For over a century the identity of notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper has baffled criminologists but modern DNA technology has finally solved the mystery, it has been claimed. Polish man Aaron Kosminski has been named by a world renowned DNA expert as the killer behind the 1888 murders of at least five women in…
Russell Edwards and Dr Jari Louhelainen, Senior Lecturer of Molecular Biology were honoured to be invited to present their story to Wolverhampton University last week. The story runs along-side the unvailing of Wolverhampton Civil and Historical Society unveiling their sponsored plaque for Catherine Eddowes who lived nearby at 20 Merridale Street, Graiseley Green. Catherine Eddowes…
Except taken from ‘Naming Jack the Ripper’ by Russell Edwards It is just another phase: the East End has been through so many incarnations over the centuries. But the most interesting time to me is the 1880s, the era that spawned the Ripper Murders. In those times the neighbourhoods of Whitechapel and Spitalfields, as well as nearby districts like…
For centuries the East End had been a great melting pot, and until this massive flood of immigrants it had dealt well with incomers, but now it was stretched to breaking point, and anyone who could afford to move away did, leaving a population who were, by and large, scraping by. Survival was the key, food and lodging the most…
The man who claims to have identified the real name of Jack The Ripper has visited Shropshire as part of his research into one of the killer’s victims. Jack The Ripper killed at least five women in the East End of London during the “autumn of terror” of 1888. Russell Edwards hit the headlines last…
The foundation stone for Leavesden Asylum was laid on 31st October 1868 by the Chairman of the Management Committee, William Henry Wyatt, J.P. The first patients were not admitted until 9th October 1870, the same date as the opening of Caterham Asylum. Both Asylums were built and run by the recently constituted Metropolitan Asylums Board…
