At first glance the name, Fairy Fay, is endearing. It's actually two fairies - the definition of fay is fairy. But what did the journalist mean when he chose that moniker? And what would his contemporary readership understand by that choice of title? It's rather an 'in' joke. Fairy (Lower Peoples). A debauched, hideous old woman, especially when drunk. Not so charming after all.
Fairy Fay was born when, in an article for Reynolds News, Robertson christened her, “for want of a better name”, and stated she was the Ripper’s first victim, having been attacked on Boxing Night, 1887. Inspector Edmund Reid supposedly headed the investigation, but to no avail. The perpetrator was never caught. From there, her legend grew, when author Tom Cullen, as quoted here from his 1965, fourth edition of When London Walked in Terror, wrote Fairy Fay was “the rather whimsical name the press gave to the unidentified woman whose mutilated body was discovered near Commercial Road, on the night of Boxing Day, December 26, 1887.” Cullen reprinted Robertson’s suggestions that Fairy Fay was killed after midnight, upon leaving a Mitre-square Pub, while taking a shortcut home. But as for the actual location of the alleged crime, Cullen merely states “in the dim warrens behind Commercial Road she was struck down and carved up by an unknown assassin.”
-Quentin L. Pittman, esq.
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