A Look At Dorset Street, 1901 - The Worst Street In London.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ต.ค. 2024
- By 1901, the reputation of Dorset Street, in Spitalfields, the street in which Mary Kelly had been murdered on the 9th of November 1888, had become universally known as a centre of vice and villainy.
Indeed, such was its reputation, that it was being referred to as "the worst street in London" in newspaper articles.
One such article appeared in the Daily Mail, on Tuesday the 16th of July, 1901.
The article was written by the journalist Frederick Arthur MacKenzie (1869-1931), and it pulled no punches when it came to trashing the reputation of not only Dorset Street but also of the men women, and children who resided in it.
In this video, we take a look at that article and illustrate it with contemporary illustrations that show the street as it appeared at the time.
The video features some rarely-seen press images that appeared in American newspapers in the 1890s.
So prepare to leave the 21st century behind, and let's go on a journey back to a notorious criminal enclave, to view it as it was just a few years after the Jack the Ripper crimes had first shone a light on "the worst street in London."
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Dorset Street Spitalfields started out as Datchet Street in 1674. Officially became Dorset Street on the 22nd of November 1867. Then become Duval Street on the 28th of June 1904.
Why the need to change names? I don't get it..
And now completely obliterated and built over. But the history and memories will always remain.
So, the Daily Mail hasn't changed much in over a century!! Although, the journalist was more sympathetic about the plight of the impoverished than most modern journalists! It's sickening, saddening and heartbreaking to hear of the deprivation and overcrowding that was prevalent in Victorian era London and indeed other places in the world at the time! My heart goes out to the tortured souls of yesteryear, if only the tide had been turned sooner!!😔😔😔😔❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Absolutely, the modus operandi of the rag hasn’t changed at all. Robert Tressell’s “Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” took at a swipe at the the likes of the Daily Mail many moons before the advent of social media.
I had two great great uncles who resided in a workhouse in Dorset street, the year was 1907- 08, i shed a tear for them even today RIP Dennis & Michael x
What a great insight into Dorset Street, thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you Mr. Jones. It seems politicians still haven’t learned that it would save a lot of money and lives if rough working class neighborhoods were improved upon, and people, particularly those of a young age, would get att better and safer socioeconomic starting point.
Reminds me of the old saying ‘Mexico is awful because of Mexicans’. Why are ‘rough working class neighborhoods’ so bad? It’s the people. I’ve spent most my life among them, the other among middle class and the difference is stark.
Subsidized housing is very good for some people. They are appreciative and take care of their homes, work hard & hope that one day they can own their own home.There are others who take no pride in keeping the grounds or interior clutter free & clean. You can’t change the way they think. It’s a welfare mentality.
The lesson they've learned is "this area could be worth a lot of money if we renovated the housing"
I only just found out that my great-grandmother was born in Doveton Street in 1896,
May have known Jack the Ripper,Charles Letchmere at no 22.
Hallo from Denmark mister Jones. . What an amazing video about Dorset Street . Here in the city of Aalborg, where I live. The a street called Hjalmar stald (Hjalmar stable in english). In the past that the local Dorset Street. A place you did not enter after sunset , unless you were following some one . Today its just quitet little Street with old fashioned couple stones and old houses. But back in the day. It was the worst street of the city.
Richard, regarding the photo at the very beginning of the video, is the camera pointing up Dorset Street towards Commercial Street and Christ Church Spitalfields?
If so, does that put the entrance to Miller's Court on the left hand side of the street?
Hi Rob, yes the photo is looking towards Commercial Street, so Miller's Court would have been on the left side.
@@JackTheRipperTours Thanks Richard.
That is interesting.. So the Blue Coat Boy, must have been about where the stagecoach is in the middle of the picture, on the left. Also Elizabeth Strides former lodgings would be there on the left along with number 35 where Pearly Poll and and Annie Chapman stayed... Along with Little Paternoster Row.. Where Annie was last seen alive
my comment keeps being deleted. Richard? I'm trying to direct Rob to my Dorset street 3D tour with the exact locations he's talking about.
@@canonical5 That's because you ARE Huux. You need to get someone else to post it.
Have you any idea of the year that picture was taken on dorset street ? That one with the lady looking at the camera. Love your videos btw👍
It was 1901 or 1902.
@@JackTheRipperTours thank you👍
It was taken in 1899.
An article in the Daily Mail that’s sympathetic to people in poverty? Times have certainly changed.
Not really. Sensationalist reporting on urban criminality has been a constant throughout the Mail's history.
Nobody in the UK is in poverty today. Far from it. If you think they are, you don’t know what real poverty is.
Grow up
"Dorset Street, London. You will never find a more wrenched hive of scum and villainy." --One of the papers at the time, no doubt.
I see what you did there. 😉
Hat tip, Sir.
