Catherine Eddowes timeline
1842 – Catherine is born at 20 Merridale Street, Graisley Green, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, to tinplate worker George Eddowes and his wife cook Catherine née Evans (April 14).
1848 – Catherine’s father George and uncle William leave their jobs in Wolverhampton, and with their families they walk to Berdmondsey, in the London borough of Southwark.
1855 – Catherine’s education at St John’s Charity School, Patters Field, Tooley Street, ends.
1855 – When Catherine is 13, her mother Catherine Evans Eddowes dies (October).
1857 – Her father George dies when she’s around 15, and she goes to live with an aunt.
Ca. 1860 – She eventually returns to finish her education at Dowgate Charity School and to care for her aunt in Biston Street, Wolverhampton, and to work as a tinplate stamper, a colour stover and a grainer at the Old Hall Works.
1860/61 – When about eighteen years old, Catherine moves to Birmingham, where she briefly lives with an uncle, shoe maker Thomas Eddowes. She works as a tray polisher for some months before returning to Wolverhampton, where she lives for a time with her grandfather also named Thomas Eddowes. Some months later, she moves to Birmingham again.
1862 – Catherine leaves home at 19 to live with ex-soldier Thomas Conway aka Thoas Quinn.
1862/63 – Catherine and Thomas earn a living around Birmingham and other West Midland towns by selling “Penny Dreadfull”s and Gallows Ballads penned by him.
1863 – Catherine Ann “Annie”, Catherine’s and Thomas’s first child is born atYarmouth Workhouse in Norfolk (April 18).
1865 – The family resides in Wolverhampton, and Thomas is also writing music hall ballads.
1867 – Catherine’s and Thomas’ second child, son Thomas Lawrence, is born (December 8).
1868 – Catherine and Thomas, and their children Annie and Thomas live in Westminster, London.
1871 – The family has settled at 1 Queen Street, Southwark, Catherine works as a laundress.
1873 – Their third child, George, is born at St George’s Workhouse, Mint Street, St Saviour’s (August 15).
1877 – Catherine’s and Thomas’ fourth and last child, Frederick William, is born at the Union Infirmary, Greenwich (February 21).
1877 – Catherine, aged 36 and working as a washerwoman, is convicted at Lambeth of ‘Drunk &c’. She receives a 14 day sentence which she serves in Wandsworth with her infant son Frederick (August 6).
1878 – Laundress Catherine is sentenced at Southwark to 7 days in Wandsworth Prison for being ‘drunk in a thoro'fare’ (August 17).
1881 – The family has moved to 71 Lower George Street, Chelsea, but it appears that their ‘marriage’ breaks up soon after. Thoas takes their sons with him, and Catherine and her daughter Annie go to Spitalfields to live near Catherine’s sister Eliza Gold.
Ca. 1881/82 – Catherine meets Irish jobbing market porter John Kelly. They eventually move in together at Cooney’s common lodging-house at 55 Flower and Dean Street, Spitalfields.
1886 – Catherine’s daughter Annie is bedridden and pays her mother to attend her. That is the last time Annie, aged 21, sees her mother (September).
1888 – Catherine and John go hop picking as every year to Hunton-near-Maidstone, in Kent with their friend Emily Birrell and her common-law husband, but as this season is not good,they come home earlier than expected and split their last sixpence between them; he takes fourpence to pay for a bed in the Cooney’s common lodging-house, and she takes twopence, just enough for her to stay a night at Mile End Casual Ward in the neighbouring parish (September 27).
1888 – Catherine goes at Cooney’s loding house and has breakfast in the kitchen with her common-law husband John Kelly (September 29).
1888 – Catherine is found lying drunk in the road on Aldgate High Street by PC Louis Robinson. She is taken into custody and then to Bishopsgate police station, where she is detained (September 29).
1888 – She is sober enough to leave at 1 a.m. on the morning (September 30).
1888 – Catherine’s mutilated body is found in the south-west corner of Mitre Square in the City of London, she was 46 (September 30).
Your life was difficult and cut short. You were free at last… 🌼