October 2019 No. 165

DAVID BARRAT On the Missing ripper files

MICHAEL HAWLEY • JOE CHETCUTI • DAVID WOODHEAd SPOTLIGHT ON RIPPERCAST • NINA & howard brown the latest book reviews

Ripperologist 118 January 2011 1 Ripperologist 165 October 2019

GUEST EDITORIAL: FALSE ACCUSATIONS Karl Coppack

THE LOST RIPPER FILES David Barrat

TUMBLETY’S SURGICAL KNIVES Michael Hawley

DINNER AT THE MARDI GRAS Joe Chetcuti

SIR ALFRED FRIPP AND David Woodhead

Spotlight on Rippercast: KOSMINSKI WAS THE SUSPECT

AND THE ANGELS SING.... Nina and Howard Brown

BOOK REVIEWS Paul Begg and David Green

THE LAST WORD Christopher-Michael DiGrazia

Ripperologist magazine is published by Mango Books (www.MangoBooks.co.uk). The views, conclusions and opinions expressed in signed articles, essays, letters and other items published in Ripperologist Ripperologist, its editors or the publisher. The views, conclusions and opinions expressed in unsigned articles, essays, news reports, reviews and other items published in Ripperologist are the responsibility of Ripperologist and its editorial team, but are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, conclusions and opinions of doWe not occasionally necessarily use reflect material the weopinions believe of has the been publisher. placed in the public domain. It is not always possible to identify and contact the copyright holder; if you claim ownership of something we have published we will be pleased to make a proper acknowledgement.

The contents of Ripperologist No. 165, October 2019, including the compilation of all materials and the unsigned articles, essays, news reports, reviews and other items are copyright © 2019 Ripperologist/Mango Books. Cover photograph courtesy Jon Horlor. The authors of signed articles, essays, letters, news reports, reviews and other items retain the copyright of their respective contributions. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or otherwise circulated in any form or by any means, including digital, electronic, printed, mechanical, photocopying, recording or any other, without the prior permission in writing from Mango Books. The unauthorised domestic laws and international agreements and give rise to civil liability and criminal prosecution. reproduction or circulation of this publication or any part thereof, whether for monetary gain or not, is strictly prohibited and may constitute copyright infringement as defined in Ripperologist 165 October 2019

Guest Editorial: False Accusations KARL COPPACK

Can we talk about Sir ? There’s a lot to talk about. Once the former Governor of Guy’s Hospital, he became one of EXECUTIVE EDITOR the ‘Physicians-in-Ordinary’ to as well as the Fullerian Professor of Physiology Adam Wood and President of the Clinical Society. His work furthered the understanding of myxoedema, EDITORS Bright’s disease, paraplegia and anorexia nervosa. Gareth Williams Eduardo Zinna respect. A life well-lived. EDITOR-AT-LARGE This is a man who served the field of medicine in a manner deserving of honour and That’s before the late 20th century got his hands on him. Jonathan Menges I’m no expert on Gull. I took all that information from his Wikipedia page. I didn’t even REVIEWS EDITOR Paul Begg portrayals have painted him as landed gentry with access to the highest courts in the land. know he was born in Colchester and rose from pretty average stock, as the film and TV COLUMNISTS Nina and Howard Brown references ‘Jack the Ripper’, ‘Abberline’, ‘John Netley’, ‘Freemasons’, ‘suspect’ and, somewhat David Green moreWhat happily,I do know, ‘Michael though, Caine.’ is that every other reference on the first page of a Google search ARTWORK This is all seems very unfair. Sir William Withey Gull is no longer around to shake his head Adam Wood defend himself. He can’t even persuade us that he was a force for good in a naughty world, andat the that ludicrous he helped accusations in an age of where his being his talents ‘the were sorely fiend’ needed. or an He accomplice. went to his He grave cannot an eminent medic, and ended the last century as a suspect in the most famous murder case of his Ripperologist magazine is era. Somehow, because of lurid tales and expectation, his true history has been left behind. published six times a year and supplied in digital format. It is free Then there’s Walter Sickert. of charge to subscribers.

He was an incredibly talented painter and artist of his time. Wikipedia claims him to be Back issues from 62-164 are available in PDF format on our Sickert was a true Renaissance man who strolled across various lives and intrigues in the website. ‘a prominent figure in the transition from Impressionism to Modernism’. A friend of Degas, same manner as Oscar Wilde, who, coincidentally, also resided in Dieppe for a while. Sickert An index to Ripperologist too went to his grave having left more than he took and was, for seventy years or so, lauded magazine can also be downloaded.

To be added to the mailing list, Enter the banshee cry of suspectology. to submit a book for review or only as a major figure in British art. to place an advertisement, get in Now he’s a potential murderer, eviscerator, misogynist and wont to ‘slumming it’ with the touch at contact@ripperologist. female poor for kicks, and all because he had an interest in the case. Well, we all have that. co.uk

We welcome well-researched were relegated as a consequence. Almost overnight Walter Sickert became the personification of Victorian evil, and his works articles on any aspect of the Not even his genitals escaped comment. , the East End or the in As unlikely as it seems, at least one of these men are not ‘Jack the Ripper,’ not unless you general. believe that they acted in cahoots. That would make them the strangest double act to cross www.ripperologist.co.uk the E1 postal district. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that neither fit the bill.

1 Ripperologist 165 October 2019

site makes pretty much all of us suspects. Last October a Paul first noticed him for a start, and living near a murder I walked down that road last night. Had I been there on man was killed by his wife about a mile away from my flat. that dreadful night, would I be a suspect had there been no other candidate around? Would I then have to deal with that accusation for all eternity? Seems a bit harsh somehow.

which irks. It’s the ‘case closed’ and the ‘we can finally reveal that…’ Of course, the second any refutation is aired the lofty accusation of “Yeah, but those ‘experts’ don’t want the case to be solved in case it ends their ‘industry’.” I’ll just sit back and think of all the people I know who are trousering bundlefuls of cash from not knowing the identity of the Ripper. Give me a minute. Where does this need come from? This urge to stand up and point at someone long-dead who is more than likely to have never been considered a suspect when they were alive? Is it the safety of time that gives us the right to pronounce them as the lowest of the low? And why the need to claim certainty and then shout at those who are uneasy with the suggestion? had no such issues with pointing Walter Sickert: not the Ripper daughter Christabel had the good grace to ask Daniel But the cost of that fame is the legacy they now face. the finger at Kosminski, Ostrog and Druitt. At least his Farson for the names not to be revealed to avoid slander. It Both did much in their lives, but that’s been cast aside by a was a long time before Druitt’s name was revealed in full. hungry age with little care for reputations. Now, there seems to be a race to malign any poor sod Newcomers to the case are often brought in by the with the right postcode and access to a knife. ‘It might be whodunnit element. That may change to a fascination of him’ slowly alters into an accepted possibility that they’ve the topology, politics, the development of the police force committed numerous murders. That’s a hell of a leap. or an eagerness to discuss the victims of 1888, but it’s the After all, how many of us can picture Nathan Kaminsky as mystery which ensnares the newbie. a killer now, regardless of actual evidence. That comes with an easiness of slander. Famously, there Lately there’s been a heated argument about the point of Ripperology, about overlooking the poor women who some of them are murderers – Bury, Klosowski, Holmes et are over 150 suspects in the Whitechapel files and while had no choice but to be a part of this sorry tale. While that al – others are just lives unfairly contorted by the passing is true to some extent (though they are hardly ignored of time. Tumblety may have just been an eccentric with a when it comes to research), the same could be said of the love of exaggeration, merely the holder of ease in which we accuse anyone and everyone. Like the a coincidental surname, and poor Druitt had a bad enough victims these are people too, and just because destroying time during his own life, never mind in the centuries that reputations of the dead comes with little cost it should followed his demise; but they’re now fair game. always be remembered that some have left ancestors who The ‘Ripper’ may have been one of those men, but the may not like the connotation, particularly if it is a false one. balance of probability would suggest otherwise. Just a thought.

‘We can now prove that Charles Lechmere DEFINITELY  To top all this, there’s the ever-present ‘definitive’ case. was the Ripper because he was seen crouching over the KARL COPPACK is the author of the ten-part series Ten Weeks In body of Polly Nichols and lived locally!’ Whitechapel: A New Way of Telling the Story, recorded for podcast Well, he wasn’t crouching over anyone when Robert release by Rippercast.

2 Ripperologist 165 October 2019

The Lost Ripper Files By DAVID BARRAT

The first document in the original Home Office file of worthless material held by government departments at the National Archives relating to the Whitechapel murders, numbered A49301 in 1888 but now bearing the reference HO 144/220/A49301A, is, on the face in order to prevent the Public Record Office ‘from being of it, a depressingly long list of destroyed and missing encumbered with documents of not sufficient value’. October 1922 (in TNA: HO 45/16941), ‘Papers which, files. According to a Home Office memorandum from

The list, which appears to have been created by a or historically, are destroyed under the authority of after a certain period, cease to be of value either officially ‘Notes on the Suspects File [MEPO 3/141]’, Home Office official, was referred to by Paul Bonner in his and the Master of the Rolls under the Public Records produced in the early 1970s, in which, puzzled by the fact Schedules prepared by officers of the Secretary of State in September 1929, says that, ‘papers are destroyed at any of the suspects named in Melville Macnaghten’s 1894 Acts.’ A further memorandum in the same file, written that a key file makes no mention of periods varying according to the importance of the papers memorandum (as well some other well-known suspects), concerned’. said, ‘one only supposes that mention of these may have been among those 22 items in File A49301 listed as destroyed or missing, or possibly in the two items referred In respect of the files relating to the Whitechapel to as passed to Mr. Anderson.’ murders, no actual files have been destroyed, only sub- files, although the correct term for these sub-files, as used This list, which actually contains far more than 22 this situation is obviously unfortunate for the modern within the Home Office, was ‘papers’. Nomenclature aside, missing or destroyed items, was given wider circulation researcher who wants to know every small detail about by Melvyn Fairclough who reproduced it (or at least the case, and the destruction has, not unnaturally, created The Ripper and the suspicion amongst a number of Ripperologists that the Royals, with the caption ‘Index of Scotland Yard Ripper authorities were engaged in a cover-up, destroying or the first page of it) in his 1991 book, hiding crucial evidence about Jack the Ripper and the Whitechapel murders. files’, which was misleading because the files were not Paul Feldman reproduced the same image in his 1997 created at Scotland Yard, being all Home Office files. There is, however, a clue at the top of the list which is book, Jack the Ripper: The Final Chapter, with the same usually ignored. For it is entitled ‘A49301. Unimportant misleading caption, and asked: ‘Why have so many of the Series (miscellaneous suggestions)’. We are being clearly

The answer to Feldman’s question is very simple. No were unimportant, containing miscellaneous suggestions files been destroyed?’ told, therefore, that the listed files, or sub-files or papers, (as to how to catch the Whitechapel murderer) and – real estate being at a premium – and huge numbers this would account for the largescale, legal destruction. organisation has unlimited space in which to store files Fairclough, who tells us in his book that Sir Charles routinely destroyed if they were thought not to be Warren and Robert Anderson ‘used their position to of Home Office files on all subjects were regularly and engage in a cover up’, did notice the words ‘unimportant series’ but implied that this description applies only to the sufficiently important to preserve. It’s not something unique to the Ripper files. Probably the majority of Home the case. Furthermore, at the foot of the second page of Office files from the period have not survived. This was surviving files, not those destroyed or missing, which isn’t which provided for, and arguably required, the destruction in accordance with the Public Record Office Act of 1877, the list is the revealing comment about the destroyed files 3 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 that, ‘They were mostly mad suggestions from [General been provided to the PRO. Public]’. What also seems to have been overlooked is that a brief description of every single sub-file in the series was time, which are available for consultation within series entered into huge registers kept by the Home Office at the these registers have been interrogated (by me) to produce HO 46 at the National Archives. For the first time ever, a description of every single one of the 227 sub-files listed thus allowing us to know what has been lost to history in the series, including all the missing and destroyed files, and whether any of it is likely to have been of any interest. The exercise has produced one revealing piece of information relating to the date the list was compiled. According to the authors of the 2006 book, Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates (Stewart P. Evans and Donald Rumbelow), the list of missing and destroyed files was created in 1893. This appears to be based on the be closed until 1993 so that, on the basis of the 100 year fact that it is stated on the list that the main file was to rule, it was assumed to have been indexed in 1893. This series (number 227) was created in 1905. Hence the list cannot, however, be correct because the last file in the must have been created in the twentieth century. It might well have been created as late as the 1930s,

William Henry Daw wrote a note to an Assistant Secretary for, on 7 March 1930, a clerk at the Home Office called

Chamberlain was deciding whether to ban a play written at the Home Office, Arthur Locke, at a time when the Lord by Andrew Melville called Jack the Ripper, in which Daw said: ‘Files for the Whitechapel murders have been List of destroyed and missing Ripper files, page 1 at 549494/9). It was noted by Daw that no newspaper placed on the floor in your room’ (TNA: HO 45/18008 out in the list has never been accurately calculated before, accounts of the murders could be found in recent years, The precise numbers of missing and lost sub-files set except for ‘the newscutting of 10-5-29 in A49301/219’. This must have been a cutting relating to the publication so here are the actual figures: of Leonard Matters’ book, The Mystery of Jack the Ripper, a The total number of sub-files listed within file A49301 list as ‘destroyed’, ten are marked as ‘missing’, three are is 227. Of these 227 sub-files, 189 are marked in the copy of. That news cutting is not to be found today in the marked as having been sent to the police (including book which, said Daw, the Home Office had not obtained a to Mr Anderson, the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police) and thus also missing, making a total microfilmed copy of A49301/219 at the National Archives, been removed as being out of place. Daw also said that which is an 1892 sub-file, so must subsequently have he had hurriedly read the newspaper reports contained of 13 effectively missing sub-files, with the remaining 25 in A49301C/8e, looking to see if the inquest scene in sub-files having survived (either remaining in A49301 or Melville’s play corresponded to one of the actual inquests. It may be worth saying at this point that any large having been transferred to another file such as A49301C).

are borrowed by individuals outside of that organisation Hence, the existing Home Office files on the Whitechapel organisation can suffer from mislaid files, especially if they during March 1930. and not returned. Mind you, as a result of the exercise murders were certainly at the Home Office in It’s possible that they had been temporarily returned I have conducted, the position is a little better than previously believed because it transpires that four of the possible, and perhaps more likely, that they had not yet to the Home Office by the Public Record Office but equally ten ‘missing’ sub-files (numbered 57, 171, 191 and 193)

4 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 must have been found after the list was compiled, and are thus not missing, which means that there are a total of 29 explanation of what constitutes A49301 might be helpful. Before listing the descriptions of all the sub-files, a brief surviving sub-files and, hence, only nine missing sub-files The Home Office file with this number, which was the number 57 had, apparently unknown to the creator of the murders, was created on 1 September 1888, following in total (including those sent to the police). In fact, sub-file first file in that department relating to the Whitechapel list, been transferred out of A49301 to A49301D/7 and L. & P. Walter & Son, a clothing manufacturer, of 11-13 receipt that day by the Home Office of a letter from Messrs be familiar to Ripperologists because it contains a letter was thus probably never missing at all. Sub-file 193 will from Mr Haslewood of Tottenham accusing Sergeant for a reward to be offered to assist in the detection of the Church Street, , dated 31 August 1888, asking Thick of being the Whitechapel murderer. Whitechapel murderer (although that expression was not used in the letter). This was, of course, in response to news of that morning’s murder of . Had there been no further incoming correspondence on the

have been numbered as A49301 and left at that but, once subject of the Whitechapel murders, the file would simply

further correspondence was received by the Home Office, it was turned into a sub-file with the number A49301/1. on 10 September, following receipt of a letter from The second file, or sub-file, in the series was opened Samuel Montagu M.P. to Sir , which

expressed his desire to offer a reward of £100 for the Warren forwarded to the Home Office, in which Montagu conviction of the murderer, or murderers, of Nichols. The Commissioner’s letter was initially assigned the reference A49354 but this was amended to A49301/2. The response from Mr Leigh Pemberton, on behalf of the Home Secretary, to Sir Charles, dated 13 September 1888, was also given a reference number of A49354, but a copy of the letter was placed in A49301/2.

contained a letter from the secretary of the newly-formed A third sub-file was opened on 17 September 1888 and Vigilance Committee in dated 16 September 1888 asking that the government provide a reward for the capture of the murderer. As it became clear that the volume of correspondence relating to the Whitechapel murders was increasing, so

that separate files would be suitable for different issues, List of destroyed and missing Ripper files, page 2 all three of these sub-files were transferred into a new renumbered A49301B/1, A49301B/2 and A49301B/3 file, A49301B, which related specifically to rewards, and respectively. and 168) have been duplicated in the register, with In addition, three of the sub-file numbers (98, 144 the duplication not corrected and no other gaps in the opened, and the ninth item of correspondence received Shortly afterwards, a third new file, A49301C, was sequence, which means we actually have a total of 32 initially numbered A49301/9, was renumbered to become by the Home Office relevant to the murders, which was A49301C/1. This was another letter from the Vigilance surviving sub-files (so that there must have originally numbered 227). It’s not clear whether those additional been 230 sub-files in total, albeit that the last file is requested a meeting with the Home Secretary, and this Committee which, while relating to rewards, specifically may be why it wasn’t transferred to the ‘B’ series but a three sub-files retained their duplicate numbers or were overall, though, because, either way, not far short of 90% re-numbered as ‘A’ or ‘B’ sub-files. It makes little difference ‘C’ series was a letter from the General Liberal Association new series was created instead. The second sub-file in the of the sub-files in the series are lost to us.

5 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 of the New Forest Division of , whose members, who claimed to have information about the identity of for no obvious reason, had taken it upon themselves to relating to the use of bloodhounds, were transferred to the Whitechapel murderer, while another three sub-files, government with neglect of duty for the police’s failure to forward to the Home Office a resolution charging the catch the murderer. series is dated 12 October 1888, we can deduce that the a newly-created ‘E’ series. As the first sub-file in the ‘D’

It may be that officials at the Home Office were initially ‘D’ and ‘E’ series files were not created earlier than this; from the Vigilance Committee suggesting a reward be until on or after 24 October. confused by the filing system, because a further letter and, indeed, the ‘E’ series file was probably not created issued was transferred to A49301C when one would

All sub-files transferred from A49301 to the ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’ have some documents missing) and can be viewed at the have expected it to have been filed in A49301B. In time, relating to the murders. While the exact date that the ‘B’ and ‘E’ files have happily survived (although a few may A49301C would become the main file at the Home Office are indeed, as indicated by the aforementioned Home to have been some time after 30 September 1888 because National Archives. The remaining sub-files within A49301 and ‘C’ files were opened isn’t entirely certain, it was likely it was only really following the so-called ‘double event’ to catch the murderer. that correspondence from the general public started to Office list, mainly suggestions from the public as to how The below list is one that I have created entirely from flood into the Home Office with suggestions as to how National Archives. I have attempted to remain faithful to information in the Home Office registers held at the to catch the murderer, thus causing a re-think on the file the descriptions of the items of correspondence in the have been cleverly renumbered, which confuses the issue, numbers. Although some of the sub-file covers appear to registers but, where more information is available from all the evidence from the registers and the surviving other sources, I have included this in a footnote. The names documents suggests that the reorganisation of A49301, involving the creation of A49301B and A49301C, occurred are not all easy to decipher, but my best interpretations of after 8 October 1888. and initials of individuals who wrote to the Home Office the Victorian handwriting are included herein.

‘D’ series dealing with the issue of an informant in Vienna  A further sub-file from A49301 was transferred to a new

No. Status Description Received Reference 1 A49301B/1 Letter from Walter & Son forwarding newspaper report and 01.09.88 HO 46/93, p.490 recommending a reward be offered re. murder in Whitechapel 2 A49301B/2 Letter from the Commissioner of Police requesting instructions 10.09.88 HO 46/94, p.10 as to Mr. S. Montagu’s offer of a reward re. murder of a woman in Hanbury Street, Whitechapel, on 8th inst. (originally numbered A49354) 3 A49301B/3 Letter from B. Harris asking Secretary of State to augment the fund 17.09.88 HO 46/93, p.428 re. East End murders 4 DESTROYED Post Card from Mr. C.W. Smart re. Murder in Hanbury Street, 15.09.88 HO 46/93, p.478 Whitechapel (wrongly numbered A49301/3 in the register)

murders are the work of a woman 5 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. G. Mansfield suggesting that the Whitechapel 17.09.88 HO 46/93, p.449 6 MISSING Letter from Mr. C. Woosher giving particulars of a conversation he 22.09.88 HO 46/93, p.490 overheard in The Iowa Tavern, Harrow Road, re. Whitechapel murders 7 MISSING Letter from Mr. A.G. Mussabini offering his services re. Whitechapel 21.09.88 HO 46/93, p.450 murders 8 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. Edwin Bennett who thinks a reward ought to be 22.09.88 HO 46/93, p.395 offered re. Whitechapel murderer 9 A49301C/1 Letter from Vigilance Committee asking Secretary of State to attend 25.09.88 HO 46/93, p.485 meeting with respect to refusal to offer a reward re. Whitechapel murders (wrongly renumbered A49301C/3 on the register, having been amended from A49301/9)

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No. Status Description Received Reference 10 TO MR ANDERSON Letter from Teixeira de Mattos1 offering probable explanation for 27.09.88 HO 46/93, p.482 Whitechapel mystery 11 A49301C/2 Letter from the General Liberal Association of the New Forest Division 28.09.88 HO 46/93, p.428 of Hampshire forwarding resolution re. Whitechapel murders 12 A49301C/3 Letter from Vigilance Committee suggesting issue of a reward 01.10.88 HO 46/93, p.485 re. Murders in Whitechapel & HO 46/94, p.447 13 DESTROYED Letter from J.S. Wilson offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 01.10.88 HO 46/93, p.490 murders [N.B. sub-number omitted from register] 14 DESTROYED Letter from S.H. Salmon offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 02.10.88 HO 46/93, p.478 15 DESTROYED Letter from “One of the Public” offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 01.10.88 HO 46/93, p.460 murders 16 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. J. Gibson offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 01.10.88 HO 46/93, p.423 17 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. A. Newton offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 02.10.99 HO 46/93, p.456 18 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. C. Bennetts offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 02.10.88 HO 46/93, p.395 19 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. George Bartlett offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 02.10.88 HO 46/93, p.395 murders 20 DESTROYED Letter from Mr T. Hoppett mentioning widespread dissatisfaction of 02.10.88 HO 46/9,3 p.428 non-issue of reward 21 A49301C/4 Letter from Colonel T.D. Sewell saying that Colonel Sir. A. Kirby has 02.10.88 HO 46/93, p.478 offered £100 reward, and offers services of men of Tower Hamlets Royal Engineers

Mr. P. Lindley suggests the use of bloodhounds 22 A49301E/1 Internal Home Office memo re. printed letter from the Times in which 02.10.88 HO 46/94, p.319

2324 DESTROYED SeeLetter the from two Mr.files A. numbered Muller offering 24 below, suggestions one of which re. Whitechapel will have been Murders No. 23 02.10.88 N/AHO 46/93, p.450 [One of two entries numbered A49301/24 in the register; one should be A49301/23] 24 DESTROYED Letter from Alice Robertson offering suggestion re. Whitechapel 02.10.88 HO 46/93, p.471 Murders [One of two entries numbered A49301/24 in the register; one should be A49301/23] 25 A49301C/5 Letter from the Clerk of the Board of Works, Whitechapel District, 02.10.88 HO 46/94, p.351 enclosing resolution that the police force may be strengthened 26 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. C. Egersdorff2 offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 02.10.88 HO 46/93, p.414 murders 27 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. J. Woodward offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 02.10.88 HO 46/93, p.490 murders 28 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. E. Maitland offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 03.10.88 HO 46/93, p.450 murders 29 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. J. Rutherford offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 04.10.88 HO 46/93. p.471 murders 30 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. W. Savage offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 03.10.88 HO 46/93, p.479 31 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. J.H. Rogers making a complaint against Mr. Charrington 03.10.88 HO 46/93, p.471 re. Whitechapel murders 32 DESTROYED Anonymous letter offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 04.10.88 HO 46/93, p.387

1 Referred to as M.A. Teixeira de Mattos in the index to HO 65/62 so he must be M. Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (1865-1921), a Dutch born journalist and translator who was then living in . 2 This was Charles Egersdorff, a bootmaker of 40 Camden Street, Walworth, SE, who also wrote to the Lord Mayor on 3 October 1888 suggesting

from a glass syringe, while keeping a record of the man’s description, so that any murdered woman found with the same mark on her attire the use of couples to watch and mark the clothing of men and women seen together in the East End with an unspecified corrosive substance could be linked to the man whose clothing would bear a corresponding mark (LMA: CLA/048/CS/02, Box 3.14, No.62).

7 Ripperologist 165 October 2019

No. Status Description Received Reference 33 DESTROYED Letter from J.R. Mayo offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 04.10.88 HO 46/93, p.450 34 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. J.F. Kennedy offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 04.10.88 HO 46/93, p.437 35 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. R. Rayner offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 04.10.88 HO 46/93, p.471 36 A49301B/5 Letter from Mr. enclosing petition from East End residents 04.10.88 HO 46/93, p.443 for offer of reward re. Whitechapel murders 37 A49301C/5a Letter from clerk of Whitechapel Vestry forwarding resolution of vestry 04.10.88 HO 46/93, p.200 re. Whitechapel murders 38 DESTROYED Letter from C. Howard offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 04.10.88 HO 46/93, p.428 39 DESTROYED Letter from C.H. Curtis offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 04.10.88 HO 46/93, p.402 40 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. S. Lawrenson offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 04.10.88 HO 46/93, p.443 murders 41 DESTROYED Letter from G. Allanson offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 04.10.88 HO 46/93, p.387 42 DESTROYED Letter from R. Wilmot offering suggestions re Whitechapel murders 04.10.88 HO 46/93, p.490 43 DESTROYED Letter from Perzidedsé, a seer, giving description of the murderer 05.10.88 HO 46/93, p.463 44 A49301C/6 Letter from Mr. J. Payn3 offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 05.10.88 HO 46/93, p.463 45 A49301E/2 Letter from Commissioner requesting authority for expenditure of 06.10.88 HO 46/94, p.11 employment of bloodhounds as detectives re. Whitechapel murders 46 DESTROYED Letter from Rev. G.H. Mason offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 06.10.88 HO 46/93, p.450 murders 47 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. C. Jackson offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 05.10.88 HO 46/93, p.434 48 DESTROYED Letter from T.J. Spencer offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 06.10.88 HO 46/93, p.479 49 DESTROYED Letter from Colonel C.E.S. Gleig4 offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 06.10.88 HO 46/93, p.423 murders 50 A49301C/7 Letter from the Governor of Newcastle Prison forwarding description 08.10.88 HO 46/94, p.221 of a man named “Duncan” who had confessed to the Whitechapel murders and suggesting he be traced5 51 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. H. Wilson offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 08.10.88 HO 46/93, p.490 52 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. E. Walker offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 08.10.88 HO 46/93, p.490 53 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. Louis Israel6 offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 08.10.88 HO 46/93, p.434 murders 54 DESTROYED Letter from “Edinburgh man & a rank true blue Tory” offering 08.10.88 HO 46/93, p.414 suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 55 DESTROYED Anonymous letter offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 08.10.88 HO 46/93, p.387 56 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. James Yates offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 08.10.88 HO 46/93, p.495 57 SURVIVES Letter from George Lusk calling attention to the fact that the only means 09.10.88 HO 46/93, p.443 untried is the offer of a Government reward (transferred to A49301B/7) [NOT MISSING]

3 This was the novelist James Payn (1830-1898), author of The Canon’s Ward Pall Mall, London, from where his letter was written (TNA: HO 144/221/A49301C, p.69). His suggestion was that the sewers should be (as mentioned in his letter), who had an office at 15 Waterloo Place, watched because he considered it probable that the murderer made his escape using them. 4 This must be Charles Edward Stewart Gleig (1825-1906), a writer and retired army Captain, who had been given the honorary rank of Colonel in July 1881 (Army List, 1882). 5 The Governor enclosed a newspaper cutting from the Newcastle Daily Chronicle of 2 October 1888 about a Dr. J. Duncan, who had supposedly once lived in Newcastle before travelling to India, telling Thomas Ryan, Secretary of the Cabman’s branch of the Church of Temperance

believed that Dr. Duncan was an ex-convict and wife-beater called John George Donkin but it was established by the police that this was not the Society, in a cabmen’s shelter, that he had committed the Whitechapel murders (TNA: HO 144/221/A49301C, sub-file 7). The Governor case; his actual name was John Davidson and he was able to account for his movements on the dates of the murders (TNA: HO 144/220/

A49301A, sub-file 68). ‘Insane’ (TNA: HO 46/97, p. 52). 6 Mr. Israel was a regular correspondent to the Home Office on various subjects who was later classed by the H.O. as ‘Eccentric’ and then as

8 Ripperologist 165 October 2019

No. Status Description Received Reference 58 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. C. Egersdorff7 offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 09.10.88 HO 46/93, p.414. murders 59 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. H. Tripp offering suggestions re Whitechapel mystery 09.10.88 HO 46/93, p.482 60 A49301C/8 Report from Commissioner on Sir J. W. Ellis’ letter 09.10.88 HO 46/94, p.11 61 DESTROYED Letter from Mrs. C. Thompson complaining that the parish light of 09.10.88 HO 46/93, p.482 Hobson’s Court has been taken away8 62 A49301C/11a Letter from Mr. E. Chadwick offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 09.10.88 HO 46/93, p.402 murders (noted to be moved to A49594/2) 63 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. H. Wilson9 offering further suggestions re. Whitechapel 10.10.88 HO 46/93, p.490 murder 64 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. J. Rutherford writing re. Whitechapel murders 09.10.88 HO 46/93, p.471 65 DESTROYED Extract from Times of 10 October 1888 re. trial of bloodhounds 11.10.88 HO 46/94, p.319 66 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. H. Wilson writing regarding the statement of the sailor 12.10.88 HO 46/93, p.490 called Dodge or Todge

person at Boulogne re. Whitechapel murders 67 SURVIVES Foreign Office forwards despatch from HM Consul about suspicious 12.10.88 HO 46/94, p.305 68 SURVIVES Assistant Commissioner forwards police report as to “Donkin alias 12.10.88 HO 46/94, p.39 Duncan” re. Whitechapel murders

re. Whitechapel murders 69 A49301D/1 Foreign Office writes as to someone willing to give evidence at Vienna 12.10.88 HO 46/94, p.305 70 DESTROYED Anonymous letter containing observations re. Whitechapel murders 12.10.88 HO 46/93, p.388 71 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. T. Lirble expressing hope bloodhounds will not be 13.10.88 HO 46/93, p.443 employed re. Whitechapel murders 72 DESTROYED Assistant Commissioner acknowledges letter of 10th Inst. enclosing 17.10.88 HO 46/94, p.39 communication re Whitechapel murders

re. Whitechapel murders 73 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. Henry Nash expressing confidence in bloodhounds 16.10.88 HO 46/93, p.456 74 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. M.W. Hilles containing suggestion for prevention of 16.10.88 HO 46/93, p.428 Whitechapel murders 75 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. Jonathan Rutherford writing further as to the 16.10.88 HO 46/93, p.471 Whitechapel murders 76 SURVIVES Letter from Commissioner regarding release of a suspect at Boulogne 29.10.88 HO 46/94, p.12 & re. Whitechapel murders and forwarding despatch of release of man detained at Boulogne from Foreign Office on 17 November 1888 HO 46/94, p.305 77 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. Jonathan Lock arrested on suspicion asks consideration10 17.10.88 HO 46/93, p.443 78 A49301E/3 Commissioner submits revised estimate and requests sanction to 24.10.88 HO 46/94, p.11 expend £100 on bloodhounds 79 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. A.J. Cooke offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 24.10.88 HO 46/93, p.402 80 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. H. Stuart offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 25.10.88 HO 46/93, p.479 (wrongly entered as No. 82 on register) 81 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. W. Forster11 offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 25.10.88 HO 46/93, p.418

7 See footnote 2 above. 8 Mrs Thompson lived at 131 Hanbury Street (TNA: HO 65/62, p.220). 9 This was Henry Wilson from North Wales (TNA: HO 136/40, p.185) as, no doubt, was other correspondence from ‘H. Wilson’ (Nos. 51 & 66). 10 Lock was a sailor of 2 Union Street, Aberystwyth, Wales, who had been arrested in Ratcliffe Highway on 3 October 1888 due to paint or grease stains on his clothing, which an angry mob thought was blood, as related in the Morning Advertiser of 4 October 1888. He was told by Godfrey Lushington, by letter dated 6 November 1888, that the Home Secretary had concluded that he had no grounds for complaint as to the actions of the police (TNA: HO 136/40, p.304).