Thanks for sharing.
Thank you richard,enjoyed this video very much👍
Glad you enjoyed it
Brilliant, Richard 🇦🇺👍🏻🇦🇺
If Dorset Street had survived and gentrified the buildings would be considered gems now. Same for Flower and Dean and Thrawl Street too. All demolished entirely now and not even the street footprints survive
Great Pearl Street was also a bad one according to Charles Booth, Richard... In 1891 it was described as 'The last Irish colony' rife with criminality, prostitution ect.. It just adjoined onto Grey Eagle Street, described as predominantly Jewish. They are not far from Dorset Street if memory serves me right.. Just north of Hanbury Street.. Joe Barnett could be found on Great Pearl Street in the 1871 census along with his siblings and no parents apparently!!
I can see how really crowded, dismal and bad the conditions were in the area especially Dorset St.
What a sad and depressing place :(
A Good Presentation as Usual 😉👋
I'm a yank who came to England first in 1960 as a child, and traveled back many times eventually living in Suffolk for many years. I have a lot of friends there and closely follow the UK news. Covid kept me away three years but back this summer. Watching this I a have a sinking feeling that if there isn't a change in the Government the people will be reduced to this poverty again. Respectfully, a General Strike to force a new General Election is urgently needed. And the tories are deathly afraid of that. 2025 is too long to wait. America is a mess as well, freely admitted, but not on the level as Britain. We have seen inflation but at lower rates and not the criminal energy costs. That any working person should choose between heating and eating is disgusting. Don't climb on me folks, I am just concerned.
I think there are many here who are equally concerned John.
Love how you say 'yank'. Fully culturally integrated lol 😂
Both of the main parties are just very slightly different colors of the same
@@JackTheRipperTours I hope things can improve for the average working person in the UK. Things here seem dire, but I have some hope as well we might be able to turn things around in the US.
I wonder what that thing is that is half way down the street looking at the photo (on the right) it’s too tall to be a table. I have seen it in a few photos.
Optical illusion. Two pillars set into the pavement with the top being window ledges in the background. In front is a puddle filled pot hole just to complicate matters.
Actually,it does simplify things to have discrete havens for criminals. When Baltimore County, Maryland, USA, flattened several notorious housing complexes, occupants simply spread out into surrounding areas. And went right on committing crimes. It was rather like spreading an infection.
This makes me think of the zombies on Kensington Ave., North Philly
Dorset Street was renamed Duval Street on 28 June 1904. Probably in an effort to clean up it's reputation by losing it's name.
Times are earily similar....
Very sad. A poor person then would regard todays poor as living in luxury.
Absolutely true
BRILLIANT!
I think that in the early 1880s the worst Street in London (or at least in Whitechapel) was Flower and Dean Street although Thrawl, George, and Dorset Streets could give it a run for its money fir that title.
Indeed. Every street around there was, at one time or another, referred to as the worst street in London. But, Flower and Dean Street, as you say, was the main worst one!
Are there any statistics available for the average life expectancy in the poorest parts of the East End at this time? I'm guessing that if you made it to 55 you were doing well. No NHS, no old age pension, anyone reaching 70 would be entirely dependent upon charity.
"Spital" deriving from the word hospital. More precisely, hospital for poor people.
My God, I wish I could time travel. Id go back to these days with a digital camera and multi terabytes of storage to photograph every aspect of that city huh.
Absolutely.
You'd need to take a mask, the stench would be awful.
I had a dream like that last year. I was in Newcastle in the early 1930s. Took out my phone to start photographing only to find it devoid of the software needed. My car wouldn't start either and a gang of ruffians was walking round it wondering how to break into it. I was glad to wake up!
At a time in history when the first steps were being taken to improve the lot of the working class. The previous year the match girls at Bryant and May had forced the company to improve pay and conditions and some companies had introduced the concept of a paid break. All done under duress of course. As usual those making the social judgements were keen to make monsters out of the poor when in fact they were the real monsters.
So what type of criminal is a Meak???
I always think he was here. Very near. Very very dear whom he killed.
The killer would have been a frequenter of this street and knew many people who lived and worked there.
Since being poor was seen as a crime in itself, morally anyway, why help the pep[le (sigh)?
Too many repeats of the same pictures.
There are very little pictures that’s why
Michael maybrick was jack
Dorset street, now gone forever, beneath the new London fruit and wool exchange building.
These Drawings prove nothing.
They should pay people so they can live from their labor....and then the drunks...drug addicts and prostitutes have no excuses.
@Mr Liberty Do you mean earning a living from a job?
Why do you think sex workers need "excuses?" Sex work is honest work.
@@Ken_Scaletta It is and it isn't. Why it it isn't - tax authorities could enlighten you on that.
Dorset Street, London sounds just like Dorset Street, Dublin! Slainte.