The Ratcliffe Highway Murders of 1811

In 1811 a series of brutal murders on the Ratcliffe Highway in the east end of London shook the locals to the very core with their unrivalled brutality and seemingly random, everyday targets. The murders exposed a fear in the city that had been bubbling away beneath the surface for several years and made some of the first inroads into the long debate over the reform of the way the police operated throughout the country. Considered as the crime of the century and unparallelled in the fear and panic it provoked amongst the population of the city, it was only overshadowed by a group of five murders in Whitechapel during the summer and autumn of 1888, attributed to the elusive and infamous Jack the Ripper.

SOURCES

Flanders, Judith (2011) The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime. Harper Press, London, UK

James, P.D. & Critchley, T.A. (2010) The Maul and The Pear Tree. Faber & Faber, London, UK.

Phillips, Watts (1855) The Wild Tribes of London. Ward & Lock, London, UK.

King, Peter (2010) The Impact of Urbanization on Murder Rates and on the Geography of Homicide in England and Wales, 1780-1850. The Historical Journal, Vol. 53, No. 3 (SEPTEMBER 2010), pp. 671-698, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Morning Chronicle (1811) Horrid And Unparalleled Murders. Mon 9 Dec, 1811, p3. London, UK.

Morning Chronicle (1811) Depositions Before The Magistrates. Sat 21 Dec, 1811, p3. London, UK

Morning Post (1811) The Late Horrible Murders. Wed 25 Dec, 1811, p3, London, UK.

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