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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Developement of Photography
Casebook Message Boards: General Discussion: General Topics:
Developement of Photography
Author: Martin Fido
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 06:14 am |        | In re questions about the photographer.
On the back of Martha Tabram's mortuary pic is an H Division directive to the 'skilled operator' Louis Gumpricht of 11 Cannon Street Road.
Dorsenne's 'Jack L'Eventreur', in one of its very rare really interesting moments where one wonders whether he actually had some inside information from somewhere to add to his press cuttings and fantasies, says that the mortuary photographer was only a part-timer. His main occupation was conducting a piano-violin-saxophone combo supporting erotic dancers in the Ratcliff Highway.
This question of the photographers has always seemed to me one of the most interesting things yet to be followed up.
All the best
Martin F |
Author: The Viper
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 07:36 am | | Martin,
The identity of the Ripper photographer or photographers is indeed an interesting and under-explored question. About a year ago I wrote a little paper on the subject and circulated it to a few people here by e-mail. Unfortunately the piece isn't of publishable quality, but with exams now over, I intend to smarten it up a bit and submit it for publication in a future edition of Ripper Notes. There's no big secret about the content because several people already know: the identity of the photographer who took the mortuary stills was, I believe, Joseph Martin. Mr. Martin may or may not also have been the photographer called to Miller's Court.
Regards, V. |
Author: John Omlor
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 08:51 am | | Hi Martin,
Tell me more about the erotic/exotic dancers. It was long a dream of mine to play drums in an old time strip club or burlesque house band -- back in the days when strippers had names like Chesty Morgan and Watermelon Rose and the bump and grind music of a small band of hard working but perpetually bored musicians filled the grey, smokey air.
(Now it's all disc-jockeyed thumping and lights -- plastic music and plastic breasts. It's sad.)
But what would these places in "Ratcliffe Highway" have been like in London of 1888? What part of town was this? Were they built like theaters, with a pit for the band and a stage? Were they more like halls with chairs set up and the band to one side, I wonder? And what were the girls like and how undressed did they get? Are these places that Jack might have visited? And I wonder what sort of music they played there? And you don't mention any drums in the combo -- could there have been an erotic dance club band without a drummer? That seems unthinkable.
As you can see, you have sparked my interest. Now I'm going to have to research strip clubs of Victorian London.
Thanks a lot,
--John |
Author: Christopher T George
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 09:33 am | | Hi, John:
Viper and Martin can confirm but the Ratcliffe Highway was a thoroughfare down by the docks and thus establishments down that way would have been frequented by sailors and other working class types. If the sightings of "Jack" with the parrot on his shoulder are correct, these would indeed have been just the type of smoky dives he would have supped in. 
There is a sea shanty called "Ratcliffe Highway" sung to the same tune as "Blow the Man Down" and that even mentions "Jack." See http://www.geocities.com/hornett.geo/song3.html
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 09:36 am | | And I thought Chesty Morgan was plastic!  |
Author: Christopher T George
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 09:38 am | | Just to clarify, in case anyone thinks I was serious: the reference to witness sightings of Jack with a parrot on his shoulder that I mentioned in my last post was meant as a joke.
Chris |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 09:40 am | | | Was it just Pretty Polly on his arm then? |
Author: The Viper
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 09:47 am | | Spot on with the location, Chris. Ratcliff Highway was a west-east thoroughfare running north of the R. Thames through the docks area. It was a place of some notoriety. You can read articles about it and other places at the THHOL website.
Regards, V. |
Author: Christopher T George
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 09:47 am | | Hi, again, all:
Martin may have more to say about the case but the Ratcliffe Highway was also the scene of a famous murder case of 1811 that was notorious in the East End in the nineteenth century until Jack stole the limelight. The murders were the subject of a nonfiction book by best-selling mystery novelist P. D. James and police historian, T. A. Critchley. See
http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/04/29/specials/james-maul.html
Caz, yes, didn't you know that Jack lured Polly with a cracker? Or was it that she said he was crackers. . . ? 
Chris |
Author: John Omlor
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 11:06 am | | Hi All,
Thanks for the sites and info. But I'm wondering specifically about the acts and music and layout of the places inside and how naked the girls got, etc. Anyone know, off hand (no pun intended).
Caz, the original "Chesty Morgan" was, early in her career -- in the early and mid 60's -- a Hollywood striptease dancer, many years before the implant craze really hit. A decade later, during her somewhat sad but campy film career in the 70's, she might, I think, have finally gotten the implants -- though I am not even sure of this -- she was pretty big naturally to begin with.
