Jack the Ripper: The Hand of a Woman

future and London might hold. No doubt she intended to be faithful to her marriage vows and, she must have thought, in time she would bear her new husband a child, perhaps a son, to continue the Williams family line.

CHAPTER 5
     
     
    B y 1884, the Williamses had left Harley Street behind, the lease on their first London home having expired the previous year, and moved to a larger, even more imposing, residence at 11 Queen Anne Street, not far from Regent’s Park. It was needed to accommodate the growing collection of rare Welsh language books and manuscripts they had acquired; fine Swansea and Nantgarw china; Chippendale, Hepplewhite and Sheraton period furniture, and the pictures, etchings and prints, courtesy of John Deffett Francis (1815-1901), who founded Swansea’s art gallery and art library. But, despite the long years and fervent hopes, no children could be found playing in the Williams household.
    In one of life’s tragic ironies, John Williams, by this time a world-renowned gynaecologist, had still not become a father. Despite all the couple’s efforts, including a two-month cruise to the West Indies in 1881, which they hoped would result in a pregnancy, Lizzie had proved stubbornly infertile. Dr Williams was distraught. Not only did he crave a child, he had failed his mother, and must have thought that he had let himself down too.
    But while his personal life was aching for want of a child, his professional life was thriving. In 1886, Queen Victoria appointed him as physician accoucheur to her youngest and favourite child, H.R.H. Princess Beatrice, wife of Prince Henry of Battenberg, who was expecting a baby towards the end of that year. The birth of a boy on 23 November, which was expected to be difficult because the young princess was a haemophiliac, was successful. Dr Williams received further royal patronage, and his private practice flourished. The following year he was appointed Professor of Obstetric Medicine at University College Hospital and came to be considered as the leading obstetrician in London. He had reached the peak of his professional career.
    Not only was Williams celebrated by becoming a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and the Obstetrical Society of London, he was given similar honours in Germany and America, while universities in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Wales bestowed their honorary degrees on this great physician.
    By the summer of 1888, Williams was forty-seven years old and Lizzie thirty-eight. This meant that she was fast approaching the age when giving birth might be dangerous, especially for a first child, even if there was an experienced gynaecologist close at hand. Today, one in six couples experience difficulty when trying to conceive a child; in those days, the odds would have been no less. According to a report by the Royal College of Obstetricians (March 2011), women over thirty-five are prone to fertility problems, while those in their late thirties or early forties are more likely to have a miscarriage. The Williamses would have been fully aware that their chances of becoming parents were diminishing with every passing year, and their hopes must have been fading drastically, if indeed they had not already been abandoned, giving way to deep (even manic) depression, grief and despair. It must have been a crushing disappointment for them both and inevitably coloured their relationship.
    There seems little doubt that when they married, the Williamses took it for granted that they would one day become parents. This, even though Dr John Williams would have known that infertility was a distinct possibility. But as the years passed and the realisation dawned that Lizzie Williams might be unable to conceive, they would have experienced a wide range of emotions: shock at first, followed by envy of women who had conceived, then resentment, anger and a period of saddened disbelief. Perhaps Lizzie Williams found herself unwilling or unable to confide in anyone about her distress, to reveal her true feelings (which have been likened to the death of someone close), even to her husband, who might have difficulty understanding the reason for her mood swings. It would have been an overwhelming, life-changing event, forever spoiling their relationship, plans and dreams for the future, ruining friendships and straining family bonds.
    That the problem lay with Lizzie Williams, and that it was she who was infertile, was never in any doubt, although it is equally likely that it