Amid the bustling streets of Spitalfields, East London, there is a piece of real estate with a bloody history. This was once Dorset Street: the haunt of thieves, murderers and prostitutes; the sanctuary of persecuted people; the last resort for those who couldn't afford anything else – and the setting for Jack the Ripper's murderous spree. So notorious was this street in the 1890s that policemen would only patrol this area in pairs for their own safety. This book chronicles the rise and fall of this remarkable street; from its promising beginnings at the centre of the seventeenth-century silk weaving industry, through its gradual descent into iniquity, vice and violence; and finally its demise at the hands of the demolition crew. Meet the colourful characters who called Dorset Street home.

First Published in 1986. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

From the 1880s to the Second World War, Campbell Road, Finsbury Park (known as Campbell Bunk), had a notorious reputation for violence, for breeding thieves and prostitutes, and for an enthusiastic disregard for law and order. It was the object of reform by church, magistrates, local authorities, and social scientists, who left many traces of their attempts to improve what became known as 'the worst street in North London'. Jerry White offers insight into the realities of life in a 'slum' community, showing how it changed over a 90-year period. Using extensive oral history to describe in detail the years between the wars, White reveals the complex tensions between the new world opening up and the street's traditional culture of economic individualism, crime, street theatre, and domestic violence.

Looks at one of historys most infamous serial killers known for committing gruesome murders in the late nineteenth-century who remains one of the world's most infamous criminals

The motivations behind Dickens' novels and the poverty-stricken world of 19th century London.

In Victorian London, filth was everywhere: horse traffic filled the streets with dung, household rubbish went uncollected, cesspools brimmed with "night soil," graveyards teemed with rotting corpses, the air itself was choked with smoke. In this intimately visceral book, Lee Jackson guides us through the underbelly of the Victorian metropolis, introducing us to the men and women who struggled to stem a rising tide of pollution and dirt, and the forces that opposed them. Through thematic chapters, Jackson describes how Victorian reformers met with both triumph and disaster. Full of individual stories and overlooked details--from the dustmen who grew rich from recycling, to the peculiar history of the public toilet--this riveting book gives us a fresh insight into the minutiae of daily life and the wider challenges posed by the unprecedented growth of the Victorian capital.