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[victorianwhitechapel]

Alice McKenzie's clothes and possessions

At the time of her murder, Alice was wearing:

- A black coat.

- A brown/black staff skirt.

- A red staff bodice.

- A linsey petticoat.

- Black stockings.

- Buttoned boots.

- A Paisley shawl.

She also had:

A clay pipe.

Gone but not forgotten. May she rest in peace. 🌺

[victorianwhitechapel]

Coincidences...

This is a clay pipe.

Today I was working in an archaeological site and we found a clay pipe (not this one, photo from wikipedia). In the area I was with two other people, one of them found it.

It is a medieval site in Ireland, but the clay pipe is modern. 20th century said the boss.

Today we found a clay pipe.

130 years ago today, it was the last day Alice "Clay Pipe" McKenzie was last seen alive. She smoked clay pipes.

Coincidences...

[victorianwhitechapel]

Alice McKenzie timeline

1845 – Alice Pitts is born in the Precincts of Peterborough Minster, Cathedral, in Cambridgeshire, England (March 8) .

1860 – Aged 15, Alice works for Mrs Strickland in her refreshment rooms in St. John Street, Peterborough.

1861 – Aged 17, she no longer lives with her family, but in the household of a master brazier named Edward Miller in High Cross Street, Leicester where she is employed as a house servant.

1863 – Alice marries chair and cabinet maker Joseph Kinsey or McKenzie at All Saints Church, Leicester, Leicestershire, East Midlands (October 11).

1866 – Alice and Joseph are parents of Joseph James, born at Freeman’s Common, St Mary, Leicester (July 21).

1866 – Baby Joseph James dies of ‘marasmus’ (a form of malnutrition) at 4 Joseph Street, St. Mary, Leicester (October 12).

1867 – Joseph Kinsey dies aged 25 of tuberculosis(February 18).

1873 – 27 year-old laundress Alice is convicted of ’D & R’ at Southwark police court, central London. She is fined 10s and sentenced to 7 days imprisonment with hard labour, which she serves in Wandsworth Prison, South West London (October 31 to November 6).

1875 – She is admitted to the Whitechapel Infirmary from Leman Street police station because she was ‘Ill and destitute’ (August 13 to 20).

1877 – She is admitted to the Whitechapel Infirmary due to an ulcer (June 14 to 23).

1877 –  Alice is admitted to the St George Workhouse, Mint Street, Southwark having been charged with being drunk, but is discharged the same day (August 1).

1878 – Her father dies aged 74 in Peterborough (March).

1878 – Alice is convicted at Southwark police court of being ‘drunk in a thoro'fare’. She is fined 5s and sentenced to 7 days imprisonment with hard labour, which she serves in Wandsworth Prison (June 26 to July 2).

1883 – Alice lives, on and off, with Irish porter John McCormark or Bryant at various East End common lodging and doss-houses.

1883 – She is admitted to the Whitechapel Infirmary due to an ulcer (August 11 to 24).

1883 – Alice is admitted to the workhouse infirmary by a policeman who found her drunk in Dorset Street (November 5 to 16).

1883 – Alice is admitted to the Whitechapel Infirmary for alcoholism and fits (December 20 to 23).

1885 – Her mother Martha dies in Peterborough aged 74 (December).

1889 – Alice is arrested for causing a disturbance in a butcher’s shop in Long Causeway, Peterborough (January).

1889 – Alice resides with John McCormack mainly at Mr. Tenpenny’s common lodging house, 52 Gun Street, Spitalfields while working for her Jewish neighbours as a washerwoman and charwoman (April).

1889 – Alice spends the day at the common lodging house but the evening possibly at the Cambridge Music Hall with a blind boy (July 16).

1889 – Alice chats with three women, Margaret Franklin, Catherine Hughes and Sarah Marney in Flower and Dean Street, and then leaves alone toward Whitechapel (July 16).

1889 – P.C. Walter Andrews discovers the murdered body of Alice at Castle Alley, a dark and dismal snickleway that led off Whitechapel High Street. She was 44 (July 17).