65/62, p.378). 11 This was William Forster, who gave the Home Office the benefit of his knowledge of the Jewish method of slaughtering animals (TNA: HO

9 Ripperologist 165 October 2019

No. Status Description Received Reference 82 DESTROYED Letter from Mrs. ‘Anon’ Johnston offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 29.10.88 HO 46/93, p.434 murders 83 DESTROYED Commissioner reports re. letter from Mr. J Lock re. Whitechapel murders 30.10.88 HO 46/94, p.12 84 DESTROYED Letter from Anderson & Bland addressed to Mr. A. J. Cooke - returned 31.10.88 HO 46/93, p.388

murderer 85 DESTROYED Anonymous letter forwarding suggestions for finding the Whitechapel 07.11.88 HO 46/93, p.388 86 DESTROYED Letter from G.J.H. Buigley offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 06.11.88 HO 46/93, p.396 87 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. W. Hastings offering suggestions re Whitechapel murders 12.11.88 HO 46/93, p. 429 88 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. F. Martin offering suggestions re Whitechapel murders 14.11.88 HO 46/93, p.450 89 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. R. Swords offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 14.11.88 HO 46/93, p.479 90 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. R. James offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 14.11.88 HO 46/93, p.434 91 TO MR ANDERSON Anonymous letter re. Whitechapel Murders containing description of a 14.11.88 HO 46/93, p.388 supposed murderer 92 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. F. McDonnell offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 14.11.88 HO 46/93, p. 450 murders 93 DESTROYED Letter from Mr H. Savill offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 14.11.88 HO 46/93, p.479 94 DESTROYED Letter from F.W.T. Williams offering his services re. Whitechapel murders 14.11.88 HO 46/93, p.491 95 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. O.T. Bulkeley12 offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 15.11.88 HO 46/93, p.396 murders 96 DESTROYED Letter from Everest & Fawcett offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 15.11.88 HO 46/93, p.414 murders 97 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. G. Mauley offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 15.11.88 HO 46/93, p.450 murders (forwarded to Assistant Commissioner who replied on & HO 46/94, p.40 23 November 1888 re. “Mr G. Mauley’s method for catching murderer”) 98 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. W.H. Kingham suspects a named man re. Whitechapel 15.11.88 HO 46/93, p.438 murders 98 DESTROYED Letter from G.B. Turner offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 15.11.88 HO 46/93, p.482 [DUPLICATE NO. 98] 99 DESTROYED Anonymous letter re Whitechapel Murders offering suggestions 16.11.88 HO 46/93, p.388 regarding a Thomas Wainwright 100 DESTROYED Letter from Mr J. Latham offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 16.11.88 HO 46/93, p.443 101 DESTROYED Letter from W.M. King offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 16.11.88 HO 46/93, p.438 102 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. T. Randell offering suggestions re. East End murders 10.11.88 HO 46/93, p.472 103 DESTROYED Anonymous letter offering suggestions re Whitechapel Murders 17.11.88 HO 46/93, p.388 104 DESTROYED Anonymous letter offering suggestions re Whitechapel Murders 17.11.88 HO 46/93, p.388 105 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. A.T. Cottle offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 17.11.88 HO 46/93, p.403 106 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. H. Macquire offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 17.11.88 HO 46/93, p.450 107 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. J. Maher asking for an interview re. Whitechapel murders 17.11.88 HO 46/93, p.450 108 DESTROYED Letter from E. Goodenough offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 17.11.88 HO 46/93, p.423 109 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. G.W. Maunsell J.P. offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 17.11.88 HO 46/93, p.450 murders 110 DESTROYED Letter from F. Jones offering his services re. Whitechapel murders 22.11.88 HO 46/93, p.435 111 DESTROYED Letter from Sir J.A. Morris offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 17.11.88 HO 46/93, p.450 112 DESTROYED Letter from Rev. D. Williams offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 17.11.88 HO 46/93, p.491

12 Probably Owen Tudor Bulkeley, a colonial agent, living in Ilford at the time of the 1891 census (and see No. 141).

10 Ripperologist 165 October 2019

No. Status Description Received Reference 113 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. J. Rutherford offering suggestions re. East End murders 17.11.88 HO 46/93, p.472 114 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. H. Walker offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 17.11.88 HO 46/93, p. 491 115 DESTROYED Letter from J. Wiseman offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 19.11.88 HO 46/93, p.491 116 DESTROYED Letter from Jonathan Witchell offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 19.11.88 HO 46/93, p.491 murders 117 DESTROYED Letter from James Gibbons13 foretelling date of next murder re. East End 19.11.88 HO 46/93, p.423 murders 118 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. J.R. Gane offering his services re. East End murders 19.11.88 HO 46/93, p.423 119 DESTROYED Letter from W.H. Cooke offering suggestions re. East End murders 17.11.88 HO 46/93, p.403 120 DESTROYED Letter from Dr. Arnold Casserins14 offering suggestions re East End 19.11.88 HO 46/93, p.403 murders 121 DESTROYED Letter from G.E. Mauley offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 19.11.88 HO 46/93, p.450 122 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. W. Rabone offering suggestions re. East End murders 20.11.88 HO 46/93, p.472 123 DESTROYED Anonymous letter offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 21.11.88 HO 46/93, p.388 124 DESTROYED Letter from G.R. Rae offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 22.11.88 HO 46/93, p.472 125 DESTROYED Letter from J. Turner offering suggestions re. East End murders 22.11.88 HO 46/93, p.482 126 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. W.H. Kingham giving particulars of a man named 22.11.88 HO 46/93, p.438 H.C. Dumpton re. Whitechapel murders 127 DESTROYED Anonymous letter in Italian offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 21.11.88 HO 46/93, p.388 128 DESTROYED Letter from G.W. Harrison offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 23.11.88 HO 46/93, p.429 129 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. W. Rabone writing further to his letter of 19th inst. 23.11.88 HO 46/93, p.472 re. Whitechapel murders 130 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. J. Edwardes offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 24.11.88 HO 46/93, p.414 131 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. H.S. Tuke offering suggestions re. East End murders 24.11.88 HO 46/93, p.482 132 DESTROYED Letter from Monsieur H. Serret15 referring to a letter he addressed to the 24.11.88 HO 46/93, p.479 Commissioner re. Whitechapel murders 133 DESTROYED Letter from John Callaghan offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murder 24.11.88 HO 46/93, p.403 134 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. G.W. Harrison writing further as to Whitechapel murders 24.11.88 HO 46/93, p.429 135 DESTROYED Letter from H. Fennell offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 24.11.88 HO 46/93, p.418 136 DESTROYED Letter from R. Ross offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 24.11.88 HO 46/93, p. 472 137 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. D. Macrae commenting on the Whitechapel murders 24.11.88 HO 46/93, p.451 138 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. F. Dixon offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 26.11.88 HO 46/93, p.409 139 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. P. Lambert saying that he thinks the atrocities are being 26.11.88 HO 46/93, p.443 committed by a Russian 140 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. A. H. Dowkoult saying he is desirous of communicating 26.11.88 HO 46/93, p.409 information re. East End murders 141 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. O.T. Bulkeley giving his opinion as to the date of the next 27.11.88 HO 46/93, p. 396 murder 142 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. R. Porter offering observations re. Whitechapel murders 27.11.88 HO 46/93, p.464

13 Quite possibly James B. Gibbins, of Percy Lodge, Wood Green, who had already written to the Police more than once in October 1888, offering his services as a graphologist, claiming to be able to provide a character analysis of the author of the ‘Jack the Ripper’ letter and postcard (LMA: CLA/048/CS/02 Box 3.14, Nos. 72 & 73 and Box 3.20, No. 276). 14 This individual, whose surname was actually Casserini, was ‘a young lawyer’, temporarily living and studying in London, who claimed to have studied the character and behaviour of dangerous persons, who had already written to both the Met and City Police in October offering his services to help catch the murderer (LMA: CLA/048/CS/02, Box 3.13, Nos. 32 & 33). 15 This gentleman, who lived in Paris, supposedly an attaché of the French Naval Ministry, had written to the Lord Mayor on 12 November 1888 offering his services, and those of his clairvoyant associate, Madame Soucher, to track down the murderer through the use of magnetic somnambulism, a form of psychic sleepwalking (LMA: CLA/048/CS/02, Box 3.21, No.327.)

11 Ripperologist 165 October 2019

No. Status Description Received Reference 143 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. J.J. van de Gunter containing sketch of murderer’s abode 27.11.88 HO 46/93, p.423 144 DESTROYED Letter from Tommy Dodd offering observations re. Whitechapel murders 27.11.88 HO 46/93, p.409 144 DESTROYED Anonymous letter offering suggestions re. Whitechapel murders 27.11.88 HO 46/93, p.388 [DUPLICATE NO. 144] 145 DESTROYED Letter from Mr James Gibson offering suggestions re. East End murders 27.11.88 HO 46/93, p.423 146 DESTROYED Anonymous letter offering suggestions re. East End murders 29.11.88 HO 46/93, p.388 147 DESTROYED Anonymous letter offering suggestions re. East End murders 29.11.88 HO 46/93, p.388 148 DESTROYED Anonymous letter offering suggestions re. East End murders 01.12.88 HO 46/93, p.388 149 DESTROYED Letter from Rev. William Harrison complains about letter sent by him 01.12.88 HO 46/93, p.429 to the Commissioner of Police in mistake re. Whitechapel murders 150 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. J.W. Sykes forwards letter containing suggestions 05.12.88 HO 46/93, p.479 from a Mr. Barlow (U.S.A.) re. Whitechapel murders 151 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. J. B. Maltby forwards suggestions as to searching 05.12.88 HO 46/93, p.451 persons re. Whitechapel murders 152 DESTROYED Letter from Everist (sic) & Fawcett submitting observations 07.12.88 HO 46/93, p.414 re. Whitechapel murders 153 DESTROYED Letter from Mr William Dauk offering suggestions re. Whitechapel 24.12.88 HO 46/93, p.409 murderer 154 DESTROYED Letter from Receiver requesting authority to pay expenses of police 31.12.88 HO 46/94, p.65b on special occasions (payment of £:3:3:3 of expenses of Mr. Annis, to S uperintendent Shore of £3:3:3 authorised on 16.01.89 - HO 149/3, p.104) 155 DESTROYED Anonymous letter suggesting the “American-Irish” as the perpetrators 01.01.89 HO 46/96, p.311 of the Whitechapel murders 156 DESTROYED Letter from Receiver requesting authority to pay expenses of police on 14.01.89 HO 46/97, p.55 special occasions (payment of 10s to Superintendent Arnold in connection with the Whitechapel murders authorised on 12.02.89 – HO 149/3, p. 184) 157 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. D. Dewar offering suggestions as to the Whitechapel 29.01.89 HO 46/96, p.330 murders 158 DESTROYED Letter from Mrs. Long16 calling attention to the proceedings of a man 04.02.89 HO 46/96, p.360 whom she suspects of having committed the Whitechapel murders 159 DESTROYED Letter from Receiver requesting authority to pay accounts of police 06.02.89 HO 46/97, p.57 expenses on special occasions (payment of £39.6.1 authorised to Inspector Abberline for expenses in connection with the Whitechapel murders on 14.02.89 – HO 149/3, p.208 ) 160 DESTROYED Letter from Receiver requesting authority to pay £12 to Messrs 20.02.89 HO 46/97, p.57 McCorquodale & Co for printing re. Whitechapel murders (authorised on 26.02.89 – HO 149/3, p. 254) 161 MISSING Letter from Mr. J. Davall providing information as to supposed 27.03.89 HO 46/96, p.330 murderer re. Whitechapel Murders 162 MISSING Letter from Mr J. Davall asking that a watch be kept over a house 01.04.89 HO 46/96, p.330 near his and that he is afraid of being murdered or poisoned 163 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. H. Brown stating that the Whitechapel murderer is 11.04.89 HO 46/96, p.319 now in Liverpool 164 DESTROYED Letter from the Chief Constable of Preston forwarding a statement by 14.06.89 HO 46/95, p.523 Patrick Welsh regarding a man whom he suspects of committing the Whitechapel murders

Bristol of another Whitechapel murder (TNA: HO 136/41, index). 16 This was Mrs. Annie Long (not to be confused with Mrs. Elizabeth Long) who informed the Home Office of a statement made to her by a man in

12 Ripperologist 165 October 2019

No. Status Description Received Reference

USA re. Whitechapel murder 165 MISSING Foreign Office forwards letter from Sheriff of Larimer County, Colorado, 15.07.89 HO 46/97, p.293 166 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. A. Morgan suggesting the Whitechapel murders are 18.07.89 HO 46/96, p.365 committed by a woman 167 DESTROYED Anonymous letter suggesting the Whitechapel murders are committed 18.07.89 HO 46/96, p.312 by a sailor 168 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. A. Gould forwarding suggestions for the detection of the 19.07.89 HO 46/96, p.343 Whitechapel murderer 168 DESTROYED Letter from Mr Hillhouse17 stating that he suspects a person at Liverpool 19.07.89 HO 46/96, p.348 [DUPLICATE NO. 168] 169 DESTROYED Anonymous letter forwarding suggestions re. the capture of the 19.07.89 HO 46/96, p.312 Whitechapel murderer and memo from the Commissioner discussing & HO 46/97, p.12 suggestions regarding detectives opening letters addressed to police

170 DESTROYED officialsLetter from dated Rev. 25 J. July Vallancey 1889 suggesting that a doctor should ascertain 22.07.89 HO 46/96, p.398 whether connection had taken place before the murder [of Alice McKenzie] re. Whitechapel murders 171 SURVIVES Newspaper extract of letter from Rev. S.A. Barnett in the Times 23.07.89 HO 46/96, p.416 complaining of the state of the streets and houses in Whitechapel [NOT MISSING] 172 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. L. Brighouse offering suggestions re Whitechapel 29.07.89 HO 46/96, p.321 murders 173 SURVIVES Commissioner reports on the subject of the Rev S.A. Barnett’s recent 06.08.89 HO 46/97 p.12 letter in the Times re Vice in Whitechapel 174 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. J. Holmes18 saying that he thinks he has a clue re. the 30.08.89 HO 46/96, p.349 Whitechapel and Bradford murders which he will reveal to the Secretary of State alone 175 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. Alex Gauld asking if his suggestion re. Whitechapel 11.09.89 HO 46/96, p.344 murders is to meet with any practical result 176 DESTROYED Telegraph from Major Wade asking for a Battalion of household troops 11.09.89 HO 46/96, p.404 to kill “Jack the Ripper” 177 SURVIVES Letter from Mr. H.T. Haslewood saying that he believes the murderer is 11.09.89 HO 46/96, p.349 a policeman 178 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. M. Rochmann suggesting announcement of suicide 12.09.89 HO 46/96, p.384 of Jack the Ripper 179 DESTROYED Letter from Mr G.J. Parker19 suggesting examination of sewers re. 12.09.89 HO 46/96, p.377 Whitechapel murders 180 DESTROYED Telegraph from Major Wade again as to using troops re. Whitechapel 12.09.89 HO 46/96, p.404 murders 181 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. S. Harris re. East End murders offering suggestions for 12.09.89 HO 46/96, p.349 capturing the murderer 182 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. W.J. Reynolds offering to come to London to catch 14.09.89 HO 46/96, p.384 “Jack the Ripper” 183 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. G.J. Parker forwarding suggestions as to the Whitechapel 18.09.89 HO 46/96, p.377 murders 184 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. R.G. Black giving particulars regarding De Lacy Evans 19.09.89 HO 46/96, p.323 re. Whitechapel murders

17 Hugh Hillhouse (TNA: HO 65/66, index). The 1891 census records a 25-year-old Edinburgh born Hugh Hillhouse living with his brother, John, in Crosshall Street, Liverpool. 18 Joseph Holmes (TNA: HO 65/67, p.31). 19 Parker believed that the murderer was a slaughterman who had knowledge of the sewers (HO 65/67, p.80).

13 Ripperologist 165 October 2019

No. Status Description Received Reference 185 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. J. Workman forwarding various observations re. 25.09.89 HO 46/96, p.404 Whitechapel murders 186 DESTROYED Letter from Commissioner asking sanction for payment of plain clothes 28.09.89 HO 46/97, p.15 allowance re. augmentation of plain clothes men for Whitechapel

payment – MEPO 3/141, p.17) murders (the Home Office replied on 3 October 1889, sanctioning 187 SURVIVES Anonymous letter giving particulars of the mysterious movements of a 02.10.89 HO 46/96, p.315 certain doctor re. Whitechapel murders 188 TO POLICE Letter from Mr. J.L. Luckley suggesting that that assassin who has carried 02.10.89 HO 46/96, p.362 out the Whitechapel murders is a woman

special service at Whitechapel 189 DESTROYED Report from Commissioner re. number of officers actually added for 04.10.89 HO 46/97, p.20 190 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. F. Marley saying that he will submit a plan for tracing 10.10.89 HO 46/96, p.367 the Whitechapel murderer to the Secretary of State 191 SURVIVES Assistant Commissioner forwards police report respecting the 10.10.89 HO 46/97, p.50 mysterious movements of a certain doctor [NOT MISSING] 192 DESTROYED Anonymous letter writing further as to a mysterious doctor 11.10.89 HO 46/96, p.315 re. Whitechapel murders 193 SURVIVES Letter from H.T. Haslewood recommending that Sergeant J. Thicke be 21.10.89 HO 46/96, p.350 watched re. East End murders [NOT MISSING] 194 DESTROYED Letter from Mrs. G. Smith20 re. the last Whitechapel murder, stating that 05.11.89 HO 46/96, p.393 she is convinced the victim was her daughter and complains that police refused her admission to view the corpse 195 DESTROYED Assistant Commissioner forwards Police Report on complaint of 12.11.89 HO 46/97, p.50 Mrs. G. Smith as to refusal of Police to allow her to view corpse of last Whitechapel victim 196 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. J. Holmes reporting that information has been sent to 28.11.89 HO 46/96, p.350 the public prosecutor re. the Bradford murder 197 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. J. Holmes asking if his letter regarding the Bradford 10.12.89 HO 46/96, p.350

198 DESTROYED murderLetter from has Mrs.reached Smith the asking Home for Office assistance in tracing whether person 18.12.89 HO 46/96, p.393 murdered in September was her daughter 199 DESTROYED Assistant Commissioner reports that Rosina Smith has been found in 07.01.90 HO 46/100, p.66

200 DESTROYED MedwayReceiver Infirmary,requests sanction Chatham to pay £95:8 to Dr Bond for services in cases 06.03.90 HO 46/100, p.75 of bodies found at Whitehall, Whitechapel and Highbury 201 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. R. H. Chivers21 petitioning regarding the refusal of the 12.03.90 HO 46/99, p. 305 & Brixton police to notice information re. “Jack the Ripper” and Memo of HO 46/100, p.67 the Assistant Commissioner re “Jack the Ripper”: Return to House of Commons from Mr. R.H. Chivers dated 21 March 1890 202 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. H.G. Spink22 submitting theories re. the Whitechapel 16.09.90 HO 46/99, p.367 Tragedies 203 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. H.G. Spink offering his services to the Government 17.09.90 HO 46/99, p.367

20 This was Mrs Georgianna Smith of 6 Jesmond Street in South-East London (TNA: HO 136/43, p. 475 & HO 136/44, p. 20), a widow, according to the 1881 census, who seemed convinced that the body of the woman found in Pinchin Street in September 1889 was her missing 15-year-old daughter, Rosina, despite the corpse obviously being of a middle-aged woman of about 35. Nothing could apparently dissuade her from this

notion, and she attempted to involve Queen Victoria in the matter, until Rosina was traced to the Medway Infirmary, in Chatham, in January 21 1890Newspapers (as per insub-file September no. 99). 1889 had reported that a Mr. Chivers of Brixton had called upon Dr. Forbes Winslow several times to give him information about the Whitechapel murders but he was always out (e.g. South Wales Echo, 19 September 1888).

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No. Status Description Received Reference 204 DESTROYED Letter from the Chief Superintendent of Liverpool re. Letter from 25.09.90 HO 46/98, p.528 Mr. Spinks 205 DESTROYED Letter from Richard Nye23 requesting interview to draw attention to 08.10.90 HO 46/99, p.348 & a man suspected of being “Jack the Ripper” and Memo from Assistant HO 46/100, p.71 Commissioner about Richard Nye re. Whitechapel murders dated 11 October 1890 206 DESTROYED Press cutting from St James’s Gazette dated re. Whitechapel murder 11.10.90 HO 46/99, p. 412 scare24

statement by Mr. Backert (sic) re. Whitechapel Revelations 207 DESTROYED Reply from Assistant Commissioner to Home Office inquiry regarding 17.10.90 HO 46/100, p.71 208 DESTROYED Press Cutting from Labour World of 8 November 1890 re. Jack the 10.11.90 HO 46/99, p.411 Ripper25 209 DESTROYED Letter from Chief Superintendent of the Liverpool Police asking for any 15.11.90 HO 46/98, p.520 letters received from H.G.W. Spinks 210 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. D. Quinn calling attention to case of mutilation re. 02.02.91 HO 46/102, p.334 Whitechapel murders (date in register looks wrong and may have been intended to be 2 March 1891) 211 DESTROYED Letter from R.R. Row saying that he holds himself morally responsible 06.04.91 HO 46/102, p.336 for the Whitechapel Murders 212 DESTROYED Letter from the Chief Superintendent of the Liverpool Police reporting 12.05.91 HO 46/101, p. 490 as to sanity of Henry G.W. Spinks and request to asylum 213 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. R. H. Chivers further as to his complaint 14.07.91 HO 46/102, p.287 214 DESTROYED Letter from Mrs. Clare M. Gordon asking that “Jack the Ripper” may 28.07.91 HO 46/102, p.302 be pardoned 215 DESTROYED Extract from the British Medical Journal dated 6 October 1888 entitled 19.10.91 HO 46/102, p.387c ‘The Woman Stabber, Renwick Williams’26 216 DESTROYED Letter from James Dixon saying he is going to commit some murders 07.11.91 & HO 46/102, p. 294 [with reference to a Berlin murder] and Memo from Assistant 10.11.91 & HO 46/103, p. 72 Commissioner re. James Dixon 217 DESTROYED Anonymous letter re. Whitechapel murders forwarding newspaper 26.12.91 HO 46/102, p.276 cutting of a case at the Old Bailey 218 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. F.W. Frucker stating that he wishes to communicate 20.04.92 HO 46/105, p.301 personally with the Secretary of State regarding the Whitechapel murders

219 SURVIVES ofHome the bodiesOffice memo of victims of Mr. of Byrne“Jack the re. DrRipper” Arthur MacDonald of the U.S.A. 15.10.92 HO 46/106, p.325 who has applied to take copies of official reports regarding the condition 220 DESTROYED Press cuttings re. “Jack the Ripper” and Thomas Cutbush from the Sun, 12.03.94 HO 46/111, p.452 13 to 17 February 1894 221 MISSING Letter from F.W. Frucker forwarding a statement re. Whitechapel murders 09.05.94 HO 46/111, p.354 222 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. W. Spencer asking what steps to take re. Whitechapel 28.12.94 HO 46/111, p.411 murders

enquired of the Chief Constable of Liverpool as to what was known of this man by the Liverpool police on 19 September 1890 (TNA: HO 65/70, 22 Henry G.W. Spink, or Spinks (the Home Office didn’t seem sure which), lived at 19 Saxony Road, Kensington, Liverpool, and the Home Secretary p.495 and HO 65/71, p.166).

interview (TNA: HO 136/45, p.272). 23 Nye lived at 2 The Parade, Enfield Town, and was told by letter dated 15 October 1890 that the Home Secretary was unable to grant him an 24 This was an article in the St James’s Gazette of 7 October 1890 which repeated a story originally published in the Daily Chronicle about precautions being taken by the police in response to another “Jack the Ripper” letter. 25 This was a story by an unnamed former inmate of Dartmoor Prison, who had supposedly once worked for one of the largest medical schools in London, who believed that the murderer was a unnamed fellow inmate he had met while in the prison with an interest in both dissection and the use of chloroform, who had once told him that the loose women in the London slums should be ripped up. 26 Williams, known as ‘The Monster’, according to the BMJ, had been tried at the Old Bailey on 8 July 1790 for cutting and maiming several women and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment. The BMJ provided a short summary of his case.

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No. Status Description Received Reference 223 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. F.W. Frucker asking for reply to letter re. Whitechapel 26.02.96 HO 46/117, p. 382 murders (identical entry in the register, with no sub-number, at 04.02.96) 224 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. F.W. Frucker asking for reply to his letter re. Whitechapel 10.10.96 HO 46/117, p. 384 murders 225 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. J.W. White stating that he is prepared to arrest the 14.12.98 HO 46/123, p. 488 Whitechapel murderer if authorized 226 DESTROYED Letter from Mr. Thomas Hoblyn offering observations about the 26.09.99 HO 46/127, p.102 Whitechapel murders 227 DESTROYED Letter from Mrs. C. Worsdale asking for reward for information given 18.04.05 HO 46/145, p.123 re. the Jack the Ripper murders

 From what we know of similar letters received by the City Police we can probably guess that the suggestions for suggestions will no doubt have been completely impractical or quite mad. We can see, for example, the idea from Mr catching the murderer included wearing rubber-soled boots and dressing police officers as women. Many of the Rochmann in July 1889 that it should be falsely announced that Jack the Ripper had committed suicide, presumably as some kind of ploy to draw the murderer into the open. Such suggestions would not have taken up too much time at the

Annis who received £3 from Superintendent Shore for expenses connected to the Whitechapel murders in December Home Office. There are, nevertheless, a few elements of interest in the list. Who, for example, was the mysterious Mr 1888? Some might be interested that it was suggested at about the same time that the murderer might be ‘the American- Irish’, hinting at some form of perceived organization behind the crimes. Others may note that two suggestions were received in 1889 that the murderer had some kind of connection with Liverpool, although they were a bit late to relate to James Maybrick, the second one coming after his death. One can’t help wondering why R.R. Row held himself morally responsible for the murders in April 1891. Nor what possessed Mrs Gordon to ask in July 1891 that ‘Jack the Ripper’ be pardoned, presumably in the future, after having been caught. Above all, one naturally wonders what information about the murders Mrs Worsdale gave to the authorities for which she thought she deserved a reward in April 1905. But it’s or gone missing. Clearly, there was no cover-up here. difficult to look at the list and think that something important relating to the Whitechapel murders has been destroyed 

DAVID BARRAT has worked for a law firm in the City of London for 30 years as a Legal Research Assistant. He has self-published two books on crime, under the imprint of Orsam Books, entitled The Islington Murder Mystery and The Camden Town Murder Mystery as well as a book about the 80s pop group Spandau Ballet entitled New Romantics Who Never Were: The Untold Story of Spandau Ballet. He publishes occasional articles on matters relating to Jack the Ripper on his website www.orsam.co.uk. In his spare time, David composes music and has written about one hundred songs.

