A MAN WHO promised to build a museum to celebrate the achievements of women has shocked Londoners by instead opening an exhibit dedicated to Jack the Ripper.
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Former Google diversity chief Mark Palmer-Edgecombe originally proposed that the space on Cable Street would celebrate East End women, including suffragettes and equal pay campaigners.
But when the facade of the building was revealed last week, residents were upset to see the subject of the museum had been changed to focus on Jack the Ripper, who brutally murdered several women between 1888 and 1891.
Residents told the Evening Standard they felt that they and the local council had been “hoodwinked” by the developers.
“The history of the East End is not just about misogyny: It’s about the Battle of Cable Street, it’s about Oscar Wilde and The Picture of Dorian Grey, among other things,” said Jemima Broadbridge.
Palmer-Edgecombe said that they did originally plan to make the museum about the social history of women, but Jack the Ripper was “more interesting”.
It is absolutely not celebrating the crime of Jack the Ripper but looking at why and how the women got in that situation in the first place.
The locals’ outrage has spread online, with many people protesting what Mashable calls the ‘bait-and-switch’:
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Tower Hamlets council said they have “no control in the planning terms of the nature of the museum”, but are investigating the extent to which “unauthorised works” may have been carried out.
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