Helen Fry
Israel Lipski: A Victorian Murder Case

Dr. Helen Fry - Israel Lipski: A Victorian Murder Case

- Today we’re going to be looking at the case of Israel Lipski. I deliberately didn’t use a particularly dramatic title, because as we’ll see from some of the evidence of this case in Victorian England. So we’re talking about the late 1880s, it is and remains one of the most controversial murder cases in Great Britain at this time. Next slide please. And in fact, most people if you ask them in the street today, will have heard certainly in the UK, and I’m sure right across the world in America and other places where our audience are based, they will have heard of Jack the Ripper. Jack the Ripper being the most famous of the murders in Victorian England. And I will come back to that later in the lecture. But essentially, I’m not sure how many of you have heard of the case of Israel Lipski, but essentially what happens is, there’s a 22 year old Polish Jew, originally born in Warsaw who’s immigrated into the UK, actually is framed or maybe frames not the right word, is accused and hanged for the murder of a Jewish woman. Again, 22 years old, Miriam Angel, he’s accused of her murder and as I’ve put there, it remains one of the most controversial Victorian crimes in London’s East End. And I’ll come back to that towards the latter part of the lecture. But first of all, I’d like to walk through exactly what happens and to give you some of the overview to this case. Israel Lipski in the end was hanged in Newgate Prison. It’s not there anymore to towards the East End on the 22nd of August, 1887. And he’s been accused of killing Miriam Angel in what turns out to be some pretty gruesome circumstances at 16 Batty Street, which is in the East End, not far from Commercial Street, right in the heart of the Jewish East End.

But then as today for those that do study this, there is a question mark over whether he really was guilty for her murder. Was he in fact innocent? Now I’m not sure we’re going to provide definite answers today, but certainly it will give you something to think about and to read around further. And I think one day hopefully, it’s outside my period of research, but hopefully one day I myself might get chance to research this further, because as we’ll see there are later number of anomalies which makes this murder case less than straightforward. Next slide please. And one of the East End newspapers wrote at the time, “Never in the annals of crime "have there been such efforts put forth "to save a man’s life as there has been in the case of the convict Lipski.” And what we’ll see that unfolds is the case and the evidence is so controversial that the death sentence is actually delayed and he is not hanged straight away. So there was this case made for his innocence and his hanging remains particularly controversial and probably some of you already in your mind are wondering whether there’s any antisemitism at play. And again, we’ll come back to that later. And even the New York Times. So it makes international headlines said, “London is far more engrossed in the case of Israel Lipski than with the fate of the government.” Of course these were very rocky times for the government. Next slide please. And it was a year of celebration. We’ll move on to, yes thank you. It was a year of a celebration. If we think about what’s happening in England and across the empire at that time, queen Victoria was celebrating her Jubilee year. It was an extraordinary time of celebration.

There was this enormous glass, I can’t call it glass house, it’s more than a huge glass structure that was the great exhibition that was planned around this jubilee year and eventually a number of monuments, it was a big occasion. And Queen Victoria processed in her carriage from Buckingham Palace, not too distant, distance to Westminster Abbey. And there was this sort of jubilation in the country. And the Jewish Chronicle was really firm at a time when anti-Semitism was rife, particularly in Europe but also in England, that to assert loyalty to the crown at this time. And one of the articles in the Jewish Chronicle, which was published in London at the time said, “We are Englishmen and the thoughts and feelings "of Englishmen, of course English women, our thoughts and feelings.” So really strong identification and important identification, and it’s true going forwards. Even up to the recent coronation of King Charles III, we see that the Jewish community, in fact the Chief Rabbi was actually involved in the coronation along with other faiths, there is this important assertion that the Jewish community is loyal to the crown and the pride that the Jewish community felt at the Jubilee year of Queen Victoria was that shared exactly the same with the non-Jewish people of United Kingdom. Next slide please. But against this, the Jewish community was largely based in the East End, and it was one of, as I’ve put their severe poverty, you see some images, I’ll have some shortly of those poverty stricken streets of the East End. They were amongst some of the poorest in the United Kingdom. They were by no means only the Jewish community, but particularly the Jewish communities in the East End that had largely fled from the pogroms across Russia.