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16 Ripperologist 165 October 2019

Tumblety’s Surgical Knives By MICHAEL L. HAWLEY

A marked change occurred in Francis Tumblety’s professional life beginning in the 1870s. Ever since in the Customhouse. Govan claimed his pocket book had Henry Govan, a clerk in the US district attorney’s office he opened up his first Indian Herb doctor office in between $50 and $100. London, Ontario, in 1857, the traveling alternative According to two daily New Orleans newspaper reports doctor maintained a very consistent and lucrative in the March 25, 1881, issues of the Times-Democrat business plan, ensuring his name was plastered in and Daily Picayune, O’Malley’s arrest report stated that all the local newspapers. As he moved onto the next city, he would temporarily open up an office, then March 22, 1881, then had a social drink for about an hour aggressively advertise his Dr. Francis Tumblety, M.D., Tumblety and Govan first met on Canal Street on Tuesday, brand in the local papers. He also published multiple at Wenger’s Saloon. Tumblety asked Govan to meet up testimonials of previous prominent patients, who again the following morning on Wednesday. After waking, suffered from all known diseases, announcing Govan changed his mind and decided to go straight to themselves completely cured by the good doctor’s work instead. Just outside the Customhouse awaited prescribed medicines. Tumblety, who engaged Govan and pressured him to walk By the early 1870s, though, Tumblety no longer added with him and smoke cigars. After their smoke, Govan his name to the ads, and by the end of the decade he insisted he had to go to work and left, but once he reached ceased advertising entirely. This produced a problem for researchers tracking Tumblety’s movements throughout from his breast pocket. He returned home and searched his office he realized that his pocket book was missing his life using newspapers, causing a sort of ‘zone of silence’ between 1878 and 1888, the year of the Whitechapel hand was near his breast pocket, and became convinced but could not find it. He then recalled that Tumblety’s murders. Additional sources of information show that that Tumblety had stolen his money. Govan rushed to the Tumblety switched to a semi-retired existence, no longer police station to report the theft to Captain Malone. Govan had no idea where Tumblety was rooming, so Malone to be a retired surgeon. maintaining offices in North America; commonly claiming One consistent pattern of behavior throughout the explained that he would first need to assist a police decades that occasionally made the papers, even during the the captain was not placing a priority on his complaint, officer in finding him. Govan, though, felt frustrated that zone of silence, was his habit of interacting illegally with so under the recommendation of workmates hired a young men and getting himself arrested. This occurred in March 1881 in New Orleans, and certain overlooked D.C. O’Malley. O’Malley immediately escorted Govan on local private detective, Commissioned Special Officer details of this event are actually important in the 1888 the streets and quickly determined that Tumblety was Whitechapel murders mystery – rooming at a boarding house on Canal Street. No address travelling with surgical knives, the very implements likely was given in the papers. specifically, Tumblety used by Jack the Ripper. The Times-Democrat of March 25, 1881, details the On Thursday evening, March 24, 1881, Francis encounter: Tumblety was arrested in New Orleans by private The doctor was at home and seemed glad to see his detective Dominick C. O’Malley of O’Malley Detective visitors until O’Malley accused him of the theft when Agency and Police Protection and jailed in the Third Police Precinct Station.1 He was charged with petit larceny for allegedly pickpocketing the pocket book of young 1 Newhe signified Orleans Item his, willingnessMarch 25, 1881. to go to jail, but, according

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to O’Malley’s statement, attempted to compromise Detective O’Malley states that the Doctor by offering to make the amount good. O’Malley was, acknowledged to him having stolen the pocket-

watch the room while he conveyed the prisoner to the money. As O’Malley claims to have observed a however, firm and called on Officer Landrigan to book, and told him where he could find a portion of jail. Landrigan, however, refused to have anything to quantity of burglars’ tools in the Doctor’s room, he do with the case, and O’Malley was therefore forced to obtained from Judge Miltenberger a search warrant escort the prisoner to jail, leaving the room which, as and went back to the room. Arriving there he found he states, contained lots of burglars’ tools and a box $30 65 wrapped in a piece of newspaper lying on the of medical instruments to take care of itself. [Author bureau, but the burglarious implements were not emphasis added] there.

In the Times-Democrat the next day, the report stated So says D.C. O’Malley. that O’Malley purposely had the police present during the that O’Malley had Govan retrieve Officer Landrigan. Note now be used by either the prosecution or defense as a initial arrest in Tumblety’s room. Officer Landrigan could witness, including what he saw in the room. possess a box of medical instruments. The Daily Picayune This report is the very first time Tumblety is reported to reported only the burglary tools, which makes sense that they singled them out since a thief may very well own burglary tools. O’Malley then claimed in his report that as he escorted Tumblety to the police station, Tumblety admitted bureau tied up in a piece of paper.” The Times-Democrat stealing the money, and they would “find the money in his reporter stated that on Tumblety’s person were “a lot of diamonds of fabulous value, in fact the stone in one of his worth an immense amount of money by all who saw it.” rings was as large as a rifle ball, and was supposed to be The Daily Picayune reporter gave further detail, which two extremely valuable solitaire diamond rings, two may be of some significance: “On his person, were found The two other witnesses to these events were Henry cluster diamond rings, a large amount of money, stocks Govan and Francis Tumblety. The newspaper reporter stated seeing Tumblety behind bars at Third Station on watch.” [Author emphasis added]. the evening of his arrest on November 24, 1881, and and bonds, and a magnificent gold chain and a small gold When Judge Miltenberger set a future court date at noted that Tumblety refused to speak. At the arraignment the arraignment he issued a $250 bond, which Tumblety in front of Judge Miltenberger, Goven corroborated immediately paid. This supports the Daily Picayune O’Malley’s testimony, with minor variations, curiously reporter’s account that Tumblety did indeed have a large completely denying having had a social drink with amount of money on him. Tumblety at Wegner’s Saloon. O’Malley then sought out Judge Miltenberger for a On the evening of the arrest Tumblety sent for the search warrant, the reason being primarily to retrieve the British Consul, the Honorable Albany De Fonblanque. burglary tools, and secondarily to collect the money. Later, From 1865 to the mid-1870s, Tumblety – a British Judge Miltenberger stated that O’Malley claimed Tumblety subject, since he was born in Ireland – had been using the spoke “thief slang” to him as he escorted Tumblety to the British Consulate for legal assistance in retrieving money police station. This, along with O’Malley’s claim that there he claimed the US Government had taken from him in were burglary tools in the room, convinced the judge to St. Louis in 1865, when he was arrested on suspicion for 2 issue the warrant. While O’Malley found the money, the the Lincoln assassination. It makes sense that Tumblety tools were gone. The Whitechapel Society Journal, The Daily Picayune of March 25, 1881 reported: December 2015. 2 Chetcuti, J., Two Affidavits,

18 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 used the British Consul as his attorney, since he claimed sent for and give to him. He denied most positively on record that he was a retired British surgeon. that he had offered O’Malley any money, and said that if he had, O’Malley would certainly have released him. The Times-Democrat reporter was at Third Station the evening of the arrest, and interviewed the British Consul O’Malley stated he never saw the money when he after he met with Tumblety: arrested Tumblety, and only became aware of it when

During the evening Mr. De Fonblanque, the English Tumblety confessed as they made their way to the police consul, called at the station and interested himself station, while Tumblety claimed O’Malley observed him on behalf of the prisoner. He said that Dr. Tumblety placing the paper-wrapped money on the borough during the arrest. education, and one of the best known physicians in In the of March 26, 1881 it was was very wealthy, a gentleman of refinement and Times-Democrat the country, and was traveling for pleasure, having reported that Tumblety then claimed he asked the police arrived in this city on the 25th of February.

Once the judge heard O’Malley’s account of events, officer to retrieve the money just in case he needed it; where the money was, and thinking that he might need it which was reported in the papers, Tumblety was now “On the way to the station he informed the police officer eager to speak to reporters and tell his side of the story. He stated to the New Orleans Democrat correspondent, as during his confinement, requested that it be sent for and Landrigan, refused. reported in their March 26, 1881 issue, that Govan was given to him.” Both O’Malley and the police officer, Officer trying to convince him to get involved in a gambling scam, Recall that according to the Daily Picayune reporter in and that Govan and O’Malley were trying to blackmail their March 25, 1881 issue, Tumblety’s personal effects at him. Tumblety claimed that O’Malley was repeatedly the police station the night of the arrest included a large trying to “square up this business” if he would pay him amount of money. This seems to contradict Tumblety’s about $1,000. As for the money wrapped in paper on the claim that he may need the money on the borough, since borough, Tumblety stated that it was his and he placed he already had a large amount of money. it there in front of O’Malley when he was changing his The landlady, Mrs. Field, did bear witness to the police trousers. Tumblety also stated that Govan’s claim of his in the form of a letter and corroborated Tumblety’s story, forcing his acquaintance on the latter was absolutely false, especially about him having no burglary tools in the room. and that having burglary tools in his room was ridiculous. The New Orleans Democrat of March 26, 1881 published Mrs. Field’s letter: The reporter for the Times-Democrat added further details in their March 26, 1881 issue: New Orleans, March 25, 1881.

He [Tumblety] seemed to think that O’Malley and Mr. Pecora: Gaven, seeing that he was wealthy, had arranged Sir – Seeing a statement in the morning papers that to plan to force him to contribute to their depleted burglar’s tools were found or seen in the room of Dr. Tumblety, I take it upon myself to say it is false. Nor during his stay in the house has he locked and seldom finances, and with that object in view had arranged according to the doctor’s statement, he approached closed his door when leaving his room. Frequently, the arrest. When O’Malley first entered the room, him and said: “Well, you have picked this young man’s when passing through the hall, I would go in and close pockets, and I advise you to square it.” The doctor the bureau drawers and close the door. Knowing that of course, feeling perfectly innocent of the charge, everything was so carelessly strewn over the room. declined to square anything and said that he would go Beyond books, papers, letters and clothing, nothing to jail before he would give up a cent. O’Malley then more dangerous, not even a pistol, has any inmate or sent Gaven for a policeman, and while he was gone servant seen. On Tuesday morning, when he paid his O’Malley repeated his request for a settlement, saying bill, he had a large amount of money, and it does not that he would square the whole case if it was made seem probable he would take a pocket book containing worth his while. By this time the doctor, who was half only $50 or $100. From the time Dr. Tumblety left his undressed, had arranged his attire, but while so doing until they returned with a search warrant, and I room with the officers not a human being entered the bureau, which he asked O’Malley to let him take, was present during their search, which resulted in had placed a package containing forty five dollars on but the latter refused and hurried him off to jail. On or surgical instruments were moved from the room, finding $30 65 in silver lying on the bureau. No tools where the money was, and thinking that he might I assure you. Very respectfully, Mrs. Field [Author the way to the station he informed the police officer emphasis added]

need it during his confinement, requested that it be

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While a number of modern researchers have concluded merely concluded that there was not enough evidence to that the burglary tools never existed, and Henry Govan convict. Even the subsequent case against D.C. O’Malley and D.C. O’Malley did indeed conspire against Tumblety in in Criminal District Court was dropped when it was a blackmail scheme, aka a put-up job, it must be noted that discovered that O’Malley was considered a credible and the only contemporary source for this claim is Tumblety dependable detective by the US government and by himself. In court, there is a Latin-phrased guiding legal prominent New Orleans law firms. principle for jurors when listening to witnesses, falsus in uno falsus in omnibus, which means, “false in one thing, false in everything.” In other words, if a witness falsely to consider them not credible about any matter. Tumblety testifies about one matter then it is perfectly appropriate lied in court on other parts of his testimony, such as claiming to be a retired British surgeon and serving in the French and British armies. Also, Tumblety’s attorney, the British consul, told not only the police that Tumblety was a retired British surgeon, but this was part of his counter-argument in court, in order to demonstrate that Tumblety was not a thief, as reported in the following two newspapers:

Dr. Francis Tumblety was arraigned before Judge

to have served in the French army as (a) surgeon in Miltenberger this morning… He [Tumblety] claims 1870 and 1871, and prior to that in the British army in East India. (Times-Picayune, March 26, 1881)

During the evening Mr. De Fonblanque, the English consul, called at the station and interested himself on behalf of the prisoner. He said that Dr. Tumblety

education, and one of the best known physicians in was very wealthy, a gentleman of refinement and the country, and was traveling for pleasure, having arrived in this city on the 25th of February. (Times- Democrat, March 25, 1881)

Keep in mind that O’Malley insisted upon police

In the New Orleans Democrat of April 3, 1881 it states, involvement when he directed Govan to retrieve the first assistance and watch the room so the burglary tools and officer he encountered on the streets in order to get his medical instruments were not left alone. It was the police “Several other witnesses testified that O’Malley had had and including the present; that he was for a long time in employment from the time he first came to this city up to the employ of the special agents of the United States, and When O’Malley sought out the search warrant in order to officer, Officer Landrigan, who refused to stay in the room. had since then been engaged by prominent lawyers of this return and collect the tools, he knew full well Landrigan city to do detective work.” could testify against him if he was lying. Curiously, the police began their own investigation Also, if O’Malley and Govan were conspiring against soon after O’Malley returned from executing the search Tumblety, then why did Govan contradict O’Malley’s warrant. In the , March 25, 1881, it states: testimony about the social meeting at Wegner’s Saloon, Daily Picayune

As the matter appeared to be very suspicious, Denying to the judge that the event did not occur goes which was a significant part of the background story? an investigation was ordered and Alds** Pecora directly against O’Malley’s credibility. and McDonough proceeded on their errand to Dr. Also, Judge Miltenberger did not conclude that Tumblety’s room. His landlady avers that he is a Tumblety was truthful and O’Malley was untruthful, he perfect gentleman and highly educated and was very

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prompt in settling his indebtness to her and others. He Field. It seems unlikely that O’Malley would risk losing came to New Orleans on the Friday previous to Mardi his private detective business by getting caught planting Gras [Author’s Note: Mardi Gras began on March 1 in evidence on a minimal job. Even the Times reporter had 1881, so the Friday before was February 25, 1888], and remained here ever since. He received a great many were not mentioned in his report. visits principally from young men between the ages visited the room the evening of March 24, 1881, and files of sixteen and twenty years, with whom he appeared very intimate, some of them remaining with him all claimed it was, the only conclusion is that the they planted If the piece of file was not in the room yet the police night. the evidence, or merely made up the story entirely. This would mean the police were illegally setting a trap The Times-Picayune, March 26, 1881, adds further against D.C. O’Malley. Might the police have been using the Tumblety-O’Malley case against D.C. O’Malley? Note what rejecting O’Malley’s account: transpired immediately after the judge heard the case. details on the police investigation; police officials clearly The Tumblety-O’Malley case was adjudicated by Judge From a statement made by Detective M. Hennessey, who has been investigating the case, it is learned Miltenberger on March 29, 1881, and it went Tumblety’s way. The judge dropped the case for lack of evidence, the Doctor’s room. He claims to be in possession of but immediately after the verdict, the police arrested that a piece of a file was found lying on the table in O’Malley in court for carrying a concealed weapon and the table by O’Malley for the purpose of leading to being a dangerous and suspicious character. The Times- evidence to show that the piece of file was left on the belief that there were burglars’ tools in the room Picayune of March 30 1881 reported that O’Malley waived and that they had been removed. The matter will examination on a charge of carrying concealed weapons doubtless be thoroughly investigated. and was sent before the Criminal District Court. In the Weekly Iberville South, April 2, 1881, out of Plaquemine, Louisiana, the O’Malley arrest goes into further detail: A couple of facts seem not to fit police officials’ claim Tumblety’s room when he returned with a search warrant. that O’Malley placed a piece of broken file on the table in The charge of pickpocketing was unfounded and Hennessey’s key witness was Mrs. Field, the landlady. She the prisoner was discharged. The British counsul

his client’s case in a very able manner. O’Malley, the testified in court that she was present when O’Malley [sic], appeared in his official capacity and managed New Orleans Democrat of April 3, 1881 stated, “she seen private detective has been the unfortunate victim returned to Tumblety’s room with court officers. The O’Malley when he came to Dr. Tumblety’s room with the of persecution at the hands of the regular police detectives, because of his participation in the case. It court officers drop something into a paper on the bureau, prove a prima facie case against Tumblety, and this afterward been found.” seems that he accumulated sufficent [sic] evidence to which she was satisfied was the pair of files which had more on the part of a private detective aroused the ire or it may be the jealousy of the regular detectives. The First, Detective Hennessey stated it was a piece of file, Third Precinct station, who arrested O’Malley in Court while Mrs. Field testified that there were a pair of files. first man to vent his ire was Captain Bachemin of the Second, Hennessy stated the piece of file was found on the charge of being a dangerous and suspicious on the table, while Mrs. Field stated she “was satisfied” character. Lastly, there was indeed an object on the bureau wrapped that the two files in the paper was placed on the bureau. in paper and that was the roll of coins; a fact contested The following newspaper article suggests the police,

in for D.C. O’Malley the day he began the O’Malley Detective by neither side. In fact, one of the court officers with specifically Detectives David and Michael Hennessy, had it the coins off the bureau and they were depleted to $15. Agency. Remember, the newspapers stated that Detective O’Malley, Officer Journee, testified that he retrieved It seems likely that Mrs. Field was telling the truth, but M. (Michael) Hennessy, cousin to the future chief of police David Hennessy, was assigned the O’Malley-Tumblety paper. Mrs. Field made no mention of something on the case. Both Michael and David Hennessy were detectives misidentified the few coins in paper for a pair of files in table, which suggests O’Malley did not place anything on in 1881 and worked on many cases together. An article the table. Besides O’Malley and Mrs. Field, there were in the Deseret Weekly, March 28, 1891, titled ‘New Light on the Lynching’, quotes a Chicago “gentleman” who was a loyalty towards O’Malley. Once O’Malley discovered that also multiple court officers in the room, officials with no transplant from New Orleans. The article states: would have searched the room in the presence of Mrs. To be understood I must go back to the day when New the tools were gone, he and the multiple court officers

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Orleans had but one detective concern. This was the the surgeon story was a lie. It was Tumblety’s MO to push himself upon literate young men. Just weeks earlier, in the South for years. It enjoyed a monopoly and had Boylan detective agency, a firm that had done business Tumblety did the very same thing to young Richard Norris no completion until the O’Malley agency entered the and Norris was concerned Tumblety was a conman.5 Under sworn testimony in a court case in 1905, Norris detective of unusual acumen and ability, but absolutely field…. D.C. O’Malley was the head of the agency, a New Orleans around February 25, 1881: ground from under the feet of the Boylan agency and told the judge about his first encounter with Tumblety in unscrupulous in character…. O’Malley simply cut the made money. David C. Hennessy was Boylan’s partner, I told him I was then employed by the American and, of course, O’Malley’s competitor. Both Hennessy and O’Malley were men of unquestioned courage. The exchange here, when it was up in the Denegre District Telegraph Office, in charge of the telephone Building; and he told me that he was a surgeon, fierce business competition engendered a bitter strife drawing a pension from the government, and that he between them…. O’Malley was arrested dozens of was a stockholder in the Western Union. I think he time for carrying concealed weapons… was he then had Ninety Thousand Dollars of stock in It will never be proven if Tumblety stole Govan’s pocket the Western Union. Well, I was pleased to meet him, book or not, but based upon his history of soliciting literate young men for the primary interest of sexual encounters, to Lamothe’s and gave me a supper, and asked me to thought he was a fine man, and a stranger. He took me it is highly likely Tumblety’s initial intention was not theft go to his room with him, wanted me to write a letter but the sexual company of a young man. Tumblety was for him. He had a room at the St. Charles hotel at the not known to be a thief, with the exception of one event. time. His nephew Thomas Powderly did state under oath that Tumblety was arrested in Chicago in the 1880s for stealing asked me to go to his room with him, wanted me to 3 Govan did push the …He took me to Lamothe’s and gave me a supper, and write a letter for him. He had a room at the St. Charles case all the way to a court decision, which suggests that he an insignificant item out of a store. hotel at the time. I told him I was out late, that I lived was convinced Tumblety took his pocket book. uptown quite a distance and I could not go with him, It also does not make sense that Govan was merely because my people objected to my staying out late; in attempting to convince Tumblety to get involved in illegal fact, I was afraid of him. He had some large diamonds gambling. Govan was an educated clerk working for the US District Attorney, and was not someone merely employed burglar.6 on him, and I thought he was a confidence man, or a as a laborer. In the following statement, Norris is referring to a Curiously, there is an interesting connection between separate event, which occurred weeks later. Interestingly, the Tumblety-Govan incident and gambling. Note that while no newspaper reports stated where Tumblety Govan and O’Malley initially suspected Tumblety of being roomed on Canal Street during the Govan incident in late a conman. In the New Orleans Times of March 25, 1881, the subtitle is ‘A Supposed Roper-in Put Behind Bars’.

March ...he 1881, did everything,Norris fills coaxed in the me, gaps: and done everything, Goven claimed that Tumblety first approached him like offered me money, and made me promise that I high-pressure salesman working the streets to convince a “first-class roper.” In New Orleans, a “roper-in” was a would be back the next morning at 10 o’clock. He customers to enter their establishment, and this was gave me twenty Dollars that night. So I was there the common in front of gambling houses.4 How curious that next morning and I met him coming out of the door. Tumblety claimed Govan was doing that very thing, as He asked me to go down to the Customhouse that recorded in the Times-Democrat of March 26, 1881: morning with him. He was not at the Charles hotel then, he had changed his place – I don’t know for what He [Tumblety] said that he had met Govan on cause he had changed his place, but he had changed to numerous occasions, but did not fancy him as he tried Old No. 190 Canal street. to rope him into gambling saloons, and seemed to

have to be a sharper. 3 Circuit Court Archives, City of St. Louis, State of Missouri, Case Number 31430, Series A., 1904 – 1908. Govan was more than likely told by Tumblety that he 4 Asbury, H., Sucker’s Progress: An Informal History of Gambling in was a retired surgeon, as he did with all of his young men America, Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2003. in the 1880s, but after he was convinced this roper-in, 5 Circuit Court Archives: op. cit. pushy conman stole his pocket book, he likely believed 6 Ibid.

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So, where did the burglary tools and medical equipment Case in point: A young Martin H. McGarry stated to a New York World reporter on December 4, 1888 that in burglary tools and medical equipment before O’Malley July 1882, one year after the New Orleans affair, Tumblety go? Might the police have secretly confiscated the returned with a search warrant? This Mrs. Field would introduced himself as a former Army surgeon before have witnessed, so the scenario seems highly unlikely. when the war broke out he was an army surgeon.” recruiting him, stating, “…Here he studied surgery, and Tumblety’s room during the initial arrest, who then went Tumblety even laid the surgeon groundwork in his Mrs. Field was present when Officer Landrigan was in with Tumblety and O’Malley to the police station. She 1872 autobiography, writing that he was a disciple of was also present when the detectives returned to do an Abernathy, an early 19th century English surgeon, that investigation after O’Malley executed the search warrant. he was asked by Civil War General McClellan to join his There is evidence that the burglary tools may merely surgical team in 1861, and that he was commissioned as a have been a case of mistaken identity; and they were surgeon by two separate European countries.8 referring to a Civil War era medical, or surgical, kit. instruments never existed are O’Malley’s actions during Also, conflicting with the claim that the tools and the arrest. He purposely involved the police, an organization who demonstrably hated O’Malley. The only

in Tumblety’s room while he escorted him to the police reason why O’Malley asked Officer Landrigan to stay station was to ensure chain of custody for the burglary tools and box of medical instruments. This is why O’Malley made the comment that these tools and instruments are

that the burglary tools and medical equipment did left alone “to take care of itself.” Landrigan never testified not exist, but could have if the story was made up, and O’Malley would have known this.

A nineteenth century surgical kit came in a flat box We now have sworn testimony of an eyewitness to four long Liston knives, each having a blade successively Tumblety’s surgical instruments at the very same time he and generally consisted of a flat tray housing at least was in New Orleans in 1881.9 The eyewitness also stated instruments, an amputation saw, a tourniquet ratchet and the surgical instruments were even found in a box-like longer. The tray fit in the box and on top of the rest of the strap, forceps, a bone brush, scalpel, trephines (hole saws container, and that person was Richard Norris. used to remove tissue or bone, a lancet, tweezers, and a Norris stated that Tumblety introduced himself during Heye’s saw (round saw the size of a silver dollar).7 intermission of a performance at the St. Charles Theatre Both O’Malley and Govan entered Tumblety’s room and stated he just arrived in New Orleans for the Mardi believing that Tumblety was a conman, and if they did Gras holidays, which was in late February or early March. see surgical tools, then some of these implements, less He told Norris that he had a room at the St. Charles Hotel. recognizable to anyone not a surgeon, may have looked After buying Norris and his friend dinner, Tumblety like the tools-of-the-trade for burglars. If the tray was asked Norris to come to his room to write a letter. Norris out of the box, it would look like two separate groups of admitted under oath that he used to take tricks as a male implements. prostitute in the early 1880s for money, so he “took a If O’Malley (and Govan) was making the story up about chance.” When Norris was in Tumblety’s room: Tumblety having a box of burglary tools AND medical He then opened a large trunk (but in the meantime instruments in his Canal Street room, then O’Malley ordered some more ale) and he pulled out a velvet just muddied the waters for his own case. While it is chest which had, I judge, four – three or four medals understandable why O’Malley considered burglary tools critical in a theft case, reporting the discovery of surgical instruments actually supported Tumblety’s claim of being 7 Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, an upstanding retired surgeon. Surgical instruments were Memento Mutter, Civil War Surgical Set, Cut to the Chase, 2016. Available at memento.muttermuseum.org/detail/civil-war- expensive, and would have been a physical testament to surgical-set his profession. It makes sense that Tumblety would travel 8 Tumblety, F., Narrative of Dr. Tumblety, Russells’ American Steam with surgical tools, since he generally told his young men Printing House, New York City, 1872. that he was a retired surgeon. 9 Circuit Court Archives: op. cit.

23 Ripperologist 165 October 2019

on each side – they looked to me like gold medals. Civil War-era surgical knives were housed. The knives He told me they were awarded to him by the English Government. Then there was a sort of tray in the other instruments. Norris then repeated, “There were were in an actual tray that fit in the thin box on top of the trunk, and there were all sorts of large knives in there, large knives in the trunk.” This actually explains why the surgical instruments – that is, I did not know what landlady, Mrs. Field, never saw the surgical instruments. they were at the time. In her letter, she commented upon witnessing objects strewn around the room, but never commented upon The Times-Democrat reporter visited Tumblety’s Canal opening up his trunk. While it was appropriate for her Street room the night he was arrested and reported on the to clean his room, it would not have been appropriate medals he witnessed in their March 25, 1881, issue: for her to open up his travel trunk. Even the newspapers Dr. Tumblety is in possession of a number of medals and decorations which should be a guarantee to supposedly on the table. inferred the tools were out in the room and the files were his respectability. He has an elegant gold medal, Norris’ testimony may actually explain where the presented by the citizens of Montreal, Canada, on surgical instruments went between Tumblety being March 4, 1858, for his skill as a physician; a Maltese arrested and O’Malley returning to his room with a cross presented on September 24, 1860 (?), by search warrant. Recall, after O’Malley arrested Tumblety His Royal Highness, Prince of Wales; a cross of the Thursday night, Tumblety was jailed overnight until he legion of honor presented by Napoleon; an iron cross was arraigned by Judge Miltenberger and allowed bail. from the emperor of Prussia; a decoration from the emperor Austria, another from the czar of Russia, and Reporters witnessed the British consul attending to a number of other medals and decorations from other Tumblety the evening of the arrest, meaning Tumblety notables. quickly and appropriately called for his legal counsel. Strangely, Tumblety called for someone else even before calling for his attorney, and that was young Richard Charles Hotel room, he does comment on Tumblety Norris: While Norris’ first interaction was in Tumblety’s St. threatening him with “one of those big knives” when he was in his 190 Canal Street room, corroborating Tumblety Well, I remember when he was arrested in the having surgical instruments in this room. Never did the Customhouse by Dominick O’Malley, who claimed newspapers report that the Canal Street room was Old that he was robbed by this man Tumilty. That was number 190: published in all the papers in this city. He sent for me that evening, and he told me what an awful city this was, that a man couldn’t go around without being me until one night he took me to his room, and he molested, that he would send over and prove who he …he never attempted to do anything wrong with locked the door on me. I don’t know whether he was was through the English Consul.10 [Author emphasis humbugging or not, but he did make a bluff at me with added] one of those big knives. He said, “You cannot get out of this room while I have this”. Although, some of Norris’ recollections were off, he certainly remembered meeting Tumblety face-to-face the evening of his arrest AND before Tumblety even met with changed his place – I don’t know for what cause he …He was not at the Charles hotel then, he had the English consul. This means Norris spoke to Tumblety had changed his place, but he had changed to Old No. at the police station while he was in jail. This meeting must 190 Canal street. also have been before the reporters arrived at the station, Norris never realized that Tumblety rented both rooms, since no-one mentioned Tumblety receiving guests. This the St. Charles Hotel room and 190 Canal Street room, at the begs two questions: First, why would Tumblety send for same time. Recall, Mrs. Field stated that the day Tumblety Norris the night he was in jail? Norris as a young man had arrived in New Orleans on February 25, 1881 he began to rent from her on Canal Street. Actually, Tumblety even why did he send for Norris even before he sent for his no authority or influence to assist in his release. Second, rented out a third room. The Times-Democrat reporter legal representative, the English Consul? Tumblety had stated in the March 25, 1881 issue, “His board bill at the already developed a weeks-long relationship with Norris; City Hotel, he boarded, was always promptly paid and as a relationship that lasted for another twenty years. was his room rent at his establishment on Canal street.” Just as O’Malley reported the medical equipment in a box, Norris referred to a “sort of tray.” This is exactly how 10 Circuit Court Archives: op. cit.

