Why did the East End of London become the focus of so many ‘moral panics’ in the late nineteenth century? PDF

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This essay discusses the moral panics in the late nineteenth century and what the cause of them was....

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Gemma Renshaw Why did the East End of London become the focus of so many ‘moral panics’ in the late nineteenth century? Towards the late nineteenth century, there was an increase of moral panics within Britain, and many of them were seen to be due to events or problems seen within the East End of London. When looking into this period, it clear that the Whitechapel Murders played a great part in capturing the focus of middle and upper class people alike, and can be suggested to be the sole reason as to why there were so many moral panics during this period. As the murder went on, there was an increase in the amount of journalism dedicated to writing about the crime, who also took the opportunity to write about the state of the East End, both physically and socially, in order to make the East End look like a bad place.1Many of the journalists who reported the crime wrote about the conditions in which the people of the East End and their children lived, causing a common view of the East End to appear within the middle and upper-classes, and those who lived elsewhere. However, the panic and negative view of the East End did not start with the Whitechapel Murders, as this view had been building up in the decades prior to this crime, as aristocracy, novelists and popular journalists had visited and written about the East End in a bad light, such as Charles Dickens.2This was further added to with the rise of immigration, and the problems which they brought with them, such as further overcrowding and social problems which people outside of the East End did not find acceptable.3Therefore, this essay will discuss the negativity towards the East End beforehand and how it came to be, and show that the Whitechapel Murders put focus on this negativity and was the reason as to why the East End was focused on as the cause of so many moral panics in the late nineteenth century. Throughout the nineteenth century, before the Whitechapel Murders had happened, there had been many negative depictions of the East End which had shaped how people outside of the East End viewed it, and most of these came from middle class journalists or aristocracy who had visited the East End and written newspaper articles or books about it. Although the East End was not written about in greater detail as it was in the later nineteenth century, as it had not become a separate place from London at this point, there were still some negative pieces written about it. For example, in 1841, after a visit to the East End, a Lord wrote that there were ‘scenes of filth, discomfort, disease!’ and paid particular attention to the bad smell coming from it.4As the East End was home to most of the industries which polluted the air with bad smells, such as slaughter houses and tanneries, it became known as a place where bad air and pollution came, and therefore was often associated with disease, similarly to how the Lord did so.5 It was because of depictions like these that the East End began to become separate to the rest of London, and why it would become the focus of moral panics in the late nineteenth century as these types of depictions would become reality for those of whom did not personally visit the East End due to the amount of newspaper coverage it got.6 1 Casey, C. A ‘Common Misperceptions: The Press and Victorian Views of Crime.’ Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 41:3, (2010). Page 367-391. 2 Swafford, K.,. Among the Disposable: Jack London in the East End of London. Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, 48:2 (2016) pp.15 3 Gray, Drew D, London's Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City, (UK: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010), 4 Gray, Drew D, London's Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City, (UK: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010) page 60 5 Gray, Drew D, London's Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City, (UK: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010) page 60 / Haggard, R.F. ‘Jack the Ripper as the Threat of Outcast London’, in Willis, M. and Warwick, A. (eds.) Jack the Ripper: Media, Culture and History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007) page 202 6 Casey, C. A ‘Common Misperceptions: The Press and Victorian Views of Crime.’ Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 41:3, (2010). Page 367-391.

