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Home , Edmund Reid, Francis Tumblety, From Hell letter, Godfrey Lushington, James Monro, Jubilee Plot

Jabez Balfour THE CASEBOOK The Cattleman, Analyses The Lunatic, The Ripper & The Doctor Murders Tom Wescott issue four October 2010

Jack the Ripper studies, true crime & L.V.P. social history international Man of Mystery R J Palmer concludes his examination of Inspector Andrews

D M Gates Puts his stamp Going on the 1888 Kelly Postal postal Directory THE CASEBOOK The contents of Casebook Examiner No. 4 October 2010 are copyright © 2010 Casebook.org. The authors of issue four signed articles, essays, letters, reviews October 2010 and other items retain the copyright of their respective contributions. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication, except for brief quotations where credit is given, may be repro- Contents: duced, stored in a retrieval system, The Lull Before the Storm pg 3 On The Case transmitted or otherwise circulated in any form or by any means, including Subscription Information pg 5 News From Ripper World pg 120 digital, electronic, printed, mechani- On The Case Extra Behind the Scenes in America cal, photocopying, recording or any Feature Stories pg 121 R. J. Palmer pg 6 other, without the express written per- Plotting the 1888 Kelly Directory On The Case Puzzling mission of Casebook.org. The unau- D. M. Gates pg 52 Conundrums Logic Puzzle pg 128 thorized reproduction or circulation of Jabez Balfour and The Ripper Ultimate Ripperologists’ Tour this publication or any part thereof, Murders pg 65 Canterbury to Hampton whether for monetary gain or not, is & Herne Bay, Kent pg 130 strictly prohibited and may constitute The Cattleman, The Lunatic, and copyright infringement as defined in The Doctor CSI: Whitechapel Tom Wescott pg 84 Catherine Eddowes pg 138 domestic laws and international agree- From the Casebook Archives ments and give rise to civil liability and Undercover Investigations criminal prosecution. Book Reviews pg 94 James Monro pg 147 Scenes of Crime Collectors Corner The views, conclusions and opinions Whitechapel Road pg 149 Expert Advice pg 118 expressed in articles, essays, letters and other items published in Casebook Examiner are those of the authors and Editor in Chief Don Souden Editor Caroline Morris do not necessarily reflect the views, Publisher Stephen P. Ryder Acknowledgements: conclusions and opinions of Casebook. for Casebook.org Rob Clack, Jane Coram, Andrew Firth, org, Casebook Examiner or its editors. Features Editor Jennifer Shelden Suzi Hanney and Neal Shelden Design David Pegg for use of images. The Lull Before the Storm Caroline Morris

On August 22 this year, 2010, the following words appeared in a Casebook post: ‘I don’t believe in Jack the Ripper’ Back in early April, when our commu- Issue One. In with flaming June came nity traditionally remembers Emma Issue Two, when in 1888 most were Smith, the first of the Whitechapel unaware that Smith had ever shared murder victims, and flowers were their world, let alone that she had left blooming in the spring, the Examiner it in one of the foulest ways imaginable. was about to make its own debut with Whitechapel was indelicately poised on

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 3 the edge and nobody suspected it had ago, from our point of view — Elisabeth What would we be expecting today anywhere left to fall. Stride and Catherine Eddowes had if we found ourselves in an identical Four months after Emma died their throats cut on the same night, ‘height of scare’ situation? Would we be from her horrific injuries, following within an hour of one another and a predicting a Kelly storm to hit within the senseless attack she described quarter of an hour’s walk. A few hours the month? In the next six months per- on Osborn Street, Martha Tabram previously, a letter signed ‘Jack the haps? Or would we be caught napping smashed into the high summer news- Ripper’ had reached police hands, and and unprepared for the impact? Would papers when her lifeless body was its author was claiming responsibility it be realistic to react with renewed found stabbed repeatedly in an almost for the bloodshed. Whoever took the horror, but with little doubt that this unprecedented fashion, just a few lives of these women now had a name was more of the same phenomenon, as seconds’ walk away in George Yard, of sorts, if no face to put to it. we did when the fifth woman to dis- Gunthorpe Street. It was in the wake Blessed with the exact science appear from Ipswich’s red light area of our thoughts going out to Tabram of hindsight, you will have guessed was found murdered? Or is there good that the August issue of the Examiner that Mary Kelly’s untimely end is reason to be sceptical of that tiny room appeared, and just a couple of weeks the unknown storm to come. But is in Miller’s Court staging a repeat per- before Polly Nichols would make it a there a need in this day and age, so formance by someone who had killed Whitechapel murder hat trick — or far removed from the event, to down- several times already this year? How jolly bonnet trick if we can trust the grade it from the most damaging would we be making sense of it this anecdote. hurricane of the season, the decade time round, if it were happening all Issue Four now finds us slap-bang or even the century, to an unexpect- over again in the here and now? in the middle of saucy Jacky’s supposed edly violent gust from a different Dear reader, if you can put your- gap month, the October lull before the direction entirely? If so, is this in line self in this position, with more than November storm. Much has happened with current understanding of serial a century’s worth of murder, serial or since the beginning of September: murder and murderers in general, or otherwise, to fire your imagination or Annie Chapman joined Nichols in more the result of frustrated efforts leave it jaded and uninspired, what do murder history, having met her killer to wring anything more illuminating you see before you? Do you believe in the very next weekend; then three from the same facts they had to face Jack the Ripper this mid-October? weekends later — or a mere fortnight 122 years ago?

The Lull Before the Storm Caroline Morris Don’t Miss A Single Great Issue of Casebook Examiner Subscribe now for a whole year six big issues! for only For less than a night at the movies or a And remember, you will not$9 only be Go to w w w .c a s e b o o k .o r g /e x a m i n e r dyspeptic dinner for two at a fast-food getting the best in JtR fact and fiction, for full subscription details. restaurant you will get a year’s worth along with LVP true crime and social of informative articles, entertaining history articles, but the money will be features and all the exciting news in going to a suitable charity. A winning the field. combination that can’t be beat.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 5 Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R.J.Palmer

hen we last left Inspector at Euston Station — an oddity that the ‘Canadian phase’ of Tumblety’s Walter Andrews, he had would be reported in the press the career was seemingly thirty years in Wsailed from Liverpool same day that Tumblety’s gross inde- the past and very far removed indeed aboard the S.S.Sarnia en route to cency case leaked from a source inside from Whitechapel; further, contempo- Halifax, Nova Scotia, landing there London’s Central Criminal Court.1 rary sources offer an alternative expla- on December 9th, 1888. His prisoner, The timing of Andrews’ voyage was nation for Andrews’ mission: he was Roland Barnett, was in tow. highly suggestive, particularly since he actually crossing the ocean to hunt The arrangements for Andrews’ would later be named as one of three up witnesses for The Times’ “Parnell” trip to North America had been finalized Scotland Yard detective-inspectors Commission in London. on or around November 27th, following called in to assist in the Whitechapel Complicating matters was that a week where Scotland Yard had been Murder investigation. Yet, as we have strange and enigmatic figure that soliciting at least two American police also seen, modern critics have chal- haunts the center of the Ripper case: departments about the antecedents lenged any notion that Andrews’ trip Dr. Robert Anderson. It was Anderson of Francis Tumblety. Of considerable had anything to do with Tumblety, and who was ultimately responsible for the interest is that these negotiations to it is fair to admit that their two stron- detection (or ‘non-detection’) of ‘Jack send Andrews to Canada had begun on gest objections remain. Yes, Andrews the Ripper,’ and it was Anderson who November 19th — only three days after was on his way to Canada, but, by 1888, orchestrated Andrews’ voyage to North Tumblety had managed to make bail, 1 In an article appearing in the current issue of The America. It was Anderson, too, who had and only two days after an ‘American Whitechapel Journal, Joe Chetcuti contends that the telegraphed the United States, asking doctor’ had been picked up on suspicion Euston suspect was, in fact, Francis Tumblety. for more information about Tumblety.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 6 Following a month of startling revelations, it was whispered that Andrews met with Thomas Miller Beach while in North America — in other words, that Scotland Yard had been in collusion with The Times. Andrews, it seems, had allowed himself to become a pawn in a political game. This certainly put a different complexion on things, and doubts about the true nature of Andrews’ mysterious mission to North America have only intensified in recent years. Indeed, there has been a rather dramatic turn- around. When Stewart Evans and Paul Gainey’s The Lodger appeared in 1995, it was generally accepted that Andrews had gone to America to track Ripper suspect Francis Tumblety; now, some fifteen years later, theorists such as Wolf Vanderlinden and Timothy Riordan have argued — some- Th o m a s Mi l l e r Be a c h times with seeming persuasion — that Andrews was actually hunting up Irish On the other hand, it was also as the Commission’s chief witness. Nationalists for The Times. Anderson who had written the 1887 It was a confusing state of affairs, What is the truth? Do these revi- ‘Behind the Scenes in America’ arti- and by March, 1889, the center could no sionist theories hold up to scrutiny? cles that had contributed to the forma- longer hold. The Parnell Commission Before answering this question, tion of the Parnell Commission that was becoming an extremely ugly two things must be kept in mind. The autumn, and it would be Anderson’s affair, rife with rumor, innuendo, and Parnell Commission was an intensely agent in America, the spy Thomas bona fide scandal, and its ugliness partisan affair, divided almost per- Miller Beach, who would soon appear now directly touched Walter Andrews. fectly along party lines. The Liberal

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer Party supported Parnell (they needed proprietor at The Times for libel. Thus, crime — but stay firmly out of politics. the Irish M.P.s to have any chance of the ensuing Parnell Commission was If it could be shown that the Salisbury winning an election), and from their never a criminal investigation; it was government had ‘lent’ Scotland Yard point of view, the very existence of the an inquiry to determine whether The detectives to aid The Times in their Commission was a travesty of justice Times had libeled Parnell and his campaign against Parnell, it would — a blatant attempt by the Salisbury fellow M.P.s by suggesting their com- have run counter to everything in the government to destroy Irish Home plicity in specific acts of terrorism. civil service handbook, as well as the Rule cause by unfairly linking Parnell Scotland Yard had no business being long held British tradition of not polit- to terrorism. The Conservatives, for involved in the Commission. icizing the police force. Further, if The their part, were disgusted at how Irish This is a key point, for it also Times and the Salisbury government Nationalism had paralyzed British means, of course, that it was entirely were in collusion, it would have been a politics for a decade, and were eager to legitimate for The Times to defend grotesque infringement of the under- put the ‘Home Rule’ movement to bed. itself against the charge of libel, stood separation between the govern- From their angle, the Liberals were and to bring witnesses before the ment and the free press. hopelessly naive; their misguided sup- Commission. This they did most vig- A volatile situation, indeed, port of the Irish M.P.s. had left them orously (and some would say, ruth- and yet Wolf Vanderlinen, Timothy myopic to the ‘fact’ that both Parnell lessly) and it is known that Joseph Riordan, and other critics have and the Land League had intimate Soames, one of The Times’ solicitors, argued that this is indeed what was links to agrarian violence in Ireland hired private detectives to secure wit- happening; Inspector Andrews had, and the mad bombers coming over from nesses in Ireland, England, and, to a in fact, gone to America not in pur- America. In short, the Commission lesser extent, North America. It raised suit of a legitimate criminal inquiry, was a political bar-room brawl, and, as an outcry, but there was nothing ille- but to drum up Fenians on behalf of such, both sides were eager to accuse gal in it. The Times. But do these allegations the other of dirty tricks. That said, we also need to appre- hold water? The second important issue to bear ciate that it would have been entirely in mind is that the Commission was illegitimate if the current adminis- Anderson and the the extension of what was originally tration (led by Lord Salisbury) aided Parnell Commission a civil suit — O’Donnell v. Walter. Soames in this enterprise. Why? The question cannot be sensibly Following The Times’ ‘Parnellism and Parnell was a duly elected member of answered without taking a closer look Crime’ exposure in 1887, ex-Irish M.P. parliament. He was also a member of at Dr. Robert Anderson, for he was Frank Hugh O’Donnell, cried foul and the opposition. In Britain, it is under- certainly the man in the shadows. As sued Arthur Fraser Walter, the chief stood that the police are to investigate previously noted, Anderson had a long

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 8 history of doing secret Fenian work on behalf of the British government — first at Dublin Castle, and then, following the Clerkenwell bombing of 1867, at the Home Office in London. Anderson’s chief value as an advi- sor on political crime was the handling of at least two agents in America. The first, ‘General’ Frank Millen, was a soldier-of-fortune and member of the Fenian Brotherhood (and later, the Clan-na-Gael) who had turned informer. In 1866, Millen had written an exposé of the Fenian movement for the benefit of the British government, demanding a price tag of £250. Robert Anderson was the guardian of this report. Far more important to our purposes, however, was Anderson’s other main informant, Thomas Miller Beach, often referred to by his French alias, ‘Henri Le Caron.’ Beach was born in Colchester, Essex in 1841, but being adventurous by nature, had run off to fight for the Union Army during the American Civil War. By the late 1860s, he had cultivated the acquaintance of several members of the Fenian Brotherhood in North America, and during a subsequent visit to England was recruited as Ch a r l e s St e w a r t Pa r n e l l an agent for the British Government.

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer Once again, Robert Anderson was his began to arise in official circles that have been his last paycheck in April handler.2 Anderson’s informers in America (to the tune of $1,200 American), and By the early 1880s, Beach had had not provided intelligence specific over the following months Anderson moved on to Illinois, but he remained enough to have thwarted any of these was systematically shoved to the side- in close contact with Anderson. He plots, which, in each case, had been dis- lines. He was no longer allowed daily was now posing as a strong supporter covered accidentally and after-the-fact. briefings from Dolly Williamson at of Alexander Sullivan, one of the more There is little doubt that Anderson’s Scotland Yard, nor from officers at the violent Irish Nationalists, being the rival, Edward Jenkinson, encouraged Royal Irish Constabulary. It was also head of the Triangle Branch of Clan- this criticism; Jenkinson was the U.K.’s strongly suggested that if Anderson na-Gael. In 1881 Beach reported back unofficial ‘spy master general,’ and, in wanted to retain his job he needed to to Anderson the agenda of the so-called theory, should have been cooperating expand his network of informers. Yet, ‘Dynamite Convention,’ which pushed with Anderson. Espionage is a messy by that September, Jenkinson gloated for ‘advanced methods’ in the pursuit business, however, and Jenkinson and to Home Secretary William Harcourt of Irish independence — a code phrase Anderson loathed one another, refus- that Anderson hadn’t acquired a ‘single meaning dynamite and other forms of ing to share information. There are agent.’ Thereafter, Harcourt, who had terrorism. indications, too, that Jenkinson — for great faith in Jenkinson, gave Anderson Over the next three years, 1881- good or ill — was an intelligence expert what the historian Bernard Porter later 1883, Irish-American dynamiters in the modern sense of the term; that described as a ‘dressing down.’ greeted Britain with a string of fright- is, he was involved in black operations The push was now on for Anderson eningly close calls. Salford Barracks of every conceivable variety, including to quit, but he complained, rather near Manchester was bombed, and, on the use of agent provocateurs. In other remarkably, that he needed the money. two separate occasions, parcels filled words, Jenkinson encouraged dyna- Harcourt complied with £2,000 in com- with explosives were found outside the mite plots, which he then ‘thwarted.’ pensation. Nonetheless, by May 8th, Mansion House, home to London’s Lord By contrast, Anderson appears to have 1884, Anderson was relieved of all Mayor. In early 1883, another bomb been old-fashioned and perhaps even ‘responsibilities and duties relative to targeted the Local Government Board a little ineffectual, maintaining some- Fenianism in London.’3 (also in London), and still another thing of the moral high ground. This, Jenkinson’s own fall from grace fizzled and misfired in Playfair Yard, in fact, may have been his downfall. wasn’t far behind. Though now virtu- behind The Times’ newspaper offices. By the spring of 1883, Anderson’s ally in control of British intelligence, After these scares, whispers star was quickly fading. The Home Jenkinson was distrusted by the new 2 See J. A. Cole, Prince of Spies: Henri Le Caron Office gave his prime agent in America, 3 Bernard Porter, The Origins of the Vigilant State (1984). Thomas Miller Beach, what appears to (1987) pp. 47-48.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 10 head of the C.I.D., James Monro, who that M.P. Charles Stuart Parnell’s of all duties in regards to Fenian work’ had been brought back to London actions on behalf of the Land League in the spring of 1884. Anderson was from India specifically because of his in Ireland had led to an outbreak of now actually working for James Monro expertise in combating secret societ- violence, culminating in the murder of at the Met, and his appointment as ies — what we would now call terror- several Anglo-Irish landlords. Assistant Commissioner was still a ist organizations. Monro distrusted This accusation caused consider- year and a half away. Jenkinson’s methods, believing (cor- able outrage, but as Wolf Vanderlinden Further, it is somewhat misleading rectly) that he was using agent provoca- rightly points out, Parnell refused to to state that Anderson’s information teurs — something that Monro, and his take the bait. Inevitably, however, was ‘culled from his massive collec- main officer, John Littlechild, are said there were further developments. tion of secret files.’ Secret they were, to have shunned. In late 1886, Monro But others, however, were moved but ‘Behind the Scenes in America’— broke up a ring of Jenkinson’s agents in to action. Dr. Robert Anderson, who Anderson’s contribution to The Times’ London (some of whom were criminals) was soon to be appointed the new attack on Parnell — relied on one and Jenkinson was forced to resign. Assistant Commissioner of the CID source, and one source only: the circu- Jenkinson’s departure paved the of the Metropolitan Police, was at the lars and clippings that Anderson had way for Anderson’s reemergence, and time toiling in relative obscurity doing been receiving from Thomas Miller in May 1887, Monro landed Anderson a secret Irish work at the Home Office. Beach. Indeed, what led to Anderson’s job as his personal assistant at the Met. Anderson contacted the Times through dismissal in the first place was the Monro later revealed that Anderson’s an intermediary and offered to provide apparent fact that his filesweren’t mas- main worth was the information he additional evidence against Parnell sive and that he had, in fact, only one was receiving from a man in America culled from his massive collection of useful agent in America. Both these ‘who corresponded directly with him, secret files.4 corrections might strike one as minu- and whose name I did not know.’ This, Before we proceed to rake tiae but they are, in fact, key in under- of course, was Thomas Miller Beach, Anderson over the coals, let’s hesitate standing Anderson’s later justification a.k.a, Henri Le Caron. for a moment. for his actions. It was at precisely this point that Two of Vanderlinden’s above points In 1910, when Anderson’s author- Anderson committed an act of indiscre- are not entirely accurate. Anderson was ship of the Parnell articles became tion that is still despised, and just as not employed at the Home Office when widely known, it caused a scandal. Civil often misstated. the articles appeared in May, 1887. As servants were supposed to obtain the In March 1887, The Times pub- we have just seen, he had been ‘relieved authorization of their superiors before lished the first installments of its 4 Vanderlinden, ‘On the Trail of Tumblety, Part releasing official documents, and, fur- ‘Parnellism and Crime’ series, arguing Two,’ Ripper Notes No. 24, p. 32. ther, it appeared to be a clear case of

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer Anderson revealing covert information smuggled a large cache of dynamite into Detective-Inspector at Scotland Yard, for a strictly political motive. a bed-sit in Islington. By Anderson’s would obviously have been under the In defending himself, Anderson own account, this was the threat that direction of his superiors in any given countered that he never needed Home he had been trying to prevent with his mission. If we are to accept the prem- Office consent, for, indeed, the Home ‘Behind the Scenes’ articles — a con- ise that Andrews went to America on Office didn’t own the files. spiracy that ‘had been hatched in the behalf of The Times, a necessary link in ‘The figment that the Fenian Chicago Convention of August, 1886,’ the chain of evidence is to show that he pamphlets were Home Office papers and was intended to ‘bring about a pyro- had been authorized to do so by senior was fully dealt with in 1889,’ Anderson technic display in honor of the Queen’s officers at Scotland Yard. wrote. ’They were lent to me by my Jubilee.’ In other words, it was the infa- Directly, or indirectly, this is what informant, who held them as a presid- mous Jubilee Plot of 1887. Vanderlinden and Riordan are sug- ing officer of a Fenian lodge . . .’ In studying Anderson’s actions, gesting. As Wolf Vanderlinden puts it: In other words, the Clan-na-Gael it is difficult not to conclude that he Did the highest officials within circulars that Beach had forwarded to believed that he was acting properly Scotland Yard aid and abet the London Anderson were never the property of and morally in writing the articles; on Times’ case against the Irish move- the Home Office; by prior arrangement, the other hand, it is also difficult not to ment? After all, by November 1888, the ownership of the letters and circu- concede that he knew he was pushing both the Commissioner and Assistant lars had been retained by Beach. It is a the envelope by leaking intelligence Commissioner [meaning Monro and technical and tedious point — and one reports that had been ultimately paid Anderson] were not only close friends that many in the government refused to for by the government. Further, in pre- but also former Secret Irish Department accept, but in Anderson’s mind, at least, senting the impending threat in an members who had worked behind he was justified in writing the articles all-out press attack on a duly elected the scenes against the Irish movement in May, 1887, particularly since a dan- member of parliament, Anderson cer- for years.5 gerous conspiracy was just then hatch- tainly knew that he was engaging in Well, yes and no. While it is ing in America. party politics. undoubtedly true that Anderson was a Anderson is a polarizing figure, but staunch Unionist, and it is even fair to this final point is not easily dismissed. Did Scotland Yard refer to him as an enemy of Irish inde- Within three and a half months of pub- Conspire with The Times? pendence in any form, it is more than lishing ‘Behind the Scenes,’ two Irish- At this point, one might fairly ask a little misleading to claim that Monro American members of the Clan-na-Gael, what any of this has to do with Walter ‘worked behind the scenes against the Thomas Callan and Michael Harkins, Andrews or his trip to North America Irish movement for years.’ were arrested in London, having in 1888. Only this: Andrews, a mere 5 Ibid., p. 34.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 12 The ‘Irish Movement,’ as in many respects, quite incongruous Donovan Rossa’s ‘Skirmishers’ in New Vanderlinden calls it, was hardly a with Parnell’s Home Rule movement, York City. Their goal was to win con- unified entity in the 19th Century; and the two men eventually parted cessions for Ireland through direct rather, it was an extremely convoluted company. Although in time the Land intimidation and terror, and they were muddle that included both legal and League would be outlawed (it was the ones responsible for the bombings illegal factions. accused of inciting agrarian outrages) in Britain. The most important of these were it, too, was seen by many as entirely The point of all of this is that in the entirely legitimate constitutional legitimate. stating that James Monro, as head of efforts led by Parnell, William O’ Brien, By contrast, there were myriad Scotland Yard’s C.I.D., was ‘against and other Irish M.P.s., to gain an Irish lesser nationalist factions that advo- the Irish Movement’ this is true only parliament in Dublin. Their immediate cated violence. The ‘Fenians’ — the in that he investigated specific acts aim was not absolute separation from I.R.B. in Ireland and the Fenian of terrorism. Obviously, when Irish- Britain, but merely a return to the Brotherhood in America — looked American dynamiters blew up a room direct intimidation and terror

‘Home Rule’ that Ireland had already backwards to the French and American in the Tower of London in 1885 it enjoyed in the 18th Century — that is, revolutions for inspiration, believ- was James Monro’s job to chase down before the Act of Union. ing that the only solution to Ireland’s those responsible — in other words, to Of nearly equal importance was woes was a military and manly one: engage in a legitimate criminal inves- the Land League. Its spiritual and an armed rebellion. There was also tigation. But to state that this meant political leader, Michael Davitt, was the so-called Dynamite Party in that Monro was ‘against the Irish more radical and proletariat than any America, often wrongly referred to as movement’ implies that he would have of the Irish M.P.s, for he sought to Fenians, when, in fact, their methods been equally willing to allow the ille- destroy the feudal system in Ireland were generally despised by the I.R.B. gal use of Scotland Yard detectives through rent strikes and the boycot- This was the most radical faction of all to conspire against the entirely legal ting of Anglo-Irish landlords. Although (or rather two factions, as the group Home Rule movement through collu- Parnell, in time, would be induced was deeply divided), comprised of sion with The Times. There is little to become president of the Land Alexander Sullivan’s Triangle branch evidence that this was Monro’s atti- League, Davitt’s ultimate goal was, of the Clan na Gael, and Jeremiah O’ tude, and, indeed, we have his views

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer on the matter. When Blackwood’s Magazine seri- alized Robert Anderson’s memoirs in 1910, the Parnell affair was, for many, an increasingly distant memory. The Republic of Ireland was still a dozen years in the future, however, and Irish Members in the House of Commons were agape at one of Anderson’s strange admissions: To the present hour I do not know whether the Home Secretary was then aware of my authorship of the Times articles of 1887 on “Parnellism and Crime,” for in relation to this matter I acted with strict propriety in dealing with Mr. Monro and not with the Secretary of State. It is now difficult to appreciate what a great bombshell this was, particularly among the Irish M.P.s. Their jaws must have surely dropped, for many had long suspected that Lord Salisbury’s government had aided The Times in its destruction of Charles Stuart Parnell. Here, at last, appeared to be confirmation. A well-known figure at Scotland Yard was admitting that he had penned some of the original articles; further, since Anderson had been head of the C.I.D. (although only after To r o n t o 1878 1887) it was an easy leap to wonder if

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 14 he went on to use Scotland Yard men The Times as the best medium for their problem. Although, as we shall see, to further The Times’ agenda during publication is absolutely incorrect . . . Monro remains an important figure the Special Commission of 1888-89. As a matter of fact, no such authority in all of this, despite Vanderlinden’s Quizzed by a reporter on the was asked by Mr. Anderson, and none suggestion, the Scotsman was not precise genesis of the articles, and was given to him by me . . . A long time Commissioner of the Metropolitan whether he had obtained official sanc- afterwards, Mr. Anderson informed me Police in November 1888; that is, at tion before publishing them, Anderson that he had written one or more of the the time of Andrews’ voyage to North elaborated. articles, and I felt much annoyed . . . America. ‘I acted quite correctly in going to My principle throughout has ever While it is widely known that Mr. Monro . . . I told him of my inten- been in police matters, politics have no Sir Charles Warren resigned as tion, and said, “Will this embarrass place — and this principle I followed Metropolitan Police Commissioner on you?” He said: “I think it very impor- during the whole time I was at Scotland November 8th of that year (this was not tant.” 6 Yard, under four different Secretaries immediately publicized, however, and Is this evidence that Monro and of State . . . whether the Government Warren’s departure thus became pop- Anderson conspired together? Did was Liberal or Conservative. . .7 ularly linked to the unsolved murder Monro play party politics? If Monro’s denial can be believed, of Mary Kelly), what is lesser known Maybe, maybe not. then so much for Vanderlinden’s sug- is that Warren remained in his post Now in retirement in Scotland, gestion that Monro had conspired until November 30th. In other words, Monro was alerted to this interview with Anderson in 1888. For if Monro Monro didn’t assume the commission- by his old friend in London, Melville was much ‘annoyed’ on learning that ership until December 1st. Thus, it Macnaghten, whose attitude towards Anderson had written for The Times, was Warren, not Monro, who autho- Anderson seems to have cooled consid- one can only imagine his utter con- rized Inspector Andrews’ trip to North erably during the intervening years. tempt at any suggestion that Scotland America, and it was Warren, in fact, Flabbergasted, and evidently in a state Yard detectives be loaned out to fur- who alerted the Toronto authorities of white heat, Monro sat down and ther that agenda. Indeed, as we shall that Roland Barnett would be escorted penned a letter to The Times. see in a moment, Monro would, on a to Canada by a member of Scotland The alleged statement of Anderson much earlier occasion, directly and Yard.8 Further, Warren was still at the to an interviewer that it was arranged unequivocally deny that Scotland Yard helm when Andrews physically boarded between him and me that he should ever did this — and his denial stands 8 The Mail (Toronto), November 29, 1888. For details write the [Parnellism and Crime] let- up to scrutiny. of Warren’s resignation, see Evans and Rumbelow, ters and that they should be offered to Meanwhile, there is a deeper Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates (2006) pp. 6 Morning Post (London), April 8, 1910. 7 The Times, April 9, 1910. 194-196.