24 Ripperologist 165 October 2019

an incident that occurred 24 years earlier, but Norris certainly recalled Tumblety’s knives in connection to the affair. Notice how Norris never considered the burglary tools and surgical instruments as two separate sets of implements, which supports the claim that the burglary

Tumblety then quickly met up with Norris again once tools were a case of misidentification. he was released from jail; a recollection demonstrating

actual address of the Canal Street boarding house: a first-hand account, just as Norris’ recollection of the The following day, Sunday I think it was, he asked me to take a ride out to the Lake. I said, “Doctor, I feel pretty bad about that; I would not like to be seen in your company, you being accused of this; you say, you Canal Street, New Orleans are innocent, but I don’t know anything about the case. He said, I wouldn’t stay in this town another day, A logical scenario is that Tumblety sent for Norris to but still, he says, I am advised to stay in town and have accomplish a task, which required prompt action, since this man prosecuted, but I will not do it. he called upon Norris before his own attorney. If it was to go back to his room, Norris was the obvious choice, At the arraignment, which occurred no later than since he had already been to Tumblety’s 190 Canal Street Saturday morning, the judge ordered Tumblety to room, and could get there in minutes. Even Norris’ own comments suggest what this task involved – his knives. Tuesday after the weekend. Tumblety quickly met up stay in New Orleans until the official court date set for with Norris again, which conforms quite accurately to the O’Malley arrest, he immediately commented upon On the two occasions Norris testified about the Dominick actual sequence of events. Norris even commented upon Tumblety’s knives: Tumblety explaining that he was advised to stay in town to have this man – D.C. O’Malley – prosecuted, which is Then there was a sort of tray in the trunk, and exactly what they attempted to do. there were all sorts of large knives in there, surgical instruments – that is, I did not know what they were at the time. After that he was arrested, supposed to be murders investigation are two key points. First, in the Important to Tumblety specific to the Whitechapel a bad character; it was a sort of put up job at the time, 1880s we now see that Tumblety rented out more than one room at a time and in separate locations, and in both luxurious hotels and poor boarding houses near the Well,to find I out remember what he reallywhen was. he was arrested in the Customhouse by Dominick O’Malley, who claimed location he would slum. Mrs. Field stated that Tumblety that he was robbed by this man Tumilty. That was had many young men from the age of 16 to 20 in intimate published in all the papers in this city. He sent for me terms visiting his room, even staying overnight. This may that evening, and he told me what an awful city this explain why Tumblety rented out multiple rooms, since was, that a man couldn’t go around without being many cities considered homosexual behavior as illegal. molested, that he would send over and prove who In 1888 in London, Tumblety was in correspondence he was through the English Consul. The newspapers with at least four young men and likely involved himself published that there were burglar tools found in his with one-night stands, as well, just as he did in New trunk, and the next day they contradicted it, saying Orleans. It would not be out of the question that Tumblety they were surgical instruments. rented out multiple rooms in the London area, including The pattern of evidence suggests that it was Norris Whitechapel, especially since in New York, New Orleans who sneaked into Tumblety’s room and grabbed the and Baltimore Tumblety rented rooms near the vicinity of his nightly habit of roaming the slums. Tumblety admitted a search warrant. Not only did Norris visit Tumblety slumming in Whitechapel. surgical instruments before O’Malley finally obtained in jail before the British Consul, his discussion of the Second, a detailed analysis of the 1881 Tumblety- incident consistently involved Tumblety’s knives. Norris’ O’Malley-Govan affair shows weaknesses in the claim that recollection of the O’Malley affair was inaccurate in O’Malley and Govan attempted to blackmail Tumblety certain cases, as would be expected when recalling and demonstrates the likelihood that Tumblety did

25 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 indeed have surgical instruments in his travel trunk in the 1880s. Keep in mind, Tumblety was traveling each year to England from 1873 to 1888, and he likely took with him the very same travel chest that also contained his favorite gold medals. One can see that the medals and the surgical tools were used as a testament to a career as a highly reputable surgeon, even in London. Tumblety likely brought his “large knives” with him to England not for the purpose of murder, but for status. Co-opting these surgical tools for other purposes in 1888 is not out of the question. If Francis Tumblety travelled to England with his large trunk in 1888, which contained his velvet chest of gold medals and tray of surgical instruments, he did not return to New York City with it after jumped bail. According to the New York Herald of December 4, 1888, he returned lightly:

They [New York Detective Sergeants Hickey and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Crowley] watched a very tall, heavy man, about fifty- Much appreciation goes out to Joe Chetcuti and Roger five years old, with a dark mustache, come down the who got into a hack after having a small steamer trunk Palmer for their assistance and advice. Thanks goes out to gangplank. …It was the now famous Dr. Tumblety, placed on the box. Howard Brown for uncovering contemporary newspaper articles on the Tumblety-O’Malley affair. The December 4, 1888, issue of the New York Sun even  reported, “Tumblety was short enough of luggage to make it appear that his departure from the other side was MICHAEL HAWLEY is the author of Jack the Ripper Suspect Dr. Francis hurried.” Tumblety (Sunbury Press, 2018) and The Ripper’s Haunts (Sunbury Press, 2016). He has published over a dozen research articles in Once the grand jury returned a true bill on November Ripperologist, Whitechapel Society Journal and Casebook Examiner, 19, 1888 in the misdemeanor case, this is likely when he and has published online articles for numerous websites. Hawley decided to make a quick get-away, boarding the SS La has lectured in Baltimore, Maryland, in April 2016, at RipperCon Bretagne before noon in Havre, France, on November 24. 2016 and in Liverpool, England, in September 2017, at the Jack the Ripper Conference. He was honored to be interviewed in numerous Rushing without being seen, it is not out of the question podcasts for Rippercast, Beyond Reality Radio, Jim Herald.com, that he left everything but the bare necessities behind, and ESPN’s Judge Penny Wolfgang. He is also the author of The including the gold medals. Tumblety was fond of showing Watchmaker Revelations, a mystery/thriller fiction trilogy: The Ripper’s Hellbroth (Sunbury Press, 2017), Jack’s Lantern (2014), off his gold medals, yet never are the medals referred to and Curse of the Bayou Beast (2015). He is also the author of after his return. In the 47 sworn testimonies (involving Searching for Truth with a Broken Flashlight (Nonfiction, 2010), the 1903 court case contesting his will) of those who which was awarded June 2011 Book of the Month for the mega- interacted with him in the last twenty years of his life, website, ReligiousTolerance.org, and was the subject of an article in the Buffalo Spree, June 2011. Hawley holds a Master’s degree Tumblety’s gold medals were never mentioned post- in science (invertebrate paleontology) and secondary science 1888. After the mid-1890s, Tumblety only wore one set of education at State University of New York, College of Buffalo, and dirty clothes, suggesting he travelled to the various cities a Bachelor’s degree in geology and geophysics at Michigan State University. He is a commander and naval aviator in the U.S. Navy with very few personal effects, thus no longer needed a (retired), and is currently enjoying a career as a secondary earth large, bulky travel trunk. If Tumblety left his gold medals science and chemistry teacher. He resides with his wife and six children in Greater Buffalo, New York. behind, he definitely left the surgical instruments behind.

WRITE FOR RIPPEROLOGIST!

We welcome well-researched articles on any aspect of the Jack the Ripper case, London’s East End or associated subjects.

Please send your submissions26 to [email protected] Ripperologist 165 October 2019

Dinner at the Mardi Gras By JOE CHETCUTI

the French Quarter at the turn of the 20th century. When the Mardis Gras was in full throttle, the lure of an evening

The place was conducive for people to dress up and be a of fine food and music at Fabacher’s seemed irresistible. part of a festive scene.

Fabacher’s main dining room, Royal Street, New Orleans During the 1902 Mardi Gras, the prospect of enjoying a late night dinner at this restaurant in the company of a few friends sounded like a splendid idea to an energetic I could look at this old menu for hours. As indicated 28-year-old journalist by the name of Harry H. Patin. He by the food prices, the bill of fare dated back to the wrote for two local newspapers, and held the position early 1900s. Fabacher’s Restaurant was located on of “Assistant Recorder of the Fourth Recorder’s Court” Royal Street, in the world-renowned French Quarter of New Orleans. His professional title eventually became of New Orleans. It was a tremendously popular dining Judge Patin, and as can be seen in his personal photograph establishment that was open to the public 24 hours on the following page, he obviously was a handsome a day. By 1905 the business had expanded, and an and distinguished-looking man. I’ve had the pleasure of additional Fabacher’s Restaurant began serving communicating with three of Judge Patin’s grandsons, customers on nearby St. Charles Avenue. Page Dew, Harold C. Patin and Willie Patin. They spoke Just take a look at the photograph opposite of the main to me about Judge Patin’s admirable service to the local dining room at Fabacher’s in the French Quarter. According community: “Our Grandfather was very involved with to a contemporary report, the place could literally New Orleans politics. A Democrat and an ardent member accommodate hundreds of customers. Musicians would of the Regular Democrats Organization. He was a city perform there, the selection of entrees was massive, the judge, wrote for the The Item and States newspapers, and cost totally reasonable, and you couldn’t beat a venue like he was also an administrator for the New Orleans Sewage

27 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 and Water Board.” those prowlers who prowled around the streets A hard working gentleman like that deserved an evening all hours of the night. of good food and musical entertainment. So along with Q: You mean a man of a perverted nature? some of his buddies, he headed for the French Quarter A: Yes sir. 1 and soon settled down at a table in Fabacher’s Restaurant while absorbing the atmosphere of the 1902 Mardi Gras. It The men who were with Patin at Fabacher’s also wasn’t too long, however, before Patin noticed a restaurant noticed the strange old man and they began to chuckle, patron who looked totally out of place. Dressed shabbily presumably over the fact that a vagabond like this was with an unclean appearance, there sat an odd-looking permitted entrance into the restaurant and seated at a 72-year-old man who was dining alone. The disheveled table. But this was no typical street bum who they were wretch glared back at Patin. The two men had been in laughing about. He was the Jack the Ripper suspect Francis each other’s company once before, although it was only Tumblety, a man whose personal wealth at that time had soared well over $100,000. But Tumblety was also an about the circumstances of that initial short meeting. He egotistical man, who had a history of reacting vindictively a brief encounter. Patin later testified on a witness stand declared that this same peculiar individual “had accosted whenever he felt he was a recipient of disrespect. me about two o’clock in the morning in front of the Post Patin was questioned about this restaurant incident on the witness stand:

Office”. Q: Judge, what was this occasion when you state you had some controversy with [Tumblety]?

A: ...I went to Fabacher’s to get something to eat and this Tumilty [sic] was sitting down at a table, and two or three fellows laughed and he took offense at me and acted very mean, like he wanted to have trouble, and (the management) wanted to put him out...

Q: What made him mad?

A: Because we were laughing.

Q: On this occasion when he got mad, that was at a restaurant here, was it?

A: Yes, sir, in Fabacher’s Restaurant. They told him if he didn’t keep quiet he would have to get out.

Q: He thought you were making fun of him?

A: Yes, sir.

Q: And he denounced you?

A: He denounced me, and they took him to the door, and brought him back again, and I walked Judge Harry H. Patin. to the side because I did not want to have Photography courtesy of Page Dew anything to do with him.

The following verbal exchange ensued when a lawyer Q: Do you know whether he had been drinking or questioned Patin about it: not? A: I don’t know whether he drank or not. Q: Had you any conversations with him before (seeing him at Fabacher’s Restaurant)? that Tumblety was escalating the situation, and probably The management at Fabacher’s had quickly figured out over-reacting, thus they issued their warning solely A: Only that time at the Post Office.

Q:A: HeWhat wanted did he to say know to you where at the I was Post going, Office? and talked 1 All of the court statements in this article were taken on May 13, to me about nonsense. I thought he was one of 1905 in the New Orleans Probate Court.

28 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 against him. Patin and his friends, one of whom was a salesman for a local company, were probably known to get in their faces. This may have been the case at the perceived them failing at this, Tumblety could definitely the personnel at Fabacher’s and were treated well. Patin, 1902 Mardi Gras. Tumblety originally accosted Patin himself with the trouble. attempted to make Patin his new companion at that being a public figure, played it wisely by disassociating after midnight in front of the Post Office. He probably There were plenty of times in his life when Tumblety time. Then, by chance, they met again on another night, selected a young man as a target for companionship. this time at Fabacher’s. When laughter was initiated by But if the young man was seen in the company of people Patin’s friends, Tumblety’s temper quickly ignited. He who Tumblety disdained, or if the guy read literature caused a scene and immediately confronted Patin. It was that Tumblety objected to, then usually a tantrum as if Tumblety was strongly offended because the man he would ensue. Take for example the time when his hired desired for companionship on a previous night was now companion, Richard Norris, brought Tumblety inside a sharing company with people who were ridiculing him. sporting house where he was placed next to loose women. Tumblety angrily told Norris, “Let’s get out of here.” Norris explained, “We went out of the house, and he gave me an awful lecture. He said he was surprised I went to such a place...” Another example was when Tumblety was courting Thomas Hall Caine in England, and he sent an admonishing letter to Caine. He was disturbed because Caine had read the Liverpool Leader, a newspaper that had exposed Tumblety as a fraud. In that letter, Caine was told, “I am quite surprised to think that a gentleman of your exalted ideas would condescend to read such a sheet as the Leader.”2

The Fourth Police Station and Fourth Recorder’s Court of New Orleans, where Judge Patin presided

What happened next was a good example of this Ripper suspect’s eccentric nature. The fact became known to Tumblety that Patin was both a respected journalist and

knowledge, his desire to recruit him was rekindled. The an honorable Officer of the Court, and with this newborn previous harsh episode at Fabacher’s was simply swept

work, Patin walked out of the courthouse and into a aside. And so, one night, after finishing his long day at nearby alley. The place was called Varities Alley, and of course, you know who was waiting for him there.

Q: The other time you met him was one night in Varities Alley?

A: Yes sir.

Q: You had some conversation with him on that occasion, did you not?

A: No, sir. He wanted me to walk as far as Baronne street with him but he was a peculiar kind of looking fellow and I did not know what to make of him.

Hall Caine

Tumblety required that the lads he selected for 2 The Dracula Secrets; Jack the Ripper and the Darkest Secrets of courtship must adhere to his standards. When he Bram Stoker, Neil R. Storey, page 122.

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Another attorney questioned him about this and Patin stands, and a consistent picture was painted that exposed replied on the witness stand: this Ripper suspect as a night stalker of young men and boys. A couple of large charitable bequeaths from his ...one night I met [Tumblety] in the alley behind this (court) building, Varities Alley, and he wanted to his poor reputation. Even today, the man’s legacy remains get me in a conversation with him, and he said men estate didn’t tip the scale significantly enough to improve unfavorable. He was a manipulator of the vulnerable should not like women, and all those kind of things. when darkness fell on a city, and in his younger days he Patin’s rejection of Tumblety in the alley that night still fooled plenty of desperately-ill patients into thinking that didn’t cause Tumblety to give up. Soon afterwards, he his medical prowess would cure their ailments. When we look back on the testimonies of the young him in an absurd way. males he targeted, we cheer for those who successfully visited Patin at his newspaper office and tried to impress eluded his advances. Harry H. Patin was one who not only Q: Did he ever talk to you about his business affairs, escaped from Tumblety’s grasp, but he also continued or his family? to thrive in his professional and family life. Patin would A: No, sir. Except he told me on that occasion when transfer over to the Second Recorder’s Court of New he came to The States Orleans and become a well-known city judge in that kind of beans which he used for medication. office that he had some venue. He married and had three offspring. And I think Q: The States his lifetime achievements were presented very well in his 1931 obituary. Since Patin was a native of New Orleans A: Yes sir. is a newspaper office? and a popular newsman during his early career, his Q: He asked you to advertise them for him? obituary appeared in numerous local periodicals. Here A: No, sir; he came to buy a paper. He said he are some nice points that were printed about him: travelled around the country, and he had those • Judge Patin was known for his many acts of charity beans, I cannot state positively, but I think he said and his readiness to help those in trouble. he sold a good deal of them to negroes. He sold • He was a member of the Myrtle Benevolent these beans as good luck beans. Association and Royal Order of Moose. Patin was too smart a man to be tricked into anything, • Judge Patin had been prominent in city politics for a number of years. stopped pursuing him. But before long, Tumblety was and when Tumblety finally realized this he mercifully The man was a winner, and he was able to secure a back out into the late night streets of New Orleans to stalk promising future for himself by eluding trouble during easier targets. As Patin explained: the 1902 Mardi Gras. He eventually found out about the notorious reputation that Tumblety had earned for [Tumblety] always had young boys with him no matter what time of the night. One night I saw him written of Tumblety’s death in a newspaper column while at three o’clock in the morning at Canal & Rampart himself during his lifetime. Patin testified that he had streets with a young negro boy. using much of the information that had been printed in New York. From this information, he probably was Q: Judge, you said he was picked up by the police here surprised to learn of the tremendous amount of wealth on several occasions? accumulated by his former pursuer. And during the A: Yes, sir. Fabacher’s dinner at the Mardi Gras, Patin experienced Q: You mean he was arrested? A: He was arrested from around different corners, for create a disturbance. first-hand how quickly this Ripper suspect could angrily prowling the streets all hours of the night after young boys. That was his hobby, and I think you can get that ACKNOWLEDGMENTS from the records of the First Recorder’s Court. Appreciation goes out to Page Dew, Harold C. Patin, and After the 1902 Mardi Gras came to an end, Tumblety Willie Patin for supplying facts about their Grandfather and sharing their family photograph. Further thanks goes in May 1903. Although he did what he could to keep his out to Merle Mulkey for helping me gather the information lived in decrepitude for over a year, finally passing away nocturnal exploits a private matter, it was to no avail. The on Fabacher’s Restaurant. Credit for the discovery of the magnitude of his estate caused attorneys to get to work New Orleans Probate Court testimony goes to Michael in locating some of the people who he had accosted in the Sandknop. And a special thanks to Eduardo Zinna and night. A number of them talked on probate court witness Mike Hawley for their assistance with this article.

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Sir Alfred Fripp and Jack the Ripper Who and What Did He Know?

By DAVID WOODHEAD

I have known the main facts of the life of Alfred Downing Fripp (Jnr.) for twenty-four years, but it is only in the last fifteen, after researching parts of his life glossed over by his official biographer, Cecil Roberts, that I found his name connected to the Jack the Ripper story by certain ‘Ripperites.’ late-1888, but was responsible for creating the putative Roberts makes no mention of the horrific events of connection by revealing he had read in Fripp’s notes, when preparing to write the surgeon’s biography a year or so after his death (in February 1930), that he had treated Prince Albert Victor for symptoms of syphilis in 1890, in January, 1892 (which killed 16,000 other Britons). eighteen months before the Prince’s death from influenza In 1918 Fripp was involved in a sensational libel case brought by the exotic dancer Maud Allan and her agent against the maverick MP, Pemberton Billing. He claimed that hundreds of eminent people such as Margot Asquith, by attending performances of Allan’s Wilde-inspired dance, were exhibiting proof of their sexual preferences, and that Germany had access to a Black Book containing over 40,000 names of high-society people who could be persuaded to trade state secrets for guarantees of silence. Fripp thought that, for reasons of national security, he Sir Alfred Fripp By Arbuthnot. commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33276562 should say what he knew – despite his dislike of Billing and the other ‘witnesses’ (but thought by Margot Asquith’s the throne. Stephen and his brother did know Druitt, family to be getting his own back for her earlier “manifold but there is no proof that they were close friends. There slanders” about him). In the event, the judge did not is no mention of this friendship in Fripp’s biography, allow him to name names, which probably saved Fripp but anyone who wants to write in depth about what the from social ostracism, but deprived history of interesting Prince might have said to Fripp can only use the verbatim ’evidence.’ quotations from Fripp’s notes and diaries included in The Ripperites who are particularly interested in Fripp Roberts’ biography, because the original documents (I are those who want to link one of the main suspects at was told by two of his grandchildren) were deliberately the time, , to the more highly-connected destroyed by Fripp’s youngest child, their Uncle Rex; more suspects such as JK Stephen, the Prince’s tutor at out of spite than concern that their contents might throw Cambridge, and the Prince himself – second-in-line-to- a bad light over his father’s posthumous reputation. For

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Andrew Cook, attempting a defence of “Prince Eddy – The stock is becoming sadly deteriorated both bodily and King Britain Never Had,” what the selected quotations mentally, and cannot long, in any event, survive the show is that to all intents and purposes the Prince, made strength of higher order of governmental civilisations Duke of Clarence and Avondale by his grandmother in which the common people are attaining. Whether England will ever have a king after the Prince of Wales May 1890, was no more than an indolent young man who, is a matter of speculation, and some prophets have given the right marriage and proper support, would have gone so far as to predict that England will never have made a better King than his brother: George, he claimed, another king.

State. On the other hand, Theo Aronson chooses to use Aronson’s book is largely to do with this “Cleveland thought of himself as more a naval officer than a Head of

Eddy and the Homosexual Underworld.” Royal Mail were persuaded by an older colleague, Henry these quotations to support his findings about “Prince Street Scandal.” Briefly, teenage boys working for the Newlove, to supplement their income by offering sexual services to ‘toffs’ visiting the Cleveland Street brothel run by Charles Hammond. Such pleasures, in private, had not led to arrests until the Amendment by the MP Henry Labouchere had been accepted by Parliament and become part of the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act. This, soon named the ‘Blackmailer’s Charter,’ made all homosexual acts illegal, whether carried out in private or not. The upshot was that, after one of the boys had been interviewed by the local constabulary and some of the facts established, no less a person than Inspector Abberline – famed the previous year for his investigations into the Jack the Ripper murders – led a ‘raid’ on the brothel the next morning (5th July 1889) but found it

established that certain aristocrats had paid for the boys’ empty: Hammond had fled abroad. However, it was firmly favours – in particular, Lord Henry Somerset, a friend of Prince Eddy. Somerset, having unsuccessfully attempted to get the Establishment to quash the ongoing enquiries,

The Prince, with his equerry George Holford, was fled abroad, too.

early to represent the Crown at events in Athens and already due to visit India officially, but was packed off Egypt on the way. Ironically, given Aronson’s picture of Eddy’s preferences, after his return a ‘Mrs. Haddon’ (the Prince Albert Victor wife of a civil engineer) claimed that while in India he had had an affair with her, resulting in the birth of a child she The fact is both Fripp and Roberts were careful about named ‘Clarence’ – only a few weeks after he had had the what they wrote, to such an extent that these modern title conferred on him. (Forty years later this child wrote a authors used the same material: one to show the Prince as book entitled My Uncle King George V and was imprisoned much-maligned, the other to show him – without malice, when he refused to retract the story). It is my opinion, and it has to be said – as the sexual deviant (in Victorian the opinion of many others – given the cover-up of the terms) many have usually taken him to be, particularly identity of illegitimate children born to his father – that Americans. In 1889, after reading of Prince Eddy’s the story was true. presumed involvement with a male brothel in Cleveland The same could be said of his supposed ‘marriage’ Street, one American correspondent wrote: to Alice Crook. It would have taken more than being ‘in Victor seems to inherit his father’s vices without love’ to achieve a constitutionally-illegal union, and as the retaining many of his virtues, and his connection Establishment had successfully covered up any side-slips with the Cleveland Street scandal is only another of his father’s, had this liaison occurred it, too, would have indication of the debauchery which too conspicuously been dealt with quietly. That they would be so worried by tinctures European royalty. The inbred crowd of royal

evidence from prostitutes they would resort to horrific 32 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 murder is just ridiculous. teaching at Eton. That pupil was George Curzon, later However, such casual heterosexual encounters, if Viceroy of India, who went on to have two wives, three true, do not prove that Eddy did not enjoy homosexual daughters and a mistress, but admitted to having held a pleasures as well. Many well-born ladies found that their candle at Eton – not for ‘O. B. – but for Alfred Lyttelton, all- husbands preferred the company of other gentlemen round sportsman and diplomat. their husbands, such as Oscar Wilde’s wife. Eddy’s aunt, (and office boys), and most of them had children by Princess Louise, was in a similar situation, although in her case no children were born of the marriage. At the time of the Haddon scandal she, too, was causing concern with rumours of affairs: one of the gentlemen with whom she was supposed to have had a liaison was Edwin Lutyens, who, although decades apart, went on to work as an architect for both the Princess and Fripp. Moreover, it was at this point in Eddy’s life (ie 1890) that Fripp came back into it. At the end of November 1883 – when Fripp was eighteen – he accompanied his half-sister, Annie, to visit his other sister, Jeanie, who was studying Mathematics at Girton College, Cambridge. Annie was about to get married to a doctor (Edward Penny), so Fripp left the sisters to arrange things and went to see his godfather, Canon Dalton, whom he knew to have rooms in Trinity College where he was ‘companion’ to Prince Albert Victor, having been tutor to him (and brother George) from 1871 to 1883. At Cambridge, Eddy’s tutor was the brilliant but unstable JK Stephen. JK Stephen John Dalton was closely related to both Annie Fripp Other Apostles such as Stephen and his brother Harry, and Fripp himself, because their father, the watercolourist and their friends, Harry Wilson and Henry Cust, were Alfred Downing Fripp (Snr.), had married two girls with dangerously extrovert and therefore fascinating to the impressible Prince. This makes them of interest to Druitt giving birth to her. For this reason he happily agreed to be Dalton ancestry; the first, Annie’s mother, having died Ripperites, especially as Harry Stephen had lived close to Fripp’s godfather. Six years later, as curate of Whippingham Druitt when he was studying law, and Harry Wilson at the church on the Isle of Wight, he came to the attention of Queen Victoria, who was holidaying at Osborne House. time that Druitt drowned himself in the Thames (because Finding that he had a 1st Class degree from Cambridge, he was guilty of murder or, it is thought more likely, he she decided that young Dalton (he was 31 at the time) was ashamed by his dismissal from his school-teaching would be ideal for the post of tutor to her two ill-educated post for the same ‘inappropriate’ type of liaison as Oscar grandsons. Dalton’s life-long friend Edward Carpenter had Browning). However, in November 1883 Fripp and all the originally been invited to take the post but had declined: other ‘actors’ were still in the wings of history. He only he became, among other things, “the gay godfather of the British Left.” So, although he almost certainly did not Mr. Image and John Dalton – excellent champagne lunch.” wrote, “… introduced to Prince Edward before lunch with know it, by visiting his godfather and being introduced by him to Prince Eddy that day, Fripp was inadvertently Cambridge, ostensibly with his godfather, in June the It is not explained why Fripp spent five days in being connected to the shadowy world Aronson describes following year. He was there from the 8th to the 12th and in his 1997 book The Cambridge Apostles. could have been escorting Jeanie back to London at the This not-so-secret society was dedicated to radical end of her second year in time for Annie’s wedding, but thought, including freedom from repressive Labouchere- this need only have required one night’s stay. It is possible, type laws concerning what consenting adults might or therefore, given he was introduced to the Prince of Wales’ might not do to each other in private. In 1883, perhaps the disreputable friend, Lord Charles Beresford, that ‘Eddy’ had asked if Dalton could invite his godson to celebrate had been sacked for supposedly sodomising a pupil when the Prince’s last days as a student, and Beresford was most influential Apostle Fellow was Oscar Browning, who

