Naming Jack the Ripper: The Biggest Forensic Breakthrough Since 1888 by Edwards Russell

Author:Edwards, Russell [Edwards, Russell]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781447264231
Publisher: Sidgwick & Jackson
Published: 2014-09-08T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

FINDING DNA

While I was waiting for Jari to do more testing, I set off on another leg of the research: I decided to find out about the shawl itself. After all, it was no good finding it had human blood and semen on it, if it then turned out not to be old enough to date back to the time of Jack the Ripper. I was sure it was at least that old, but I needed to prove it.

Not long into my research I made another, massive discovery, a leap forward that I had not expected.

Considering where it was found, it seemed logical to assume that the shawl had been made in Spitalfields, which was known as a centre for the silk-weaving trade around the eighteenth century, when the Huguenot silk weavers colonized the area, and built the beautiful town houses that have now been preserved. From the late 1600s onwards the area to the east of the City of London, where open fields provided perfect conditions for growing mulberry trees (for silkworms) and the laying out of tenter grounds (for drying and stretching cloth), silk weaving was the major occupation in what is now the East End. The Huguenot houses can be identified by the long windows in their attic spaces, designed to capture as much light as possible for the delicate weaving process. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Spitalfields silk was highly prized thanks to the skill of the craftsmen, and the area itself built up into a very prosperous neighbourhood.

A mixture of the industrial revolution, when new mechanized weaving technology replaced the traditional looms, and changes in the laws regarding the importation of silks from abroad signalled the end of Spitalfields silk’s halcyon days. The Huguenots gradually left the area for the suburbs and Home Counties and the district gradually fell into a deep decline and, as we’ve seen, by the 1880s was known for its poverty, crime and vice. Those weavers who remained lived in considerably less salubrious surroundings than their predecessors and ultimately the East End translated their traditions into the general ‘rag trade’. This line of work was eventually picked up by the eastern European Jewish immigrants and, later still, by settlers from Bangladesh.

Even to my unpractised eye, the shawl seemed to be of high-quality fabric, so I felt it was a remnant of the glory days of the silk weaving trade. By this time in my Ripper quest I had become a tenacious and more experienced researcher, and so I set out on my own silk road, and in the course of one afternoon I sent a blizzard of emails which, with results coming in over the next few weeks, changed my direction entirely.

My first contact was with the Huguenot Library in London who directed me to a number of publications relating to such silks and pattern-books where I might be able to find something similar to the design on the shawl. Searching online I discovered that Spitalfields silk designs were

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