Anyway, places like the Ivar Theater in Hollywood, which specialized, throughout the forties and fifties and early sixties even, in traditional bump-and-grind strippers, live music from a small band, a bad comic or two between dance sets and even a tap dance act or variety act sometimes (Bob Fosse started this way as a young boy), are no longer functioning this way. But they were there once, and the ladies were all natural and often of considerable proportions -- all over. The bumping and grinding often included shaking and quivering. I grew up as a drummer and put myself through school in part doing recording session work -- but always dreaming of beating out the jazzy sex-rhythms for those seedy night scenes of days long gone. For a brilliant, poetic description of these days, see the song/poem "Pasties and A G-String" with classic drums by Shelly Manne and vocals by Tom Waits, on Waits' album Small Change. It includes lines like "What was the girl with the snakeskins name?" and of course, "I'm getting harder than Chinese algebra." and "She's so good, she'd make a dead man cum."
Viper,
Thanks, I'll check out the site you mention.
Bye for now, dreaming of smoke-filled theaters of lonely overweight businessmen chomping on cigars and staring at sad and puffy strippers as they sweat their way through another tune.
--John |
Author: Christopher T George
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 11:44 am | | Hi, John:
I can't answer your question about any possible strip joints down the Ratcliffe Highway. Possibly Messrs Begg or Fido or even our friend Viper may have done some hands-on research on the topic and can help you out. Guys?
I did want to mention that toward the end of his career during the Fifties, my uncle Billy Matchett, a Liverpool comedian, appeared at the Pavilion Theatre (known locally as the "Pivvy") in his home city between the turns by the girls. But at that time in Britain, the naked girls were not allowed to move, so the curtain would open and you would see this tableau of naked females, posed, say, as Robin Hood and his merry men with sequined feathered pink or turquoise hats and holding little bows. So there was no bumping and grinding at that date, though it was allowed later in Soho, London, and other places. I was a schoolboy at the time and can remember being backstage holding a bra for one of the girls.
Chris |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 11:55 am | | I hope to God that one of those rather generously-proportioned puffing and panting strippers wasn't also the one-legged dancer (of Two Ronnies fame, I believe) who specialised in high kicks and falling over - the image is not one most people (of either sex) would probably care to conjure up - like the big lady contortionist, who had to fart to give the audience a clue to where she was coming from.....
Love,
Caz |
Author: Steve
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 01:36 pm | | Hi All,
Just a little additional info on Martins comments.
The Louis Gumprecht legend can also be found on the photo of Frances Coles and reads.
PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE UNKNOWN DEAD
In districts where a skilled operator cannot be obtained, LOUIS GUMPRECHT, of 11 CANNON STREET ROAD,E, is willing to attend on a few hours notice, on the same terms as the Eastern Districts are served.
Wire through "H."
I presume that Louis was not willing to photograph the known dead! 
Regards
Steve |
Author: Jon
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 06:39 pm | | Rick
I read this on your poste of 6/13 at 7:41....
Maybe the police, and Bagster Phillips in particular asked for the sliding windows to be removed from the window frames, or perhaps as Jon says, it was the photographer when he arrived later,
How would you interpret that?
(that Jon said the photographer asked for them to be removed?)
No problem Rick, I understand it as a mistake, I was just concerned that others reading it might not.
John
Ratcliff Highway.......bed & breakfast anyone?
Caption reads:
The Ratcliff Highway c.1900. The Highway was notorious for organized crime in the 19th century. |
Author: Mark List
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 07:09 pm | | Hey,
let's remove some windows from this place!
Mark |
Author: John Omlor
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 08:05 pm | | Thanks Jon,
No gaudy neon lights in the shape of naked women, of course, or twinkling marquees with teasing advertising and provocative but seedy photos...
But it has possibilities, especially late in the evening. I just am having a hard time picturing the inside of a Victorian "erotic/exotic dance" club. Or hearing that combo Martin mentioned. It must have been bizarre, though. About as far from Weimar Berlin as one can get. Or perhaps not, really.
"Smellin' like a brewery, lookin' like a tramp..."
Bye for now. I'm off to fantasize about strippers from 1888.
--John |
Author: Corky Witherspoon
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 09:39 pm | | By the way, who is Chesty Morgan?
You're not implying that's me with my profile picture?