33 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 there to report on the commoner’s suitability as a Lonsdale’s name was toasted as Secretary and “the last companion to the Queen’s grandson. He obviously arrived toast was “The Ladies,” proposed in glowing terms by Mr. late on the 8th as he “breakfasted with the Prince, Lord Naylor and responded to most suitably by Mr. A. D. Fripp.” Charles Beresford and John Dalton” the next morning. Less laudable was the appearance the barrister John H. He breakfasted again on the 10th, but as Fripp and the Lonsdale (28), and the student Alfred D. Fripp (18), had Prince had attended a ball together until 4.30am, it has to make at the County Petty Sessions, Wareham, in August to be supposed that it was ‘brunch.’ Later the same day that year. Both described as visitors to West Lulworth, he “dined and spent evening in HRH’s room – tête-à-tête when cross-questioned said they had taken umbrage at for two hours with him, very good sort of fellow.” A third the contents of an anonymous letter they were sure had breakfast and another dance, this time at Trinity College, ended their encounter as students. On the 12th Fripp their own hands, they turned up at the Castle Inn, West been sent by Frederick H. Mansfield. Taking the law into returned to London, and the Prince went off to join the Lulworth, and beat and kicked the man. They got the local

vicar, who had previously taught Mansfield, to appear for 10th Royal Hussars … and that might have been that. the letter had been written and sent by him: Lonsdale and them and identify the handwriting. Mansfield admitted were proud of their actions looking back in later life – as Fripp were fined £2 and costs of 10/-. I doubt that they a Reverend and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Surgeons – but it shows that the modern sleuths are correct about the friendship of Fripp and the older man at the time. After this, they played one more season of together and, no doubt, enjoyed libations at the cottage called by them the ‘Lobster Pot,’ rented by Fripp’s father as a holiday home and a place where he could pass his days in painting scenes for presentation at the next prestigious watercolour exhibition. Although they played a match or two as rivals, there is no evidence that Druitt and Lonsdale played in the same team: Druitt was a minor county player and Lonsdale a convivial club player. Lonsdale’s wedding at in 1888 was a fashionable affair attended by anyone who was anyone in , including the Fripps, but not the Druitts (who may, of course, have been mourning the supposed death of Montague by drowning, even though his body was not found until a week after Lonsdale’s marriage). Had Lonsdale and Druitt been friends, the latter’s death would perhaps have been mentioned as having thrown a damper on the wedding celebrations. Druitt Fripp was an avid theatre-goer, a habit he indulged in One of the Ripperite names new to me that cropped from his late teens onwards. He was particularly fond of up in reference to Fripp – at a point when I thought I knew all that there was to know about him – was “Mr. J. opening night of a version of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde at the attending first nights. On 4th August 1888 he went to the H. Lonsdale (late of Trinity College).” The reason these Lyceum Theatre (managed by Bram Stoker of Dracula indefatigable hunters were interested in him was that his fame). It had been transferred from the Madison Square Trinity College/Dorset connections meant that he might Theatre, New York, largely because Henry Irving had seen have known Druitt: who was from Wimborne Minster, was a cricketer (like Lonsdale), and was of the same age. persuaded him to return to England and perform in his Richard Mansfield performing the dual part there and Fripp was sixteen in the 1884 season – nine years younger theatre. The sensational transformation scene made it a than Lonsdale – but they were obviously the stars of the Lulworth Lobsters. The following season Fripp attended a woman called was stabbed to death major box-office draw, but three nights after its opening the Lobsters Annual Dinner in , London, at which

in Whitechapel. After the horrific murder of Mary Ann

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Nichols on 31st August, the coincidence of the plot and summons to attend HRH at the home of Eddy’s sister, Mar Lodge, near Balmoral. the actual events began to affect the audience figures. rumours that the actor might be the killer. He returned to In fact, so convincing was Mansfield’s portrayal, it led to America owing Irving money and continued to perform the show there. Four gruesome murders within a month without an arrest and London was rife with rumours, even to the suggestion that Frederick Treves and his rescued friend, the ‘Elephant Man,’ were responsible. So peculiarly entwined was Fripp’s life with that of Treves’ that they should have been friendly colleagues: instead, Treves’ supposed jealousy of the younger ‘Man of Dorset’ made them into unnecessary rivals. Both were the Prince of Wales, and Treves after 1902 and his life- confidantes of Edward – Fripp largely when Edward was saving surgery on the King’s behalf. Treves’ wife destroyed most of her husband’s letters, notes and diaries, as Fripp’s son did of his. If Edward let indiscreet morsels reach either of his favourite surgeons’ ears, any such records have long gone. Fripp died after Queen Alexandra (who had, famously, visited Merrick), and so he did not receive the sort of condolence Treves did: “For my beloved Sir Frederick Treves, whom we all loved so dearly and now will miss so sadly, from his affectionate ALEXANDRA, Sandringham, Norfolk.” There is no doubt that Fripp would have received something similar, had she been alive and capable, after his death six years later in 1930. Treves, too, did not spill the Royal beans – if he knew of any beans to spill. However, Treves had good reason to consider Fripp an undeserving ‘lucky devil.’ In 1890, when Fripp had passed Fripp by Spy his main exams and would have been on a trip abroad if his He was vetted by the 75-year-old Oscar Clayton, the friend had not let him down, he was asked to be locum to most man-about-town of the Prince’s surgeons. In fact, an ex-Guy’s man who lived in York. He would have turned the disreputable aristocrat Lewis Harcourt described this down if his brother-in-law, William Hale-White (a Clayton as the Prince’s ‘pimp.’ Quite what the young, Guy’s physician), had not advised him to reconsider. So, athletic surgeon-to-be made of the foppish Clayton is he took the place of Dr. Jalland, and immediately found not recorded: at least the older man registered no strong that one of his patients was Prince Eddy. A sprained ankle objection to Fripp as a companion for Bertie’s oldest son. caused the Prince to send for him, recognise him and be happy to be treated by him – even though he was moving After booking in at the Fife Hotel in Braemar, he was on to Scarborough: “HRH seems to take kindly to me. We he met was Frederic Leighton, an artist whom his father summoned to Mar Lodge where almost the first visitor who pours out all his little woes,” he wrote to his father had met in Italy in the 1850s. Leighton was, like Clayton, get on very well together … I have … long talks … with HRH (whose brother, George, had been commissioned by the a life-long bachelor. While in Italy in the 1850s he had Queen to paint watercolours of Deeside years earlier). He received the effusive attentions of the poet Henry Greville, an aristocrat thirty years his senior: not that Fripp – or our house, as the Prince of Wales particularly wants it anyone else – found intimate facts, salacious or otherwise, added, significantly, “Don’t mention HRH’s illness outside not to get into the papers. He is afraid the public will get about this most private man. the impression that his son is a chronic invalid.” A few Fripp may well have been homophobic, and as he was days after this and back at Guy’s, Fripp received a Royal educated in boys-only schools this attitude could have

35 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 sprung from whatever inevitable same-sex liaisons he and the Prince’s liaisons in India, no proof exists of their was exposed to. As a healthy, sporting young man, any signs in his peers of such ‘sinful’ pleasures would have silence between them about the second. involvement in the first or some sort of conspiracy of been, perhaps, an anathema to him. So, even if he had been treating the Prince for some sexually transmitted disease, the cause of it would scarcely have been divulged by the Prince to his new friend, or by his advisors. A few days after he had taken on his job as companion- doctor an authority on such diseases, Sir Henry Thompson, was found to be in the neighbourhood. He was asked to attend the Prince and give his opinion on his state of health. Whatever he said did not change the status quo, so it has to be supposed that the expert decided there was no to get the Prince to moderate his drinking and smoking cause for alarm and that Fripp’s influence, in attempting habits, was paying off. The picture we get of the Prince from the letters sent home by the 24-year-old Fripp was of an easy-going, self-indulgent young man prepared to share some of his private life with his new friend – the

“within bounds,” that is those set by Fripp to counter so “Prince confided to me his love affair” – and agree to stay early an onset of gout and bronchial problems from chain- smoking. The Prince of Wales was so pleased with the effect of

Eddy and his equerry on a trip to Abergavenny and Cardiff Fripp’s influence on his son that he was detailed to join in September of 1890. The equerry was George Holford, destined to become, in Fripp’s words to John Maynard Keynes, “a life-long friend of mine, in fact the greatest friend of my life.” Once again, whatever wild oats Holford had sown in – or not in – the company of the Prince before he met Fripp, no mention is made by Roberts of any revelations by one to the other over the thirty-six years of their friendship – and no-one would have known more death than George Holford. about Eddy’s day-to-day life in the five years before his Holford was a wealthy bachelor who became even George Holford more wealthy when his father died a few months after Eddy himself. There is no doubt that he and Eddy were When Fripp was agonising about the Pemberton Billing friends, despite the implied master-servant relationship. case, he wrote, “I talked it over with Cosmo Bonsor, with For example, in the census of 1891 they are both staying Holford, and with the Bishop of London.” Obviously, he as house-guests with the love-of-his-life, Susannah, and would scarcely have been about to ‘name’ his best friend, her husband, Jack Menzies, at Escrick Park, with only the happily-married Holford, whatever he knew of him, a handful of ‘retainers.’ (In 1912, George married the but it is possible that whatever names he had in mind, widowed Susannah). Even in India, in 1889, Holford’s Holford knew of their sexual predilections, too: so it is name is permanently linked with that of the Prince doubtful, forty years after the sensational murders in as companion and diarist. Yet, despite his supposed Whitechapel, that Fripp’s evidence would have added involvement in the activities of the Cleveland Street club anything of interest to Ripperite investigators.

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Spotlight on Rippercast Kosminski Was The Suspect

Welcome to the latest instalment in our new series, SPOTLIGHT ON RIPPERCAST, in which Rippercast host Jonathan Menges transcribes excerpts from his extensive vault of Ripper-related podcast discussions. This edition is from 23 September 2008, and features Robert House (RH), Chris Scott (CS), Paul Begg (PG), Robert McLaughlin (RM), Ally Ryder (AR) and Jonathan Menges (JM).

JM: This is alluded to in the Macnaghten memoranda where in 1894 by Melville Macnaghten in the Macnaghten he says that Kosminski had homicidal tendencies and a The suspect ‘Kosminski’ was first suggested memoranda. The Macnaghten memoranda, written great hatred of women. But there’s nothing documented on the 23rd of February 1894, states that “No one outside of Macnaghten’s statement that supports this. ever saw the Whitechapel murderer; many homicidal They must have, I would assume, interviewed Kosminski, maniacs were suspected, but no shadow of proof could possibly talked to his family, and I feel that largely be thrown on any one. I may mention the cases of three what I’ve been doing is to try to further explain these men, any one of whom would have been more likely than statements by Macnaghten, Anderson, Swanson and Cutbush (meaning Thomas Cutbush) to have committed backing those statements up with additional research and this series of murders.” And, as number two, he names documentation on Aaron Kosminski – some of which was not known before – and in certain cases the documents resident in Whitechapel. This man became insane owing back up what Swanson and Macnaghten and Anderson Kosminski; no first name. He states “a Polish Jew and to many years indulgence in solitary vices. He had a great said, and in other cases they don’t. There are problems hatred of women, especially of the prostitute class and with these documents, obviously. Most notably, Swanson had strong homicidal tendencies. He was removed to said Kosminski died shortly after he was admitted to a lunatic asylum about March 1889. There were many the asylum, when we know that’s not true. There are circumstances connected with this man which made him problems with later documents that seem to be referring a strong suspect.” to a suspect that is quite possibly Aaron Kosminski. For Now, after the Macnaghten memoranda, he – Kosminski example, Robert Sagar, who is a City Detective, spoke – seemingly became the subject of other comments by about a suspect that he claims was admitted to a private – in particular Robert Anderson, who asylum. It’s not known if this was true, but we know that describes someone who resembles the Kosminski from Kosminski was admitted to Colney Hatch, which would not other police officials the Macnaghten memoranda. be described as a ‘private asylum’. So in that case, either Rob House, what are your views about what the police Sagar was incorrect, or there is a gap in our knowledge about Aaron Kosminski and it’s possible he was admitted what researchers have discovered about Kosminski with to a private asylum at some point that we just don’t know officials knew about Kosminski, and how do you reconcile about. So that’s an example of the type of problems you see what the police officials wrote about him at the time that I think that is unclear what the police knew in references to suspects that may have been Aaron hisRH: name was first brought to light? about Aaron Kosminski exactly, because they obviously Kosminski. Part of the problem really is that it’s very must have known more than we know about him now.

difficult to determine what sources are actually referring 37 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 to Aaron K at all. We have, for example, an article by total number of Jewish residents in Klodawa was about 600 Harry Cox, who is another City detective, that refers to a in the 1860s, which is around the time when Aaron was suspect that could very well be Aaron Kosminski, but he born. He was born in 1865. His father was a tailor named doesn’t name the suspect. And Sagar also doesn’t name Abram Joseph Kosminski. He had a number of siblings, a the suspect. Probably the suspect wasn’t named for the total of six brothers and sisters. He had two brothers, one same reason that Anderson didn’t name him, saying was named Isaac and the other was named Woolf. He had that “the reputation of our department would suffer”. four sisters: Pessa, Hinda, Malke – who later change her Basically what he saying is that the police were not really name and was known as Matilda in England – and he had another sister named Blima. The only one of those that we Just determining which sources are actually referencing know came to London is Matilda. There is some evidence supposed talk about specific aspects of the case publicly. to suggest that his other sisters may have gone to America. of these sources in the book. Klodawa was a typical small town and there was a great Kosminski is somewhat difficult, but I talk about a number amount of anti-Semitism in Russia at the time. Jews were seen as an alien, foreign group and were blamed for being revolutionaries or a kind of anti-Tsarist element, so there was emigration from Russia throughout the 1870s but it really picked up after the assassination of the Tsar in 1881. There was one person involved in the plot to assassinate the Tsar who was Jewish, but this person was not one of the main participants, but in any case the Jews were largely blamed for the assassination. And the son of Alexander II who was assassinated, yeah, suggested that the Jews were responsible for the murder of his father and there was some suggestion that he encouraged the Russian peasants to attack the Jews in retaliation for this assassination. broke out in the southwestern portion of Russia following the assassination. This would’ve been in March and April of 1881. In Kosminski’s town of Klodawa there’s no evidence to suggest that there actually were programs there. There had been a large anti-Jewish riot in a town nearby called Keilce in 1878, but it was really just the anti- Semitic environment that caused this large wave of Jewish emigration. Most of them probably ended up in the United States, but a large portion ended up in London. Aaron’s older brother Isaac left Klodawa in 1871 and settled in the East End. Three years after that Aaron’s father died, and

Robert Sagar wife Golda and three children. That probably means three his death certificate says that he left behind his widowed children that were living in the home. In other words, RM: I was wondering if you could tell us a bit about they were young and unmarried. So those would probably Kosminski’s background – where he came from, when he have been Aaron, Woolf – who at the time was 14. Aaron would’ve been eight and his sister Belinda would have crucial time between 1888 and 1891. been about 15. From that we can assume that Matilda arrived in England… all of that time leading up until that RH: Aaron Kosminski was born in a town called was probably already married. She married her cousin Klodawa, which was in , but at the time Poland didn’t Morris Lubnowski. Nothing is really known exactly about actually exist and Klodawa was in the westernmost part of when Aaron left Klodawa, but it was probably around May Russia. It was really very close to the German border, in 1881, which was the time when Woolf was married in a fact I think is was probably within about 15 miles of the nearby town called Kolo. They arrived in London around German border. Klodawa is in what was called the ‘Pale of June 1881, and the assumption is that – we know that Wolf Settlement’, which was a region created sometime around arrived at that time anyway – but the assumption is that the end of the 18th century, and Jews were essentially Aaron came with him. For the next decade really nothing forced to live in this area. Kosminski probably lived in the is known about Aaron Kosminski, and we’re left to piece Jewish section of town which was called Dziadowice. The together what his life was like in that decade from what

38 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 we know about his family members and what was written scrutiny by the public. That’s just a suggestion, but it is about him later in his asylum records and his admission to the workhouse. around the same time. interesting that they both moved from Greenfield Street JM: When the Kosminskis arrived in London, they AR: You said that Swanson said Kosminski was under moved to Goulston Street? surveillance. Do you want to clarify that? Because as far as RH: No. The Kosminski family, they all lived in this area that was south of Fieldgate Street, which is near the old but there wasn’t necessarily a direct correlation between I’m aware, there is an identification at the ‘Seaside Home’ Kosminski. A presumption, an assumption that we’re you know they moved around quite a bit. For a number of making, to proceed with the idea that Kosminski was the Bell Foundry. Mainly they lived on Greenfield Street, but years they were living at different addresses, but by 1888 Ripper, when it’s not necessarily known about the Seaside Home and Kosminski? is actually unknown in 1888, but prior to that he had also RH: Swanson’s exact quote is that he had been Isaac was living at 74 Greenfield Street. Woolf’s address we don’t know where Woolf is living. In 1889 he’s living and then on the suspect’s return to his brother’s house in living in Greenfield Street but then he disappears. In 1888 identified at the Seaside Home. He knew he was identified, in Yalford Street, which is very small street that’s parallel Whitechapel he was watched by police City CID by day and night. And then Swanson says in a very short time the Sion Square, which is the address that’s given on Aaron’s suspect, with his hands tied behind his back, was sent to to Greenfield Street, and then by 1890 Woolf was living at workhouse records. Where exactly Aaron was living Stepney Workhouse and then to Colney Hatch, and died during the murders is not known, but it’s probable that he shortly afterwards. So, Swanson very clearly says that he was watched by police and I think it’s interesting that this is that he may have been living in Isaac’s workshop. Isaac is essentially corroborated by statements of both Robert was living on Greenfield Street, and my theory, basically, was a master tailor. He had a workshop behind his house. Sagar and Harry Cox, who were both City detectives, who He shows up in Booth’s Survey of Tailors, which was both wrote about surveillance on a suspect in the case conducted right around the time of the murders, and Isaac that they felt was a very strong suspect. is listed as a ‘Ladies’ Tailor’. He had 14 employees and he JM: Sagar was the one who had said that the person in made a good deal of money in the busy seasons of the question was removed to a private asylum? RH: That’s right. and he would’ve made considerably less money in the off- year. But the tailoring industry was subject to fluctuation season. In any case, he had a workshop behind the house. CS: This business about moving and the possible

Street, where Aaron’s sister Matilda was living with her known for sure, date-wise, about the family abandoning Directly across from Woolf’s address was 16 Greenfield ramifications about Aaron’s incarceration… What is husband Morris, who was a bootmaker. Interestingly, both the name and assuming the name Abrahams? Isaac and Matilda and Morris moved from these addresses RH: The entire family apparently changed their name right around the time that Aaron was admitted to Colney to Abrahams pretty much immediately on arrival in Hatch. Morris moved sometime around March, Isaac London. Isaac was known as Isaac Abrahams soon after moved shortly thereafter. he arrived in 1871, and it looks like the rest of the family AR: You say “interestingly” they moved around the just followed suit when they arrived in 1881. They are same time he was admitted as if this suggests something really referred to as ‘Abrahams’ in every single document to you. What precisely does this suggest to you? except for the asylum admissions, where Woolf is referred to as ‘Woolf Kosminski’ and Aaron is referred to as ‘Aaron RH: Well, the Swanson marginalia and Anderson’s Kosminski’. I think it’s an interesting thought that Aaron writings suggest that Kosminski’s house was under may well have called himself ‘Aaron Abrahams’, also. It surveillance. Swanson says that his house was watched by sounds like he probably went by both names. City CID. It’s not known exactly what time this took place, but Swanson says this took place after the attempted CS: The reason I asked was because of the fact of the dog muzzling case because that was an issue there wasn’t known exactly when the surveillance took place, but it it? It was actually mentioned. identification of Aaron Kosminski by a witness. So, it’s not probably would’ve been in 1890, possibly late 1890, shortly RH: Yes, it looks like Aaron may well have given the before he was admitted Colney Hatch in February 1891. name ‘Kosminski ‘and then he was charged with giving So it’s possible that other residents of the street picked up a false name, essentially. His brother had to explain that on the fact that the house was under surveillance and may they went by the name ‘Abrahams’, as Aaron says, because have known that Aaron was a suspect in the case, and the ‘Kosminski’ is hard to spell. But it’s clear that the name family may have moved just to distance themselves from change had nothing suspicious about it.

39 Ripperologist 165 October 2019

CS: Yes, because it predates the murders. Is there any indication as to when the mother came over? Because as a business partner of Woolf Abrams in a very brief-lived time he was certified as insane. This is the Cohen who was far as I know, she’s only ever been found listed in 1901? sort of business venture; they were mantle manufacturers, RH: I’ve done a lot of this research with Chris Phillips, I believe, in 1891, but who exactly Jacob Cohen was is still who has done an enormous amount of research into not clear. I had been thinking he was possibly relative, Aaron Kosminski, and we’ve been in touch with some of possibly a cousin. He might’ve been related to Morris, the descendants of his brothers and sisters, and one of for example. As yet I’ve found no evidence of that, but it’s interesting that Jacob is the person who gives this them said that at some point Morris went back to Poland to get his mother. His mother was Leah, later known as Cohen must’ve known Aaron pretty intimately, but exactly Leah Cohen, and I suspect that Golda may have come over information to the man who certified Aaron as insane. So It’s possible Aaron lived with Jacob Cohen or something exactly a date on that. why he was the person who testified to Aaron is not clear. at the same time, although I’m having trouble finding like that, but I don’t know.

who do you believe the witness was? JM: As far as the identification at the Seaside Home, RH: This is one of those highly-debated aspects of the Ripper case, and I don’t particularly have any strong feelings one way or the other. But I think it was either Joseph Lawende, who was a witness at the murder of Kate Eddowes, or . You know this particular aspect of the case is highly-debated, and I think Paul thinks it was Schwartz and Stewart Evans at one point argued for Joseph Lawende. I think it could have been either of them, really. I tend to lean towards Joseph Lawende myself, but I don’t really know. CS: How good of a physical description do we have, I mean from asylum records and such, of Aaron? RH: I don’t think there’s really much of any physical description of Aaron at all. What we know about him, as far as like his build, comes from much later asylum records when he was at Leavesden. Aaron was listed as weighing

think that that gives us any indication necessarily of what at the time of his death under 100 pounds… I don’t really Harry Cox Aaron’s build was. The Harry Cox account of the suspect that he was watching gives a description of that suspect, CS: Have you found out roughly when she would’ve and so if that is indeed Aaron Kosminski then there would been widowed? When did Aaron’s dad die? be a description there. RH: JM: Cox has him as 5’ 6” tall with short, black, curly hair, would indicate the cause of death but it doesn’t. After He died in 1874. I hoped that his death certificate and I believe that’s all that Cox refers to him as. have lived. They may have moved in with relatives, RH: Yeah, the interesting thing about the Harry Cox the time he died, it’s difficult to say where they would because I don’t know who would’ve been considered the account is that Cox refers to a suspect who is under police surveillance and he says soon after the last breadwinner of the family that time. Woolf was only 14, murder which would be sometime around November or Isaac had already left the country, and Aaron was much – December 1888 – Cox basically says that the police were younger. The only siblings left were Aaron’s sisters and using a cover story, which was that they were factory they were a bit older. inspectors looking out for tailors and cap-makers who CS: As far as I know we have absolutely no indication were employing underage workers, and he says “pointing of any prospective employer. We have no idea of where out the evils accruing from the sweating system”. To me Aaron would’ve worked, do we? that is very interesting, because it seems to suggest that RH: No. I’ve found nothing about where Aaron worked. they must’ve been watching a tailor’s workshop or a cap- He’s listed as a hairdresser on his asylum record and this maker’s workshop, and we know of course that Isaac Jacob Cohen claimed that he hadn’t worked for years at the Abrahams was a tailor who had a workshop, and he’s

40 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 also referred to as a sweater in the Booth surveys. Cox And so there is some doubt as to whether this seaside also says that they “had the use of a house opposite the shop of the man we suspected”. That is also interesting, there is doubt as to whether it was actually Kosminski identification had actually occurred. And then, of course, because Matilda was living directly across the street from at all. I do hope that Rob can address that, because I do Isaac’s workshop. So, I don’t know if I would go as far as know there is a question raised about whether it actually to suggest that the police were using Matilda’s house as happened like it has been written. a sort of base for their surveillance, but it’s interesting in RH: You know why I personally don’t really spend a lot any case that they say they were using a house opposite the shop. And Cox also refers to the Jews in the street who happened. I guess I just sort of assume that it did. I was of time thinking about whether or not the identification “became alarmed at our presence”, and gives that as the hoping Paul would answer that question, actually. reason why they had to use this cover story that they were PB: When you have a source like Swanson, despite factory inspectors. This all ties in very nicely with the fact what has been said about it, as Martin Fido has pointed that the Booth surveys were going on at that time and the out the provenance is impeccable. There is no real reason to suppose the document was written by anybody other have been conducted around October 1888, although you Booth survey on Greenfield Street, in fact, I believe may than Swanson. know that’s not certain. AR: I’m not questioning whether it was written by CS: Can I just introduce a quick note here? I think Rob’s Swanson, I’m just saying that, from at a distance of decades, and Chris Phillips’s research is absolutely phenomenal the stories get broader in its details. More colourful. and I’ve been following it, and it has opened up whole Stewart Evans says in a dissertation on Casebook called areas, but I think certainly for anybody not that conversant ‘Kosminski and the Seaside Home’ that once a patient is in the case, I think it’s very important to mention Martin Fido. I think is important to mention Martin because both been impossible. of the senior police sources that name Kosminski only admitted into an asylum, an identification would have give a surname, and it was Martin’s work which actually PB: Basically, the situation is that once you have been put a Christian name to it. And also I think we have to remember that this was pre-Internet days so it literally if you can’t plead, then, generally, you can’t stand trial. It certified insane you are then deemed unfit to plead, and was the labour of going through records manually which led to Martin’s book, and I think it’s important to mention and you could go and identify somebody in an asylum, isn’t that there wouldn’t be in an identification number his role in the development of Kosminski as a suspect. once it’s been done because, as I say, the person would AR: My question regards this investigation, which is it’s just you can’t do anything with the identification basically linked to the Swanson information. I go on record you remember the case of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter as someone who has great doubts about the Swanson be deemed unfit to plead and there would be no trial. If marginalia. Not so much that I consider it a forgery, more Sutcliffe, basically that trial degenerated into a trial of the that he’s writing decades after the fact about a case that psychiatrists – those who said he was insane and those who said that he was sane. And that all revolved around that Kosminski’s name was tacked on at the end of the whether or not he would be sent to Broadmoor and the was not solved and I do find it somewhat convenient marginalia at a different time and in a later pencil. I’m trial would end, or would be deemed sane and then the not saying that it wasn’t Swanson himself who did that, trial would continue. So there is nothing there in particular I’m just saying maybe there is a little bit of a temptation to say that this incident couldn’t have happened, but it to take more credit and say ‘I knew it was solved but it certainly would not have happened at the Seaside Home wasn’t quite solved’. So I am going to go on record and or anywhere like this, because the guy would’ve been say that I take the Swanson marginalia with a grain of as far as Swanson is concerned clearly took place before banged away. But, the point is, is that the identification Seaside Home and all of those aspects that go along with any form of committal. Because the sequence is that there doubt. When we’re talking about the identification at the

– and let me know if I’m mistaken – but didn’t Stewart give evidence for whatever reason, the suspect had to be Kosminski being identified, I believe, and I could be wrong was an identification, the witness apparently refused to Evans write something about how, when the suspect was released and he was released into the care of his brother in custody under mental health purview, it would have under 24 hour surveillance by the City CID and very soon where, for baffling and uncertain reasons, he was kept described to have actually occurred? And I believe as a been impossible for an identification like Swanson had after that, committed to an asylum. So the certification of former police officer he said that there is no way that such insanity happened after the identification. It is Anderson an identification could have occurred under the rules. who suggests that the identification took place after 41 Ripperologist 165 October 2019

Donald Swanson’s annotations on the bottom of page 138 of The Lighter Side of My Official Life ©Adam Wood

Kosminski had been committed, but that is not in the state that Aaron Kosminski was in, that it would have book edition of Anderson’s memoirs, that was obviously something that he left out of the book when he came to do occurred? When so much time had passed on such a still been possible for an exact identification to have that, presumably because he realized it was wrong. Martin Fido, of course, in arguing that it was Cohen, would say for more than a split-second in time. I don’t know who brief… whoever saw the Ripper could not have seen them point when Cohen had been committed.” But that would “No it was right, and the identification took place at some made the identification, but its obvious that he never saw certainly explain why the suspect could not be brought to all suspicious that two years after the fact, there is able to trial, because he been committed. Now if the family had the person in the middle of the act. So, do you find that at committed Aaron Kosminski because they knew about the Yes, of course. The whole story is extremely strange be PB:a identification? and there are innumerable problems presented by it, but clever and effectively put Aaron Kosminski beyond the identification and so forth, then what they did was quite the fact is that, to be honest, we know so little. We have we reach of the law. have no idea what was factual and what wasn’t. I think if CS: Did I understand you, Paul, that you categorically you actually stand back from the all of this and you look at somebody like , for example – I was doing place at the Seaside Home? some work on Emma Smith a little while ago – and Walter said that you didn’t think the identification could’ve taken PB: No, not at all. What I said was that if Kosminski had Dew tells us all sorts of stuff about Emma Smith. About her background, about how she never spoke about her past to other people, and how she was lonely and all of this stuff, been committed to an asylum prior to the identification would at that point had taken place at the Seaside Home. which isn’t information that comes from any reports, be taking place than it’s highly unlikely that the identification Although, having said that, Swanson does say that he was is that stuff true or did he make it up? If it’s true then he’s they newspapers or official reports that we’ve got. Now, Rumbelow has said that, as far as he’s concerned, in a case giving us new information. But it is also true to say that as taken for identification with great difficulty. And Don as important as the Ripper, they would probably have had far as Dew is concerned, he thought that Emma Smith had been left unconscious on the pavement where she was wanted to take them. Whether that’s true or not I’m not found by a man who called the police and called a doctor no difficulty whatsoever in taking anybody wherever they and that she was conveyed from that spot to the London hospital. That is not what happened. He also seems to qualified to comment. But, no. As strange that may be, Seaside Home. have thought that she never regained consciousness, or the identification would seem to have taken place at the AR: Do you think it’s credible that two years after the fact, after the Ripper murders, and whatever devolving happened to her to the doctors or the police or anybody was at least not sufficiently to give an account of what

42 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 else. So we have this strange situation where Dew appears she refers to him as living on the premises. She doesn’t to know stuff that he either made up or it’s genuine, explicitly state what is meant by ‘living on the premises’ but at the same time he seems to be ignorant in other but it’s clear that she’s not referring to the Batty Street respects. The same thing can be applied to the Swanson house because she’s explicitly says that the man was one marginalia, inasmuch as we actually don’t know where of her lodgers. She says that the man who dropped off all that information came from. Was Swanson present? the shirts was a ladies’ tailor who worked for a West End Was he recording something secondhand? We don’t know. house, and she said that the blood on the shirt was “owing As far as the witness himself is concerned, clearly the to an accident that occurred to a man other than the one witness did, and for whatever reason was able to make taken into custody, who is living on the premises”. I think – assuming that part of the story is true. it was implied there is the premises of the ladies’ tailor. Of We just don’t know the answers. course it is subject to interpretation, but when I read that that identification it jumped out immediately that the person who dropped RH: Swanson states pretty clearly that the witness off these shirts was ladies’ tailor, and we know that both refused to give evidence because the suspect was also a Aaron’s brothers were ladies’ tailors. Woolf was described Jew, and I think it’s very important when you’re looking at Kosminski and the whole Polish Jew theory to keep in tailor in the Booth reports. There is also an earlier report, mind that you have to look at this in the context of the as a mantle maker, and Isaac is specifically listed as a ladies’ and this is in the Daily News on October 18, and these are relations between Jews in the East End and the English all follow-ups to the ‘Batty Street Lodger’ story, and I think locals, which were very tense at the time. There was a it’s very clear if you read these newspaper articles that the great amount of anti-Semitism, not really only due to the original story was essentially misreported. In the original murders and the fact that a Jew was suspected largely story, it’s pretty clear it was based on the gossiping of this by the public after the appearance of ‘Leather Apron’ on woman’s neighbours who claimed that she had a lodger. If the scene, and also given the fact that Elizabeth Long, for you read the follow-up articles it’s clear that there never example, said the person she saw looked like a foreigner. was a lodger at all. This is corroborated by a man who Also there is a great amount of tension due to the fact that actually was a lodger in the house, whose name is Carl the Jews were competing in the labour market and they Noun. He says that “the police are not in the house, nor were seen as competing unfairly largely because of this has the woman had a lodger who is now missing”. whole sweating thing and because they were willing to I think it’s important to point out that the ‘Batty Street work very cheap, they would pack a bunch of people into Lodger’, if you really read these follow-up articles, appears a the house and that was driving up rental costs in the to be a complete myth, basically. But it was based in area, and I think that given the fact that there was almost some fact, and it seems basically that what happened is a a riot against the Jews after the murder, stranger dropped off some bloodied shirts or some shirts I think the police were very worried about a potential that, when the woman opened them, she found blood on explosion of violence in the East End and a witness who is the cuffs. A follow-up to this is printed in the Daily News Jewish would’ve been well aware of the fact that if he went on October 18 that states “From more than one source into trial and said “This guy is Jack the Ripper. This is the the police authorities have received information tending person that I saw.” There would’ve been just an explosion to show the criminal is a foreigner who was known as of violence and riots, I think, in the East End and this having lived within a radius of a few hundred yards from person may have been well aware of that and that may the scene of the Berner Street tragedy. The very place he have weighed on his decision not to testify. Especially if, as Ally suggests, he maybe wasn’t sure if the person he saw man be the real culprit he lived some time ago with a was Kosminski. lodges is certain to be within official cognizance. If the woman by whom he is been accused.” So, here we have RH: One of the aspects of my book is talking about this one source that says the person who dropped off the reference to the “sole occupant of certain premises after shirts was ladies’ tailor, another source that says he lives nightfall”, which always struck me as a strange phrase to within a few hundred yards the scene of the Berner Street tragedy. So, I opened up Google maps and measured the Aaron living in the workshop of Isaac. There are a couple use, and my basic theory is that fits with, yeah, the idea of other references that would support that. One of which, and it’s pretty much exactly 300 yards. This ‘Batty Street exact distance to 74 Greenfield Street from Berner Street Lodger’ story arguably could be tied to Aaron Kosminski. says they were watching a suspect who was living in a as I mentioned before, is Harry Cox, who specifically workshop. The other one is this interview that appeared  in the Evening News with the landlady on Batty Street, To listen to the complete broadcast of this episode, or explore other who refers to the man who has blood on his shirt, and podcast releases by Rippercast, visit www.casebook.org/podcast.

