On the morning of June 4, 1889, a group of young boys were playing just near St George's stairs, in Horsleydown. They had been lobbying stones at a parcel that was picking its head outside the water in a playful sense, but when the parcel was recovered it was found to contain a decomposing lower torso of a woman. There were flaps of abdominal skin and the uterus of the victim, complete with cord and placenta, ". The skin was fair, and the mons veneris was covered with light sandy hair. These remains were taken to Wapping police station by Alfred Freshwater of the Thames Police. Several experienced detectives from Scotland Yard and Dr Thomas Bond, the chief surgeon to the Metropolitan police, proceeded to Wapping to commence investigations. Among the first detectives and police at the scene was Melville Macnaghten, the newly appointed Assistant Chief Constable of the Criminal Investigation Department. Dr Bond noticed a slight ooze of blood from the ragged edges of the cut parts of the flesh and stated that the victim wasn't dead for too long.
A few days later near Albert Bridge, Battersea,
Fifteen-year-old Isaac Brett, of 7 Lawrence Street in Chelsea, who earned his living as a woodcutter was walking down the road when he decided to take a bath in the river. Upon submerging he noticed a strange object being nudged by the tide against the muddy foreshore and tied with a bootlace. He took it ashore but didn't open it. Upon the advice of a passing stranger, he took it straight to the Battersea Police Station, where sergeant William Briggs of V division opened it. The assistant divisional surgeon for Battersea, Dr Felix Charles Kempster, was called in. He examined the remains and declared it to be a portion of a human thigh from the hip to knee; his opinion was that the limb had not been in the water above 24 hours. The white cloth was a drawer from the right leg side, and on the waistband was embroidered with the name "L.E. Fisher. Fastened to another portion of the material was a piece of tweed seemingly torn from the right breast area of a lady's long Ulster coat.
The local police immediately alerted Scotland Yard and Inspector John Bennett Tunbridge of the criminal investigation department alerted Dr Bond, who concluded that the two body parts corresponded and there were no doubts that they belonged to the same victim, further proof that backed this up came from the fact the parcel found at Horselydown was wrapped in a portion of underwear identical to the portion found with the thigh section at the Albert bridge and also contained another portion of the bottom left-hand side of a woman's Ulster coat. The whole parcel had been tied up with mohair boot laces and was slightly stained with blood. Further examinations of the thigh, by Dr Kempster and Mr Athelstan Braxton Hicks found it to be the left one, and most likely that of a young woman within the 20 to 30 age range. Bruises made by finger marks were also found on the thigh, and these were concluded to have been made before her death. On Wednesday 5th June 1889, the coroner of East Middlesex Wynne Edwin Baxter, who had presided over the inquests of Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman and Elizabeth Stride, opened an inquest at the Vestry hall, Wapping, into the remains found at Horselydown. He expressed doubts as to whether it was a proper case for an inquiry as it was difficult to draw the line as to what part of a body was sufficient enough to warrant an inquest. However, he had decided that an inquiry should be held and he summoned a jury. John Regan and Alfred Freshwater gave evidence at the inquest and repeated their stories.
On Thursday 6th June, in the afternoon, Joseph Davis a gardener caught sight of an object lapping against the embankment at Battersea Park. The shrubbery was situated about 200 yards from the shore of the Thames and was a place not frequented usually by the public or employed staff at the park. On nearing the bundle, which was ridden with a white Venetian blind cord, he noticed an unpleasant smell emanating from it. Upon opening it, Davis threw the thing in shock and was horrified to discover that it was a human arm, wrapped in a burgundy-coloured skirt.
He wrapped up the arm and off he ran in a desperate dash in search of one of the patrolling park policemen. Luckily, He found police constable Walter Augier of V division and conveyed the parcel to Battersea police station using a garden basket. Dr Kempster, whose surgery was only a few yards from the police station, was alerted to the find by Sergeants Viney and Briggs, Viney being in charge of local inquiries into the case. Telegrams were dispatched to police headquarters describing the remains found as thus: the upper part of a woman's trunk, probably a portion of other human remains found in the Thames. The chest cavity was empty but among the remains were the spleen, both kidneys, a portion of the intestines and a portion of the stomach. There was also a portion of midriff and both breasts present. The chest had been cut through the centre, thought to have possibly been done by a saw. Kempster thought that due to the state of discomposure, they were probably looking at another portion of the same remains previously found in the Thames and that the murder might have taken place as early as June 2nd.
