1. Joseph Lawende was a Polish-born British cigarette salesman who is believed to have witnessed serial killer Jack the Ripper in the company of his fourth victim, Catherine Eddowes, approximately nine minutes before the discovery of her body on 30 September 1888.
Joseph Lawende came to Britain in 1871, and was married to Annie Lowenthal in a London synagogue on 22 January 1873.
On 11 December 1876, Joseph Lawende gave evidence at the Old Bailey at the trial of Isaac Marks for the murder of Frederick Barnard.
Joseph Lawende was described as a cigarette maker of 3 Lenton Street, Goodman's Fields.
Joseph Lawende had known Marks for a year as a customer of the Camperdown Hotel, where he dined on Sundays, and had played dominoes with him.
Joseph Lawende is known to have had commercial premises for the manufacture of cigarettes in St Mary Axe.
That night, Lawende and two Jewish companions, Joseph Hyam Levy, a butcher, and Henry Harris, a furniture dealer, attended the Imperial Club in Duke's Place.
Joseph Lawende walked slightly apart from his two friends, and was the only one to take any notice of the man's appearance, having glanced at him briefly from a distance of approximately nine feet.
Joseph Lawende described the man as being of average build and looking rather like a sailor, wearing a pepper-and-salt-coloured loose-fitting jacket, a grey cloth cap with a matching peak, and a reddish neckerchief.
Joseph Lawende did not believe he would be able to identify the man again.
The coroner agreed and Joseph Lawende merely provided a description of the man's clothes.
Major Henry Smith of the City of London Police, in whose area Eddowes had been killed, was impressed by the fact that Joseph Lawende was uninterested in the previous 'Ripper' murders, and would not be drawn with leading questions.
Joseph Lawende was naturalised as a British subject in April 1889.
Joseph Lawende died in London on 9 January 1925, a month shy of his 78th birthday.