Dorset Street, London
Encyclopedia
For the Dublin street of the same name, see Dorset Street (Dublin)
Dorset Street was situated at the heart of the Spitalfields
rookery
in the East End of London
, England
. It should not be confused with the road of the same name in Marylebone
, in London's West End
. By repute it was "the worst street in London" and was the scene of the brutal murder of Mary Jane Kelly
by Jack the Ripper
on November 9, 1888. The murder was committed at Kelly's lodgings which were situated at No. 13, Miller's Court entered from a passageway between 26 and 27, Dorset Street.
Laid out in 1674 and originally known as 'Datchet Street' (probably from William Wheler of Datchet
, who owned land in the area), it was given the name Dorset Street soon after. Locally, it was sometimes known as "Dosset Street" or "Dossen Street" either because of the large number of doss-houses it contained or because immigrants to the area found it hard to pronounce the original name. It was a short and narrow street, 400 feet long and 24 feet wide, running parallel with Brushfield Street, to the north, and White’s Row, to the south, and connecting Crispin Street, to the west, with Commercial Street
to the east. An alley called Little Paternoster Row connected Dorset Street with Brushfield Street. In the mid nineteenth century a man called John Miller built some cottages in the back gardens of his properties at 26 and 27, on the north side of Dorset Street. This small area, entered by a passageway between 26 and 27, became known as Miller's Court. No 13 Miller's Court, where Mary Kelly resided and was murdered, was originally the back part of 26 Dorset Street, renumbered and let as a separate residence by her landlord Jack McCarthy and now looking out onto the cottage buildings in the Court rather than the original garden.
By the 1880s, Dorset Street was almost entirely taken up with common lodging-house
s and other sub-standard rented accommodation, mostly let and controlled by two men, Jack McCarthy and William Crossingham. McCarthy and Crossingham were major slum landlords in this area and suspected to be involved in various illegal rackets, such as controlling prostitutes, fencing stolen goods, and arranging prize fights. Only two legitimate businesses were listed in the Post Office Street Directory for 1888: that of Barnett Price, who had a grocery store at No 7, and the Blue Coat Boy public house
, which was run by William James Turner at No 32. It was estimated that on any one night there were no fewer than 1200 men sleeping in Dorset Street's crowded lodging houses.
On the corner of Dorset and Commercial Street stood The Britannia public house. Known as the ‘Ringers’, after the landlord’s surname: a frequent customer was Mary Jane Kelly
. Situated opposite Miller’s Court, at No. 15, was Crossingham’s common lodging-house, with another, also owned by Crossingham, at the corner of Little Paternoster Row, at 35, Dorset Street. It was from this common lodging house that Ripper victim Annie Chapman
was last seen walking up Little Paternoster Row, before turning right into Brushfield Street and heading towards Christ Church, Spitalfields.
In 1901, Frederick Arthur McKenzie
in the Daily Mail
said of Dorset Street:
Dorset Street remained a notorious slum following the murder of Mary Jane Kelly and further murders occurred. In 1901, Mary Ann Austin was murdered with ten wounds to her abdomen at Annie Chapman's former home, Crossingham's Lodging House, at 35, Dorset Street. Later, in 1909 there was a Jack-the-Ripper-like killing in No. 20, Miller's Court, the room directly above no. 13 (which had been occupied by Elizabeth Prater in 1888), when a young woman named Kitty Ronan was found with her throat cut. It was believed that Ronan was a prostitute, and, as in the killing of Mary Jane Kelly, her murderer was never found. As in 1888, the landlord of Miller's Court in 1909 was still John McCarthy. The last murder in Dorset Street was the gangland killing of a Soho club manager and a former middleweight boxer called Selwyn Cooney in February 1960. Cooney was shot in the head at a drinking club on the street, staggered down the stairs into the road and there died.
A vivid description of crime and vice in Dorset street is given in Ralph L. Finn's 1963 memoir of a Jewish boyhood in the East End:
As Finn indicates, by the early years of the twentieth century Dorset Street constituted a small non-Jewish ghetto in what was now largely a Jewish area. Dorset Street was renamed 'Duval Street' on 28 June 1904. In 1920, the Corporation of London
purchased Spitalfields Market
, and began major rebuilding, which included the demolition of the whole of the north side of Duval Street, including Miller's Court. The new fruit market opened in 1928. Another new market development in the 1960s resulted in Duval Street becoming a lorry park for the market. The buildings on the south side of Dorset Street were redeveloped as a multi-storey car park in the 1960s. The north side is bounded by the London Fruit and Wool Exchange building, which is now used primarily as office space for small businesses, as well as housing a fitness centre and a storage warehouse for an import-export company.