That same Thursday afternoon, at around 4 pm, Charles Marlow, a man working on a barge at Covington's Wharf adjacent to the London, Brighton and South Coast railway at Battersea noticed a parcel floating up in the river, he fished the bundle out, it had a wrapped portion of a woman's dark coloured skirt and was tied with ordinary string, out with a broom. A passing Thames police boat was flagged down and Inspector William Law of the Thames division took possession of it at Waterloo Pier and was conveyed to Battersea police station to await the scrutiny of Dr Kempster. This latest find was the upper part of a woman's trunk, the arms had been taken off cleanly at the shoulder joints and the head separated from the body close to the shoulders. The chest had been cut down the centre in a similar fashion to the other portion of the trunk. A portion of the windpipe remained within the trunk but the lungs were missing. An earlier supposition that the victim had light red or auburn hair was substantiated by the finding on this portion of the body.
The doctors and police were now gradually building up a physical description of the woman, based on measurements of the various body parts already found and this description was widely circulated. The police regarded the name of L.E. Fisher, stencilled into the underwear, found wrapping parts of the body, as an important clue that may lead to her identification. Several people reported missing female relatives that fitted the description.
By Friday 7th June several other missing portions of the body began to be discovered. A section of the lower right leg and foot were picked up by gipsy Solomon Hearne on the foreshore near Wandsworth Bridge in Fulham, wrapped in the same tweed Ulster coat fragments as the previous finds. The left leg and foot were found near Limehouse by lighterman Edward Stanton, this piece was wrapped in the sleeve of the same Ulster. A liver and other portions of supposed abdominal flesh were also found around this time in the Thames by nitric acid maker David Goodman and the Inspector Hodson of the Thames Division duly passed it on to Dr Kempster to be analysed and assessed as to whether they came from the same body or not. The police and large numbers of volunteers, including the Royal Humane Society, were engaged in searches and dredging along the river in the Battersea area. A portion of the lung was discovered at Palace Wharf, Vauxhall and brought to Dr Kempster at Battersea, all the found pieces were preserved in spirits and doctors thought that there was no doubt they all belonged to the same body. Portions of the clothing that accompanied the finds were taken along to the Bridge Road police station at Battersea so that they could be inspected by anyone who may have been missing a female friend or relative fitting the description. An inquest was also held at Pimlico concerning the body of a newborn female child found bundled in ragged, filthy clothing and bedding and dumped in an underground station near Edbury Bridge. There was some suspicion that this may have a connection with the case under investigation, based on some press reports that the victim found in the Thames had been delivered of a child recently. The cause of death of this child could not be ascertained, however.
On Friday 8th June the left arm and hand turned up in the river Thames off Bankside. Dr Kempster described the hands as pale delicate and gentle and that of a person who was in a superior position in life, although the nails had been bitten down to the quick. There were marks from a ring being removed later discovered on the left hand, indicating the deceased had probably been married. Vaccination marks were also found on the arm. This time the limb was wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string.
On Saturday afternoon the buttocks and the bony pelvis, with all the organs missing, were picked up near the Battersea steamboat pier. These parts were all found to correspond with other parts found among the first discoveries at Horselydown a few days earlier. The bladder was said to have been cut through in the pubic arch. According to the Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper of Sunday 9th June, a strange discovery was made on examining the buttocks closer. A fine piece of linen, approximately 9.5in. by 8in., possibly a handkerchief was found rolled up and pushed into the back passage: "The third portion of the trunk consisted of the pelvis from below the third lumbar vertebra. The thighs had been taken off opposite The hip joints by long, sweeping incisions through the skin, muscles and tissues down to the joint, the heads of the bones neatly disarticulated. The pelvis contained the lower part of the vagina and the lower part of the rectum, the front part of the bladder including the urethra..."
The right thigh was also found the same day in the garden of the poet Sir Percy Bysshe Shelley's Chelsea house, which was being rented out to another occupier at the time. It was very much decomposed and wrapped in some more portions of the now familiar Ulster coat as well as what appeared to be the coarse fabric pocket of an apron, similar to those used by meat or fish salesmen or costermongers.
On the 10th of June the right arm and hand were found floating in the Thames off Newton's Wharf near Blackfriars Bridge. The only portions of the body still missing were the heart, lungs, head and neck and intestines. By Tuesday, 11th June no further human remains had been discovered and it was doubted whether any further portions would turn up, although on the 12th June the remains of a male foetus, of approximately 5 or 6 months gestation, was found floating in the river near Whitehall, in a jar similar to the ones used for pickles, the doctors were undecided if this had any connection to the case in hand.
Drs Bond, Charles A. Hebbert and Kempster then made their final examination of all the remains at the Battersea mortuary in preparation for making their final report to the Commissioners of Police. It was conclusively established that the remains were that of a woman under the age range of twenty-five, and approximately 5ft. 5 in. tall with bright reddish-golden hair. It was believed from the condition of the hands, showing no signs of hard labour or manual work, that the murdered woman had occupied a better position in life than was indicated by the clothing found with the body.
