Gritty London

There are two images of  London that were developed in my youth - the pleasant and almost magical London of the upper class as portrayed in movies like Mary Poppins and Peter Pan.  The other was more gritty and sinister developed from movies like Oliver Twist and The Elephant Man or countless speculations about Jack the Ripper. It was from the latter that I became familiar with the name Whitechapel.  In 1888 a serial killer terrorized the impoverished area of Whitechapel, killing 5 women without ever being caught.  Only a year before the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes first appeared in print - it seemed like law and order would prevail because of modern tools and scientific knowledge.  This was also a golden age of newspaper journalism and crime stories were big sellers, and none grabbed the dark imagination of the English as much as Jack the Ripper. It was almost as if Jack the Ripper challenged the notion of progress, reminding the British Empire of how close humans remained to primal behaviour.

When I went to look at the location of our flat on Google maps I discovered that it is situated right in Whitechapel.  In one of the tourist books provided by the flat's owner I learned that we are indeed very close to the terrible history of Jack the Ripper - just a block and a half away is the location where one of his victims was found.  The original building where the body was discovered has since been torn down and a school was built on the property.  Here is a picture of the school building on Henriques Street.

Walking around this area we could see evidence of its gritty past.  It was not hard to imagine a Charles Dickens story being set in these buildings and streets.  While there has been plenty of new construction over the years, there are older structures to be seen throughout the area.  This area, while nothing like the impoverished enclave of the late 19th century, is still considered the fringe (a large sign on a skyscraper being constructed in the area reads "Where the City meets the Fringe".)  As Whitechapel Road Market displayed, this is one of the poorer regions of the city, where people scramble to make ends meet.  It was in this very area that William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, preached his first street sermon.  The largest Salvation Army homeless shelter in the country is on Whitechapel Road and as we walked by it we encountered some of homeless people who use the Booth House - and I thought some of them could have stepped right out of Dickens novel.  While this part of London is not beautiful and elegant like other regions we visited last time, it certainly is colourful and reminds us of a grittier reality that was living in London for many people throughout the centuries.