There were already in the 1880s, in 1886, various riots in the West End disturbances. There was social unrest, looting, smashing shot windows, a rise in unemployment generally. And at this time you get this mass influx of Jewish immigrants, and it is a community which is struggling to make its living, to make ends meet, to feed the families in the East End. And those images are sort of etched really in our history here in the United Kingdom. And in 1887, I put this into think it’s important because, it may reflect some of the gradual hostility and antisemitism grudgingly against communities, particularly the Jewish community over jobs at a time of rising unemployment, Jewish community largely self-employed, but nevertheless, you have this dangerous undercurrent at a time of severe economic pressure on the country. 1887 parliament starts to question whether it should actually be restricting immigration. So you’ve got all this going on in the background to the Israel Lipski case. Next slide please. And this one will show you some of the extreme poverty, particularly on the left. You have in the Jewish East End various soup kitchens. You have poor houses not only for in London, just for the Jewish community of course, but you have poor houses where the poorest of society, there is no national health service, there is no state help as we had after the Second World War. These are communities which are struggling to survive.

And religious groups like the Jewish community, like various churches and Christian groups would actually set up soup kitchens, would be involved in all kinds of charitable works to help the poor, and the poor houses of course were not necessarily very pleasant places to be for the poor of England at this time, incredibly difficult. And one of the East End Rabbis, Rabbi Simeon Singer said, “In no spot on the globe and probably "at no period in the world’s history has there existed, "so glaring a contrast between riches and poverty as in this city and in this age of ours.” So the glaring gap that’s emerged between those who are very well off and the very poor East End. Next slide please. And amongst this you have antisemitism in the background in amongst all of this discussion, in amongst this national struggle. If you like to put food on the table, it’s less than a year after the media are starting to discuss a systematic persecution of Jews in England. There is this discussion going on about the status of the Jewish community and in amongst this, when tensions are quite high, the newspapers are hit with the murder, gruesome murder of Miriam Angel. That’s a photograph of her on the left, but actually she looks old, she’s only 22 years old. It’s a sort of newspaper sketch of her, but she was 22 years old when she was murdered. Next slide please. So what about the facts around this case? It was the 28th of June, 1887, that she’s actually found dead on her bed. She’s living with her husband at 16 Batty Street. He has gone off early to work in the morning. She’s actually discovered by her landlady, frothing at the mouth is kind of a yellow substance.

She’s got sort of a little bit of blood on her, her clothing, her bed clothing is raised above her waist and she’s sort of dishevelled. The door of her room, her lodging, so they’re renting, this is locked from the inside. She was on the second floor with her husband, her husband at work at this time, but they lived on second floor. And astonishingly Lipski was found unconscious under the bed with acid burns to his mouth. He later will blame two of his new employees called Isaac Schmuss and Simon Rosenbloom. So we’ll come back to them. Next slide please. So who was Israel Lipski? We’ll go more into the murder shortly. So 22 years old, really penniless. He was working in the East End, but finding it quite difficult to make ends meet. And by the time of the murder, he’d already been living in England for two years. Miriam Lipski and her husband had only been living in the East End for about six weeks, there were new immigrants into United Kingdom. So Lipski to make ends meet, decides that he will actually take up some self-employed work alongside his other work. And he becomes a sort of, he had worked as an umbrella salesman, but he becomes a walking stick maker. So he makes walking sticks and he was renting the top room, the attic of 16 Batty Street. Miriam Angel and her husband were in one of the rooms downstairs just below the attic. Next slide please. And importantly for when we come to some of the evidence later to bear this in mind, that actually as part some of you may know this, as part of making those walking sticks, they have to be stained and they use acid for that. So we’ll come back to the acid shortly.

But he was also described by some of his colleagues and his friends as hardworking, reliable, a quiet chap who was about to get married. So he was literally not far off his wedding day. What about Miriam Angel then? So she’s murdered at 16 Batty Street. We have a photograph of the premises there taken a few years ago when I visited the area, it had two floors in the attic. As I said, Lipski’s living in the attic. Miriam Angel and her husband Isaac, are on the next floor down. And it’s not quite in the famous Whitechapel area, Whitechapel being particularly poor area of the East End. In 1887, Batty Street was 90% inhabited by Jewish families. So it gives you a sense, an idea of a community they are living in totally immersed in the Jewish community. 90% living in that street in 1887. Next slide please. And just to give you an idea of how things have changed the census. So every 10 years from 1841 every 10 years, for those of you who live outside the UK might not know we have a census. So the whole of the population has to fill in a form and give all the occupants of every address in the United Kingdom. In 1871 census, there were just two occupants at 16 Batty Street. In 1887 there were 15 mainly Jewish actually people living there. So it gives you a sense, and that was typical of a lot of the houses of the East End at that time, huge overcrowding, poor living conditions. Although Israel Lipski himself not married at this point, actually lived alone. But it was not uncommon for families to be living in tiny rooms, just a single room. So Angel Israel and his wife had arrived just, they’d moved into 16 Batty Street six weeks earlier, but they’d arrived in the UK 10 months earlier. And Miriam, until recent times just before her murder, would also sometimes help her husband in his work. He was a boot riveter. Next slide please.

