to enter a workhouse, and
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: everything surrounding the workhouse just amplifies that, like it is
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: designed to humiliate and embarrass and everything else that goes
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: with that, Like when she comes in, she's questioned, like
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: she's asked if her children are legitimate, which is designed
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: to just upset and embarrass her, Like that's the point.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: It's supposed to make her feel like absolute shit, because
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: apparently going into the workhouse isn't bad enough. Sorry for
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: this turn of phrase, but they felt like sticking the
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: knife in and twisting it. So she had to go
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: to the workhouse in order to receive maintenance from William,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: because she had to go and claim that she was
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: a deserted wife. And one of the things she claims
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: is that her husband had an affair. And the way
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: it works is, you know, the Guardians, the Lambeth Guardians.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: So she's in the Lambeth Workhouse and the Lambeth Guardians,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: you know, they would pay her maintenance and then they
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: would go to William and go give us the five
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: shillings or whatever, right, get me, gim me, so he
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: would be forced to do that, but he is, you know,
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: he's raising the children. Well, he's got Rosetta now doing
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: the physical raising. She's there, and you know, financially things
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: aren't great. And then on top of that, due to
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: the situation, William was forced to move out of the
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Peabody buildings and into like another like abode. He moves
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: somewhere else, right, him, Rosetta and the kids, and I
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: think him and Rosetta go on to have their own
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: children after this as well, which are in fact illegitimate,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: and they start acting, you know, they start acting like
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: man and wife, but you know, legally they're not because
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: they cannot remarry because he's not divorced.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: You know, it's not an option.
• 43:50
  Speaker 6: And yeah, Victorian society really did not look favorably upon
• 43:57
  Speaker 6: that type of relationship because it's not you know, it's
• 44:01
  Speaker 6: not under God, it's not like legal, No, it's just
• 44:05
  Speaker 6: just dodgy all round.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: It's eighteen eighty one and Polly is in the Lambeth
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: workhouse and then by May of that year she leaves
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: because she's getting her maintenance from William. So she's staying
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: in like boarding houses things like that. But in eighteen
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: eighty two, like early eighteen eighty two, she is back
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: through the gates of Lambeth Workhouse and it's not long
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: after her return there that William seizes his payments to her. So,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, let's face it, he's got his you know,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: his new wife, ish wife, like diet wife, whatever you
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: want to call her. He's a new partner who has
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: then taken over the caretaking juries of raising his children, maybe.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Having a few more.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: So he is, you know, supporting that household. But he
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: also has to pay his five shillings for Mary Ann Nichols, Polly,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: his a strange wife. He doesn't want to do that,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: so he hires a private investigator, like these were all
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: over the papers of the day, right, and their whole
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: job was to you know, prove that the wife was
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: doing something illicit and therefore he no longer had to pay,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: like that was the thing. And so he follows Polly
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: and he says that you know that she's she's in
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: a relationship with a man. So this private investigator, this spy,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: he reports that she's living with George Crowshaw. And I think,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: like the eighteen eighty one census also backs us up,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: so like he's like a scavenger, she's working on a laundry,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: like that's.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: Their whole thing, that's what they're doing. And well, yeah.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: So the relationship does fizzle out and she ends up
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: returning to the workhouse in eighteen eighty two. Now, the
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: thing about this is this is considered adultery because even
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: though you know they're separated, they're not legally divorced. So
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: because she's not legally divorced from William, the fact that
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: she is residing with another man is considered adultery. And
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: even though William is living with another woman and treating
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: her as his wife, his common law wife, that's not
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: taking into question here at all. But because this is
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: seen as adulteress, he no longer has to pay because
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: she is seen as a moral because women always get
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: judged more harshly than men. Kills the praise. It's almost
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: if some things haven't actually fucking changed. So William he
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: sees his payments and the guardians are like, why are
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: you not paying money anymore? And he gets called forth
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: and he tells them, you know she's doing this, she's
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: doing that, she's living with a man. Paully comes forward,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: she goes, I'm not living with anybody because I'm in
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: the workhouse. Like I am here. How could I be
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: with someone when I am in a workhouse? Like what
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: if I was living with someone? Why the fuck? When
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: I come back here? I mean, she probably said it
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: nicer than that, but yeah, but you know this is
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: a man. His word obviously carries more weight than hers does.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: So they go, yeah, sure, absolutely, no problem, William. You're correct.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: You don't have to pay her any money anymore. So
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: she's in the workhouse for the rest of the year
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: and then leaves in about eighteen eighty three and she
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: goes and lives.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: With her father, who is no longer living with her brother.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: He's in his own place, so she moves.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: In with him.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: And Polly Pollie's drinking right, and she's got some friends
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: and she kind of gets away a bit aggressive because
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: alcohol exacerbates things in us, it does, So she's hanging
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: out with friends and she can get.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: Loud and larry and aggressive.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: But she's not going around with any men, Like, that's
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: not a.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: Thing she's doing.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: There's no reports of her being with men. There's no
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: instances of her looking for, you know, male company in
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: any aspect, whether just for her own comfort or like
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: business wise. Nothing, nothing at all but her drunkenness and
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: her dependency on alcohol and her aggression. It all comes
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: to a head where she has a fight with her
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: dad and she just leaves. She goes out the door.