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer the S.S. Sarnia on November 29th. for espionage, and indeed, in May, regardless of changes in administra- This is a damning point against 1888, Warren went so far as to suggest tion) and thus would not necessarily be Vanderlinden’s suggestion, for Warren, that the Irish Branch be removed from opponents to Home Rule. If Anderson the military man, had a strong aver- the umbrella of Scotland Yard, as it was was involved in a political intrigue, sion to ‘secret work’ and would have ‘really not part of the Police Force.’10 following this official procedure by vigorously resisted any attempt by Given such attitudes, it is clearly ridic- writing Lushington would have been his subordinates to engage Scotland ulous to suggest that Warren, who had reckless in the extreme. Further, it will Yard in any politically motivated chi- already announced his resignation in be recalled that Godfrey Lushington canery. The record is quite clear on November, 1888, would risk a political was highly skeptical of Anderson’s this. Throughout the first half of 1888, scandal, not to mention his own repu- abilities; he had even protested his Warren fought bitterly with Monro, tation, by authorizing a nefarious mis- appointment to the C.I.D. It is hardly believing he was spending too much sion to ruin the Parnellites. credible that Anderson — up to no good time and manpower on anti-Fenian But what of Robert Anderson? — would now include Lushington in a work. Warren even tried to reduce the Could he have conspired with The dangerous game that could have been number of men assigned to guard public Times without Monro or Warren’s so easily exposed. buildings, believing the Fenian threat knowledge? On the whole, the allegation that had withered away. Indeed, Warren Possibly, but there is little to Scotland Yard’s senior officers were even wrote to the Home Office in April, credit it. in collusion with The Times does not 1888, complaining that Monro should It will be remembered from the appear credible, but before dismiss- ‘devote his time and energy to legiti- second part of this series that Anderson’s ing this outright, let us first examine mate work,’ (which, for Warren meant maneuvers to send Andrews to Canada the specific allegations leveled against maintaining law and order) rather were made through the proper channels Inspector Walter Andrews. than ‘be burdened with the care and (i.e. a request to Godfrey Lushington anxieties of duties which previously at the Home Office). This was then Andrews’ Secret Mission occupied the whole of the attention forwarded to an unknown bureaucrat . . . Revealed? of an officer of undoubted experience at the Colonial Office. This is a telling The most startling fact about Inspector and ability’ — an obvious reference to detail, for under the British system, Walter Andrews’ trip to North America the now departed spy master Edward each ministry consists of both politi- in December 1888 is that we know so Jenkinson.9 cal appointees and permanent under little about it. Not a single known docu- The clear implication is that staff (those who retain their positions ment filed at the C.I.D. or forwarded to Warren believed the Met was no place 10 Warren to Ruggles Brise, May 16,1888 (MEPO the Home Office reveals what Andrews 9 Porter, op. cit., p. 87 1/48) cited in Porter, p. 216. was actually investigating, and all

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 16 that can be said with utter certainty is that he brought the absconding swindler, Roland Gideon Barnett, to the docks at Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he was relinquished to the custody of Inspector William Stark of the Toronto Police Department. What remains unknown is why Andrews accompanied Stark back to Toronto, lingered in and around southern Ontario for roughly a week, visited Montreal, and then boarded a ship to England — all the while investigating something that has never been revealed in any official document. To his credit, Wolf Vanderlinden has done some original research in the Toronto police archives, and has, to some extent, fleshed out further details of Andrews’ movements in Canada. Unfortunately, this information largely consists of police expense accounts, showing, for instance, that Andrews, Stark, and Barnett, on leaving Halifax, took an express train to Toronto. Or that, once in Toronto, Andrews stayed at the Rossin House Hotel. What isn’t revealed is why Andrews stayed in Toronto for a full eight days inclusive, and thus we are still left entirely in the dark as to why he was in the city. Vanderlinden’s most

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer valuable discovery, meanwhile, is a lived there for over thirty years. Anyone that Andrews was actually in Canada letter from Toronto Police Chief Henry seeing him on the street with his soft to drum up witnesses for the Parnell Grassett to Robert Anderson at the “Cockney” hat, Macintosh of approved Commission. C.I.D., thanking Anderson for all his Inverness cut, and his “Wales” beard, Inspector Andrews, of Scotland help in extraditing Barnett, and stat- or hearing his accent, would at once feel Yard, left last night for Europe. He ing that “Inspector Andrews left on the certain as to his cockney identity. His leaves this city with an impression 18th inst [December 18th] en route for hair was dark brown, but is now richly that will probably live in his memory London.” Thus we know that Andrews sprinkled with gray. Twenty years’ expe- for several years. When he gets over arrived in Toronto on December 11th, rience on the Metropolitan Police force to London, England, and tells his co- 1888, and left on the 18th. Beyond is enough to turn the color of any man’s labourers that a magistrate sitting on that, it is not even certain whether beard. When speaking to a person his the bench daily in this city can sentence Grassett himself knew the true nature eyes have that far away look peculiar prisoners to penal servitude for life they of Andrews’ mission. to so many human sleuth hounds, as if will probably open their eyes . . . Strangely neglected by previous they were continually watching someone While the Inspector was here he historians, the most valuable descrip- else. And they generally are. was not idle. When he first arrived tion of Andrews’ time in Toronto actu- The tone of the article is good- there was a whisper to the effect that he ally appeared in three editions of the natured, and goes on to give Andrews’ was doing some work “on the side” in Toronto Mail, dating to mid-December, personal account of the arrest of the Parnell Times case, which he took 1888. These articles, in time, would Roland Barnett in London. One is left pains to suppress. But after all it turns lead to one hell of a ruckus. with the impression that The Mail’s out that he was doing some work of this The Mail’s first piece on Andrews, reporter had no idea that Andrews was character all the same. When confronted appearing on December 12th, was rela- intending to stay in Toronto, nor hoped with the truth of his acts yesterday by a tively tame, stating that he was ‘suffer- to accomplish anything beyond ‘escort- reporter of THE MAIL he did not deny ing from a slight cold,’ and describing ing’ Barnett back to Canada. it, and said that it would be unprofes- him as “a typical Londoner.” By December 19th, however, sional for him to allow it to become Inspector Andrews is a man about Andrews had lingered in and around known. “Now,” he said, “as I am leav- five feet ten or eleven inches in height, Toronto for another week, and The ing, I do not mind telling you that since broad shouldered, and heavy built. Just Mail now exuded a far more conspira- I have been in Toronto I have obtained the kind of individual that would prove torial tone. Under the title ‘What They some important clues in the Parnell an ugly customer in a scrimmage. His Are After,’ and subtitled, ‘The Scotland case—things I never dreamed of before. general appearance is that of a Londoner, Yard Detective Works The Times Case,’ But I can say no more, so don’t press and it certainly should be, as he has this would be the earliest allegation me.” It is well known that the Inspector

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 18 paid several mysterious visits to parties Andrews all the way back to London, follows: . . . in the city whom he called his friends, repeated in two other Canadian cities On his way to Toronto Inspector but even to the Toronto detectives he that he would visit along the way. Andrews told Inspector Stark that he would not divulge these friends’ names. The following day, December had some friends in the city he intended Several evenings were spent in this kind 20th, The Mail published its longest calling upon. After he had been here a of work, and it is to be presumed that article on Andrews (too long to reprint day or so a lady called on him and they Scotland Yard has an agent in this city. in its entirety) ‘explaining’ Andrews’ took a cab and drove away up north in But Inspector Andrews is not the only trip to Toronto. In a fit of alliteration, the city. He returned four or five hours officer of Scotland Yard in America at The Mail titled the piece ‘Inspector afterwards. He made several such calls. present on a similar mission. Inspector Andrews’ Mysterious Mission Made To those who were apparently inquisi- Fred Jarvis, a bosom friend of his, and Manifest.’ tive he explained that the lady was also Chief Inspector Shore, of the same The revelations in THE MAIL of a distant relative of his. Then, again, department, are in the United States yesterday relative to the secret mission there was his trip to Niagara. When he hunting evidence. It is said for over 3 of Inspector Andrews of Scotland Yard, returned from there he carried a large years three of Pinkerton’s most expert created a profound sensation . . . bundle of papers and books. He said men have been at work on the Irish The English detective was not on these were photographs. What he could National Societies. One of these men is the hunt for Fenians and Invincibles, want with an armful of photographs the celebrated McPharland, who broke and was not engaged in ferreting out was more than his friends could under- up the Molly Maguires, and when Mr. political refugees. On the contrary, the stand. From these circumstances, and Chamberlain was in Toronto last year Inspector was searching for Leaguers from what he said himself, only one two of Pinkerton’s men were his con- willing and able to give evidence before inference could be drawn, and that stant bodyguard. The question now is, the Parnell Commission that would was that he had some object in coming who are they after? Time alone will tell. tend to make the National League to Canada other than the escorting of The most telling detail of the arti- responsible for murder and other out- Barnett. He acknowledged to a reporter cle, perhaps, was the admission that rage in Ireland, and his statement to of THE MAIL that there were at pres- Andrews had been entirely reticent this effect did not insinuate anything ent two Scotland Yard inspectors in the during his stay in Toronto — not even more . . . United States and their names were discussing the nature of his investiga- Here the article goes on to repeat Fred Jarvis and Chief Inspector Shore. tions with the Toronto Police — but the claim that an agent in the pay of Did he consult with either one of these then inexplicably revealed his mission Scotland Yard (still unnamed) was gentlemen while here? It looks much as on leaving town. It was strange timing living in Toronto. It then proceeds: if he did. McPharland, one of the ablest to say the least and a motif that dogged The facts in the present case are as of Pinkerton’s staff, has been at work

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer on the Irish-American secret societies with Toronto’s Irish community. of Canada, Boyle was one of the fierc- for three years, at a salary, it is said, of Several gentlemen prominent in est pro-Fenian voices in the land. $15 per day. He is at present working National League circles of this city Also interviewed was R. B. Teefy, up a case among perturbed members of were interviewed yesterday. Mr. Patrick a treasurer for the Toronto branch of the Clan-na-Gael in Chicago. Several Boyle, editor of the Irish Canadian, the Irish National League. others are at work in Kansas City, warmly expressed indignation against “Since the Inspector saw no reason where Irish societies are active, and it is Inspector Andrews and the mission he to prevent him from revealing his mis- there that Inspectors Shore and Jarvis had undertaken. He believed that the sion, I don’t know why Irish Nationalists have gone. It is said that the Times’ Inspector knew his expedition would be should deny it,” [Teefy said]. lawyers are awaiting the researches of fruitless, and that he had entered upon “Would you be surprised to learn the detectives, and what would be more it merely to obtain cheap notoriety. If he that before Andrews left Scotland Yard likely than that Inspector Andrews wanted false witnesses, he would have it was known in Montreal that Barnett would be the bearer of papers and other to seek them elsewhere than in Toronto, was to be used as a blind, concealing his important information? for there was no treason among the real object in coming to Canada? From For good or ill, this is possibly Irishmen of this city. The Scotland Montreal the information was commu- the most detailed account of Andrews’ Yard man came, and saw, but he did nicated to Toronto. Andrews may be a movements in and around Toronto that not conquer. He had gone away as clever detective, but perhaps he didn’t will ever surface. Not surprisingly, the empty-handed as he came.11 know that men in his own profession suggestion that Andrews had come It is worth pointing out that, were shadowing him.” to Canada to drum up witnesses on according to The National Biography “What do you mean by that?” behalf of The Times did not sit well 11 The Mail (Toronto), December 20, 1888 “I mean that others beside Inspector …possibly the most detailed account of Andrews’ movements in and around Toronto that will ever surface.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 20 Stark were awaiting Mr. Andrews’ home. Accordingly it was here consid- Toronto. On the whole, they appear to arrival at Halifax, and that his move- ered desirable to know what success be posturing for the sake of their fellow ments in that city were watched. Mr. Andrews was meeting in his search nationalists, or, as we might say nowa- Similar close attention had been for people without a conscience.” days, were ‘speaking to their political arranged for him at Montreal, where, “Do you know if he had any suc- base.’ But let us, for the moment, with- it was expected he would make his chief cess, or was his visit fruitless?” hold judgment. endeavor to fill the duties entrusted “Well,” answered Mr. Teefy, smil- What cannot be denied is that The him. He didn’t bother Montreal, how- ing. “I don’t know much about that, Mail’s astounding revelation had legs. ever, and it soon appeared that it was but I am in a position to say that if he Over the next two days, several news- in Toronto he intended to do his hard- was not successful it was his own fault. papers in the United States would est work. Is it necessary for me to tell He was offered as many witnesses as repeat — and sometimes expand — on you that he was under surveillance he wished to take back with him, for a this initial coverage, and it would be here, also?” moderate sum per head and expenses these secondary articles that would “But why should the League go to paid. He did not accept the offer, and find their way into Ripper litera- so much trouble about him? Surely he if he had, probably some of the money ture, repeated by theorists who now could not accomplish in Canada any- would have gone to swell the Parnell argue that Andrews’ mission to North thing against Parnell?”12 defense fund. Already the Times has America was indeed ‘manifest.’ “He might or he might not be able. paid part of Parnell’s expenses, and in In his recent biography of Francis It was known what he would try to do, a similar way.” Tumblety, Timothy Riordan writes: and you know from recent develop- What is to be made of this host of Earlier studies suggested that ments in the Parnell Commission that strange of allegations? Did Andrews Andrews came to America in pursuit of the Times is not scrupulous about the meet with Jarvis (or Shore) in Niagara? Tumblety. He supposedly made several character of its witnesses, and that it Was he really approached by Irishmen statements about the Whitechapel inves- is not unwilling to buy evidence that in Toronto ‘willing’ to give evidence tigation while in Canada. However, will help its case. Canada apparently before the Commission, only to rebuff his true purpose was soon evident. The offered a fine field for this procure- them? British government was trying to col- ment of wretches who would perjure At the very least, it seems suspi- lect as much incriminating evidence themselves for a reasonable reward, cious that Boyle and Teefy offer no as it could against the Irish leader because, as it was doubtless presumed, specific information. They supply no Charles Parnell and his National they would have no reason to dread the names, dates, or details about who League. Andrews revealed that there revenge of neighbors upon returning allegedly approached Andrews, nor was a network of detectives, including 12 An astute point. See below who Andrews contacted while in the Pinkertons, in America keeping an

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer eye on the Irish-American wing of this the Parnellite party with outrages and communications with the English group. Andrews went to Niagara Falls murders in Ireland. Ever since his police agents in the United States and to meet with the head of this network.13 arrival in the country and his subse- from this latter source he hoped much Riordan does not give a source for quent lengthy stay in Toronto rumors . . . this extraordinary claim, but it is clear have been current to the effect that he Though he could not divulge the that he is working from a single news- was one of many men in the employ secrets of his profession, he could say that paper report: The New York Herald of of the British government, arrayed there was an organized detective system December 23rd. Let’s look at this. against the representatives of the Irish in behalf of the British Government both Two or three days after leav- people in the search for the least evi- in Canada and the United States . . . ing Toronto, and despite Teefy’s ear- dence that will seemingly injure the The Chiefs of this detective service were lier suggestion that he would avoid Parnellites, but until now Andrews has Fred Jarvis and Chief Inspector Shore, the city, Inspector Andrews moved flatly denied it. and he (Andrews) had had a conference on to Montreal. Once again, on the This morning, however, on the eve with them at Niagara which he hopes ‘eve of his departure’ (more strange of his departure for home the emis- would be fruitful. Other members of this timing!) Andrews loosened his lips. sary of Scotland Yard admitted that he British service were employed by the Yes, Andrews admitted, he was indeed could not deny the charge, and practi- Pinkertons, while still others occupied working The Times’ case — this time cally acknowledged that that was his high positions in mercantile life . . . in Montreal. His ultimate goal was to mission. He had, however, to admit that Although the above has been used set up a ‘network’ of agents to thwart he had not been very successful, many by Riordan and others as evidence of the Irish National League. of the men whom he had interviewed Andrews’ ‘real’ mission in Canada, it Montreal, Que. Dec. 22. Prominent declined to become informers on their smells more than a little fishy. The Irish nationalists of this city are much trusted leaders. Some evidence of an wording is particularly suspicious; ‘it excited over an avowal of Inspector unimportant character may have been was rumored’ that Andrew was doing Andrews, of Scotland Yard, who gathered, but it is the general belief this, ‘he could not divulge’ his secrets, brought Roland Gideon Israel Barnete, here that it will not affect the proceed- but ‘he practically acknowledged’ this [sic] the wrecker of the Central Bank ings before the Parnellite Commission was his goal. Further, the whole piece of Toronto, that he has also occupied to any material extent. Mr. Andrews appears to be the same story ear- his time, both here and in Toronto, in distinctly said he had not been look- lier supplied by The Mail in Toronto working up evidence for the London ing after Fenians and Invincibles, — only now transferred to Montreal. Times with the object of associating confining his attention to members of Significantly, the piece is subtitled, 13 Timothy B. Riordan, Prince of Quacks (2009) pp. the National League, especially recent ‘The Alleged Indiscretions of an English 183-184. arrivals from Ireland, though he had Detective.’

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 22 Yet, beyond this, the source of this report is more than a little interesting. The New York Herald, in particular, would have been all too eager to paint Scotland Yard as duplicitous in a plot to smear Parnell. Why? In 1888 The New York Herald’s night editor was none other than ‘General’ Frank Millen, Fenian skirmisher extraordinare, member of the Clan na Gael, sometimes profiteer in the pay of Robert Anderson (and later Edward Jenkinson) — the same Millen whom Assistant Met Police Commissioner James Monro would later name as the mastermind behind the Jubilee dynamite plot of 1887. In a strange but perhaps significant twist, it is also known that Millen himself was in negotiation with Joseph Soames of The Times to give evidence before the Commission. As pointed out by journalist Christy Campbell, The New York Herald’s owner, James Gordon Bennett, ‘delighted’ in hiring such rabble rousing characters, filling The Herald’s office with more Irish rebels than a Clan-na-Gael picnic. The newspaper’s foreign editor had served ten years in Dartmoor for shoot- ing a policeman. The drama critic set out to capture the Rock of Gibraltar; Ed w a r d Je n k i n s o n

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer the night editor drew up the opera- City (a repeat of the allegation already nationalist or any one else has stated tional plan. The paper’s weather fore- made by The Mail) in order to drum up that Mr. Bangs made such an admis- caster, Jerome Collins, before perishing even more witnesses. Nor was this all. sion he has stated what is not true. The in 1882, on a disastrous expedition to The Herald further reported that Mr. Pinkerton’s National Detective agency arctic Siberia, had plotted to kidnap Bangs, a manager at the Pinkerton has never obtained a particle of evidence Queen Victoria’s son.14 Detective Agency, indiscreetly admit- against Mr. Parnell, and has never Riordan’s acceptance of this story ted to all of this — no doubt on ‘the eve been requested by the London Times has further problems, for the allegation of his departure.’ or the British government to hunt up that Andrews, Jarvis and Shore were The story was so audacious as to not evidence. I know of my own knowledge conspiring with the Pinkerton Agency require rebuttal, but Robert Pinkerton that Superintendent Shore has not been to set up a network of spies in America nevertheless picked up his pen. in this country for a number of years. would soon be exploded by someone in To the Associated Press, New York Inspector Fred Jarvis is here in connec- a position to know: Robert Pinkerton City.— Gentlemen: My attention has tion with a criminal matter which has himself. been called to an article in a New York no relation whatever to Irish affairs, Three weeks later, the Herald paper in which it is stated that Inspector and neither he nor Mr. Shore have couldn’t resist the temptation of pub- Fred Jarvis and Chief Inspector Shore, met with any of our representatives lishing a companion piece with even superintendent of the criminal investi- in Kansas City. The recent visit of my more amazing revelations. On January gating department of the Great Scotland brother William and myself to Kansas 16th, a front page article reported yard, London, were in America in the City and Denver was our yearly busi- that Inspector Andrews, Jarvis, and interests of the London Times to ferret ness trip to our offices in those cities. Superintendent Shore had gone so out information concerning the move- Inspector Andrews is unknown to us. far as to conspire with two Irish ments of Irish-American conspirators; Yours respectfully, Nationalists in America to blow up a that Messrs. Shore and Jarvis met ROBERT A. PINKERTON, passenger ship in New York Harbor! representatives of the Pinkertons at General Superintendent Eastern Their motive for this outrage? ‘To force Kansas City; that three of the Pinkerton Division.15 the adoption of the British-American men have been at work for years in the There are several reasons for extradition treaty, and strengthen the Irish national secret societies, and that accepting Pinkerton’s seemingly sin- case of the London Times against the Manager Bangs of this city admitted it cere denial. It is entirely reasonable Parnellites.’ to an Irish nationalist who caught him that Pinkerton would have been under If this wasn’t evil enough, Shore in a trap. the impression that Superintendent and Jarvis then went on to Kansas I wish to positively contradict the 15 Robert Pinkerton, letter to the Associated Press, 14 Christy Campbell, Fenian Fire (2000) p. 14. statements above referred to. If an Irish Chicago Daily News, January 19, 1889.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 24 John Shore had not been in the United Pinkerton visited this city a couple of secret mission to North America — States for ‘years,’ for Shore had been months ago on their annual tour of complete with names and dates — was sending the Pinkertons letters from inspection and were not securing evi- published by The New York World and London for the better part of a decade. dence of any kind. There was no secrecy The Boston Globe on December 22nd Both Shore and the Pinkertons were about their visit. They registered at and 23rd, under the title “Polluted obsessed with nabbing the famous the Midland hotel and called on many Hands.” In an obvious repeat of the British thief and international rack- of their acquaintances. There were no earlier allegations, Andrews was again eteer Adam Worth (most famous, per- English detectives with them.17 said to be working the Parnell case haps, for stealing a Gainsborough The story was clearly bogus, in conjunction with Shore, Jarvis, painting) and Shore had written to and beyond this, no historian of and Pinkerton agents, but it was now William Pinkerton from London as 19th Century British Intelligence — revealed that members of the “National recently as August 4, 1888.16 Further, Bernard Porter, K.M. Short, or others League of Canada” were already well it is known that Inspector Jarvis was — have ever dropped the slightest hint aware of the scheme. in America that autumn — attempt- that Scotland Yard detectives ever Two weeks before Barnett started ing to trace the swindler and fugitive attempted to set up a ‘network’ of spies for this country R.B. Teefy, president Thomas Barton — and Pinkerton knew in America. It was not how Scotland of the Toronto branch of the league, this because his agency was work- Yard operated, and official government received a communication from the ing on Jarvis’ behalf. Nor is there any files make it clear that the Home Office other side of the Atlantic apprising him reason to believe that Pinkerton would relied on British consuls in America of the fact that Inspector Andrews who have known Walter Andrews, for, as to gather local intelligence. Probably had done considerable and successful we have seen, though Andrews worked the most important man in this capac- dirty work against the league in Ireland many criminal cases in London, there ity was William Hoare in New York, and England, would be given the task is not the least indication that any of who retained the position until 1890. of bringing Barnett to this country. these cases ever brought him across Rather significantly, it is well docu- For an allegedly true story, this the pond. mented that in 1888-89 Hoare refused was a weak start. There is, in fact, The Herald’s bizarre article also to play partisan politics by supplying no evidence that Andrews spent 1888 received a strong dismissal from C.H. Soames with information beneficial to doing ‘dirty work’ against the National Epplessheimer, the Pinkerton’s super- The Times’ case in London.18 League. His known movements intendent in Kansas City, who said, Meanwhile, what purported to be that year show him in and around among other things, “the Messrs. the most detailed account of Andrews’ London, investigating several mun- 16 Pinkerton Archives, Document #744, cited in Ben 17 Vanderlinen, op. cit., p. 38. dane criminal cases: a large jewelry Macintyre, The Napolean of Crime (1997) p. 316. 18 Campbell, op. cit., p. 340, 347. heist near Maidenhead (January); two

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer Alas, these details — seemingly specific — are undeniably bogus.

bogus lottery cases occupying most of far as Barnett was concerned, and it show that Andrews arrived in Halifax February and early March (one along- was thought that he would return on on December 9th, but did not linger side Inspector Root of the City Police); the next steamer. Instead of doing so, in the city for two nights (as the story the investigation of a man accused of he surreptitiously took an intercolo- claims), but left on an express train for fraud under the Bankruptcy Act (May); nial train two nights after his arrival Toronto that same afternoon, accom- and the arrest and subsequent hear- and left for Montreal. His Irish watch- panied by Stark and Barnett. The trip ing of Roland Barnett in August and ers were on the train also. His baggage generally took two days to complete, September.19 If Andrews ever traveled was telegraphed for from Moncton, and Andrews duly arrived in Toronto to Ireland, no evidence for it has come N.B., the next night, to be sent to him at on December 11th, booking a room at to light. Montreal. Arriving here the two watch- the Rossin House hotel.20 Thus, at the The Canadian leaguers, however, ers were joined by two others put upon time Andrews was supposedly soliciting were having none of it. the scent by H.J. Cloran, a prominent Irishmen in Montreal, he was actually The communication further stated lawyer of this city, and president of the three hundred miles away in Toronto. that Andrews’ accompanying Barnett Montreal branch of the league, who had Whoever the police were watching the hither was only a blind, and that it also been advised of Andrews’ mission. week of December 9th, it was most would not be injudicious if a watch He stayed here a day and never left his assuredly not Inspector Andrews. were set upon the detective after he got hotel, but received calls from several This leaves the veracity of the to this country. Irishmen who are known to have not the entire article in grave doubt, but, none- The hint was no longer received best of feelings towards the League, for theless, it goes on to describe secret than acted on. Inspector Stark of two of them are among several expelled meetings with a ‘resident detective’ in Toronto met Andrews and Barnett for shady practices . . . Toronto named ‘Sketchley,’ and the sub- at Halifax upon the Sarnia’s arrival From here Andrews went to sequent travels of Andrews around the there. Two other men also saw them. Toronto still shadowed . . . Great Lakes region. Stark immediately took charge of Alas, these details — seemingly [In Toronto] the men put upon Barnett. Then Andrews’ duty ended so specific — are undeniably bogus. Andrews’ track shadowed him to the res- 19 See The Times’ police columns for January 24, Police expense accounts still exist- ident detective’s house night after night. February23 and 25, May 9, and September 14, 1888. ing in the City of Toronto Archives 20 See Vanderlinden, op. cit., pp. 27-29.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 26 Frequently the two left the house, went of a ‘Dr. W. Worden,’ so far located was the Parnell Commission. Is there any to a place on Elizabeth Street, where the proud owner of a bogus medical truth in the rumor?” they were met by a man who has since degree from Buchanan’s diploma mill “I had rather not answer that ques- turned out to be Detective Jarvis. in Philadelphia — the same college tion,” he replied. Andrews made several trips to Detroit linked with Francis Tumblety.21 “Will you deny that such was your and Windsor accompanied by Jarvis. Meanwhile, the story’s most tell- mission or part of your mission here?” In the former city they visited an indi- ing detail concerns the two witnesses “Why do you press me? You ought vidual whose life seems to be one of per- (who allegedly accompanied Andrews to know that I cannot divulge the secrets fect ease and impenetrable mystery. He back to London) and the valise, which of my office.” gave the name of Worden but has been was to be delivered to the Parnell “But won’t you say yes or no?” known to call at the post office for let- Commission ‘within a month.’ In real- “No, I will not deny the statement.” ters addressed to two or three different ity, no such witnesses nor papers ever “It is said that you have been very names, one of them Thompson. A week surfaced at the Commission in London, unsuccessful in your efforts; that to try ago yesterday, Andrews left Toronto for a point we will return to in a moment. and find bona-fide evidence detrimental a trip to Niagara Falls, ostensibly to ‘Polluted Hands’ next present an to the league is lost time in this country. see the great waterfall. At the Prospect interview with Andrews in Montreal, What has been your experience?” House he was met by Jarvis and two shortly after he purchased a ticket “I may not have been as successful other men — one of them undoubtedly for the steamer Peruvian, which was as could be wished, neither do I think, an Irishman, the other an American to leave Halifax for Liverpool on from my experience, that I have been in speech style and manner. The latter December 24th. Now hot on the trail, very unsuccessful. As for its being lost carried a large valise, which he never the reporter confronted Andrews about time to look for evidence in America, left out of his sight and reach. They the ‘secrets of his office.’ that is all rot. I am pretty certain that a were there until Monday last. “It is generally understood, Mr. continual correspondence has gone on Little of this can be confirmed, Andrews, that your stay in this country for years between Parnell, O’Donovan but of potential interest is that the has been lengthened by certain work Rossa and others in this country and only “Worden” listed in Detroit in the you have been doing in connection with western America, who I am not pre- 1880 U.S. census is an aged physi- 21 Dr. W. W. Worden’s name was found on a list pared to name, and much of this cor- cian from New York named William of bogus diplomas seized at Buchanan’s ‘college’ in respondence will naturally fall in line Worden — leaving the possibility that 1880. See Harold Abrahams, Extinct Medical Schools as evidence against Parnell when the this meeting, if it ever occurred, may of Nineteenth Century Philadelphia (1966) p. 548. proper time comes to present it.” have had more to do with Tumblety Tumblety was similarly linked to Buchanan’s institute “When will that be?” than Parnell. The only other mention in the December, 1888 issue of the Medical Standard. “I cannot tell you, but it will likely

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer be given within a month, at the next sit- no details of Andrews’ movements, Eugene Davis, a failed priest, poet, ting of the Commission.” but even admitted that Andrews and yellow journalist who spent most “Don’t you want to know something had ‘steered clear’ of Montreal on his of the 1880s rubbing elbows with a about the Whitechapel murders?” inland voyage — an obvious contradic- band of tattered Irish exiles in Paris, “No, thank you.” replied the tion of the very details he was suppos- the frequenters of an Irish pub in the reporter, “I have got quite enough,” and edly confirming. This begs a question. rue Duras known as the “Shamrock.” the interview ended.22 If Teefy was truly confirming the story, Davis supported himself by sell- If this is to be believed, Andrews why was the reporter forced to rely on ing clever but entirely fictitious stories wanted to talk about the Whitechapel a statement he made before it broke in to gullible newspaper editors. These murders (evidently because it was his Montreal and which, in fact, directly invariably involved Irish ‘plots.’ One ‘blind’) but, remarkably, the reporter clashed with these ‘new’ revelations? of his more infamous pieces even led smugly snubs him — odd behavior The obvious answer is that the article to an international incident when he for an objective newsman seeking the is a cut-and-paste job with a few embel- reported that the Irish patriot James truth. In sharp contrast, every other lishments tossed in for good measure. Stephens had met with co-conspirators report coming out of Canada comments But if this is the case, what on on an island in the Seine in order to on Andrews’ consistent reticence; at one earth was going on? Are we to believe plan a dynamite attack. The British point, he is even quoted as saying that the accounts of Andrews working The government, putting faith in the story, the Whitechapel Murders were some- Times case in America? Are any of demanded Stephen’s expulsion from thing “he didn’t care to talk about.” these stories even remotely reliable? France — only to learn with consid- Finally, this remarkable article In truth, those who have put faith erable embarrassment that the whole ends with an uncomfortable descent in the veracity of these and similar episode was blarney.23 into outright dishonesty. A long state- accounts are seemingly unaware that Interestingly enough, Davis was ment is given by the Toronto Irish 19th Century news reports dealing with also the foreign correspondent for Nationalist, R.B. Teefy, “confirming all Irish Nationalism were notoriously O’Donovan Rossa’s United Irishman in the particulars as narrated above were unreliable. Not only are there many New York — a nationalist paper that correct.” This is odd indeed, for the long examples of entirely bogus ‘interviews’ delighted in keeping the British govern- reply by Teefy is word-for-word the being published, but the national- ment guessing. This raises the possibility same statement he had already offered ist press frequently printed out-and- that stories of this type were often delib- up to The Mail back on December 19th out misinformation solely designed to erate attempts to misdirect or infuriate (quoted earlier) when he not only gave embarrass the British government. Scotland Yard. Indeed, what appears to 22 New York World. December 22, 1888; The Boston A prime example of this sort of 23 John Devoy; Recollections of an Irish Rebel (1929); Globe, December 23, 1888. thing can be found in the ‘work’ of pp. 276-277.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 28 be an example of this was later revealed by the Irish nationalist John Devoy. At the end of 1884, the dynamiter William Lomasney (known as “the little Captain”) died during an attempt to place a bomb underneath London Bridge. Lomasney’s body was never recovered and for years rumors circulated that he had somehow mirac- ulously survived the blast and was plotting further outrages. This proved to be a great annoyance to Scotland Yard, who were forced to waste time investigating the claims. (At one point, Special Branch detective John Sweeney spent weeks chasing down a rumor that Lomasney had been spotted in South London.) As later described by Devoy, Eugene Davis took full advan- tage of the confusion. Davis played a similar trick in the case of William Mackey Lomasney after he had been blown to atoms in an explo- sion at London Bridge. He wrote an “interview” with “The Little Captain,” Wi l l i a m Ma c k e y Lo m a s n e y got £5 for it from the Standard corre- and she told me she was quite sure he always wore one. I told her the facts spondent and the paper published it. that William was alive and in prison. about his death and that of his brother It was cabled to the New York Herald Feeling tired one day she lay down on and a man named Fleming who lost and published in full. Lomasney’s wife, the bed and while half asleep imag- their lives with him. She told me I a devoted Irishwoman, was completely ined she saw his figure standing inside was mistaken, went to the drawer of a deceived by it, with very bad effects on the door — he had no beard, and that little table, took out a clipping from the her mind . . . I called on her one day, showed that he must be in prison, as Herald and showed it to me as proof