43 Ripperologist 165 September 2019

And The Angels Sing.... By NINA and HOWARD BROWN

Immediately following the ‘Double Event’, the New Is He A South Sea Islander? York Evening World ran a brief series (October 11th To the Editor of the Evening World: – October 15th) which featured the opinions of Do you not think it possible that the author of the Evening World readers – many anonymously – as Whitechapel murders is or was an inhabitant of those to the identity and, on occasion, motivation of the islands in the South Sea where the mutilation of Whitechapel murderer. women is common? London’s population is eminently In previous issues of Ripperologist magazine, our cosmopolitan. Why not suppose this? It is surely more column has featured the opinions of police personnel and reasonable than the theory of the London police, that of convicts. In the future, another column will appear with Student the opinions of more celebrated personages. the fiend was an American. Possibly An Insane Physician New York Evening World To the Editor of the : Thursday, October 11, 1888 Evening World It seems to me that the perpetrator of those terrible THAT WHITECHAPEL HORROR crimes that are exciting London is a character that Various Theories of Edgar Allan Poe might have created. Some insane The Great Modern Mystery Advanced physician, whose mental disturbance has been caused by constant surgical practice, might be the author. Is the Fiend a South Sea Islander who follows a barbarous custom of his people? Or a monomaniac on Surgeon murder and mayhem? Let the American Public give the London Police the right clue. 

Friday, October 12, 1888 the Whitechapel Murders furnished by our readers. If Herewith is printed the first instalment of theories of the London Bobbies will study this column with care Is It Due To Voodooism? for a few days, they may get an original idea or two. To the Editor of the Evening World: The Revenge Theory Whatever the causes which unseated the reason, To the Editor of the Evening World: there seems to be a unanimity of opinion that the I have been deeply interested in reading the stories Whitechapel assassin is a maniac. of the Whitechapel murders and have given some This may or may not be so. To one who has lived thought to the matter. It seems to me that the most among the ignorant Negroes of the South, however, plausible theory in connection with the subject is and knows how thoroughly the minds of some are that the crimes were the work of some man who has dominated by the Voodoo priestesses, one who has suffered a wrong at the hands of one of these femmes witnessed atrocities committed in the name of this declassees (undressed women) and has brooded over heathenish religion, another theory than that of it to such an extent that he has become a monomaniac insanity suggests itself at once. and has tried to revenge himself on the infamous Is it not extremely probable that this assassin, who so sisterhood. I should like very much to hear the views mutilates his victims’ remains, is superstitious negro of some of your readers. Surely the subject is worth in search of some horrible fetish prescribed by a discussion. voodoo doctress? I think it extremely probable. M.D. Creole

44 Ripperologist 165 September 2019

are no loss to society, and if some one would try the same experiment in New York it would aid science and stop the disagreeable mode of living in which so many women are engaged. A Mother

He Must Know London Well To the Editor of the Evening World: In my opinion it is no South Sea Islander that is doing these wrongs in London. They haven’t got the nerve. Here is my idea of it. The murderer is or has been in the

some supposed or actual wrong, is taking this mode of revenge.English service, You can either bet he as isofficer no American. or sailor, andAs what owing has to already been done at his hands will clearly show, he is no stranger in London. He knows the beats of all the

G.M.B. police officers in that section of London. 140 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn

A Very Neat Theory To the Editor of the Evening World: My theory is that the brute will not be caught until the Evening World sends a good, smart American reporter over there to play detective. Murderer Or Murderess? George Winston To the Editor of the Evening World: I see that all the theorists unite in making a man 201 West Forty-first Street responsible for the Whitechapel murders. Why a man? My idea is that the assassin is a fanatical woman, bent Monday, October 15, 1888 on revenging the wrongs of her sex upon the fallen THE WHITECHAPEL MYSTERY creatures who have brought disgrace upon it. Because More Theories Advanced By Interested Evening World Readers woman. the police are looking for a man they do not find the To the Editor of the Evening World: D.F. I have thought a great deal about the Whitechapel The Medical Student Again mystery and I believe the guilty person is a man, the kind of man we call a ‘crank’, craving notoriety at any To the Editor of the Evening World: cost, like Charles Guiteau, for instance. No doubt he What do you think of the theory that the Whitechapel reads the newspapers every day with great pleasure murders were committed by a medical student of and would gladly give himself up for the sake of the delicate organism, gone mad over the terrible work of sensation it would make if he were not afraid of being the dissecting table? hung. I feel sure ‘Creole’ is wrong in thinking a negro. J.B. Cox Some of the Southern negroes are very brutal, but they are not brave, and one of them would lack the  courage to commit such a series of crimes in a place like London and away from the safety of his native Saturday, October 13, 1888 swamps and canebrakes. To the Editor of the Evening World: E.A.S. My theory regarding the Whitechapel mystery is this: Watch The Man Least Suspected The murderer is a doctor that has read that horrible story you published, “Frankenstein”. The hero in the To the Editor of the Evening World: story forms a human being, and this London murderer The Whitechapel murders are evidently the work of is trying to do likewise. He takes the other parts from a man who has been injured in one way or another other animals, possibly, and is manufacturing this by the fair sex. Driven to despair, he has made up his mind to get square with the sex that has caused him discover the secret of life which has puzzle sages from his trouble. The result is the Whitechapel murders. being in secret. When his labors are finished we may time immemorial. The individuals whom he cuts up The murders are committed in the dark of night, while

45 Ripperologist 165 September 2019

in familiar company with the woman whom he has forcing the resignation of Sir Charles Warren, against intended for his victim; because, this is the opportunity whose appointment originally a loud outcry was made for him easiest to cut her throat, and at the same time by jealous rivals. prevent her from making an outcry. Then as soon as he Vide Et Credi got her silenced he carries her to the spot where she is found, and that is also the spot where she is found, and A Word For London’s Police that is also the spot where he does the most butchery. To the Editor of the Evening World: He must be a man well acquainted with Whitechapel Permit me to say that in simultaneously printing the and its characters, and who goes around among the various views of all the principal American police police with an innocent face. My advice is therefore inspectors, the Evening World gave an admirable this: Watch the man whom you least suspect. example of newspaper enterprise yesterday. And in Charles Kristenson declining to criticize their London contemporaries 20 South Street, NYC the chiefs exhibited a degree of courteous decorum too striking to be expected. Because Chief Warren Is It A Policeman? resigned to escape the clamor about his ears, that is To the Editor of the Evening World: no evidence of his incapacity. Even though himself After having read the several opinions in your paper about the Whitechapel murders, I dare to say that a instincts and experience of all the skilled and clever incapable, his deficiencies could not deform the policeman is the murderer better than any other man. detectives in London. And I presume that no one I can add that is those murders had been committed claims that there are no clever detectives there. They here the police would have found the murderer out are the practical and real criminal catchers. Yet they long ago. haven’t caught this one. Chief Warren was merely an A. W. Neill couldn’t catch a fox with bulldogs. executive officer and the best hunter in Christendom The Woman Theory Arthur Navarre

To the Editor of the Evening World: Would Find Charley Ross Why may it not be a woman, disguised as a wanton, To the Editor of the Evening World: living in their haunts and going about with them? How easy to accomplish her task and escape detection, 1 while the police are all the time hunting for a man? Ross. This case I consider a bigger disgrace to civilized AmericaIf I had one than million the brutal I would Whitechapel use half in murdersfinding Charlie are to J.W.M. England.  Trenton (N.J.) Schoolboy

A Month Later... 

New York Evening World Tuesday, November 20, 1888 Saturday, November 17, 1888 He Is Certainly A Butcher A Curious Whitechapel Theory To the Editor of the Evening World: I believe the Whitechapel murderer to be a clever, To the Editor of the Evening World: insane butcher, who steals out in the darkness of the I have read in your last evening’s issue the comments night, with carving-knife in hand, and, watching his opportunity, approaches the unsuspecting woman Whitechapel atrocities. They all forget that the of various police officials in this country on the and accomplishes his terrible deed. Blood upon his murders happened in London, and especially in the clothing would not be noticed. So he could easily Whitechapel district. They talk as if London was the escape detection from his crime. My advice to the same as New York, Philadelphia or any of your modern London police is, therefore, to take in hand any person built cities. They don’t seem to remember the ‘build’ found at night with blood on his clothing, and in the of modern Babylon, with its tens of thousands of

the escape of criminals. When we realize that London end, they would surely find the terrible Whitechapel Charles Kaiser hasramifications, a population and theas wonderfullarge as New facilities York, it affordsBrooklyn, for fiend. 535 Courtlandt Avenue, NYC Philadelphia, Chicago and St. Louis combined, we can form an idea how easily it is for a person with criminal intentions to carry out his designs and elude 1 The kidnapping of Charlie Ross was a well publicized case from the 1870s in Philadelphia. He was never found. be found, I believe, to be neither crank nor maniac.  Mydetection. idea of The the Whitechapel brutalities is fiend, that theyif ever are arrested, committed will with the connivance of certain politicians, for ulterior NINA and HOWARD BROWN are the proprietors of purposes, and one point has already been gained by JTRforums.com.

46 Ripperologist 165 October 2019

Non-Fiction Reviews Included in this issue: Jack and The Thames Torso Murders, Interpreting the Ripper Letters, Inside Buck’s Row and more!

JACK AND THE THAMES TORSO MURDERS: that he could have been Jack the Ripper, but whoever A NEW RIPPER? dumped the torso of a woman in Pinchin Street must Drew Gray and Andrew Wise have transported it there without attracting attention, Amberley Publishing, 2019 and presumably Hardiman regularly and legitimately Softcover & ebook Softcover £16.00, ebook £9.38 streets. He could have concealed a human torso beneath trundled a handcart piled with horseflesh through the Jack and the Thames Torso have been such a common sight that he passed unseen. the horseflesh, and, like Father Brown’s postman, he could Murders: A New Ripper? links If he was Jack the Ripper, the authors point out that the Jack the Ripper murders Hardiman’s wife and child had both died in 1888, and they with the less well-known persuasively argue that syphilis was the cause of death. Torso crimes, and the cake Perhaps this gave Hardiman a Dr Stanley-like motive of is iced with a “new” Ripper hatred and revenge against a disease-ridden class of suspect. The upside is that the women whom he blamed for the tragedy. book introduces many readers Unfortunately, some commentators thought Gray and to the torso crimes and to the Wise had seriously over-egged their pudding by arguing idea that Jack the Ripper might that James Hardiman was a “knacker” – someone who have been responsible for slaughtered horses (and diseased animals) – and that more murders than is commonly believed. The downside he worked for Harrison, Barber, who effectively had the is that there’s very little or no new information about monopoly on horse slaughtering in London. Gray and the torso crimes for the informed reader, and the ‘new’ Wise claim that this gave Hardiman access to Harrison suspect has been known about since Rob Hills wrote some Barber’s slaughter-yards and depots across London, articles about him for twelve years ago. Ripperologist places where he could have perhaps hidden and dissected Rob Hills is fully acknowledged by Gray and Wise for bodies unnoticed. providing the springboard for their own researches, and It’s a nice idea, but there is no evidence that Hardiman their fulsome acknowledgement of Ripperologists was was a knacker beyond a single census entry to which an very welcome in light of one author’s sulky comments: enumerator had added “knacker” to his given occupation ‘We owe a massive debt to the legion of Ripperologists who have come before us in researching, debating, and to JTRForums.com, showed that in the 1881 census an as a dealer in horseflesh. Gary Barnett, a contributor detailing the history of the Whitechapel murders and the enumerator had added “knacker” to the occupation of lives of the women who were murdered.’ After such generosity it’s painful to have to say that the woman who is very unlikely to have been slaughtering a “horse flesh dealer” named Ettie Cross, a 65-year-old book isn’t as good as it could and should have been, and horses. it was impossible to escape some of the comments on the That Hardiman was not a knacker isn’t fatal to Gray and internet. Wise’s theory – even if Hardiman was only a cats’ meat The ‘new’ suspect is James Hardiman, the son of Amelia salesman, he would still have been able to transport a Hardiman, who sold horsemeat for cats from the front human torso on a meat-laden handcart, if that’s how he room of 29 Hanbury Street. James was also a dealer in transported his cats’ meat, and if he purchased enough meat to hide a human torso. But not being a knacker horseflesh. There’s nothing about Hardiman to suggest 47 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 means that Hardiman would not have acquired the requisite skills many believe the Ripper/Torso murderer pickle jar on 13 September 1889, and they emphasise that significance of the unpleasant discovery of a foetus in a needed to have eviscerated and disarticulated his victims. this was the anniversary of the death of Hardiman’s wife. One appealing suggestion by Gray and Wise is that There are many similar “connections that link events in Hardiman collected his meat from the Harrison, Barber Hardiman’s family life to the murders,” say Gray and Wise, yard in Winthrop Street, which ran parallel with Buck’s who ask, “Was this Hardiman’s way of memorialising his Row. I’m not sure that cats’ meat was collected from a wife and child’s deaths?” The answer to that question local yard, rather than a central distribution point, but if would be ‘no’, because as far as I am aware this pickle jar it was then Winthrop Street being the closest knacker’s was in discovered on 12 June, not 13 September 1889. yard to Hardiman’s home, it’s very likely that he would Another of these anniversaries was 8 September 1889, have used it. But would Hardiman have killed Mary exactly a year after the murder of Annie Chapman. This Nichols so close to where he was a familiar face? Likewise, was when a man called “John Cleary” walked into the would Hardiman have committed his next murder in the New York Herald with information backyard of his mother’s home, and somewhere else he about Torso-like murder. It turned out that “John Cleary” London offices of the was likely to have been well known? was in fact a man named John Arnold, and Gray and Wise Although James Hardiman isn’t a new suspect, he theorise that he was in fact James Hardiman. But John hasn’t been explored as fully as he is in this book. As the Arnold was well-known to the police, Swanson writing, authors say, “the circumstantial evidence emerging from our preliminary enquiries indicated that more in-depth “Arnold has been known for many years to officers past research regarding this person was certainly warranted”, being dishonest and giving him a reasonably good and present…”, adding that he’d never heard of Arnold and one can’t disagree with that. Unfortunately, the fact character: “he bets in small sums, drinks occasionally, and that he sold cats’ meat, suffered the tragic loss of his wife has deserted his wife, (who is said to be intemperate and and daughter, possibly to syphilis, and was living in and a Virago), for which he was sentenced to twenty one days was familiar with the area is pretty much the foundation imprisonment.” (MEPO 3/140, ff. 160-1) The police seem upon which his candidacy as a suspect rests, and it’s to have known John Arnold well enough to suggest that ultimately unpersuasive. he didn’t live a double life as a cats’ meat salesman named Turning to the controversial Torso Murders, they are an Hardiman. What really lets this book down, though, are mistakes having even questioned whether they were murders at such as misspelling Sir Melville Macnaghten’s surname absolute minefield for the unwary researcher. Some people all, and they were very unlike the Ripper crimes, so the ‘Mcnaghten’ throughout the book. Misspelling a name idea that they were committed by Jack the Ripper is quite probably isn’t important, but “Mcnaghten” is an odd a contentious argument to make – especially with such a spelling and one I’d have thought the authors would weak candidate as James Hardiman. have checked. Their dismissal of Sir Robert Anderson is The Torso Murders have attracted increasing interest a different matter altogether. Anderson wrote that Jack over the last few years and have even been the subject of the Ripper was an alien (a Jew), which Gray and Wise say a few rather lacklustre books, most recently M.J. Trow’s should be treated with “considerable skepticism” because The Thames Torso Murders. A really detailed examination of Anderson’s “well-known dislike of ‘aliens’”. Now, I don’t of these murders, if they were murders, is long-overdue, know of any evidence that Anderson had a dislike of aliens and some of the disappointment felt with Jack and the and I emailed Robert House and John Malcolm just to see if Thames Torso Murders: A New Ripper? is that it didn’t offer these Anderson gurus knew of anything. They didn’t. The any new information and was a rather lightweight rehash fact is that Anderson’s dislike of aliens is a myth that has of what was already known. In fact, it seemed to draw too grown from and been fostered by an anti-Anderson bias heavily on Trow’s book – even repeating an error that a leg among some researchers, and whatever you may think and arm were found on the site of the Whitehall Murder about Anderson, he was the head of the C.I.D. at the time (remains found in the foundations of the new Scotland of the murders and would have known just about every Yard building then under construction), when only a torso serious police suspect, so his opinion should not be lightly was dumped there. It’s not unreasonable that readers or glibly dismissed. It’s ironic that Gray and Wise should expected two professional, academic historians to have have written, “the casual dissemination of unchecked or done original research, and the fact that they apparently unsubstantiated ‘facts’ can be dangerous.” didn’t is a factor in the disappointment felt at this book. The book concludes with a long and slightly irritating There are errors too; four times the authors refer to the

chapter entitled ‘Postscript: A Reflection on ‘History’, ‘True

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Crime’ and ‘Ripperology’.’ It is pretty much an expanded 185pp; illus; biblio; index version of Drew Gray’s paper ‘Exorcising a Demon?: Why £19.99 hardcover & £11.52 ebook History Needs to Engage with the Whitechapel Murders It is generally accepted that and Dispel the Myth of ‘Jack the Ripper’’ (Humanities, Vol none of the so-called Ripper 7, Issue 2, May 2018), much of which was repeated in the letters are genuine, and as talk he gave to a Jack the Ripper conference last year. As there is already a very good the authors explain in their introduction to the book, the book about them, Letters purpose of the chapter is to “look at the phenomenon of , some people may Ripperology, at what it means for history, and offer some doubt the value of M.J. Trow’s suggestions for ways in which academic history and latest foray into Ripperland. amateur history could work together to address some of However, this book has less to the undoubted problems that exist within the (broadly do with Jack the Ripper than what the letters tell us about I’m not sure what problems they think exist within the the writers and Victorian defined) Ripperology community.” “Ripperology community” or even that there is such a thing society as a whole. It’s a good idea, and one that will appeal as a “Ripperology community” beyond it being people to readers whose interest in Jack the Ripper embraces sharing a common interest, but the concern of the authors time and place as well as the crimes themselves. As the seems to be that most people encounter Jack the Ripper cover blurb says, these letters were written by the sick, and have their opinions moulded through “popular” perverted and twisted ‘who put pen to paper purporting entertainments such as television, movies, the “museum” to be the killer’ or suggested ‘ever more lurid ways in in Cable Street, the London Dungeon, and a walking tour which he could be caught’, including advancing innocent that projects the victims’ mortuary photos onto building people as the murderer. walls. I wouldn’t include any of that as Ripperology, but On occasion Trow escapes from his analysis of the letters to look at other topics such as the known cases of historians could or would stop public perception from people who wrote the letters, such as Miriam Howells, a it’s difficult to see how the involvement of academic being driven by television, cinema, comics, games, tourist Welsh woman whose letters purporting to be from the attractions, and toilet sprays. Ripper were penned for a ‘lark’ but scared the recipients, I enjoyed Jack and the Thames Torso Murders. The and scared Howells herself when she was landed with the analysis of who saw what, where and when, especially in prospect of life imprisonment! As for Charlotte Higgins, the case of , was excellent and stimulating, she was only 14-years-old when she wrote a letter to and James Hardiman was a suspect who merited closer her employers, Reverend Samuel Harvey and his wife, examination. The possibility that the torso crimes purporting to be from Jack and threatening to kill them. As and the Ripper murders were committed by the same Trow wryly observes, ‘presumably her career with them person has long deserved a detailed analysis, although ended rather abruptly!’ The third woman Ripper letter it was probably a mistake to try and tie that in with an writer was Maria Coroner, perhaps the best known of all. examination of a new suspect as it meant that coverage I’d love to know more about her, because an assortment Jack and the Thames of crime memorabilia was found among her possessions, Torso Murders was a much-anticipated book, and readers including the business card of the executioner James of the torso crimes was superficial. had high expectations that the authors probably never anticipated or wanted. That book failed to achieve what a girl at that time, especially given her peculiar behaviour Berry, all of which perhaps marks her out as a trifle odd for was expected and, frankly, contained errors which people in court. Trow is a bit brutal about Maria Coroner, arguing did not expect of academic historians. For all that, it was that today she would ‘be a vicious troll on the internet’, a good read, but the high cover price will understandably and that two hundred years before the Ripper she’d have keep it from many Ripperologists’s shelves. been stripped to the waist and ‘whipped at the cart’s tail’.

INTERPRETING THE RIPPER LETTERS: the 19th century. For example, when looking at some of Trow fits in quite a bit of detail about the latter part of MISSED CLUES AND REFLECTIONS the letters suggesting who Jack the Ripper was, he refers ON VICTORIAN SOCIETY to a letter from ‘Delia Bass’, who put her psychic powers at M.J. Trow the disposal of the police, and the table-rapping children Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword Books, 2019 www.pen-and-sword.co.uk ISBN: 1526739291 Tom Totson. This leads into a short discussion of the of R Barraclough, who identified Jack as someone named Hardcover & ebook Victorian obsession with spiritualism, adding an extra

49 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 dimension to the letters. the devotion of the average Ripperologist also amount Unfortunately, the book is marred by quite a lot of to nothing more than light work.’ Nevertheless, he hopes errors. They are mostly small and inconsequential, but that the lack of a lengthy involvement with the subject is suggest that Trow was writing quickly and from memory. balanced by ‘an independent and perhaps common-sense He describes Elizabeth Darrell as ‘another prostitute’, perspective.’ but as far as I knew she wasn’t a prostitute at all; he says One hopes so, but less than a year doesn’t seem enough Louis Diemschutz had been selling ‘knick-knacks on the time for anyone to make any meaningful observations. So, road’, but he’d been selling jewellery at Westow market; I felt doubtful, but was intrigued. he says the meeting at the club in Berner Street was ‘in full The essays run to about 1,500 words each, cover an swing’ when Elizabeth Stride’s body was found, but in fact extremely broad range of topics, and make interesting and refreshing reading. From time to time the author he says the Goulston Street apron had been ‘dropped at reveals a lack of knowledge and a poor grasp of some it had finished and most of those who attended had left; a standpipe’, it hadn’t; he says of the apron that Eddowes’ arguments. For example, he writes of Patricia Cornwall, ‘killer had taken it away to wash his hands and perhaps ‘There is no examination of the other suspects in ‘Jack the to carry the kidney’, but it was perhaps taken to wipe, not Ripper Case Closed’, and it is never made clear how and wash, his hands (gosh, I can be pedantic!), and nobody why she focussed on Walter Sickert as Jack the Ripper and ever suggested that the apron might have been used to disregarded the rest.’ carry the kidney. In fact, she stated at the beginning of her book that a There are also a number of questionable statements. Deputy Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard, John For example, when discussing the Leather Apron story, he Grieve, had suggested Walter Sickert as a person of says it was probably the work of Harry Dam, who, Trow interest. I can’t imagine that any self-respecting crime tells us, was ‘quite prepared to smear anybody in his quest writer wouldn’t have taken such a tip-off further, which for a scoop’. In fact, Dam was told the Leather Apron story is what Cornwell did, becoming genuinely convinced that by local prostitutes, so the nickname was given to him by Sickert was the murderer. And, of course, the purpose of them. There is no reason to think that Dam knew there Cornwell’s book was to set out her case against Walter was an innocent man with that nickname, or that Dam Sickert, not to consider the merits or otherwise of the was ‘prepared to smear’ anyone’s good name in pursuit of other suspects. a story. Errors like these spoil the book a little, causing one Jackson is also critical of Cornwell’s statement that a to wonder how much thought was actually put into the letter written by Walter Sickert and letters purporting analysis of the letters, but overall was a quick, interesting, to come from Jack the Ripper came from the same batch and above all original read. of twenty-four sheets of paper bearing the watermark of LIGHT WORK Gurney Ivory Laid. But Jackson thinks that ‘only 24 sheets Howard Jackson of paper featuring that watermark were ever produced,’ London: Red Rattle Books, 2019 and he goes on to say that Cornwell is “coy about the size www.redrattlebooks.co.uk of a sheet and the number of pages it would contain.” ISBN: 978-1909086258 But the discovery was made by paper expert Peter softcover & ebook 255pp Bower, who is quoted in Cornwell’s book, said that the £8.99 softcover & £1.99 ebook manufacturer ‘made relatively small runs of papers such Light Work started life as as stationery, the sheets roughly guillotined to size and a series of blogs looking at then folded and divided into quires of twenty-four sheets. random aspects of the Ripper case. in a hand-fed guillotine.’ Each individual quire of paper was then given a final trim The author explains that What this means is that a quire of twenty-four sheets his interest in Jack the Ripper was hand-guillotined and each guillotining would lasted less than a year, but in therefore be very slightly different, making it possible that time he’d managed to read thirty books on the subject. the same quire. And Bower discovered that three letters, under magnification to identify the paper belonging to I’m impressed. Reading thirty one from Sickert and two purporting to be from Jack the books on the same subject in Ripper, belonged to the same batch of twenty-four sheets. succession takes some doing, This is just one example of where Howard Jackson’s poor but Jackson candidly observes, ‘My efforts compared to grasp of the arguments shines through.