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: Wait, no, no, no. She moves in with her dad.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: In eighty three and moves out in eighty four. And
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: when she leaves, she basically goes from one.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: Man to another.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: And it sounds bad, but it's like she leaves her
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: father's household and she moves in with a widower, Tommy
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Stewart Drew. So he's lost his wife. He requires someone
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: to care for his children. Enter Polly. And for the
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: next couple of years, things seem to be going pretty
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: well for Polly. You know, there's no reports of drunkenness
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: or aggression or abuse or anything. You know, she seems
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: in a fairly stable relationship. She's not you know, using
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: alcohol as a crutch as far as we know. I mean,
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: she might still be, but you know, she's definitely you know, healthier,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: she's cleaner. You know, there's nothing going on, and I
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: mean there's probably a wee bit of that. I want
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: to call it Christian Victorian guilt, because you know, she's
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: technically living in sin, which is probably not great for
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: either of them, but it is what it is, and
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: it's you know, at least comfortable for the two of them.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: But then as as as.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: The way, tragedy strikes and her brother dies in May
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: eighteen eighty six, and what I can only describe as
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: a freak accident, you know, a paraffin lamp.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: He goes to like put it out and.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: It just explodes and he burns to death.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: Her brother, Edward is just flombad.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: Now. I don't know if you've ever seen a burnt body,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: it is a very unpleasant site. And if they did
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: have an open casket, like hmm, that's gonna cause that's
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: gonna cause some nightmares for just everybody involved. And on
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: top of that as well, you have to consider the
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: fact that for most of her life, was since she
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: was seven years old, she helped care for her brother,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: like they were close. Her brother's death hits Polly really
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: fucking hard. And even though she had been managing her drinking,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: she had been you know, controlling her addition to the
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: best of her abilities. Once her brother's untimely demise happens. Yeah,
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: she hits the bottle hard and she is drinking. She
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: is fighting, you know, and her relationship with Thomas Drue
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: just crumbles in bye November. I'm not sure if she
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: leaves or he kicks her out, but their relationship is
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: no more. But the very next month he gets married.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: The widower finds a new bride. Because that's just how
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: things go, isn't it. Like Thomas gets himself a legal wife,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: so he's you know, legally fine and also, you know,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: according to God, doing okay because he's not living in sin.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: And Polly, well, she has nowhere else to go.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, she she could have gone back to her dad,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: but he's grieving. She is grieving, and maybe we're turning
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: back just wasn't an option for her mentally. And yet
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: again November eighty in eighty six, she steps through the
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: gates of the Lambeth Workhouse. Luckily for Polly, though she
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: was only really there a month before she was quote
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: unquote discharged for service to where who the hell knows.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: We don't have that information. Guess it wasn't important. So,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: like a lot of places, they would hire women out
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: from the workhouse because you know, they had transferable skills.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: They could clean things, they could sew things. Then you
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: had to look after babies, and a lot of employers
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: would you know, pay the least amount possible and would
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: overlook the fact that these were the scum of society,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: if you will, because you know, that's.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: How the Victorians saw people from the workhouse.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: This is, you know, the unworthy good thing. We don't
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: tree people like that now, huh.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, she ends.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: Up leaving, going into some kind of service, which was
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: it was initially a thing they used to do for
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: the younger girls, but at some point the middle aged
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: people were sitting too, probably just because they wanted them
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: out and you know, money people just like money and
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: probably thought these women were down in their luck.
