The Grave of Annie Chapman

The Grave of Annie Chapman is located in Manor Park Cemetery in Forest Gate, east London. Annie Chapman was buried here on 14 September 1888, six days after she was murdered in the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street in Spitalfields. She is generally regarded as the second of the five canonical victims attributed to the unidentified murderer known as Jack the Ripper.

Chapman was born Eliza Ann Smith in Paddington on 25 September 1840. She married coachman John Chapman in 1869 and the couple had three children, but their marriage later deteriorated and they separated in the 1880s. Her husband continued to provide her with a weekly allowance until his death in 1886. By 1888, Chapman was living in common lodging houses in the East End and earning money through casual work, including crochet and selling flowers, as well as occasional prostitution.

During the early hours of 8 September 1888, Chapman left Crossingham’s Lodging House at 35 Dorset Street because she did not have the money required for a bed. Her body was discovered shortly before 6 a.m. by resident John Davis in the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street. Her throat had been cut and her abdomen extensively mutilated, with part of her uterus removed. The murder followed the killing of Mary Ann Nichols eight days earlier and greatly increased public fear surrounding what became known as the Whitechapel murders.

Chapman’s family deliberately kept the funeral arrangements secret to avoid the crowds and press attention that had begun surrounding the murders. Shortly after 7 a.m. on 14 September, her body was removed from the mortuary in Montague Street in a hearse. No mourning coaches followed. Her relatives instead met the hearse at Manor Park Cemetery, where the burial service was conducted privately. Chapman was placed in a black-covered elm coffin bearing the inscription “Annie Chapman. Died September 8, 1888. Aged 48 years.” Although the coffin gave her age as 48, her accepted birth date indicates that she was actually 47 and seventeen days short of her 48th birthday.

She was buried in public grave 78, square 148. Such graves contained multiple unrelated burials and were commonly used for people whose families could not or did not purchase a private plot. Chapman was reportedly buried approximately twelve feet below ground. During later decades, the burial area was reused and the precise position of her grave was lost. The original grave therefore no longer survives as an identifiable individual burial plot.

A modern memorial now stands within the general area where Chapman was buried. An earlier plaque installed by the cemetery authorities stated that “Her remains are buried within this area”, acknowledging that the exact position could no longer be established. A later upright memorial stone was added nearby. Manor Park Cemetery continues to identify the site as the Memorial to Annie Chapman and marks it on its official cemetery map.

Chapman is buried in a different cemetery from several of the other canonical Ripper victims. Mary Ann Nichols and Catherine Eddowes are buried in the nearby City of London Cemetery, Elizabeth Stride in East London Cemetery and Mary Jane Kelly in St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cemetery in Leytonstone. The loss of Chapman’s exact grave makes her memorial unusual among the surviving burial sites associated with the five canonical victims.