And it was said that in some of the evidence that was later given that the day before she was murdered, she’d had to go out to find someone to lend her five shillings to pay the rent. Her landlady was also Polish and she had rented the house from a retired sailor. So she was subletting it. She has herself had seven children and occupied one of the back rooms on the same floor as the Lipski’s. Next slide please. It is worth if you get hold of it, sorry about the fuzzy image. This book is really good. It’s one of the few that’s ever been written on Lipski in this case, it’s called “The Trials of Israel Lipski.” So please do get that. It’s a fascinating read and I would really recommend it. But what it turns out is that this murder, whoever murdered Miriam Angel, it turned out to be a multiple murder. And that’s because Miriam Angel was actually pregnant and she was very close to her confinement. She was close to, she’s not far off giving birth, because so see a sketched image there of the kind of scene that was found when her body was found. Next slide please. So it said that on the night before he was hanged, Israel Lipski finally confessed. And the reaction of, we’ll see you later, both the Rabbis and MPs who rallied around this sort of confusion as to why he finally decided to confess. And oral traditions suggests that he thought, well look, there was no way his life could be saved. The judges and the jury, the evidence was stacked against him. No other investigations, no other possible murder suspects were put forward. And so it is suggested that he kind of just gave up that he thought, well I’ll confess, was it a confession taken under duress in the prison? We don’t know.

There’s no evidence to suggest either way. But what’s interesting, his confession is in English and he could only speak Yiddish. And from what we understand of his confession, it was of course written down in English by one of the guards in the prison, by one of the police officers that came in, or one of the guards in the prison. And there’s a lot of fuzziness around exactly the nature of this confession. So that in itself was already sort of suspect. Next slide please. And the allegations placed against him was that he’d actually tried to rape Miriam Angel and the jury had voted equally for guilty and not guilty, but there were four abstentions. It was less than clear, but extraordinarily some of you who might have a legal background will know more to this. I’m not sure that could have found him guilty on just that kind of number of on the jury. But eventually things were swayed such that he was pronounced guilty. Next slide please. So if we wind back to the early morning of that day, 6:00 AM, Miriam’s husband is off to, he is gone off to shul, he is gone off to synagogue, to say morning prayer. She’s still in bed, after morning prayers, he’s gone on to work. But he’s a very close knit community. And Miriam would always visit her mother-in-law for breakfast. And this was always pretty much on time around 9:00 AM, but when she doesn’t appear at 9:00 AM, the mother-in-law is getting quite worried and comes to her room, or comes to her landlady. And when the landlady, and another tenant, and her mother-in-law actually get to her room, they can’t open the door.

The door appears to be locked. But halfway up the stairs there was a small window and there are some images of this online I believe. And that’s when they get suspicious, because they can’t see this figure dishevelled over the bed. And that’s when they break in and the full horror emerges of what they see before them. Next slide please. So the doctor is called immediately and he takes one look at the scene and declares foul play, that Miriam Angel has in fact died due to poisoning. And then there’s this search for the poison and none is found initially. So that at one point they can see some sort of stuff under the bed, and someone suggests they pull away the bed to actually see what’s underneath, to kind of pull stuff out to see if there’s little bottle because she’s been foaming at the mouth and the doctor says she has been poisoned. In actual fact, they do find the bottle tiny vial of no more than two ounces of acid. But under the bed is none other the Lipski, he’s unconscious and he’s also a bit kind of yellow, foaming at the mouth but actually unconscious. He hasn’t died but he’s actually unconscious. Next slide please. And it’s discovered that his clothing is burned and they decide that because he’s still alive, the best place to take him for treatment would be the London Hospital, famous East End Hospital. Lipski himself had everything to live for. He was about to be married to the daughter of his employer, Kate Lyons. He was happy, yes, they had a few financial difficulties, but one would argue they weren’t in dire straits, like Miriam Angel who had to borrow money for her rent. And it was his fiance’s father who’d encouraged Lipski to set up a sort of little workshop to do some self-employed work on the side, which he did from the attic.