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: You know, they're more.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Likely to take the crappier options, which you know, not
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: entirely incorrect. And between then in May eighteen eighty seven,
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: we don't know anything about where Polly was or what
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: she was doing, but she just cannot be dealing with
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: the workhouse. She just can't go through it again. I mean, remember,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: it's designed to be awful, it's designed to be humiliating,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: and she decides her best option is to sleep rough,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: and so she becomes a vagrant, a tramp if you will.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Sheares a tramp lad We love her.
• 54:00
  Speaker 7: And so she's out, you know, doing what vagrants did
• 54:04
  Speaker 7: in the day. They would get day work, they would
• 54:06
  Speaker 7: get you know, pittance. They would beg Like the amount
• 54:10
  Speaker 7: of beggars like in London at the time, compared to
• 54:15
  Speaker 7: other like logged criminal pursuits, shall we say, like there
• 54:20
  Speaker 7: were like four or five six times the amount of
• 54:24
  Speaker 7: beggars than anything else. But because of police attitudes at
• 54:29
  Speaker 7: the time, really you say, police attitudes being adverse to
• 54:34
  Speaker 7: human existence.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: Perhaps you know anyone.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Who was deemed, you know, one of the ills of society.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: They could be labeled anything. It was up to the
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: officer to just decide up.
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: Until the point where they accused the wrong person.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: And then they had to be a teeny very bit
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: more careful, you know, not unlike the cops having to
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: wear body cams today. But I'm just saying, so she ends.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: Up sleeping rough, and.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Well she gets known, she gets arrested in Trafalgar Square.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: So basically there's this beg you know, clear out. They
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: want to get rid of all the tramps, the vagrants,
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: the beggars. They want to get rid of everything because
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: this is the respectable area in London.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: We can't be having that. So there's this massive.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: Attempt to clear out, and obviously a riot happens. There's
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: a brawl, and one of the worst people in it
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: is Polly.
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: Polly.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Polly does not go willingly to the cells, like she
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: gets referred to as like the worst woman on the
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: square because she's aggressive, right, that's why. So over time,
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: like all of Polly's sort of noted like police encounters,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: it's all to do with like drunken, disorderly, you know,
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: herlen abuse, being aggressive, it's all it's like asbo. She's
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: like got an asbo, you know, that's what she's doing consistently.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: Polly's got an ass bo.
• 56:05
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: There is no record of her soliciting, like, there are
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: no records of her selling her body, there are no
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: reports of her prostituting herself. Polly the prostitute.
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: Doesn't exist, nothing, nothing is there.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: So she ends up back in the workhouse in December
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: because you know, London is bloody cold, there's snow in ice,
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: and you know nobody wants prostbite so she ends up
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: having to go back into the workhouse, which you know,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: not super fun because there's barely enough food to survive on.
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: You know, it's not exactly clean. People are often attacked
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: by rats in the workhouse, which is supposed to be
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: the safe place, and they're.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: Being eaten by.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: One part of the perpetrators of the plague.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: But I digress.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: That being said, if you run to Whitechappele now you
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: will actually see rats in all the alleyways. I speak
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: from personal experience, but that's just London, and it's like
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: I think, technically in any city you're no less than
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: like three meters away from any rat as far as
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: I know, like there's always one around.
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: You're always within one mouse.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: Of a rat. But Pauli spends Christmas at the workhouse
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: and then gets sent away because they're like, we're not
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: really sure if you're part of this parish.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: So m bye.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: So she gets sent to the Holeborn Workhouse, who then
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: send her back to Lambeth. They're like, no, no, this
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: is your problem. So when she does go back to
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: the Lambeth workhouse, she is presented with another work opportunity
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: because a middle class family, I.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: Our need of a maid.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: The Kaudreys were Baptists, They were good Christian people, and
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: they believed.
