Census gives insight into lives of Ripper victims

CENSUS records have shed new light on the victims of one of Britain’s most infamous serial killers, Jack the Ripper.

After more than a century of speculation, rumour and legend about the killer, historians have ploughed through census records to gain insight into the lives of the women he targeted.

Studies of the 1881 census have shown that far from being the young, lifelong prostitutes that modern cinema has them portrayed, the victims were often older and married with children.