John Stride
Late husband of Elizabeth Stride.
Born John Thomas Stride on 8th February 1827[1], son of William Stride (1783-1873) and Eleanor Monk (b.1784), in Sheerness, Kent, one of nine children. The family were Wesleyan methodists.
Elizabeth and John were married at St Giles in the Fields on Sunday 7th March 1869 - at this time, John was employed as a carpenter living at 21 Munster Street, Regent's Park, London. On the marriage certificate, Elizabeth fabricated a name for her father (possibly with the consent of John), calling him Frederick Augustus Gustifson - Frederick Augustus happened to be the name of John's younger brother.[2]
Soon after, John opened a coffee hall in Upper North Street, Poplar. By 1871 they had moved to new premises at 178 Poplar High Street.[3]In 1874-5, John and Elizabeth Stride were living at 172 Poplar High Street, a few doors away from their business address.
John's father was a substantial property owner and had built Stride's Row in Mile Town, Sheerness. However, on his death in 1873, it appeared that the children who had settled in London did not receive anything, which included John.[4]
It had been Elizabeth's claim that John had died during the Princess Alice disaster of September 1878; on 8th October 1888, several newpapers claimed that the Woolwich papers in 1878 had reported that a woman named Stride had identified the bodies of her husband and children, but research has since failed to find any trace of such reports. In fact, the couple did not have any children and John (contarary to claims by Elizabeth) had not worked as a seaman.[5] In 1881, John and Elizabeth were listed as living at 69 Usher Road, Old Ford Road, Bow[6], but it appears that the marriage ended in that year - she had been admitted to the Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary with brochitis on 28th December 1881 and there gave her address as Brick Lane.
John's life after this separation is a mystery until 1884 when he was admitted to Whitechapel Workhouse in South Grove in August of that year. He was subsequently sent to the Poplar and Stepney sick asylum in Bromley where he died on 24th October 1884 of heart disease, aged 63. He was buried in a public grave in the City Of London Cemetery on 30th October.[7]
John Thomas Stride was the uncle of PC Walter Stride.
References
- ↑ Ancestry World Tree Project - Strides of the UK
- ↑ The Victims of Jack the Ripper, Neal Stubbings Sheldon (Inklings Press 2007)
- ↑ Census report 1871
- ↑ Jack the Ripper: The Facts, Paul Begg (Robson 2006)
- ↑ The Jack the Ripper A-Z, Begg, Fido, Skinner (Headline 1991)
- ↑ Census report 1881
- ↑ The Victims of Jack the Ripper, Neal Stubbings Sheldon (Inklings Press 2007)
