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Stop at Mitre Square and sit down on one of the benches set amongst a small sculptured garden. Take a moment to take in your surroundings.
On three sides, sleek modern office blocks rise confidently into the sky while on Mitre Street, sits a row of carefully maintained Victorian terraced buildings (now occupied mostly by offices and the odd wine bar). On the last side is The Aldgate Primary School guarded by a freshly painted iron gate. Because it’s breaktime, the playground is full of noisy and excited children
Seems harmless enough, doesn’t it?
Now take yourself back 135 years to late summer 1888 with the chill of night drawing in. Draw your coat in close and take another look. The sleek offices blocks are gone and in their place a massive and foreboding warehouse looms over the square. The row of terraced Victorian buildings is no longer clean and well-kept but grimy and sooty. Dark and silent, they give little clue to who lives there. Look behind you. The school is still there, though looks considerably older, and the iron gate has been replaced by a rotting wooden gate. Because it’s night time, the children are gone, leaving an eerie vacuum behind.
As the quiet of the night surrounds, you spot a woman walk slowly into the square. She is swaying slightly and from even a distance you can smell alcohol. She is wearing a jacket and black bonnet though you can just make out auburn hair beneath. She doesn’t seem to be in any hurry.
Your attention is then taken by a man whose arrival into the square has gone almost unnoticed. He is of medium height and build, maybe about 5’7”. He wears a loose-fitting salt and pepper jacket, a grey peaked cloth cap and a red neckerchief. A sailor perhaps? You look away, feeling slightly uncomfortable and when you look back, the woman is facing the man with one hand on his chest, though not seeming to resist him. They seem to be discussing something.
Deciding it’s best to take your leave, you get up from your bench and quickly walk away without looking back.
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On 30th September 1888, a woman was murdered in Mitre Square, her disembowelled body left near the gate of the school.
Her name was Catherine Eddowes. She lived in a nearby common lodging house and earnt her keep by taking casual work and borrowing money where she could.
The previous day she had returned from hop picking in Kent and gone straight to a pub on Aldgate High Street, where she spent the day getting drunk. At 8.30pm a policeman on his beat found her lying asleep on the pavement and took her into custody at Bishopsgate Police Station.
Later that evening she was deemed sober enough to be released, promising the sergeant-on-duty that she would go straight home. Instead, she headed back to Aldgate and was last seen by witnesses at the entrance to Mitre Square, talking to an unknown man. That man was Jack the Ripper and Catherine Edowwes was about to become his fourth victim.
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The serial killer known as Jack the Ripper murdered and mutilated five women in the Whitechapel area during August to November 1888. He was never identified and never caught. Though he is credited with five murders (known as the canonical five) further police investigations at the time put the figure of unsolved murders that bore his hallmarks at eleven.
FOOTNOTE 1. The Sir John Cass’s Foundation Primary school building was rebuilt on its current spot in 1908. It was renamed ‘The Aldgate School’ in 2020, after Sir John’s Cass’s links to slavery were made known. It is the only state funded school in the City of London.