Welcome to The Whitechapel Society
The Whitechapel Society is a long-established historical society, originally set up to study the murders of Jack the Ripper and to shine a light on the conditions under which the victims lived.
The Society has grown over the years to include experts in many aspects of Victorian and Edwardian East End life. Members past and present have produced some of the most respected books and papers on East End crime ever written, including Spring-heeled Jack, Jack the Ripper, the Kray twins and many more.
Next meeting
Saturday 3rd October 2020
This illustrated talk will introduce a gallery of East End characters who arrived separately in the area in search of fame, self-fulfilment, political power or adventure. Subjects will include a philanthropist, a pacifist, an anti-fascist fighter, a police officer, and an unusual MP. We’ll ask what their experiences reveal about wider East End stories, and what their lives tell us about how history is made, told and retold.
Dr Michelle Johansen is Interpretation Manager at Bishopsgate Institute, a library and cultural institution on the border of the City and the East End. Michelle delivers learning workshops and short history courses for informal adult learners, inspired by original nineteenth and twentieth-century sources held in the Institute’s special collections. In her spare time, Michelle researches and writes articles on the social history of modern London. Her work on subjects such as social class and upward mobility, suburban leisure, and public library history has been published in Teaching History, The London Journal, Cultural and Social History, and elsewhere.
Details about how members may join this fascinating meeting will be published in due course, but in the meantime, make a note in your diary.
