Events in October
Carriages, Crime and Crinolines: Writers and the Victorians
Thursday 16 October, 7pm
Why has the Victorian era proved such a rich source of inspiration to today's novelists? Explore this question with three best selling authors of novels set in Victorian London, Charles Palliser, Lee Jackson and Sue Gee.
Fee £7.50, concessions £5
A Closer Look at Jack the Ripper?
Saturday 18 October, 10.30am – 5pm
A day conference which will explore some of the issues tackled by today's Ripper experts through a closer look at some of the key objects on display in the Museum's exhibition. Speakers include the acknowledged Jack the Ripper expert Donald Rumbelow, who will discuss the Ripper Diary.
In conjunction with Ripperologist magazine and the organisers of the biannual UK Ripper conferences.
Fee £20, concessions £15
"Foul of mouth and evil eyed": Francis Galton and the Victorian Criminal
Thursday 2 October, 1.10 - 2pm
Natasha McEnroe explores the world of Victorian eugenics and criminal profiling. Francis Galton, a Victorian polymath, is a controversial figure. He is known as the inventor of fingerprint identification but this work formed part of his lifelong research into eugenics, a term that he coined. A cousin of Darwin and heavily influenced by his ideas, Galton was convinced that health, wealth and success were solely matters of genetics.
Admission Free
Victorian workhouses
Thursday 23 October, 1.10 - 2pm
Peter Higginbotham, editor of workouses.org.uk, explores the world of Victorian workhouses, and their significance in the lives of the poor and destitute.
Admission Free
The Imaginative Geography of the Whitechapel Murders
Thursday 30 October, 1.10 - 2pm
Professor John Marriott, University of East London, explores how and why in the 1880s Whitechapel was 'created in the public imagination as a mythical site of Gothic horror, depravity and fearful danger'.
Admission Free
A programme of guided walks which go beyond and behind the usual Ripper fare
Jack the Ripper and the East End
Wednesday 29 October, 6pm
Guided walks with Blue Badge guide Denise Allen which look at the sensational story of Jack the Ripper in the context of contemporary life and social conditions in the Victorian East End. Denise concentrates particularly on the women victims, victims of circumstance, social deprivation and the Whitechapel murderer.
Tickets £7.50, no concessions