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer that he was still alive. I told her all but only a week earlier, the Toronto London weekly, Truth. Significantly, about Davis, but I wasted my breath. Mail described Andrews’ hair as being Labouchere was now one of Parnell’s She knew nothing about the newspa- “richly sprinkled with gray” — a detail strongest supporters, and would spend pers or how easily the best of them are confirmed by the only known photo- much of 1889 and early 1890 still deceived by fakers and continued to graph we have of him —and Andrews’ loudly proclaiming that active Scotland believe up to her death that her hus- pension papers lists his eye color as not Yard detectives had gone to America band was still living. The Irish move- blue, but hazel.26 to destroy Parnell. Nevertheless, very ment has been always cursed by fellows If, in fact, this was a case of mis- soon Labouchere would have to eat like Davis hanging on the skirts of it taken identity — coupled with blar- his words — and pay a Scotland Yard who humbug the newspapers with sto- ney — it wouldn’t be the first time that detective damages for libel — after it ries that have no foundation at all, — winter that Irish sleuths in America was privately proven that the C.I.D.’s to make a little money.24 tracked someone they assumed was detectives had not been in America to Clearly, the humbug interview a Scotland Yard detective, but who do the dirty work of The Times. could prove a powerful ruse in the turned out to be nothing of the sort. By the beginning of 1889, the propaganda war waged between Irish And here is where things take a decid- once tedious Parnell Commission had Nationalists and the British govern- edly strange — and enlightening — turned into high drama. Startling rev- ment, leaving us to wonder whether turn. To find out the truth of Andrews’ elations followed even more startling any of the statements attributed to mission, we must now leave America revelations and the hearings were soon Andrews in America can be accepted and return to London. frequented by such London celebrities at face value. An equally unsettling as Mrs. Gladstone, Oscar Wilde, and possibility is that the men shadowing Scotland Yard v. Henry the president of the Royal Academy, Andrews in Montreal didn’t even have Labouchere Sir Frederick Leighton. the right man. They had, after all, ear- While the original source of the The Commission’s most astonish- lier placed Andrews in the city when rumors implicating Inspector Andrews ing witness in February 1889 was the he wasn’t there, and their descrip- in The Times’ shenanigans included dapper spy, Thomas Miller Beach, alias tion of him on December 21st is more Irish-Canadian Patrick Boyle, and a Henri Le Caron, who, we have seen, than a little suspicious: “a tall, brown reporter at the New York Herald (or was handled by Dr. Robert Anderson. whiskered, fine looking man about was it Millen?), the main accuser in What proved so damaging in 40 years old, whose sharp blue eyes England would be Henry Labouchere Beach’s testimony was the undis- were never off the valise.”25 Perhaps, — M.P., radical, and editor of the puted fact that during Parnell’s tour 24 Ibid., p. 277. 26 Cited in Evans and Gainey, Jack the Ripper: First of America in 1880, he was frequently 25 New York World, December 22, 1888. American Serial Killer (1998) p. 41. accompanied by Alexander Sullivan

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 30 — the head of the Clan na Gael. Equally damning, Beach convincingly argued that at least some of the funds gathered in America for the National League were used by Sullivan to finance dynamite outrages in England. Beach also claimed (more than a little dubiously) that Parnell had once privately admitted that he was in favor of violent methods. Following Beach’s testimony, it seemed all but assured that The Times would carry the day. But then came Richard Pigott. Pigott was responsible for the most damning evidence of all; the letters that supposedly proved that Parnell had welcomed the Phoenix Park murders of Irish Cavendish and Burke in 1882. Yet, under a scathing cross examination by Sir Charles Russell, Pigott buckled and nearly collapsed. That night, he visited Henry Labouchere’s London home and signed a confession stating that he had, in fact, forged the infamous ‘Parnell letters.’ He then fled to Madrid and committed suicide. Clearly, The Times’ original ‘Parnellism and Crime’ articles had now lost all credibility. The Commission, for all intents and purposes, was a done deal. He n r y La b o u c h e r e

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer When one has produced damning Vanderlinden writes: would trust only him.27 If Andrews did evidence, it is always wise to rest one’s There is one clue, perhaps, which indeed travel to have secret talks with case. Henry Labouchere, confident that might shed some light on the nature of Le Caron, then he would have had to he had played a major role in the expo- Inspector Andrews’ travels after he left travel to Chicago, where Le Caron sure, should have happily retired from Canada. On the 21st of March 1889, lived and worked, not New York. This the scene. Sadly, he did not. Smelling two questions were asked of the Home might explain talk of Andrews travel- blood, perhaps, Labouchere could not Secretary in the House of Commons ing to New York after Jack the Ripper. resist the temptation of pulling another in London. The first was whether It was a ruse. The announcement that startling sensation from his briefcase. “Police Inspector Andrews had vis- Inspector Andrews was heading to Outraged by the earlier revela- ited America since the passage of the Chicago, the headquarters of Clan na tion that Anderson, the current head Parnell Commission bill.” Sir Henry Gaul, [sic] would have brought undue of the C.I.D., had been Beach’s handler Matthews replied that Andrews had. attention to him and his movements in America, and half-convinced of the The implication of the question was that and made any meeting with Le Caron wayward rumors that Scotland Yard Andrews’ trip had something to do with practically impossible. Le Caron was had been conspiring with The Times, the Parnell Commission. Matthews much too valuable and in much too Labouchere now recalled that Inspector could have deflected the question by dangerous a position for Andrews to Andrews had been in North America adding that the trip was merely a have risked it openly. The announce- the previous December. The Pall Mall police matter involving the extradition ment that the Scotland Yard official Gazette had reported that this was in of a wanted man back to Canada. He was now chasing Jack the Ripper in connection with the Whitechapel Murder didn’t do this. The second question was New York would have provided an case, but was there another explana- “whether Andrews had seen Le Caron, excellent cover if Andrews wanted to tion? Could there have been a connection the informer, there.” Surprisingly, Sir slip unnoticed into Chicago.28 between Andrews and Beach? Henry merely replied that he didn’t Evidently unknown to In March, 1889, Labouchere stood know and made no attempt to use any Vanderlinden, this theory had already up in the House of Commons and posed cover story involving Barnett. made the rounds in 1889, alluded to two politically motivated questions. Did Henry Le Caron, in reality Thomas by a reporter for the Halifax Morning Inspector Andrews visit America since Beach, was a British double agent situ- Herald. Referring to the same exchange the passing of the Special Commission ated very high in the Clan na Gaul between Labouchere and Matthews, bill, and did he meet with Le Caron? [sic] organization. So important was the reporter gave yet another remark- In Wolf Vanderlinden’s article ‘On Le Caron that the government was able example of Andrews’ ‘alleged the Trail of Tumblety?’ these ques- unable to sack his spymaster, Dr. 27 Actually, as we have seen, Anderson was sacked. tions take on a sinister dimension. Robert Anderson, because Le Caron 28 Vanderlinden, op. cit., p. 41-42.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 32 indiscretions’ on the ‘eve of his — that there was, in fact, some founda- believed’ to have been in America departure.’ tion to the idea that Andrews had met in search of the Whitechapel mur- It will be remembered that with Le Caron in America. derer, and continued on to New York. Inspector Andrews came out to this There are deep problems with The latter half of this claim certainly country with a Toronto embezzler who the credibility of this report, however. appears to be doubtful; there is noth- had been captured in Liverpool. [sic] It dates to March 22nd, 1889, but a ing to indicate that Andrews ever went A HERALD reporter received infor- careful examination of all copies of to New York. Riordan, meanwhile, in mation that Andrews was collecting the Morning Herald dating back to his book has Andrews sailing out of evidence for The Times, to be used the previous December shows that Halifax on December 24th, but does not before the commission. The inspec- there was never any previous men- give a source. He may well be correct, tor returned home by way of Halifax, tion of Inspector Andrews in Halifax, but Chief Grassett’s letter to Robert and as he stepped from the train at the let alone his remarkable admission at Anderson, informed him that Andrews deep water terminus and on board the the docks. Thus, we have to accept the left Toronto, bound for London, on steamer Oregon he was accosted by the unpalatable idea that the reporter ‘sat’ December 18th; the Oregon did indeed reporter and questioned upon this deli- on this explosive story for a full three leave Halifax six days later. cate point. The inspector did not appear months. Further, is it merely coinci- Confusing matters is the frustrat- any too well pleased at the question, but dental that Andrews’ comment about ing fact that the Morning Chronicle allowed himself to be drawn into con- ‘professional etiquette’ preventing him doesn’t state which sailing of the Oregon versation when he admitted, as far as from ‘going further’ is suspiciously sim- Andrews boarded; the ship sailed from professional etiquette would allow, that ilar to the wording he allegedly used Halifax to Liverpool on three separate such was his mission. But he would in Montreal? Perhaps, or perhaps not, occasions between December 24th and go no further. The inspector, as was but it’s rather easier to believe that March 22nd — its regular route. Further, remarked at the time, was far above the Morning Herald’s reporter simply the report obviously flies directly in the the ordinary stamp of English police based his story on the piece that had face of The World’s claim that Andrews officers and detectives seen on this side, already appeared in The New York had sailed out on the Peruvian. Faced and was evidently one of the big men of Herald back on December 23rd. with three conflicting accounts, where Scotland Yard.29 Incidentally, it is also of interest and when Andrews actually left North This revelation placed in the middle that the piece claims that Andrews America must remain an open question of an article about the quizzing of Henry left Halifax for Liverpool aboard the until an actual ship passenger list can Matthews, clearly meant to imply that steamer Oregon. This is significant in be produced. Labouchere was onto something big that it counters The Pall Mall Gazette’s Meanwhile, is this the final 29 Morning Herald (Halifax) March 22, 1889. claim that Andrews was ‘generally answer — did Andrews meet with

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer Thomas Miller Beach while in North his major peephole inside the Clan na York City. After this tragic mishap, America and convince him to address Gael. He steadfastly refused Beach’s Anderson promised that his jaws the Parnell Commission? overture, and this is where matters would be forever clenched to the iden- The short answer is no. As is stood in early December, 1888. tity of informers. Thus, if Anderson so often the case, the devil is in the A further problem is that Beach had sent Andrews to America to meet details. made it abundantly clear in his mem- with Beach, it would have been a grave While it is often stated that Robert oirs that he refused to have his iden- betrayal of their arrangement, and Anderson ‘put Beach on the stand,’ tity shared with anyone. As we have Beach, understandably, would have this is not, in fact, what happened. already seen, not even James Monro, been outraged. In late 1888, Beach was living head of the ultra secret Section D, Yet, beyond this, there is a more in Braidwood, Illinois, (other reports knew the identity of Anderson’s infor- fundamental reason why Andrews have him in Chicago) successfully run- mant in America. The reason for this could not have contacted Beach in ning a string of drugstores. While the was quite dramatic; as Anderson states America, despite the insinuations of Parnell Commission chugged away in in his sketch, Sidelights of the Home Labouchere, Vanderlinden, and the London, Beach, according to his own Rule Movement, early in his career, he Halifax reporter. Anderson’s spy was account, read with increasing dissat- mentioned the name of an informer to 3,500 miles away and on the other side isfaction the coverage in the American a politician, who, in turn, indiscreetly of the Atlantic Ocean. press, frustrated that the solicitors repeated it in a restaurant. An Irish The movements of Thomas Miller for The Times were failing to produce waiter overheard the conversation, Beach a.k.a. Henri Le Caron can be convincing evidence linking Parnell passed it on, and Anderson’s informer successfully traced by referring to a to the violent fringe. At this point, was shot dead on his arrival in New passage in what should have been the Beach entertained the idea of blowing his cover and returning to England to address the Commission in person. …Anderson’s A key point is that Robert Anderson initially rebuffed Beach’s informer was suggestion, and, according to Beach’s biographer, J.A. Cole, was even ‘hor- shot dead on his rified’ by the idea.30 No matter what the temporary political expediency, arrival in New Anderson was unwilling to give up 30 Cole, op. cit., p. 154. York City.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 34 most obvious source to consult: Beach’s and severed for all time my connection London. The relevant information autobiography, Twenty-Five Years in with Irish politics in the United States. reads: Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1894). I had come, as explained, to my father’s When and Where Died: Fifteenth After briefly discussing the grow- dying bedside. Unfortunately for me, I December, 1888, 10 Teresa Road, St. ing tension at the far-away Parnell was not in time to find him conscious, Botolph, Colchester. Commission, Beach gives a rundown and did not reach the house where he Name and Surname: of the events that eventually led him lay till the day on which he died.32 John Joseph Billis Beach. to return to England. Of crucial impor- Obviously, Beach’s account should Sex: Male. tance is that what initially brought have raised red flags, for he is directly Age: 72 years. Beach back was entirely accidental — stating that he left America some- Occupation: his father’s failing health. time in December, 1888, whereas Collector of Poor Rates. The following year – 1888 – was Labouchere insinuated that he met Cause of Death: Sclerosis Multiplex. my last in America, and ere its close with Inspector Andrews sometime after 42 days. Paralysis Cerebri. Certified by I left for the purpose of attending the December 9th, and Vanderlinden sug- C. O. S. Beker, M.D. dying bedside of my father. I left for gested that it may have been sometime The above certificate shows that England in December with the full after December 21st. The crucial ques- the reminiscences of the spy Thomas purpose of returning in a month, but tion, therefore, is when, in December, Beach are accurate. His father had suf- as matters turned out I really left my did Le Caron leave the United States? fered from a ‘42 day illness’— affording house for the last time. I had written Fortunately, the above passages in ample time to warn Beach in November twice to Mr. Anderson, offering my ser- Beach’s autobiography give us enough that he needed to return to England. vices in connection with the Special information to successfully trace his Further, Beach, in dating his arrival Commission, but nothing had come of movements. to ‘not till the day on which he died,’ my proposal, and I had no idea any- Thomas Miller Beach’s father was pinpoints his arrival in Colchester to thing would happen in connection with a lay preacher and poor rates collector December 15th, 1888. The UK did not, the matter.31 named John Joseph Billis Beach, who unfortunately, systematically preserve A few paragraphs later, Beach lived most of his life in the family home ship passenger lists until the 1890s, describes his eventual arrival at the at No. 10 Teresa Road, Colchester. To but there are other sources that con- family home in Colchester, England. test the validity of Labouchere’s insin- firm Beach’s arrival date. Reasoning Long before these final develop- uations, a certified copy of John Billis backwards, an Atlantic crossing from ments, however, I sailed for England, Beach’s death certificate was obtained New York to Liverpool took, on aver- 31 Henri Le Caron, Twenty-Five Years in the Secret from the General Register Office in age, six to eight days. It would have Service(1892) p. 257. 32 Ibid., p. 266. taken another half or full day to

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer disembark from Liverpool and catch a came to regard him as a confidence but this conclusively proves that by train to Colchester — a 245 mile trip by man. Le Caron had heard of Barnes’ the time Andrews was in Toronto and rail. This suggests that Beach landed good fortune and to use the latter’s Montreal pursuing his investigations, in Liverpool on the 14th or early on the words, “tried to work him for a sucker.” Beach was in England. Further, since 15th of December, having left North Barnes denounced him. Le Caron did Beach left New York on the 8th, and America roughly a week earlier. not take the affront as an insult, but Inspector Andrews, chugging across the A search of steamers arriving in tried to laugh the matter off, treating north Atlantic, did not land in Halifax Liverpool from America on those two Mr. Barnes during the rest of the jour- until the 9th, the two men could never dates indicates that the most likely ney as a man who thoroughly under- have met. ship would have been the Umbria, and, stood him. Yet, remarkably, Labouchere was indeed, confirmation of Beach’s voyage Barnes describes Le Caron, not through, and would drag out the can be found in a rather remarkable or Beach, as an entertaining conver- matter for another year. Having set- article that appeared in the Brooklyn sationalist and one of the smoothest tled for merely indulging in unsup- Eagle on February 12th. Whether one men of his class that he ever met. This ported (and as we now know, false) views the spy Beach as an opportunist statement as to the date of Le Caron’s insinuations about Walter Andrews, or a patriot largely depends on one’s departure from America for Europe Labouchere was even more insistent own politics; regarded in England (and — December — is a flat contradic- when it came to Inspector Jarvis’s role particularly by Robert Anderson) as a tion of Miss Beach, sister of Le Caron, in America. hero, the general opinion in America who stated that her brother arrived On March 11, 1890, Labouchere was that Le Caron (Beach) was a in England shortly before the death of accused the government of ‘an intrigue profiteer. their father in November last.” [sic] to procure an American Fenian leader St. Paul, Minn. February 11. “Says The ship in question, the Umbria, [Patrick Sheridan, who supposedly he Met Le Caron” sailed out of New York at 9 am on had information about the Phoenix John S. Barnes, of this city, December 8th, and arrived in Liverpool Park murders] as a witness before the who recently returned from a trip to early on the morning of December 15th Commission, asserting that Inspector England, where he went to take posses- — entirely consistent with Beach’s Jarvis, of Scotland-Yard, had been sion of property bequeathed him, says memoirs, and the date on his father’s placed at the disposal of The Times for that Dr. Le Caron, or Beach, who is now death certificate. John S. Barnes’ that purpose.’ testifying in London, was a fellow pas- return trip from England, incidentally, Here was the old accusation again senger on the outward trip in December. is confirmed by contemporary ship pas- rearing its head, and, much as he had During the voyage, Barnes was thrown senger lists. done at Walter Andrews’ expense, much in Le Caron’s company and soon Not to belabor the point further, Labouchere next quizzed Home

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 36 Secretary Henry Matthews in the effect that in November or December, Monro’s final statement bears Commons. Matthews, undoubtedly fed 1888, an officer of the Metropolitan repeating, “nor has any officer in the up with the accusations, firmly denied Police – Inspector Jarvis – was at force (which would include, of course, that Jarvis had gone on any such mis- Kansas City, and at Del Norte, a village Walter Andrews) been in America sion. Labouchere persisted, however, in the State of Colorado, United States assisting The Times, directly or and repeated the allegations in two of America, employed under the orders indirectly.” issues of his weekly, Truth. On April of Government in aiding The Times to Documents in The Times archive, 3rd, he wrote that ‘The Government procure the evidence of P.J. Sheridan. as well as internal Home Office reports, will stick at no suggestio falsi or sup- As Commissioner of Police of the unearthed by such historians as R. pressio veri in order to escape from the Metropolis, responsible for and cogni- Barry O’Brien, have since proved the admission of this . . . Jarvis went there zant of the movements of the officers accuracy of James Monro’s statement. in connection with The Times’ attempt of the force under my orders, I think Just as Andrews hadn’t met with on Sheridan, and I do not entertain the it right to give to the statements and Beach in America, Jarvis hadn’t gone to vestige of doubt that he reported — assertions above referred to the most Kansas City or Colorado as insinuated either in writing or verbally — to his unqualified denial. Such statements by Labouchere. The Times had, in fact, superiors what he did there.’ and assertions are absolutely untrue. hired an agent to approach Sheridan Labouchere’s allegations con- Since I became Assistant Commissioner in October, 1888, who, in turn, sent tinued in the April 17th issue, until of Police in 1884 until now, neither telegraph messages in cipher back to finally, on the following day, James Inspector Jarvis nor any other officer Joseph Soames at The Times. Members Monro, now Metropolitan Police of the Metropolitan Police has been at of Parnell’s defense team (which by now Commissioner dashed off a letter to any time within many hundred miles included Labouchere) broke the code The Times. Written under the title of either Kansas or Colorado, nor has and were aware that a deal was being ‘Truth and Falsehood’ (an obvi- any officer of the force been in America brokered. Unfortunately, the agents ous jab at the name of Labouchere’s assisting The Times, directly or indi- involved used aliases, and Soames’ weekly) Monro’s statement deserves rectly, in connection with their case team misinterpreted their meaning. careful scrutiny by historians of the before the Special Commission. The man who was actually attempt- Whitechapel murder investigation. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, ing to contact Sheridan was not from Sir, — My attention has been J. Monro, the Commissioner of Scotland Yard; contemporary docu- directed to a statement in this week’s Police of the Metropolis mentation shows that he was actually issue of Truth, which is a repetition of 4, Whitehall-place, S.W., April J.T. Kirby, a Canadian private detec- assertions made in the issue of the same 18.33 tive. Kirby, however, was evidently periodical of the 3rd instant, to the 33 The Times, April 19, 1890. spotted on a train, lost his nerve, and

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer failed to make his way to Sheridan’s Inspector Jarvis filed a libel suit, and in the interests of The Times. ranch. As it turns out, the Irish agents settling out of court, Labouchere was This was exactly what I wanted. in America had wrongly assumed that forced to hand over £100 and costs. Inspector Jarvis had, in fact, been in Kirby was Inspector Jarvis. Sir Robert Anderson would later America at the time indicated. But to Later, another agent for The Times give an interesting insight into the have undertaken a mission outside the did contact Sheridan in Colorado (who affair, revealing, along the way, his duty I had entrusted him was a grave subsequently laughed the whole thing rather peculiar methods. breach of discipline. So I directed his off and tried to extort money from I must premise that Le Caron’s superintendent to bring him before me The Times) but, once again, it wasn’t evidence was my only point of contact “on the report;” and the charge having a Scotland Yard man. As unearthed with the case for The Times. And I say been preferred, I adjourned the case to by Irish historian R. Barry O’Brien, this emphatically, because I find that give the incriminated officer an oppor- he was a private citizen named ‘Birch’ there are people still who credit Mr. tunity to clear himself. who was on leave from his job at the Labouchere’s statements that I sent In due time, Mr. Wonter, the solici- British Museum.34 police officers across the Atlantic to tout tor, called on me to say that, on Jarvis’ Scotland Yard now had Labouchere for evidence against the Parnellites. The instructions, he had commenced an by the throat, and they squeezed. When allegation was unequivocally denied by action against Mr. Labouchere, and that it was privately proven that Jarvis had the Secretary of State in Parliament, Messrs. Lewis and Lewis now wished to not been in Colorado, nor Kansas City, and by the Chief Commissioner of the compromise it: would I be content if the nor had been working for The Times, Police . . . defendant paid all costs, and allowed but had been in America to trace the I was naturally indignant, and judgment to be entered against him? absconding swindler, Thomas Barton I determined to bring [Labouchere] “Certainly not,” I replied; “the matter (just as Robert Pinkerton had implied to book. But I could take no action before me is the conduct of an officer of a year and a half earlier) Labouchere on words spoken in Parliament. The my department, and if the case is set- was forced to print a halfhearted course I adopted, therefore, was to give tled out of court, the settlement must retraction in Truth, admitting that his the facts to the editor of the World; be on terms that will veto all suspicion informers in America had fallen prey to and, as I expected, “Edmund” drew of collusion.” The matter ended by Mr. a case of ‘mistaken identity.’ Moreover, “Henry” in the “par” columns of Truth. Labouchere paying the costs, plus £100 34 Birch’s full name is not given, but he must surely Mr. Labouchere declared in his paper for damages, and inserting an apology have been Walter Degray Birch of No. 3 Grove Road, that he was fully prepared to prove in Truth.35 St. Pancras, who is listed in the 1881 UK census as that Inspector Jarvis of my department It hardly needs to be pointed out an “Assistant in Manuscript Department in British had been to a town named Del Norte to 35 Sir Robert Anderson, Sidelights on the Home Rule Museum.” interview the Land Leaguer Sheridan Movement (1907), pp. 147-148.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 38 that if Anderson had actually sent date to January 5th and 10th, 1889.36 medical mission in India when plague Scotland Yard detectives to America Obviously, the incidental return of was raging — also lied. We have to on behalf of The Times, then the above Beach to England also supports this believe that Sir Charles Warren, who passage from 1907 is the most auda- chronology — Anderson could hardly consistently fought with the C.I.D. cious and misleading lie imaginable. have orchestrated the elder Beach’s about engaging in anti-Fenian surveil- But is this a case of Anderson death from multiple sclerosis! In short, lance, nonetheless risked the ultimate simply lying? Had he, in fact, sent when Walter Andrews was sent to disgrace by authorizing a politically Andrews and other detectives to Canada, Anderson was not yet in com- explosive mission, even though he America to drum up evidence for The munication with The Times. had already tendered his resignation. Times? We also have to believe that Henry Anderson repeatedly stated that Where does this leave us? Mathews, Robert Pinkerton, and C.H. he never did this. Further, he insisted In order to believe that Walter Epplessheimer lied. Finally, we have he wasn’t even approached by an Andrews was ‘working The Times’ to believe that Walter Andrews him- agent for The Times (James Cameron case in America, we have to accept self, whose career shows he was a man a politically explosive mission

MacDonald, the paper’s general man- any number of wild improbabilities. of competence and integrity — he once ager) until after New Year’s Day, We have to believe that Anderson bla- gave testimony before a Parliamentary 1889 — that is a full six weeks after tantly lied in print on no less than Committee on Police Ethics and Andrews had left for North America. ten occasions (by his own count) and, Discipline — not only knowingly coop- This is damning, for this was a full six further, that on becoming Assistant erated in an illegal enterprise, but then weeks after Anderson had negotiated Met Commissioner, he immediately — for no imaginable reason — made to send Walter Andrews to America, behaved in the most reckless fashion the utterly stupid mistake of admitting and, long after Andrews had already imaginable; not only plotting a politi- it in the press. sailed to America. Existing documen- cal conspiracy, but doing it through This last point is particularly dif- tation in the Home Office files fully the proper channels. We also have ficult to accept. Under an 1882 police support Anderson’s version of the to believe that James Monro — who directorate established by Sir Edmund events. Letters showing the negotia- went on to risk his life by founding a Henderson, Scotland Yard detectives tions between McDonald and Anderson 36 PRO HO 144/1538, cited also in Campbell, op. cit., were forbidden to discuss their inves- (which allowed Beach to take the stand) pp. 323-4 & 403. tigations with the press without the

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer expressed consent of their superiors; investigations — cases of burglary, (or Anderson or Scotland Yard) have the Treasury established similar rules fraud, illegal abortion, and the hunt- needed to risk a political scandal by in 1875 and 1884 for civil servants ing down of fugitives. sending Andrews — of all people — to (and this, incidentally, was the direc- And, despite insinuations to the America? tive that landed Sir Charles Warren in contrary, we actually know the names There is one last hurdle. It is the hot water in 1888). It borders on the of the investigators used by The Times task of every careful historian to test ludicrous to believe that Andrews, an in America, gleaned from such sources his or her pet theory, and even, if pos- experienced Scotland Yard detective as The Times archives in London and sible, to disprove it. Yet, clearly, no one whose discretion was commented upon, through the research of such historians has bothered to ask the most obvious would have engaged in a covert mis- as Leon O’Broin, R. Barry O’Brien, and question: If Andrews had really gone to sion and then undermined the entire Christy Campbell. The Times’ agents North America to drum up witnesses enterprise by unnecessarily blabbing were J.T. Kirby, the rather disreputa- for the Special Commission, and had about it. Andrews, we are told, ‘prac- ble Canadian private detective; James (as he allegedly said) “obtained some tically admitted this was his mission’ Thomson (an ex-Inspector at the Met, important clues in the Parnell case — meaning, of course, that he said now a private detective) whose role in — things I never dreamed of,” where nothing of the sort. combating Fenianism stretched back are his results? After Andrews’ return Andrews, in fact, was a particu- to the Clerkenwell explosives case of to England, the Parnell Commission larly poor choice to engage in such a 1867; John P. Hayes, a Philadelphia lumbered on for another year and did covert operation, and this is perhaps informer and Clan na Gael initiate who not conclude until November 22, 1889. the most damning of all the arguments had previously worked for spy-master These hearings were not held in secret; against the theories of Vanderlinden Edward Jenkinson; Thomas Walsh, a all testimony was made public, and can and Riordan. As we have seen, convicted Fenian gunrunner turned be found in such collections as The Daily Andrews’ career at Scotland Yard in informant; Walter Birch, a curator at News Diary of the Parnell Commission no way involved Irish terrorism. He the British Museum, and James Moser (1890), whose several hundred pages was not a Special Branch man. He — another ex-Scotland Yard Inspector of fine print record a running commen- had no contacts in America and his who had kept earlier surveillance on tary of the 128 sittings and some 460 worth in ‘tracking down Fenian wit- Irish Nationalists in Paris, but had witnesses who were called to testify. nesses’ would have been negligible. As also retired in 1887 to become a pri- If Andrews had secured witnesses in we have seen in the first installment vate investigator. This poses an obvi- Toronto or Montreal, it would be a rel- of this series, up to and including the ous question. With such heavyweights atively easy matter to point them out. spring of 1888, Andrews’ career con- as Thomson, Hayes, Walsh, and Moser In truth, in the weeks following cerned itself with standard criminal at The Times’ disposal, why would they the dramatic revelations of Thomas

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 40 Miller Beach, the proceedings of the rail from Toronto. More doubtful yet, really rounding up witnesses for the Special Commission had very little Soames of The Times, under cross- Parnell Commission. The evidence sug- to do with America. Rather, it almost examination, admitted that he hadn’t gests this is 180 degrees backwards; it exclusively focused on the activities of taken Coleman’s statement until March was actually the other way around. the Land League in Ireland, and its 1, 1889, and, further, that Coleman It will be recalled from the second supposed connection to agrarian vio- had personally contacted ‘Constable part of this series [Casebook Examiner lence. The typical witness testified to Preston’ (the Chief Constable of the No. 2 June 2010] that after news of the smuggling of weapons or of some Royal Irish Constabulary) who he had Tumblety’s London arrest leaked back vague plot against a land agent. How recently met with in Ireland, and had to America on November 18th, 1888, it any of this could have related to drum- offered to give information for a fee.37 was reported that he was a Canadian — ming up witnesses in Toronto, Ontario, Clearly, Coleman had not been a piece of misinformation that would be is difficult to comprehend. induced to testify by Walter Andrews, repeated a few days later by Brooklyn Indeed, of the many dozens of wit- nor by anyone else at Scotland Yard. Police Chief Patrick Campbell, one of nesses who addressed the Commission We are left with no credible evidence the officials who was in contact with after Andrews’ return to London, there whatsoever that Andrews had gone to Robert Anderson at the C.I.D. For appears to have been only one with a America to ‘drum up’ Fenians. some odd reason, Campbell was under Canadian connection. On March 7, the impression that Tumblety hailed 1889, an Irishman named Coleman, Theories, Mysteries and from Sherbooke, Quebec. who had recently lived in Canada, and Revelations Thus, by the time Andrews who once worked on the Canadian The whole truth behind Andrews’ boarded the Sarnia on December 9th, Pacific Railway, gave a rambling tale of voyage to Canada at the end of 1888 Scotland Yard may well have been violence and smuggling he had encoun- will probably never be known. We lack under the impression that their sus- tered many years earlier in County reliable documentation. That said, pect was from Canada. He was not, but Mayo, Ireland. The Daily News was far we do have circumstantial evidence, it was certainly true that he had sub- from satisfied with Coleman’s vague gleaned from various sources, and it is stantial ties to Toronto and Montreal testimony, “impressed by the dullness reasonable to draw a conclusion. — two cities that Andrews subse- and the inconsequence, more than by Several critics have argued that quently visited. the villainy, of this tissue of stories.” the reports of Andrews investigating Robert Anderson, meanwhile, was Certainly Coleman had recently the Whitechapel murders in North interested in Tumblety’s antecedents. resided in Canada, but he described America were bogus, and that he was Chief Crowley in San Francisco was his property as being in Winnipeg, 37 The Daily News Diary of the Parnell photographing Tumblety’s bank state- Manitoba — nearly 1,000 miles by Commission(1890), pp. 177-180. ments for Anderson’s benefit, and it

