Whitechapel, London

In the past few weeks, I have tracked the development of English land policy from the time of the Anglo-Saxons to the 19^th century. Now that I’ve spent some time investigating agricultural planning before parliamentary enclosure, I’m going to resume my research moving forward into urbanization itself. As previously blogged about in Week 1, the serial killer “Jack the Ripper” committed his canonical murders in a low-income district in the east end of London. Thus, this particular blog post will be dedicated to the urban development of Whitechapel so I can touch upon the district’s infrastructural and socioeconomic problems in subsequent posts.

The slum of Whitechapel has historical roots that date back to the Roman occupation. It emerged as a settlement along the side of Whitechapel High Street, a street that once served as the main road between Londinium and Colchester. The road led through the Aldgate (1609, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldgate#/media/File:1600_Aldgate.jpg), the eastern-most access gate of the London Wall. This is why Whitechapel is generally lumped into the urban district known as the “East End.” In the 16^th century, the area had developed into a suburb of the City of London itself. Hard industry would later move in to facilitate the regional economy, as the less-flattering business ventures (such as tanneries and foundries) were able to thrive outside of the city limits. By the 18^th century, London and its surrounding industrial districts established themselves as reputable centers of trade. For example, the famous Philadelphia Liberty Bell (1752, https://www.nps.gov/inde/photosmultimedia-soundofthelibertybell.htm) was casted in a Whitechapel bell foundry. Although the East End once served as a center of economic prosperity, the construction of railroads and suburban communities initiated the region’s decline in the following century.

The Whitechapel Jack the Ripper operated in was a Whitechapel slowly crumbling under civic neglect while struggling to accommodate an influx of landless poor and foreign immigrants. I have already touched upon the demographic shift of the poor from the countryside to the city, and intend on researching local politics and foreign immigration in later blog posts. Nonetheless, Whitechapel could arguably be categorized as a “slum” by the time the canonical murders were committed. It was a dense district with poverty, outdated infrastructure, and limited public facilities. A noteworthy component of Victorian Whitechapel’s urban planning was the common loding. Dr. Andrzej Diniejko of Warsaw University estimates that “There were over 200 common lodging houses which provided shelter for some 8,000 homeless and destitute people per night” (Diniejko, “Slums and Slumming in Late-Victorian London”). We can then infer that Whitechapel was a community on the move; many of its inhabitants had no permanent place of residence.

Poverty was rampant in the Victorian slums, and many struggled to find a steady source of income. Unemployed citizens could also receive assistance from the local parish, but the demographic influx and rising cost of living put economic stress on taxpaying church members. This led Parliament to institute a series of reforms that significantly altered the urban landscape of London and its surrounding districts. For instance, workhouses were constructed by the government to ensure that those receiving welfare had to contribute back to society first through labor. These workhouses doubled as both lodging and labor facilities, and were massive buildings set into the city plan themselves (1913, http://spitalfieldslife.com/2014/04/17/victory-for-east-end-preservation-society/). But workhouse conditions were miserable, so many of the slum’s unskilled residents earned an income by working in crime rackets (for men) and prostitution (for women). This allowed for the demonization of East End districts like Whitechapel, and may explain why these neighborhoods were neglected by the local government.