Jane York

Jane York was born in Whitechapel in 1888, the year of the Ripper murders.

In 1911 she was still in Whitechapel at 49 Queen Anne St, aged 23 working as a rag sorter, living with her widowed mother Harriet (55) and her brother Timothy (17). Harriet had given birth to 11 children but only six survived. She made matchboxes from home. Timothy is listed as a coal porter. All three of them were born in Whitechapel

In 1889, Charles Booth wrote in his notebook: "North up Queen Ann St. 3 st. 3 storey rough, children very ragged, some prostitutes. Bread and bits of raw meat in the roadway, windows broken & dirty; all english: one woman called out "let us be guv'nor dont pull the houses down & turn us out! On the West side not coloured in map is a small court: hot potato can standing idle, dark, narrow.

.Making boxes from home

In 1891, Jane's father William is alive and the family (seven children) are at 27 Granby Street Bethnal Green.
William is a labourer on the docks. Jane is four.

Just after the 1911 census was taken Jane married Barney Phillips. On the night the 1911 census was taken Barney was in Clerkenwell Police Station in Kings Cross Road.
The couple moved to 140 Sidney Street, Stepney after their marriage in April 1911.

Earlier that year Sidney Street made national news with a siege involving a Latvian anarchist gang: On 2 January , an informant told police that two or three of the gang, possibly including Peter the Painter himself, were hiding at 100 Sidney Street, Stepney Worried that the suspects were about to flee, and expecting heavy resistance to any attempt at capture, on 3 January two hundred officers cordoned off the area and the siege began. At dawn the battle commenced.The defenders, though heavily outnumbered, possessed superior weapons and great stores of ammunition. The Tower of London was called for backup, and word got to the Home Secretary, Winston Churchill, who arrived on the spot to observe the incident at first hand, and to offer advice. Six hours into the battle, and just as the field artillery piece that Churchill had authorised arrived, a fire began to consume the building. When the fire brigade arrived, Churchill refused them access to the building. The police stood ready, guns aimed at the front door, waiting for the men inside to attempt their escape. The door never opened. Instead, the remains of two members of the gang, Fritz Svaars and William Sokolow (both were also known by numerous aliases), were later discovered inside the building. No sign of Peter the Painter was found.^[1]Besides the three Policemen, a London Firefighter also died of his injuries.^[2]


The neighbours must have talked of little else. Jane and Barney would have walked past the site of the demolished, burnt out house daily

The landlord of 140 Sidney Street was a Mr John W Fudger, a fireman in an iron foundry  aged 39 who lived there with his wife Margaret and four children (another two had died). Jane and Barney Phillips must have been lodgers, the house had six rooms in all.

After this the trail goes cold, to be continued.....