Annie Chapman
Encyclopedia : A : AN : ANN : Annie Chapman
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The canonical five Jack the Ripper victims |
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| Mary Ann Nichols |
| Annie Chapman |
| Elizabeth Stride |
| Catherine Eddowes |
| Mary Jane Kelly |
As with other Ripper victims, there is some confusion about her personal details. "Dark Annie", as she was known, was 47 years old, in poor health and destitute at the time of her death. Her height was estimated at five feet (1.52 metres). She reportedly was a brunette with blue eyes.
Early life
Chapman was born Eliza Ann Smith in September 1841. She was the daughter of George Smith of the 2nd Regiment Life Guards and Ruth Chapman. Her parents did not marry until nearly six months after her birth, on February 22, 1842, in Paddington, London. Smith was a soldier at the time of his marriage, later becoming a domestic servant.
Marriage and children
On May 1, 1869 Annie married her maternal relative John Chapman, a coachman. For some years the couple lived at addresses in West London, and they had three children:
In 1881 they moved to rural Clewer in Berkshire, where John Chapman took a job as coachman to a farm bailiff. But young John had been born disabled, while their firstborn, Emily Ruth, died of meningitis shortly after at the age of twelve. Due probably to stress caused by their children's misfortunes, both Annie and her husband took to heavy drinking and separated in either 1884 or 1885.
By the time of her death young John was said to be in the care of a charitable school, and the surviving daughter Annie Georgina, then an adolescent, traveling with a circus in the French Third Republic.
Life in Whitechapel
Annie Chapman eventually moved to Whitechapel, where in 1886 she was living with a man who made wire sieves; she was often known as Annie "Sievey" or "Siffey". For three or four years she had been receiving an allowance of ten shillings a week from her husband, but at the end of 1886 payments stopped abruptly. On inquiring, she found her husband had died of alcohol-related causes. The sieve-maker left her soon after, possibly due to the cessation of her income. One of her friends later testified that Chapman became very depressed after this and went downhill.
By 1888 Chapman was living in common lodging houses in Whitechapel, occasionally in the company of Edward Stanley , a bricklayer's labourer, and earning some income from crochet work, making antimacassars and selling flowers, supplemented by casual prostitution. Acquaintances described her as a more accomplished woman than some in the area, and inoffensive, though she drank regularly and her health was failing.
A week or more before her death she was feeling ill after being bruised in a fight with Eliza Cooper, which was uncharacteristic for her. The two were reportedly rivals for the affections of Edward Stanley.
Shortly after midnight on the morning of her death, she, like Mary Ann Nichols, found herself without money for her lodging and went out to earn some on the street. She was probably last seen alive by a woman who believed she saw Chapman in front of 29 Hanbury Street close to 5:30am, talking to a man who may well have been her killer.
Discovery of her body
Chapman's body was discovered about 6:00 on the morning of Saturday, September 8, 1888, lying on the ground near a doorway in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street, Whitechapel. Her killing was very typical of Ripper murders and most similar to that of Catherine Eddowes three weeks later.
Chapman was found with her throat deeply slashed, her abdomen cut open and completely disembowelled, her intestines thrown over her right shoulder. Her killer had taken away her uterus and a portion of the flesh surrounding her navel. Arguably this was the most audacious of Ripper crimes. Evidence indicated Chapman was killed around 5:30am, in daylight, in the enclosed back yard of a house occupied by seventeen people, some of whom were already up and about, with windows overlooking the yard, the only convenient escape route being the narrow passage through the building by which the workman discovering her body had entered the yard. Residents however had seen and heard nothing at the time of the murder.
Dr. George Bagster Phillips who examined the body concluded that her recent ill health was due to tuberculosis. Later researchers suggested that some of her health problems were the result of syphilis. Phillips concluded that the victim was sober at the time of death and had not consumed alcoholic beverages for at least some hours before it.
Further reading
- The Complete History of Jack the Ripper by Philip Sugden, ISBN 0786702761, is widely held to be one of the best books on the topic.
External links
- [Casebook: Jack the Ripper] has numerous articles covering many aspects of the case and reproduces many original source texts relevant to the case.
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