History

“In 1888 the population of London was almost five million out of which I would say that over 2 million lived below the poverty line and that of those about 900,000 lived in the East End, [and] about 76,000 [of those] in Whitechapel…”- Jenny Philips, Jack the Ripper Walk Tour Guide, 2021 …and most of them experienced the same sort of horrifying existence in narrow streets paved with a cheap, yet infinitely expensive mixture of blood, tears, mud and shit, coated with a generous and murderous layer of factory smog. Some might say that each was unhappy in their own way, but for too many, the reasons were one and the same. Dear reader, I do not have to explain to you why being a woman in the Spitalfields of East London was miserable, yes? Just look out the stained window of this little hovel – there they go. That one’s jaw is bound to fall off any day now from all the white phosphorus she’s been handling. And the one holding her arm? She covers her face, for the Great Pox has disfigured her and (all of her children, too. The living ones, and the dead.).

It might be even worse if one has a strong opinion about this not being her lot in life. Because this one, the one that has just opened the door to flood the street with the contents of a chamberpot, she knows that she shouldn’t be here. You can see it in the lines of her forehead, too many for her age, and in the way she holds herself, her back straight, no matter how her existence weighs her down.

She is Hazel Bradshaw.

And she is the daughter of a carpenter. And carpenters in this town earn a pretty penny. Alas, she is here, in the Spitalfields. Alone. Working herself to the bone at a match factory because hardly anyone will take a female carpenter seriously, at least in this part of town. The priests would urge her to accept God’s will – it had meant to happen, and so it had, yet she spits on them and their holy words, because why does their God allow such evils to exist? Hadn’t his son died for all of them, past and present? Where’s the bloody fuck anyways, where’s his Kingdom on Earth? It’s been long overdue! None of this should exist!

And yet she empties her chamberpot onto the streets of Spitalfields and does not go to church anymore. The last time Hazel was near a priest was when her husband was lowered into the ground two winters ago. Augustus Thompson, dead of consumption at the ripe age of… thirty three? She isn’t even sure. Not that it ever mattered. The marriage was never consummated – he had no interest in her. Men in dresses, however? …Let us not speak ill of the dead.

Really, Augustus was far from the worst person in her life. This arrangement worked for them both. She was left well enough alone and on both of their salaries they could afford lodgings in a better part of Whitechappel. But all things must come to an end. No, the real villain of her life is her own mother.

A commanding, violent figure who loved the bottle more than she loved anything else. Suppose she shouldn’t judge her mother so hard – she had her reasons to drink her sorrows away, from all the dead infants in her life to the horrible pain that bringing Hazel into this world caused her… But for a woman to beat her own husband to bloody pulp for no particular reason (that Hazel is aware of)? Maybe God has forgiven her that sin, but not Hazel. Because that’s when she crippled Hazel’s father, ruining his life and his ability to practice his craft, which in turn has led to the present moment.

Oh, and would you look at that? Rain. Oily, thick rain bringing soot down from the skies. You won’t be able to see any more from this little window. And there she goes, shutting the door and disappearing out of view.