Jack the Ripper's victims were NOT prostitutes but rough-sleeping women, claims ...

Jack the Ripper's victims were not prostitutes but mainly homeless women, a new book has claimed.

Historian Hallie Rubenhold has found evidence to suggest four of the five women murdered by the unidentified serial killer were slain as they slept in the street. 

She points to coroner notes from the time that point out that all the women were stabbed to death while laying down, with minimal struggle and no noise.

Dr Rubenhold argues that 'sexist' attitudes of policemen at the time and researchers in the 130 years since have led to inaccurate beliefs about the victims. 

Her new book The Five claims to be the first first full-length biography ever written about the women, revealing the untold stories of their lives before they were killed. 

Jack the Ripper's victims were not prostitutes but mainly homeless women, a sensational new book has claimed

Jack the Ripper's victims were not prostitutes but mainly homeless women, a sensational new book has claimed

Their stories finally told: Five things you didn't know about The Five

 MARY ANN NICHOLS

1. Grew up in Holborn, off Shoe Lane, in the same warren of streets where Charles Dickens' set Fagin's den in Oliver Twist.

2. Was born Mary Ann Walker, the daughter of a blacksmith and the wife of a printer.

3. She, her husband and her five children were among some of the first families to live in the 'all mod-cons' Peabody Buildings in Lambeth.

4. Slept rough in Trafalgar Square with hundreds of homeless during the period of the Trafalgar Square Riots in 1887.

5. Had lived as a servant in well-to-do Wandsworth shortly before her death.

ANNIE CHAPMAN 

1. Was the daughter of a trooper in the Household Cavalry who later became a gentleman’s valet for an MP and a Crimean War hero.

2. Spent the majority of her life in London between Knightsbridge, Belgravia and Piccadilly.

3. Lived on a country estate in Windsor prior to her death.

4. Annie spent a year in one of Britain’s first alcoholic rehabilitation centres specifically for middle-class women.

5. Towards the end of her life, she walked from Whitechapel to Windsor during Christmas to see her dying husband.

Only Mary Jane Kelly was a prostitute at the time, she claims, while there is no suggestion former sex worker Elizabeth Stride was soliciting on the night she died.

Meanwhile, the other three victims - Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman and  Catherine Eddowes - had working-class jobs as servants and laundry maids.

The Ripper killed his victims in Whitechapel, east London, between September and November 1888, but his identity has never been discovered. 

Dr Rubenhold points out that many women slept rough in the notoriously deprived district, and that police often 'conflated female homelessness with prostitution'.

Four of the five women were found in the street with no money, pointing to rough-sleeping rather than soliciting, she added. 

Mary Jane Kelly, the Ripper's final victim, was the only one discovered in her bed, having worked as a high-class sex worker in Westminster. 

 ELIZABETH STRIDE

1. Was born Elisabeth Gustafsdotter, the daughter of a farmer from outside of Gothenburg, Sweden.

2. During her time in her native Sweden, she worked as a maid for an oboist in the Gothenburg Orchestra.

3. Emigrated to the UK to work for of a wealthy English family and lived in a house near Hyde Park.

4. Married John Stride, a carpenter and the son of a property developer in Sheerness. Together they ran coffee houses in Poplar.

5. Became an accomplished fraudster and claimed to have survived the sinking of the Princess Alice on the Thames in 1878.

CATHERINE EDDOWES

1. Was the daughter of a ‘firebrand’ union agitator from Wolverhampton, West Midlands.

2. Was selected to attend the Dowgate Charity School, in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral.

3. Lived for a time in Birmingham with her uncle, a celebrated bare-knuckle boxer.

4. Travelled the country with her common-law partner, who was named Thomas Conway, writing and selling ballads.

5. Had Thomas Conway’s initials tattooed on her forearm in an apparent show of her love for her partner.

Dr Rubenhold told the Telegraph: 'There is so much more evidence to suggest they were killed in their sleep than that they were working as prostitutes, but the narrative has always gone with the latter view. 

'People are always surprised when I remind them that most of the victims were in their 40s.

'Their sexual capital was extremely reduced so they would have found it difficult to 'turn tricks'.

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