So it wasn’t unusual for him to go out and buy tools at the very few savings he had in the bank. He decided to invest in new tools, so that he could make the walking sticks and sell them. And for that, as I said earlier, you need this acid to actually stain the sticks. But he’d engaged to, because he had good work, he engaged Simon Rosenbloom and Isaac Schmuss, who were East Enders themselves to actually work for him. And they were actually due to start work on the very day of the murder. Next slide please. And in his version of events, because he was interviewed in the hospital when he came around, his fiance Kate Lyon said, look, you know, she protested Lipski’s a victim, he’s not a murderer, he hasn’t murdered Miriam Angel. He had to give an official statement. He had no lawyer present. Highly questionable of course. And he gives his statement to Inspector Final and Detective Sergeant Thick, oh I love the names, I love the surnames. Anyway, according to Lipski, his version of events, that he went out at seven o'clock that morning to buy a vice. So to buy some extra tools but primarily to buy a vice, so that he could actually hold the wood in place while he’s working, and get an extra vials for the two guys that were actually going to start working for him. And when he got there, he said the shop wasn’t yet open, but he met these two workmen on his way and it was one of them who said to him, well have you got any work for me?

And he said yes, yes I have. Go and have some go off and have some brandy and come back and you can start work. Lipski eventually returns to Batty Street after he’s actually bought a vice, and one of the men is sort of loitering in the passageway, and he’s quite surprised to see them. And he said, well, I said, I’d give you some work but you need to come back later. But then when he goes, he’s partly up the stairs, it transpires that they’re actually, both of the men, both of the men that he’s engaged to work are actually there. And one of them takes him by the throat. This is his version of events, and that he’s knocked to the ground, and they actually kind of force his mouth open, and they’ve got a little piece of wood that kind of prize his mouth open, hold it there. And then they tip this acid, this nitric acid according to Lipski, into his throat. They’ve spilled a bit on his clothing and he’s obviously struggling, but it’s no match against these two guys. They are asking him about money and he’s sort of struggling just before they’ve managed to tip this down his throat. They are struggling, he’s struggling with them and they’re saying, where is the money? And he says, I don’t have any. And then they said to him, what about your gold chain? And he says, it’s at the pawn brokers. And that’s when they said to him, if you don’t give it to us, you’ll be as dead as the woman. Which is the first indication actually that Miriam Lipski, according to this version of events, is already dead.

So potentially have these two actually already try to rob Miriam Angel. And now obviously they’re after Lipski, and he is dragged into the room according to his version of events, and he’s sort of pushed in under the bed. It’s very bizarre. It’s one of the most bizarre murders actually in this period, in Victorian England. And he fakes death, so he pretends to be dead and they think he’s dead. So they go off. And of course he does very soon become unconscious. Next slide please. We’ll come to the inquest shortly. One slide less, is the one slide, I think I’ve got a picture of Wynne Baxter. No. Oh, so okay, so it’s lost it. Don’t worry, it lost in translation. Next slide please. So there’s a very, very famous coroner who takes on the case of Miriam Angel’s death. He’s Wynne Edwin Baxter, and he’s the one that opens the inquest on the 29th of June, 1887. And he becomes quite famous in our history because he would later be the coroner who is heading the inquest on pretty much all of the Whitechapel murders as we call them, between 1888, well of course he’s doing 1887, he’s doing Miriam Angel. But the most famous of which of course between 1888 to 1891 are those conducted by the mysterious, still unverified identity of Jack the Ripper. So he’s doing most of those. And also on Joseph Merrick, you remember him, the elephant man, a very good film about the “Elephant Man,” incredibly moving actually. But he has like spina bifida and all kinds of medical condition and was named and distortions to the face, was named famously the elephant man. But he was actually murdered in the end. And all of these were conducted by Wynne Edwin Baxter. Next slide please. So what about the inquest? Lipski wasn’t required to attend, there was still no lawyers. Post-mortem was taken on the day of the murder, thought to be around 11:30 to 12 noon when it took place.

