Martha Tabram

Murder in George Yard Buildings

Today, Gunthorpe Street is a narrow alleyway which stretches from Whitechapel High Street to Wentworth High Street. Even amongst the hustle and bustle of modern London life, this dingey back alley still conjures up images of the darkest days of the East End slums.

In Victorian London, Gunthorpe Street was known as George Yard. At the time, this street was particularly notorious as a den of vice, and in 1888, its reputation was sealed once and for all with the discovery of a gruesome murder.

What Happened to Martha Tabram?

The mutilated body of 39-year-old Martha Tabram was discovered lying on the landing of George Yard Buildings on 7 August 1888.

However, this was not just another attack on a vulnerable prostitute, although prostitution was Martha Tabram’s profession. Instead, this was a vicious, unprovoked attack on a defenceless victim. Tabram’s body was peppered with 39 separate stab wounds, which had been inflicted by two different weapons. Many of her vital organs had been punctured, and a decisive wound to her breastbone had been delivered by a large dagger or bayonet. A murder as brutal as this completely shocked the police and the East End community alike – but little did they know; the worst was yet to come…

Who Was Martha Tabram?

Born in 1849, Martha Tabram was an East End prostitute living in a dosshouse on George Street. Her marriage, which produced two children, fell apart in 1875 due to problems associated with her excessive drinking. Since then, she had been earning a living through prostitution and street hawking, the latter with her new partner, Henry Turner.

What Happened on the Night of 7 August 1888?

On the last night of Martha Tabram’s life, drink played an important part. According to her companion that evening, a notorious prostitute named Mary Ann Connolly (or ‘Pearly Poll’), the pair had been drinking in a number of pubs in the area and had picked up two soldiers, a Private and a Corporal.

After several drinks in several establishments, Martha Tabram and Pearly Poll parted ways at 11.45 pm. Connolly went up to Angel Alley with the Corporal, whereas Tabram ventured up to George Yard with the Private, undoubtedly for sex.

At 2 am, a young police officer named Thomas Barrett approached a loitering soldier at the top of George Yard. After hearing that the soldier was “waiting for a chum who went off with a girl,” Barrett moved him on. Several hours later, at 4.45 am, John Reeves, a resident of George Yard Buildings, found Tabram’s mutilated body lying in a pool of blood on the first-floor landing of the tenement.

It was clear that this fateful night had not been a peaceful one. A number of residents of the building spoke of an unsettled evening. Reeves and his wife had been awoken in the night by several incidents on nearby Wentworth Street. Similarly, Francis Hewitt had heard a shout of ‘Murder!’ coming from the street outside. Such cries and disturbances were common in Whitechapel, but they rarely signified anything other than drunken scuffles or fighting couples, and they thought little of them.

Returning from work at about 3.30 am, Alfred Crow passed a figure lying on the first-floor landing. However, he was used to seeing people sleeping rough in the tenement’s stairwell, and he paid no heed. The gas lamps in the stairway in George Yard Buildings were extinguished at 11 pm, leaving the space in almost complete darkness, which would have made it hard for Crow to note anything specific about the vague figure in the landing. The figure was probably Martha Tabram’s body.

The Police Investigation

For Scotland Yard, the murder investigation immediately focused on finding the identity of the soldiers that the two women had been seen with on the night of the murder, as well as identifying the man who was seen by PC Barrett.

After a lot of trouble, Mary Ann Connolly was traced and put before a line-up of soldiers who had been off duty on the night of 7 August. Two ID parades took place. In one, Connolly claimed that the soldiers were not present. In the second, she picked out two men who had impeccable alibis. PC Barrett also attended an ID parade. Again, he picked out men who could account for their movements on that fateful night. No conclusive findings arose from the ID parades, and effectively, the murder investigation ground to a halt.

How Did Martha Tabram Die?

Examination of her body revealed that Martha Tabram had been stabbed an incredible 39 times, from the throat to the lower abdomen. The examining doctor, Dr. Timothy Killeen, noted that most of the wounds had been inflicted with an instrument similar to a pocketknife, but one deep wound to Martha’s breast had been produced by a “long, strong instrument…a sword bayonet or dagger.” Exactly which wound was the fatal one could not be determined – many of the stabs had caused damage to internal organs. Although her body was found with its lower parts and midriff uncovered, Dr. Killeen could find no evidence of sexual activity.

Although the immediate investigation effectively ended when neither PC Barrett nor Mary Ann Connolly was able to produce verifiable evidence or identification of suspects, the police concluded that she was most likely murdered by an unknown soldier.

Was Martha Tabram the First Jack the Ripper Victim?

On the streets of the East End, the death of Emma Smith the previous April was still a very recent memory. Similarly, the fact that her attack took place only a few hundred yards from where Martha Tabram’s body was found flagged up a frightening possibility that the two were connected.

The press noted the increased savagery of the murder, adding that “the circumstances of this awful tragedy are not only surrounded with the deepest mystery but there is also a feeling of insecurity to think that in a great city like London, the streets of which are continually patrolled by police, a woman could be so vilely and horribly killed – almost next to the citizens peacefully sleeping in their beds…”

At the time, though, the possibility of the two crimes being related was merely speculation. In later years, most commentators would rule out Emma Smith as a victim of Jack the Ripper. On the other hand, Martha Tabram would go on to be considered the first potential victim of the Whitechapel murderer for many years.

This was a school of thought that would carry on almost unopposed until the mid-20th century with the discovery of a document penned by Melville Macnaghten in 1894. In the document, he would confidently suggest that Jack the Ripper only claimed five true victims – the first being Mary Ann Nichols on the night of 31 August 1888.

Was Martha Tabram Jack the Ripper’s first victim? To this day, this remains a hotly contested question amongst Ripperologists and armchair detectives alike.

Where is Martha Tabram’s Grave?

It is not known exactly where Martha Tabram was buried. It has long been supposed that she was buried in a shared pauper’s grave at the City of London Cemetery – this would have been the expected burial place for someone without the personal or family means to be buried in a private plot. It is recorded that two of the ‘canonical five’ Jack the Ripper victims – Mary Nichols and Catherine Eddowes – were laid to rest here. Recently, a plaque with Martha Tabram’s name and dates on it was installed in the memorial garden of the cemetery. Presumably, this means that the City of London Corporation is satisfied that she was buried in the cemetery, although the plaque is simply a memorial and does not mark the actual burial site, which remains unknown.

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