Housing was disgusting Housing was disgusting. There was no sanitation and sewage ran openly through the overcrowded, maze-like streets. There was little work available for women and no social security for those women who were unemployed. Many were forced to become prostitutes to survive. For many such women, their only escape from their terrible lives was drink and they quickly became helpless alcoholics. The population of London had risen to four million in the end of the nineteenth century which meant there was a need for cheap, quickly built housing. Many poor families lived crammed in single-room accommodations without sanitation and proper ventilation. There were also over 200 common lodging houses which provided shelter for some 8000 homeless and destitute people per night. As the East End was a cheap place to live it became home to many immigrants such as Jews, Poles, and the Irish. Individual houses did not have toilet facilities and as many as 90 people would share two toilets and irregular water supplies. Smoke and stinking gas fumes choked the streets so badly that at times it was not even possible to see your own hand in front of your face – these smogs were called “Pea Soupers” because of their greenish colour.

Population growth in the first half of the 19th century was spectacular, probably a combination of migration and a high birth rate, although scholars are unable to agree on the matter. Between 1800 and 1810, the population rose by 23%; between 1840 and 1850, it rose by 21%; and at no time did the rate fall below 17%; in the second half of the century, growth was less dramatic, but nonetheless above the national average. Population in 1810 was 1,000,000+; in 1851: 2,500,00; and in 1901, 4,500,000. In short, London's population increase was "remarkable and unprecedented." London grew faster than any other city in Europe. Urban problems resulting from population growth were taggering: housing was in short supply; space became increasingly valuable; public hygiene deteriorated (low standards of personal hygiene, open-air food markets, litter in the streets, the filth from horse-drawn delivery and passenger vehicles); winds blew in dust, dirt, and soot; drinking water was polluted. Diseases like typhoid and cholera were common. An outbreak of cholera in 1831 killed 5,000, while others in 1833 killed 1,500, in 1848 killed 14,000, in 1866 killed 6,000.

Daily workhouse schedule Most of the East End population was employed in factory work, with meager earnings and harsh conditions forcing many women into prostitution as a means of survival. The overpopulation of the urban districts, combined with horrific health conditions exacerbated by poor drainage and inadequate sanitation, created an environment in which diseases like typhoid fever and cholera, not to mention the venereal diseases spread by prostitution, claimed many lives and starvation and death were daily realities. The extreme poverty of the area also contributed to the rampant crime that plagued the East End. The scene of Whitechapel at the time of the murders was likely a grim picture of poverty’s worst elements; unlit alleys and drunken vagrants created dangerous conditions for the many prostitutes who walked the streets or worked out of brothels. There were a great many workhouses in the East End. Life in a workhouse was intended to be harsh, to deter the able-bodied poor and to ensure that only the truly desperate would apply. Most were employed on tasks such as breaking stones, bone crushing to produce fertilizer, or picking oakum using a large metal nail known as a spike. Daily workhouse schedule 6:00 Rise 6:30–7:00 Breakfast 7:00–12:00 Work 12:00–13:00 Dinner 13:00–18:00 18:00–19:00 Supper 20:00 Bedtime

Graph showing rates of poverty in the different areas of the East End. The average life expectancy in England in 1880 was 41 years of age. In the East End it was lower than this. There was much racial tension in the East End. By 1851 the number of Irish ‐ born in London had risen to almost 110,000. Due to a range of difficulties to do with their lack of skills and abject poverty, coupled with prejudice, the Irish immigrants continued to suffer from deprivation at the time of the Ripper murders. There were a great many Jews who had moved to London to escape oppression in Russia. It is estimated that every third Jew in London was in receipt of poor relief and every second Jew belonged to the regular pauper class. Graph showing the ages of the population in the Whitechapel area of the East End in 1891. Graph showing rates of poverty in the different areas of the East End.