Whitechapel 1888The evidence, and its limits

Case · 9 November 1888

Mary Jane Kelly

Room 13, Miller's Court (rear of 26 Dorset Street), Spitalfields

Her life

Born
c. 1863 (said to be Limerick, Ireland; unverified)
Died
1888-11-09 (probably c. 2.00-4.00 a.m.; disputed), 13 Miller's Court, 26 Dorset Street, Spitalfields
Age
25
Also known as
Marie Jeanette Kelly; Ginger; Fair Emma; Black Mary

Editorial biographyCompiled by the research team from the sources listed below. It summarises those sources and is not itself evidence.

Almost everything known of Mary Jane Kelly's early life comes from what she told Joseph Barnett, and little has been independently verified. She said she was born in Limerick around 1863, moved as a child to Wales where her father, John Kelly, worked in an ironworks, married a collier named Davies at about sixteen, and was widowed two or three years later in a pit explosion. She then lived with a cousin in Cardiff, where she worked as a prostitute and spent months in an infirmary. She came to London about 1884, reportedly worked in a West End brothel and briefly went to France with a client, then lived in the Ratcliffe Highway/St George's area and with men named Morganstone and Joseph Fleming. Younger and more striking than the earlier victims (about 25, fair-haired), she was variously called 'Ginger', 'Fair Emma' and 'Black Mary'. She was quiet when sober and noisy when drunk. On Good Friday 1887 she met Joseph Barnett, a market porter, and from early 1888 they rented the single room 13 Miller's Court from John McCarthy. Barnett lost his job; she returned to the streets, and they separated on 30 October after he objected to her taking in another woman. She was the only canonical victim killed indoors and the most extensively mutilated. She was buried at St Patrick's Roman Catholic Cemetery, Leytonstone, on 19 November 1888; no relative attended.

Last known movements

Compiled timelineEntries are the research team's summaries of the cited sources, not quotations. The time on the left is as reported, and the ≈ line is this site's interpretation of it.

Times in 1888 came from witnesses' estimates, church clocks and police beats, and they rarely agree to the minute. Open an entry to see how its time was read and which testimony mentions the people involved.

  1. Thu 8 Nov, afternoon12:00–18:00

    Spends the afternoon with her friend Maria Harvey, who leaves when Barnett calls.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    8 November 1888, 12:00–18:00. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: "afternoon" read as 12:00–18:00. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook transcription: Mary Jane Kelly inquest, day 1 (12 November 1888), from The Daily Telegraph, 13 November 1888
    Related testimony
    Linked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  2. c. 7.30-7.45 p.m.19:30–19:45

    Joseph Barnett visits her for about a quarter of an hour; she is sober; they part on friendly terms. Barnett leaves about 8 p.m.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    8 November 1888, 19:30–19:45. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: stated range kept as given. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook transcription: Mary Jane Kelly inquest, day 1 (12 November 1888), from The Daily Telegraph, 13 November 1888
    Related testimony
    Linked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  3. c. 11.45 p.m.23:30 – 9 November 1888 00:00

    Mary Ann Cox sees her, very drunk, going into her room with a short, stout man with a blotchy face and carroty moustache carrying a pot of ale; she begins singing 'A violet I plucked from my mother's grave'.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    8 November 1888 23:30 – 9 November 1888 00:00. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: "c." read as ±15 min. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook transcription: Mary Jane Kelly inquest, day 1 (12 November 1888), from The Daily Telegraph, 13 November 1888
    Related testimony
    Linked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  4. Fri 9 Nov, c. 1.00 a.m.00:45–01:15

    Cox returns briefly; Kelly is still singing and a light shows in her room.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    9 November 1888, 00:45–01:15. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: "c." read as ±15 min. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook transcription: Mary Jane Kelly inquest, day 1 (12 November 1888), from The Daily Telegraph, 13 November 1888
    Related testimony
    none linked yetLinked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  5. c. 1.00-1.30 a.m.01:00–01:30