Your life was difficult and cut short. You were free at last… 🌼

[victorianwhitechapel]

I really love your blog and that you are giving the victim's perspective more than the killer's, investigation and theories perspectives. Is these women who really matter, in the end. I would like to know, of all the movies, TV series etc, which one do you think portraits the victims the best way? (More realistic), which one do you love more for the settings or costumes? Or even the storyline? If you would have to do a show about it, which actresses would you choose and storyline? Thank you! ♥️

Hi!

Thank you very much for your interesting question…

There are several films which I find they are the best to travel back in Victorian era in Whitechapel area: Murder By Decree (1979), Jack the Ripper TV series (1988), The Ripper (1997) & From Hell (2001).

From these films mentioned above, in my opinion, there are two which make great portraits of the victims as they are a great foccus on the film, these films are “The Ripper” (Janet Meyers, 1997) and “From Hell” (The Hughes Brothers, 2001) although the victims are portrayed being prostitutes because is what we knew back them, now we now this information wasn’t correct at all.

I think all of these films have a great set and in those films the dresses and the storyline is good but I loved the dresses and the neighbourhood set in “From Hell”, but the storyline, although it was really interesting, it wasn’t an original idea because in Murder by Decree (Bob Clarke, 1979) and in Jack the Ripper TV series (David Wickes, 1988), we had seen the same theory. It would be great if a new film comes, it would be foccused into a very different theory.

Nowadays I wouldn’t make a film about Whitechapel murders but a TV series, just like Ripper Street (which I loved!!) but focusing on the lifes of the victims. Ripper Street is very very cool but it happens like two or three years after the murders, perhaps a prequel would be great!! (starring Matthew McFayden and Clive Russell of course!!).

I would like that in this new TV series (perhaps it would be good just one season, compelling 8 chapters, each one foccused in one victim, but then, as the story goes by, you can see the victims cross paths and some chapters can be foccused in more than just one victim). The chapters I would film would have the name of each central woman and they would be aired in chronological order of their findings, so they would be:

   Martha

   “Polly”

   “Dark” Annie

   Kate

   “Long” Liz

   Mary “Jeannette”

   Alice "Clay Pipe”

   Frances

The other victims, Annie Millwood, Margaret Himes, Emily Horsnell, Rose Mylett, Emma Elizabeth Smith & Elizabeth Jackson would be featured as well but not as a main character because we have just little information on them, but they deserve to be on this, so there would be references on them in the chapters.

As for the actresses, I think the cast directors of the film “From Hell” did a great job choosing the actresses as they really ressemble the victims.

This is my list for the actresses portraying the victims, as I stated above, some of the actresses will be the same as "From Hell”.

Samantha Spiro as Martha Tabram:

Annabelle Apsion as Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols

Sarah Paulson as “Dark” Annie Chapman

Ruby Bentall as Catherine “Kate” Eddowes

Susan Lynch as “Long Liz” Stride

Eleanor Tomlinson as Mary Jane Kelly

Anna Maxwell Martin as Alice “Clay Pipe” McKenzie

Sophie Skelton as Frances Coles

And I would cast Sarah Greene as Ada Wilson. This character might appear in several chapters, being questioned by the police in several times, as she saw the culprit face to face.

Well, here you have it, I hope you like the actresses chosen, it was really hard to find someone who could play “Dark” Annie and someone who could play Alice McKenzie, I’ll try my best. If you have other actresses who could fit in the characters, please post!! :D

[victorianwhitechapel]

🔵CHAPTER 201: ALICE🔵🔞 On Wednesday 17th July 1889 it starts to rain at 12:45 am. PC Andrews is making his round and everything has been very quiet. Until now. He discovers the body of a woman lying on the pavement with her only posessions of a clay pipe and a copper farthing. 25 minutes before she wasn't there. The Whitechapel fiend was still on the loose... RIP Alice McKenzie... 🔹🔹 Era el miercoles 17 de julio de 1889, a las 12:45 de la noche empezó a llover. PC Andrews estaba haciendo su ronda y todo había estado muy tranquilo. Hasta ahora. En aquel momento descubrió el cuerpo de una mujer tendido al suelo con sus únicas pertenencias: una pipa de arcilla y una moneda de cobre. 25 minutos antes ella no estsba allí. El demonio de Whitechapel seguia suelto... DEP Alice McKenzie... 🔹🔹 #victorian_playmo #AliceMcKenzie #AliceClayPipe #AliceClayPipeMcKenzie #OTD #130yearsagotoday #itwas130yearsagotoday #victoriantimes #victorianeastenders #PCAndrews #asambleaplaymobil #victorianwhitechapel #whitechapel1889 (at Whitechapel) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0ArZI9CE5p/?igshid=1z8eh0npao3a

