EPISODE 7: THE WOMEN ## PART ONE: BEFORE THE FALL ### CHAPTER 1: MARY ANN "POLLY" NICHOLS She was born Mary Ann Walker on August 26, 1845, in Dean Street, off Fetter Lane, London. Her father was a locksmith named Edward Walker, a respectable craftsman who provided a stable home for his family. Mary Ann grew up in the working class but not in poverty—there was food on the table, clothes to wear, a future to imagine. At twenty-one, she married William Nichols, a printer's machinist. They had five children together over the next twelve years. The marriage seemed solid. William worked steadily. The family moved through a series of London addresses, following opportunity. Then something went wrong. The marriage collapsed in 1880. William claimed Mary Ann had become an alcoholic and abandoned the family. Mary Ann claimed William had an affair with the nurse who attended one of her pregnancies. The truth, like most truths in broken marriages, probably contained elements of both stories. What matters is the result: Mary Ann was cast out. In Victorian England, a woman without a husband, without family support, without savings, had very few options. --- ### CHAPTER 2: THE DECLINE After the separation, Mary Ann's life became a slow descent. She lived in workhouses—the Victorian institutions that provided bare subsistence in...