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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2555
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, June 14, 2004 - 7:18 pm: |       |
From "The Times" Feb 18th 1909 :
Robert |
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 766
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 15, 2004 - 11:42 am: | |
Hi, Robert
Many thanks for posting this valuable and informative press article about the Providence Row Refuge and Home in Crispin Street, Spitalfields, where Mary Jane Kelly is said to have sought refuge before her murder. Excellent work, Robert.
All the best
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2694
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 12, 2004 - 2:03 pm: | |
Hi Chris
I recently bought a book called Edwardian London, Volume Two (The Village Press) originally published 1902. In it are a couple of articles by George R. Sims and one by Major Arthur Griffiths. There ia also a piece called London's Homes For The Homeless, by T.W. Wilkinson, which mentions Providence Row as follows :
Brightness, comfort, perfect order, and system - these are the characteristics of the Providence Row Night Refuge, familiarly known as "The Dormitory," which owes its existence to the zeal and abounding charity of the late Rev. Dr. Gilbert. The doors are opened at five o'clock. Fifteen minutes later it is full; it has received its complement of about three hundred men, women, and children - not all out-of-works or the dependents of such, but unfortunates of many kinds.
At night the large building is one of the sights of charitable London. The men's sitting-room, with its inmates reading, smoking, and conversing as if the world went pretty well with them; the corresponding part on the female side, where women are knitting and sewing and their children are gambolling about the floor; the well-fitted lavatories(one in each section), in which there is every convenience for personal cleanliness, notably a monster foot-bath two or three yards long, and being used by a dozen inmates simultaneously - all this is delightful to witness, and differs essentially in some respects from ordinary shelter life. It is a cut above that. The food allowance night and morning - bread and a basin of capital cocoa - is also superior to that usually given in large institutions of this class. Yet an inmate can remain for three weeks.
There is a photo of two tickets, one marked "Providence (Row) Night Refuge. Crispin Street and Raven Row. Women. Admit the bearer."
The other ticket says " Providence Row Night Refuge, Crispin Street and Raven Row, E. Women. Under investigation." There's also a photo of men and women queueing outside the separate entrances to the shelter.
Robert |
John Savage
Inspector
Username: Johnsavage
Post Number: 209
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 12, 2004 - 3:25 pm: | |
Hi Robert,
That sounds a very interesting find. Any chance you could post those pictures on the boards?
Best Regards
John Savage |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2695
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 12, 2004 - 3:56 pm: | |
Hi John
I may be able to, once my new computer is up and running.
I bought this book at a local library sale on Saturday. I'll check to see if they have the other volumes for loan.
According to the back cover, "Edwardian London" was originally published in 1903 (although it said 1902 on the inside page) under the title "Living London" and was edited by George R. Sims. It first appeared as a monthly magazine, with contributions from various writers. Most of the illustrations were specially commissioned photographs.
Sims's pieces hardly mention Whitechapel at all. They're called Kerbstone London, London Sweethearts, and London Street Corners.
Griffiths contributes an article on New Scotland Yard. There's also a piece called Loafing London, by Arthur Morrison.
Robert |
Natalie Severn
Chief Inspector
Username: Severn
Post Number: 945
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 12, 2004 - 5:15 pm: | |
Thanks for this Robert,what good finds-both the newspaper article and the book.
Natalie |
Eduardo Zinna
Detective Sergeant
Username: Eduardo
Post Number: 56
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 12, 2004 - 7:10 pm: | |
Hi all,
Unfortunately, the Refuge has been at least partly torn down in the context of the 'gentrification' of some East End areas. Work on the site has been going on for a couple of years or so. We'll see what's left when work is completed.
Best,
Eduardo |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2707
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 14, 2004 - 3:09 pm: | |
Hi all
I've borrowed Volume I, and in the course of an article about Toynbee Hall there occurs the following passage :
"Before you leave Whitechapel," says our guide, "you really must pay a visit to Balliol House" - and away he hurries us over an asphalt court, where a company of the Boys' Brigade is at drill, to what at first you take for a block of "dwellings." And so it is, but the dwellers, whom you find enjoying a sociable evening in the big "common room," are young professional men, medical students, schoolmasters, clerks, and so forth, who form a charming little co-operative commonwealth under the mild sway of an unprofessional "Dean," instead of living isolated lives in lodgings. As we ascend a long stone stair the guide stops short on a landing. "If you had come here one night before the place was bought and christened, you might have stumbled over the mutilated corpse of a murdered woman. On this very stone one of Jack the Ripper's victims was done to death."
Was he referring to the Tabram murder? 
Robert
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Robert Clack
Inspector
Username: Rclack
Post Number: 271
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 17, 2004 - 8:56 am: | |
Hi Robert
In William J. Fishman's book "East End 1888". He said that in 1890 The block [George Yard Buildings] was converted into student accommodation and renamed Balliol House. George Yard buildings backed onto Toynbee Hall.
All the best
Rob |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2717
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 17, 2004 - 11:07 am: | |
Thanks, Rob. I knew there was something about Tabram. I seem to remember something being built into an arch, or something like that.
Robert |
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