Welcome to Unexplained Extra with Me Richard McClane Smith, where for the weeks in between episodes we look at the stories that, for one reason or other, didn't make it into the show. In the last episode, The Square, we stepped into the dimly lit streets and alleyways of London's Whitechapel District, bearing witness to a horrifically brutal and misogynistic series of murders. The killer of Martha Tabroam, Polly Nichols, Catherine Edoes, Elizabeth Stride, Annie Chapman, and Mary Jane Kelly,
and perhaps others was never caught. Some have even speculated that there was more than one perpetrator. All, however, will forever be associated with the name Jack the Ripper. It is only too common that perpetrators of such acts achieve a certain level of notoriety, indirectly proportional to the memory of their victims. This has perhaps never been more the case than with the figure known as Jack the Ripper, a situation or the more ironic, since in truth, no
such person ever existed. There is a course, no doubt that the crimes were committed. Jack the Ripper, however, is merely a pseudonym at best, with some believing it to have in fact been entirely fabricated by Central News Agency journalist Thomas Bulling. Whether true or not, there is certainly no doubting the significant role that the press played in terms of elevating the image of this particular serial killer
into something approaching almost mythological proportions. That this occurred was due largely to the changing landscape of the British print industry at the time, specifically the birth of tabloid journalism. As a result, the type of acts perpetrated by the so called jack were not only the first in British history to receive daily, almost real time coverage, but they were also among the first to be subjected to the lurid and sensationalist manner of reporting that would come to
define tabloid journalism. And there was one among all in the industry who, for better or worth, had instigated it.
His name was William Thomas Stead. At the time of the Whitechapel murders, Stead was the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, a forerunner of the London Evening Standard, and one of the most active papers in the reporting of the crimes Prior to that, Stead, who came from pious and humble beginnings, began his career at The Northern Echo, a liberal newspaper operating out of the northeast of England.
Such was his talent and enthusiasm for the business, by the tender age of twenty two he had already been promoted to the position of editor. From the outset. Stead was driven by his faith in his determination to use the print media in a way that it had never been used before. At the time, most of the national press merely serviced the established orders of the day, being largely written by wealthy men for the benefit of wealthy men.
What Stead was quick to realize, however, was that newspapers and their readers could be weaponized to challenge those same established orders. For Stead, journalism was a moral mission, and his mission above all was to help those he considered poor, outcast, and oppressed. When Stead first joined the Pawmal Gazette in eighteen eighty, it was a thoroughly conservative and reactionary newspaper, precisely of the sort that he had spent his formative
years railing against. Shortly after he became the paper's editor in eighteen eighty three. It was immediately transformed into an eye catching page turning romp on a crusade to disrupt Victorian high society sensibilities and hold a mirror up to the reality of British life. To do this, Stead introduced a number of techniques that are familiar today but were revolutionary for the time, such as large fonted headlines and
subheadings to catch the eye. He would also think nothing of blending his own opinions with those of his contributors and interviewees. One of Stead's first and by far most audacious campaigns was published in eighteen eighty five as The
Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon. With it, Stead, in collaboration with feminist and social reformer Josephine Butler, set about exposing the industry of child prostitution, apparently running rampant in London, facilitated by corrupt officials who for too long had turned
a blind eye to it. The most scandalous element being the final chapter documenting the purchase of a thirteen year old girl for nefarious purposes, with the report detailing all aspects of the sale, including the process of having the child's virginity verified before completing the deal. It remains one of the earliest and most shocking examples of investigative journalism. Almost as shocking was the revelation a few months later that it had been Stead himself, operating undercover, who had
procured the child. He was later convicted for his involvement in the escapade known as the Eliza Armstrong case, and sentenced to three months in prison. Are you always taking care of your family? Do you often take care of others and not yourself. Now it's time to take care of yourself, to make time for you. You deserve it. Tele adoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best, to feeling like yourself again. With teledoc, you can speak to a
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A few months later, due in no small part to the moral outrage caused by its publication, the Criminal Law Amendment Act of eighteen eighty five was introduced to do just that. Though few would likely disagree with this being a positive outcome, many might recognize the eighteen eighty five Amendment for very different reasons. For it was in section eleven of this Act, unopposed by Stead, that sex and by extension, homosexuality between men was formerly criminalized. It would
be another eighty years before this was reversed. Such are the dangers of being guided by moralism, Since, regardless of whether you mean well or not, as Stead undoubtedly believed he did, what is considered right to one is not right to war. It is unlikely, too, that his righteousness extended to people of color or those who didn't adhere
closely to the Christian faith. Nonetheless, Stead, as one of the very few men in power to do so, fervently supported the women's suffragette movement and was the first to employ journalists who were women on equal pay. Over the next few years, Stead continued to cement his reputation as a crusading maverick and a constant thorn in the side
of the British establishment. Through the Gazette's reporting on the Whitechapel murders, Stead, albeit crudely, was able to draw attention to the plight of those struggling to make ends meet, forcing the government to provide better housing support. He was also a strong advocate of compulsory primary and secondary education for all. But there was another side to Stead that he had kept hidden from his more earthly journalistic pursuits, something he had been forced to keep hidden for fear
of losing all his hard fought credibility. As a deeply religious man, it was hard for Stead not to take an interest in the growing spiritualist movement, most notably its claims to have mastered communication with the debt. In eighteen ninety three, he founded the magazine Borderland, which focused purely
on adventures in spiritualism and psychical research. Not long after, Stead became convinced he was telepathic, believing that he was able to communicate with his assistant editor and renowned medium of the day, Ada Goodrich Freer by means of automatic writing, the process of writing words without conscious awareness, through which he believed he could channel his friend. Stead later became convinced that he was receiving communications from fellow journalist Julia Ames,
who had died in eighteen ninety one. It was from these apparent communications that Stead got the extraordinary idea to set up a public bureau into which people could drop in and speak to dead loved ones in the manner of a telephone operator service. Julia's Bureau opened its doors in nineteen o nine, staffed by a number of mediums as well as a receptionist. Stead even set up an office for the deceased Julia, who was said to attend the bureau between the hours of ten and four PM.
