Jack # Frances Coles (suspected victim) 2001

Julie Roberts made this drawing, Jack # Frances Coles (suspected victim), using graphite on paper. The work depicts Frances Coles, a woman believed to have been a victim of Jack the Ripper in 1888. Roberts's choice of subject matter is loaded with social and cultural implications. During the Victorian era, the Whitechapel murders became a media sensation, shaping public perceptions of crime, gender, and class. Coles, like other victims, was a working-class woman whose life ended violently in a society marked by stark inequalities. Roberts’ drawing challenges the narratives constructed around these women. By portraying Coles with such care, Roberts restores a sense of dignity to a person reduced to a case file in the public imagination. Research into contemporary sources such as newspapers, police reports, and social commentary provides more information about the historical context in which both Coles’s murder and Robert’s drawing occurred.