Spitalfields
Spitalfields is a former parish in the borough of Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London, near to Liverpool Street station and Brick Lane. The area straddles Commercial Street and is home to many markets, including the historic Old Spitalfields Market, founded in the 17th century, Sunday...
rookery
Rookery (slum)
A rookery was the colloquial British English term given in the 18th and 19th centuries to a city slum occupied by poor people...
in the East End of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It should not be confused with the road of the same name in Marylebone
Marylebone
Marylebone is an affluent inner-city area of central London, located within the City of Westminster. It is sometimes written as St. Marylebone or Mary-le-bone....
, in London's West End
West End of London
The West End of London is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment . Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross...
. By repute it was "the worst street in London" and was the scene of the brutal murder of Mary Jane Kelly
Mary Jane Kelly
Mary Jane Kelly , also known as "Marie Jeanette" Kelly, "Fair Emma", "Ginger" and "Black Mary", is widely believed to be the fifth and final victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper, who killed and mutilated prostitutes in the Whitechapel area of London from late August to...
by Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper
"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...
on November 9, 1888. The murder was committed at Kelly's lodgings which were situated at No. 13, Miller's Court entered from a passageway between 26 and 27, Dorset Street.
History
Datchet
Datchet is an English Thameside village and civil parish situated in the unitary authority of Windsor and Maidenhead in the county of Berkshire. It was transferred to Berkshire from Buckinghamshire in 1974....
, who owned land in the area), it was given the name Dorset Street soon after. Locally, it was sometimes known as "Dosset Street" or "Dossen Street" either because of the large number of doss-houses it contained or because immigrants to the area found it hard to pronounce the original name. It was a short and narrow street, 400 feet long and 24 feet wide, running parallel with Brushfield Street, to the north, and White’s Row, to the south, and connecting Crispin Street, to the west, with Commercial Street
Commercial Street (London)
Commercial Street is a road in Tower Hamlets, east London that runs north to south from Shoreditch High Street to Whitechapel High Street through the East End district of Spitalfields...
to the east. An alley called Little Paternoster Row connected Dorset Street with Brushfield Street. In the mid nineteenth century a man called John Miller built some cottages in the back gardens of his properties at 26 and 27, on the north side of Dorset Street. This small area, entered by a passageway between 26 and 27, became known as Miller's Court. No 13 Miller's Court, where Mary Kelly resided and was murdered, was originally the back part of 26 Dorset Street, renumbered and let as a separate residence by her landlord Jack McCarthy and now looking out onto the cottage buildings in the Court rather than the original garden.
By the 1880s, Dorset Street was almost entirely taken up with common lodging-house
Common lodging-house
A Common lodging-house is Victorian term for a form of cheap accommodation in which inhabitants are lodged together in one or more rooms in common with the rest of the inmates, who are not members of one family, whether for eating or sleeping. The slang term flophouse is roughly the equivalent of...
s and other sub-standard rented accommodation, mostly let and controlled by two men, Jack McCarthy and William Crossingham. McCarthy and Crossingham were major slum landlords in this area and suspected to be involved in various illegal rackets, such as controlling prostitutes, fencing stolen goods, and arranging prize fights. Only two legitimate businesses were listed in the Post Office Street Directory for 1888: that of Barnett Price, who had a grocery store at No 7, and the Blue Coat Boy public house
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
, which was run by William James Turner at No 32. It was estimated that on any one night there were no fewer than 1200 men sleeping in Dorset Street's crowded lodging houses.
On the corner of Dorset and Commercial Street stood The Britannia public house. Known as the ‘Ringers’, after the landlord’s surname: a frequent customer was Mary Jane Kelly
Mary Jane Kelly
Mary Jane Kelly , also known as "Marie Jeanette" Kelly, "Fair Emma", "Ginger" and "Black Mary", is widely believed to be the fifth and final victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper, who killed and mutilated prostitutes in the Whitechapel area of London from late August to...