    Elizabeth Prater, who lives above, stands at the court entrance and then goes up to bed, seeing no light and hearing no singing.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    9 November 1888, 01:00–01:30. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: stated range kept as given. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook transcription: Mary Jane Kelly inquest, day 1 (12 November 1888), from The Daily Telegraph, 13 November 1888
    Related testimony
    Linked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  6. c. 2.00 a.m.01:45–02:15

    George Hutchinson (statement to police 12 Nov; did not testify) says Kelly asked him for sixpence in Commercial Street, then went into Miller's Court with a well-dressed man of 'Jewish appearance'; he watched the court for about 45 minutes.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    9 November 1888, 01:45–02:15. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: "c." read as ±15 min. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook: Jack the Ripper, witness page "George Hutchinson"
    Related testimony
    Linked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  7. c. 2.30 a.m.02:15–02:45

    Sarah Lewis sees a stout man in a wideawake hat standing opposite the court entrance, watching it.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    9 November 1888, 02:15–02:45. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: "c." read as ±15 min. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook transcription: Mary Jane Kelly inquest, day 1 (12 November 1888), from The Daily Telegraph, 13 November 1888
    Related testimony
    Linked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  8. c. 3.00 a.m.02:45–03:15

    Cox returns home; Kelly's room is dark and silent.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    9 November 1888, 02:45–03:15. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: "c." read as ±15 min. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook transcription: Mary Jane Kelly inquest, day 1 (12 November 1888), from The Daily Telegraph, 13 November 1888
    Related testimony
    none linked yetLinked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  9. c. 3.30-4.00 a.m.03:30–04:00

    Prater and Lewis each hear a single faint cry of 'Oh - murder!' / 'Murder!'.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    9 November 1888, 03:30–04:00. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: stated range kept as given. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook transcription: Mary Jane Kelly inquest, day 1 (12 November 1888), from The Daily Telegraph, 13 November 1888
    Related testimony
    Linked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  10. c. 6.15 a.m.06:00–06:30

    Cox hears a man go out of the court.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    9 November 1888, 06:00–06:30. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: "c." read as ±15 min. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook transcription: Mary Jane Kelly inquest, day 1 (12 November 1888), from The Daily Telegraph, 13 November 1888
    Related testimony
    none linked yetLinked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  11. c. 8.00-8.45 a.m.08:00–08:45

    Caroline Maxwell claims to have seen and spoken to Kelly at the court entrance; her evidence conflicts with the medical evidence and remains unexplained.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    9 November 1888, 08:00–08:45. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: stated range kept as given. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook transcription: Mary Jane Kelly inquest, day 1 (12 November 1888), from The Daily Telegraph, 13 November 1888
    Related testimony
    Linked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  12. 10.45 a.m.10:45

    Thomas Bowyer, sent by McCarthy for the rent, looks through the broken window and sees the body.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    9 November 1888, 10:45. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: stated clock time; no widening. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook transcription: Mary Jane Kelly inquest, day 1 (12 November 1888), from The Daily Telegraph, 13 November 1888
    Related testimony
    Linked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.
  13. 11.15 a.m.-1.30 p.m.11:15–13:30

    Dr Phillips and Inspector Abberline wait for bloodhounds that never come; the door is forced at 1.30 p.m.

    Evidence and interpretation
    Time interpretation
    9 November 1888, 11:15–13:30. Compiled timeline entry. Normalization: stated range kept as given. Underlying times are witness estimates or police timings; see related testimony.
    Cited by this site's research
    Casebook transcription: Mary Jane Kelly inquest, day 1 (12 November 1888), from The Daily Telegraph, 13 November 1888
    Related testimony
    Linked by matching names in the entry. This does not mean the testimony has been assessed as supporting it.

Investigate this case

Follow the evidence: places on the map, times on the timeline, each claim back to its source passage, then compare suspects and stress-test a theory.

