Come and join me, Ulrike, on my tour through Whitechapel to discover the other side of the Jack the Ripper story. And no, this isn’t just another London Jack the Ripper Tour. Those Whitechapel murders – this Jack the Ripper crime scene, that Jack the Ripper chamber of horrors – that’s the background; this Jack the Ripper Walk shines a different light on what happened in the East End of London in the autumn of 1888.
There are no murders without victims, and before they were victims, “the Five” were women with lives more difficult than we can imagine.
I am going to introduce you to these five women. I’m not going to talk about their deaths. I’m going to talk about their lives. The tragic turns and decisions in their lives that led them to “the prototype of hell” – Whitechapel and Spitalfields in the 1880s.
Jack London called the Victorian East End of London the Abyss, the pit of hell, once you fell in, there was no way out. It was an area of squalor and destitution at an unimaginable level.
Come with me and meet Polly…
And Annie…
And Elizabeth…
And Kate…
And Mary Jane…
See where they existed. The streets and alleyways they knew.
Where things closed in on them. See and imagine what it felt like to be lost, forgotten, out at the edge – on the very margin of the richest society on eath. Where despair was writ in the very fabric of their surroundings. And imagine how brave they must have been trying to keep it at bay. Their lives mirrored those of millions of other Victorian women. Let’s give them a face, a voice and let us not define them only by their deaths.
Christoph Karner –
I recently took part in The Women of the Abyss walking tour, and it was one of the most meaningful and thought-provoking experiences I’ve had in London. The excellent guide Ulrike shifts the the focus entirely to the five women whose lives were taken. She brings to life who these women truly were — they had very difficult lifes, but they were no prostitutes.
I warmly recommend to attend this highly interesting and important walk.
Wendy –
Top guide who vividly brought to life the harsh realities for working class women living in the East End of London during the Victorian era, full of fascinating insights and makes you rethink the status of these women before their tragic deaths.
Jo –
Great tour, well researched, thoroughly enjoyed seeing a part of London not normally on the tourist map.
Elizabeth –
Ulrike is an outstanding guide and this was a superbly presented and incredibly interesting tour, about the tough, tragic and often heart-wrending back stories of the five women, murdered by “Jack the Ripper”.
Ulrike’s meticulous research and ability to convey a huge amount of detailed information in a compelling way, makes this a tour that I highly recommend.
Looking at the period buildings, walking down alleyways, seeing the very pub where the last victim drank, before being brutally murdered, and hearing about their lifestyles, all helped us understand just how incredibly vulnerable and totally disadvantaged these five women were. They didn’t stand a chance.
Thank you so much Ulrike for treating these women with respect and humanity and shining the light on the victims, for a very welcome change.
Ann McVey –
A(nother!) great walk with Ulrike!
Fascinating insight into the lives of 5 unfortunate women … not just ‘victims’ of ‘the Ripper’ but of the social circumstances of the times.
Thoroughly recommend!
John –
I cannot recommend the ‘Women of the Abyss’ walking tour highly enough. For a change it’s not about “Jack The Ripper” & his gruesome crimes, but about the lives of the 5 women that it is known he murdered & how there misfortunes lead them to be his victims. Ulrike recounted the stories of these women factually & sympathetically, while walking us through the East End streets to each of the murder sites.
I highly recommend it.
Mary Lawless –
A fascinating walk and talk by Ulrike giving insight into the terrible downward spiral that these women were drawn into. Highly recommended.
Diane Colin –
Excellent walk and first class commentary by Urika
Susan Cowdy –
The Women of the Abyss- I strongly recommend you do this walk with Ulrike as your guide. She tells the stories of the 5 women victims of Jack the Ripper, focussing on their lives in such a compassionate way, you see these women through different eyes . You visit the areas they lived in as well as where they were found. It is so well researched, you wonder how Ulrike has so many fascinating facts at her fingertips. It was raining but it added to the drama as we were so caught up in the story.
Kelsey Ledford –
Fantastic tour and reframing of the Jack the Ripper story. It’s not that these women’s deaths are ignored. Rather, it’s just that the emphasis is on their lives and the tragic circumstances that they faced, as so many women did in Victorian East London, instead of on the Ripper. Having done both types of Ripper tours I found this one far more interesting and educational.