. Situated opposite Miller’s Court, at No. 15, was Crossingham’s common lodging-house, with another, also owned by Crossingham, at the corner of Little Paternoster Row, at 35, Dorset Street. It was from this common lodging house that Ripper victim Annie Chapman
Annie Chapman
Annie Chapman , born Eliza Ann Smith, was a victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper, who killed and mutilated five women in the Whitechapel area of London from late August to early November 1888.-Life and background:Annie Chapman was born Eliza Ann Smith...
was last seen walking up Little Paternoster Row, before turning right into Brushfield Street and heading towards Christ Church, Spitalfields.
In 1901, Frederick Arthur McKenzie
Frederick Arthur McKenzie
Frederick Arthur McKenzie was a correspondent active in the early 20th century who wrote several books on geopolitical developments in eastern Asia. He was born in Quebec, and described himself as "Scots-Canadian"...
in the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
said of Dorset Street:
"[It]… has recently sprung into undesired notoriety. Here we have a place which boasts of an attempt at murder on an average once a month, of a murder in every house, and one house at least, a murder in every room. Policemen go down it as rule in pairs. Hunger walks prowling in its alleyways, and the criminals of to-morrow are being bred there to-day… The lodging-houses of Dorset Street and of the district around are the head centres of the shifting criminal population of London. Of course, the aristocrats of crime — the forger, the counterfeiter, and the like do not come here. In Dorset Street we find more largely the common thief, the pickpocket, the area meak, the man who robs with violence, and the unconvicted murderer. The police have a theory, it seems, that it is better to let these people congregate together in one mass where they can be easily be found than to scatter them abroad. And Dorset Street certainly serves the purpose of a police trap. "
Dorset Street remained a notorious slum following the murder of Mary Jane Kelly and further murders occurred. In 1901, Mary Ann Austin was murdered with ten wounds to her abdomen at Annie Chapman's former home, Crossingham's Lodging House, at 35, Dorset Street. Later, in 1909 there was a Jack-the-Ripper-like killing in No. 20, Miller's Court, the room directly above no. 13 (which had been occupied by Elizabeth Prater in 1888), when a young woman named Kitty Ronan was found with her throat cut. It was believed that Ronan was a prostitute, and, as in the killing of Mary Jane Kelly, her murderer was never found. As in 1888, the landlord of Miller's Court in 1909 was still John McCarthy. The last murder in Dorset Street was the gangland killing of a Soho club manager and a former middleweight boxer called Selwyn Cooney in February 1960. Cooney was shot in the head at a drinking club on the street, staggered down the stairs into the road and there died.
A vivid description of crime and vice in Dorset street is given in Ralph L. Finn's 1963 memoir of a Jewish boyhood in the East End:
"It was a street of whores. There is, I always feel a subtle difference between an whore and a prostitute. At least we used to think so. Prozzies were younger, and more attractive. Whores were debauched old bags. It teemed with nasty characters - desperate, wicked, lecherous, razor-slashing hoodlums. No Jews lived there. Only a few bold Choots had the temerity even to walk through it. There were pubs every few yards. Bawdy houses every few feet. It was peopled by roaring drunken fighting-mad killers"
As Finn indicates, by the early years of the twentieth century Dorset Street constituted a small non-Jewish ghetto in what was now largely a Jewish area. Dorset Street was renamed 'Duval Street' on 28 June 1904. In 1920, the Corporation of London
Corporation of London
The City of London Corporation is the municipal governing body of the City of London. It exercises control only over the City , and not over Greater London...
purchased Spitalfields Market
Old Spitalfields market
Old Spitalfields Market is a covered market in Spitalfields, just outside the City of London. It is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets....
, and began major rebuilding, which included the demolition of the whole of the north side of Duval Street, including Miller's Court. The new fruit market opened in 1928. Another new market development in the 1960s resulted in Duval Street becoming a lorry park for the market. The buildings on the south side of Dorset Street were redeveloped as a multi-storey car park in the 1960s. The north side is bounded by the London Fruit and Wool Exchange building, which is now used primarily as office space for small businesses, as well as housing a fitness centre and a storage warehouse for an import-export company.