The Home Page of John Barber

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The story begins in 1907 when a young prostitute known as Phyllis Dimmock was found with her throat cut in St Pauls Road, North London on the morning of 12 September.

Phyllis was not her real name. She was born Emily Elizabeth Dimmock (which is what I will call her) on 20 October 1884 in the Hertfordshire Village of Standon which is on the A120 road to Bishops Stortford. Her father William ran a beer house called the Red Lion.

In 1895 the family was living in Hitchin. By late 1897 the family had moved once again, this time to Bedford. In 1901 Emily was working as a domestic servant in St Neots and her father later found work for her as a chambermaid in the Swan Hotel, Bedford. For reasons that were not made clear to her father, Emily was taken away from the family home by her sister Maud, who had married a police constable. Maud later came to live in Putney but according to William Dimmock found Emily a position as a servant in Finchley. That was the last he saw of his daughter.

Emily visited her sisters as often as she could, and one of the boyfriends she introduced to them was Bert Shaw.

Emily was no more than seventeen when she was put in service in Finchley. In common with so many she drifted to London and the Kings Cross area of North London. Kings Cross and the surrounding area is a network of alleys, dark streets and forbidding premises. The gasometers are a local landmark and prostitutes have always used this area as a place to meet clients.

By 1905 at the age of 21, Emily was lodging in a house at 1 Bidborough Street, off Euston Road and close to Kings Cross, St Pancras and Euston stations. The house was owned by a John William Crabtree. He was arrested on and off during the next two years on charges of running a brothel.

By 1906 Emily was living with a common law husband, a man named Bertram Shaw. Bert was himself only 19 and for Bert to have married Emily he would have needed his parents consent. Many marriage certificates at the time state that one of the couple had attained their majority without actually disclosing their age or date of birth. This consent had just been granted by both his parents.

Shaw had been employed by the Midland Railway for four years as a chef. He usually left home at about 4.15pm and arrived back in London at about 11.30am the following day. His sister states that he was then working between London and Derby, staying at the latter overnight. On the night of 11/12 September he had a cast iron alibi and was never considered a suspect.

When Emily and Bert first lived together they rented rooms in Great (now Royal) College Street. They moved and in 1907 Bert and Emily were living as Mr and Mrs Shaw in St Pauls Road. By day Emily was a dutiful housewife; once Bert had left for work she returned to her previous calling, apparently missing the entertainment provided by the many public houses in Euston Road, particularly the Rising Sun.

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