Gemma Renshaw Another later example of this kind of feeling within writing would be by Arthur Morrison, who was an English journalist and novelist during the late nineteenth century, who focused most of his journalism and fictional pieces on the East End.7 Morrison differed from those of previous writings as he was originally from the East End himself, and so had experienced what it was like to live in the East End.8However, that did not mean his depictions of the East End were much different to that of those who had written about it in fiction previously. Roger Henkle states that ‘Morrison underwent an embourgeoise-ment that took him beyond his East End roots’, suggesting that as he moved up the social ladder, his writing became much like those who had written fiction about the East End before. 9 This is clear in his book Tales of Mean Streets, which was written in 1894, depicts the East End as ‘an evil plexus of slums that hide human creeping things’, where ‘filthy men and women live on penn'orths of gin, where collars and clean shirts are decencies unknown, where every citizen wears a black eye, and none ever combs his hair’.10 This depiction of the EastEnders gives the impression that they are dirty people who are always fighting and getting drunk, which is what was commonly depicted in earlier novels by authors such as Charles Dickens, only this depiction is from someone who had been born there and so was suggestively truer than that of what Dickens had written. Although this book was written after the Whitechapel Murders, it still further confirmed the fears and thoughts the people outside of the East End had about the people who lived there, and would not be believed to be true due to the evidence about the East End that the reporting’s of the Whitechapel Murders had given to them. Written words and books such as these would have been read by fellow middle class and upper class citizens, as not much literature other than bibles and school literature would have been available to the poorer classes within London, and so gave them the idea that the East End was a bad place, which would be further justified with the mountains of reports on the Whitechapel Murders, as will be discussed later in this essay. During the nineteenth century there was an increase in the amount of immigration from other countries to Britain, predominantly Irish, Russian and Polish immigration, and most of the people that did immigrate were seen to immigrate to the East End.11By 1851, there were a number of communities of Irish, Russian and Polish immigrants in the East End, and by this time they had garnered a lot of negative attention.12As a whole, immigrants in the East End were viewed in a negative light because they were seen to be foreigners who were coming to the country to take ‘English jobs’ as when they came over, the economic hardships they already endured got worse. 13 Prior to the masses of immigration, the East End had already been known for its overcrowding and lack of basic hygiene because of journalists who had visited there, and so with the increase in population these conditions worsened, which in turn created more negativity towards the immigrants.14 7 Henkle, R. ‘Morrison, Gissing, and the Stark Reality’. NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, 25:3, (1992) pp.302–320. 8 Henkle, R. ‘Morrison, Gissing, and the Stark Reality’. NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, 25:3, (1992) pp.302–320. 9 Henkle, R. ‘Morrison, Gissing, and the Stark Reality’. NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, 25:3, (1992) pp.302–320. 10 Morrison, Arthur, Tales of Mean Streets (USA: University Press, 1895), page 16, Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40569/40569-h/40569-h.htm. [Accessed 16 December 2017]. 11 Newland, Paul, The Cultural Construction of London's East End: Urban Iconography, Modernity and the Spatialisation of Englishness, (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008) 12 Warwick, Alexandra, and Willis, Martin, ‘Jack the Ripper as the Threat of Outcast London’ - in - Jack the Ripper: media, culture, history, (UK: Manchester University Press, 2007) 13 Gray, Drew D, London's Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City, (UK: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010), page 73 14 Warwick, Alexandra, and Willis, Martin, ‘Jack the Ripper as the Threat of Outcast London’ - in - Jack the Ripper: media, culture, history, (UK: Manchester University Press, 2007), page 119

