Response: Clara Collet

Ever since their modern commercialization, the Ripper murders have been accused of promoting misogyny. Feminists have argued that the creation of the “Ripper industry”  has “glamorized violence against women, fetishized the murder of prostitutes, and commercially exploited real-life murder victims” (Engelhart, “Our Jack the Ripper Obsession is Misogynistic,” 2015). Although this “industry” of walking tours and museums aims to preserve a part of London’s history, this claim of misogyny may be valid; after all, the canonical five murders are all examples of extreme violence against women. But historians still can not seem to figure out why two of the five had their uteruses removed, or why the victim’s sexual organs were frequently mutilated or cut.

The Ripper murders are an extreme manifestation of gender inequality in London during the late 19^th century. The two aforementioned social reformers were men, but this “age of reform” was not only limited to working men’s issues. Clara Collet was an associate of Charles Booth and assisted him with his census research in the East End of London. Collet actually lived in the East End for three months while conducting her research, in which she surveyed prostitutes and discussed their concerns about the Ripper murders. It was Collet herself who first articulated the relationship between low-income women and prostitution, noting “it was because of the seasonal nature and poor pay of the work that many of these East End girls were forced to supplement their incomes by working as prostitutes” (McDonald, “Clara Collet and Jack the Ripper,” 2003). Collet’s research was so indicative of wage inequality that her work was published within Booth’s Life and Labour of the People of London.

Collet also spoke to the housing insecurity of working women in the East End. In Life and Labour, she describes a common lodging-house but concludes her observations with “These people were frequently on the move” (Collet, Life and Labour of the People of London, p. 64). This is an interesting observation in the context of the Ripper murders, because if the victims struggled to find permanent residence, then they must have also struggled to keep their friends and families updated. For example, Mary Ann Nicholas sent her father a letter on April 17^th, 1888 from a Rose Hill address, but her father never heard from again (Begg, Definitive History of Jack the Ripper, p. 108). She moved three times after, meaning that her father could not correspond with her—or provide financial assistance—unless she stayed in one place. Thus, housing insecurity played a part in the Ripper murders because women were primarily working as prostitutes to supplement housing income in the first place.

Collet was a leading social reformer who championed women’s rights during a period of rigid gender inequality. Collet would later dedicate her life to civil service, serving on the Board of Trade to assist with social welfare programs.