Love,
Corky |
Author: John Omlor
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 10:04 pm | | HI Corky,
Chesty Morgan was one of the last great old-time strippers. When the burlesque houses more or less became strip clubs through the forties and fifties, a roll call of women became somewhat notorious through the years on the circuit. (Gypsy Rose Lee being an early and famous one). By the time of the mid-sixities the industry had taken a serious downturn and become much less respectable. But there were still traditional strip joints with little bands and comics and headlining acts. One of these last big name acts was a very-well "gifted" woman named Chesty Morgan. Strip clubs today of course are much different things, with poles and fancy light shows and loud recorded music and women hitting you up for ridiculously high-priced drinks at the bar while others perform gymnastic feats while naked on stage, and a separate room for "private VIP dances" that amount to fake sex without participation. But back in the old days it was more of a big theater type affair and the women disrobed up on stage to a small band's music and did a slow sort of bump and grind and then rushed off stage when the last piece of clothing fell away.
Anyway, in the early seventies an independent underground filmaker "discovered" a now rather mature Chesty on the strip circuit and made a series of bizarre and quirky and slightly ludicrous underground films in which Chesty used her massive breasts as lethal weapons. Today the films have become celebrated as wonderful exercises in high camp. There is a Chesty Morgan Worship web page here on the net and several pages dedicated to her '70's filmography. If you run a quick search, you'll see many pictures and find out all about her. She has become something of a camp-film idol.
She's also named, as I mentioned, in a wonderful Tom Waits song called "Pasties and a G-String."
I don't know who the 1888 equivalent of Chesty Morgan would be. Who was the queen of the Victorian erotic dancers, I wonder? Would Jack have been a fan?
Just a little pointless info on a quiet night,
--John |
Author: Corky Witherspoon
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 10:44 pm | | Thanks John. I little more than I wanted to know (pasties and G-Strings), but I love learning something new!
Good night,
Corky Chesterfield |
Author: Christopher T George
Friday, 15 June 2001 - 12:22 am | | Hi, John:
I believe Andy Aliffe would probably be your man to tell you what sort of erotic dances may have been performed in London during Jack's time, 1888. My sense though is that anything like you are thinking about would have been very much underground and therefore performed on a small scale in bordellos. On the legitimate stage I think the extent of any risqué spectacle would probably have been limited to such entertainments as the Can Can, i.e., plenty of lace and frills, dance movement, and suggestivity, but little in the way of actual female flesh or lewd gyrations. Sorry, John!
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: David Cohen Radka
Friday, 15 June 2001 - 12:23 am | | By the way, Chesty's bustline was measured at exactly 104 inches. We discussed this figure extensively during ninth grade cafeteria.
David |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Friday, 15 June 2001 - 02:52 am | | Yeah Man,
Let some ob dat brilliant bright November sunshine into dis room!!. Let's sees what we is doings. Rick. |
Author: Guy Hatton
Friday, 15 June 2001 - 07:29 am | | Chris -
I don't think it's Andy Aliffe that John needs - more like a cold shower! |
Author: John Omlor
Friday, 15 June 2001 - 07:31 am | | Hi Chris,
Yes, I figured it was probably the showing of a bit of ankle and some faux harem dancing with veils or something. What really got me started on all of this, though, was the thought of the band. Martin mentioning that our photographer of victims -- Gumpricht -- was also in a small combo that played in these places. Besides, I can't help wondering what sort of music erotic dance was performed to back then.
And I also thought that his must be a wonderful and unique tale. Imagine a novel that recounts the life of a musician in a Victorian erotic dance hall who also works part time photographing the bodies of the victims of Jack the Ripper for the police.
Now imagine that while he was taking the photos of Mary Kelly -- or perhaps having just finished, he was packing up his camera and tripod, when his eye caught the eye of a female witness who was being interviewed across the narrow street by the chief inspector on the scene. They both thought the other fascinating and strangely attractive at first sight. But the woman was married and her husband owned the local public lodging house. What could she do? Flustered at the penetrating glance, only for an instant, of the strange photographer/musician, she became flustered and misspoke, completely unaware that she was telling the inspector "this" morning when she meant yesterday morning. Soon she was stuck with the mistake even though everyone else, including the doctors, were saying she had to be wrong, and to save her own reputation and to stay close to the case in the hopes of once again meeting the photographer who now haunted her dreams, she insisted she had spoken to Mary on the morning of the day the body was discovered. But she never again meets the man who has become the object of desire. Sadly, there is no secret but passionate affair amidst the squalor of the East End and the Ratcliffe Highway; although she remains distracted by her fantasies and her husband begins to resent her new status as a seemingly contradictory witness and her always appearing to be somewhere else, at least in her mind (she is thinking of the photographer of course, who is working his way through tune after tune in the band at a local erotic dance hall). Does he know he is being adored? No. But he too can't get that face he has seen only once out of his mind. It's not the hacked up body of Mary Kelly that is seared into his imagination and that haunts him in his bed late at night. It's the face of Mrs. Caroline Maxwell. And yet the two never speak, never meet. Just a glance or two, one fateful afternoon, at the scene of the most notorious and horrible murder they could imagine...