Gemma Renshaw However, immigrants such as the Irish were not as hard looked at as some of the other which had moved into the East End. Jewish people from Russia and Poland were one of the biggest groups of immigrants to immigrate to London, and a large amount of them moved to the East End.15These immigrants were not like the Irish who had immigrated, as a lot of them became wealthy, or as wealthy as one could get in the East End, and could afford much more than what those who were born in the East End could.16 They were often subject to the anti-Semitism which was prominent in London and various places across the world in the nineteenth century, and were often seen to be involved with movements that went against the middle and upper-classes, such as anarchism and communism.17 This meant that the view of the East End worsened as because of these types of immigrants, it was viewed to be a place that was untrustworthy as they were seen to be involved with activities which went against the social order.18As well as the negative depictions the East End already had, this was also used in the reporting’s of the Whitechapel Murders to show the problems which the East End had, and further contributed to the moral panics of the late nineteenth century. Crime within the East End of London was one of the biggest reasons as to why there was a lot of moral panics in the late nineteenth century. Although it is debated how much crime had truly risen during this century by professors such as Christopher Casey and Lynn McDonald, it is clear that towards the middle of it there was a visible rise in the amount of crime that took place, that seemed to decrease towards the end of the century.19 However, although crime was decreasing, during this period there was a growth in journalism, and therefore an increase in the amount of crimes reported in weekly newspapers, which helped to make what others who lived on the outside thought about the East End justifiable.20Arguably, it is because of the rise in reported crimes in the East End that there was moral panics in the late nineteenth century as many of them brought to light the things which have been previously mentioned, and gave them reason to believe that what they had thought before was true. The one crime which can be said to have ultimately brought the focus of the moral panics on the East End would be the Whitechapel Murders, which are famously known as the Jack the Ripper murders, which happened in 1888.21 As this was considered to be a big crime for the century, it was constantly reported in weekly newspapers and was used by journalists as a story to ‘sensationalise’, and so was used, intentionally or not, to bring fear to those who had read any of the reports about it. 22However, these reports usually did not just report the crime, they also reported on the surroundings of the where the murders happened, including both the physical state of the East End and the social state 15 Gray, Drew D, London's Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City, (UK: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010), page 64 16 Warwick, Alexandra, and Willis, Martin, ‘Jack the Ripper as the Threat of Outcast London’ - in - Jack the Ripper: media, culture, history, (UK: Manchester University Press, 2007), page 119 17 Gray, Drew D, London's Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City, (UK: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010), page 66 / Newland, Paul, The Cultural Construction of London's East End: Urban Iconography, Modernity and the Spatialisation of Englishness, (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008), page 26 18 Gray, Drew D, London's Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City, (UK: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010), page 66 / Newland, Paul, The Cultural Construction of London's East End: Urban Iconography, Modernity and the Spatialisation of Englishness, (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008), page 26 19 Wong, Y. R ‘An Economic Analysis of the Crime Rate in England and Wales, 1857-92’. Economica, Vol. 62, No. 246 (1995), pp. 235-246 / Casey, C. A ‘Common Misperceptions: The Press and Victorian Views of Crime.’ Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 41:3, (2010). 367-391. 20 Casey, C. ‘A Common Misperceptions: The Press and Victorian Views of Crime.’ Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 41:3, (2010).page 367-391. 21 Curtis, L.P. Jack the Ripper and the London Press (London: Yale University Press, 2001), throughout 22 Casey, C. A ‘Common Misperceptions: The Press and Victorian Views of Crime.’ Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 41:3, (2010). page 385

