welcome to this rapid revision video on the White Chapel unit this video is going to look at tensions and immigration in White Chapel this is a pretty controversial subject and we're going to report the facts as we can find them and the evidence behind it this is though a really important part of understanding why policing was so difficult at this time and it's important for understanding people's reactions to the Jack the Ripper case as well so let's get into it we're going to start by having a look at Irish immigration in the 1880s the whole island of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom despite the wishes of many Irish people at first in the 1840s many Irish immigrants were young men hoping to travel on to America from London's ports but who instead found themselves out of money and who had to stay many turned to dangerous manual workers navies or navigators helping to construct and maintain canals railways and later the first lines of the London Underground what was known at the time as the Metropolitan Railway they often worked hard drank hard and lived a tough existence many were unpopular and had a reputation for violence irish nationalists who wanted freedom from the United Kingdom campaigned for an independent Ireland one group was seen as fanatical Catholic terrorists by people at the time the Fenians a Fenian bomb attack at Clark andwell prison in December 1867 had led to a surge in anti-Irish and anti-atholic feeling the Met established special branch to fight such attacks as a result all Irish people face discrimination many people assumed that all Irish immigrants must either support the Fenians or be Fenians themselves their already hard lives became even harder still and tensions built up next we're going to have a look at Eastern European Jewish immigration in the 1880s there was a new wave of immigration to the East End jewish people in Eastern Europe had long suffered brutal pograms anti-Jewish riots against them with murders and arson and everything else you could imagine and in 1881 this worsened after a Jewish person was blamed for the assassination of Zard Nicholas II of the Russian Empire jewish people fled this violence from Russia Poland and Germany less than 1% of the UK population was Jewish at this time lacking their own existing community and struggling with discrimination and language barriers many chose to settle together in White Chapel where costs were also low some areas of White Chapel were as much as 95% Jewish by 1888 this multicolored map shows the area of Jewish migration and settlement these are the blue areas that are largely around the Spittlefields area fear of the Fenians was the basis for at least some anti-Irish discrimination but resentment of Jewish people was based far more on a deeprooted culture of anti-semitism or hatred of Jewish people stereotypes and cultural assumptions led to anti-Jewish attacks sadly and perhaps inevitably differences between the Jewish and non-Jewish communities made resentment and discrimination worse integration was difficult jewish rules about kosher food and clothing made Jewish residents stand out as did their language Yiddish the Jewish holy day the Sabbath which was on a Saturday caused suspicions among local Christians who celebrated their faith on a Sunday employment was also culturally segregated many employers refused to accept Jewish cultural and religious laws over kosher food or not working on the Sabbath and so Jewish people often worked for Jewish companies adding to a lack of understanding wages were also an issue desperate Jewish immigrants accepted lower wages and even longer hours sweat shop employers took advantage of this to further depress working conditions but Jewish immigrants were blamed newspapers fueled the tensions by printing anti-semitic stereotypes and inventing lies about the community they even suggested that Jack the Ripper was a Jewish immigrant there was no evidence for this and the newspapers were using prejudice to drive sales socialism was also a growing political movement in Britain a small number of Jewish immigrants were in fact socialists and they might have even been anarchists and this was used to suggest that all Jewish people brought what was seen as dangerous and radical new ideas to Britain and that brings us to the topic of anarchism and socialism social and economic problems and inequality had led to the growth of left-wing revolutionary movements people who wanted to put the workers in charge in very simple terms anarchism was against the idea of organized government altogether and it was one of the more popular left-wing movements anarchists briefly took over Paris in 1871 but they had been beaten back governments were organized and supported enough to put down such uprisings in this case many of the leaders fled to Britain which was seen as more politically tolerant some arrived in London's East End as a result some viewed the East End as a haven for other count's terrorists in 1893 special branch began to monitor revolutionaries many of whom were Eastern Europeans as with the Finians the number of attacks was exaggerated and all Eastern Europeans were discriminated against as being potential terrorists socialism was another potentially revolutionary movement the Social Democratic Foundation or SDF was founded in 1881 to represent the rights of industrial and farm workers and women it argued from a revolution to overthrow the capitalist society of wealthy private businesses and industry they were involved in the 1887 bloody Sunday demonstrations in Trafalga Square which I mentioned in the previous video and they viewed the police as helping the government put down the demands of for workers rights white Chapel with its high levels of poverty was seen as a good place to try and get a social democratic foundation counselor elected to the London County Council in 1888 they argued