Catherine Eddowes (14 April 1842 – 30 September 1888) was the fourth of the canonical five victims of the notorious unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, who is believed to have killed and mutilated at least five women in the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts of London from late August to early November 1888.
Eddowes was murdered in the early hours of Sunday 30 September within the City of London. She was the second woman killed within an hour; the night having already seen the murder of Elizabeth Stride within the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police. These two murders are commonly referred to as the "double event"; a term which originates from the content of the "Saucy Jacky" postcard received at the Central News Agency on 1 October.
A part of a left human kidney, accompanied by a letter addressed From Hell and postmarked 15 October, was later sent to the chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, George Lusk. The author of this letter claimed the section of kidney was from Eddowes, whose left kidney had been removed, and that he had fried and eaten the other half. Most experts, however, do not believe this kidney actually originated from Eddowes's body.
Early life
Catherine Eddowes was born in Graiseley Green, Wolverhampton on 14 April 1842, the sixth of twelve children born to tinplate worker George Eddowes and his wife, Catherine (née Evans), who worked as a cook at the Peacock Hotel.
The family moved to London a year after Eddowes's birth, where her father obtained employment with a firm named Perkins and Sharpus in Bell Court, within the City of London. The family initially resided at 4 Baden Place, Bermondsey, and later relocated to 35 West Street. Here, Eddowes was educated at St. John's Charity School in Potter's Field. By 1851, the family had relocated to 35 West Street. Her mother ultimately bore eleven other children, although only ten of her twelve children survived. She herself died of tuberculosis on 17 November 1855 at the age of 42.
By 1857, both of Eddowes's parents had died, resulting in Eddowes (then aged 15) and three of her siblings being admitted as orphans to a Bermondsey workhouse. All four Eddowes siblings admitted to this workhouse attended a local industrial school in efforts to teach them a trade.
Within months of obtaining this employment, Eddowes was fired from her job, possibly after being caught stealing. Eddowes's loss of employment is believed to have caused tensions between her and her aunt, although after approximately four months, she chose to return to Wolverhampton, where she resided with her grandfather, who found work for her as a tinplate stamper. Nine months later, she again moved to Birmingham.
Eddowes was tall, slim, with dark, wavy auburn hair and hazel eyes. Friends later described her as "a very jolly woman, always singing" The couple had two children: Catherine Ann (); and Thomas Lawrence (),
Relocation to London
In 1868, Eddowes and Conway moved to London, taking lodgings in Westminster. Their third child and second son was born in 1873. While residing in London, Eddowes took to drinking, which caused rifts within her immediate family. According to later inquest testimony from Eddowes's daughter, Catherine "Annie" Phillips, her parents began living on "bad terms" largely because of her mother's drinking which increased throughout the 1870s and which her father—a teetotaler—found intolerable. By the late 1870s, the quarrels between the two are believed to have become violent, with Eddowes occasionally being seen with black eyes and bruising about her face.
By 1880, Eddowes and Conway resided in a room at 71 Lower George Street, Chelsea, with their two youngest children (their oldest child had left the household by this date). Sometime the same year, Eddowes left Conway.
John Kelly
The precise reason why Eddowes chose to relocate from Chelsea to the East End of London is unknown, although by 1881, she was living with a new partner, John Kelly, a fruit salesman whom she had met when they both lodged at Cooney's common lodging-house at 55 Flower and Dean Street, Spitalfields, at the centre of London's most notorious criminal rookery. Thereafter, she became known to acquaintances as "Kate Kelly".
The deputy of this lodging-house, Frederick William Wilkinson, later stated Eddowes seldom drank to excess, although contemporary records indicate she was brought before Thames Magistrates' Court upon a charge of being drunk and disorderly in September 1881. She was discharged without being fined for this offence.
Initially, while living in and around Spitalfields, Eddowes most often earned money by performing domestic work such as cleaning and sewing for the Jewish community in nearby Brick Lane, although she is believed to have also occasionally taken to casual prostitution to pay her daily rent.