'The Times' of 13th June reported that the body was accompanied by "an old brown linsey dress, red selvedge, two flounces round the bottom, waistband made of small blue-and-white check material like duster cloth, a piece of canvas roughly sewn on the end of the band, a large brass pin in the skirt and a black dress button, about the size of a threepenny piece, with lines across in the pocket." The torn pieces of Ulster's coat get a black cross-hatching pattern forming a check design. The material was of good quality but old.
On Saturday the 15th of June, the inquest on the circumstances surrounding the death of the woman whose mutilated remains were found over 12 days in June, in and around the Thames, was opened at The Star and Garter Battersea by Mr A. Braxton Hicks, coroner for Mid Surrey. No less than 23 witnesses were in attendance that day. Dr Thomas Bond handed the coroner a lengthy report on the medical findings and the description of the woman was again repeated including the fact that she was pregnant by about seven to eight months and undelivered at the time of her death, the unborn child having been removed, by an incision into the uterus after the mother's death. Dr Bond went on to state that as part of the stomach was missing there was no way of knowing if the victim had been administered drugs of any kind, but he had seen no trace of instruments having been used for an unlawful purpose. The cause of death could not be determined as the head, throat, lungs and heart had never been recovered, although attempts had been made to recover the head using the dog, Smoker, who had been successful at discovering missing parts in the Whitehall case. He also stated that the medical men had concluded that "the division of the parts showed skill and design: not, however, the anatomical skill of a surgeon, but the practical knowledge of a butcher or a knacker. There was a great similarity between the condition, as regarded cutting up, of the remains and that of those found at Rainham, and the new police building on the Thames Embankment."
Various witness testimonies were then heard, describing the finding of the various portions of the body, including the testimony of Joseph Churcher, sub-inspector of the Thames police, who had found the buttocks and pelvis. He repeated the fact that this portion of the body had a piece of linen placed inside it. The full details as reported in the earlier Lloyd's article were not however mentioned in the inquest press reports. At this point, it was stated that the identification of the victim was still a mystery and very few people had been to view the remains or clothing by that time. The inquest was then adjourned for two weeks.
On June 26th, via the central news agency and coinciding with fresh reports that the victim had now been possibly identified as an unfortunate named Elizabeth Jackson, came news of previously undisclosed information that 'various circumstances connected with the fate of this victim had led to a belief that she was a victim of the Whitechapel fiend, Jack the Ripper.' It was reported that this information involved "a nameless indignity inflicted upon the corpse, which it was then considered advisable to suppress in the published reports. That indignity was of a character instinctively to suggest the handiwork of the most brutal of murderers".
In the 11 days since the last inquest, the Metropolitan police, acting on information received, had been investigating the possibility that the victim was a missing homeless unfortunate named Elizabeth Jackson. She had not been seen by most family or friends since the end of May and her father had expressed concern in a letter to another of his daughters, that the Thames victim may have been his missing daughter Elizabeth.
The identification came about through the clothing of the victim, her description, her pregnant condition at the time of her disappearance and also the fact that Elizabeth had a scar on her wrist as a result of a childhood accident. This was investigated by the doctors and by lifting away a small amount of skin from the slightly decomposed arm of the victim they were able to locate traces of a similar scar on the wrist.
The police traced Elizabeth's movements up until the time of her disappearance. Elizabeth Jackson, also known as Lizzie, was born on 18 March 1865 in the neighbourhood of Cheney-place, Pimlico. She was the daughter of John Jackson, a stonemason who was born in County Tipperary, Ireland, and his wife Catherine, who was also born in Ireland but hailed from County Cork. She was the youngest of three daughters, the others were Annie and May, and she also had a brother, James. When she was about twelve years old, she had an accident with a vase leaving a scar on her left forearm.
In 1881, when she was just sixteen years old, she went out to work as a domestic servant in the neighbourhood of Chelsea. She had been described as "of excellent character" until, in November 1888, something happened which caused her to leave both her job and her home. Thereafter, she had been living in various common lodging houses in the vicinity of Chelsea. Her last known address was 14 Turk's Row, which was near Chelsea Barracks. It was there when Lizzie and her sister Anne had a nasty row, as the latter accused the former of picking up men for immoral purposes. By the end of November 1888, she was well known to the local police. While one of our daily routines, she met a Cambridgeshire man, a thirty-seven-year-old millstone grinder named John Fairclough, with whom she moved to Ipswich in January 1889. He said they met in a public house at the corner of Turk's Row. She had told him she had been living with a man named Charlie but the relationship was over. She bought a pair of drawers bearing the name "L.E. Fisher" at a lodging house at Ipswich, they had belonged originally to a domestic servant at Kirkley, near Lowestoft, and had been sold as old rags by her mother while staying near her daughter in November 1888. Elizabeth and John were in Colchester on March 30th 1889 and, unable to find work there, walked back to London where they settled into lodgings in Manilla Street, Millwall, taking a room at four Shillings a week, with a Mrs Kate Pane, who would afterwards testify that Fairclough was violent in his treatment of Elizabeth, knocking her about, irrespective of her being five months pregnant.