[victorianwhitechapel]

Alice “Clay Pipe” McKenzie

Alice McKenzie (b. Alice Pitts, aka Alice Kinsey, “Clay Pipe” Alice, Alice Bryant, Kelly)

Birth date: March 8, 1845 Attacked and killed (age): July 17, 1889 (44)

Complexion: Freckle-faced Eyes colour: Hazel Hair colour: Auburn Height: 5′4″ (163 cm) Ocupation: Washerwoman and charwoman

Clothes at the time of murder/discovery: A black coat; a brown/black staff skirt; a red staff bodice; a linsey petticoat; black stockings; buttoned boots; a Paisley shawl.

Resting place: Plaistow Cemetery, Bromley.

***

Early Life

Alice McKenzie was born Alice Pitts on March 8th 1845 in the Precincts of Peterborough Minster (Cathedral), Cambridgeshire (England) to Charles Pitts, a post office messenger, and Martha, neé Watson. She had four older siblings, William, John, Martha and Jane, and two younger brothers, Charles and Thomas.

Around 1860, when she was 15, Alice worked for Mrs Strickland in her refreshment rooms in St. John Street, Peterborough. In 1861, aged 17, Alice no longer lived with her family, but  in the household of a master brazier named Edward Miller in High Cross Street, Leicester where she was employed as a house servant.

On October 11th1863 Alice Pitts marries Joseph Kinsey or McKenzie, a chair and cabinet maker at All Saints Church, Leicester. Three years later, on 21st July 1866 they became parents of Joseph James at Freeman’s Common, St Mary, Leicester. Sadly, on October 12th of the same year baby Joseph James died of ‘marasmus’ (a form of malnutrition) at 4 Joseph Street, St. Mary, Leicester. The informant was his mother, Alice, who was present at the death. The following year, on 18thFebruary 1867 Joseph Kinsey died aged 25 of tuberculosis at the same place. The informant was Alice Kinsey, then aged around 22, who was present at the death. Notices of Joseph's death were printed in several local newspapers.

On 31st October 1873, a 27-year-old laundress named Alice McKenzie, widow of carpenter Joseph McKenzie was convicted of ’D & R’ at Southwark police court. She was fined 10s and sentenced to 7 days imprisonment with hard labour, which she served in Wandsworth Prison. She was described as 5ft 4 ½ ins tall, with Auburn hair, hazel eyes and pale complexion. She was released on 6th November, 1873. Prior to that, she had already been convicted, but the details haven’t arrived to this day.

Later life

She was later to move into the East End of London sometime before 1874. On August 13th 1875 she was admitted to the Whitechapel Infirmary from Leman Street police station because she was ‘Ill and destitute’. She was discharged on 20thAugust, 1875. She went there again on June 14th 1877 due to an ulcer and stayed until the 23rd. On August 1st she was admitted to the St George Workhouse, Mint Street, Southwark having been charged with being drunk but was discharged the same day. On March 1878 her father Charles Pitts died in Peterborough, aged 74. On June 26th, a 32-year-old laundress and hawker was convicted at Southwark police court of being ‘drunk in a thoro'fare’. She was fined 5s and sentenced to 7 days imprisonment with hard labour, which she served in Wandsworth Prison. She was released on 2nd July, 1878. From 1883 Alice lived, off and on, with an Irishman named John McCormack (also Bryant) who was in the employ of some Jewish tailors in Hamburg Street as a porter, at various East End common lodging and doss-houses. On August 11th, aged 37, she was admitted to the Whitechapel Infirmary due to an ulcer and she was discharged on 24th August. From November 5th to 16th she was admitted to the workhouse infirmary by a policeman who found her drunk in ‘Dorset Street’. On December 20th another policeman brought her to the Whitechapel Infirmary for alcoholism and fits. She was discharged on 23rd December.

On December 1885 her mother Martha Pitts died in Peterborough, aged 74. 

