Stanford White, Architect

He was acquainted with the famous architect Edward W. Godwin, a theater enthusiast, costume designer, and good friend of Whistler's. Godwin lived with Ellen Terry during Sickert's early acting days and had built Whistler's house - the White House, on Tite Street in Chelsea. Godwin's widow, Beatrice, had just married Whistler on August 11, 1888. Although I can't prove that biographical and geographical details such as these were connected in Sickert's psyche when Ripper letters were mailed or purportedly written from the London locations cited, I can speculate that these areas of the metropolis at least would have been familiar to him. They were not likely places for "homicidal lunatics" or East End "low life paupers" to have spent much time. While it is true that many of the Ripper letters were mailed in the East End, it is also true that many of them were not. But Sickert spent a fair amount of time in the East End and probably knew that run-down pan of London better than the police did. The orders of the day did not allow Metropolitan Police constables to enter pubs or mingle with the neighbors ...»