Base map: Booth's poverty map, published 1889 (a year after the murders), georeferenced by this site to about ±10–15 m. Colours are Booth's social classes, not crime data. Details and limits

Charles Booth, Descriptive Map of London Poverty 1889, North-Eastern sheet (Whitechapel and Spitalfields extract). Wellcome Collection (L0074439), via Wikimedia Commons. Charles Booth, Life and Labour of the People. Licence: CC BY 4.0. Source file.

Derived image Georeferenced by this site: the 1889 scan was warped to fit modern coordinates using 9 surviving street junctions (RMS error about 10 m, worst 15 m).

Published 1889, the year after the murders, and drawn on an Ordnance Survey base: details may differ from August 1888. Colours show Booth's 1889 classification of each street's inhabitants (his own, now-dated categories, from black 'lowest class' to gold 'wealthy'); they are not records of the murders. Location markers are positioned from this site's readings of the 1891-5 OS 1:1,056 plan, not from this image, so marker and image can disagree by 10-30 m.

  1. Scene: 13 Miller's Court, Dorset Street — Mary Jane Kelly, as an interactive schematic plan
  2. Map: places, movements and uncertainty
  3. Timeline: who was where, and when
  4. Reconstruction: Bond's time of death (1-2 am)
  5. Reconstruction: Cry of murder = the attack (~3:45-4:00)
  6. Reconstruction: Maxwell accepted (Kelly alive ~8:00-9:00 am)
  7. Reconstruction: Hutchinson's man as the killer (2:00 onward)
  8. Suspects: compare on the evidence, focused on this case
  9. Workbench: stress-test this case's reconstructions
  10. Workbench: which crimes are linked (all five)

Inquest

Editorial summary

Kelly's inquest opened and closed in a single day, 12 November, at Shoreditch Town Hall under Dr Roderick Macdonald, coroner for North-East Middlesex. Jurors immediately challenged his jurisdiction, arguing that Spitalfields belonged to Wynne Baxter's district; Macdonald insisted the body lay in his district (the mortuary at Shoreditch) and overruled them. After viewing the body and Miller's Court, the jury heard twelve witnesses. Barnett gave her life story as she had told it to him; Bowyer and McCarthy described the discovery; and neighbours in the court gave the night's chronology. Cox described the blotchy-faced man and Kelly's singing until after 1 a.m., while Prater and Lewis heard a cry of 'murder' at about 3.30-4 a.m. Caroline Maxwell insisted she spoke to Kelly at about 8.30 a.m. despite the coroner's warning. Dr Phillips gave only a short statement on the position of the body and the cause of death (severance of the right carotid artery), with fuller evidence held back, and Abberline explained the delay over bloodhounds and the burnt clothing in the grate. Macdonald told the jury their only task was to establish the cause of death, leaving the rest to the police, and the jury returned wilful murder against some person or persons unknown that afternoon. The brevity of the inquest was criticised at the time and since, and the detailed post-mortem findings of Dr Thomas Bond and the statement George Hutchinson made to police that evening were never put before the jury. Unusually, the original signed depositions survive (London Metropolitan Archives, MJ/SPC, NE1888, Box 3, Case paper 19).

Read the inquest: 14 witnesses, with verbatim reports

Police photographs

Mortuary or scene photographs taken in 1888. They are hidden until you choose to see them.

Content notice: mortuary or crime-scene photograph

Interior of Room 13, Miller's Court, as drawn for Reynolds's Newspaper, Sunday 18 November 1888 (artist unknown): fireplace, two tables and the bed. The remains are drawn as indistinct masses on the table and bed.

This is a photograph of a deceased person taken by the police in 1888. Some show severe injuries.

Your choice applies to this kind of material for the rest of this browser session.

Content notice: mortuary or crime-scene photograph

Police photograph of the murder scene, 9 Nov 1888 (MJK1) - EXTREMELY GRAPHIC

This is a photograph of a deceased person taken by the police in 1888. Some show severe injuries.

Your choice applies to this kind of material for the rest of this browser session.

Sources for this case

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