William Stevens was a printer who lived at Crossingham’s Lodging House, which was located at 35 Dorset Street, Spitalfields, in the autumn of 1888. On September 8th, 1888 at approximately 12:12 a.m. he entered the kitchen at the lodging house and encountered fellow lodger Annie Chapman, who had been having a drink with another fellow lodger, Frederick Stevens. She told them that she had gone to Vauxhall to see her sister, and that she had been given five pence. Presumably she then spent this money on drink. Chapman took a box of pills out of her pocket, which she presumably obtained at the casual ward, and which split. She put the pills into a piece of envelope and left. Stevens assumed she had gone to bed. Stevens’ testimony was mainly useful in ascertaining the origin of the envelope found with Chapman’s body.Â