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possibility that the writing on the wall in Goulston Street Robinson’s book They All Love Jack, not only in his could have been a reference to Freemasonry.’ As far as I Unfortunately, Jackson is heavily influenced by Bruce acceptance of Masonic involvement in the Ripper murders, can tell, all I actually said on the subject of the writing on but also of Robinson’s jaundiced view of the establishment the wall and the Freemasons was that there is no evidence as corrupt from top to bottom. For all I know it may have that the word JUWES referred to the murderers of Hiram been, but Robinson doesn’t provide any evidence to Abiff, and I am not aware of any evidence to the contrary. support his argument, especially for calling policemen My dismissal of the notion therefore wasn’t spurious, but like Swanson liars. Jackson also says of Macnaghten, for the notion itself was. example, that he never developed the skills of a policeman Despite the catalogue of errors and Robinson-inspired opinions, the essays are well-written and on occasion and writes, ‘an assertion by a poorly qualified policeman thought-provoking. The book is worth a look and the others...’ – none of that has substance and appears to be easily led by the sound of his own voice and the flattery of ebook won’t break the bank. entirely Robinson-induced. Jackson says that Abberline was “unusual” because TIME REVEALS ALL – THE FUNNY LITTLE GAMES he was “an honest policeman”, whilst other policemen OF JACK THE RIPPER: CRYPTIC CLUES FROM THE were inclined to ‘”dismiss burglaries as disturbances” WHITECHAPEL KILLER and “report thefts as lost property”, but he provides no S.C. Davies independently published evidence to support either that Abberline was an honest ISBN: 978-1093937336 copper or that his colleagues weren’t. Mind you, his Softcover account of Abberline is full of extraordinary claims - that 187pp Abberline ‘had a reputation for being shy’ around women, £16.99 that he met his second wife, Emma Beament (who he calls This is a large-size, self- published book in which her real name was actually Mackness) in the foyer of a the author explores what he Beaument; he calls Abberline’s first wife “Martha Mackles”, London theatre, gaining an introduction when he picked believes to be a myriad of codes and hidden meanings apprehending a ‘mugger’ who stole her handbag! He also contained in the so-called up her ticket, which she had dropped to the floor, and later refers to ‘the one half decent photograph’ of Abberline, Maybrick diary. If that sort of Time being of Abberline. Reveals All will be a luxury but there is no known photograph certainly identified as thing floats your boat, He says Montague John Druitt was ‘troubled by his cruise, but for me the boat sexuality’, but this appears to be based entirely on the sank like a rock almost as soon supposition that Druitt’s dismissal as a schoolteacher as it left port. My philosophy has always been that we from a boys’ school was because he interfered with one should give these ideas a fair hearing – and as the book of the pupils, but it is unsupported by any evidence and cost me nearly twenty quid I gave it a very fair hearing – there is therefore no evidence that Druitt was troubled but S.C. Davies expects too much. He accepts that the diary by his sexuality. Jackson says Druitt was an ‘accomplished is genuine, that it was written by James Maybrick, and that sportsman’ and is ‘an unlikely Jack the Ripper suspect’ for Maybrick scattered clues throughout the text, but all three this reason, which as far as I am aware isn’t the case. of these things lack any sort of proof. Macnaghten isn’t reliable, Kosminski’s ‘weakness as JACK THE RIPPER AND THE a suspect’ is because ‘his paranoia prevented him from WHITECHAPEL MURDERS OF 1888 accepting food from anyone’, and Ostrog ‘was Russian and Ken Hughes had a beard, which may be why Macnaghten described Ebook him as a madman’!? £4.99 Jackson holds Macnaghten responsible for the Don’t bother. expression ‘Canonical Five’, whereas it was coined by This is another book largely reprinting the inquest my friend and colleague Martin Fido, who died recently. reports from contemporary newspapers, but the author Whoever came up with it, Jackson thinks the term to be adds six introductory chapters looking at the victims, irresponsible mischief. police, what the police and contemporary press thought, There is one point in the book where the author writes and suspects proposed by later writers. These chapters that I use ‘less than half a page to spuriously dismiss the are full of detail, all taken from the standard books on

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the subject, plus the author’s Martha’s body was found opinions on all and sundry. just after 5.00am on 7 August Unfortunately, I regret to say 1888, the victim of a frenzied his opinions generally aren’t attack that some policemen, worth having. For example, such as Robert Anderson he dismisses the poet Francis and Walter Dew, would later Thompson because Thompson regard as an early murder had no history of violence, was by Jack the Ripper. In April an opium addict, and had been 2019, a rather lacklustre BBC given food and shelter by a Television documentary, Jack prostitute, Hughes concluding from this that Thompson the Ripper: The Case Reopened, wouldn’t have killed prostitutes. reached the same conclusion. Hughes writes, ‘Thompson was never really in the As I have said about Amanda’s earlier books, her running as a Ripper suspect it was just another author weakness is that she can’t write, she doesn’t appear writing about a talented poet whose theories were all to read through what she’s written, and she doesn’t wrong and just to sell books.’ I’m inclined to agree that get others to proof-read her manuscript either. This Thompson isn’t a genuinely serious contender to have isn’t helped by erratic punctuation and a peculiar and committed the Ripper murders, but I have no doubt sometimes tortuous writing style. Running her text that Richard Patterson sincerely believes otherwise and through a grammar checker such as Grammarly would advanced him as a suspect for serious consideration, not perhaps help immeasurably. just to sell books. This said, Amanda is clearly interested in the subject, Hughes’ writing is bad, so bad, that I wondered she is passionate about the people she writes about, her enthusiasm shines through, and she is a competent was born and raised in Bethnal Green. One example of genealogical researcher who ferrets out the tiniest details whether English was his first language, but he says he wherever she can. She doesn’t stray too far from offering proof that Kosminski was around any of the areas that the the raw data she garners on Ancestry or Find My Past, but the bad writing that jumped out at me was, ‘…there is no Ripper was seen, all evidence collected by the police was she is the sort of person Ripperology needs and should just made up any reports were fake to please the locals encourage. that they had caught the Ripper and ease tension in the With the exception of Jack and Old Jewry, which had vicinity of Whitechapel.” This is badly written and a load of rubbish. There is altogether more professional publication, Martha is the benefit of editing and proof-reading, and was an no evidence that the evidence against Kosminski was probably the best of Amanda’s books. She not only gives ‘made up’ or ‘fake’, and as Kosminski was never publicly as much biographical information about Martha Tabram would have eased tension. of almost everyone involved in Tabram’s story, including as she can find, she also looks into the genealogical history identified as the Ripper, nothing connected with him such minor players as the photographer who took her Nothing about this book suggests that Ken Hughes is mortuary picture! top of which the illustrated section includes the bogus On the downside, the extraordinary amount of someone with his finger on the pulse of this subject, on photos of Nichols and Stride. information packed into this book really required an

MARTHA information and she wants to share it with her readers, index. Amanda has done a lot of hard work to find this Amanda Harvey Purse FeedARead.com, 2019 once you’ve read it. ISBN:978-1788767644 but there is no quick or easy way to find the information 457pp, illus, notes. The book contains a few errors – who doesn’t make £10.00 mistakes! – such as calling the street where Martha’s Amanda Harvey Purse has published three books in the parents lived ‘Popular Row’ instead of ‘Poplar Row’ and year between March 2018 and February 2019. Altogether mis-transcribing the word ‘irrefragable’ (meaning not they total about 1,000 pages, only a couple of hundred able to be disproved or refuted) as ‘infrangible’ (inviolable pages less than The Lord of The Rings! About a third of or unbreakable). Mind you, neither word trips frequently those pages are in this timely look at the life of Martha from the tongue! Tabram. All criticism aside, Amanda’s books are valuable for the

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information they contain and Martha contains a lot. part a Ripperologist’s book by a Ripperologist. Purists will enjoy all the area detail perhaps more than the already INSIDE BUCK’S ROW well-discussed crimes. THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS PROJECT: BOOK 1 This is followed by a chapter called ‘The Cast”, which Stephen E Blomer paypal.me/bucksrow?locale.x=en_GBWhat really happened in Bucks consists of short but solid biographies of the people Row? caught up in the murder in one way or another. Blomer PDF format lists them in order of appearance, like the cast in a play, 544pp, illus; appendices; notes; instead of alphabetically. I think I’d have preferred the latter, but it hardly matters. mobiles and laptops; 50mb for desktop PCs and Macs). £6.99 or £7.99 depending on file size (small, about 15mb, for tablets, This is followed by a fuller, though nevertheless brief a Ripperologist for Ripper- account of the life of Mary Ann Nichols and a long and This is a terrific book by ologists and I hope it presages detailed chapter about the discovery of her body, including well for an excellent series to a detailed examination of the timings of Cross/Lechmere come. Inside Buck’s Row is an and Paul, followed by an exhaustive examination of PC exhaustive and exhausting Neil’s beat and a complex discussion of what is called “The examination of the Mary Ann Mizen Scam”, basically an examination of the problems Nichols’ murder that should be on every serious Ripper- account given by PC Mizen. This leads me to my main presented by the conflicts and contradictions in the ologist’s electronic bookshelf, criticism of Inside Buck’s Row, which is the space it gives but I very much doubt that to the theory that Charles Cross/Lechmere was Jack the anything like this would have Ripper. found a traditional publisher. I hope that others with the It was Cross who discovered the body of Mary Ann energy, tenacity and knowledge of Stephen Blomer will Nichols and the theory argues that he was actually the grasp the nettle and produce similar specialist titles. The concept of Inside Buck’s Row is simple enough. It a good many years ago in several articles in Ripperana murderer caught in the act. This idea was first advanced takes a very close look at the murder of Mary Ann Nichols, and Ripperologist, but came to prominence in a glossy but inadequate television documentary, Jack the Ripper: The and at the murder location. Buck’s Row, which changed Missing Evidence, in 2014. Unfortunately, whilst the story long considered to be the first victim of Jack the Ripper, its name on 25 October 1892 to Durward Street, has a is endlessly discussed on Jack the Ripper message boards long history which Blomer traces back to the mid-1700s, at which time it (or part of it) was known as Ducking- interpretation of the Buck’s Row murder and investigation and for many is so firmly woven into the narrative and Pond Row. The street still exists, although it has greatly that it is almost impossible to avoid discussion of it at changed from what it was like in 1888. Then, it was a every twist and turn, but the frequent argument on the street about 24-foot wide, small terraced houses lining websites JTRForums.com and Casebook.org is detailed, one side and the high walls of warehouses on the other. At repetitious and often unpleasantly acrimonious and it is one end there was the gaunt shape of a Board School, now often impossible for even a well-informed reader to get a full and coherent handle on the claims made. But the visited the street. The site of the murder was very close bottom line seems to be that there is no real reason to converted into flats but a burned-out shell when I first by, and opposite was Essex Wharf, the name embossed think that Lechmere/Cross was a murderer. He seems not in bricks along its side. At the other end of the street, at to have made any effort to hide his identity, where he lived the junction with Brady Street (once called North Street), or worked, or to separate from Robert Paul, and there is stood the Roebuck Public House, still serving pints when I nothing to suggest that the police were ever anything but visited, but now swept away in area redevelopment. has found any suggestion that he ever did anything after Although Blomer includes maps or links to maps, I completely satisfied with Lechmere/Cross’s story. Nobody think some maps on the same page as the text would 1888 to bring him to public notice or suggest that he was have helped make this chapter comprehensible. I found homicidal. That he was Jack the Ripper is just a theory and one to which Blomer clearly and understandably attaches little or no weight, so it’s a pity that he let it dominate his it difficult to follow and anyone unfamiliar with Buck’s understand the history and name changes this small back narrative. Row would probably find it baffling. Still, it’s easy to street underwent over the years. This doesn’t shed any Inside Buck’s Row has been published as a PDF (Portable light on the murder, of course, which is why this book is in Document Format), so you will need a PDF reader – the

53 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 author recommends Adobe Acrobat Reader or Foxit And, of course, Queen Victoria never glimpsed Jack the Ripper, and nor did he glimpse her. As far as we know! extensive use can be (and is) made of hyperlinks and But Ian Lloyd includes Jack in An Audience With Queen Reader, both of which are free. The benefit of PDF is that URLs to web pages. The hyperlinks enable you to jump Victoria, published to celebrate the bicentennial year of from one part of the book to another (from the contents her birth. Lloyd writes that ‘Victoria’s journals contain a page straight to a chosen chapter, or from the text to an single reference to the Whitechapel murders. At Balmoral endnote, for example), and the URL (hopefully) takes you on 4 October 1888 she wrote, ‘Dreadful murders of to something on the web that expands on Blomer’s text. It unfortunate women of a bad class, in London, There were would be interesting to see how much of what you can do 6, with horrible mutilations.’ with a PDF book could be done with the ever-advancing As Ian Lloyd observes, Victoria was writing before “Kindle in Motion” we saw with Patricia Cornwell’s Ripper. the murder of Mary Kelly, so the victims were Nichols, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes, and two others. He doesn’t at each of the murder locations. It’s an excellent start. The suggest any names, but it can only have been Smith and As said, this is the first in a planned series that will look cost includes updates (which a PDF allows), so errors can Tabram, though the former wasn’t mutilated (and neither, easily be corrected, and the series can only get better. A of course, was Stride). However, Lloyd does make the must-have book for all serious Ripperologists. interesting observation, ‘It is an interesting point, since she would have been privy to the information supplied AN AUDIENCE WITH QUEEN VICTORIA by the police to her government.’ I’m not sure that she Ian Lloyd would have been party to information of that sort, but it’s Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2019 nevertheless a good observation. www.thehistorypress.co.uk softcover & ebook Lloyd mentions other exchanges between the Queen 287pp; illus; notes; biblio; index and Lord Salisbury, the Prime Minister, and Henry £16.99 softcover, £6.64 ebook Matthews, the beleaguered Home Secretary, in which she Described as ‘a round ball on unsteady legs’ by Nicholas, department, and asked in the cattle boats had been expressed doubts about the efficiency of the detective the future Tsar of Russia, and examined, if investigations had been made of single men

manner’, by Charles Dickens, night. ‘strangely shy…like a girl in living alone, and if there was sufficient surveillance at Queen Victoria met pretty He concludes with Dr Thomas Stowell’s 1970 article much everybody who was in the Criminologist anybody at the time, and in Victor as Jack the Ripper and Sir William Gull as helping to in which he identified Prince Albert this collection of vignettes Ian cover up the scandal. ‘This argument was discredited two Lloyd records her opinions years later’ he says, although I think it was discredited about those she met and within a matter of months, ‘when a trawl through the their opinions about her. The Court Circulars for 1888 proved that the Prince had alibis collection is a Victorian celebrity ‘A’ list and includes on the dates the atrocities were committed.’ Phineas T Barnum, Alexander Graham Bell, Sarah This is an enjoyable and original look at Queen Victoria Bernhardt, Buffalo Bill, Charlotte Bronte, Pablo Casals, through how she saw other people and they saw her. Charles Dickens, Edvard Grieg, Lord Randolph Churchill and Jenny Jerome, Charles Landseer, Abraham Lincoln, POLICING FROM BOW STREET: Franz Liszt, Felix Mendelssohn, Florence Nightingale, PRINCIPAL OFFICERS, RUNNERS AND THE PATROLES Richard Wagner and Oscar Wilde. Peter Kennison and Alan Cook Some of those described were people who only London: Blue Lamp Books, 2019 observed the Queen from a distance. Charlotte Bronte www.MangoBooks.co.uk hardcover & ebook saw her in 1843 when Victoria and Albert visited ISBN: 978-1911273387 Brussels. She later wrote that she ‘saw her for an instant 427pp; illus; appendices; timeline; biblio; index £25.00 and talking very gaily.’ Bronte added that, Victoria was ‘a To say Policing From Bow Street is comprehensive is flashing through the Rue Royale in a carriage …laughing little stout, vivacious lady, very plainly dressed, not much dignity or pretentiousness about her.’ All that from a information crammed between the covers of what I’m almost to do it an injustice. There is a terrific amount of sure will be required reading for anyone studying the glance as Victoria flashed by!

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origins of the British police in The names of those men have almost been lost in the years to come. mists of history, but Kennison and Cook have scoured When Keith Skinner and I the available documentation and collected the names were researching The Scotland of most or at least many of the men of Bow Street, men Yard Files: 150 Years of the CID, whose techniques and skills formed a foundation for the 1842-1992 back in 1992, we Metropolitan Police. spent a lot of time gathering Be warned, this is a specialist’s book by specialists. Kennison and Cook are clearly passionately interested Bow Street, the forerunner of in their subject and their book isn’t an easy read. That’s whatever we could find about the Metropolitan Police, but not to say it’s hard going, just that it can be dry in places. there wasn’t a great deal to be It is a rewarding read and it is probably going to be the found. Thank goodness this book didn’t exist back then, otherwise we’d have had more information than I think definitive book on the subject for years to come. we could have dealt with. THE FATAL PASSION OF ALMA RATTENBURY Sean O’Connor In 1729 Thomas de Veil, recently appointed Justice of London: Simon and Schuster, 2019 www.simonandschuster.co.uk Fields, at that time apparently a sparsely-populated hardcover & ebook the Peace for , set up an office in Leicester area infested with robber gangs, and began to make 448pp; illus; notes; biblio; index ISBN: 978-1471132711 arrests and secure convictions. Today Leicester Fields £20.00 hardcover & £9.99 ebook is called ! In 1740, de Veil established Quite a few books have been a Magistrates’ Court at 4 Bow Street. Magistrates were written about Alma Ratten- perceived as corrupt and self-serving, and whilst de Veil bury, an attractive 42-year- old woman whose passionate (possibly with prostitutes and their madams), ‘Bow Street’ may not have been above using his office to his advantage affair with her 18-year-old gradually became a name law-breakers genuinely feared. chauffeur, George Stoner, led De Veil died in 1746 and two years later Henry Fielding to the murder of her husband, was appointed his successor. but Sean O’Connor’s previous book, Handsome Brute, about Bow Street his own to the extent that he and his blind Neville Heath, hanged in 1946 Fielding held office for less than a decade, but he made half-brother John are forever associated with it. At that for two murders, was so good, time magistrates ‘were generally the scum of the earth’, as so meticulously researched, Edmund Burke described them, or ‘the greatest criminals that The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury had to be in town’ according to Horace Walpole. Not only were the essential reading. magistrates corrupt, all those who worked for them - Francis Rattenbury was an eminent Canadian architect, constables, deputies and watchmen – were on the take too. some of whose buildings still grace the British Columbia The watchmen in particular were notoriously lazy, old and skyline, but whose fame had passed and who had settled into a quite life in a house called Villa Madeira, a house far sort of 18th century Elliott Ness, and in 1750 he created infirm. Fielding distinguished himself as incorruptible, a less grand than the name suggests located a short distance a small group of about six trusted men, his ‘untouchables’ from the beach in the seaside resort of . He who were initially referred to as ‘thieftakers’ or ‘Fielding’s was a hypochondriac, an alcoholic, and impotent. His People’. attractive wife, Alma, was a distinguished concert pianist All did not go smoothly. ‘Fielding’s People’ were distrusted by the general public, who were more likely to online: www..com/watch?v=Or3b02NhLU4). She and songwriter (you can see a film of her at the piano set upon one when he was trying to make an arrest than come to his assistance, and some weren’t as untouchable sexually frustrated. She began a sexual affair with 18-year- was twenty-five years younger than Francis, lonely, and as they should have been, but policing has never been easy old George Stoner, her chauffeur, lavishing the young man and the problems, if not overcome, became fewer. The men from Bow Street, popularly known as ‘Runners’, proved away for a few days of illicit love in London. Then one day, with expensive gifts and fine clothes, and whisking him themselves to be brave and courageous, and gradually as Francis Rattenbury dozed in his favourite armchair, they won the respect of the public and a prominent place in policing history. severe that a few days later Rattenbury would die. The Stoner struck him with a mallet, inflicting injuries so

55 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 question was, did Stoner murder Rattenbury so that he women read in the 1930s. could step into his shoes, or, as the prosecution argued, was he incited by Alma to murder her troublesome, in- the-way husband? THEA terrificMAYFAIR book, MAFIA: an intriguing THE LIVES story. AND CRIMES OF On discovering Francis, Alma had her maid summon THE MESSINA BROTHERS the local doctor and he in turn called the police. Alma was Dick Kirby www.dickkirby.com drunk by the time they arrived and made a number of Barnsey, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword, 2019 confused and confusing statements, including a confession www.pen-and-sword.co.uk in which she claimed to have struck her husband with a softcover and ebook mallet. She would later claim that her husband, depressed 198pp; illus; biblio; index ISBN: 978-1-5267-4261-2 Softcover £14.99, ebook £8.63 when very drunk, she had struck him. Alma was charged over financial concerns, had asked her to kill him, and Anyone interested in with murder. The open-and-shut case turned complicated, London’s gangs knows about however, when Alma’s affair with Stoner came to light, and Stoner told the police that he had become incensed when brothers who ran the vice he saw Alma kiss her husband, and taking the mallet, had the Messina Brothers – five trade in Soho from the 1930s struck Francis Rattenbury. to the 1950s. It so happened One murder victim, two people confessing to the crime, that by 1930 the Soho vice and only one telling the truth. But which one? Both found trade was open to whoever themselves in the Old Bailey, where Court Number One wanted to move in and grab was packed with a press and public ready to hear all the it. The strongest potential salacious details about the young man, his attractive lover opposition was Charles 24-years his senior and her husband 25-years her senior. ‘Darby’ Sabini (1888-1950), but his gang was too busy In the end, Alma retracted her confession and Stoner was running protection rackets involving the bookmakers at the southern racetracks and doing battle with other gangs, in the dock and convinced that it was her evidence that notably the Bethnal Green Mob, the Hoxton Gang, and the found guilty and sentenced to death. Alma was vilified would send Stoner to the gallows. Less than a week after Brummagen Boys led by Billy Kimber (1882-1942). the trial, Alma Rattenbury committed suicide. Stoner Giuseppe Messina (b.1878), who had a string of would then claim that his confession was a lie and that brothels across Egypt, Malta and elsewhere, and was an Francis had been murdered by Alma. Nobody seems to have believed him, but his sentence was commuted to Attilio and Carmello, ‘sons so depraved, with absolute active procurer, had five sons, Salvatore, Alfredo, Eugenio, life in prison, but he served only seven years before being contempt for law and order, coupled with ruthlessness, released. He would marry, have a daughter, and live in that following their arrival in London they could rightly Bournemouth, where he died in March 2000. The mystery of who actually wielded that mallet brothers who stepped into the vacuum and took over the be described as ‘The Mayfair Mafia’.’ It was these five remains unresolved, the solution having died with George Stoner. Did Alma murder her husband, did Stoner do it in a nigh on two decades. vice business in Soho, holding on to it with an iron fist for The Messinas are the subject of this new volume from never know, but it’s a compelling story and one that Sean fit of jealousy, or did they conspire to do it together? We’ll O’Connor tells extremely well, his research impeccable. Flying Squad policeman. His books are always good the prolific Dick Kirby, former Serious Crime Squad and But this book isn’t just about the murder of Francis reading, but some are better than others. The Mayfair Rattenbury. Books dealing with historical true crimes Mafia is one of the better ones, detailing these lives and should be and very often are as much about the social and crimes of this pretty nasty bunch of villains who were moral climate existing when the crime was committed estimated to be earning £1,000 a week from the girls they as they are about the crime itself. The crimes shine a controlled, an astonishing amount of money for the time. light into those aspects of life that very often remain The Messinas were eventually brought down by a undiscussed, hidden behind closed doors and drawn journalist named Duncan Webb (whose rather dubious curtains. O’Connor’s book is about much more than just past history is given by Kirby), who published a very the murder, and there are many digressions to investigate detailed feature article about them in The People. Webb matters such as how much it cost to buy a single use forced the hand of the police, who now moved against condom compared to those that could be reused, or what the Messinas, but for some reason Superintendent Guy

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Mahon was put in charge of the investigation. Kirby most of the serial killers of isn’t necessarily critical of Mahon but names a number the time. He was governor at of policemen who would have possibly been better for Finnamore Wood, when aged the job, including Bob Higgins and Jack ‘Ghost Squad’ 29, making him the youngest Capstick. As it was, Mahon’s team moved too slowly and governor in the country. He would later join what is now When the Messina empire of thirty brothels was Birmingham City University, the Messinas had a chance to flee. eventually destroyed by the police, the way was open for where he founded the Centre ‘Big Frank’ Mifsud and Bernie Silver to combine forces for Applied Criminology and move in. At their height the ‘Syndicate’, as their gang and is Emeritus Professor of was known, had most of the Met’s Obscene Publications Criminology (‘Emeritus’ being Squad in their pocket, and they reigned supreme from a posh way of saying that he’s the 1950s until Silver was crushed in 1974. At that time a now retired). ledger was discovered detailing the gang’s payoffs. Quite Wilson is now an author and TV personality who has a lot of policemen took early retirement, but the 1976-77 hosted or otherwise appeared on a host of true crime corruption trials resulted in thirteen detectives, including programmes, most recently Jack the Ripper: The Case two ex-commanders, being sent down. But that’s another Reopened (2019). story and one Kirby might hopefully tell in a forthcoming volume. isn’t about ‘the world’s most violent men’. It’s about The first thing to realise about this book is that it One enjoyable thing about Kirby’s books is that he David Wilson, and as someone who has enjoyed a varied doesn’t whitewash the police. It took him three lines of career as a hands-on prison governor, an academic, a the acknowledgements at the front of the book to write of leading criminologist, and a media celebrity, he has the his start in the East End, ‘I quickly discovered that many credentials to write an interesting, if at times overly self- of my contemporaries were among the most idle, column- indulgent autobiography. Which is what he’s done, the dodging, piss-taking – and on occasion, cowardly – police narrative spinning from himself to criminology, penology, psychology, and so on. But he’s the central player. That’s Or about Interpol, writing, ‘Interpol is, in the main, not surprising in what is basically an autobiography. officers whom God ever blew breath into.’ staffed by detectives who are sick, lame or dying. Their So, you’re not going to get deep insights into serial killers, but there are other books you can read if that’s what you want. Instead, this is Wilson’s life among convicts days are spent shuffling papers, they do not go out and enthusiasm.’ and killers, and the and observations and anecdotes make make arrests and in most cases they are not fired with The Mayfair Mafia is a highly readable book and warmly entertaining reading. recommended. THE SECRET : MY LIFE WITH MURDERERS: BEHIND BARS WITH THE TRUE STORY OF KIERAN KELLY THE MOST VIOLENT MEN Robert Mulhern David Wilson Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword, 2019 www.professorwilson.co.uk www.pen-and-sword.co.uk London: Sphere, 2019 hardcover & ebook www.littlebrown.co.uk 196pp; illus in colour; timeline hardcover & ebook ISBN: 1526722762 281pp; guide to further reading; credits £19.99 hardcover & £7.67 ebook ISBN: 978-0751574142 In 1993 skeletal remains were unearthed at the former £20 hardcover & £10.99 ebook home of Kieran Kelly in the village of Rathdowney, Co. (at the time of writing the hardcover is available on Amazon for just £6!) Laois, but the discovery remained a secret until author There’s not a lot to say about this book. David Wilson and journalist Robert Mulhern learned of it when he was gained a PhD in 1983 and entered the prison service as researching this book. Assistant Governor at Wormwood Scrubs, a well-known At the time Kelly was in prison in England. In 1984, a nick in London. He worked at successive prisons, including homeless alcoholic, he’d been sharing a police cell with Woodhill, near Milton Keynes, where he had charge of a another vagrant, William Boyd. He’d beaten Boyd to death, unit where twenty of the country’s most violent prisoners apparently for snoring too loudly, and when questioned were ‘guests’ and which brought him into contact with about that crime he’d coughed to the murder eight years

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earlier of Hector John Fisher, investigation. He had also apparently accepted hearsay who was also an alcoholic and repeated it as if it was fact. down-and-out. He allegedly A complaint levelled at Platt’s book was that it was confessed to other murders, short on fact. Mulhern’s similarly suffers. He’s done his possibly stretching back to the research, he’s been through the evidence as closely as 1950s, when he’d arrived in anyone could, and he’s questioned lots of people, but a London. hard and fast conclusion has escaped him. Kelly, who’d been born in As for those skeletal remains found at the former home Rathdowney in rural County of Kelly in Rathdowney? Well, that’s another story that Laois, had moved to London in went nowhere. The Irish police took the remains away in 1993 and have apparently consistently refused to was allegedly that of his best 1953. One of his first murders comment on them ever since. friend, who he pushed under a train on the underground in London. It was rumoured that Kelly was homosexual CRIME ON THE CANALS and that his friend had threatened to ‘out’ him. Like so Anthony Poulton-Smith much about this story, this story was never substantiated. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword, 2019 In fact, one of the few things that’s certain is that Kelly www.pen-and-sword.co.uk softcover & ebook died in Durham prison in 2001. Although Mulhern’s book 120pp; illus even casts some doubt on that! ISBN: 978-1526754783 Kelly is supposed to have killed several people by £12.99 softcover & £7.49 ebook pushing them from an underground platform beneath the Crime on the Canals is a welcome look at this largely Platt wrote the London Underground Serial Killer: The Life neglected area of criminal wheels of a train, and a former police officer named Geoff of Kieran Kelly (2015). Platt, who claimed to have worked activity on what is currently on the original investigation into Kelly, not only alleged about 2,200 miles of navigable that Kelly could have committed as many as 31 murders, waterways in Britain. There but also that the British government had covered up the are brief accounts of forty- crimes to prevent a public panic. His book was interesting, but it was light on facts and heavy on padding, but his from the newspapers. Each five crimes, culled, I think, evidence was apparently considered so compelling crime is dealt with in its own that the then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, ‘chapter’, sometimes half a Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, promised to reopen the page, sometimes a couple of pages. This makes it a ‘dip investigation. into’ book, but I’d have liked to get a little more history It was Platt’s book that introduced Robert Mulhern to near them. The crimes range from the humorous to the Kelly’s crimes when he began to work on an RTE -produced of the canals and a flavour of what it was like to live on or radio documentary called Anatomy of an Irish Serial tragic, and embrace murder, counterfeiting, and theft of Killer. Afterwards Mulhern began his own investigations, anything from a bag of coal to whole cargoes. It begins in 1829 with William Hancock, who was time. Mulhern believes his discoveries that have added sentenced to be transported to Australia for seven years questioning witnesses and hearing evidence for the first

– the most famous serial killer you’ve never heard of, as Henry Taylor who was convicted of murdering 13-year- weight to the belief that Kelly was a prolific serial killer for theft, and finishes with the rather mysterious case of Mulhern’s described him. The Secret Serial Killer is an in- old Pearl Cowman in 1949. Taylor was sentenced to death, but late on Christmas Eve he received the news that this and interviews with witnesses. was commuted to life in prison. It’s not known why his depth examination, including an analysis of the case files The only trouble is that whilst Mulhern is convinced sentence was commuted, but the author writes, ‘Reading that Kieran Kelly killed more than two people and maybe did kill as many as 30+, his investigation actually leaves there were other undocumented factors to be taken between the lines… perhaps the Home Office thought a lot of questions unanswered. Even Geoff Platt, the into consideration.’ Now, that’s both a frustrating and ex-detective who was the starting point of the story, s intriguing note on which to conclude a book! I naturally looked at canal crimes in 1888. There a detective and was only involved on the edges of the were two. ‘Northamptonshire Charlie’, as he was known proved to be unreliable. Most significantly, he was never