Last months and murder

On January 1889 Alice was arrested for causing a disturbance in a butcher’s shop in Long Causeway, Peterborough, very near the Minster Precincts. Besides that, Alice worked for her Jewish neighbours as a washerwoman and charwoman, and from April she resided with John McCormack mainly at Mr. Tenpenny’s common lodging house, 52 Gun Street, Spitalfields. It was managed by Mrs. Elizabeth Ryder, wife of Richard John Ryder. At this time, Alice was around 43 years of age, described as a freckle-faced woman with a penchant for both smoke and drink. She preferred the smoke of a pipe, which was soon to grant her the name “Clay Pipe” Alice by her friends and acquaintances. Her left thumb was also injured in what was no doubt some sort of industrial accident.

On Tuesday 16th July 1889 she spent the day at the common lodging house but the evening possibly at the Cambridge Music Hall with a blind boy. From 11:30pm to midnight, Alice chatted with three women, Margaret Franklin, Catherine Hughes and Sarah Marney in Flower and Dean Street, and then left alone toward Whitechapel.

On Wednesday 17th July, at 12:15am Police Constable Joseph Allen took a break under a street lamp in Castle Alley, a dark and dismal snickleway that led off Whitechapel High Street, for a bite to eat. The narrowness and overall dismalness of this alley had, for several years prior, been the subject of much comment in the local press, and this latest Whitechapel murder led to calls for the local authority to “do something” about its condition. According to Allen the alley was completely deserted. After about five minutes, Allen noticed another constable entering the alley. It was P.C. Walter Andrews, who remained in the alley for about three minutes. He saw nothing of a suspicious nature.

At about 12:25am, Sarah Smith, deputy of the Whitechapel Baths and Washhouses (which lined Castle Alley) retired to her room. She began reading in bed, the closed window of her room overlooking the entire alley. Sarah later testified she heard nothing suspicious until she heard the blow of Andrews’ whistle.

At 12:45am it began to rain in Whitechapel. Five minutes later, P.C. Andrews returned to Castle Alley on his regular beat, about twenty-seven minutes having passed since he left the area. This time, however, he discovered the body of a woman lying on the pavement, her head angled toward the curb and her feet toward the wall. Blood flowed from two stabs in the left side of her neck and her skirts had been lifted, revealing blood across her abdomen, which had been mutilated.

The pavement beneath the body of Alice was still dry, placing her death sometime after 12:25am and before 12:45am, when it began to rain. In her possession were found a clay pipe often referred to as a ‘nose warmer’ and a bronze farthing. She was noticed to have been wearing some ‘odd stockings.’ P.C. Andrews heard someone approaching the alley soon after, it was Isaac Lewis Jacobs, of Old Castle-street, who was running home when the police-constable came towards him and asked him “for God’s sake” to go to the woman and stand by while he called assistance. Lewis went to the spot while the constable was blowing his whistle. At 1:10am Inspector Edmund Reid arrived only moments before the Divisional Police Surgeon, Dr George Bagster Philips, and noted that blood was still flowing, but by when Philips arrived, about 1:12am, he pronounced life extinct.

It would be several hours before the body was identified, in the meantime a description was circulated to the newspapers, with one peculiarity: part of the nail on the thumb on the left hand was deficient. The papers also mentioned the clay pipe found near the body. Several hours elapsed before the woman was identified, but John McCormack came forward during the day and recognised her. He stated that he did not know whether the deceased had been married, and that the reason of her going out last night was that they had had a slight quarrel, and that she had never, to his knowledge, been out late at night previously. He also said that she was a hard-working woman and was very much upset about her fate. He also identified the clay pipe as belonging to her.

Investigation

Dr. Philips performed the post-mortem and declared that the cause of death was from severance of the left carotid artery. She also suffered two stabs in the left side of the neck , some bruising on chest and five bruises or marks on left side of abdomen. Cut was made from left to right, apparently while McKenzie was on the ground. The body also presented a long (seven-inch) ‘but not unduly deep’ wound from the bottom of the left breast to the navel, seven or eight scratches beginning at the navel and pointing toward the genitalia and small cut across the mons veneris. Dr. Phillips believed there was a degree of anatomical knowledge necessary to have committed the atrocities to McKenzie.