And it was clear from the postmortem that her right eye and her temple here showed signs of a violent blow and a further examination showed that was the case. It hadn’t been enough to kill her, but it actually knocked her out. And that the poison that was used was nitric acid. Now nitric acid, as I said earlier, is used to stain the sticks if you’re making walking sticks back then. So it’s probably not uncommon because originally there was kind of questions about, you know, why on earth would Lipski have nitric acid? Of course he would because of the nature of his employment. She was on her back, it was concluded when the poison was administered and it had been ingested probably forcibly. So like those two guys according to Lipski, had tried to force the poison down his throat and managed to do some, the coroner found some of this acid and damage to her windpipe and her lungs, and there was a bit of discoloration in the stomach. So she was actually, it was concluded on her back when this was administered. So technically she died of suffocation. There was found to be no blood in her heart, which of course is something if she’s been suffocated from this. And it was concluded that she was probably dead already about three or four hours. Body was still ever so slightly warm when she was found and it looked like she could possibly have semen in her, possibly as a result of rape, although later it was tested and found that this was not semen. So there’s a whole argument of a potential rape really goes out the window, particularly with the acid solution. Next slide please. The inquest for a while was adjourned to consider more evidence to take out these tests. So there’s no conclusive evidence, as I said just now, that this was actually semen that was found on her.

So was it a crime of lust? Because originally that’s what was accused against Lipski, that he had a crime of passion, that he’d raped her, pretty much like the Jack Ripper cases actually. But the coroner and jury decided in the end quote on willful murder. So the coroner and the jury working alongside the coroner said that Lipski was to be committed to prison. That he was guilty potentially of willful murder, that this was premeditated, that he’d actually tried to rape her and then murdered her. Next slide please. But also at this time, the whole thing about the nitric acid, there was a chap who owned a shop, Charles Moore, not Jewish actually. And this again, you know, puts him down. What about his reliability as a witness? ‘Cause he was used later in the trial, actually said that on the morning of the murder, Lipski went out and bought two ounces, little tiny bottle of two ounces of nitric acid, which of course we might expect him to do if for his profession, but we’ll come back to the quantity shortly. So initially Lipski is transferred to Thames Police Court, he’s under escort, and Inspector Final and Detective Sergeant Thick are still in there. They’ve now widened their case witnesses who’ve allegedly come forward. There’s huge media coverage in the newspapers. It’s a sort of really famous celebrity case. It becomes known as a sort of Whitechapel murder case. This is a year before the first Jack the Ripper murders. So this has shocked Victorian England. It’s been covered as I said, in northern major newspapers. There’s fear amongst the community, but this is to put in context, this is not yet at the period one of the worst periods of East End murders.

And it was known at that time as the Whitechapel murder case. So the formal statements are taken from witnesses and Lipski is transferred to Holloway Prison in North London. You’ve got a pretty grim picture of how it was at that time. Holloway Prison later became a prison for only for women. And in recent times has actually closed and is being, I think it’s been knocked down and it’s been converted, or converted into flats. Very strange place to live I guess. Anyway, next slide please. So the trial itself finally opens and there isn’t much time between when Miriam Angel was found murdered. We’re talking about just over a month or so, just a few weeks. It’s the 22nd of July the trial, sorry, it’s the 29th of July, the trial opens. He’s already pleaded not guilty before a very short hearing. Don’t forget he doesn’t speak English, he only speaks Yiddish. He’s not going to understand most of what’s going on. It’s not clear how much of these proceedings, he actually had a translator. The following day, he was transferred famously to Newgate Prison towards the East End. And that actually a adjoining the city of London adjoining the Old Bailey. And there are still remnants of that, of the walkway in the Old Bailey. The Old Bailey famously today, is where all our big trials take place in London. You’ve probably seen that covered. And this is the prison where the prisoners inside are waiting trial or even execution. And if you are lucky enough to visit and you can, I think they have open days at the Old Bailey, you can actually be taken down one level from the courtrooms. And actually I’ve done it myself actually, you can walk along what was a pretty grim corridor, outside corridor between the prison buildings and this huge wall that survived today. That was the walkway on which people like Lipski would’ve gone, if they’re actually going to be executed pretty grimly. Next slide please. So the full transcript of the trial actually survives in Home Office files.

