Welcome to this deck on Whitechapel in the late Victorian era. Between 1870 and 1900, this small area of East London was one of the most notorious places in the British Empire. It was a place of extreme poverty, overcrowding, and crime. We will explore what life was like for the people who lived there, the challenges faced by the police, and the infamous case of Jack the Ripper that made Whitechapel famous around the world.

The living conditions in Whitechapel were desperate. Many people were crammed into slum housing in areas known as 'rookeries'. These were mazes of narrow, dark alleyways and courtyards, with houses that were poorly built and lacked basic sanitation like clean water or proper sewers. Disease spread rapidly in these conditions, making life dangerous even before you consider crime.

There were some attempts to improve housing. One of the most famous was the Peabody Estate, opened in 1881. Funded by an American philanthropist, George Peabody, it offered clean, secure flats with fresh air and shared laundry facilities. However, the rents were too high for the poorest residents of Whitechapel, who were often forced back into the rookeries. For your exam, the Peabody Estate is a good example of an attempt at social reform, but one with limited success.

Poverty was the root of many of Whitechapel's problems. Many jobs were insecure, such as working in the London docks. This was known as casual labour, where you might only get a day's work at a time. Many others, especially women and children, worked in so-called 'sweatshops'. These were small, cramped workshops, often in people's homes, where they worked long hours for very low pay in industries like tailoring and shoemaking.