Catherine Eddowes
by Jim Hatch
Title
Catherine Eddowes
Artist
Jim Hatch
Medium
Digital Art - Canvas, Archivel Paper
Description
Catherine Eddowes
In 1843, the Eddowes family left Wolverhampton for London. Catherine’s father George had lost his job partaking in then-illegal strike action at the tin-works and sought work in the capital, taking his family of 8 with him.
After a lifetime of childbearing, Kate’s mother died of tuberculosis in 1855, putting an end to Kate’s education at age 15. Her father died shortly afterward, orphaning the younger children to the workhouse and sending Kate back to Wolverhampton to live with her uncle.
Soon after being caught stealing while working at the tin works, Kate met and fell for an Irish ex-soldier turned peddler, Thomas Conway. Together with their baby, they lived an itinerant lifestyle of story-telling and uncertainty.
However, when Thomas struggled to find work in London their partnership became violent and fell apart, leaving Kate and the children to the workhouse. Kate met John Kelly, with whom she traveled to Kent in hope of hop picking in the summer of 1888, but a bad harvest meant no work and they soon returned to the precarious life of the poor in Victorian London.
Uploaded
January 26th, 2022
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