The pair parted on 28th April, Fairclough going off to Croydon in search of a job. Mary Minter, a family friend of Elizabeth's, gave her an Ulster coat not long before she disappeared. On May 31st Catherine Jackson saw his daughter only one day or two before she was murdered in Queen's Road, Chelsea, and the two spent time together. Lizzie was a 24-year-old homeless prostitute about eight months pregnant, and living in London's Soho Square at the time of her murder in early June 1889.
Police discovered that she had not been seen in any of her usual haunts or been an inmate of any casual wards, workhouses or hospitals in London since her disappearance. Given that she was destitute, the only option, if she had left the London area, would have been for her to tramp on foot, but because of her physical condition, police thought this would have been difficult for her and most unlikely. The lodging houses that Elizabeth had lodged from time to time and the areas she promenaded at night were all within a short distance of Battersea Bridge, the area where it was believed that the lighter parts of the body were disposed of from.
Elizabeth had boasted to friends, in particular, a close friend nicknamed 'Ginger Nell,' that she had been in the habit of remaining in Battersea Park, the area where the upper portion of her trunk had been discovered after the park gates had been closed to the public. The park was also known to be one of the areas the unfortunate 'promenaded.' This information gave rise in some newspapers to the theory that Elizabeth had been accosted, murdered and dismembered in the park itself, and that there were serious grounds for connecting the murder of Elizabeth Jackson with the Whitechapel atrocities.
Other reports suggested the idea that there were two main theories connected with this case. One being the abortion theory, the other one being the fact that Elizabeth had been in the habit of sleeping outdoors on the Chelsea Embankment and disclosure of this fact had been warned, again by her friend 'Ginger Nell,' that she should be wary of the rough character of the waterside labourers and their treatment of homeless unfortunates. It was believed she may have fallen victim to one of these rough characters that frequented the areas around the Thames and may have been murdered outdoors alongside the Thames or else met her death on board a vessel there.
On Monday, July 1st, the inquest into the death was resumed before Mr Braxton Hicks. Elizabeth Jackson's mother, sisters and various friends and acquaintances of Elizabeth's were present and gave witness testimony to the effect that they were convinced beyond doubt of the identification of the body found in the Thames as that of Elizabeth Jackson, only Elizabeth's brother expressed any doubts as to the identification, on account of the description of the 'genteel' hands. Mention was also made of John Faircloth, who up until that point had remained untraced. Police expressed their eagerness to interview him, whose photograph was in the process of being circulated in various parts of the country, intending to locate him. Faircloth, a former soldier and punished deserter from the 3rd battalion Grenadier Guards, was said to have been the father of Elizabeth's child and she had passed herself off as his wife, even wearing a cheap brass ring to carry this off. Police also made it known that the deceased had been seen alive and in the company of a man a little over twenty-four hours previous to the first discoveries in the Thames. The inquiry was then adjourned again until Faircloth, and the man seen with Elizabeth on the alleged night of her death could be located by police, and descriptions were given of both men. The inquest ended with the coroner making an order for the remains to be buried in the name of Elizabeth Jackson.
By July 8th came news from Scotland Yard that a man named John Faircloth, fitting the description of the paramour of Elizabeth Jackson had been located in Tipton St John, Devon. Sergeant Pope of the Devonshire constabulary communicated with Scotland Yard and Inspector Tunbridge of the Criminal Investigation Department was sent to Tipton to find Faircloth and bring him back to London. Faircloth was found and proved to be the man who wanted to help with inquiries into Elizabeth's death. He proceeded willingly and voluntarily back to London, stating that he had heard no news whatsoever of Elizabeth's death, and being an illiterate man, had been unable to read anything of the matter. He was, however, willing to answer any questions he could to help in the inquiry and would give a full account of his life with Elizabeth and their subsequent split.
As a result of Faircloth's return to London, the previously adjourned inquest was resumed earlier than had been scheduled. On Monday 8th July Faircloth was the main witness at the inquest. His life with Elizabeth and his whereabouts at the time of her death, and since, were discussed in great detail. The inquest was then adjourned again until the 25th of July to allow the police to thoroughly check out Faircloth's story and continue with their investigations.