And they both end up as small footnotes to the chronicle of the famous murder case, but with their own separate lives, one a wife and witness who faced the police and courts and stuck stubbornly to her story and the other a band leader for erotic dancers and photographer who took one of the most famous crime scene photos ever. They shared a moment and a glance and then disappeared into history.
Now that's a novel waiting to be written.
But I have golf to play. See everyone later in the day,
--John |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 15 June 2001 - 09:31 am | | From Dorsenne's 'Jack L'Eventreur', p.141 [accents omitted]:
Le Photographe de la Morgue n'etait un auxiliaire de la justice qu'a ses moments perdus. Son veritable metier etait celui de directeur d'un cafe-concert de Radcliff [sic] Highway.
Le petit homme, rubicond et jovial, etait en train de battre la mesure pendant qu'un violon, un piano et un saxophone s'evertuaient a accompagner les evolutions de quatre filles empanaches, aux appas mal contenus par des maillots ornes de fanfreluches et de galon dores.
Free translation:
The mortuary photograoher was only a police aide in his spare time. His real job was conducting a cafe-concert in the Ratcliff Highway.
The jolly, red-faced little man enjoyed beating time while a violin, piano and saxophone struggled to accompany the gyrations of four colourful girls who were barely contained by their skimpy fringed and gold-braided costumes.
Martin Fido |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Friday, 15 June 2001 - 10:55 am | | If John reads that when he returns from his cold showe.... sorry, his round of golf, he'll need another - er, cold shower.
Perhaps he should write a novel knitting up all such loose ends of the ripper story - it would certainly be a novel novel. How about calling it 'Stripping Yarns - The Ultimate Fantasy Saucebook'?
Have a great weekend all.
Love,
Caz |
Author: John Omlor
Friday, 15 June 2001 - 01:37 pm | | Excellent post, Martin.
What a story his life would have made (would still make).
And if he did exchange a furtive but lingering glance with Mrs. Maxwell, and that was all... The saddest thing; the "not-to-be." But if they lived forever in each other's imaginations (and now in ours), and he was the reason for her "mistake..." The small ironies of life -- and he's back in the pit, relegated to beating time...
Beat on, my "jolly, red-faced little man," beat on, and dream of another man's wife and of a woman whose body was carved almost beyond recognition...
The tales, his tales, are easy to imagine. All from this little man who takes the pictures.
--John |
Author: Christopher T George
Friday, 15 June 2001 - 02:34 pm | | Hi, all:
I am glad that Martin reminded me that the anecdote about the police photographer who doubled as leader of the band in the establishment on the Ratcliffe Highway is in Jean Dorsenne's 1935 Jack L'Eventreur. Here now from Molly Whittington-Egan's recent translation (Cappella Archive, Malvern, England, 1999) is the whole passage about the police photographer, along with a paragraph preceding which puts us in the picture. The premise of Dorsenne's fictional (but possibly partly fact-based) book is that it recounts the reminiscences of a police official of the name of "G.B.H." as told to a French visitor. This man, we are led to believe, was a retired chief constable of Scotland Yard who had been in charge of the Ripper investigation
The passage from the book following opens with the musings of the former police constable on the mutilated corpse in Miller's Court:
I realized that Jack had not worked under pressure, but had applied himself to his frightful task methodically, like a conscientious workman. There was a heap of cinders in the grate, still warm. Jack must have burnt some bloodstained clothing. I arranged for the poor, mutilated corpse to be taken to the mortuary--the morgue, you call it. Oh! those mortuaries! Their memory has stayed with me for forty years. You know how they have been improved since then, but in those days they were just crude sheds, with some planks, on which they laid the corpses and sprayed them with petrol.