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on the canal network, was born Charles Snitheringale, were more like their gentlemanly, romanticised image – which may explain why he had no objection to being the moonlit beach, a ship gently riding out at sea, and a called ‘Northamptonshire Charlie’. On 13 December 1888 rowboat bringing ashore barrels of brandy which were he was brought before Fenny Stratford Petty Sessions, charged with have stolen a sack of barley from a canal Things were different in Kent. spirited away to the bafflement of the Revenue Men. boat belonging to Hive and Co. Charlie maintained that I’d read Russell Thorndyke’s novels about Dr he’d taken the barley in the full knowledge and with the Christopher Syn, ‘The Scarecrow’, the smuggling vicar of assistance of the boat’s captain, which, unsurprisingly, the captain denied, although he admitted he knew Charlie quite well. Charlie’s story wasn’t accepted by the Dymchurch. The character was fictional, but Dymchurch is when we moved to Kent. Although Dr Syn was a vicar, his magistrate and he was sent to prison for three months real and it was one of the first places my wife and I visited was a violent world far removed from the moonlit coves with hard labour. of Cornwall. Even his second in command, Mr Mipps, The other 1888 crime was committed by Harry Price. contentedly rigged at least two ships to explode, killing And no, not the one who was famous for investigating everyone on board. Borley Rectory! This Harry Price nicked some coal from I learned about the violent smugglers of Kent from a a wharf in Loughborough and the police were called. friend, a former hairdresser nicknamed Nick the Snip. He told me about the notorious Hawkhurst Gang, a nasty and followed it to the canal, where he could see a canal DS Stapleton saw a trail in the wet and muddy fields bunch of criminals who took their name from the village boat moving off in the distance. The policeman pursued of Hawkhurst. They operated from the Oak and Ivy Inn the boat for two miles until she was forced to stop at in Hawkhurst and The Mermaid Inn in Rye. Between Carnforth Lock, when he was able to go aboard. Harry 1735 and 1749 the gang terrorised the area and ‘became Price, the captain, immediately confessed to the crime and known as the most notorious and feared gang in all of was sentenced to thirty days. England’. According to Helen Hollick, the gang could call Crime on the Canals is an enjoyable read, but because on up to 500 men if necessary! Eventually, despite the life on the canals isn’t widely known (or not known to me anyway), the book could have done with more colour. benefits their smuggling brought the locals, their bullying There’s no index. brandy and tea in favour of a peaceful life. They turned on and violence led the villagers to sacrifice their tax-free the gang, which suffered a humiliating defeat. LIFE OF A SMUGGLER: FACT AND FICTION Helen Hollick Hollick has divided this book into individual sections Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pan and Sword, 2019 in which she asks and answers questions broadly under www.pen-and-sword.co.uk the headings of ‘When’, ‘Why’, ‘Who’, ‘How’, ‘What’, and 170pp; biblio ISBN: 978-1526727138 £14.99 softcover & £8.63 ebook ‘Where’. She concludes with ‘punishment’, and finally the with highlighted little known facts, so the book isn’t just smuggler in fact and fiction. She also breaks the chapters ‘If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet, a straightforward narrative. Hollick clearly knows and Don’t go drawing back the blind, and looking in the street.’ enjoys her subject, and her enthusiasm seeps from the Although I’d lived in page. Devon and was familiar with Quite frankly, I approached this book with reluctance Cornwall, it wasn’t until I lived and it found its way down the pile of books I had for review. in Kent that I really became But it turned out to be a really good and informative read. aware of smugglers. What I Lightweight and fun, it was among the more enjoyable learned from Helen Hollick’s books read this time round. entertaining little book is that smuggling in the West Country PIRATES AND PRIVATEERS OF THE 18TH CENTURY: THE FINAL FLOURISH from smuggling in Kent, Mike Rendell was significantly different Sussex and Essex. In the West Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword, 2019 Country the smugglers were www.pen-and-sword.co.uk hardcover & ebook fewer in number, smuggled smaller quantities, and relied 173pp; illus; appendices; biblio; index on stealth and brains rather than the brute force exhibited ISBN: 978-1526731654 elsewhere. In many ways the West Country smugglers £19.99 hardcover & £11.51 ebook

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I grew up with pirates. Not one of the ships that picked up Alexander Selkirk, believed real ones, you understand, but by some to be the model for Robinson Crusoe. Selkirk’s ones on television. There was story reinforced Woodes Rogers’ celebrity – he was the The Adventures of Long John third Englishman to circumnavigate the world – but he Silver in which Robert Newton nevertheless spent most of his life in serious debt, even spending time in debtors’ prison. John ‘“Argh, Jim Lad!”, and gave us the definitive Long Robert Shaw as Dan Tempest, There are lots of books about pirates, both non-fiction a pardoned pirate turned even very young ones. This volume is a great introduction and fiction, and a large number of books for children, privateer in The Buccaneers, to the real world of pirates, especially part three, which and among the movie pirates is a series of short biographies of notable pirates such I encountered on the small as John Rackham and two lady pirates with whom he screen were Peter Blood and Geoffrey Thorpe, both was associated, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, two rather played in rip-roaring swashbuckling style by Errol Flynn large and fearsome ladies if the 1725 engraving from the in Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk respectively, two General History of Pyrates is anything to go by. Another movies noted for their fantastic music scores by Erich thumbnail sketch is of perhaps the most notorious real Wolfgang Korngold – in fact one of the highlights of this life pirate of them all, Edward ‘Blackbeard’ Teach. year’s Proms was John Wilson and his orchestra playing There’s an inadequate index, but that’s about the only the main theme of The Sea Hawk. Today we have Jack downside of this book, except, perhaps, the cover price. Sparrow on the big screen (I’m ashamed to admit that I have never seen a ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movie) and on CRUSOE, CASTAWAYS AND SHIPWRECKS television we recently had Captain Flint for four seasons IN THE PERILOUS AGE OF SAIL of Black Sails, a series set about two decades before the Mike Rendell events of Treasure Island. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword, 2019 www.pen-and-sword.co.uk There were a few bad pirates, of course, like Blind Pew hardcover & ebook in Treasure Island, but they’re mostly buckle-swashers par 151pp; illus, some in colour; biblio; index excellence ISBN: 1526747472 according to Mike Rendell, what they are not associated £19.99 hardcover & £11.51 ebook , and romantic, gentlemanly, heroic figures. But This is another offering from Mike Rendell and is that was, more often than not, the reality of piracy in the with is ‘theft, rape, murder, arson and torture…’, and published to mark the 300th seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. anniversary of the publication It’s this real world of pirates that Mike Rendell of Robinson Crusoe. entertainingly describes in the appropriately titled One of the risks of going Pirates and Privateers of the 18th Century. The book is to sea in the age of sail was that your ship would run the End of the Golden Age’, ‘The Final Phase of the Golden divided into five parts: ‘Background’, ‘The Beginning of aground, stranding you alone Age’, ‘Piracy in literature and Popular Culture’, and ‘The or with others on an unknown Present Time’, thereby giving you a fairly comprehensive and perhaps uninhabited tour through the history of piracy, including a look at the shoreline. Sometimes your colonial governors and plantation owners. crew would get fed up with you and either maroon you Rendell tells us that in 1722 an estimated 2,500 pirates on an island or set you adrift in a small boat, as happened infested the Caribbean, this number having been reduced to Captain Bligh. In the case of Alexander Selkirk, he was by 1726 to 200. In Rendell’s view, this was partly due on a buccaneering voyage aboard a vessel called Cinque to Woodes Rogers, who was appointed governor to the Ports, but he believed the ship to be unseaworthy and said Bahamas in 1718. The problem is that Rogers was twice he’d rather be marooned on the island of Juan Fernandez. governor, once from 1718 to1721 and again from 1728 The captain took him at his word and he spent four years to 1731. It was therefore between these governorships and four months there. The Cinque Ports was leaky and that the dramatic reduction in the number of pirates took unseaworthy and duly ran aground, the captain and other place. It’s possible, though, that he introduced measures survivors being captured and imprisoned by the Spanish. that led to the reduction. It was Woodes Rogers, incidentally, who was captaining Selkirk on his island or the Cinque Ports’ survivors in their It’s difficult to know which of them suffered the most,

60 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 harsh prison. He was rescued on 2 February 1709 by Captain Woodes the much sought and discussed Northwest Passage. But from the Atlantic to the Pacific in the Arctic wastelands, Rogers, who in later years may have been the pirate- the two ships and their crews vanished without trace, busting governor of the Bahamas. However, he didn’t their fate one of the greatest mysteries of the sea. get back to England until 1711, the following year his However, trace was found in 1854 by John Rae. A adventures being written about by a succession of people, surgeon for the Hudson Bay Company who explored including Woodes Rogers. parts of the Hudson Bay area of Canada up to the Arctic, To what extent Selkirk was the inspiration for Daniel Rae was unusual for his day because he learned from the Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is debated; a number of other indigenous people, the Inuit, and paid attention to their possibilities having been presented, and this is pretty skills and abilities. In 1854, a party of Inuit gave him some much the subject of the second part of Rendell’s book. reliable information about the fate of some of Franklin’s This consists of four mini-biographies of Selkirk, Henry crewmen. They had actually met a small party of men, led Pitman, Robert Knox and William Dampier, apparently by Francis Crozier, the expedition’s second- Rendell then moves on to take a look at various in-command. Their ship was encased in the ice and they shipwrecks, be they caused by storms or human error. further. The following year the Inuit traders had found Finally, the books looks at other castaways, among them were walking to find civilisation. They never made it much Philip Ashton, Leendert Hasenbosch, Charles Barnard, their corpses not far from the where they had originally and Captain Bligh. been seen – and the Inuit had also seen evidence of cannibalism! Both of Rendell’s books are fairly slim volumes, both have inadequate indexes – Pen and Sword could do with Over the years successive expeditions found remains paying attention to that – and both have what for many of crewmen and even artefacts, but the fate of the ships readers will be a prohibitively high cover price. They both remained a mystery until the Victoria Strait Expedition made enjoyable reading though. the ships, and in 2014 locating the Erebus. In September used the latest underwater exploration technology to find AFTER THE LOST FRANKLIN EXPEDITION: 2016 the Terror was found. LADY FRANKLIN AND JOHN RAE There are lots of books about the Franklin Expedition, Peter Baxter several having been published since the discovery of the Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword, 2019 ships, most recently Michael Palin’s excellent Erebus: The www.pen-and-sword.co.uk hardcover & ebook Story of a Ship (2018), along with John Geiger and Alanna 270pp; illus; further reading; index Mitchell’s Franklin’s Lost Ship: The Historic Discovery ISBN: 1526727374 of Erebus (2017), but Peter Baxter’s book is different, £19.99 hardcover & £10.79 ebook being the story of Lady Franklin’s reaction to John Rae’s On the wall of 4, Lower discoveries. Despite John Rae’s many achievements, Addison Gardens, Kensington, the end of Franklin’s expedition with the evidence of there is one of English cannibalism, was not what Lady Franklin wanted to hear Heritage’s famous blue plaques, this one identifying Rae and he never received the acknowledgement he and such was her influence that London society shunned the building as having been deserved. He was never knighted, he wasn’t buried in the last residence of John Westminster Abbey, and his name is now all but forgotten. Rae (1813-1893), one of the Today, at least, his has been proven right. This is a fascinating story. polar exploration and a man forgotten figures of British with ideas a little ahead of his THE GUNPOWDER PLOT DECEIT time. Rae has been credited Martyn R Beardsley by some with having discovered the last part of the Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword, 2019 Northwest Passage – a sea route from the Atlantic to the www.pen-and-sword.co.uk hardcover & ebook 195pp; illus; notes; biblio; index Franklin Expedition. Pacific – and he discovered what had happened to the ISBN: 1526725681 In 1845 two ships, Erebus and Terror, with a crew of £19.99 hardcover & £11.26 ebook 129 men under the command of Sir John Franklin, sailed Back in 2002 Christy Campbell published a book called on a voyage of discovery. They hoped to discover a route Fenian Fire in which he argued that the Fenian plot to

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blow up Westminster Abbey at the time of Queen Victoria’s Fawkes was discovered and arrested. His effigy was once service of thanksgiving in widely burnt on 5th November bonfires and in the weeks June 1887, killing the Queen, solicit a ‘penny for the guy’. before bonfire night children would exhibit their guy and her family, most of the British But is this what really happened? It has long been Cabinet, and a number of the questioned and even doubted, lots of objections being great and the good, was in fact raised to the traditional story. Beardsley examines some of engineered by a clandestine the reasons advanced for doubts: how did the conspirators British agency reporting manage to dig a tunnel from a rented cellar to beneath the direct to Lord Salisbury. In The House of Lords? Could a group of gentlemen whose every Gunpowder Plot Deceit Martyn need was attended by servants have dug a tunnel? How R Beardsley looks at the and where did they dispose of the considerable quantity evidence that the Gunpowder Plot was also a Government of earth and rubble dug from the tunnel? How did they plot, engineered by Lord Salisbury’s ancestor, Robert dig the tunnel without being heard? How were they able Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury. to purchase such a large quantity of gunpowder, the sale The Gunpowder Plot was a plot to ignite a huge of which was apparently strictly controlled? How did quantity of gunpowder beneath the House of Lords they get thirty-two barrels of gunpowder into the cellar on 5 November 1605, killing King James I, wiping out without being seen by anyone? On top of all that, Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, ran probably have killed hundreds, perhaps thousands or the government, and causing a firestorm which would people as it ripped through the largely wooden-built said to know what happened in the Vatican almost before buildings in London. The plot was allegedly the plan of a one of the most efficient spy networks in history, who was the Pope, and we are supposed to believe that he was charismatic fanatic named Robert Catesby and involved utterly ignorant on the plot until shortly before Fawkes ten or more conspirators, most famously Guy Fawkes. The was to ignite the gunpowder! the country, and they still are. When looking at such doubts it is easy to see why it has plot was foiled and celebratory bonfires were lit across long been conjectured that at the very least Robert Cecil allowed the conspirators to act, gaining evidence against cellar and excavated a “mine” under the House of Lords, In March 1605, the conspirators rented a ground-floor them in the process. It’s even possible that Robert Cecil and over the next few months they transported thirty-six masterminded the whole plot to begin with. If there was barrels of gunpowder to the site. Eventually everything even a Gunpowder Plot to begin with: as Beardsley points was set to go. The plan was for Guy Fawkes to light the fuse, out, who actually saw the barrels of gunpowder or went then escape and disappear abroad. Another conspirator, into the alleged tunnel? Everard Digby, would kidnap Princess Elizabeth, James I’s 9-year-old daughter, who would in due course be installed There are quite a lot of books about the Gunpowder as a puppet queen, and other conspirators would assist in job of collecting the evidence and providing a rational raising a rebellion. Plot, both fact and fiction, and Beardsley has done a good assessment of it. It’s a bit pricey, but an enjoyable read But one of the conspirators tipped off the authorities almost for the get-go. but Martyn Beardsley suggests Sir Thomas Percy - and All reviews by Paul Begg – the finger of guilt is usually pointed at Francis Tresham,

JACK THE RIPPER CSI : WHITECHAPEL THE TRIALS OF ISRAEL LIPSKI - THE HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS OF - Begg (Paul) & Bennett (John G.) Friedland (Martin L.) hb/dw. £20 JACK THE RIPPER - Riley (Peter) s/c h/b Signed. £35 BLACK BOAR - WHITECHAPEL FREAK - Signed. £20 E.1 A JOURNEY THROUGH Hitchcock (David) Tabloid Newspaper FROM CONSTABLE TO COMMISSIONER WHITECHAPEL AND SPITALFIELDS - style. £25 - Smith, K.C.B. (Lieut.-Col. Sir Henry) Bennett (John G.) s/c Signed. £25 POLICING FROM BOW STREET - h/b. £600 WHITECHAPEL DOORS - Berk Kennison (Peter) & Cook (Alan) New SWANSON - THE THURSO BOY WHO (Louis) & Kolsky (Rachel) New s/c h/b Numbered, Signed, Ltd. Edn. £25 BECAME SCOTLAND YARD’S TOP Numbered, Signed, Ltd. Edn. £20 OVER 500 JACK THE RIPPER DAYS OF MY YEARS - Macnaghten (Sir DETECTIVE (Abridged) Wood (Adam) AND ASSOCIATED TITLES THE CLEVELAND STREET AFFAIR - Melville L.) h/b. £425 - New s/c Signed. £10 ON LAYBOOKS.COM Chester/Leitch/Simpson hb/dw. £25 THE ILLUSTRATED POLICE NEWS - TRIAL OF PERCY LEFROY MAPLETON EAST END 1888 - Fishman (William J.) Purkess (George) Ed. by: Facsimile - Wood (Adam) Ed. by : No. 86 NBT hb/dw Facsimile Reprint. £12 Set 5 copies. £130 Series hb/dw new Signed. £25 62

Ripperologist 165 October 2019

Fiction Reviews By DAVID GREEN

Included in this issue: Dark Angel of Whitechapel, Killing the Ripper and more

DARK ANGEL OF WHITECHAPEL based loosely (very loosely at times) on the known facts of Roxanne Gregory This is a fictional recasting of the Mary Pearcey story Eastwick Press, 2019 her life. She emerges as a monstrous individual, perhaps Kindle Edition, 317pp. one of the most loathsome female criminals on record, but £3.90

Dark Angel of Whitechapel Gregory’s achievements is to place ‘Jill the Ripper’ in also as a very human and tragic figure: one of Roxanne tells the story of Mary the context of her background and times, examining the ambiguities of her personality and the complexities of her Newgate Prison awaiting moral situation, so that by the end we almost feel sorry Pearcey’s final days in execution for murder. for her. Hangman James Berry spies For a book dealing almost exclusively with murder and on her through the peephole impending death, Dark Angel of Whitechapel is surprisingly in the cell door; a man from full of life. Next to the shelves of bottled miscarried babies Tussaud’s measures her up for a wax model; a last meal marmalade. The wine-coloured crushed velvet drapes at the infant infirmary there are pineapples and jars of of roast goose and gravy from the stateroom of a Red Star liner add splashes tastes like ashes in her mouth. of colour to the grey walls of the condemned cell. One Inspector Abberline and Arthur Conan Doyle are among morning, crossing the prison courtyard, Mary hears the her important visitors, questioning her about a series of old Fleet River running under the cold stone ground: torso murders and divulging creepy goings-on at a séance for . I revelled in the moment to hear such an unexpected A kindly wardress gives Mary pen and paper so that she and mortar that held me fast as a prisoner. Water that can write her life story: sound. Free flowing water beneath the tiles, and bricks

whispered freedom in my ears. Sometimes strange thoughts can ruminate at night could not, would not be caged. Free flowing water, in the dark recesses of the mind like gas bubbling up from a weighted Thames corpse. THE UNFORTUNATE Inevitably, her early years are full of suffering and Wendy Nelson-Sinclair Independently published, 2019 ISBN: 978-1-09287-577-6 and suicide attempts. Gradually, though, her diary turns Kindle Edition, 711pp. degradation ‒ child sexual abuse, mental derangement into a sort of confession as Mary relates how she became £3.86 When 15-year-old Evangeline (Evie) Harper is made then an apprentice midwife and abortionist, and homeless, her only option is to turn to prostitution. Her first a nursing assistant at the Whitechapel Infirmary, ultimately a harvester of organs for Francis Tumblety in clients are nearly always rat- and weasel-faced men 1888 (her ‘Great Work’ as she calls it, when killing and disembowelling women became almost indistinguishable a while she takes a room in Miller’s Court and gets to ‘reeking heavily of butchered fish, sweat and vomit’. For from skinning a seal). know her neighbour, a ‘beautiful, stoutly-built, ginger-

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blonde-headed woman’. But lacklustre yarn, far too sketchy to achieve emotional it is March 1888, the Ripper impact, and completely lacking in any sense of place or menace is gathering, and life period. All the women sound like Babs Windsor having will soon change dramatically an argy bargy down The Dog and Duck. The author has for Evie and for everyone else cribbed the basic facts of the Ripper story and used them in the East End. as backdrop for an uninspiring tale of Evil confronted and The Unfortunate is Love in strange places. Best avoided. ambitious in its time span and social scope, following 1888 the course of a single life C. M. Moore from the streets of Jack the Lefthand Publishers, 2019 Kindle Edition, 218pp. Ripper’s London right through £3.83 to America in the 1960s. In between there is a wealth of A few years back, Chancity incident and adventure encompassing two World Wars Moore published her historical and travels around the globe to South America, across novel The Streets Run Red. If Europe and Russia, and to the farthest points of Africa, India, and Asia. Her life is a mix of high and low points around, here it is again: she you missed it the first time has returned to the scene of affair with an Indian Maharaja in Mumbai; a Nazi brothel ‒ incarcerated in the most notorious prison in Paris, an the crime and re-written and re-packaged her story under idyllicised yearnings for the ordinary, everyday pleasures ‒ but the novel is at its most intense when evoking Evie’s the alternative title 1888. of an East End childhood. Charlotte Baker is in a There are many poignant moments that will make you childless and mostly loveless union with American physician misfortune in human affairs: reflect on your own life and on the influence of luck and Edward Galloway. The couple move to Whitechapel, It was then and only then that I learned that the where Edward opens a general practice. In time, Charlotte purpose of life wasn’t wealth, fame or fortune. It was discovers that her husband is having an affair with Mary love. The only thing that mattered was the people Jane Kelly, with whom he has fathered a child. Enraged, you loved and who loved you in return. They are your Charlotte starts going out into Whitechapel at night greatest accomplishments. dressed in her husband’s attire and with her hair pinned up under a top hat, attacking and murdering prostitutes. Inspector Jonathan (Jack) Morris of the Metropolitan KILLING THE RIPPER Police is called in to investigate... Tom Wade Independently published, 2019 1888 is another variation on the Jill the Ripper theme. Kindle Edition, 93pp. It’s not strikingly original, although there’s an interesting £1.57 attempt to depict Charlotte as a sort of New Woman Killing the Ripper examines contravening societal expectations and daring to leave the relationship between the home not in pursuit of domestic service or nursing Shawnee River, an Irish work but to engage in skilled manual labour with tools. prostitute in Whitechapel, and By donning the attire of a gentleman to commit the Ripper Inspector Abberline, newly crimes, Charlotte becomes ‘unsexed’ and begins to embody summoned from the lochs confusion over traditional gendered roles. Yet Charlotte of Scotland (apparently!) to solve the murder of Mary to shift the focus of her pathology away from the evils is also portrayed as prone to fits of hysteria which tends of serial killing towards questions of female emotional feathers at Scotland Yard, incontinence and uterine illness. Ann Nichols. Abberline ruffles while Shawnee mobilises The novel is a bit drippy in places, and I wasn’t totally resistance on the streets and convinced by the author’s central premise. But this is offers herself up as bait for the an intelligent look at a familiar subject from an unusual Ripper. Together, can they defeat the East End killer? angle, like catching sight of yourself in a distorting mirror Few people will care if they can or can’t. This is a at a fairground.

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A RUSH OF BLOOD city morgue in Paris to gawp David Mark at the suicide cases and the Severn House, 2019 accident fatalities displayed ISBN: 978-0-7278-8905-8 on slabs behind the glass Hardcover, 214pp. windows. It was a macabre £20.99 tourist attraction where Molly runs the Jolly Bonnet in Whitechapel. There is a and cadavers bloated and sickeningly disfigured corpses Polly Nichols snug room, and discoloured from immersion the walls are decorated with in the Seine were paraded gruesome Victorian medical for the entertainment of the equipment. It’s a watering crowds. Jodie Lynn Zdrok has hole for staff from the nearby written a wonderfully creepy YA-ish novel set in this real- pathology lab, for tourists life ‘theatre of death’. on the Jack the Ripper walks, It is 1887. Sixteen-year-old Nathalie Baudin is an and for Ripperologists. When obituary journalist for Le Petit Journal. It is her job to Molly’s 10-year-old daughter write pen portraits of the newly-dead. The story gathers Hilda fears something horrible pace when a murder victim is admitted to the morgue, her has happened to her best throat horribly slashed. Leaning forward to get a closer friend Meda, who no longer comes to dance class, Molly look at her, Nathalie accidentally touches the glass viewing

can ‘see’ the murder of the young woman through the eyes recruits one of the pub regulars, Lottie ‒ a pathologist by pane and experiences a sudden supernatural vision ‒ she down the missing child. It transpires that Meda isn’t the of the killer. Soon afterwards another woman is murdered day and a vlogger/YouTube darling by night ‒ to help track first person to go missing, and soon Molly, Lottie and Hilda in the same way but far more viciously, and the killer ‒ is a creepy Hungarian academic called Mr Farkas, who in true Jack the Ripper style. Assisted by a close friend and are on the track of a fiendish serial killer. An early suspect dubbed The Dark Artist ‒ begins taunting the newspapers eyes up little girls and drools over a seventeenth century a mortuary attendant, Nathalie sets out across Paris in search of the serial killer, while at the same time seeking David Mark, a former reporter for the , to understand and control her occult abilities. text describing the first blood transfusion experiments.Yorkshire Post This is all relatively standard paranormal murder decadent and ghoulish plots. A Rush of Blood is an effective mystery fare and unsurprisingly the novel ends with a is an experienced crime fiction writer specialising in murder mystery that wallows in morbid anatomy and the life and death confrontation in the Catacombs. Zdrok is paraphernalia of death. While it looks backwards to the a good at describing the dark, haunted corners of fin de Jack the Ripper murders for some of its macabre menace, siècle Paris and she portrays the public fascination with death and dying very convincingly, even if the shallowness rooted in today’s social media world. With its assortment of her characters and the idling of the plot make this book this is emphatically a contemporary horror story firmly of freaky characters and it dark, scary themes of child a chore to read in places. Spectacle offers an interesting abduction and medical outrage, this is a gripping tale that slant on serial murder across the Channel in the months adds a new layer of dread to a familiar neighbourhood. just prior to Jack the Ripper.

 SPECTACLE

Jodie Lynn Zdrok Next issue we review Music Macabre by Sarah Rayne, plus Tor Teen (Macmillan), 2019 ISBN: 978-0765399687 Hardcover, 368pp. David Green lives in Hampshire, England, where he all the latest Ripper fiction. £11.46 works as a freelance book indexer. He is the author of The In late nineteenth-century France, thousands of Havant Boy Ripper (Mango Books, 2018), an account of the Percy Searle murder case of 1888. visitors flocked every day to the viewing galleries of the

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65 Ripperologist 165 October 2019

The Last Word By CHRISTOPHER-MICHAEL DIGRAZIA

Well, now. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in the for example, no plaques for those murdered by Austin’s lists, so you’ll forgive me if I stumble around a bit. But “Servant Girl Annihilator” or the six slaughtered by New won’t you have a cup of tea and sit with me a while? Orleans’ mysterious Axeman. So why Jack the Ripper? The question before us today is, “Should there be a The name is one reason, of course, for as Robert plaque or other form of memorial dedicated to the victims Graysmith observed, his crimson moniker ranks only erected in Whitechapel?” It’s not an easy question to with Son of Sam and Zodiac in evocative horror, but also, answer at the best of times, but in this era of #MeToo and to a large degree, because of what called The Five, it’s one that’s fraught with danger. “the foggy gaslight of Whitechapel.” The era of the Ripper continues to be romanticized, even though we know better. – not a term I’ve particularly cared for, but a good umbrella We still expect and Flashman, Gilbert What I mean is that, outside of the field of “Ripperology” for this discussion – people can be very uncomfortable and Sullivan and the Marlborough House set. “Victorian” about Jack the Ripper. Become too voluble on the subject conjures up a world of elegance, prosperity and, above - despite the fact that podcasts and TV shows dedicated to all, style, as opposed to our own time of casual clothes, true crime consistently outdraw almost any other subject cookie-cutter pop idols and identical Hondas, Fords and in audience ratings - a detailed knowledge of the Autumn Vauxhalls. We think of the past as Downton Abbey and not . of Terror is very often seen as, if not mentally unhealthy, then morbid and a bit frightening. I also suspect – and let me say for the record that this is only my impression and not meant as a slap at anyone other A personal anecdote here: many years ago, I was a than myself – it’s because there is a desire for knowledge wannabe contestant for the American version of The of the Ripper to be taken seriously, not as a macabre Weakest Link and mentioned my interest in the Ripper, hobby or grotesque monomania (and here I’m thinking for which I was immediately upbraided by another of poor John Morrison and his obsession with Mary Kelly, contestant, who demanded I be removed, as she simply could not “be comfortable” in the same room with me. Whitechapel Murders carrying subtitles of “Complete “the prima donna of Spitalfields”). Hence books on the History” or “The Facts” or even the Rip’s “Journal of Jack of the reason a memorial is so problematic. Why them? And there, I think, we may have put our finger on part the Ripper, East End and Victorian Studies.” But because And why such a nervous response from my erstwhile contestant? suspicious or the perpetually-offended will always be the field tends to be dominated by men, the cynical, the I decided to take a quick internet tour of “memorials looking for the real interest, which could only be – right to murder victims.” My search turned up a few plaques to individuals (surprisingly, the town of Medford, combined with a secret admiration for the instrument of first time! – an erotic obsession with the death of women Massachusetts has one dedicated to hometown girl their destruction. Elizabeth “The Black Dahlia” Short), but in the main, my You get a taste of that in The Five, when Hallie search turned up memorials to victims of terror attacks, Rubenhold declares “they have never seemed real or of of school shootings or – and here is the interesting point - any consequence to us before” (the “us” being you, of known killers. Memorials to victims of an unknown killer course, misogynist), or when Judith Walkowitz, in City of Dreadful Delight, opines that “The Whitechapel murders are, if not nonexistent, statistically insignificant. There are, 66 Ripperologist 165 October 2019

The Borden house in Fall River has operated as a bed and breakfast since 1996 have continued to provide a common vocabulary of male the psychosexual baggage it carries!) and their taunting, violence against women, a vocabulary [intensifying] elusive killer in his iconic costume of topper and Inverness fears of male violence and [convincing] women that cape, surgeon’s bag in hand, is disturbing to some and they are helpless victims.” Interest in the Ripper, we are grotesquely offensive to others. told, if not always so obliquely, is because his violence Leaving aside the vexing question of just where such a is a stimulant for the man who, at base, hates and fears memorial should be placed – the Ten Bells? Mitre Square? women, especially those “in control” of their own bodies, Christ Church? – we are still left with the uncomfortable their own sexuality. fact that, to the world at large, we would be remembering (Which, as a sideline, leaves me wondering what the Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catharine Eddowes and Mary Kelly not for themselves, but because Victorian Mystery. I suspect that “traitors to their sex” or attitude is towards women who find interest in the Great they achieved immortality at the edge of his knife. And “collaborators with the patriarchy” is the least offensive that, dear reader, is a conundrum to which I have no good categorization). answer. It’s not to say that murder victims or murder sites aren’t recognized. After all, I did mention the Black Dahlia  plaque up above. And people still stay at the Lizzie Borden bed and breakfast in Fall River and gather at the bottom CHRISTOPHER-MICHAEL DIGRAZIA was editor of Ripper Notes from 2001–2004 and has been a film and television advisor on the Whitechapel Murders. His writing includes The News From death of Sharon Tate. But the fact that an “industry,” as of Cielo Drive in Beverly Hills to remember the horrific Whitechapel (McFarland, 2002) with Alex Chisholm and Dave Yost the pejorative has it, has grown up around the brutal and book and lyrics for Jack the Ripper – The Whitechapel Musical (1997). slaying of five prostitutes (mark that word, with all of

67 COMING 2020 SWANSON: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A VICTORIAN DETECTIVE

Donald Sutherland Swanson was born in the remote far north of Scotland, leaving for London in 1867 at the age of 18 and initially working as a City clerk.

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