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer is known that Campbell in Brooklyn The Mail assumed that Andrews a second officer in the United States. was compiling a written report on had received Fenian documents while These he subsequently received in Tumblety, complete with one of his in Niagara. This, we now know, is Niagara — a major border crossing and pamphlets. highly doubtful. Yet, the description the obvious place to liaise with someone The chronology here is important. of books, papers, etc., remains entirely coming up from New York. Crowley and Campbell were gather- consistent with materials we know A very strong indication that ing their reports, photographs, etc., were being gathered in the United Andrews was investigating Tumblety on November 22-24th. Originally, the States by Crowley and Campbell (i.e. in Canada can be found in another cred- arrangement was for these to be forward those concerning Francis Tumblety). ible report, one coming out of Montreal. to London. But this arrangement dates It is pointedly remarked that It is credible because it does not origi- to a time before the negotiations to send Andrews never made his way to New nate with Andrews — Scotland Yard Andrews to Canada had been finalized. York City — an obvious place to inves- detectives didn’t discuss their cases — By the end of the week, the situation tigate Tumblety. This is irrelevant. but from a source inside the Montreal had changed, and Robert Anderson now We also know from credible reports by Police Department. knew that he had a man crossing the several competing New York dailies (Montreal, Dec. 20th). It was Atlantic. that an English detective was in lower announced at police headquarters today Andrews now sails to Halifax, Manhattan watching Tumblety’s board- that Andrews has a commission in con- stays a week in Toronto (more on this ing house in early December. Brooklyn nection with two other Scotland Yard in a moment) then travels to Niagara, Police Chief Patrick Campbell was also men to find the murderer in America. Montreal, and, finally, home. investigating. Quite simply, there was His inaction for so long a time, and the His mission is reported in the press, no need for Andrews to travel to the fact that a man, suspected of knowing but only two of these reports appear cred- United States to duplicate those inqui- considerable about the murders left ible. The first is merely descriptive; as ries. Further, the Irishman had previ- England for this side three weeks ago, reported in The Mail, Andrews returned ously spread himself so thinly across makes the London police believe “Jack” from Niagara with a sheaf of papers. a vast continent — with connections has left that country for this.38 Then, again, there was his trip to to San Francisco, Montreal, St. Louis, This is obviously and indisput- Niagara. When he returned from there New Orleans, and elsewhere — that any ably a reference to Tumblety, and it he carried a large bundle of papers and inquiry regarding his past would have is known that Andrews did meet with books. He said these were photographs. required more than one detective. Thus, Montreal Police Chief George Hughes What he could want with an armful of the most likely answer is that Andrews that afternoon. photographs was more than his friends was merely handling the Canadian end 38 St. Louis Republican, by-lined ‘Special to Republic’ could understand. of things while awaiting reports from from Montreal, December 22, 1888.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 42 Vanderlinden, rather conveniently, same suspect’s former dealings with a Station’ attending a hearing held for dismisses this meeting as a social call, prostitute? It’s difficult to accept. the interesting but neglected Ripper a whiling away of time while Andrews Which, in a roundabout way, suspect, Nikaner Benelius. A few days was awaiting his outbound train. There brings us back to Walter Dew. later, November 23rd, Dew had a sus- is no reason to suppose this. In fact, it It is clear that the Tumblety crit- pect of his own. An unidentified man is uncertain how long Andrews stayed ics don’t quite know what to do with entered an East End coffee-house and in Montreal; one account has him leav- Dew. Riordan fails to mention him, asked to have a piece of meat cooked. ing on the 20th, another on the 22nd. and Vanderlinden does so only in pass- He then began acting so suspiciously Since Andrews left Toronto on the 18th ing, commenting that Andrews’ name ‘that Dew thought he might be the and, presumably, arrived in Halifax on nowhere appears in the Whitechapel Whitechapel murderer.’ The man was the 24th, it leaves six days travel time Murder files. Yet this is hardly surpris- taken to Commercial Street station for for a two or three day trip. Andrews ing, considering that nearly all the spe- questioning, but eventually released.39 may well have stayed in Montreal for cific suspect files have gone missing. Dew, of course, later went on to a two days. But Dew doesn’t easily go away. He famous career at Scotland Yard, rising he was little more than a blowhard And Montreal is a very likely place has his detractors; the most vocal, the all the way to Chief Inspector. Given for Andrews to have made inquiries. writer A.P. Wolf, once suggested that this history, it’s inconceivable that he Tumblety once lived in the city, and, he was little more than a blowhard who wouldn’t have known which Scotland as is well known, was once arrested never worked the Whitechapel murder Yard officers had worked the most sen- there for allegedly supplying abortifa- case in the first place. This claim has no sational case of the Victorian era — one cients to a prostitute. Only days before validity. Dew’s police record shows that in which he was personally involved. Andrews’ departure, Anderson had he was stationed in H-Division in 1888, Dew named Walter Andrews. Further, wired Crowley in San Francisco, asking and there are contemporary references any suggestion that Andrews’ connec- him to “send handwriting and all to Dew working the Ripper investigation to the Whitechapel Murder case details you can of Tumblety.” Yet, with tion. The Times of November 19th, was a blind to hide his true motives Andrews now in Montreal, Scotland 1888, for instance, mentions ‘Detective 39 See Connell and Evans, The Man Who Hunted Yard is suddenly not interested in the Sergeant Dew’ from ‘Commercial Street Jack the Ripper (1999), pp. 71-72.

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer falls apart once it is realized that Throughout the 1870s and 80s, in the store several times, and, being of Dew published his account in 1930 — Tumblety was a frequent visitor to the striking appearance, excited our curios- eight years after the foundation of the city. After an extended trip to Europe ity. He was over six feet in height, stout Republic of Ireland, and decades after in 1878, he immediately returned to and dark. He was possessed of plenty the Parnell Commission had been long Toronto, despite being embroiled in a of money and showed us several very forgotten and Andrews himself had fight over stolen bonds in New York valuable diamond rings which he car- slipped into obscurity. Had Andrews City. According to a California man ried in his pocket. At that time his arm been involved in a politically explosive who knew Tumblety well, “between was in a sling, but for what reason our scandal, rather than the Whitechapel the years 1856-1860, he was a regu- utmost scrutiny and questions failed Murder investigation, Dew could lar visitor at the annual provincial to discover. Shortly afterwards he van- have simply avoided mentioning him expositions held at Toronto . . . until ished, and we have not seen him since, altogether. in time he came to be considered as but from the description in this morn- Yet, there is one final objection to much a part of the exposition as any ing’s paper, we have no doubt but that Andrews investigating Tumblety in special feature of it.” These visits seem he is the same Dr. Tumblety as men- Canada. Walter Andrews spent most of to have extended to well after 1860, tioned in the article you print from the his investigation — a whole week — in however, for it was following a Toronto New York Times. and around Toronto, Ontario. Although Exposition in October, 1880, that the Yours, etc., Tumblety once lived in Toronto, Wolf fifty-year-old Tumblety was arrested Geo. Harcourt & Son, Toronto, Vanderlinen has made the seemingly and subsequently convicted of assault- Nov. 21.40 sensible objection that this was in ing a fourteen-year-old youth named The fact that Tumblety visited the 1858, and thus this ‘connection ended Isaac Bulger. store ‘several times’ certainly suggests thirty years earlier.’ In Vanderlinden’s In November 1883, Tumblety once another extended visit. words, the ‘thirty year gap’ between again appeared in Toronto under char- Yet, perhaps the most relevant 1858 and 1888 made it ‘highly unlikely’ acteristically odd circumstances. fact of all is that Tumblety yet again that Andrews could have been inves- Sir, – We notice an article in the returned to Toronto in 1888, and tigating Tumblety’s whereabouts (or Mail of to-day headed “The Same appears to have been there directly antecedents) in Toronto. Tumblety,” in which is given the history before the Whitechapel Murders. Unfortunately, on this point and a description of a Dr. Tumblety This was reported by two of Toronto’s Vanderlinden is simply wrong. recently arrested in connection with the competing dailies, The Mail and The Tumblety’s connection to Toronto Whitechapel murders. In November, Globe. didn’t end in 1858; indeed, it extended 1883, a man of the same name ordered Dr. Francis Tumblety, who was all the way to 1888. a coat and other things from us. He was 40 The Mail, November 22, 1888.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 44 arrested in London recently on suspicion Baconsfield, and other notable persons. advanced syphilis. His sudden appear- of being implicated in the Whitechapel As an “Indian Herb Doctor” he carried ance in East London at the height of murders, was in Toronto for a few days on business in Toronto in the latter the murders — and Scotland Yard’s January last [i.e. 1888]. That was his part of the fifties, having an office on obvious interest in him — remains a last visit to this city. While here he King street east, almost opposite the St. very real mystery. informed a reporter of THE MAIL that Lawrence Market. For many years past, And, despite The Mail’s assur- he (the doctor) was suffering from kidney however, he has not practiced medi- ance that Tumblety had left Toronto and heart disease, and that he was con- cine, but occupies himself in continual in January 1888, the cross-town Globe stantly in dread of sudden death. He travel, rarely stopping more than a few reported that he actually returned again left Toronto in the last week of January days in any place.41 that spring. This is most interesting of for the Hot Springs of Arkansas, and The report is credible. It relates all, for the ‘doctor’ appears to have trav- during the last ten years has passed many of Tumblety’s oddities that are eled to London in May with a group of most of his time at the various health now confirmable, but weren’t widely tourists from the Toronto area. resorts in America and on the Continent known at the time; his bogus letters Dr. Tumblety, who was recently of Europe. He is a fine-looking man, from Napoleon III, for instance, or his acquitted [sic] of a charge of being con- strongly built, and over six feet in height. diamond rings and affinity for the bath- cerned in the Whitechapel murders, He is now sixty years of age, but as he houses in Hot Springs. It also magnifies was in Toronto last May and sailed for regularly dyed his fierce mustachios a what has always been a chief difficulty England shortly afterwards. His fel- rich deep black, he manages to retain in assessing Tumblety as a suspect in low-passengers became much interested a moderately youthful appearance. He the Whitechapel Murder case; by 1888, in the doctor, who is a man of striking- claims to be an Irishman, but in man- the image of Tumblety as an outlandish presence, pleasant manners and great ners and speech he is now thoroughly ‘Herb Doctor’ (so popular in the press conversational powers. He had trav- American. His real name is Tully. He and in the minds of ‘Ripperologists’) eled much and had practiced medicine has on several occasions been placed in was an anachronism. In the sev- in San Francisco, New York, Toronto, durance by representatives of the law, eral years leading up to his arrest in and Montreal. He was in Canada in and has always succeeded in establish- London, we know the least about him; the fifties and showed an extract from ing his innocence of the crime charged he seems to have abandoned medicine a Montreal paper in which he was against him . . . to lead an increasingly wayward and spoken of as a candidate in opposi- [Tumblety] has in his possession, dissipated existence, filled with rent tion to the late D’Arcy McGee. He had and they were read by a MAIL reporter, boys, saloons, grandiosity, hypochon- printed copies of letters to himself from autographed letters addressed to him dria, and — to my mind — hints of Napoleon III, John Bright, and other by Napoleon III, John Bright, Lord 41 The Mail, November 23, 1888. celebrities, and a letter from President

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer Lincoln introducing him to Lord John Russell. He appeared to have plenty of money, and was lavish in his generos- ity to the attendants on the steamboat. The impression he left on the passengers was that of a dashing, reckless and adventurous man, but not one who would be guilty of crime.42 Why was Tumblety constantly returning to Toronto in the 1870s and 80s? There are several possibilities. The bitter Canadian winters tended to drive street urchins indoors, where they became easy prey for pederasts willing to give them temporary lodging. Tumblety, increasingly marginalized in the latter half of his life, also seems to have had a psychological need to return to his former haunts, so he could recap- ture his now dwindling notoriety as the ‘Indian Herb Doctor.’ Further, there are indications that Tumblety may have even owned property in southern Ontario. In an advertisement that ran in the Montreal Gazette in 1859, Tumblety claimed that he was the owner of acreage near the Grand Trunk Railroad in Upper Canada — meaning, not northern Canada, but the upper end of the St. Lawrence River in southern Ontario — which, of course, is where 42 Toronto Globe, November 23, 1888.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 46 Toronto is located. If this was a hollow to London. Evidently Tumblety never Rumbelow,44 this strange reference has boast, it was certainly a long-lived one; showed, and Andrews finished his excited nearly no commentary, even accused of bilking patients in Liverpool, investigation and left. though it is certainly one of the strang- England, in 1875, Tumblety excused his Finally, there are two events at the est documents in the entire canon. disreputable practices by stating that end of 1888, both bizarre, which may All the officers named are familiar he was raising money to fight a land well shed indirect light on Andrews’ to students of the Whitechapel Murder suit over his Canadian property.43 mysterious mission. They both occurred case. Chief Inspector Swanson was the Considering Tumblety’s presence in London. administrative head of the investiga- in Toronto in the spring of 1888, a sug- The first concerns one of the tion during Anderson’s absence from gestion first made by Donald Rumbelow final acts of Sir Charles Warren as London in September and early October, cannot be entirely discounted. During Commissioner of the Metropolitan and is mentioned throughout the case the Victorian era, it was commonplace Police. At the end of November 1888, files. Littlechild, of course, is the Chief for Scotland Yard detectives to study Warren “desire[d] to place on record the Inspector who named Tumblety as a hotel registers, bank statements, and conduct of the following officers, who, ‘very likely’ suspect in the murders. As ship passenger lists to trace Americans by zeal and activity in the discharge operational head of the Special Branch, in England suspected of various crimes; of their duties, effected the apprehen- it is frequently argued that Littlechild obviously, they wanted to know who sion of persons wanted for offenses was out of the loop, but this suggestion the suspect was, and where he had committed.” carries little conviction. Entries in the come from. If Scotland Yard had some- (4th inst). Insp. (C.I.D,) Marshall still closed Special Branch files refer to how learned of Tumblety’s frequent (4th inst). Ch. Insp. (C.O.-C.I.D.) the East End murders, and, as shown in visits to Toronto, or that he had been Littlechild the above entry, Littlechild was working there that spring, it is not implausible (4th inst). Ch. Insp. (” ”) Swanson closely with Swanson during the height that Andrews would have lingered in (4th inst). Insp. (” ”) Andrews. of the scare. Inspector Henry Marshall, the city for a week to see if he showed The notice subsequently appeared though not known to have worked the up. As Rumbelow noted, the Ashburton in the Metropolitan Police Orders for case, headed the closely related inquiry Treaty between the United States and Tuesday, November 27, 1888 (the day into the so-called ‘Whitehall Mystery,’ Britain did not allow extradition for before Warren telegraphed Toronto the unidentified female torso dumped gross indecency. However, if Tumblety about Andrews’ pending arrival) under at the New Scotland Yard building site followed his old pattern of spending the heading “Commendation and on October 3rd. The final name is part of his winters in Toronto, he could Rewards.” Walter Andrews. have been arrested and brought back First discovered several years 44 Evans and Rumbelow, Jack the Ripper: Scotland 43 Liverpool Mercury, January 28, 1875. ago by Stewart P. Evans and Donald Yard Investigates (2006), p. 202.

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer Such rewards and commenda- and Crowley — the four youths with was an Irish maniac.’45 This is odd. tions were usually reserved for promi- whom Tumblety had been involved. The biography of Warren written by nent cases; the arrest of an embezzler Three days later, Tumblety was Watkin Williams gives no further elu- who stole hundreds, or a dynamiter ‘received into custody.’ Rather dubi- cidation; it merely states that Warren who had attempted to blow up a build- ously, he is eventually charged with didn’t care to discuss the Whitechapel ing. And this is the oddest thing of all. four counts of ‘indecent assault with murder case, and then goes on with There is seemingly no prosecution in force of arms,’ strongly implying that a doubtful rendition of the Druitt December 1888, or throughout early the police were only interested in him, theory — without the least evidence 1889, that refers to arrests made by and not the four youths. Their coop- that Warren himself supported it. Littlechild, Swanson, Andrews, and eration obtained, they afterwards dis- Secondary sources are, of course, Marshall. Thus, whatever case Warren appear from the records. worthless as historical evidence. A was referring to remains an enigma, This might sound far-fetched, careful sifting of all the relevant cita- and three days afterwards, Warren left but no other prosecution in late 1888 tions in Nash’s bibliography fails to the Met, never to return. or 1889 fits the bill, and it’s cer- identify his source, and the most that There is one possible solution, tainly odd that Warren was com- can be said is that Nash owned one but it is unlikely to please the critics. mending Andrews the very moment of the largest collections of criminal The ‘apprehensions’ Warren refers that he was leaving on a ‘mission’ to material in the world, and a source for to dated to November 4th, 1888, and Canada, and odder still that Andrews Warren’s beliefs might still be found. involved four Scotland Yard offi- is being linked in early November to The second mystery concerns the cers, evidently working in unison. It Littlechild, who later named Tumblety strange actions of Robert Anderson at is documented that Tumblety had a as a ‘very likely’ suspect. the end of 1888. On December 20th, sexual encounter with John Doughty Meanwhile, Warren’s own opinion ‘Rose’ Mylett, a prostitute, was found two days earlier, November 2nd, about the Whitechapel Murder case murdered — evidently garroted — in a and was subsequently picked up on remains largely unknown, though deserted court in Poplar, East London. November 7th. Yet, Tumblety wasn’t there is a vague and even doubtful ref- Over the following days, Anderson charged merely for ‘gross indecency’ erence to it in Jay Robert Nash’s mas- would repeatedly meddle with the find- with Doughty; in the meantime, three sive six volume Encyclopedia of World ings of the local coroner in an increas- other ‘victims’ had come to light. The Crime. In an entry on Sir Charles ingly bizarre attempt to have the death shadowy arrests on November 4th, by Warren, Nash states, ‘towards the end ruled as a self-inflicted, albeit acciden- four different officers, would certainly of his life, although he never made his tal, strangling. This was an unlikely make sense if a police ‘sweep’ on that opinions public, Warren intimated to 45 Nash, Encyclopedia of World Crime, Vol. IV., p. date picked up Doughty, Fisher, Brice, friends that he believed the Ripper 3096.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 48 theory, and few believed it; indeed, the Anderson who sent a man to Canada. any pending legal hurdles if Tumblety coroner’s jury eventually ruled that And at the time of the Mylett murder — were to ever face prosecution. Clearly, Mylett had been murdered ‘by person December 20th — that man, Inspector ‘nullifying’ the Mylett murder would or persons unknown.’ Andrews, was still abroad finishing have been highly desirable nipping The full extent of Anderson’s his inquiries. Indeed if the reports out any defense argument in the bud. At strange gyrations over the course of of Montreal can be believed, the very the very least, the timing of Anderson’s that week has been fully dealt with day that Mylett was found dead — interference with the Mylett inquest is elsewhere, but what has never been December 20th — Andrews was inves- extraordinary. explained is why Anderson would have tigating ‘a man suspected of knowing Of course, years later, Anderson so vigorously involved himself in the considerable about the murders.’ would famously claim there was ‘no Mylett inquest. If, in fact, Robert Anderson sus- doubt whatsoever’ that a Polish Jew There is, however, a possible solu- pected Tumblety’s involvement in the was Jack the Ripper. Perhaps; but nei- tion. A neglected aspect of Anderson’s Whitechapel case — and even thought ther the biographical details of Aaron career and personality is that he was a that a prosecution might be pending Kosminski, nor Anderson’s earlier lawyer. This is hardly incidental. When — then he had, in fact, a clear motive complaints about the ‘non-detection’ of the C.I.D. was first organized, the gov- for ‘nullifying’ the Mylett murder. the murderer, inspire confidence, and ernment appointed Howard Vincent Why? Tumblety’s defense team would there has always been a strong sense — ‘an astute young lawyer’ — to be surely have a field day pointing out that Anderson was merely overcom- its first head. It was a shrewd move; that another dead prostitute had been pensating for Scotland Yard having a lawyer would be sensitive to all the found in East London, after their client botched the investigation in 1888. legal ramification and technicalities had already blown town. Far-fetched? Contemporary sources leave no doubt of any case being investigated by the Maybe, but Walter Andrews, while in that Anderson was deeply interested Yard. In 1888, Anderson — another Canada, also allegedly stated that he in Francis Tumblety. lawyer — was similarly appointed. believed the ‘right man’ was among the Anderson’s strange involvement suspects.46 If accurate, this remarkable Andrews’ End in the Mylett case in December, 1888, admission is surely a guarded refer- It is appropriate to end this series with may well indicate that he had a specific ence to the same man he had crossed a brief look at Andrews’ final years. legal reason for wanting the murder ‘off the ocean to investigate. It would have They are, sadly, marred by tragedy. the books.’ But what could this reason then been the job of Andrews’ supervi- Little is known of what happened be? Only one comes to mind. It was sor — Robert Anderson — to eliminate to Andrews on his return to London, Anderson who telegraphed America 46 Toronto Globe, December 21, 1888. Cited in or after the Labouchere affair brought concerning Tumblety, and it was Vanderlinden. his name before the public. In August,

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer …sadly, marred by tragedy…

1889, he suddenly retired from Scotland source of gratification to him to know our radar. Yard, citing bad health. The following that he retired with the respect and Four years later, on August 26, November, a reception was held in his goodwill of all active officers, and that 1899, a father and son bicycling along honor. he had the confidence of Mr. Monro, a lonely stretch of road near Horndean, On Friday afternoon a pleasing the Chief Commissioner, the Assistant Hampshire, came across a horrific ceremony took place in Scotland Yard Commissioners, and all the heads of sight. Beneath a roadside tree, a man Detective Office, namely, the presenta- the service.47 was dangling from a short length of tion of a clock, vases, and an address As was the case with so many who rope, his knees dragging on the ground. on vellum, to Ex-detective Inspector retired from Scotland Yard, Andrews It was Walter Andrews. Andrews, who retired a few weeks ago went on to pursue a career as a private The county coroner [Mr. E. Goble] on the ground of ill-health. The gifts detective; he could now slacken his held an inquest at the “Ship and Bell” were subscribed for by his brother offi- pace and pick his own hours. Inn, Hordean, on Monday afternoon, cers, and presented by Chief Inspector Somewhat oddly, the 1891 UK touching the death of Walter Simon Shore, in a very happy address, in the census does not show Andrews living in Andrews, aged 52, of Hillside Villas, presence of all the inspectors and offi- the family home in Lambeth; his eldest Frensham road, Farnham, late detec- cers of the department. Mr. Shore, in daughter Edith, however, is still there tive-inspector attached to the Criminal the course of his remarks, hoped Mr. and is listed as a ‘detective’s clerk’ — Investigation Department at New Andrews would live many years to tell presumably because she was working Scotland Yard, who was found dead the time by the clock. The inscription for her father. suspended by a rope from a tree by the on the clock is as follows: “Presented to In 1895, Windsor Magazine roadside at Horndean on Saturday Inspector Walter S. Andrews, Criminal included a brief reference to Andrews, last. Mr. Carpenter was chosen fore- Investigation Department, Great along with a photograph, in an article man of the jury. Scotland Yard, by his brother officers, titled “The Detective in Real Life.” Jane Andrews, widow of the as a mark of their esteem and regard Andrews is described as being one of deceased, stated that he had been pen- on his retirement from the service, after the most prominent private enquiry sioned from the police force for the last a period of 19 years. August, 1889.” Mr. agents in London. There is little more ten years on account of failing health. Andrews, in acknowledging the presen- and thereafter Andrews falls beneath For eight years after he left the force tation, expressed his regret at having 47 The Police Chronicle & Guardian, November 9, he carried on a private enquiry agency to leave the service, but said it was a 1889. in London, but two years ago he was

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 50 obliged to give it up, as his health got Acknowledgements worse. They then removed to Farnham I would like to thank Joe Chetcuti on the advice of a doctor. Whilst resid- for proofreading all three installments ing at Farnham he had complained in this series; Jonathan Hainsworth of imaginary troubles, and last for further corrections, and Stewart Wednesday left his home apparently P. Evans for supplying both Robert to go for a walk, but did not return. Anderson’s request to Godfrey Enquiries were instituted and on Lushington at the Home Office (first Thursday she went to London to see if uncovered by Keith Skinner) and press he had gone to visit some friends there, reports of the Andrews inquest in but failing to find him she returned to Horndean. Farnham and reported the matter to the police. He had never threatened to commit suicide, but on Thursday she received an unintelligible letter from him which indicated that he was not in a sound state of mind . . . The jury returned a verdict of suicide whilst in a state of temporary 48 Biography insanity. It was a sad end to one of Victorian R.J.Palmer Scotland Yard’s finest detectives, and a reminder of the dire toll the job took on .J. Palmer lives and works in London’s East End. Currently, he so many. Eugene, Oregon. He began is researching a book on the Irish Andrews’ final resting place is Rstudying the Whitechapel Nationalist journalist Jeremiah unknown. It can only be hoped that his Murder case in 1989, after taking O’Donovan Rossa. secrets did not die with him. Donald Rumbelow’s classic tour of

48 The Hants & Sussex News, August 30, 1899.

Inspector Andrews Revisited part three: Behind the Scenes in America R. J. Palmer Plotting the 1888 Kelly Postal

Directory d.m.gates

his paper should NOT be read arguments to being accurate character- 1888, but they do augment them. The as an argument paper. It does izations of the area. These arguments Directory reflects an aspect of the 1888 Tnot contain the classic formula are refutations of the common concep- reality that is lacking in detail in other of thesis, argument and conclusion. tion based on Directory data. datasets common to the novice Ripper Rather, it contains a section on biases This paper is not intended as a scholar. I am only a student of these within the source document, a section complete dataset regarding the econ- events and the form of this paper was on methodology, and sections on indi- omy of the Jack the Ripper murder determined by an express desire to vidual findings. The reason for this district of 1888. This paper stems from inform my Ripper scholar peers with- stems from the reasoning for the cre- the analysis of an incomplete dataset, out the pro forma argument of the clas- ation of the dataset that spawned this and therefore can only be incomplete sical style of presentation. paper in general. I was curious about as a result. It is a summary of the The Directory image of the area the nature of the environment the vic- image portrayed in the Directory. As is largely the image of major streets. tims understood as reality. Having only such, it ignores the admittedly flour- These are the areas shaded bright red the mass media image to start with, ishing street trade, especially in food on the Booth survey map, and they I was curious to see if the 1888 Kelly and used clothing, although that trade indicate the well-to-do or middle-class, Postal Directory reinforced this image. only strengthens the argument of eco- according to Booth. This selective rep- While the conclusions sections argue nomic vitality. The findings presented resentation within the Directory is against the paradigm of district pov- do not replace other interpretations the reason that the Booth map and erty, the reader should not extend those of the reality of the murder district in Postal Directory datasets are not

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 52 Bo o t h Ma p

Plotting the 1888 Kelly Postal Directory D. M. Gates exclusive of each other. Contextually, come to dominate the other in terms of nomenclatures. In practical terms the Directory takes us from red shad- popularity and dispersion. One inter- it was the Ripper’s hunting ground ing to specific numeric values. It is pretation has in effect become a para- according to the Macnaghten group- correctly understood as the fleshing digm for how Ripper scholars view the ing of the Whitechapel murders. out of detail regarding the nature of community of 1888. Many forms of Very quickly after starting the economic conditions that was lost in media have unabashedly favored the mapping it became apparent that the shading process in the creation of Booth map dataset in terms of being there was a differential represen- the Booth maps. representational of the area, and thus tation in favor of the larger streets It is a fact that the Directory they have created a faulty paradigm and against more residential areas. aligns with, and augments part of, for the understanding of the area. I Plotting locations demonstrated that the Booth map dataset. The differ- strongly suspect that this approach of in 500 feet of a larger street there ing presentations between the Booth emphasizing poverty and criminality might be 35 entries, while on a more map as a whole and the Directory within the area has led to a skewed residential street there might not be stems largely from the fact that you perception of the actual environment any. This differential representation have two distinct datasets generated that has become common to novice correlates well with the Booth map for different purposes. Each dataset Ripper students. dataset regarding well-to-do or mid- was made by entities with differing This is the “murder district” dle-class areas in the district. goals and with different views regard- I will be referring to. It is the area There are two primary reasons for ing the approach to the collection and circumscribed by the recovery sites this. Larger streets contained a higher presentation of data. The dominance of the “Macnaghten Five” victims. It number of enterprises that required a of one image over the other in terms encompasses 62.39 hectares or, for public listing as a form of advertise- of popularity is largely the result of the metrically challenged, 154.17 ment, and larger streets also contained which dataset past Ripper students acres. Politically, it represents sec- vastly more enterprises to which the and mass media entities have chosen tions of Whitechapel, Mile End New 3 shilling (£68.87 today) cost of inclu- to emphasize. Town, Mile End Old Town, the City of sion in the Directory would be accept- These two datasets were both London, Spitalfields, and St. George’s able. Because of this bias towards realities, and the primary reason they in the East. It is because of this com- business listings within the Directory, have traditionally been perceived as position I have settled on the term I have confined my comments to pre- being exclusive of each other is that murder district to specifically include senting findings based on economic the frame of reference of the observer all areas within the recovery sites of activity within the district. I reiter- prohibited a unified vision of the data- the Macnaghten Five victims, regard- ate this is an incomplete dataset with sets. Unfortunately, one image has less of their political or religious at least two unquantifiable Victorian