And I think, and I’m going to double check this, I think they’ve been declassified into the national archives. The more I talk about this today, the more I really want to get my teeth into the research of this to solve this. I think it is an unsolved murder actually. But because as I put there, because of the controversial nature of the final verdict, the Home Secretary asked to see the transcript of the court sessions. So after the guilty verdict, it’s a huge outcry, a number of people, not just Jewish actually, but who believed that he was probably innocent. And then now at that point our law had no right of appeal. Next slide please. But the Home Secretary goes through the transcripts. I’m definitely going to order up these, I’m sure they’ve been declassified. Maybe I’ll come back and do another session when the research is done on another year. And the Home Secretary actually concludes this. I’m satisfied as to this man’s guilt. One, because he was found in the bedroom of the murdered woman hidden beside the bed. Well it actually under the bed, the door was locked on the inside and the woman was exposed. So has it been made to look like a murder, potentially a rape murder? And there’s that whole thing about the door, was it locked or not? We’ll come back to that. So secondly, he says the woman was poisoned by nitric acid and the prisoner himself swallowed some. Well that’s going to raise alarm bells for us, isn’t it? In our contemporary investigative minds.

The prisoner says the Home Secretary, has to my mind been sufficiently identified as the purchaser of the nitric acid that morning. Next slide please. Mr. Justice Stephen, who’s later quoted in the Times Newspaper said, “There are only two motives which could be put forward "for the commission of this crime, passion and avarice. "His lordship pointed out that it was more probable "that passion was the motive for the crime, "and if that was so, it would rather be the act of one man than two.” So Justice Stephen is actually saying, we don’t believe Lipski’s version of events. Lipski’s saying about the two men, that the two men are carried out the murder. But Lipski was actually being accused of a crime of passion. It’s sort of out of character. He is about to get married. I guess that’s not admissible evidence sure, but we have to think of a motive. What was his motive? And it’s quite clear now, this heavily pregnant woman was probably not raped. There’s no physical evidence at the time. Next slide please. But as there always are, in cases of unsolved murders, there were discrepancies in who had last seen Lipski and where he’d last been seen. And what about the nitric acid? When an assessment was made, if you look at how much was ingested, because the inquest actually made a judgement that it was about over one ounce that was ingested, well it might be forcibly, but ingested by Miriam Angel, but at least one ounce left. And certainly if Lipski ingested that amount, he’d have been dead as well. But there’s acid on his clothing. But it would add up to more than is actually in the bottle. Next slide please.

There are, as there always are, a number of very serious unanswered questions with regard to this. Why did Lipski not run away afterwards? If he’s actually raped Miriam Angel, at which point he won’t have killed her, she will have identified, she would know who he was, 'cause he lived upstairs. It was said that they’d never talked to each other. But potentially she could know her rapist and then he sort of kills her, not with any evidence that he had raped her. But why didn’t he run away? Even if he killed her, even if he had given her the nitric acid, why did he himself drink the nitrate acid? It doesn’t make sense. It absolutely does not make sense. And Dr. Calvert, who was actually analysing, he was the doctor on the scene, said that an ounce in his assessment, an ounce has been spilled on Lipski’s coat and a further ounce at least down her throat, doesn’t leave much for him to ingest, I know. So the whole thing, the whole evidence, I guess it wouldn’t happen today, this miscarriage of justice potentially wouldn’t happen hopefully today. But there were no other suspects considered at all. This was sort of done as a done deal that he was the one who’d murdered her. Next slide please. When the verdict was read, Lipski replied, he replied in Yiddish, I did not do it. And it doesn’t happen anymore. But in our courts in this time, judge Stephens donned the black cap. I’ve actually seen it in drama and it’s chilling enough when it happens. We actually see that in a drama, it’s really quite chilling. You don’t have to know what the sentence is, 'cause all the judge does is put the black cap on and you know, it’s a death sentence, it’s pretty grim. It’s pretty chilling when you see that visually. And he said, “Israel Lipski, "you stand convicted of the crime of willful murder. "By the law of England "the punishment of that crime is death. "I have only to say to you, prepare to die.” Towards the end of the sentence he says, in the sentence of the court is that, you’ll be taken from hence to a place of execution that you be there hanged by the neck till you are dead.

