Joseph Lawende

Joseph Lawende (9 February 1847 – 9 January 1925) was a Polish-born British cigarette salesman, who is, with Israel Schwartz, among the most discussed of witnesses in the series of murders committed by the notorious Jack the Ripper in Whitechapel in London in 1888.

Joseph Lawende was born in Warsaw, Poland (then in the Russian Empire) to Jewish parents Hirsch and Zirle Lawende. He came to Britain in 1871, and was married to Annie Rosenthal in a London synagogue on 22 January 1873. His brother Leopold had married Annie's sister Fanny the previous year. He and his wife would have twelve children. At the time of his marriage, he was a cigarette maker living at 3 Tenter Street South.

On 11 December 1876, Lawende gave evidence at the Old Bailey at the trial of Isaac Marks for the murder of Frederick Barnard. He was described as a cigarette maker of 3 'Lenton' Street, Goodman's Fields. He had known Marks for a year as a customer of the Camperdown Hotel, where he dined on Sundays, and had also played dominoes with him. He gave evidence regarding the accused's strange behavior.

In 1881, he is again listed as a cigarette maker, with his family living on 2 Tenter Street South. Around 1885, he moved to 45 Norfolk Road in Dalston. He is also known to have had commercial premises for the manufacture of cigarettes in St Mary Axe.

In the early morning hours of 30 September 1888, two murders attributed to Jack the Ripper took place. The second victim, Catherine Eddowes, was murdered in Mitre Square. That night, Lawende and two Jewish companions, Joseph Hyam Levy, a butcher, and Henry Harris, a furniture dealer, attended the Imperial Club in Duke's Place. They were delayed from leaving by rain. After the rain subsided, they left just after 1:30 a.m, the time having been checked by the club clock and by Lawende's pocket watch. They began to walk along Duke Street towards Aldgate. About fifteen yards from the club, at the narrow entrance to Church Passage, which led to Mitre Square, they saw a man and a woman talking quietly. The woman had her hand on the man's chest. Lawende would later identify the woman as Eddowes by her clothing when he was later shown her clothing at the mortuary.

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