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 54 biases that affect the final form of the however, we should examine how Anyone arguing for a formidable source document. It should in no way severe of a bias it was. I have chosen economic sampling error within the be considered an alternate perception to illustrate the cost of inclusion (3s.) Directory must not only account for of the reality of the 1888 murder dis- against some of what is known of our these values in terms of the common trict. It is merely the less expressed victims: access to the sum of 3s. within the dis- one. When values are given they are 1. Nichols stole clothing worth £3 trict, they must account for why list- the minimums in terms of frequency, 10s from an employer. That is 70 shil- ings for enterprises like a cock finder (a and approximations in terms of per- lings or 23.33 times greater than the finder of wayward fowl) and cow keep- centages. Values are presented as cost of inclusion. ers, presumably low-profit endeavors, (number of listings) (% and economic 2. Chapman received a payment exist within the Directory despite the sector) grouping nomenclature (in ital- from her estranged spouse of 10 shil- fee being a selective bias. The sampling ics), or actual listing nomenclature lings a week. More than triple the cost error created by this fee is minimal in (in bold). of inclusion per week. contrast to the historical background …directionally selective bias against the poor…

Before we begin our examination 3. Stride was paid 6d by Mrs. and poverty counterpoint the Directory of the Directory, there needs to be some Tanner for cleaning rooms, or 1/6 of the provides. Exclusion of the Directory discussion of this economic bias as to cost of inclusion. image because of a perceived economic its potential scope of effect. Some will 4. Eddowes received 2s 6d for sampling error can only result in a undoubtedly argue that the fee was a pawned pair of used boots. This deliberately skewed perception of the a directionally selective bias against is ½ shilling (6d) shy of the cost of district, and faulty conception of both the poor and it therefore makes the inclusion. people and events within the district. Directory an irrelevant tool for Ripper 5. Kelly paid rent of 4s 6d a week Because I was dangerously igno- scholars owing to the disproportionate and she was 29 shillings in arrears at rant going into this project, I had no numbers of poor within the district. the time of her death. The cost of inclu- categories for listing type. I also had Yes, the fee is a directionally selective sion was less than one week of Mary’s no agenda in demonstrating a “truth” bias against the poor. Before we throw rent and just 10.3 % of what was in about the district as a whole. My bias, if the baby out with the bathwater, arrears. it can be called such, was to understand

Plotting the 1888 Kelly Postal Directory D. M. Gates the environment that the victims and grouping of plottings. These sectors are Clearly, there was enough mon- their killer(s) moved through. The pri- instructive however, as we shall see. etary flow within the district to justify mary ingredients in this project were To offer some scale to the values more than half of the local economy’s curiosity, the Directory street listings, that follow we should examine the gearing for local consumption. When maps available in the public domain, Directory as a macro regarding these one considers the variability of listings and a mapping program that would categories. The largest economic sector and their volume, local consumption allow a correlation of the two. I pos- portrayed in the Directory is food at becomes apparent. Again and again, sessed no agenda regarding how these 35.34% of the listings. In descending we will see the idea of outsiders fre- ingredients should interact, and none order the rest are retail at 23.30%, quenting the district for these goods concerning what, if anything, I would manufacturing at 22.64%, and services and services in the required numbers discern from the effort. at 18.72 %. as an untenable counter explanation. The initial foray into mapping With these macro numbers we can Equally so, the natures of some of these entries was based on street name as the see that the two largest sector values goods and services are simply non-ex- grouping mechanism. It was not until I are the sectors catering to the murder portable. The composite picture pre- was several hundred listings into the district itself. This indicates that the sented in the Directory makes primary project that this system became unten- majority of listings in the Directory local consumption the most parsimoni- able, and the need for a more sophis- (58.64%) are tied to economic activities ous explanation for all of the Directory ticated classification system became within the district itself. This implies data when taken together. undeniable. Fortunately, by that time that the flow of money in the district While I do not doubt the desperate I had enough listing variety to estab- was not dismal as in the popular pov- poverty of the victims as a whole, I have lish some basic criteria for the sorting erty paradigm of the district, but grave reservations concerning the logi- of the plottings. Looking at what had instead significant enough to justify cal extrapolation that they accurately been plotted up to that point; it became the economic structures demonstrated represent the community within the dis- abundantly clear that the bulk of the in the Directory. This in turn places trict. We have, as fact, that the district entries could be categorized in just the victims in the light of the desper- received waves of immigrants, who were four economic sectors. These sectors ately poor, but not indicative of the in turn folded into an already existing are food (and drink), manufacturing, entire district. At every turn we will (and economically functioning) social services, and retail. Just as the term see the economic structures portrayed matrix within the district. When one murder district is a matter of conve- in the Directory militate against the considers the aforementioned economic nience to avoid the entanglements of currently popular district paradigm of bias that was a selective factor in the varied nomenclatures, so too these sec- poverty as the key defining character- final Directory form, it becomes rather tors represent a convenience for the istic of the district. clear that the desperately poor were

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 56 a subset of a larger reality within the district. This reality contained professionals, independent businessmen, and small business operators in addition to poverty stricken masses of immigrants. As a rule businesses geared to local consumption do not locate (or exist in large numbers and diverse types) in places where it is fundamentally impossible to realize a profit due to an unhealthy market demand fostered by poverty. To find either local consumption en masse or large volumes of listings in singular activities is to find a marketplace of economic means. Both the diversity of listings and their volume point to a district monetary flow not allowable within a district poverty paradigm. While one or the other of these listings characteristics may be explained in the context of a statistical anomaly, both cannot be explained in this fashion. When one couples these Bu t c h e r ’s Sh o p listing characteristics with the multi- component compositions within sec- When we couple this with the means. The Directory data do not imply tors, and the cross-sector alignments number of enterprises competing economic blighting but rather strongly with known community needs, it within economic sectors for the same suggest a consumer market within the becomes clear that the most parsimo- market share, one is swiftly led to the district that was healthy enough finan- nious explanation for Directory data realization that the numbers reflected cially to foster not just economic com- is that of greater district consumption in the Directory indicate a state of petition among providers of the same than is possible within the paradigm of robust economic competition within goods and services, but also the servic- district poverty. a marketplace not devoid of economic ing of community needs with economic

Plotting the 1888 Kelly Postal Directory D. M. Gates structures that cross sectors in support capitalist economic caveat of free mar- reflected inDirectory listings is telling. of community needs. kets—that a free market structurally Specialization within marketplaces is Food (35.34% of the total listings) supports whatever market demand commonly interpreted as demonstrat- encompasses a variety of listing types, justifies—grocers and chandlers are ing the economic vigor within that from produce to meat, and milk to nearly equal in terms of frequency, marketplace. The food listings do not alcohol. Of these (60) (22.22% of food) and therefore nearly equal in terms reflect the “take what you get” lack of are pubs. Pubs illustrate very well the of market demand. These two values diversity normally reflective of econom- extent of local consumption. Pubs also reflect that the district demand for food ically unhealthy marketplaces. This militate against interpretations of list- was met through enterprise specializa- would be the anticipated presentation ing export outside the district as well tion within the marketplace of the dis- within the Directory if the paradigm as client influx from outside the district. This specialization is commonly of district poverty was completely cor- trict. Pubs, however, are not the only considered by capitalist economists rect. Food listings within the Directory type of establishment centered on a as being resultant from competition unambiguously support the contention consumable liquid product that existed within economically viable market- of economic competition, and thusly within the district in sizeable quan- places. Competition is similarly viewed economic health within the district. tity. Within the Directory (30) (11.11% as a process of functioning and healthy Food listings could not be more mili- of food) are coffee shops. The highly marketplaces. This places the district tantly opposed to the poverty paradigm mobile nature of coffee as a compo- marketplace solidly within the light of of the district. nent coupled with numerous locations being financially capable of supporting Retail (23.30% of total listings), within the district strongly suggests enterprise diversification in support of as the second largest value in terms primary local consumption. When it market demands. of listings volume, is also instructive comes to food, (35) (12.96% food) are Lesser represented food entries in so far as it indicates something listed as grocers, both green and include (19) (7.04% of food) unspecified about the nature of goods consumed in unspecified and (34) (12.59% of food) butchers, (16) (5.92% of food) bakers, the murder district. Location of retail as chandlers. (14) (5.18% of food) confectioners, (15) spaces in the district also strongly These last two values suggest it (5.5% of food) beer retailers and (6) implies local consumption. When one was roughly as common to prepare (2.22% of food) fried fish shops. Both considers the types of retail goods as a one’s own food as it was to visit a chan- diversity and volume of listings demon- whole, the contentions of primary dis- dler within the district. That is to say strate that food was the dominant eco- trict external consumption, and con- there was roughly the same economic nomic sector within the district, and it sumer influx become dubious at best. demand for grocers as for chandlers was well developed in form. Items like books, knives, lamps, within the district. When we apply the This degree of specialization and stationery can be produced, and

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 58 therefore purchased, anywhere. The district external consumer, district certainly somewhere in between these concept of consumer inflow for these consumption again represents the most two extreme models, other Directory goods is untenable. Similarly, they are parsimonious explanation. values suggest the latter is the more highly exportable as well, meaning Another large and telling subsec- correct (dominant) of the two positions. if economic demand justified it, these tion of retail, one half as large as cloth- Like food, furniture retail can best be products could readily be exported from ing in scale, is tobacco. Listed are (16) explained in the context of the servic- the district. The presence of these types (9% of retail) tobacconists. This large ing of a community need. Like food, of retail outlets within the district is a value for a consumable product that retail in general—and furniture retail very strong indicator of primary local is sold within the district is another specifically—is openly contrary to a consumption, even more so if one is strong indicator of monetary flow district poverty paradigm. seeking parsimony in explanation. within the district. Given the highly Similarly, fully 25.85 % of retail Far and away the largest subsec- mobile nature of the product, one runs listings (6.02% of total listings) are tion of the retail sector is (31) (17.42% into the same question as with cloth- accounted for in just four categories of of retail) clothing. The largest subsec- ing and household goods. The Directory retail, and they are all consumable in tions of the clothing category are (17) defines multiple, large, retail subsec- nature. Tobacco (9%) + oil (6.74%) + (9.55% of retail) clothiers and (10) tions that point to a monetary flow non durable goods (rags, feathers, hay, (5.62% of retail) hosiers. I fully concede within the district, and away from a et cetera) (6.74%) + stationery (statio- these are highly exportable products. district paradigm of poverty. ners) (3.37%). When we compare these I also concede these listings may reflect Along these lines one finds (11) retail values against the poverty para- in part outside consumers entering the (6.18% of retail) listings for furniture digm of the district we are left with a district to purchase clothing. Before dealers. On this matter there are only non sequitur in so far as impoverished we extend this line of thought too far, two reasonable conclusions. The first is populations are not known for driving however, we should ask ourselves that the craftsmen who made the fur- mainstream economic activities cen- how likely a class-conscious populace niture were located locally. This would tered on varied consumable products. would be to travel into the district in explain the retail outlet within the Consumables are another subsection such numbers as to justify a quantity district, and the retail outlets would of retail that strongly militates against of retail locations in the district. If the have been frequented by Londoners the currently popular image of poverty paradigm of poverty is correct in large from outside of the district. We can as the district paradigm. measure, the answer is not very. When call this the “district external con- The next largest economic sector one considers the highly exportable sumption model.” The second choice is in terms of listing volume centers on nature of clothing and couples it with naturally a “district internal consump- manufacturing (22.63% of total list- the ease of clothing creation nearer a tion model.” While the reality was ings). Of these listings (38) (21.97% of

Plotting the 1888 Kelly Postal Directory D. M. Gates manufacturing) were related to foot- wear (boot and shoe makers). Other notable subsections of manufacturing include (19) (10.98% of manufacturing) industrial products. When we allow for the known manufacturing aspect of the district and the sheer volume of people in the district, the most parsimonious explanation is again district internal consumption. As mentioned before, manufacturing contains another indicator that retail and manufacturing were aligned in support of district marketplace demand. Listed are (17) (9.83% of manufacturing) household goods (lamps, knives, books, toys, et cetera). This alignment is most easily explained in the context of the servicing of local demand, and so these aspects of manufacturing also militate against the poverty model for the district, by pointing unambiguously towards a district internal consumption model. When one gets away from larger streets, local manufacturing in the form of cottage industry becomes apparent. While individual in scale, these listings account for a significant amount of the local economy according to the Directory. Listings include (7) (4.05% of manufacturing) Cane/ Fu r n i t u r e Se l l e r stick/umbrella makers, (4) (2.31%

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 60 of manufacturing) picture frame point to primary district consump- or economic status must be blurred to makers and (3) (1.73% of manufac- tion, and away from a district poverty the point of being ineffectual in order turing) packing case makers. That paradigm. Manufacturing supports to secure a volume sizeable enough to is (8.39% manufacturing) or (1.89% of the implications of the retail and food justify the volume of listings within total) Directory listings in just three sectors. the district. I would also contend that manufacturing values centered on cot- Services are an interesting section anyone advancing such an argument tage industry. of listings within the Directory. They must supply some characteristic of dis- Clearly some small manufacturing account for (18.71% of total listings). trict services that differentiate them businesses did exist. To contend that They can most parsimoniously be inter- from the same service listings avail- Londoners outside the district favored preted as being centered within the dis- able external to the district. Services district cottage industry products in a trict because they serviced the district. again refute a poverty model for the sizeable fashion is to reject openly the Alternatively, they can be explained as district, and again point to primary most parsimonious explanation (dis- being located in the district by virtue of local consumption, and in turn district trict consumption) as well as to deny favorable locating circumstances (such monetary flow. the district poverty model by virtue of as low rents) while servicing those Other notable service totals are the class-oriented consumer market. outside of the district. While evaluat- (13) (9.09% of services) medical services, Since we can be reasonably sure that ing this data bear in mind how likely with (6) surgeons being the dominant these products were not made to be a class-conscious person might have subclass, (12) (8.39% of services) those given away, district monetary flow been to travel into the district to pro- who deal with animals (furrier, far- is again implied by this subsection of cure these services, particularly if the rier, cow keeper, et cetera). I really manufacturing. poverty paradigm were true. look forward to an argument that jus- I fully accept that products made Co-dominant service listings are tifies outside-the-district demand for within the district can be partially (25) (17.48% of services) tailors and cow keepers and doctors, or one that explained in the context of sweatshop (25) (17.48%) hair dressers. To assert declares their exportable nature. I type activities when viewed alone, a substantial flow of class-driven per- submit that these values exclusively and that products made in the district sons into the district to obtain either represent the servicing of a local need. cannot be assumed to be consumed in of these services so readily available The services section also raises the district automatically. As we have elsewhere, is to deny the economic other pertinent issues for Ripper stud- seen, and will see again, significant blighting model as an accurate district ies. Interestingly we see professionals amounts of local production align with identifier. If one is going to argue sub- located within the district. Listed were prominent retail and services subsec- stantial consumer inflow, any differ- (8) (5.59% of services) engineers, (4) tions within the district, and jointly entiation of the district based on class solicitors and (3) dentists. There is

Plotting the 1888 Kelly Postal Directory D. M. Gates of persons were serviced by a singular entry of say a hay salesman or cock finder. Important to Ripper students is that the Directory points to an unknown and potentially large segment of the district population having a working familiarity with knives and their use on animals within the context of food preparation. The dictum, “not even the skill of a butcher,” leaps to mind. Services, like the other sectors, point at primary local consumption. Once again we see listing type as well as listing volume suggesting that the district economy was not blighted, and that Directory data suggest widespread servicing of district needs. Looking at select values across sectors is instructive. Let us revisit the issue of physical appearances within the murder district. no doubt that some professionals lived The service listings also leave no Clothing 17.42% R and worked within the murder district. doubt that the keeping of animals was tailors 17.48% S There is only a small doubt that they a local characteristic within the dis- + Jewelry 2.80 %R were servicing local market demand. trict. Within the services entries we + hair dressers 17.48%S This strongly suggests at least some see several that are in support of local 20.22% R x (.2330) = 4.71% of total well-appointed persons were regularly animal keeping. This is a badly rep- + 34.96S x (.1872) = 6.54% of total within the district. Appearances are resented feature in the Directory in That is 11.25% of total listings, still a particularly acute issue for pro- terms of scope, yet critical to a Ripper across economic sectors that were fessionals, and it would have been even scholar. In terms of scope, aside from dedicated to appearances within the more so in a class-oriented society. This not being a mainstream commer- district in just four values, and these is an issue we will visit again later. cial activity, an unknown number values again cross-sector divisions

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 62 implying the servicing of community personally generalize the district as provides a glimpse of the murder dis- market demand. When we compare a whole to suit victim image through trict we rarely encounter in Ripper- this to pubs (22.22%F x.3534=7.84% the logical device of extenuation, nor related studies. The Directory image of total) we can see the gravity of the should we except such a proposition stands in contrast to the one we find error of the popular image in relation to from others. familiar to our victims, portrayed in the reality. When has a Ripper film set Sadly for the field of Ripper stud- the Booth map dataset, or common in out to show well-appointed, concerned ies, the paradigm of district poverty is Ripper-related portrayals of the dis- people within the district with equal so widespread in its distribution, that trict in media of diverse forms. It is vigor to drunkards and vagrants? it is the image most novice students in fleshing out Booth’s red shadings The presence of well-appointed bring to their studies. When we couple we can discern another district real- people in Spitalfields should not be this with the small number of students ity that was no less an environmental an issue for discussion among Ripper who challenge the validity of this factor to our historical actors than the scholars, it should be a given. The image, we can see not just the mech- dominant paradigm. As pointed out at routine presence of professionals (and anism of creation of this faulty para- the beginning, the intent of this paper their heightened need to convey a digm, but also the mechanism of its is not to change readers’ images of the respectable image) within the district maintenance within the Ripper studies district to the view expressed in the is a fact. The dedication of substantial community. This is an issue that con- Directory. Rather, it is to demonstrate retail and service sectors of the district cerns all Ripper students who concern that the currently popular interpreta- economy being geared to appearances themselves with the health and vital- tion of the reality of life in the murder is a fact. If students of the Ripper ity of this field of study. It not only district is incomplete, and as such, it crimes feel a compulsion to assert the affects how we perceive these events, is a poor paradigm for understanding paradigm of poverty, let them apply it it also guides us in our reaching of con- the district as a community. I do not to the victims. We can say with some clusions, thusly affecting the validity expect, nor do I wish for the reader to historical certainty that they were of those conclusions. now conceive of the district as middle- occasionally that way. We should not In total then, the Directory class in paradigm. I also do not believe …it is a poor paradigm for understanding the district as a community.

Plotting the 1888 Kelly Postal Directory D. M. Gates it would be accurate to conceive of the is an image that is seldom emphasized, 1888 through the focus that is placed on victims as belonging to an exclusionary and as a result it is not the popular a tragically flawed district paradigm. subclass of the population of the district. image of the district in Ripper studies. Equally, I do not wish to see the image As the Ripper studies commu- Acknowledgments of the district any further skewed to the nity, we should stress to new students I owe many thanks to the members of negative by a failure to present a factu- that we cannot represent the victims casebook.org that have helped me in ally based interpretation that indicates as indicative of the district with great placing occupations that I am unfamil- another demonstrable reality. historical accuracy. If we want new stu- iar with into the correct economic sector. The image represented in the dents to enter this field with correct con- I also owe thanks to several members Directory is one facet of the multifaceted ceptions concerning these crimes, it is who helped me revise this paper into a reality that was the murder district in imperative we refute the flawed image presentable form. I hope my efforts in 1888. It is simply another image of that that has become popular regarding the some small measure are compensation time and that place. It is an image that district. In a very real way, the image of to them. few have chosen to rigorously assert, the district has become another victim and many more have openly rejected. It of that unknown homicidal person in Biography y name is Dave. I was born in display. My interest in the Ripper case and still reside in Kansas. I was brought about by the podcasts of Mhave been an airborne soldier, Mr. Menges, and my acute insomnia. a carpenter, had a stroke at age 33, Since coming to the case, I have been and now I am finishing my degrees in and continue to be fascinated by both Anthropology and History. I genuinely the anthropological and historical enjoy both, and they marry together issues involved, I wish my fellow stu- well. My concentrations in both areas dents of this phenomenon well and I have been centered on the First Nations urge them to look outside the “facts” of of North America. My sense of humor the case to increase their understand- is very dry, and usually on prominent ing of these events more fully. D.M.Gates

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 64 The final two portions of Jabez S. Balfour’s “Crimson Crimes” essays on the Jack the Ripper, which appeared in the Jabez Weekly Despatch in 1906, are presented, along with commentary on sources and suspects Balfour and by Don Souden and Tom Wescott. The Ripper Murders

From Tinkers to Evers to Chance? kay, that bit of inside base- combination understandable. Some were a bit out by a few months but ball lore is probably lost on How I got the articles is quite boring they were quite easy to find. So I didn’t Omany of our readers, but just really. Tom [Wescott] read about the exis- do much really. how Casebook Examiner was able to tence of the articles from the book The Fox What Rob didn’t mention is that provide the first opportunity for most and the Flies by Charles Van Onselen and besides finding the elusive clippings he Ripperologists to read the long-lost series mentioned this to Debs [Arif] who men- photographed them and thus we had on the Ripper murders by Jabez Balfour tioned it to me in an e-mail. Mention was jpegs of the originals and were then able is a great example of friendship and shar- also made by Tom that it was in a series to transcribe them into a more easily ing within our field. And, as Examiner called ‘Crimson Crimes’. All I had to do read format. The nice result is that these “Scenes of Crime” columnist Rob Clack was go to Colindale Newspaper Library interesting articles are now available to explains things, it may even make the and have a look through the Weekly all. Thanks to everyone involved—from reference to an old baseball double-play Dispatch on the dates Tom mentioned. Wescott to Arif to Clack!

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 65 ust what are we to make of Jabez Balfour’s unreservedly on all these sources of information musings upon Jack the Ripper and his in the course of this narrative. Jidentity? The four articles he wrote in Strong words and a quick look through 1906 for the Weekly Dispatch and that we have the articles would tend to confirm their prom- transcribed are certainly entertaining. The ise. Certainly the articles are factually correct writing style, in the spirit of the era, is rather in many particulars, “more detailed and accu- turgid and florid at times and oft supplying rate than many accounts published within the more bathos than pathos about the victims. first 50 or even 75 years of the murders,” as Still, just as we will suffer execrable prose from Tom Wescott wrote in Casebook Examiner No. some modern Ripper authors in order to parse 2. Moreover, there are certain references and their theories, Balfour’s occasional bombast is names that give the reader cause to think that taken easily enough in stride. More to the point, Balfour may well have had “inside informa- though, is what he had to say and what sources tion.” Yet, against this general fidelity to fact he may have had for his information. are errors so egregious as to positively stupefy. Early on in the series Balfour assures us One great example being Balfour’s persistence that: I have neglected no opportunity of glean- in referring to Elizabeth Stride as “Elizabeth ing information on this subject. I have discussed Watts,” a mistake from which even a first-time this great mystery with all sorts and conditions viewer of the most simplistic TV documentary of men — with detectives who were engaged in on Jack the Ripper would recoil in disbelief. The the investigations at the time, with barristers error stems from early newspaper reports that who have carefully scrutinized and weighed the Mrs. Mary Malcolm had identified Stride as evidence that was tendered at the inquests, with her sister, Elizabeth Watts, only to have Watts journalists, whose vocation requires an inti- (now Stokes) appear alive and well. mate knowledge of every topic of public interest: Thus, the question becomes just what were and last, but by no means least, with convicts, Balfour’s sources of information for his inter- for whom this great undiscovered series of tre- esting and often unique series about the Ripper mendous crimes — the work of an outsider — is murders? The articles have lain largely unread a matter of absorbing interest and speculation since their inception until rather recently. to this very day. I have thus talked to men who Indeed, several eminent Ripperologists pro- believe they know who Jack the Ripper was, fessed not to have read them before. But, sight t he Goose? S ou rc e fo r who think they can localise the distant land unseen, most have suggested that Balfour where they believe he is still living. I shall draw likely made use of contemporary clippings and Don SOuden

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 66 scrapbooks, either his own or borrowed accounts in the immediate wake of the when Balfour wrote that Pearly Poll from another student of crime. With tragedy as his major source. Martha arrived at the Guards barracks “accom- that in mind, a search was made for was murdered in the early morn- panied by Inspector Reid, Detective- any possible sources available to Jabez ing of August 7 but it was not until sergeant Caunter, and another officer . Balfour. the 23rd of the month that newspa- . .” Detective-sergeant Caunter was an A major error, like calling the pers began to refer to her as Martha unfamiliar name, at least to this writer Berner Street victim “Watts,” would Tabram (and even then many spelled because Reid did not name him in his immediately seem to preclude Balfour it as Tabran). Nor is there anything investigation minutes. Alas, Caunter actually having had long and serious in Balfour’s account that would indi- has been out there all along and a discussions with any detectives who cate his information—and misinforma- quick check revealed that the Echo of had investigated the murders or with tion—came from anywhere other than August 15 and the Morning Advertiser journalists who had covered the case. newspapers. of August 16 both mentioned the good They would most certainly have known This surmise is bolstered further sergeant. the woman was quickly identified as by the “fun” contemporary newspapers And so it proved for most of the Stride and not Watts. There are, how- had with the spelling of Dr. T. Robert seeming “inside color” that Balfour ever, other misspellings and misidenti- Killeen’s surname as all initially ren- presents in his articles. The “zig-zag” fications of victims and witnesses that dered it in a variety (at least six) of pho- trail of blood from Brady Street to can provide as basis for investigating, netic approximations and only much Honey’s Mews mentioned in regard to to a degree at least, just what may later was it spelled correctly (some the murder of “Polly” Nichols was fully have been Balfour’s major sources for editor finally checked). Balfour always covered in the Echo and Evening News his series of articles about the Ripper spells it Keleene, the form adopted by of September 1. Similarly, the attack murders. the Morning Advertiser on August 10 on “Widow Annie” was mentioned in Balfour starts his series with and the Evening Post and Guardian the Star of September 5. Balfour’s the murder of Martha Tabram and the following day. The possible source identifying the woman who last spoke for whatever reasons this particular can be narrowed a bit more because the to Nichols, Ellen Holland, as “German article seems well researched. Indeed, first two journals gave his address as Maggie” has so far eluded any news- with the exception of referring to her “28, Brick-lane,” as did Balfour. Other paper searches, including an exten- throughout as “Martha Turner” his newspapers made it 68 Brick-lane or sive one by the indefatigable Howard account would compare quite favorably provided no house number at all. Brown. Still, the presumption remains with those appearing in books even There was one part of the first arti- strong that Balfour read it somewhere today. That said, the use of Turner cle in the series that did, initially, raise in a contemporary account. must immediately point to newspaper the possibility of a personal source Thus, one is left unfortunately

Source for the Goose? Don Souden with the undeniable sense that all the articles were heavily dependent on “Broadmoor lunatic” is similar to the details—and the few egregious most of the same sources available to many tales being tossed around at errors—in Jabez Balfour’s accounts of us today and not on the memories of the time. The story of the fellow con- the Whitechapel murders were readily detectives, legal minds, journalists and vict at Portland and Parkhurst, whom available to a researcher in newspaper prisoners as Balfour promised. Tom Wescott convincingly identifies as stories written in the immediate after- Moreover, there remain Balfour’s Charles Le Grand, and Balfour’s prime math of the Ripper atrocities—and pronouncements about possible sus- suspect, the maniacal anti-vivisection- only in the immediate aftermath. To pects, some of which seem quite orig- ist surgeon, are both quite unique, assert that Balfour did nothing more inal. The business about a “South however, to Jabez’s “Crimson Crimes” than consult old newspapers, however, American cattleman” sounds quite series. Of course, when all is said and would constitute the “Kon-tiki fallacy.” like a conflation of Edward Knight done, in assessing Balfour’s assertions That is, just because something could Larkins’ accusations about Portuguese one must always bear in mind he was be done does not prove that it was done. cattle boats and Balfour’s own adven- a convicted fraudster. Still, the evidence does suggest that tures is Argentina, while that of the

Moreover, there remain Balfour’s pronouncements about possible suspects, some of which seem quite original.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 68 “Crimson Crimes.” 1. — Jack the Ripper THE SEPTEMBER MURDERS AND THEORIES AS TO THE RIPPER”S IDENTITY Mr. Jabez Balfour’s Investigations

have already described in detail calculated to attract the attention and “Oh, nothing,” was the laconic the mysterious murders of Martha excite the alarm of every class of the reply; “Only he’s Jack the Ripper.” I Turner and Mary Anne Nicol. [sic] community. It appealed to the imagi- Naturally, the assertion startled In these two cases it was necessary to nation of the whole nation. Who could me. The man who made it was a staid relate not only every distinctive feature, fail to be moved by the picture of a and sober-minded officer, not given to but many apparently trivial, though hitherto undreamt-of monster prowling romancing, and much better educated really significant, details, because they the London pavement, and pursuing than many of his fellows. were the first and because the facts his prey with a ruthless ferocity and I set myself to sift it as thoroughly as brought out have led to the conclu- tenacity of purpose. as I could. To my astonishment I found sions which I arrived at as to the aim Theories of all kinds as to the that a prisoner, a man once high up of these atrocities and the personality identity of the murderer were therein the detective service, was firmly of of the perpetrator. It will be sufficient fore inevitable. Many were mooted at the same opinion. He had himself been if I describe the remaining murders the time, others have been propounded actively engaged in the Whitechapel mainly as they affect these conclusions. since. There was pointed out to me at cases, and he knew the man in question Nor will it be necessary to deal at any Portland, and later at Parkhurst, a well. On one occasion he had arrested great length with the countless theo- prisoner whom I was told that many him for another offence; but much as ries, some of them highly ingenious, of the most experienced detectives I was impressed by these views, I was some very plausible, and others wildly believed to be Jack the Ripper. not convinced. extravagant, which were the inevitable “Do you see that tall and villain- outcome of this profound and perplex- ous looking ruffian there?” a warder Cruel, Evil Man ing mystery. It may be said with truth once said to me. So far as I could make out, the opinions that the Jack the Ripper crimes did not “Of course I do. What’s the matter were based on this sufficiently startling lack a single feature which might be with him?” I answered. fact. The man was believed by all who