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: In helping the less fortune. So they applied to get a.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Maid from the workhouse, and this would be the only
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: servant they had. But they were a respectable couple and
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: they were teetotal. So for Polly, she felt like this
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: was a better opportunity for her because there was no alcohol,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: and you know, if there isn't the temptation there, then
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: maybe things will work it better for her. So she
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: gets hired in like May, and because she is hired
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: by a respectable middle class family, she is given bonnets
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: and dresses and a change of outfit, because you know,
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: your maid can't always wear the one same thing, you're respectable.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: She might have even had two changes of clothes, which
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: was just like a lot.
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: For Polly at this point.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: She would have had aprons and shoes and all the
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: other stuff that goes with it, right, she would have
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: had all that. But she is the only servant for
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: this couple, and they weren't always at this abode, but
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: when they were there, she was accompanying them to like
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: Mass in church, and she was studying the Bible, and
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: she was writing to her father, with whom she had
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: not really spoken to I think since her brother's funeral
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: as far as I know, And she is hopeful for
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: this opportunity. She thinks things are going to go well
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: for her. But she spends two months there and.
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: She is lonely.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: She has no one to talk to, she has nothing
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: and no offense. But consistently reading the Bible doesn't really
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: seem like a super fun time. And by July, Polly abscorns.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: She gets the heck at a dodge. Polly says, fuck
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: this for a game of soldiers, and she leaves with
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: her like her bonnets in her dresses and a bunch
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: of stuff that she could pawn, like goods like candlesticks
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: and all that kind of shit. She takes it, and
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: she gets she gets out, she's gone, and she ends
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: up back in London, and it's eighteen eighty eight and
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: she's staying in boarding houses lodging houses, but she is
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: staying in women's only lodging houses, like she tends to
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: split a double bed with I think Nelly, her name,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: is the only person whom you could consider a friend
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: to hurt this point, And according to the women she's
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: sharing a room with. Polly is still pretty fond of drink,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: right she is. It's her crutch. She's an alcoholic, and
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: they sold gin by the pint the pint. Imagine drinking
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: a pint of gin. Also gin makes girls cry, so
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: like m sends me who loves gin? Fucking love gin.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: So Over the course of the next few months, Polly's
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: money is running thin, and by the thirtieth of August
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: she doesn't have was it the whatever, the four shillings
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: or whatever it much was to stay in the in
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: the boarding house.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: So Polly had been at the pub.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: And she goes to try and get her room at Wilmet's,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: but she doesn't have the money, and so she gets
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: sent away. And according to you know, the person who
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: ran the lodging house, she states that Polly, you know, said,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: of course I'll get my doss money. What a jolly
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: bonnet I have or you know, I'm paraphrasing, but that's
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: basically it. And it is this phrase which people use
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: to kind of, you know, ascertain that Polly was a
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: proster shit right, you know, even though it's more likely
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: that either a she was planning to pawn the bonnet
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: or b she was looking to beg and you seemed
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: like a more worthy beggar because she had such a
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: pretty bonnet. Right, So Polly is worse for aware, and
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: probably in about half two in the morning, she is
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: seen by Nelly, who tries to convince her to come
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: home with her, but Polly is absolutely slashed and she's
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: not going anywhere. Now, let's take a few things into
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: consideration before we continue this. Tell this is a woman
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: who up until this point has had zero reports of
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: soliciting zero. She specifically stayed in women's boarding houses. She
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: didn't lodge in the mixed ones. She deliberately tried to
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: stay places that were women only, so she wasn't exactly
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: searching for male company. On top of that, if she
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: was out looking to sell sex, if she was doing
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: this on a regular basis, why the fuck was she
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: staying in a boarding house? Would you'd be struggling to
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: cover that money, because if you're doing this on the regular,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have more money. On top of that, one
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: of the things they would do at the time is
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: there was like like a motel. You could rent a
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: room and women would often find a john and go
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: stay there. So they had a warm bed for the night,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: so by two o'clock in the morning, that's where she
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: should have been. Her being out on the street doesn't
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: make sense if she was slustiting. Also in addition, furthermore,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: the fact she's in Whitechapel like that in itself is
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: it just doesn't fucking add up. There is no money
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: in Whitechapel. If she was looking to to like sell herself,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: why would she be in the empty streets in the
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: middle of the night.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: Why wouldn't she be in.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: The busy areas where you know, wealthy men are out
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: looking for a fun time, Like, why isn't she there?