For where she was said to have spent the rest of her time was never revealed. In nineteen twelve, Stead was invited by then US President William Taft to attend a men and Religion Forward Movement meeting in New York to discuss the topic of world peace. It isn't known
in what context Stead had agreed to attend. However, the movement was said, according to a twenty thirteen article written by Lucy D. Lapp and Maria Ducenzo on the contradictory nature of Stead, character, to be a movement critical of the influence of women in religion and explicitly excluded them from its meetings. On April tenth, Instead traveled to Southampton, on the south coast of England and boarded a steamliner
bound for New York, setting off shortly after midday. For the next few days, Stead kept his friends and fellow passengers gaily entertained with his vast array of tales and anecdotes from years spent on the front line of the British press. On the fifth night, having finished off an especially thrilling story about the cursed Mummy of the British Museum, with had just gone ten thirty pm, Stead retired to
his cabin and went to sleep. High up in the ship's crow's nest lookouts, Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee stood watch in the freezing night air, with no moon visible. Above the sea, was an obsidian carpet laid out before them, as dark as the night sky and filled with as many stars. Such was the effect it felt at times as if they were in fact floating in space. At eleven thirty PM, the pair spotted something peculiar in the distance,
a slight haze sitting just above the water. Minutes later, their eyes widened in horror as something vast and looming emerged out of it below deck. Stead shot awake in his cabin with the strange sensation that the room had just been shaking. Somewhat alarmed, he hurriedly made his way to the top deck to find passengers and crew members dashing about and the ship now seemingly adrift in the vastness of the ocean. Moments later, he was informed at
the terrifying news the ship had collided with an iceberg. However, such was the confidence in the vessel, he was advised that all was likely fine and to return to his cabin. Below the water line, however, a very different story was unfolding. Although the hull had not been directly punctured in the crash, the collision had dented the paneling at the seams, causing
rivets to pop and the paneling to split apart. The ship began taking on water immediately, and before long it was cascading into the boiler rooms at a rate fifteen times faster than it could be pumped out. Within minutes, the ship's head was being pulled under the wa Just after midnight, the ship's captain, Edward Smith, ordered a complete evacuation. At twenty minutes past midnight, it was clear that the ship HMS Titanic was going down, and as Captain Smith knew,
not everyone would be getting off alive. The ship, although carrying two thousand, two hundred and eight passengers, only had enough lifeboats for half of them. In the end, only seven hundred and six would survive. It was reported that as the Titanic sank, W. T. Stead did all he could to help others into the lifeboats, even giving up his own life jacket to help another passenger. He was last seen clinging to a raft before losing his grip
and disappearing below the waves. It is strangely apt that Stead lost his life on the Titanic, since the event in itself is remembered in many ways as a microcosm of the very world that he had worked most of his life to confront, understand, and challenge. The vessel had been split into three tiers, with the third class ticket holders at the bottom, the second in the middle, and the first with the best access to escape routes, on
the top. As it transpired, many in third class weren't even given the chance to escape the hatchways, leading into their section being closed and locked in on them in an attempt to keep the vessel afloat long enough for
the others to escape. In thirty nine percent of first class passengers died, fifty eight percent of standard class, and seventy six percent of third The following day, as news of the disaster began to break, Stead's name was prominent among the list of well known passengers thought to have possibly died. It wasn't long after that attention was drawn to a peculiar coincidence in his dying. In eighteen eighty six, Stead, who claimed to experience premonitions, published the story How the
Mail Steamer Went Down in the mid Atlantic. In it, he describes the sinking of an ocean liner that is only equipped with enough lifeboats to say half its passengers. Then, in eighteen ninety two, Stead published another story titled From the Old World to the New, in which a ship departing from England and bound for the US collides with an iceberg. The ship's only surviving passenger, having climbed on top of the iceberg, is then later rescued by another
vessel captained by a man named Edward Smith. Start had based the character on the same Edward Smith, who would later captain HMS Titanic. This was the final episode of Unexplained season three, but fear not for we will return in January twenty nineteen for season four. Thank you once again to all who have taken the time to listen. If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can now go to Unexplained podcast dot
com forward slash support. All donations, no matter how large or small, are massively appreciate. All elements have Unexplained are produced by me, Richard McClain Smith. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share, you can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or on Twitter at
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