Jabez Balfour and The Ripper Murders knew him, and who knew the criminal particular man. singular familiarity with the East End classes, to be the most likely man in Another popular and plausible of London, are the principal grounds all England to commit such atrocities. theory was that the crimes were com- for imputing the crimes to him. I have The most likely morally, for he was mitted by some South American cattle- not heard it suggested that any one adept in depravity. A lustful, cruel, man employed on a vessel engaged in of these three men was a left-handed evil man, delighting in every kind of the live cattle trade between Argentina man; or that he had been seen at any abominable wickedness; passing his and England. No doubt many of these time in the society of any of the vic- life among abandoned women, and men are desperadoes, living a wild life, tims. Had the suspicions attaching thriving on the wages of their sin; the dexterous in the use of the knife, not to any of these men been ever any- most likely naturally, for he was won- unfamiliar with brawls and bloodshed. thing more than suspicions there can derfully skillful in the use of a knife; It was even stated all the murders be little doubt these men would have swift as a panther, cunning as a fox. were committed when a particular ship been brought to trial. There never was Known to have been the perpetrator known to the police was lying in the a murder mystery which the police of many serious offences, he had only port of London, and that a particular were more determined to unravel, and been convicted of two. There was not a man, also known to the police, formed it is because all those suspicions never worse, a more likely man in all London. part of the crew during all those times. covered the whole ground, never were By nature, by personal gifts, as well as Even if these facts were as stated, consistent with all the circumstances by habits and surroundings, he was they would apparently be mere coinci- proved at the various inquests, that as near an approach to what Jack the dences. Moreover, no matter how adroit they never assumed the more definite Ripper might be expected to be as any a South American cattleman might and precise shape of a charge in a court man ever known to the police. I never be in the use of the knife, it would be of law. could find out, however, that there was extremely improbable he would be pos- Having thus disposed of these ever any satisfactory evidence to con- sessed of the anatomical knowledge of three very plausible theories, let us nect him personally with any of the the human frame displayed by Jack now continue our painful narrative. crimes, and however likely he might the Ripper. have been, without some such connec- Another man to whom these ter- Murder of Annie tion, the suspicion was little else than rible crimes have been imputed is Chapman a mere conjecture. Moreover there was to-day an inmate of the criminal luna- The third murder was committed on a scientific accuracy displayed, if I may tic asylum at Broadmoor. The man is, I Saturday, September 8, in Hanbury- use the expression, in all these crimes believe, an undoubted lunatic and the street, a long thoroughfare, which runs after the first, such as there was no insane boasting which he from time from Baker’s-road, Whitechapel, to known ground to attribute to this to time has indulged, combined with a Commercial-street, and consists partly

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 70 of shops and partly of private houses. passage was bare and no one could pass discovered near at hand was a leather No. 29 in that street was a three-sto- along it without making some noise. apron, deemed of importance at the ried building with an entrance at the The front and back door to this pas- time, but really of no significance. side. The house was occupied, as are sage remained open all night, so there The victim was said to be Annie most of the houses in the district, by was no difficulty in getting into the Sievy, but it afterwards transpired that many tenants. A man named Davies yard. No better place for a foul crime her real name was Annie Chapman, and his wife rented the top front room. of this kind could have been selected. that she came from Windsor, and had A Mrs. Richardson was tenant of half The time was sufficiently fixed. Mrs. friends residing at Vauxhall. She had the premises, and lived on the first Richardson’s son, a market porter, been married, her husband having floor, while on the ground floor an went into the yard at about a quarter been a coachman near Windsor, but elderly woman named Hardiman and to five to see if the shed was secure, as they had lived apart for three or four her son, a youth of sixteen, a dealer there had been a robbery there some years, during which he had made her in cat’s meat, had the front room. The time before. He opened the yard door, an allowance of ten shillings a week. back room was also rented by Mrs. but did not go into the yard itself. He On his death, about Christmas 1886, Richardson, and was locked up on the saw no one, and had there been any- these payments ceased. For a couple night of the murder after she held a body he could hardly have failed to of years she had been living with a prayer meeting there, as was her fre- notice them. wire sieve maker, and thus became quent custom. The rest of the occupants At a quarter to six John Davies got known as Annie Sievy. She was forty- were lodgers, one of whom, Robert up and passed through the yard, and seven years of age, five feet in height, Thompson, a carman, went out of the in the [illegible word] he was terrified with fair brown wavy hair and blue house at 3:30, but heard no noise. Two at beholding the ghastly spectacle of a eyes. Her most striking feature was a girls, also lodgers, were talking in the woman lying in a pool of blood. large, flat kind of nose, and by means passage at half-past twelve to some She was on her back, close to a of this peculiarity the police hoped to young men, and they appear to be the flight of steps leading from the house trace her movements during the last last of the inmates of the house to retire into the yard, which was a lower level hours of her life. Her clothing was old to rest. The most important feature of than the ground floor. The throat was and dirty, like most of her wretched the premises has yet to be mentioned. cut open in a dreadful manner, and the class. For the previous four months A passage, twenty-five feet long mutilations of the body were altogether she had been living in a lodging-house, and three feet wide, ran through the too dreadful for description. The police 45, Dorset-street, Spitalfields, and she house to the yard at the back, with a were called to the spot and Dr. George was eating some potatoes there as late shed on one side and a recess three Phillips, the divisional surgeon, was as two o’clock on the morning of her feet deep on the other. The floor of the summoned. The only unusual thing death. She had not the money to pay for

Jabez Balfour and The Ripper Murders her bed, and told the “deputy” to keep it for her, as it would not be long before she returned. She stood in the doorway two or three minutes, and then went off in the direction of Brushfield-street after repeating, “Never mind Tim. I’ll soon be back with the money for my doss. Don’t let the bed.” Almost the same words as poor Mary Nicholls had used, only eight mornings before. For a woman to be bedless is evidently no rare occurrence in Whitechapel. Soon after the remains of Annie Chapman had been taken to the mortuary, she was identified by an acquaintance who knew her as “Dark Annie.” This poor woman, as she came from the mortuary gate, overwhelmed with horror and crying bitterly, exclaimed between her sobs, “I know’d her. I kissed her poor cold face!” No depth of degradation, no hunger, poverty, or disease, can wholly eradicate the innate tenderness of a woman’s heart. The excitement caused by this fresh outrage was intense. It was not confined to Whitechapel or to one grade of society. It is stated that two well-known peers went to Whitechapel the Monday following and visited the scene of the last tragedy. During the Saturday afternoon the occupants of

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 72 the house next door charged an admis- knowledge had been displayed by the Three weeks passed by. London sion fee of 1d. to people anxious to view murderer.” There were indications of it, was still vibrating with horror, when the spot where the body was found. and his own impression was that ana- the climax of atrocity was attained by Hundreds availed themselves of the tomical knowledge was only less dis- the committal of two murders within opportunity. In the street half a dozen played or indicated in consequence of an hour of one another, and within an costermongers put up their stands and the haste the murderer had to use. He, area of a quarter of a mile. The first did a brisk trade in fruit and refresh- Dr. Phillips, could not have inflicted all was discovered about one o’clock on ments. Thousands of respectably the injuries or performed all the muti- Sunday morning, September 30, and dressed persons visited , and occasion- lations, even without a struggle, under the second at a quarter to two o’clock. ally the road became so crowded that a quarter of an hour, and if done with The scene of the first was a narrow the police had to clear it by a series of deliberation they would have occupied court in Berner-street, a quiet thor- charges. the best part of an hour. The summing oughfare running from Commercial- Suddenly, the hilarity was brought to an abrupt and dreadful stop.

The most material features of the up of the coroner, Mr. Wynne Baxter, road to the Tilbury and Southend doctor’s evidence related to the prob- is one of the very ablest contribu- Railway. At the entrance to the court able character of the weapon used. “It tions to the careful investigation and was a pair of large wooden gates, in must have been a very sharp knife. examination of these atrocities, and I one of which was a small wicket for Probably with a thin, narrow blade. am disposed to think that if by some use when the gates were closed. At the At least six to eight inches in length, arrangement the investigation of the hour when the murderer entered with and very likely longer. One of the whole matter , and the holding of sub- his victim these gates were still open. instruments used by medical men for sequent inquests, had been entrusted For a distance of eighteen or twenty post-mortem purposes might have to that most experienced coroner the feet from the street there was a dead caused them. A slaughter-man’s knife mystery surrounding these cases would wall on each side of the court, so that well ground down might have caused have been much less dense than it has the intervening space was surrounded them.” He thought “some anatomical remained until this day. in absolute darkness. The whole length

Jabez Balfour and The Ripper Murders of the court was occupied by the prem- seen her before. The woman turned out remarkable facts in this dreadful series ises of the International Workmen’s to be of the same class as her prede- of crimes. It suggests the expert. Educational Club, and on the night in cessors. She was known as “Long Liz,” question the club was winding up the her right name being Elizabeth Watts. First Use of ‘Jack the holiday season, or opening the winter There was nothing in her history to Ripper’s’ Name season, with a lecture on “Judaism and distinguish her from the other victims. A very short time must have intervened Socialism.” Proceedings were contin- She was of Swedish parentage and between the murder and its discovery. ued to about half-past twelve, and were drink and dissipation generally had We also get something approaching the followed by a sing-song, and what was brought her to the lowest stage of deg- description of a man who was seen with described as a “general jollification,” a radation. The point of especial interest this woman a very short time before. noisy function—which would effectu- in this case is that there was no mutila- He was said to be of middle age, about ally drown any cry for help from the tion. The woman’s throat was cut and 5 feet 6 inches in height, rather stout- court outside. from that wound she died. One swift ish and decently dressed. He had on a Suddenly, the hilarity was brought gash from left to right, which would black coat and dark trousers, and he to an abrupt and dreadful stop. A man, hardly occupy a second, and the bloody wore a round cap with a small peak to pale as death, rushed into the club deed was done. It was established that it. He bore the appearance of a clerk, with horrible tidings. The members the murderer of Elizabeth Watts, as of was quiet in speech, and seemed to be streamed pell-mell into the yard, where Mary Anne Nicholls, was a left-handed educated. He and the woman were seen they encountered a terrible spectacle. man. It is also evident he possessed walking in the middle of the road, but They saw, by the aid of a flickering some anatomical and surgical knowl- away from the club and not towards it. light, the prostrate body of a woman, edge. The throat was cut either when It was in connection with this and across the stone-paving of the the woman was falling or was actually case that the name Jack the Ripper court her life-blood was flowing in copi- on the ground. The blood would have was first mentioned. It arose from the ous streams and forming a pool at the spurted about if the deed had been fact that a ridiculous letter, signed very entrance to the clubhouse. When committed while she was standing up. “Jack the Ripper,” was received at the the police arrived it was found that the Of course, the wretch’s object was to Commercial-street police station some woman lying on the ground had had do his fell work without incriminating days before the murder, but was not her throat terribly jagged; her hands himself with bloodstains. The fact that at once published. The name caught were clenched and when the doctor atrocities of this nature could have on, and remains to this day associated opened them it could be seen she had been committed without the assassin with these terrible tragedies. been holding grapes and cachous. None himself carrying away evidence of his The second murder on the same of the members of the club had ever crime on his clothes is one of the most night, the fifth of this terrible series,

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 74 was committed in Mitre-square, discovery of the murder. The doctor to the extent that he did enormously Aldgate, which is now, I think, a called to examine the body stated that strengthens the theory that he was no thing of the past. It had three narrow death must have taken place within amateur. approaches, and was fairly lighted, half an hour. He declared that death The identification of the victim save in the south-west corner. It was was immediate, and resulted from the was easily established. Her name was there a body was found. bleeding consequent upon the throat Catherine Eddowes, and she was in all injuries. The mutilation was inflicted respects of precisely the same degraded From Police Cell to her after death. “The person who inflicted class and calling as the other victims. Doom the wound must have possessed a good There is one weird incident con- I do not like to speculate on the motives deal of knowledge. It would take five nected with this poor creature. She had of a fiend like Jack the Ripper. I hope minutes to inflict the wounds upon the only been discharged about one o’clock that I, in common with all my read- murdered woman. . . . . I feel sure there Sunday morning from Bishopsgate- ers, am incapable of fully appraising was no struggle, and I think the act street Police Station, where she had those motives. They are beyond our was the act of one person only. There been detained for being drunk in ken. But it would really seem in this was no reason to believe that any drug Aldgate on the Saturday evening. This case the monster, baulked in carrying had been administered. I should not wretched being, therefore, when she out his outrage in Berner-street to his expect to find much blood on the mur- hastened from the police station with a full satisfaction, had determined not derer; the windpipe being once severed ribald jest upon her lips, was actually to be robbed thus of his full banquet of the woman would be unable to cry.” walking straight to her doom. It is the horror, but to sate his appetite with a The scene as pictured by Dr. Brown, last glimpse we catch of her until her very plethora of carnage. Nothing could and his remarks as to the anatomical hacked and mutilated body is discov- have suppressed the horrible nature of knowledge possessed by the miscreant ered [illegible word] in its own blood in the mutilations. The work must have are significant enough. He might have Mitre-square. been done with diabolical swiftness as added that the gloom in which the (To be continued next week.) the policeman on the beat had passed murderer worked must have retarded through the square not long before the his operations, and that he succeeded

Jabez Balfour and The Ripper Murders “Crimson Crimes.” 1. — Jack the Ripper MYSTERY OF HIS IDENTITY SOLVED Mr. Jabez Balfour’s Investigations

e are now drawing to the In the case of Katherine Eddowes, would put him in possession of various close of these long series of at Mitre-square, on the other hand, organs of the human frame. Watrocities. We have followed the mutilation of the body was effected Alarmed by the sounds of rev- them, one by one, to the double horrors with a cold-blooded minuteness and elry proceeding from the adjoining of September 30, 1888—in one aspect a loathsome indelicacy which excited club, conscious that he might be inter- the climax of the Jack the Ripper out- equal horror and disgust. It would rupted at any moment, the assassin rages. We have avoided, indeed, their be unseemly at this distance of time stayed his hand and fled. He must at most repulsive features, but have to recall the degrading details of this that time been in a condition border- sought to bring out their most distinc- orgie of ferocity. I can come to no other ing on absolute frenzy. When his hand tive details, particularly those which conclusion than that, just as the first relaxed its tiger-like clutch upon the show that they were the work of one murder of the series, the murder of dead woman whom he had just butch- and the same man. Martha Turner, on August 6, was, as ered, there could not have been in all Another has yet to be related; but I have already suggested, an experi- London, there was not, perhaps, in all before doing so let me dwell very briefly ment or rehearsal, so the murder of the world, a heart or brain so enflamed on what these two murders, occurring Elizabeth Watts, in Berner-street was, with devilish passions, so dominated within an hour of one another in point from the murderer’s own point of view, by an insatiable lust for blood. He was of time, and within a few hundred yards a failure—a failure, that is to say, to possessed with a legion of devils. He of one another in point of distance, this extent, that, while the monster hurried away from that dark passage seem to indicate. In the first of the two, succeeded in taking the life of his in Berner-street, scared by all the risks the Berner-street murder, where poor victim, he was prevented from effect- he had run, gloating over his narrow Elizabeth Watts was so foully done to ing his real purpose, which was not escape yet cursing his cruel luck death, there was, as already stated, an murder—that was a mere incident— because he had not been able to com- entire absence of mutilation. but mutilation, and mutilation that plete his work. I imagine that at that

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 76 moment he was filled with an exulta- assassin. Possibly, and very probably, his notice and luring him to attempt a tion of ferocity and despondency as to the pair may have met face to face, or repetition of his fiendish practices. He be literally beside himself. the murderer may have slunk unob- would also discover that the wretched And thus it happened when he was served into some alley or courtyard or social helots upon whom he preyed were accosted by poor, half-tipsy Catherine doorway to let the constable go by. filled with alarm and dread, and were in Eddowes, wandering in her still befud- a sense forewarned, and that they would dled condition from the police-station Policemen Disguised as be slow to expose themselves to the toward her wretched “doss” house, Women dreadful doom which had befallen their the hellish thought issued through Be this as it may, there seems good wretched sisters in vice. his mind, that it was not yet too late ground to suppose this incarnate fiend Indeed, it throws a lurid light to make the work of the evening a suc- was sobered by the awful occurrences upon the horrible destitution of these …it throws a lurid light upon the horrible destitution of these miserable creatures… cess. Here was another chance, and he of that Sunday morning. He would also miserable creatures that any women seized it; and it was thus that, without know, if he read the papers, or from con- could still be found willing for the sake any previous intention or design on his versations with his miserable victims of food or lodging to run so fearful a part, he followed or accompanied her themselves, that all London was stirred risk. The appalling misery of the East to that dark corner in Mitre-square. and on the alert, and that a hundred End of London must indeed be great In this case the body was discovered, agencies were at work to entrap or detect when even the terror of such atrocities as already explained, so soon after him. He would learn that women in the could not wholly stop this degrading the perpetration of his crime that it is pay of the police and men disguised as commerce. fair to assume that the policeman who women were roaming the terror-stricken Slowly, very slowly, as week fol- made the discovery must have been streets and haunting all their likeliest lowed week, and there was no recur- almost on the heels of the departing purlieus with the object of attracting rence of the atrocities, the excitement

Jabez Balfour and The Ripper Murders subsided and London began to breathe been free from and had not dreaded man left her. Immediately the woman more freely. Five weeks had elapsed any interruption. Thus working at his was seen about the streets with other since the tragedies in Berner-street ease—if such a phrase can be used, if men, and as late as midnight on and Mitre-square when another out- this blood-stained soul had ever been Thursday, November 8—or perhaps a rage, assuredly the work of the same at ease—he showed conclusively by the little after—she was known to be alive human fiend, was committed on way he carried out his horrible task that and well. Friday, November 9, under conditions he was not only generally acquainted, At a quarter to eleven o’clock on so different as to show that the assas- but was familiar with the anatomy of the morning of Lord Mayor’ Day the sin had thought it wise to abandon his the human frame and an expert in the landlord, Mr. McCarthy sent a youth former methods. He did not lure his use of the dissecting knife. to ask for some rent as Kelly had got victim, nor was he guided by her, to into arrears. He knocked at the door some deserted and obscure passage, Murder of Mary Kelly several times, and failing to obtain alley, or recess contiguous to the qui- The scene on this occasion was Dorset- any answer he went to the window, eter and more secluded streets running street, Spitalfields, a thoroughfare that which looks into the court, and, peer- from the larger thoroughfares, but he had already acquired a sinister notori- ing in, saw that there was blood about wrought out this last, this crowning, ety, for here was situated the squalid the bed. Filled with alarm, he ran back this most repulsive of all his murders building where the homeless women to his master, whose shop stood at the in the seclusion and privacy and shel- occasionally found shelter. Dorset- entrance to the court. ter of a house. The streets were no street runs out of Commercial-street, The landlord at once returned longer safe. nearly opposite Spitalfields Church, with him, and finding a corner of the The facts of this last of this most and the scene of this atrocity was window panes broken, pushed in his terrible series of atrocities must be Miller’s-court. The victim, one Mary finger high enough to thrust back the related with some detail, seeing that Jeannete Kelly, occupied a single room blind. He then saw sufficient to know they differ so materially from all the on the ground floor of the house, which that a tragedy had been committed, other cases, both as to the scene of the was let out in tenements. These rooms and he exclaimed, “This is another crime and the completeness with which were numerous, and by what some Whitechapel murder.” The youth was it was perpetrated. Even in the Mitre- would think an ominous coincidence, immediately despatched to the police square case there was evidence of a the number of Kelly’s room was 13. station in Commercial-street, and hurry which indicated a fear of inter- She had lived there for ten months warned not to mention anything to ruption and discovery. In this there with a man who had passed for her any of the neighbours. The inspector was both deliberation and precision. husband, and at the beginning of the who was in charge of the station at the The murderer had more time. He had week the couple had quarreled and the time returned with him, and finding

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 78 that a murder had undoubtedly been committed sent at once for assistance. Dr. Phillips, the divisional surgeon of the police, and Superintendent Arnold were also sent for. During this time, the door had not been touched. On the arrival of the superintendent he despatched a telegram to Scotland Yard announcing what had happened. The door was forced open and a sickening and horrible sight presented itself. The poor woman lay on her back nearly naked. Her throat was cut from ear to ear, right down to the spinal column. Her ears and nose had been cut right off. It will be sufficient if I say there was hardly an organ of the body which had not been subjected to the knife and the limbs had been so slashed as to leave the bones visible. I need scarcely say that the room, or rather the shambles, which was the scene of this hellish atrocity was a squalid apartment, about 12 ft. long by 8 ft. wide. Its wretched furniture con- sisted only of an old painted wooden bedstead, two old tables and a dilapi- dated chair. There was no appearance of a struggle, no knife, and no weapon of any kind. The assassin had observed his usual craftiness; the only candle was a stump in a wine-glass. It was

Jabez Balfour and The Ripper Murders evident from the appearance of the a clue to the police. In all this he suc- a quarter of an hour, and then went grate that a fire had been lit. The ashes ceeded; and thus having carried out out. This would be about midnight. were afterward examined, and it was his fell purpose in its entirety, and to She heard Kelly singing as she passed. ascertained that portions of a woman’s its cruel end, he returned his blood- Cox was away some two hours and a clothing had been burned. stained knife to its sheath, and ceased half, and when she returned, between In the opinion of one competent from his fiendish labors. His vile work 2:30 and 3 a.m., the light was out in detective the clothes had been burned was finished. Number 13, and there was no noise. to make the fire blaze, and thus enable All this indicates the iron will of Cox said she failed to go to sleep, and the murderer to see better what he was a mastermind—of a mind disordered had there been any sounds from No. 13 about. and a will demoralised. Satan has been she must have heard them. A well-informed writer, referring well described as the impersonation of Elizabeth Prater, who lived in to this crime, has remarked that “its intellect without conscience. Room 20, immediately above Room revolting barbarities suggested that Jack the Ripper stands forth as the 13 told a gruesome story. She went to either the miscreant had determined to incarnation of intellect without pity or her room about twenty minutes to one compensate himself for his abstinence remorse. Friday morning, that is about forty for the last five weeks, or that having Great difficulty arose when it was minutes after Cox had gone out again. more leisure, he had positively revelled sought to discover the woman’s move- Prater would have seen any glimmer to the full in his hideous mania.” I agree ments for some hours previous to her of light coming from Kelly’s room, but absolutely with the latter portion of his death. Mary Ann Cox, living in No. all was then dark. The partition divid- opinion—indeed, I should agree with it 5 Room in the same house, said she ing Kelly’s room and the passage was as a whole if the two propositions had saw Kelly at a quarter to twelve on so thin that it was possible to hear been stated positively and not alterna- Thursday night. Kelly was then intoxi- anyone walking about, and Prater tively. I think that both are true. cated, and was going up Miller’s-court heard nobody. She went to sleep, and Before bringing to a close these with a short, stout man, shabbily at about half-past two [sic], that is to dreadful series of atrocities , the mis- dressed in a long brown coat. He was say in something less than an hour creant meant to set aside any lingering carrying a pot of ale. He had a blotchy after Cox’s return, Prater was dis- doubt as to his anatomical knowledge face and a full carroty moustache. Cox turbed by a kitten, and as she turned and operative skill. He intended to saw them go into No. 13 Room, Kelly in her bed she heard a suppressed cry, reveal himself as fully as he dared, droning in a drunken voice a line of a “Oh-murder!” in a faint voice. There and to give the world a hint as to his then popular ditty, “A Violet I Pluck was no second cry, or groan, or sound motive, and even as to his individu- from my Mother’s Grave.” of any kind. All this evidence as to the ality—a hint to the student, but not Cox remained in her room about exact time at night must be taken with

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 80 a good deal of reserve. The witnesses discovery of the murder. Maxwell swore back all unobserved by mortal man had neither watches nor clocks, and that she remarked to Kelly across the into the darkness from which he had would be indulging merely in more or street that is was unusual to see her up stepped on the previous August 6, and less likely guesses. so early. Kelly replied, “Oh Carrie, I feel from that darkness he has never until Sarah Lewis, who slept in No. 2 so bad,” and went on to say that a glass now emerged. Room, said that as she entered the of ale she had drunk had made her ill. The crimes in themselves were to court at 2:30 a.m. (somewhere about the Maxwell went away for some little time, the last degree brutal and weird, but same time as Cox) she noticed a stout and on returning saw Kelly outside a though pre-eminently horrible, this man in a wideawake. He was staring public-house talking to a short, stout alone would not account for the inter- up the court as if looking for some one. man wearing dark clothes. est and dismay which they created at She went to her room and was dozing If Maxwell told the truth, and the time throughout the whole world. in her chair, when at four o’clock she there is no reason that she should not, Nor would it alone suffice to justify was awakened by a cry of “Murder!” and her report of her conversation this narration of the harrowing details. in a female voice. She only heard one with Kelly is specific, the cry of murder As regards these details, I have not scream, then all was silent again. heard by the others was either fancy, related a tithe of the horrors which There is nothing contradictory in as is quite possible, or had nothing to were recounted at the inquests, and the evidence of the three women. Two do with this case. published in the press. of them may have heard the poor wom- It is the absolute mystery that sur- an’s despairing cry. It is by no means The Murderer Vanishes rounds these atrocities which makes extraordinary that they did not think The result of the evidence comes to them appeal to every student of social much about it. They only recalled this, that the actual hour when poor life. The prurient mind naturally sees it afterwards. Cries and shrieks in Mary Kelly was done to death, and in them only what is revolting and the dead of night were doubtless too her remains profaned, is left in doubt. filthy, and with hypocritical unction common in Miller’s-court to attract If Maxwell was correct, it must have will speak of them as details which much attention. been between half-past eight and ten decent-minded people had hoped had But a totally different view of forty-five on the Friday morning. If sunk into oblivion. But it is possible to the case was presented by Caroline she was mistaken, as I am disposed to deal with the subject, as I claim it has Maxwell, of 14, Dorset-street. Maxwell think she was, it happened some hours been dealt with here, with an honest declared that she saw Kelly standing earlier. At all events, this was the last desire to elucidate those surrounding at the corner about eight or half-past of the series of tragedies, which ceased mysteries which have ever since per- eight on Friday morning—that is to as suddenly as they began. On that plexed all thoughtful minds. say, within two hours and a half of the Friday, November 9, the Ripper slunk The identity and motive of the

Jabez Balfour and The Ripper Murders assassin, these are problems which time. He was neither a sailor, nor a of vivisection on dumb animals, he ought not to be buried with his victims cattleman, nor a butcher, nor a profes- had been filled and possessed with to spare the morbid modesty of the sional criminal. He was a short, stout an uncontrollable longing to practise prurient and the prude. man of dark complexion, five feet or five and pursue similar experiments on Now, who was Jack the Ripper and feet two in height, with “mutton-chop” the human frame. With the monoma- what were his motives? whiskers. He was the intimate friend niac’s supreme and fiendish cunning With great diffidence, I am and associate of Deeming, his inferior he had chosen for his victims the most unable to accept the theory which in social station, who committed sev- likely class of human beings without Mr. Archibald Forbes suggested in a eral atrocious murders in Australia, any pretence to civilisation, and for morning paper in October, 1888, that and who was executed in England for the scene of his operations a neigh- is before the occurrence of the Dorset- an equally atrocious murder here. bourhood swarming with a popula- street tragedy which I have just tion steeped in poverty and notorious related. I have already stated why I Identity of Jack the throughout the world for the precari- cannot adopt the other theories about Ripper ous lives of its inhabitants. How well South American cattlemen, about the Jack the Ripper was a man of good this lunatic had chosen, the foregoing man who was pointed out to me at education and considerable talent, who narrative will have demonstrated. Not Parkhurst as Jack the Ripper, or about from his youth had been filled with a one single detail which is known in con- the man who is confined as a criminal morbid passion for cruelty and for gloat- nection to the Whitechapel murders is lunatic at Broadmoor Asylum. ing over deeds of bloodshed and horror. inconsistent with the opinion thus con- There are no doubt coincidences He had been trained as a surgeon, and fidently expressed. which warrant all these theories, but it was possessed of considerable surgical On the contrary, it will be found will be found that there are numerous knowledge and of even greater manual that they all tend to substantiate and and insuperable difficulties in the way dexterity. To all questions affecting confirm this view. of adopting any of them. For the solu- the structure of the human frame and Jack the Ripper is living still in a tion which is presented here I make the mutual relationship of the vari- remote British colony. no claim for originality. I have myself ous organs of the human body he had conversed with a man who was living devoted his mental faculties, until his in Johannesburg in the year 1900, and mind had lost its balance, and on this who there was intimately connected subject, and on this subject only, he with two well known men, who declared was an absolute lunatic. The worst of they knew Jack the Ripper personally, all lunatics—a monomaniac. and knew where he was living at that Inflamed by reports of the horrors

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 82 he was an absolute lunatic. The worst of all lunatics— a monomaniac. THE CATTLEMAN, THE LUNATIC, AND THE DOCTOR The Other 3 Suspects of Jabez Spencer Balfour Tom Wescott

abez Spencer Balfour figured Parkhurst prisons, where Le Grand prominently as an original was pointed out by different individ- Jsource in my essay ‘Le Grand: uals — including a former detective The New Prime Suspect’, featured — as a prime suspect in the Ripper in Casebook Examiner No. 2. He investigation. Other sources pre- had served time for years alongside sented in my work proved this to have Le Grand, both at Portland and at been true. By Jabez’s estimation,

THE CASEBOOK ExaminerJa b e z Sp e n c e r Ba l f o u r Issue 4 October 2010 84 Le Grand was the perfect Ripper sus- down to a particular individual. I believe, an undoubted lunatic, and pect, except that he was not a surgeon Jabez first discussed his suspects the insane boastings in which he from nor known to be left-handed, which in the third part of his series, pub- time to time has indulged, combined Jabez erroneously felt were necessary lished November 11, 1906. with a singular familiarity with the traits to have been the Whitechapel Another popular theory was that East End of London, are the princi- murderer. the crimes were committed by some pal grounds for imputing the crimes Jabez had been a Member of South American cattleman employed to him. I have not heard it suggested Parliament and claimed to be well- on a vessel engaged in the live cattle that any one of these three men [Le connected with many of the indi- trade between Argentina and England. Grand being the third man-TW] was a viduals associated with the Ripper No doubt many of these men are des- left-handed man; or that he had investigation. That he had a strong peradoes, living a wild life, dexterous been seen at any time in the society interest in the case was made evident in the use of the knife, not unfamiliar of any of the victims. Had the suspi- by his four-part survey published in with brawls and bloodshed. It was cions attaching to any of these men the Weekly Dispatch from October even stated that all the murders were been ever anything more than suspi- 28th to November 18th, 1906, only committed when a particular ship cions there can be little doubt the men months after his release from prison. known to the police was lying in the would have been brought to trial. His sources were quite varied, sug- port of London, and that a particular There never was a murder mystery gesting he had kept a personal file on man, also known to the police, formed which the police were more deter- the case from 1888 onwards, which part of the crew during those times. mined to unravel, and it is because he consulted for his articles. Even if these facts were as stated, all these suspicions never covered Alongside Le Grand, Jabez they would apparently be mere coin- the whole ground, never were con- recounted the case against three other cidences. Moreover, however adroit sistent with all the circumstances suspects, two of which he dismissed a South American cattleman might proved at the various inquests, that on similar grounds — that they be in the use of the knife, it would be they never assumed the more definite weren’t known to have been surgeons, extremely improbable that he would and precise shape of a charge in a left-handed, and the assumption be possessed of the anatomical knowl- court of law. that they weren’t known associates edge of the human frame displayed by The next week, in his final of any of the victims. The third sus- Jack the Ripper. installment, Jabez goes into greater pect, a doctor, he took more seriously Another man to whom these terri- detail about his preferred suspect, and provided a number of details ble crimes have been imputed is to-day stopping just short of naming him. from which I hope some enterpris- an inmate of the criminal lunatic Before looking closer at this man, let ing Ripperologist will be able to track asylum at Broadmoor. This man is, us first consider the other two cases.