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: It doesn't doesn't add up, None of it makes sense.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: But there she is a woman who is used to
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: sleeping rough and as drunk as a fucking skunk. So
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: Nellie tried to convince her to go home with her.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: She's like, oh no, is very nod bye right.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: All she pops.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: Nellie gives up and goes, goes, goes home, goes to
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: the lodging house, goes to be safe for the night
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: because Polly is convinced that Wilmots aren't gonna let her in,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: and Nellie, you know.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: She offers to cover the cost.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: But Polly, Polly isn't used to consideration or kindness, and
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: she's just stubborn at this point. I think, because when
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: you're drunk and you have an idea in your head,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: you're you're kind of there. You know, there's no real
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: pushing one way or the other with it. And Wilmot's
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: was the only place she wanted to be anyway. She
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: didn't want to have to go and stay in a
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: mixed place, which she didn't feel comfortable. She didn't like
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: being in a a mixed area for her to sleep in,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: because I mean it, let's face it wasn't the safest.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: It wasn't for her. She preferred to be with women
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: and just be you know, protected and safe and not
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: have to.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: Deal with men.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: For whatever reason, she just didn't want to be dealing
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: with that. I get it, I get it.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: But she is drunk as a skunk, She is slushed,
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: she is pie eyed, and she just.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: She must just be exhausted at this point. So at
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: some point during the night off, she walks, well of
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: of she stumbles actually down towards Whitechapel Road, and as
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: she goes she ends up in bucks Row and there's
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: like this gated stable entrance. Because Paulite, not a stranger,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: a sleeping rough, finds herself of a corner in which
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: to rest back, braced against the wall, curled down, scrunched over.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: Like anyone who's ever had to sleep rough, they'll tell
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: you there are ways to make it I mean, not comfortable, but.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: Less awful. Also, she's full of gin sell.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: It's less sleeping and more being unconscious. All she needs
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: is somewhere for her body to just shrink down and rest. Plus,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: she's only five foot two, you know, she's small. She
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: doesn't take up a lot of space. And this is
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: where the crime of opportunity occurs. Someone comes up behind
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: her slits Polly's throat the early hours of the thirty
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: first of August, after reading through criminologists reports and the
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: autopsy notes. And this is someone who has as obsessively
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: like wanted to be a ripparologist, like that was a thing.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: As a child, I was like, I need to be this.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: Although I don't know what person thought, Hey, let's let
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: a child read about these creepy, gruesome murders.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: That's a good.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: Idea, gentle listener. It was not a good idea, but yes,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: I have been obsessing over this for literal decades decades,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: and after just reevaluating all of the information, it makes
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: more sense that she was unsuspectingly got from behind because
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: whoever did this to her did not want a fight,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: because this is a hardy Victorian woman, and as we know,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: Polly Paul is not one to be a shrinking violet.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: Polly will punch you in the face. You know she's
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: we but she will come at you. She is a
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: pocket rocket and she will she will beat you like
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: owe her money. Right, So whoever did this deliberately chose
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: a sleeping women and then did horrifically grewsome things to
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: her body. I'm not gonna describe the attack on her
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: because you know, you can look that up anywhere. You
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: can find how many stab wounds you can find out,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: where you can find out the way in which she
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: was gutted, which honestly appears more like a butcher, just
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: with the quickness it would have had to have been,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: because you know the timeframe it's this is this is
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: a quick a quick goal. And then her body was
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: displayed in a manner to humiliate, because that's that's what
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: that kind of killer does. It was about humiliation, but
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: Polly definitely wasn't the first victim, because this is this
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: is an escalation. Nobody starts off with, you know, disemboweling,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: Like that is not the first step you lead up
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: to disemboweling. But because violence against women wasn't really seen
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: as a big deal in the Victorian era, and some
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: could argue even now that it wasn't either reported or acknowledged,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: and this like, this is definitely not the first one,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: and there she was, So who came before? What led
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: to this? Like there's no signs of actual sexual assault
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: on Polly, Like, there's none of that. So whoever did
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: this did this because they wanted a murderer women, because again,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: literally no evidence to suggest that she was a sex worker,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: literally none. It's only when the police officer was called
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: forward and he's standing or confortable or whatever the fuck
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: he was standing over her body, he goes, Yep, definitely
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: a prostitute. When William Nichols is brought forward, he comes
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: forth and goes, yeah, my wife was never a prostitute,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: A stranger, no adulteress.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: Perhaps, yes, obviously.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: That's why I didn't bear her money, But soliciting, no,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: not a thing like no.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: One suggests this, it's.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: Here's the thing as well. I just want to add
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: this in. It's like the deputy who you know, sent
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: her away from the lodging house, the boarding house, like
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: they've had the police show up and go, you set
