Durward Street, formerly Buck's Row, is a street in

Whitechapel Whitechapel () is an area in London, England, and is located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is in east London and part of the East End of London, East End. It is the location of Tower Hamlets Town Hall and therefore the borough tow ...

, London. In the early morning of 31 August 1888, the body of

Mary Ann Nichols Mary Ann Nichols, known as Polly Nichols (née Walker; 26 August 184531 August 1888), was the first Jack the Ripper#Canonical five, canonical victim of the unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, who is believed to have murdered an ...

("Polly") was found on the pavement on the south side of Buck's Row. She is generally thought to have been the first victim of

Jack the Ripper Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer who was active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer was also ...

. As the case attracted much unwanted attention to the street, its name was changed that same year to Durward Street. The photograph shown here, taken in 2006, shows two features of Buck's Row that were present at the time of the murder. The tall building at the rear (west) is the former Buck's Row Board School, which can be seen in photographs of the street in 1888, now converted into residential flats and renamed "Trinity Hall". Extending east from it, along the south side of the street, is a low brick wall, also present in 1888. It was near the nearer corner of this wall that Polly Nichols's body was found. During the construction of

Crossrail Crossrail is a completed railway project centred on London. It provides a high-frequency hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system, akin to the Réseau Express Régional, RER in Paris and the S-Bahn systems of German-speaking countries, kn ...

, Durward Street has had a temporary entrance to the adjacent

Whitechapel station Whitechapel is an interchange station in Whitechapel, East London for London Underground, London Overground and Elizabeth line services. The station is located behind a street market of the same name and opposite Tower Hamlets Town Hall. The st ...

and since 23 August 2021, the station opened a new permanent entrance onto Durward Street likely at the same site that Polly Nichols's body was found in 1888.

References

{{Jack the Ripper, state=collapsed Jack the Ripper Streets in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Whitechapel