The Cattleman, The Lunatic, and The Doctor Tom Wescott The Cattleman is the same suspect discussed by Jabez trustworthy authority that the per- While Jabez mentions that a particu- in 1906, then we are well on our way petrator of the Whitechapel murders lar sailor on a specific boat may have to identifying him, thanks to the addi- is known to the police, having been been individually suspected, he doesn’t tional detail that he was ‘blue-blooded’, finally identified with a certain lunatic, endorse this view with any personal suggesting some tie to nobility. Upon who is now confined in a madhouse in information and more or less seems making this connection I was reminded Scotland. The murderer is an Oxford to present the ‘cattleman’ as more of an article published several years graduate, and made a certain reputa- of a general theory than a particu- prior that received very little comment tion some ten years ago as a minor poet. lar suspect. Indeed, it was more than at the time. I tracked the article down He bears a distinguished name, which likely inspired by the imaginings of to issue No. 26 of Ripper Notes maga- has been repeated to me, and is famous E.K. Larkins, an early Ripperologist zine (2006) and believe it provides the in Scottish history in connection with a who annoyed the police with end- identity of the ‘blue-blooded’ suspect, young woman who saved a King’s life less correspondence pertaining to his who is also probably one and the same in a heroic way. The ‘Ripper’ had a wife unsupported notions of the Ripper’s as Jabez’s Broadmoor lunatic. who was descended from a very famous identity. The article in question, entitled English Admiral. His latest delusion is ‘In Hours of Red Desire’, was com- that he is the grandson of Napoleon the The Lunatic posed by researcher David A. Green, Great. We are on slightly better footing in our who found himself intrigued by a press The details provided here are pro- ability to put a name to Jabez’s ‘luna- clipping published in an earlier edition vocative but singular. Green points tic’, but only just. In the December 2, of Ripper Notes1 relating to a previ- out that a lady-in-waiting to Jane 1897 edition of the Butte Weekly Miner, ously unknown suspect, and set about Beaufort, named Catherine Douglas, while discussing the case of another attempting to identify him. This he did later Barlass, attempted but failed murderer, the following tantalizing admirably well, but before getting to to save the life of King James I of mention was made of the death of Jack that, let us first read the press clipping Scotland by using her arm as a door the Ripper. that inspired Green’s quest. bolt to prevent assassins from killing Incidentally it may be mentioned I have been informed on perfectly the King. Her arm was broken and that it was at Broadmoor that the blue- 1 Wolf Vanderlinden discovered the New York Times her valiant defense proved a failure, blooded perpetrator of the Whitechapel article and published it in the ‘Newspaper Morgue’ sec- but she became a hero to the Scottish murders is now admitted by the author- tion of Ripper Notes No. 23. The date was erroneously people. A descendant of Catherine ities to have breathed his last . . . given as October 24th, 1897, but this was corrected to Barlass, contemporary to the Ripper If we accept as likely that the October 23rd upon the publication of David A. Green’s crimes, was John Barlas, who in honor Broadmoor lunatic discussed in 1897 article in No. 26. of his esteemed ancestor published

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 86 …she became a hero to the Scottish people. four volumes of poetry under the nom December 1897, and would in fact enjoy John Barlas, then we might find the de plume of Evelyn Douglas between freedom again before being recommitted article appearing at about the same the years of 1884 and 1893. Aside from and dying in an asylum in 1914. Such time and also referring to an asylum being a moderately successful poet, errors are all too common and, as any inmate of ‘blue-blood’ descent to refer Barlas was also an Oxford graduate, researcher knows, muddies the waters to the same man. The only other and was committed to his first asylum in our search for the truth, but unless alternative would be for us to assume in 1892. He would die in one in 1914. another lunatic with royal connections another asylum inmate with royal con- In case there’s still a shadow of doubt can be found to have been a Ripper sus- nections came under suspicion for the that John Barlas and the New York pect in 1897, Barlas must remain the Ripper murders at the exact same time Times suspect are one and the same, most likely candidate. as Barlas. To my mind, it is far more Barlas married Eveline Honoria Nelson If Barlas is indeed the suspect reasonable to assume that the details Davies, the great-grandniece of Admiral described in the Butte Weekly Miner, of the inmate’s death and possibly his Lord Nelson, qualifying him with the then they may have made another incarceration at Broadmoor were in article’s detail that ‘The ‘Ripper’ had error in stating that the suspect was error than to assume two unique indi- a wife who was descended from a very an inmate of Broadmoor asylum, as viduals were being described. This famous English Admiral.’ I’ve found no mention in the more read- being the case, we find that in 1897 the Given the specificity of the details ily accessible accounts of his life that story of Barlas the Ripper was being provided in the New York Times article he was ever incarcerated there. This circulated with the erroneous detail it is beyond question that John Barlas discrepancy, if that it is, can also be that he was caged at the well-known was the Ripper suspect being described, found in Jabez’s later recounting of a Broadmoor asylum. We likewise find and given the emphasis on his royal Broadmoor suspect. One might see this a similar suspect described in 1901, connection, and the fact that the Butte as disqualifying Barlas as having been as we shall see shortly, from a source Weekly Miner article appeared less Jabez’s lunatic, however, a repeated fal- that may have shared the same roots than two months later, it is reasonable lacy can be just as telling as a fact when as Jabez Balfour’s unnamed source. to expect it was also referring to Barlas. it can be traced to its original source. Keeping in mind Barlas’ familiarity However, it is not without its errors, In short, if we agree that the New with the East End, and his exalted as Barlas had not ‘breathed his last’ by York Times article could only refer to delusions of identity, we find that he’s

The Cattleman, The Lunatic, and The Doctor Tom Wescott a good fit with the scant details Jabez The identity and the motive of the Ripper personally, and knew where he was able to provide about the inmate assassin, these are problems which was living at that time. He was nei- suspect – ‘the insane boastings in which ought not to be buried with his victims ther a sailor, nor a cattleman, nor a he from time to time has indulged, com- merely to spare the morbid modesty of butcher, nor a professional criminal. bined with a singular familiarity with the prurient and the prude. He was a short, stout man of dark the East End of London, are the princi- Now, who was Jack the Ripper, complexion, five feet or five feet two in pal grounds for imputing the crimes to and what were his motives? height, with “mutton-chop” whiskers. him.’ With great diffidence, I am He was the intimate friend and asso- For the above reasons, I am ten- unable to accept the theory which Mr. ciate of Deeming, his inferior in social tatively identifying Jabez Spencer Archibald Forbes suggested in a morn- station, who committed several atro- Balfour’s ‘lunatic’ as John Barlas. ing newspaper in October, 1888, that cious murders in Australia, and who I have much more to say about is, before the occurrence of the Dorset- was executed in England for an equally Barlas, his association with four or street tragedy which I have just related. atrocious murder here. five other Ripper suspects, Mary Kelly, I have already stated why I cannot Jack the Ripper was a man of good and the Berner Street club, but to keep adopt the other theories about South education and considerable talent, who from diverting too much from our topic American cattlemen, about the man from his youth had been filled with a at hand, I’ve decided to hold off for now who was pointed out to me at Parkhurst morbid passion for cruelty, and for and present the information in a piece as Jack the Ripper, or about the man gloating over deeds of bloodshed and of its own, which I hope will prove who is confined as a criminal lunatic horror. He had been trained as a sur- interesting to those, who, like myself, at Broadmoor Asylum. geon, and was possessed of consider- enjoy traveling the oft-neglected back There are no doubt coincidences able surgical knowledge and of even roads of Ripperology. which seem to warrant all these theo- greater manual dexterity. To all ques- ries, but it will be found that there are tions affecting the structure of the The Doctor numerous and insuperable difficulties human frame and the mutual rela- Moving forward, we will now look at the in the way of adopting any of them. For tionship of the various organs of the man Jabez Spencer Balfour considered the solution which is here presented I human body he had devoted his mental to be the most likely suspect to have make no claim for originality. I have faculties, until its [sic] mind had lost been Jack the Ripper. The following is myself conversed with a man who was its balance, and on this subject, and on from the fourth and final installment living in Johannesburg in the year this subject only, he was an absolute of his treatment of the Ripper crimes, 1900, and who there was intimately lunatic. The worst of all the lunatics – published November 18, 1906 in the connected with two well-known men, a monomaniac. Weekly Dispatch. who declared that they knew Jack the Inflamed by the reports of the

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 88 horrors of vivisection on dumb animals, he had been filled and possessed with an uncontrollable longing to practice and pursue similar experiments on the human frame. With the monomaniac’s supreme and fiendish cunning he had shown for his victims the most likely class of human beings without any pretence to civilization, and for the scene of his operations a neighbourhood swarming with a population steeped in poverty and notorious throughout the world for the precarious lives of its inhabitants. How well this lunatic had chosen, the foregoing narrative will have demonstrated. Not one single detail which is known in connection with the Whitechapel murders is inconsistent with the opinion thus con- fidently expressed. On the contrary, it will be found that they all tend to substantiate and confirm this view. Jack the Ripper is living still in a remote British colony. Jabez’s theory seems somewhat outlandish and improbable, and one would be excused for thinking he’d fabricated the whole thing himself. However, a report, published in the

Fr e d e r i c k De e m i n g

The Cattleman, The Lunatic, and The Doctor Tom Wescott Eastern Mercury of January 8, 1907,2 seems to refer to the same suspect and appeared only two months following Jabez’s article. The following extract appeared as part of an article marking the retirement of Superintendent Thomas Arnold (head of H Division in 1888), but it should not be assumed that Arnold held to this theory, or was even aware of it. The reporter seems to have included it as a related aside. ‘[The Ripper’s] identity to this day is a matter of dispute, although it is freely stated that the man is actually a farmer in one of our most prosperous colonies.’ By ‘farmer’, it would mean the man owned a farm in 1907, but obviously would not have been a farmer in 1888 when he was presumed to be in London killing women. Whoever our doctor/farmer was, he was still alive in 1907. The British colony he was living in can now be narrowed down to ‘one of [the] most prosperous’ in 1907, so hopefully that will help in the doctor’s identification one day. Another article that might possibly be in reference to the suspects described by Jabez appeared a full five 2 Begg, Paul, Martin Fido, Keith Skinner, The Complete Jack the Ripper: A to Z (2010).

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 90 years earlier and was published in the have this on the best authority, although strangely has the doctor admitted as a Salt Lake Herald of August 25, 1901. this is the first time the facts have been lunatic to an asylum where he inexpli- As to the identity of Jack the given to the public. cably escapes, suggesting the possibil- Ripper, both the man and his habitat “Jack the Ripper” has not been in ity that Sullivan confused the doctor are known. But, mind you, it is only in evidence since Dr. E. left England. I need with another suspect that happened to the last three months that this fact has hardly say he is under close surveillance be a lunatic, the ‘escape’ being assumed come out. At the time of which I write in the Argentine capital, so there will be by Sullivan to explain the doctor’s free- London was divided in its opinions. no repetition of his offence. dom. This seems to be the most likely Some thought the work was that of a The author of this article was John explanation as there was no other frenzied sailor – a butcher on one of the T. Sullivan, an actor on the London theory circulating so widely in 1901 cattle transports, who had taken this stage who had performed with Richard (as stated by Sullivan) that involved a form of revenge upon those outcasts for a Mansfield at the Lyceum Theater in doctor being admitted into an asylum. fancied wrong. Others held that it was a 1888. Sullivan claimed that he worked There had been the ‘Dr. Benjamin physician, a reputable man in London – for the police and dressed as a woman Howard’ hoax of more than five years a perfect Jekyll and Hyde. He had devel- to walk the streets in the hunt for the earlier, but that was long forgotten by oped a homicidal mania and had been Ripper. His command of the facts of the time Sullivan wrote and would not confined in a private sanitarium in a the investigation is atrocious, getting fit with Sullivan’s proclamation that suburb of London. How he escaped was names, places, and dates wrong. In this ‘it is only in the last three months that a mystery, but Scotland Yard knows the respect he is at great odds with Jabez, this fact has come out.’ man today. He is an exile from the coun- who was remarkably accurate in his The authors of The Complete Jack try. He lives in Buenos Ayres [sic] in the relating of the events. the Ripper: A to Z remark that the Argentine republic, and there being no What struck me as similar is that Sullivan ‘doctor’— appearing in print law of extradition between that country Sullivan clearly mentions both a cat- a full 28 years before Leonard Matters and England, he is entirely safe there. I tleman and doctor, as did Jabez, and published The Mystery of Jack the He had developed a homicidal mania…

The Cattleman, The Lunatic, and The Doctor Tom Wescott Ripper, regarded today as the first seri- Sullivan’s story, because of the Buenos chop” whiskers. ous book-length treatment of the case Aires link, was picked up and carried He was an associate (or, as Jabez — might be the first description of ‘Dr. in the paper at some point, it is likely describes, an ‘intimate friend’) of Stanley’, Matters’ pseudonymous sus- it would have come to the attention of Frederick Deeming, who was his social pect whom most researchers feel was a the newspaper staff — especially as the inferior. This might suggest ties to fictional character utilized by Matters as managing editor held an interest in the Australia, from where Deeming hailed. a plot tool to present his theory. Indeed, Ripper murders. Doctors with tangential association there are a couple of startling similarities So from where did Sullivan obtain to other figures in the Deeming case — both were medical men who retired to the details of his mysterious doctor? Of should also be considered. Buenos Aires. However, Matters’ sus- this we can’t be sure, because to date The suspect was living in a remote pect didn’t retire to Buenos Aires until no known source has been discovered British colony, probably as a farmer, 1908, seven years after Sullivan pub- that provides corroborating details. by the year 1906, and possibly by 1900, lished his description, and there’s little However, if Sullivan was mistaken and assuming Jabez learned no details reason to imagine Dr. Stanley, if he ever his doctor fled, not to Buenos Aires, regarding the suspect except what he existed, had at any time fallen under but to a remote British colony, it would heard second-hand from a conversa- suspicion — Matters only learned of dovetail nicely with Jabez’s suspect. tion that took place six years before he Stanley because Stanley allegedly con- However, until more sources are discov- published his article. The colony was fessed the crimes on his deathbed to a ered to help us put the pieces together, probably one of the ‘most prosperous’ former student, who in turn published Sullivan’s suspect should be considered by the standards of 1907, when the the details in a Spanish-language jour- independently from Jabez’s. Eastern Mercury published their titbit. nal which Matters happened to stum- For the sake of easy reference, here Jabez cites as his source a man ble across. If there is any correlation at is what we can glean about Jabez’s mys- with whom he conversed who had been all between Sullivan’s doctor and ‘Dr. terious doctor from the various sources. living in Johannesburg in 1900, where Stanley’, it could only be that Sullivan’s The suspect was a London physi- he was ‘intimately connected’ with two theory in some way influenced the cre- cian at the time of the murders, but ‘well-known’ men. Presumably the ation of the fictional Dr. Stanley, either did not reside in the East End. He was three were in business together, and by the student who allegedly supplied described by Jabez , who heard it from it is worth noting that Jabez’s source the journal with the story, by the jour- a man, who heard it from two men, was living in Johannesburg in 1900, nalist who wrote it, or by Matters him- who claimed to have known the sus- and not merely visiting. Jabez’s use of self. Leonard Matters became managing pect personally, as being a short, stout the term ‘conversed with’ suggests his editor of the Buenos Aires Herald during man of dark complexion, five feet or source was someone outside of his circle the first decade of the 20th century, so if five feet two in height, with “mutton- of friends, or perhaps he was protecting

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 92 his source. Jabez had only been out If this doctor ever existed, and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS of prison a couple of months when he there’s reason to suppose he may have, Rob Clack and Debra Arif for their penned his article, and had spent most some of the above details should lead research assistance. Chris Scott for all of that time squirreled away writing to his identification if an enterprising originally discovering the John T. columns for the Weekly Dispatch, as he young (or even not-so young) researcher Sullivan article and posting it to the was in dire need of funds. If he made should care to take on the challenge. Casebook, and Phil Carter for recently contact with his source during this time, As for myself, I find Charles Le Grand reposting and reviving the discussion it is most likely to have been with some- the most likely and promising of sus- of the Sullivan suspects. one connected to the paper, such as his pects, in spite of Jabez’s sincere but editor, Lord Northcliffe (also propri- misguided objections, but will keep my etor of the Daily Mail), or Northcliffe’s eye out for other new and potentially subordinate, John Hammerton, who viable suspects as they come along. described Jabez as being ‘squirreled We’re just getting started. away’ in a cottage in Maidenhead where he wrote 20,000 words within 72 hours of leaving prison. Another possibility is that Jabez made contact with his source inside either Portland or Parkhurst prison. Regarding the two ‘well-known’ men who are the alleged root-source of the story, it might be assumed that they Biography held some sort of exalted position, either in government or in the police force. Had Tom Wescott they been well known in the capacity of, for instance, the stage or as artists, it is om lives in America’s heart- Ripper murders and his articles have doubtful that someone such as Jabez, land and, while still a appeared in Ripper Notes, Ripperologist a former MP, would have invested the Tyoung man, he has been a and the Whitechapel Society Journal. theory with as much faith as he did. It Casebook.org member since 1998. This is his third article for Casebook should be possible to identify any of the He has written extensively on the Examiner. Tom has two pet ferrets. top brass investigators who had been through South Africa in 1900.

The Cattleman, The Lunatic, and The Doctor Tom Wescott Undercover Our regular read between the lines. Investigations The Complete Jack the Ripper A to Z Paul Begg, Martin Fido and Keith Skinner

2010 John Blake Hardback 580pp, illus, index £17.99

he original version of the A to Z the entry for Amelia Richardson is regarded as one of the semi- incorrectly states that John Tnal works of Ripper reference Richardson discovered the body of of the 1990s. It was with this in mind Annie Chapman (this being located that we eagerly anticipated the revised opposite the page about John him- and updated version of this work self, which goes into some length released nearly 15 years after the last to try and explain that Richardson updated revision in 1996. Sadly, this claimed to have not seen the body new (apparently ‘complete’) version of of Annie Chapman). How something the A to Z disappointed this reader, as like this could even have been typed I was expecting more given the high from the keyboard of any of these praise garnered by earlier versions. three leading Ripper experts escapes It is true that the vast nature of the me! With this in mind one feels the sad subject combined with fast pace of need to question the accuracy of other modern researchers’ finds make it entries about people or events that are almost impossible for books, espe- less well known. cially as all-encompassing as this One further point that jarred a one sets out to be, to be bang up little in this regard is in relation to to date. This said, it was not just errors that were in the text despite the in regard to new information sur- very same entries referring to source passing what was written at the material containing the correct infor- time of publication that led to mation. One example of this which mistakes. Strange errors have was immediately apparent to me was crept into this work, not present in the the entry under Robert James Lees, previous 1996 version. For example, which incorrectly states he was born in

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 95 …Strange errors have crept into this work…

Birmingham; an error clearly not cor- did not warrant an entry, despite being rected from the last edition. However, in the 1996 edition. Perhaps with this the same entry mentions a reference to revised and updated version it has an article of mine which clearly gives become the case that whereas the the correct place of birth as Hinckley. original A to Z was seen as the place It seemed to me at least that there to go for the ultimate piece of easy ref- had, perhaps, been a rush in places to erence material for so many aspects of finish off certain entries. There was the case, now it must be used only as also the odd strange omission from a guideline and cross-referenced. It is the list, even when the information still a handy tome for quick references was in some cases in the 1996 version to things Ripper related but it certainly of the book. One such example is the should not be viewed as a complete and fact that, whilst Thomas Conway and error-free account of events. With this John Chapman, the significant others in mind, perhaps we had better start of Eddowes and Chapman, both had looking forward to a revised paperback Our rating entries Mary Nichols’ husband William edition! Jennifer Shelden

Undercover Investigations Jack the Ripper: British Intelligence Agent? Tom Slemen with Keith Andrews Foreword by Richard Whittington-Egan

2010 The Bluecoat Press (Liverpool) Paperback pp 400, index £8.99

his year saw the release of a piece of evidence that will render his no letters were found in her room, even book promised to us for almost theory impossible, ala Michael Ostrog. though her landlord, John McCarthy, Ta decade, so it was a bit of a It makes one wonder as to whether stated that she received such letters. surprise that when it came out almost Slemen upon writing the book found Only Slemen doesn’t use the word ‘alleg- no one noticed. This was particularly the many weak links and black holes edly’. Apparently the Fenians didn’t strange given Slemen’s talent at gen- in the evidence became more apparent pay well as Mary Kelly had to prosti- erating publicity for himself and the to him, and the magic of discovering a tute herself for money to survive while built-in pseudo-celebrity status he ‘new suspect’ lost some of its muster. awaiting her mission orders. enjoys from years of publishing and Or at least I would like to extend Mr. As to the Ripper’s mission, we are speaking on the subject of ghosts and Slemen such benefit of the doubt. told he ‘was a trained killer and British the paranormal, that would have pre- So what is the theory explored in the intelligence agent carrying out the sumably afforded him a platform from book? The following excerpt should give blackest of black operations: the brutal which he could announce to the world you a good idea of what you’re in for: and terrifying murder and mutila- that he had solved its greatest crime In all probability, Marie Jeanette tion of female couriers working for the mystery. Reflecting back on Slemen’s Kelly – the last known victim of the Anarchists and the Fenians.’ (pp 319) unbending confidence in his theory as Ripper, was a Fenian agent who had Just who was this super-skilled assas- evinced in forum discussions on the been sent from Ireland to London as a sin? Why, no less than Sir Charles Casebook during the early part of this ‘sleeper’; a spy with no immediate mis- Warren’s close friend and co-author (of decade, I was taken aback by the ques- sion, who would loyally stand by for 1884’s ‘Jerusalem’), Claude Reignier tion mark at the end of the book’s title further orders from Ireland. (pp 302) Conder. I won’t go into Conder’s per- and an afterword entitled ‘What If We What evidence does he offer to sup- sonal history here, because I have Are Wrong?’ which reads as though the port this ‘probability’? Only that Kelly’s only Slemen’s book to quote from, author fully expects someone to follow family allegedly failed to come forward and since he chose not to include any- up on his research and discover some following her murder, and that allegedly thing resembling sources, footnotes, or

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 97 …it is necessary to advise extreme caution… bibliography, I cannot estimate how Ripper journals such as Ripper Notes October 1st, ‘I could not say whether or accurate the information is. In this day and Ripperologist. Other ‘facts’ offered not she was an unfortunate, but if she and age, it is all but unforgivable to up by Slemen were not of such appar- was I should judge her to be of a rather publish a book claiming to be a histori- ent provenance, such as the following better class than the women we usually cal survey and not include your sources, (unsourced) revelation: see about this neighbourhood.’ Clearly, particularly when so much information ‘A detective asked Diemschutz [sic- Diemshitz is comparing Stride’s is offered that would not be familiar to Diemshitz] if he had known Stride, dress to that of other prostitutes in most of your readership. Considering and the Socialist categorically denied the area, and not to any past Ripper the many errors that would be glaring he had ever set eyes on her before, yet in victim. Unfortunately, this seemingly to all but the most novice Ripperphile, a subsequent interview with a newspa- minor error on Slemen’s part forms it is necessary to advise extreme cau- per, Diemschutz made a curious com- the foundation for his argument that tion at accepting any unfamiliar piece ment. He told the reporter how Stride the Ripper victims were couriers for of information presented in this book was much better dressed than Annie the Anarchists of the Berner Street at face value. Chapman; but how did he know this? club and the Fenians, whom he alleges Some of Slemen’s sources are obvi- Had Diemschutz known the previous were briefly working in concert to bring ous from the text. For instance, his victim of Jack the Ripper?’ down the monarchy. This hypothesis in choice in spelling Eddowes’ Christian Curious comment, indeed, made turn brings in the necessity for his sus- name as ‘Catharine’ amongst other all the more curious by its complete pect, Conder, to silence the couriers, singular errors, tells me that an old lack of existence outside of Slemen’s simultaneously sending a message to edition of Jack the Ripper A-Z never book. If Slemen would be so kind as to the Anarchists in power (Diemshitz, in left the side of his keyboard. His reveal his source for stating that Louis reality a minor socialist figure at best, write-up of Charles Le Grand (whom Diemshitz knew Annie Chapman, I, and club secretary, William Wess) and he presents in a fictional exchange for one, would be most grateful. More their Fenian confederates that their jig with PS Stephen White, while fail- likely, however, is that Slemen dra- is up. In short, if Diemshitz didn’t coming to inform the reader that he fic- matically misinterpreted a widely pare Stride’s dress to that of Chapman, tionalized the exchange) tells me that reported statement from Diemshitz, as we know he did not, then there’s no Slemen made commendable use of such as this from the Daily News of reason to suspect Conder. This might

Undercover Investigations be a simplification of the thesis, and I do not wish to do Mr. Slemen an …mile-leaping injustice, but his ‘evidence’ is really no stronger than this. conclusions… Probably Slemen’s most impres- sive achievement with this book was in obtaining renowned author, word- smith, and Ripperologist, Richard Whittington-Egan, to author a brief foreword, at the end of which he offers the jaw-dropping endorsement that ‘Slemen and Andrews’ offering is… without question an extremely significant addition to the shelf of worthwhile studies of the great East End enigma.’ To be fair to Mr. Whittington-Egan, he prefaces this with a wink in stating, ‘this is surely all good fun, and harm- less to boot…’ If your idea of ‘fun’ is spending 20 bucks and a precious few hours of your life being frustrated by misconstrued facts, mile-leaping conclusions, and no supporting sources, then you’ll have a ball with this one. But if you’re hoping to enhance your knowledge of the Ripper and his world and be presented with a plausible solution to your favorite mystery, you will not find what you’re looking for in Jack the Ripper: British Intelligence Agent? Our rating Tom Wescott

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 99 The Real Jack the Ripper A TV documentary by MDF Productions, Inc., Canada

Producer: Peter Gentile Writer: Robert Colapinto Running time: 44:01

his new Jack the Ripper docu- not only is one of those interviewed the mentary, first broadcast on the husband of our own Jennifer Shelden, THistory Channel on August but Jen is seen (but not heard—more’s 31, is actually two programs in one. the pity) in a scene at a cemetery. Unfortunately, neither is entirely The Ripperologists’ roundtable at satisfactory. The first is the usual sen- Paul Begg’s cozy pub, the Old Plantation sationalistic, made-for-TV retelling of (that is a blatant plug), involved Begg, the Ripper story, replete with Jack in Don Rumbelow, Bob Hinton, Philip top hat skulking through the fog. The Hutchinson, John Bennett and Jeff second show is a discussion among a Leahy (Stewart P. Evans and Neal select group of Ripperologists (though Shelden were filmed separately) was the criteria for selection are open to surely helpful to those viewers who question), sitting for the most part in know little, if anything, about the …top a pub and saying nothing at all contro- Ripper. Unfortunately for those in the versial. Unfortunately, there was a real field, despite the eminence of the par- hat- disconnect between the two parts and ticipants nothing was said that wasn’t much of what the Ripperologists said already known almost by rote. This is wearing, with authority was ignored by the pro- particularly galling since we know that ducer and writer when the other part the gentlemen assembled have real dif- bag- was put together. ferences of opinion on many matters Before discussing the roundtable related to Jack. Oh to have viewed the carrying (plus two) segment it is well to issue a slanging match if, say, the veracity of Sir general disclaimer that obviously all Robert Anderson had been broached. Jack in the Ripperologists featured are known In fact, there might be a few to me and several are friends. Moreover, quibbles about what was said in the the fog…

Undercover Investigations roundtable discussions, such as the role sentences and the political realities that produce a Jack the Ripper documentary of the press or that Catharine Eddowes drove much of the newspaper coverage that looks more closely at the victims in definitely suffered from Bright’s dis- ignored completely. life as in death but, Maureen’s appear- ease, but overall it was instructive for Moreover, the suspects, other than ance notwithstanding, this program a general audience. And as mentioned Pizer, who were mentioned were Prince was not it. previously, if only the writer and pro- Eddy, Lewis Carroll and the Elephant Finally, this documentary suffers ducer had bothered to listen to what the Man, all of which was a pander to arrant from the same fault as do far too many Ripperologists were saying. sensationalism more blatant than what of those about Jack the Ripper—Anglo- Alas, they did not and the result the documentary accused the contem- centrism. That there is outstanding was the usual overwrought dramatic porary press of doing. Finally, and research and analysis being done in flourishes like the aforementioned top most interesting, although the viewer North America and Australia is now hat-wearing, bag-carrying Jack in the is told Eddowes lost a kidney and Kelly undeniable, yet we get the same old fog (by the way, production values were likely a heart, the fact that Chapman English experts on camera. For that clearly stinted and the fog produced and Eddowes also lost a womb went matter, they also tend to be rather wasn’t worthy of a high school render- stunningly unmentioned. Indeed, such male-centric, though in this case it is ing of Macbeth—you can actually see great pains were taken to remove any understood that Jane Coram was sup- the “fog” puffing out). There were also sexual element from the murders (the posed to have been part of the roundta- rats scuttling about on cobbles, but—low Ripper’s “rage” was stressed instead) ble discussion but had to cancel due to a production values again—not a single that it must be assumed 21st century medical problem. hansom cab or gas lamp, items almost Canadian sensibilities are still on a In short, then, this documentary obligatory for Ripper documentaries. par with those of Victorians. is no better and no worse than most Some of the other omissions, how- Actually, there was a “third show” of those we have already seen. The ever, were more egregious. While there within the other two that made this doc- only things that made this program were attempts to paint the victims umentary worthwhile and that was the different—and which give hope for the as more than just props (more on this visit to London by Mary Ann Nichols’s future—were the segments featuring later) and the despair that caused them great-great granddaughter, Maureen Maureen Nichols. Otherwise, give it a to turn to casual prostitution was men- “Nichols.” Indeed, Maureen was the grudging 2½ stars. tioned, the fact that except for Kelly all “star” of the program. Not only did she the other victims tried to earn their keep have the most interesting things to with more honest pursuits should have say, but she came across as much more been pointed out. The police efforts were genuine than either the Ripperologists Our rating dismissed in a couple of uninformative or the actors. Some day someone will Don Souden