Gemma Renshaw of the East End.23 Therefore, arguably, this crime is what tied together all of the negative views of the East End that have been mentioned previously, as it acted as a form of evidence to confirm that everything the outsiders thought of the East End was true. For example, in an article that was published by The Guardian in 1888 about Annie Chapman’s murder, the journalist commented that the occupants of the place were ‘poor and for the most part… Jewish’. 24This was not needed for the article, as it is describing the scene of the crime, however including that the crime happened in an area that is predominantly poor and Jewish suggests that these people are in part at fault for the crime as they are who live here. It also suggestively is trying to appeal to those who had anti-Semitic views as has been previously mentioned in this essay, as it gives the opportunity for those kinds of people to use this as reason to be anti-Semitic, and fear the Jewish people more, as the crime is happening where they live. This therefore reinforces the idea that they are a problem as they had previously thought. Another article published in the Pall Mall Gazette on September 10th 1888 was named ‘The Moral of the Whitechapel Murders’, and explicitly discussed everything that was wrong with the East End.25The article refers to the EastEnders as ‘creatures’ and states that they are haunted by ‘daily sins… nightly agonies… hourly sorrows’ which ‘corrupt’ them, suggesting they are not human like those of none-East End descent.26What is interesting about this article is that it mentions that the depictions they had been lead to believe were true by popular writers, both of which have been mentioned previously, can only be given reality when a major crime happens. It states ‘it is when some crime or accident, more than usually horrible, has given vividness and reality to the previously mentioned unrealized picture, that we are brought to feel’, which suggests that that the middle and upper-classes would only feel strongly, or panic, about something when a crime happens that shows everything they had been told previously is true.27 Furthermore, as well as confirming what the wealthier citizens thought of the poor within the East End, the Whitechapel Murders were used to target elements of society which the Victorians greatly cared about. For example, on September 22nd 1888, an article in The British Medical Journal talked about neighbourhoods in the East End, and stated that ‘in such neighbourhoods the children of those fallen in crime grow up surrounded by an utter absence of virtue’. 28This phrase in itself would cause some sort of moral panic, as it is suggesting that the children within the East End are growing up without any moral standards, as they are being affected by the crime which they are supposedly surrounded by, and so will grow up to be just like those who are committing crimes. This would cause moral panics amongst those who read this article as during this period children were considered to be very important, as they were seen as the ‘future’ which was something that was held in high regard in the Victorian period due to theories such as Darwinism.29 23 Newland, Paul, The Cultural Construction of London's East End: Urban Iconography, Modernity and the Spatialisation of Englishness, (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008), page 26 24 ‘Another brutal murder in Whitechapel’ The Guardian (10th September 1888) Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/from-the-archive-blog/2011/may/16/newspapers-nationalnewspapers. [Accessed 16 December 2017]. 25 ‘The Moral of the Whitechapel Murders’, Pall Mall Gazette, Wednesday 12 September 1888, page 7. Found online: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000098/18880912/014/0007 26 ‘The Moral of the Whitechapel Murders’, Pall Mall Gazette, Wednesday 12 September 1888, page 7. Found online: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000098/18880912/014/0007 27 ‘The Moral of the Whitechapel Murders’, Pall Mall Gazette, Wednesday 12 September 1888, page 7. Found online: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000098/18880912/014/0007 28 ‘The Whitechapel Murders’, The British Medical Journal, 2:1447, (September 22nd 1888), pp 672 29Burdett, Carolyn, ‘Post Darwin: social Darwinism, degeneration, eugenics’ (2017). - The British Library. Available at: https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/post-darwin-social-darwinism-degenerationeugenics. [Accessed 16 December 2017].

Gemma Renshaw This crime, therefore, brought all of the fears and concerns others had had about the East End to light, as even though the murders themselves were focused on prostitutes of the East End, there was a lot of focus on the conditions and the morals of the people within it written about in the newspapers which were sold across the country. Therefore, as the Whitechapel Murders were so largely reported, it meant that people outside of Whitechapel and the East End were open to seeing the various other crimes and things which they could consider socially wrong that happened within the East End, and therefore the East End became the focus of moral panics and how much ‘humanity could sink’.30 To conclude, it is clear that there were a number of factors which contributed to the East End being the focus of the moral panics in the late nineteenth century. In the early and mid-nineteenth century, there had been a lot of negative depictions of the East End made in newspapers and popular fiction, which middle and upper-class people were prone to believing as they did not visit the East End themselves, and so believed what they were told by people who had. The influx of immigration during this period caused this picture of the East End to worsen, as anti-Semitism was widely spread during this period, and others were aware that many immigrant Jewish people lived within the East End, and so were the target to a lot of hate and further added to the negative image the East End already had. However, it was not just this negative picture alone which brought the focus to the East End. The Whitechapel Murders brought with them an increase in the amount of crime reported, and many journalists used the murders in order to give their readers a true picture of the East End. This confirmed what outsiders had thought of the place, and therefore created moral panic as the negativity they had believed before now seemed to be true, and to an extent was true. Therefore, this shows that it was a combination of prior thoughts and feelings towards the East End and the reporting’s of the Whitechapel Murders and the surroundings of them which brought the focus of the moral panics in late nineteenth century to the East End.

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Endelman, T.M., The Jews of Britain, 1656 to 2000, (California: University of California Press, 2002)

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30 Gray, Drew D, London's Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City, (UK: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010), page 3

Gemma Renshaw 

Haggard, R.F. ‘Jack the Ripper as the Threat of Outcast London’, in Willis, M. and Warwick, A....