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: this woman away, And now this woman has been murdered
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: in this very violent, very horrific, this riper way. Because
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: at the time that kind of like slaying was referred
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: to as like a ripper killing because you ripped through
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: the skin like that was you ripped through the flesh.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: That's that was just the term at the time anyway,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: So she had been slain in this again, worst possible
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: way ever, and you sent her away, you know, is
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: you know, and obviously you're gonna try and say things
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: to big up yourself and make yourself seem like the
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: respectable person and make her seem like a less.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: Than worthy victim.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: I remember reading all of these sort of notes and
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: stay away from the chat rooms and read and everything,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: and it's all like she brought this upon herself. She
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: did this. And it's this concept of like the less dead,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: So like the lower down the rungs of society, you
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: are the less worthy you are as a human and
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: as a result, your death is irrelevant. I mean, that's
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: how Jeffrey Dahmer got away with stuff for so long,
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: because his victims were seen as the less dead.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: But I digress.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: So it seems to me that this whole jolly bonnet statement,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, it could be true, it could have been
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: taken out of context, but it seems to me that
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: it exists as a way of just exonerating, like the
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: deputy of.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: You know, sending this one away to.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: Her death and to vilify and degrade and demean Polly
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: Mary Anne Nichols. Polly Nichols was murdered on the thirty
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: first of August eighteen eighty eight, and her body was
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: put on display or what reason. There could be any
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: number of reasons, and her truly awful death, it is
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: just the culmination. It is the result of a full
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: lemony snicket. I mean, this is a full series of
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: unfortunate events which led to this from society's perception of women,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: because she was seen as less than worthy, because she
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: was a woman who was not with a husband, wasn't
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: taking care of her kids like she had been to
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: the workhouse, she had lived on the streets. So clearly
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: she wasn't acting in a manner befitting the proper Victorian lady.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: She was unworthy, she was less dead, And it is
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: one policeman's assumption which has led to, you know, just
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: the demeaning and degrading and the vilifying and misrepresentation of
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: all of these victims, starting with Polly. And for whatever reason,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: nobody ever wants to discuss that. No one wants to
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: go back into that and maybe assess why this perception
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: was the way it was, or why we so full
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: wholeheartedly agree with it, and why when that's challenged, like
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: people are up in arms about it. Polly Nichols lived
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: a difficult, fucking hard life, like so many women in
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: the Victorian era, which resulted in her being in the
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: wrong place at the wrong time and being slaughtered for it.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: Because apparently destroying her life wasn't enough, the papers, the
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: police Victorian Society decided to destroy her character as well.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying she was a perfect human by any
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: stretch of the imagination. It doesn't mean that she deserves
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: the label that was put upon her after death. And again,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: as I've said before and I'll say it again, I
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: don't see why the lives of five women are deemed
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: as less important than the mystery man who ended them,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: and so ends the tale of Polly Nichols. If you jeez,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: I hate saying this. If you liked this episode, please
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: rate and review five stars. You can say anything, it
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter what you say in like Apple podcast, Spotify,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: anything like that. It doesn't matter what you say. Like
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: you could say anything. You could tell me your favorite recipe,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: or your favorite superhero, or your favorite woman in history
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: you know, or why you don't care who Jack the
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: Ripper was. You can say any of that, or if
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: you want, you can just say nice things, compliments. I mean,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: I could say it's not about ego, but you know
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: it's it wouldn't hurt. I'm just saying.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: But yeah.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: You can follow me on social media as well. I
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: am on Facebook, I'm on Instagram, I'm on TikTok, I'm
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: on Twitter. All the links are down below. If you
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: haven't done the advertising survey, I know it's really annoying,
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: but can you just it's in the show links.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: Go do that.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: If you're an advertiser and you want to advertise with me.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: Host ran Ads also link is in the description down below.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: Now back to the important serious stuff. Also, I am
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: playing a gig this month in Letter Kenny. So if
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: you are in Donegal or Ireland and you want to
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: come see me, tickets run event right.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: Link in the description down below.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: I know, I know, it's almost as if it's consistent
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: if you are, you know, in the middle of I
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: need to get a map and look at it because
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be in Kansas for the Heartland Pagan Festival.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be there. It's going to be awesome.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: I'm doing workshops, in talks and a live.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: Episode woo hoo. Also there's going to be more stuff
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 3: happening on Patreon again down below show notes. It's all there.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: I really need to upgrade my website, but finding time
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 3: with everything else has been difficult. But I will get
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: to it.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: I promise everyone.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: I promise.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: And my laptop has almost died three times while recording this.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: So Patreon dot com slash who did what now pod?