The mutilations committed upon McKenzie were mostly superficial in manner, the deepest of which opened neither the abdominal cavity nor the muscular structure. The wounds also suggested that the killer was left-handed (as opposed to the Ripper being right-handed). Phillips suggested the five marks on the left side of her body were an imprint of the killer’s right hand, which left only his left hand to facilitate the injuries. Dr. Thomas Bond disagreed, claiming there was no evidence to support the theory that those marks were made through such processes (admittedly, Bond saw the body the day after the post mortem, and it had already begun to decompose). The weapon was agreed upon to have been a ‘sharp- pointed weapon,’ although it could be smaller than the one used by the Ripper.

Phillips ultimately claimed that McKenzie’s death was not attributable to the Ripper. Dr. Thomas Bond chose the opposite conclusion, telling Sir Robert Anderson he believed it was indeed a Ripper killing, but Anderson himself disagreed, writing: “I am here assuming that the murder of Alice McKenzie on the 17th of July 1889, was by another hand. I was absent from London when it occurred, but the Chief Commissioner investigated the case on the spot and decided it was an ordinary murder, and not the work of a sexual maniac.” Inspector Frederick Abberline also believed this was not a Ripper murder.

Commissioner James Monro, who had replaced Sir Charles Warren in the position, was on duty during the investigation since Anderson was on leave at the time, and disagreed: “I need not say that every effort will be made by the police to discover the murderer, who, I am inclined to believe, is identical with the notorious Jack the Ripper of last year.” In fact, on the day of the murder, Monro deployed 3 sergeants and 39 constables on duty in Whitechapel, increasing the force with 22 extra men.

At the inquest, which was held on July 17th and 19th, and later adjourned to August 14th, Coroner Wynne Edwin Baxter acknowledged that Alice could have been either killed by the Ripper or another killer, and concluded: “There is great similarity between this and the other class of cases, which have happened in this neighbourhood, and if the same person has not committed this crime, it is clearly an imitation of the other cases.” The conclusion was the all too familiar ‘murder by a person or persons unknown.’

Aftermath

The Scotland Yard Files pertaining to the McKenzie murder detail an interesting sidebar concerning an individual named William Wallace Brodie, who confessed to murdering the woman. It was earlier printed in the Kimberley Advertiser of June 29th, 1889 that Brodie had confessed to all the Whitechapel murders while in a drunken stupor. His statement was forwarded by Chief Inspector Henry Moore, but Superintendent Thomas Arnold gave instructions to dismiss Brodie as of unsound mind. Scotland Yard gave the same prognosis: “Let him be charged as a lunatic.” It was soon discovered that Brodie had a conviction for larceny, and just to be sure, enquiries were made into his character and location during the Whitechapel Murders. It was found that he was in South Africa between September 6th, 1888 and July 15th, 1889. Ultimately, Brodie was released from custody, but was almost immediately rearrested for fraud.

Alice was buried in Plaistow Cemetery (East London) on Wednesday 24th July, 1889.

***

To know more:

Wikipedia

Casebook website – Casebook Forum – Casebook Wiki

Jack The Ripper.org

Jack The Ripper Tour

JTR Forums (where all her family and early years information comes from!)

Jack The Ripper Map

Historic Mysteries

BEGG, Paul (2013): Jack The Ripper. The Facts.

BEGG, Paul & BENNETT, John (2014): The forgotten victims.

BEGG, Paul; FIDO, Martin & SKINNER, Keith (1996): The Jack The Ripper A – Z.

EDDLESTON, John J. (2001): Jack the Ripper: An Encyclopedia.

EVANS, Stewart P. & RUMBELOW, Donald (2006): Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates.

EVANS, Stewart P. & SKINNER, Keith (2001): Jack the Ripper: Letters from Hell.

GRAY, Drew D. (2010): London's Shadows. The Dark Side of the Victorian City

JAKUBOWSKI, Maxim & BRAUND, Nathan (1999): The Mammoth Book of Jack The Ripper.

MARRIOTT, Trevor (2005): Jack the Ripper: The 21st Century Investigation.

PRIESTLEY, Mick P. (2018): One Autumn in Whitechapel.

RUMBELOW, Donald (2004): The Complete Jack the Ripper: Fully Revised and Updated.

TROW, M. J. (2009): Jack The Ripper: Quest for a Killer.