Catherine Eddowes
| Catherine Eddowes | |
|---|---|
| Born |
14 April 1842 Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England |
| Died | 30 September 1888 (aged 46) London, England |
| Body discovered | South corner of Mitre Square in Whitechapel 51°30′50″N 0°04′41″W / 51.5138°N 0.078°W |
| Occupation | Hop-picker, casual prostitute |
| Partner(s) | Thomas Conway; John Kelly |
| Children | One daughter and two sons |
| Parent(s) | George Eddowes Catherine (née Evans) |
Catherine "Kate" Eddowes (14 April 1842 – 30 September 1888) was one of the victims in the Whitechapel murders. She was the second person killed in the early hours of Sunday 30 September 1888, a night which already had seen the murder of Elizabeth Stride less than an hour earlier. These two murders are commonly referred to as the "double event" and have been attributed to the mysterious serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.
Eddowes, also known as "Kate Conway" and "Kate Kelly" after her two successive common-law husbands, was born in Graisley Green, Wolverhampton on 14 April 1842. Her parents, tinplate worker George Eddowes and his wife, Catherine (née Evans), had 10 other children. The family moved to London a year after her birth, but she later returned to Wolverhampton to work as a tinplate stamper.
On losing this job, she took up with ex-soldier Thomas Conway in Birmingham; she moved to London with him and they had a daughter and two sons. She took to drink and left her family in 1880; the following year she was living with new partner John Kelly at Cooney's common lodging-house at 55 Flower and Dean Street, Spitalfields, at the centre of London's most notorious criminal rookery. Here she took to casual prostitution to pay the rent. To avoid contact with his former partner, Conway drew his army pension under the assumed name of Quinn, and kept their sons' addresses secret from her.
At the time of her death she was described as being five feet tall, with dark auburn hair, hazel eyes, and a tattoo that read "TC", for Tom Conway, in blue ink on her left forearm. Friends of Eddowes described her as "intelligent and scholarly, but possessed of a fierce temper" and "a very jolly woman, always singing."
In the summer of 1888, Eddowes, Kelly, and their friend Emily Birrell took casual work hop-picking in Kent. At harvest's end they returned to London and quickly went through their pay. Eddowes and Kelly split their last sixpence between them; he took fourpence to pay for a bed in the common lodging-house, and she took twopence, just enough for her to stay a night at Mile End Casual Ward in the neighbouring parish.
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