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: I'm fairly certain is it. It's in the description. Don't
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: worry about it, goink. But yes, I am in Kansas,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: and if you want to come to the Heartland Pagan Festival,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: and see me. I am doing a giveaway for a
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: ticket worth one hundred and fifty dollars, So all you
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: have to do is going to my Instagram. There is
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: going to be a post on Monday the twentieth.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: I think it's going to be.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: About nine am Eastern Standard time, just because I wanted
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: to try and get it at a point of the
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: day where a lot of people could could get to it.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: And what I want you to do.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: I'm letting you know in advance because the people who listen.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: To the podcast, you know you.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: I make this for you and I would love you
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: to come see me, and if you're in the area,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: it would be amazing.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: But yes, the post is going to go up Monday, nine.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: Am Eastern Standard time, and it's going to be the
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: giveaway post. I'm letting you know in advance because you
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: guys deserve to know first. So yes, on Instagram nine
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: am Monday, the twentieth of March. I forgot which month
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: it was at nine am Eastern Standard time. And it's
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: going to be like and comment. I mean you can
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: see if you like. I wouldn't say no because it's
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: always good for exposure, but like comment, and it's gonna
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: be like your favorite woman from history, but for a
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: podcast followers, for my podcast followers, you're gonna get a
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: double dip into the draw because anyone who adds the
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: code word five into their sentence, they will be sent
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: and they will get a double dip into the draw.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: So you're gonna get two chances to win. And I'm
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: gonna say, you know, listeners of the podcast will know
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: just to give you the extra opportunity because you deserve it,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: because I love you and you're amazing, and I suppose
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: it should I should actually get to the end of
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: this because it's been over an hour of me ranting yes, okay,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: So we have our recommendations, my recommendations because it's all me.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna recommend reading, listening, watching for reading. For reading,
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: we have Bad Bridget and it's based off a podcast
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: that I haven't actually listened to.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: But the book is very good.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: It's about Irish diaspora and Irish immigrants over in America.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 2: Women by the way, and.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: It's it's fab because it is Women's History Month after all,
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: and also Irish American Heritage Month.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: So go read on that.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: For listening, I am gonna recommend any of the Kaiser
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: Chiefs album. I've been re listening to the Kaiser Chiefs
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: and ah, man, I forgot how good learned my lesson
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: Well was like I was, I couldn't sleep and I
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: started listening to it with my earbuds in at like
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: nine am this morning.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: Oh it was so good.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: Just just everything about it just filled me with I
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: don't know, not quite joy, but something good.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: Was very fun and for watching you know what if
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: you haven't seen.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: Everything everywhere all at once, which I saw on the
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: cinema and then had to try and explain to a
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: bunch of girls who were also in the cinema because
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: they didn't get it.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, it's not.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: A difficult concept, but that's not the point. Honestly, watch it.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: It's it's fucking amazing. It deserves all the awards at one.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: It's fabulous. And with that, I'm going to bid you
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: adiew so au revoir Arios of Where does End My Friends?
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: Bye Bye,