While the murder of prostitutes was not uncommon in late Victorian London, the newspapers didn't make a song and dance about them until Jack the Ripper came along. © Museum in Docklands

Review: Jack the Ripper and the East End at the Museum in Docklands, London, until November 2 2008.

Was it the American quack, Dr Francis Tumblety, with a nasty habit of stealing wombs? Or could it have been conman Michael Ostrog – a despicable character indeed. Crime writer Patricia Cornwell thinks it was turn-of-the-century artist Walter Sickert. But then, maybe the murderer sprang from the highest echelon of society even; could it really have been down to Queen Victoria's grandson, Prince Albert Victor?

Blamed for the vicious murder and mutilation of 11 prostitutes between 1888 and 1891, speculation over the identity of Jack the Ripper seems as if it will continue for ever more. What proved sensational fodder for the world's press in Victorian times is still deeply embedded in the public consciousness.

While the mystery is compelling, the new exhibition at the Museum in Docklands also looks beyond this train of thought to reveal the context in which the Ripper and his victims lived – the downtrodden East End of Victorian London.

It opens with exhibits that evoke the dark aspects of culture in the late 1800s. The tatty waxwork of a murderer then on show in Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors greets visitors, along with noir-ish Expressionist film clips. A double exposure photograph illustrates a play that had just opened in the West End at the time of the murders – Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

One of the photographs of the East End at the turn of the century, from the Museum archives. Many have not been shown before. © Museum in Docklands

While the Victorians certainly had a taste for the grisly as entertainment (the character of Sherlock Holmes was also brought out at this time), the murder of prostitutes would garner only a line or two in the daily papers. It was a commonplace, though unfortunate, occurrence. The Ripper murders were different.

Prostitution was rife in the East End of London, where people got by on a subsistence wage from making matches or boots, or skinning rabbits. Charles Booth's colour coded maps show the concentration of poverty in the areas of Whitechapel and Spitalfields, where the rare green space around Christ Church would be filled with the homeless at night. Once grand Huguenot weaving houses were now crammed with families sharing one room; carts clattered up the cobbles of Brick Lane delivering hops to the Truman Brewery.

The atmosphere is wonderfully evoked, with objects and photographs illustrating the people and conditions of the area, known for its maze of alleys and courtyards. It was aligned with the labyrinth in the Greek myth of the Minotaur by contemporary journalist WT Stead, and a painting inspired by this analogy, by GF Watts, shows a half-man half-beast looking out to sea, a small bird obliviously crushed under one hand.

Detail of a Booth Map of Poverty with murder sites marked. © Museum in Docklands

It was no wonder people turned to drink. And highly available it was, too, with no fewer than 45 pubs and 'gin palaces' lining a single mile stretch of the Whitechapel Road. A watercolour on show depicts a crammed bar, complete with mother cradling a baby and feeding it gin.

Alcohol was the poison of choice for the 11 whose death is attributed to the Ripper. Their tragic life stories, that ended so brutally, are marked in a similar way to many of those who sell their bodies now – a video of an expert who works with prostitutes tells us that 90 per cent of them these days are addicted to crack or heroin.

Comparisons to modern day issues are alluded to in several places: from the scapegoating of Jewish immigrants (one theory was that only a foreigner could commit such vile crimes), to the way in which the reporting of sensational crimes highlights social issues. George Bernard Shaw pointed out that Jack threw more light on the circumstances of East London than any social reformer. Indeed, improvements were carried out as a result, as well as sullied street names changed.

John Henry Henshall, Behind the Bar, 1882 (detail). © Museum in Docklands

Public disgust at the murders meant innovation in both detective work and reporting. A stuffed bloodhound nods to the trialling of the dogs in the case – one such new tracking technique – and antique newswire equipment reminds us that this story was big worldwide.

The story of the murders is expounded through both formulaic police reports and boldly illustrated documents, and excerpts from the newspapers, which competed to grab attention with blunt headlines and horrifically detailed descriptions.

"…throat gashed in two cuts, penetrating from the front of the neck to the vertebrae … her abdomen had been ripped up from thighs to breast in a revolting manner…" reported the Birmingham Post on September 1, 1888, the morning after the body of Mary Ann Nichols was discovered.

Was it this unabashed style of reporting that earned radical newspaper The Star its bestselling status by the summer of 1888, having only been launched at the start of the year? For some, it was off-putting.

Salacious features from the Illustrated Police News, with 'before and after' drawings of a victim, are more Robert Crumb than the serious tone the matter required. A Victorian mortuary trolley, complete with stained cover, conjures the spectacle the papers were after.

One of the many hoax letters, which kept coming until 1896, five years after the Ripper murders ceased. © The National Archives MEPO3-142 PT1 (73-75)

Did the papers themselves create the hype? The Museum has borrowed, from the National Archives, the letter that turned the 'Whitechapel Murders' into the Jack the Ripper phenomenon. Claiming to be from the killer, it begins: "Dear Boss," and is signed off 'Jack the Ripper'.

Central News Agency journalist Tom Bulling forwarded it to the Metropolitan Police, saying it had been sent to his agency. They thought it was his work, but attempted to identify the handwriting anyway. A slew of subsequent hoax letters is also shown.

Rounding off with more information on the investigation itself and then a look at how fertile the events have been for popular and cinematic culture (we have Jack to thank for graphic novel 'From Hell' and a great Michael Caine film), a grim set of archive images have been separated from the main body of the show.

Bonnet, c.1880s. © Museum in Docklands

Rather than having them sprinkled through the exhibition, the curators have chosen to show police photographs of the victims slightly separated, in an attempt not to be gratuitous. The tiny size of the images means they aren't anywhere near as shocking as you might expect from the warning sign (or that could be down to the reviewer's bad eyesight). There is a gashed face here, though, and a body that is barely recognisable as such.

To re-personalise these women and remember that this is the history of their terrible deaths and hard lives, there is a cabinet of fancy bonnets recalling how the shabbily dressed women would have prized small items of finery. Shortly before her murder, Mary Ann Nichols told a doss house keeper that she'd "soon get my money. See what a jolly bonnet I have."

It's a touching end to a well-rounded exhibition. Immersed in that dog-end of the Victorian world, and with the sound of a matchgirl's song still ringing in your ears, walking out into shiny Canary Wharf jars somewhat.

Have you been to see the show? If so, why not let us know what you think?