Pretty chilling, just reading it. But you can imagine in a courtroom, very, very dramatic and very emotional. And of course you wonder, well how much of this is Lipski even understanding he’ll understand with the black cap, but he doesn’t, he’s not going to understand what’s actually just been said to him. Next slide please. What happens immediately after the verdict is one of high drama actually, because the newspapers have a field day and I haven’t checked online, but you can probably go into newspaper archives, or check online about this campaign to try and get this quash to get his conviction actually, commuted to life imprisonment, certainly in the first instance to actually save his life while some more ongoing investigations could be made. And he is, by the time of the trial represented by John Hayward, his solicitor. And there are letters to the Jewish Chronicle, those coverage in what was then published as the Pall Mall Gazette. So this is high society newspapers that would be read across different sections of society. There was a six page pamphlet that was produced actually arguing for his innocence. And Hayward raises a number of issues. The first two primarily that first, and I’m quoting from from his pamphlet, that his landlady who pushed open the door is not at all sure now that the door was locked. Secondly, that the ounce of nitric acid stated to have been purchased by the prisoner. Actually it’s one to two ounces, possibly near a two.

According to the doctor’s evidence, was all consumed in poisoning the woman. And it must have taken at least another ounce to destroy his coat. So Lipski’s coat was sort of burned in an area, sort of destroyed burnt by the acid solution. Next slide please. But if you look in essence, what really was the motive? Hayward says no outrage had been committed on the woman. So in other words, the language of its time, she’d not been raped. So if there’s no evidence of rape, what is the motive for murdering her? And the prosecution has quite declined, he said, to suggest any motive for the commission of the crime. A motive, however, was suggested by the judge in his summing up, if you remember, he concludes it’s willful murder. But in fact, there’ve been no evidence put forward at all to suggest that it had been willful murder. Next slide please. And it goes back to the home secretary to reconsider. And there’s a crucial piece of new evidence from a doctor, Dr. Stevenson, who was then working at Guy’s Hospital. So that’s not far from Westminster in Central London. He was around renowned chemist, he had a reputation for being honest, straightforward, and well, highly reputable chemist. He examined Lipski’s coat and he says, and I love this piece of evidence, I love this, that half an ounce could have destroyed Lipski’s coat. And of course Miriam Angel could have ingested the other half. So that accounts for the sort of one ounce, although some suggests that the vial could hold two ounces. So had he purchased two actually at this point becomes irrelevant maybe, because he says half an ounce could have destroyed Lipski’s coat.

But, and I love this, it was no all ordinary commercial nitric acid. It contained sulfuric and nitric acids. Stevenson says these are used for the manufacture of explosives, but do not form an ordinary article of retail commerce. In other words, oh, it’s so dramatic, isn’t it? In other words, there is no way Lipski could have bought this chemical substance of sulfuric and nitric acids. Next slide please. And Stevens still continued to worry over this verdict. And because he kept shouting at shouting out the throat for Lipski’s case, Lipski’s execution was actually delayed by a week. And in that week, Hayward really stepped up his campaign, incredibly vocal. Rabbi Simeon Singer visits Lipski every day, more comes forward to the police and adds, sorry, it should be his testimony about who brought the nitric acid in amongst us, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what Charles Moore says, this is not commercial. This is not something he could have sold anyway, I find it absolutely fascinating. And he also gave a description of the man allegedly, or the man that came in and bought a vial of nitric acid off him. He couldn’t possibly have been a sulfuric, a nitric acid version. But somebody that morning potentially came to Charles Moore and bought some acid. He said he had a silk handkerchief around his neck. And Lipski never wore a silk handkerchief. He didn’t own a silk handkerchief, but apparently Simon Rosenbloom did, a question mark. Next slide please. And then the landlady is now claiming she’s had a box ripped open. She’s had things stolen from her room, she’s had tickets, she’s pawned things herself. She’s Polish landlord member, not particularly well off herself. She’s pawned items at local pawn brokers. And those tickets are missing.