Suddenly, I felt that I needed the photographer attached to the mortuary to take an immediate photograph of the body to aid me in my investigation. No photographer! My officers ran around looking for him for ages. You'll think I'm joking when I tell you where he was eventually run to earth . . . The newspapers for 1888 will prove what I say. The fact is that the official photographer's principal job was conductor of a café concert on the Ratcliff Highway. Here, this rubicund, jovial little man was found in the act of beating time, while a violinist, a pianist, and a saxophonist were doing their best to accompany the gyrations of four plumed girls, whose physical charms were poorly contained in tights decorated with frills and furbelows and gold braid.
I interrupted these musical and choreographic exercises. 'Come quickly! I need you in the mortuary.' A big smile lit up the photographer's scarlet face. 'I'm coming. I'm coming. After you, sir. Another of that damned Jack the Ripper's jobs, I presume.'
'Yes, indeed, and your young ladies of the Ratcliff Highway should mind themselves too,' I said.
And then he photographed the bloody, mutilated body of the poor victim from every angle with the same sangfroid that he exhibited when confronted with half a dozen chorus-girls. Afterwards, with his equipment tucked under his arm, he left the mortuary with a light step to his concert hall, which was streaming with light and ringing with song. (Jean Dorsenne, Jack L'Eventreur, tr. Molly Whittington-Egan, pp. 91-92.)
In his introduction to his wife's translation, Richard Whittington-Egan (p. ix) writes: "It has been suggested, with what substantiation I do not know, that Dorsenne had indeed made contact with a retired police officer who had actually been on the case, and that the resultant confection of snippets of real information, admixed with gossipy hearsay and frank fiction, may yield veridical specks of real gold."
Was the photographer-cum-concert master Louis Gumprecht or the photographer mentioned by Viper--Joseph Martin, or is this anecdote of the musician/photographer completely made up? How do we explain that in this description of the photographing of the mutilated body of Mary Jane Kelly, the narrative leads us to believe that the photographer did his work of recording the images of the body in the mortuary not in Miller's Court?
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Thursday, 25 April 2002 - 11:49 am | | Does anyone know the subject of the first scene-of-crime photograph in the history of forensic photography?
Rosey :-) |
Author: Paul Boothby
Friday, 26 April 2002 - 04:59 am | | Rosey,
I believe Odelbrecht was the first to advocate the use of photography, both to id criminals and document evidence and scenes of crimes. This was in 1864. Further investigation might reveal specific case names.
Paul |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Friday, 26 April 2002 - 05:09 am | | Dear Paul,
The first scene-of-crime photograph was that of Mary Jane Kelly.
Rosey :-) |
Author: Paul Boothby
Friday, 26 April 2002 - 05:45 am | | Sorry Rosey, didn't realise it was a rhetorical question.........anyway how certain are you of the veracity of your statement (on a scale of 1 - It was a female body to 10 - It was definetly Mary Jane Kelly)
Paul :-} |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Friday, 26 April 2002 - 05:06 pm | | Dear Paul,
Lets say it was pseudo-rhetorical! Since the question has been asked on numerous occasions on these boards, "Why was Mary Kelly killed in a
ground floor room?" It was to facilitate an image
upon the human psyche the like of which had never been attempted in this new medium before...or since.What is your opinion?
Rosey :-) |
Author: Paul Boothby
Monday, 29 April 2002 - 03:38 am | | Dear Rosey, personally I would have said that she was killed in a ground floor room because that's where she lived. Not much of a theory I know, but I'm not sure I'm up for having my psyche facilitated.
Paul :-) |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Monday, 29 April 2002 - 05:51 am | | Dear Paul,
I agree that MJK was killed where she lived...for some reason. Such is fate.
Rosey :-) |
Author: Billy Markland
Sunday, 10 November 2002 - 12:55 am | | This seems the most logical place for the link of the site I found today.
The site is called PhotoLondon and the URL is:
http://www.photolondon.org.uk/
It has a multitude of photos, from my quick scan, as early as 1875 up through the 1950's. My personal favorite in my scan was the one of the Cat Food Meat seller....
Enjoy,
Billy |
Author: Billy Markland
Sunday, 10 November 2002 - 01:31 am | | Another link off the PhotoLondon site is the European Visual Archive.
The URL is:
http://192.87.107.12/eva/uk/search.asp
The best way I found to search their archives is to click on Advanced Search, then click on the box containing the "i". Find the locale for pictures you are interested in, click, then go back to the main search page and click Find (you will see your locale has been datafilled by your click from the list).
The majority of these architectural photos are early 1900.
Billy |
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