that the police were more incompetent as well as harmful citing their inability to stop and catch Jack the Ripper oh and I should point out here they were talking about the elections in 1888 but of course London County Council was founded in the following year 1889 so how did tensions worsen in the same year as the Jack the Ripper murders 1888 tensions reached a climax immigration was the focus of attention amidst the lack of housing and well-paid work in White Chapel the police struggled to deal with Eastern Europeans because of the language barrier making it hard to deal with the illegal sweatshot conditions in the district when radical posters or notices insulting communities were put up in languages other than English the police could pull them down but they could do little to understand where the tensions were coming from this is evidenced from the House of Lords Select Committee on Sweated Trades in 1890 it's been given by a man called Charles Frank who represented a union that in turn represented shoemakers here's what he had to say on the situation there is no feeling against these foreigners as foreigners these due foreigners work in our trade as this common labor for 16 or 18 hours a day and the consequence is they make a lot of cheap and nasty stuff that destroys the market and injures us the Jewish laborers cause the defeat of English workmen in their battle to attain higher wages they do this by shamelessly blacklegging during disputes and taking work out at any price little bit of explanation of one of the terms there blacklegging this means to work during a strike and it was seen as very very bad news for anyone who is leftwing and actually quite a betrayal anti-semitic attacks increased and there was violence particularly in areas in which Irish and Jewish immigrants mixed as public fear and outrage of the Ripper murders increased so did conflict towards immigrants the sensationalist press ran regular and entirely invented articles and illustrations showing Jack the Ripper with stereotypical anti-semitic features such as beards and hook noses this only fueled greater conflict on the one hand local prejudices including in the police made people believe that the Ripper murders could not have been committed by an English person but on the other hand the police were becoming increasingly alarmed at the levels of race hate in White Chapel and devoted resources to preventing an all-out anti-Semitic riot this is a report by H division this is the Metropolitan DE police division which was in charge of White Chapel it's a report by the Superintendent Thomas Arnold and it's dated the 6th of November 1888 on the morning of the 30th se of September last my attention was called to some writing on the wall in Golston Street White Chapel which consisted of the following words the Jews are the men that will not been blamed for nothing i knew that in consequence of a suspicion having fallen upon a Jew named John Paiser alias leather apron having committed a murder in Hambury Street a talk short time previously a strong feeling existed against the Jews generally i was apprehensive that if the writing was left it would cause a riot an inspector was present with a sponge for the purpose of removing the writing when the commissioner arrived on the scene now there's actually a little bit of context I should give over this particular source on the face of it yes it does show that there was anti-Jewish feeling in the area and it is an anti-Semitic message but this is from the height of the Ripper murders this bit of graffiti was found very near to a crucial bit of evidence for one of the murders which we'll cover in a subsequent video john Piser who was a local Jewish artisan and he was nicknamed leather apron was accused of the murder but he had a solid alibi and he had nothing to do with it and this was later proved by H division and C but what about that piece of graffiti well the commissioner here is Sir Charles Warren and he decided that it should be sponged off and removed this actually removed a potentially crucial piece of evidence in the hunt for Jack the Ripper but at the time the commissioner claimed that he was much more concerned about preventing an anti-Semitic riot and that that piece of graffiti might have been the spark to set it off but there is another story too but we'll come to that in a future video let's sum up our final point white Chapel had a high proportion of immigrant residents in the 1880s irish immigration began in the 1840s starting mostly with young men who worked in hard labor such as building railways and canals and they had a bad reputation for drunkenness and violence later Fenians fought for Irish independence by committing acts of terrorism and that led many people to stereotype all Irish people as potential terrorists special branch of the Met was established to deal with terrorist threats jewish immigration peaked in the 1880s as people fled anti-Semitic pograms and riots in Eastern Europe parts of White Chapel became majority Jewish areas cultural and religious differences combined with overcrowded poor housing and low wages for workers resulting in conflict with Jewish people radical political movements like anarchism and socialism sought to overthrow the government and were highly distrustful of the police some Jewish people were blamed and stereotyped for spreading these ideas the police struggled to deal with these tensions due to their own prejudices the language barrier and through diverting resources to prevent rioting this was made worse by the fact that they were unable to identify and catch Jack the Ripper leading to immigrants being blamed for the murder and faith in the police falling further well I hope that's all been interesting to you if it has please do like the video and maybe consider subscribing to the channel but that's all for now thanks very much for watching and goodbye