The infamous Jack the Ripper is the name given to the unidentified murderer who gruesomely killed at least five women, predominantly sex workers, in Whitechapel during the autumn of 1888
A former “Jack the Ripper” tour guide has shared the grim reality of London’s history and tourism, revealing how she was “screamed” at for “misrepresenting” a victim.
Jessica O’Neil, who had a keen interest in the darker aspects of history and tourism, took on the role of a “Jack the Ripper” tour guide back in 2014.
The infamous Jack the Ripper is the name given to the unidentified murderer who gruesomely killed at least five women, predominantly sex workers, in the Whitechapel area of London’s East End during the autumn of 1888.
His heinous acts included mutilating his victims’ bodies and excising the internal organs from at least three of them. While the exact number of his victims remains unconfirmed, there are five whom many agree were slain by him: Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly.
While studying for her Master’s in Heritage Studies, Jessica saw an opportunity to combine her academic pursuits with a part-time job that fit into her evening schedule. A two-hour private tour costs £195, and a three-hour tour up to £275.
She would lead groups ranging from “10-40” people through the streets, recounting the horrendous tales, but not all experiences were positive. Jessica felt “uncomfortable” when visitors brought young children, dressed inappropriately, or made light of the tragic stories.
Speaking to The Mirror, Jessica expressed her discomfort: “(I felt uncomfortable) when guests brought small children, or dressed up, or laughed at the women’s expense. People would treat it as if it were a lark, a silly made-up story, when we were speaking about the real murder of vulnerable women.”
During one shocking incident, she had to confront a tour guest who was openly committing a sex act. “He was likely counting on me to be too embarrassed to say anything, but nothing like that would”, Jessica confessed.
However, there was a defining moment that led Jessica to stop conducting the popular Jack the Ripper tours. She was recounting the death of Polly Nichols to tourists, based on what she had read, when she was abruptly yelled at and accused of misrepresenting Polly as a sex worker.
Jessica recalled: “I vividly remember standing on what remains of Flower and Dean Street, once home to London’s most notorious lodging houses, regaling a group of tourists about the death of poor Polly Nichols. I was misrepresenting her as a sex worker, as that is what I had always been told and had read – though all evidence actually points to her scraping by with odd jobs and sleeping outdoors some nights.
“A survival-level sex worker approached my group and began to scream. “You don’t care about real women. My friends get murdered and none of you care. But you come here for Jack the Ripper.” Some in the group began to get defensive, but I paused and told them – ‘she’s right.” I went back later that night to look for her.
“Maybe I wanted to explain that my tour was different – even though it really wasn’t – and have her absolve me of the creeping guilt I felt every time I told punters about the horrible things that happened to these women.”
The English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) is a grassroots organisation of sex workers and supporters campaigning for the decriminalisation of prostitution, for sex workers’ rights and safety. It campaigns against the Jack the Ripper tours, which “glorify the man whilst invisibilsing the women.”
Spokeswoman for the group, Laura Watson, said: “We think the tours in their present form should be banned because they glorifiy the monster who murdered five women as an exciting tantalising event, whilst invisibilising the victims who were tortured to death.
“Sex workers at the time of the ripper and even now are labelled criminals by the laws and this invites discrimination, stigma and a devaluing of our lives. It also hides how we are women like other women working to support ourselves and our families.
“But times have changed since the ripper and the growing sex worker led movement for decriminalisation and safety has had an impact so that more and more women in particular are identifying with sex workers, protesting at the ways that our safety is undermined and demanding an end to the criminalisation that blights sex workers’ lives.”
Following this unsettling encounter during the tour, Jessica shifted her focus towards the victims of these heinous crimes. She began questioning the purpose of conducting the Jack the Ripper tours and why there seemed to be no respect for the victims.
She added: “The women have been turned into a tourist attraction – their very bodies and physical pain become the draw. Many people don’t even realise that Jack the Ripper was a real person – they get this story and Sweeney Todd mixed up.”
Dr Philip Stone, from the Dark Tourism Institute at the University of Central Lancashire, believes Jack the Ripper has been “allowed to live” while his victims are “largely forgotten.”
He said: “Jack the Ripper has morphed from villain to almost a celebrity in an age where ‘spectacular death’ has become a spectacle in consumer society. With ever increasing ways to (re)present the heinous deeds, tour guides are using more imaginative ways to recreate crime sites that have long been obliterated from the London landscape. Today, through ‘dark tourism’ we are continuingly exposed to the horrors of his killings, yet without reason or motives or, indeed, justice. ‘Jack’ has been allowed to ‘live’, yet his victims are largely forgotten.
“Forget the villain. Remember the victims. For far too long, tours and narratives of the killings have focused upon the killer. Meanwhile, the female victims have been ‘used’ as kind of ‘props’ to showcase his crimes.
“The female victims are within ‘his’ orbit, and this needs to change. The tour guide industry needs to reinterpret the narrative and focus upon the victims. These are women who all had fallen ‘on hard times’, had families and loved ones, but had one thing in common — they each had the terrible misfortune to meet the same murderer.”
Jessica, who has made a name for herself on YouTube as “The Museum Guide” with nearly 90,000 followers, now offers guided tours of museums and curiosities, leaving her Jack the Ripper-focused days in the past.
She has shifted her focus to learning about the lives of women rather than dwelling on “speculate about a pathetic loser.”
She concluded: “I personally prefer to learn about the women’s lives and their histories rather than speculate about a pathetic loser who had to kill women to achieve any kind of notoriety.”