She’s got money that’s missing. And this, in a way, if this is true, changes a motive in the murder. Certainly Miriam Angel couldn’t possibly be raped, but the motive for the murder potentially could be robbery. But it was known certainly by Lipski that Miriam Angel was as, to use a colloquial phrase here, as poor as a church mouse, she didn’t have any belongings. You know, she, why would she have been a, you know, open to being robbed? She was just completely poor. They barely had anything. The Miriam Angel and her husband in the room. Lipski had claimed he was attacked initially on the stairs going up and then later dragged into the room and under the bed. But no one had actually done any forensics on the stairs to check for any traces, burns, nitric acid. And then you have the case of Schmuss, the other workman, who’d actually left for Birmingham, he’d left about a week after the murder. Well, where did he get the money from potentially for that, because he was desperately in need of work. Next slide please. So parliament, petition to Parliament in this week before Lipski was executed, parliament was petitioned, please commute his life, his his death sentence to life imprisonment. And you wonder why it wasn’t so at this time. Why didn’t they commute this sentence to life imprisonment. I’m not sure we have enough evidence to suggest whether there’s antisemitism involved. Next slide please. But I think it’d be good to take a new look at this case. Next slide please. So the final decision comes, 20th of August, 1887. The official statement, the home secretary has most carefully considered all the circumstances in this case.

And he regrets that he is unable to discover any sufficient ground to justify him advising her Majesty, Queen Victoria, to interfere with the due course of the law. Of course, he could have received a pardon, or commuted life sentence from Queen Victoria herself. But the, it doesn’t get to Queen Victoria, the home secretary has decided he has no grounds to actually put it before her Majesty. Next slide. The Jewish Chronicle reported, you know, it’s a very sad case for the Jewish community. Next slide please. Because, and I quote, the case is painful for the Jewish community, because the only alternative to Lipski’s guilt was that of two other Jews. Next slide please. And the Jewish Chronicle also said, “When an ordinary person kills a person, everything’s quiet. "But when Lipski’s is sentenced to death, the ordinary people taunt other Jews and shout Lipski.” And we’ll come back to that shortly next line please. And we come back full circle. So the night before he’s hanged, Lipski gives a pretty detailed confession. Remember he doesn’t actually speak English, and in which he says the motive for killing her was to actually steal. But as I said just now, she had no possessions. They were desperately poor. And he would’ve known that. He doesn’t also seem the kind of character that would do this. Why did, there’s another one of the other a answer questions, Rabbi Singer, because he’s acting, he’s visiting Lipski every day in prison. He authorises this statement, this confession to be released to the public. That for me, I think is one of the lasting unanswered questions. What actually does prompt Lipski to confess? And why does Rabbi Singer think it’s okay for this confession to be circulated publicly before the execution? Is it to minimise any reprisals against the Jewish community? We don’t know. Was it a true confession?

That I’ve already said earlier, we won’t know. But the result is that this actually sealed his fate. There was no going back. There had been, he was to be executed, but now that he’s got this signed confession, this completely sealed his fate. And he was hanged on the 22nd of August, 1887. Now before I finish, I’ve got just one more slide. Next slide please. Because that’s not the end of Lipski. When we come to Jack the Ripper murders, and I want to look at these in more detail later in the year. The murder of, I think it’s the third victim off the top of my head, 44 year old Elizabeth Stride. These said, these murders terrified the Eastern, and we will talk more about it. But 44 year old Elizabeth Stride is murdered on the 30th, September, 1888. The first murders take place between 1888. She’s not the first 1888 and 1891. It became known and pinned on Jack the Ripper, whoever Jack the Ripper was. But it was during the evidence that was put together, some of the eyewitnesses to her, all of these were incredibly gruesome murders that she saw that, so one of the witnesses saw that there was another man standing nearby, near the house. He was lighting a cigarette, couldn’t see his face, and the attacker allegedly had shouted out Lipski. So hereafter when we get to the Jack the Ripper murders, that the murder, that one murder by allegedly by Lipski, would actually be used as a sort of antisemitic vocalisation of sort of anger and almost identifying, because the attacker was sort of seen from the distance. It’s sort of, although it wasn’t Lipski, couldn’t possibly Lipski, he’d been executed the year before. But it became synonymous, if you like. Even in people’s con- It was so deep in people’s consciousness that at the murder of Elizabeth Stride, one of the witnesses shouts out Lipski, and everyone would’ve known what that meant. But for me, I’ll leave you with a question, Jack the Ripper murders are less than nine months later, roughly 10 months. How do we know that Miriam Angel wasn’t actually the first victim of Jack the Ripper? And I’ll leave you there. Thank you for listening today.