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 101 Jack the Ripper – East London iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad application by Clay Interactive Limited £0.59 Available from the iTunes App Store (requires iOS 3.1.3 or later)

ith the ever growing popular- with pictures of sepia tinted handwrit- ity of applications for mobile ten documents strewn across the back- Wdevices like the iPhone, it ground, giving a pleasing look. After a was only a matter of time before one short pause on the title screen, you’re would be made available for those greeted with a five page introduction to wanting to take a self guided Jack the murders, which takes less than a the Ripper tour of Whitechapel and few minutes to read in full, and doesn’t Spitalfields. Sure enough, earlier this really go into the amount of depth you year, “Jack the Ripper – East London” would get in an introduction for a pub- was released on iTunes for the iPhone, lished book. iPod Touch and iPad. The main section of the applica- I had seen an earlier map based tion consists of fourteen pages covering program by a different developer that each of the stopping points on the walk. offered to guide the user to the murder Starting at Aldgate underground sta- sites, but this had turned out to be tion and finishing at Whitechapel sta- rather inaccurate, placing all the sites tion, all five canonical murder sites are (with the exception of Buck’s Row) in included, plus that of Martha Tabram the wrong places on the map. It was in Gunthorpe Street. Three pubs, the therefore with some trepidation that I White Hart, the Frying Pan, and the Ten downloaded this app. Bells are covered, as is Flower & Dean First impressions are quite favour- Street, Goulston Street and the London able. Certainly the developers have Hospital. Each location is given a couple chosen to make the app look “Victorian” of paragraphs of text, and one or two

Undercover Investigations …potential… good quality photos. It’s noticeable that find this feature of use, it will not be some proof reading would have been of help to an iPod Touch user, as a live a good idea, as several sentences are phone network or WiFi connection is cut short or have inaccurate spellings. required in order to view the maps. As In addition, the directions given to an app that is primarily of use whilst guide you from one location to another out walking, surely a nice scrolling are less than clear; in particular those map that is viewable offline would given for the route between Dorset have been a better solution? Street and the Wentworth Dwellings Overall, the application isn’t too on Goulston Street confused me, and bad, and given a little more develop- I know the route without needing to ment, could be useful for someone new refer to a guide! One other unfortunate to the case wanting to visit the murder error is the inclusion of a picture of sites. At the moment it has a tendency Fairclough Street (around the corner to shut down for no reason, and some from Dutfield’s Yard) being included of the facts given in the text are incor- as an image of Buck’s Row / Durward rect, but there is potential for this to Street, which needs to be rectified in be a useful little reference guide if the any future version. developers make some improvements Probably the most notable thing to this first version. about this application, is the map function. This uses a Google map, marked with the route, which is intended to help the user navigate through the Our rating east end. Whilst iPhone owners will Andrew Firth

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 103 Annie and the Ripper Tim Champlin

2010 PillHill Press (Chadron, Nebraska) Paperback 211pp $9.99

he first few pages of this novel provide two surprises. For one, Tthe “Annie” in the title refers not to “Dark Annie” Chapman but American sharpshooter Annie Oakley. The second is that unlike far too many practitioners of Ripper fiction, the author, Tim Champlin, actually can write. The reason for both surprises is almost assuredly that Champlin is the author of more than a score of novels, most of them set in the American West. This story, however, is set in London in the fall of 1888 and concerns the Ripper’s murders and Scotland Yard’s hunt for him in the person of Inspector Abberline. The change in his normal venues is handled quite well by Champlin and while there is the obligatory London fog scene he is careful to note that the real Ripper never murdered in a fog. He does miss the distinction between a lodger and the more generic American term boarder,

Undercover Investigations … a really decent human being.

but otherwise seems almost as much at primer for those new to the murders, as It is the best Ripper fiction I have home in the East End as on the west- it almost certainly will for the bulk of read in quite a while. Since this review ern range. readers most familiar with Champlin’s is mainly for Ripperologists, it rates Of course, as a work of fiction many stories about the wild West. As it three-and-a-half stars, largely because there are a few changes to history as is, only Ripperologists will even notice of the needless errors that will have we know it in order to advance the plot. the occasional error. you muttering “No!” but for all other For one, Abberline is a bachelor, and As a story, however, it is excit- readers I’d add a half star. Dr. Rees Llewellyn (renamed Andrew) ing enough and even Annie Oakley’s assumes a much bigger role in order to involvement will seem quite natu- serve as someone with whom Abberline ral as readers rapidly turn the pages can exchange ideas. Those sort of fic- as the Ripper manages to stay a step tional embellishments are fine, but or two ahead of his pursuers until there are others that needlessly strike . . . but then you’ll have to read it discordant notes such as saying that yourself. Abberline and Oakley come Kelly was three months pregnant or across as the strongest characters and that the locked door to Number 13 that is especially so with the latter. In Miller’s Court was opened not by priz- fact, Annie Oakley is sadly neglected ing it open, but by Abberline reaching today even by her countrymen. She through the broken pane. was as extraordinary a sharpshooter These sort of moments jar because as legend has it and was truly an they are not plot devices and the book American original and American hero. Our rating is otherwise quite well researched. Moreover, she was evidently a really Don Souden Indeed, it could almost serve as a decent human being.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 105 Slaughter On A Snowy Morn Colin Evans

2010 Icon Books Paperback 400 pp, illus £12.99

his book is about a little of the murder and subsequent investi- known American double gations, agonising over what could be Tmurder case that occurred done. I find it amazing that this inter- in 1915, which was investigated esting and heart-wrenching case is not with some degree of corruption. one that is better known. There is little But don’t be put off by the some- more that can be said about this book what drab grey cover, this book without giving away the twists and is as compelling as it is troubling. turns that the author has so brilliantly Evans holds the attention of the managed to include, other than it is a reader from start to finish, making must read for all those interested in this book near impossible to put true crimes. One would be hard pressed down. I read it wanting to know what to find much, if anything at all, nega- would befall Charles Stielow, who was tive to say about it. This is one of the accused of the crime, hoping he will best books, on any subject, that I have escape the electric chair as it becomes read this year and so it comes highly more and more apparent that the evi- recommended. dence that was used to convict him was not what it first appeared to be. The facts of this case were succinctly and carefully presented within the pages in a fair and logical way. Evans makes Our rating you feel that you were there at the time Jennifer Shelden …compelling…

Undercover Investigations The Lost British Serial Killer: Closing the case on Peter Tobin and Bible John David Wilson and Paul Harrison 2010 Sphere Paperback 273 pp, biblio, illus, index £6.99

his book makes for compulsive, been committed by Tobin, as well as the if disturbing, reading, as it deals fact that he was known to be in Scotland Twith many truly appalling rape at around the time they were com- and murder cases. Its focus is Peter mitted, but subsequently moved. The Tobin who was recently convicted for authors also offer the possibility that the murders of Dinah McNicol, Vicky he was then responsible for many other Hamilton and Angelika Kluk, but is rapes and murders of young women, said to have told police he killed many particularly in Scotland and the South more women, whilst remaining silent of England, between 1969 (the date of on exactly where and when these other the last Bible John murder) and 2006 crimes took place (something the police (when he is known to have killed Kluk). continue to investigate). The authors It is in places a little shaky in its argu- attempt to link Tobin to a series of ments regarding links to these earlier unsolved murders in Glasgow in the crimes, and certainly didn’t close the 1960s and in doing so close one of case in this readers mind, but, it is Scotland’s most baffling cases, that of also convincing in other places. This the so-called Bible John killings. The book was easy to read, thought provok- case rests on the similarities between ing and hard to put down. It therefore Our rating the crimes and those known to have comes recommended. Jennifer Shelden …compulsive, if disturbing…

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 107 Peter Manuel Serial Killer Hector MacLeod and Malcolm McLeod

2010 Mainstream Publishing Paperback 368 pp, biblio, illus, index £7.99

…the narrative is not always clear.

his book is about a startling are disturbing and interesting, the series of crimes committed book is confused in its dealings with Tby Peter Manuel in Scotland them and the narrative is not always in the 1950s. Manuel was clearly a clear. Despite the case being based strange and disturbing character, on seven murders the amount of the and his murders were at times grue- book devoted to analysing these and somely brutal. This book is, however, Manuel’s actions at the time seems rel- a bit of a laboured read in places, as it atively small compared to how much is dryly written. Although the crimes is devoted to exactly what was said at Our rating themselves and the subsequent trial the trial. Jennifer Shelden

Undercover Investigations Doctors Who Kill: …paramedics, Profiles of Lethal Medics nurses and Carol Anne Davis dentists have 2010 Allison and Busby turned into Hardback 316 pp, biblio, index £19.99 killers.

arol Anne Davis proves, once is, although factual, also very read- again, that she is an immensely able, keeping this reader turning Cenjoyable writer. Her book the pages until the end. Whilst is packed with information about some of the cases will be particu- medics who kill not only their patients, larly well known to readers, such as but also their loved ones. Davis has that of Harold Shipman and Beverley divided the book into several sec- Allitt, the sections where this is not tions that include doctors who kill the case do not bore. Perhaps, it is at home, high profile cases, doctors best not to read this book if you or a who kill their patients and those who loved one are in hospital or in need of pretend to be medics with fatal conse- the family doctor! That said it comes quences. Perhaps though, medics who recommended. kill, rather than the more defined doctors, would have been a better title as this book also includes cases where paramedics, nurses and dentists have turned into killers. Davis writes about Our rating each case with a well paced tone that Jennifer Shelden

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 109 DidThe R ipperYou C odeMiss?... Thomas Toughill

History Press, Biblio, illus. Hardback Edition published 1 March 2008, 320 pp, £19.99 Paperback Edition published 1 November 2009, 288 pp, £12.99

his book was years in the Toughill’s chosen title for this book making, indeed, Toughill’s (or perhaps Toughill had been read- Tresearch into Frank Miles’ can- ing Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci didacy as the Ripper, is said to date as Code prior to writing his own). There far back as the 1970s. The first half of is certainly some interesting informa- the book sets the scene and outlines tion about Miles contained within the the murders and some of the sus- pages, and it would indeed be fair to pects. As one starts reading this well conclude from the evidence presented written, if error strewn, section of the therein that if Miles were to be arrang- book one does not begin to get a sense ing a picnic, he would find himself short of foreboding about what is to follow. of a few sandwiches. Nonetheless, the However, what does follow is a rather knock out evidence to take us from …short strange case against Miles, that is, in these quirks to him as the Ripper, does places, too baffling to even begin to not ever come, nor do many of the other of a few describe. Miles was an artist, a friend strands of evidence appear to of Oscar Wilde with whom he resided be particularly strong. Some sandwiches. until they had a falling out. According of the information and theories about to Toughill, Wilde knew all about Miles Montague Druitt are intriguing. All in being the Ripper and thought the best all a very large pinch of salt is probably way to clear this up would be to drop best taken with the reading of this book. hints about it in his novel The Picture Our rating of Dorian Gray, written in 1889, hence Jennifer Shelden

Undercover Investigations Undercover Investigations: elcome to our fictitious library, containing all the best books on all the subjects Wthat are of interest to social historians. From The This edition we have decided to take a look at the books on our shelves that feature the most feared Library Shelves of Victorian institutions, the Workhouse. We hope you find amongst these items, something to tickle The Workhouse your fancy.

Life in a Victorian Workhouse art of a series of books by Alan Gallop Higginbotham focusing on work- 2008 Sutton Paperback 96 pp Images of England Phouses in different areas. For -Workhouses of the more information about Higginbotham Workhouse Cookbook Midlands and his excellent research on work- Peter Higginbotham Peter Higginbotham houses, why not visit his website, www. 2008 Tempus Paperback 192 pp 2007 Tempus Paperback 192 pp workhouses.org ?

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 111 Undercover Investigations: From the Library Shelves They Also Workhouse Shadows of the Workhouse Simon Fowler by Jennifer Worth Wrote... 2007 National Archives 2005 Merton Books Hardback 240 pp Hardback and paperback issues 240 pp Did you know that Martin Fido, author his book is certainly a must for of The Crimes, Detection and Death Life in the Victorian and all our readers who enjoy social of Jack the Ripper, is also the author Edwardian Workhouse Thistory. By the author of Call the of The Krays: Unfinished Business, Michelle Higgs Midwife it explores tales of people who published by Carlton Books in 2002? 2007 Tempus Paperback 192 pp had to go into East End workhouses. These are recalled to the author by The Workhouse people whom she met in the area she Norman Longmate worked during the 1950s in her role 2003 Pimlico Paperback 320 pp as a midwife. The book is a very easy but enjoyable read. It was found in the tragic tales/biography section of the bookshop, but perhaps this is unfair as it serves more as a sort of oral social history that has been transcribed. If you ever wondered what it was like for the poor souls who ended up in the workhouses up and down Britain, you need wonder no more. The book covers many varied tales, each offering a unique and sometimes upsetting insight into life in the workhouse in the first part of the last century.

Undercover Investigations Open Book Exam: A continuing look at detective fiction Exploring the Fens Don Souden

ix an Oxford don running for occasional detective Gervase Fen. And however, made his years at Merchant Parliament without any hope as such it should be savored. As some- Taylor’s School hell as he was hope- Mof victory, a home handyman one once observed, the good thing about less at games and further ridiculed for from Hell, a writer of execrable detec- a James Dean film retrospective is that winning scholastic prizes and generally tive fiction madly in love with the most it doesn’t last long (the glacial pace of being a “swot.” That he emerged from it beautiful and most vacuous blonde bar- “Giant” notwithstanding). In the same all with a keen sense of humor is only maid in six counties, an escaped lunatic way, though a notion much sadder to to be admired. who thinks he’s Woodrow Wilson, a contend with, the Fen oeuvre is much Life did improve markedly, how- murderous blackmailer, a “none-doing” too small—just nine books spread over ever, at Oxford where his natural tal- pig and a constituency that would make 33 years. ents for music and literature were more the denizens of “Cold Comfort Farm” The reason for this paucity of appreciated by fellow students. He was seem the country club set in comparison production lies, unfortunately, with the choir master and organist at St. and what do you have? I would love to the author and his life. Born in John’s, read omnivorously, was a famed say the answer was a typical Edmund Buckinghamshire, England, in 1921, pub-crawling conversationalist at an Crispin mystery novel, but aside from a Bruce Montgomery came into the world institution where that is considered a generally high quality of writing there with two club feet and this physical dis- minor art form and even overcame his is no typical Crispin effort. ability would shape much of his early innate shyness to date in an at least That said, the above ingredients— life. His father was a civil servant in desultory manner. Indeed, it was said shaken well—will produce Buried For the India Office and had hoped young of Montgomery at university that all he Pleasure, which just may be Crispin’s Bruce would eventually join the Foreign really thought important were books, finest book featuring Oxford don turned Service. Montgomery’s lameness, drinking, cigarettes and talking.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 113 Open Book Exam: A continuing look at detective fiction

Doubtless, living what he thought was the “good life” contributed to his taking only a second in modern lan- guages and with it any thoughts of the Foreign Office, which may have been a godsend as the mind boggles at just what sort of international incidents Bruce Montgomery might have con- trived while walking the corridors of power. Instead, Montgomery’s life was …books, drinking, cigarettes and talking. moved into an entirely different direction at Oxford when a friend lent him a copy of The Crooked Hinge by John Dickson Carr. In fact, this classic detective novel “unhinged” Montgomery in a most positive way and all other literature was temporarily cast aside as he devoured the works of Michael Innes, Carr, Agatha Christie, Gladys Mitchell Br u c e Mo n t g o m e r y and many others.

Exploring the Fens Don Souden Open Book Exam: A continuing look at detective fiction

In many ways, Innes had the most later serve as the thinly disguised set- in sight that in 1977 he manfully fin- effect upon Montgomery. His pseud- ting of Love Lies Bleeding. Eventually, ished his last Fen novel, Glimpses of onym, Edmund Crispin, is taken from the ever-restless Montgomery would the Moon, which had been in the plan- a character in an Innes book and Fen’s settle in Devon and turn to his other ning stages for more than two decades. later Scotland Yard pal, Inspector talent, musical composition. Perhaps not just coincidentally, the Humbleby, is a clear clone of Innes’s Naturally, Montgomery hoped to year before he married his secretary, Inspector Appleby (Innes would become a “serious” composer and wrote Ann, who had been in that job almost later write an introduction to one of several chorales, including Oxford as long. Finally, in 1978, he died leav- the Crispin books, so there were no Requiem, and other works he consid- ing behind a small but entertaining hard feelings over those borrowings). ered worthy of his talents. But, just as body of work for the discerning reader Gervase Fen is said to have been based, a serious novel escaped him in contrast of detective fiction. in part, on a don at St. John’s but in a to the success of his Fen books, so too And what is to be made of those few creation of character I can well appre- with his music. Instead, for most of us books that make the name “Edmund ciate, almost assuredly all of Fen’s his most familiar and successful com- Crispin” so special among devotees of attitudes and observations are purely positions were for the movies and he detective fiction? Certainly, they were Montgomery’s. As for adopting the pen did the scores for the first five films in not formulaic as each varies in terms of name Crispin, that was because “Bruce the “Carry On . . .” series. This movie plausibility of plot, characterizations, Montgomery” was being saved for the work brought him a comfortable living settings and satiric elements as if, like “great novel” of manners and insight and the setting for yet another Fen some long-ago alchemist Montgomery into the human soul he always dreamt book, Frequent Hearses, but even that was searching time and again for the of writing. did not last long. right combination of elements to pro- So the first in the Fen series, The Sadly, Bruce Montgomery was a duce pure gold. To be sure, the writing Gilded Fly, appeared in 1944 while bibliophile but also quite bibulous and is always smooth and erudite (perhaps Montgomery was still an undergrad. the drinking began to get the better too much so for some modern tastes), It was set, appropriately enough, of him. Writing either music or books the settings superbly rendered and the in Oxford and was soon followed became quite impossible and he sur- subsidiary characters interesting if not by Holy Disorders and The Moving vived on writing reviews, anthology always memorable, but too often the Toyshop. Sometime after gradua- introductions and other make work. sum of the parts are greater than that tion Montgomery became a teacher at Naturally, his health also began to fail of the whole. Shrewsbury, a public school that would and it was only with a sense of the end As mentioned earlier, my favorite

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 115 now is Buried Pleasure (which was also Montgomery’s), perhaps because the various story elements are in better balance than usual. Of course, the plot did give Montgomery an opportunity to have great fun with politicians. In an exchange that still resonates today on both sides of the Atlantic, candidate Fen has his political agent tell him even if he doesn’t believe in elimina- tion of capital punishment he should say so because “My dear sir, it doesn’t matter whether you do or not,” said Captain Watkyn with candour. “You must rid yourself of the idea that you have to try and implement any of these promises once you’re actually elected.” Sound familiar? Of the others in the Fen canon, Holy Disorders is my least favorite. Not because it is intrinsically inferior but because it is set during World War II and the Nazi baiting, while certainly justified, seems awkwardly dated. Frequent Hearses probably presents the best straightforward mystery, but his efforts to satirize the movie industry are largely muted, possibly because Montgomery was still earning his living from that business. At the other end of the scale his last book, Glimpses of the Moon, has an absolutely implausible

Exploring the Fens Don Souden mystery but also is by far the funni- est. Montgomery jabs all segments of society with his pen, often with a positively politically incorrect focus, as if he knew this was his last book and he would leave no target unscathed. Finally, two collections of short stories, Beware of the Trains and Fen Country, must be mentioned if only because the latter contains the very short but delightful “Merry-Go-Round.” To my mind it is not only a stunningly clever story of pay-back for perceived grievances, but Ripperologists may just find evocations of the Maybrick Diary. If you have not yet shared a weekend with Gervase Fen do so soon . . . I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

If you have not yet shared a weekend with Gervase Fen do so soon…

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 117 s

Cor ner r o of Jack the Ripper items?” of Jack the you think of my predicament?”

EBay appears to be a good place to find these.

Frayling Timewatch episode etc. are well worth preserving. Frayling Timewatch episode I guess that you have to bite the bullet and buy them all - I guess that you have to bite the bullet and If you want to own a complete collection of Ripper books then recording, the 1988 Thames/Lorimar production, the Christopher recording, the 1988 Thames/Lorimar But items such as the Stephen Knight Final Solution Stephen Knight having. But items such as the “I want to have a complete collection of Jack the Ripper books, “I want to have a complete will never be a collector’s item anyway. However, many of these books are remaindered and may be obtained at ‘give-away prices’. books are remaindered and may be obtained at new including the rubbish. I find now that there are so many cte but in order to do this I need to buy those by some people whose by some people I need to buy those but in order to do this the old video cassette recordings I had onto DVDs. The best ones I had onto the old video cassette recordings theories I don’t necessarily want to endorse financially, what do theories I don’t necessarily As regards DVD or video recordings, I should say that it is probably should say that it is or video recordings, I As regards DVD to collect, in my opinion, are the seminal or significant recordings. to collect, in my opinion, Much of what has been released in the last few years is not worth Much of what has been Personally I have transferred all Personally I have transferred a matter of personal preference. Ripper books appearing that I have not bothered with them all. Most Ripper books appearing that I have not bothered “Are there any DVDs or videos that are worth adding to my collection adding are worth DVDs or videos that “Are there any

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The Ultimate The Jack Ultimate the ans

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tewart tewart is widely recognised a as leading authority on the Jack He case. is the the author Ripper

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The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper, The Man Jack the Who Ripper, Hunted Executioner and Ripper Sourcebook. books He related is Ripper the also Jack of an collector avid and and memorabilia in answer our to view this candidate ideal the him makes your questions about Jack the Ripper collectables. So, without any more hesi- turn let’s to posed tation, the questions this issue... of several true crime books including Co CollectorCo s

“I want to search out Jack the Ripper books that are out of print and add them to my collection as cheaply as possible. Is EBay a good way to pick up such items?”

EBay is also a good place to find the rarer and more desirable books that become available. The finding of a rarer book at a cheap price

comes down to serendipity and is a rare thing indeed. r

“I’ve been interested in Jack the Ripper for quite some time, and I’ve noticed I have unwittingly amassed quite a collection of items such as, magazines and newspaper clippings etc. How can I best keep these items in good condition?” ne r If you have a question about Ripper books and collectables that you would Over the years I have accumulated dozens of relevant magazines like answered then why not send and cuttings. These I index on my computer and store in numbered it to Stewart via our email address archival boxes. When I need to consult an item, a word search on my e x a m i n e r @c a s e b o o k .o r g . Stewart will computer reveals which box the desired item lurks in. Wallet folders be answering again next issue, so get also provide excellent storage for miscellaneous cuttings. Of course, those questions in and get collecting. there’s always the good old-fashioned scrapbook if you wish.

don’t be shy ripperologists email stewart today! On The Case… Th e Ne w s Fr o m Ri pp e r Wo r l d On film… On the On a date… Wimborne Minster Cine and Video market… The Whitechapel Society Xmas Bash Club have made a film about local Jack – 4th December – Aldgate Exchange, the Ripper suspect Montague John The Guardian recently reported that London. Druitt called Montague Jack. It lasts porters at the Billingsgate fish market News reaches us that the documentary 58 minutes and stars actor Michael fear the Corporation of London is trying Jack the Ripper the Definitive Story, Medwin as Druitt. It cost £1,500 to to get rid of the role. The decision by being made by John Bennett, Paul make and the Club were helped by local the Corporation, who own Billingsgate Begg and Jeff Leahy is due to hit the school children. Poole Harbour nearby Market, is to revoke a bylaw, dating UK screens on Channel Five in mid in Dorset doubled for the Thames for back to 1876, which renews fish porters’ December. Druitt’s death scenes. It is set to screen licences. The Corporation argues this at Corfe Mullen Village Hall on 22nd bylaw does not guarantee jobs or stan- October, and the club hope to release a dards. Time will tell if these porters are On a tram… DVD thereafter. right to be worried about the future of The website History of the World have w w w .b o u r n e m o u t h e c h o .c o .uk the market overall as a result of it. recently uploaded the tram pass of n e w s .b b c .c o .uk w w w .g u a r d i a n .c o .uk Inspector John Spratling who investigated the Whitechapel Murders. It was On found by David Smith in some furniture On my when he was a child. He and his wife youtube… passed it to the Metropolitan Police The Whitechapel Society recently bad… Crime Museum who gave them more uploaded an interesting piece on In last issue’s ‘On The Case’ we mis- details. It was apparently unusual for Wentworth Model Dwellings to their takenly referred to Mr Bennett as police to travel using such a pass. See Channel. Which can be seen h e r e Jonathan. Sorry John, we knew really! He r e

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 120 On The Case…Extra Th e Ne w s Fr o m Ri pp e r Wo r l d A Historic Meeting by Jennifer Shelden

Earlier in this issue we reviewed the recently aired Canadian Jack the Ripper Documentary, Jack the Ripper Revealed, directed by David Mortin. My husband Neal was invited to be in the programme, and as a result we both went down to the filming in London at the beginning of the year. Due to the nature of his research Neal was able to arrange for several of the descendants of Ripper victims to be involved in the filming and it was lovely for me to meet them for the first time. However, what was even more important, historical and interesting to us was that, one cold day in January in the City of London cemetery, for the first known time ever, descendants Tr a c e y Sm i t h , Ma u r e e n Ni c h o l s & Je a n Sm i t h

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 121 of two different Ripper victims met. Fittingly, given the location, these Jack the Ripper were Maureen Nichols, descendant th of Mary Ann Nichols and Tracey and Conference 25 Jean Smith, descendants of Catherine Eddowes. Now the documentary has September 2010 been screened we can show this exclusive picture taken on the day. It was by Jennifer Shelden (with a little help from some friends) interesting to hear the three descendants reminisce about similarities in I was delighted to once again be among together by Trevor Bond and Andrew their families and their discovery of friends and familiar faces at the one- Firth - ably assisted and distracted the fate of their ancestor. It was clear day Jack the Ripper Conference, held by my lovely assistant ‘Diddles’”, that Maureen, Jean and Tracey felt a in London at the Kings Stores Public Diddles having appeared in the round real connection to each other and they House in Widegate Street, just a stone’s ‘Where’s Diddles?’ put together with vowed to keep in touch. throw from the site of Mary Kelly’s good humour by Andrew. To my utter murder. But don’t just take my word delight, my team ‘The Swallow Gardens for it; some fellow delegates from first Massif’, consisting of John Bennett, timers to the regulars have also given Laura Prieto, Pete Whitby (who came some thoughts to the Examiner. up with the team name), Suzi Hanney On Friday, before the conference’s and myself won (in convincing style Have a comment about official start the next day, we made our and in no small part due to the first on something you read way to the Bell Public House for the that list of team members). We were in this issue? Frances Coles Memorial Appeal quiz thrilled to win and as Suzi says “The night. The night was organised by con- prize of twelve bottles of personalised Write a letter now to ference speaker Trevor Bond (who was Diddles ale was divided amongst the the Examiner at aided and abetted very well by Andrew team after a minimum of dispute and Firth). It was not the easiest of quiz- everyone went away happy!” [email protected] zes, “[the] Ripperology Challenge quiz Then there was also an auction of on the Friday night was incredibly the only hardback copy of The London taxing (even for the most dedicated Job 2010 book edited by Andrew Firth. Ripperologist!)” recalls Jon Rees. Suzi Liza Hopkinson proved she is no slouch Hanney explains, “A great quiz was put as an auctioneer and the book raised

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 122 a staggering £140, which was brilliant every time he took the microphone.” of Severin Klosowski a.k.a George news. Trevor told me later that he was And so the Conference proper had Chapman, one of the many immigrant very pleased with the turn out and begun. Eastern Europeans who came to the that the appeal raised a lot of money John Bennett gave a lively and East End because they could find cheap on the day, and also at the auction on interesting speech about doss houses rents, a welcoming community of other Saturday after his talk, of which more in the Flower and Dean Street area. immigrants and jobs--or news about later. Turning to Norma again for recollec- jobs. In fact though, he questioned Whitechapel proved an ideal locations, “On Saturday the area was buzz- quite why Severin Klosowski ever came tion, as fellow delegate Norma Buddle ing and had a sunny and prosperous to Whitechapel to be a barber here or later relayed to me “Whitechapel has look but John Bennett helped us under- run a public house when he had spent countless little corners and alleys but stand that this was not always so. His so much time becoming qualified as a none better than the corner on which talk addressed the overcrowding in Feldscher in Poland and presumably The King’s Stores edging onto Petticoat the doss houses of the rookeries and could have used his qualifications better Lane [Middlesex Street] and Artillery the scope of homelessness that existed in his home country!” Nathen Amin Lane which Adam so aptly chose as our in the area where most of the victims notes that this was a “very detailed venue.” The conference proper kicked lived, barely a stone’s throw away from speech […] with evidence to back up off at 10 on Saturday morning, Suzi where we were sitting.” Phil Carter the theories from census records and remembers “The excellent Colin Cobb remembers “John Bennett’s portrayal the like. I feel slightly more drawn to was in cracking form as MC - despite of the doss houses of Flower and Dean Klosowski than other candidates for being restricted to a mere 15 minutes!”, Street, amongst others, was fascinat- reasons unknown to myself so I found the latter referring in jest to a slip ing. His style of presentation was easy myself very into the talk”; whilst Phil of the pen in the initial programme, on the ear. Relaxed, convivial, and Carter has this memory, “If I wondered where conference organiser Adam light. It made understanding the sub- in any way if it was possible to listen Wood allocated him a 45-minute slot. ject he presented alarmingly clear.” to a speaker on a subject that most all Phil Carter also noted “Colin Cobb, our After brief discussion from MC knew almost everything about, and be MC, and all-round wit, really did find Colin Cobb about how to say Severin concerned that nothing “new” would the right tone in his initial presenta- Klosowski’s name, Gareth Williams appear, then Gareth Williams’ talk tion. It was perfect. That eerie silence said he would try and be serious as he on Severin Klosowski allayed those at the start of these occasions wafted delivered his talk on the man otherwise small fears. Another world of research into the sound of first chuckles, then known as George Chapman. As Norma opened up before my eyes and ears. laughter. It made the presentations says “Gareth Williams [Sam Flynn] […] Some of the material was an eye something to look forward to each and took a detailed look at the background and mind opener to look at and listen

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 123 f r o m l e ft t o r i g h t Co n f e r e n c e o r g a n i s e r Ad a m Wo o d . Co l i n Co b b d e l i v e r s h i s o p e n i n g . An d r e w Fi r t h a n d Li z a Ho p k i n s o n a u c t i o n i n g Ja n e Co r a m ’s p i c t u r e o f Fr a n c e s Co l e s o n t h e Sa t u r d a y a u c t i o n . Jo h n Be n n e tt t a k e s t o t h e f l o o r f o r t h e f i r s t t a l k o f t h e d a y . Sp e a k e r ’s e y e v i e w . Fr o m Hu l l , n o t Fr o m He l l , Mi k e Co v e l l g i v i n g h i s l e c t u r e . Sp e a k e r Tr e v o r Bo n d d e l i v e r s h i s t a l k . Ga r e t h Wi l l i a m s g i v i n g h i s t a l k o n Ge o r g e Ch a p m a n . to, and his presentation, again like imagine what he must have thought! spotlighting the addresses of the truly John’s before him, was interspersed John would have been proud of us, we astonishing number of Jack the Ripper with good humour and one-liners and were definitely looking at a building suspects connected with the town in rippled from the tongue.” that wasn’t there any more (a prac- one way or another.” Furthermore Phil There then was a break for lunch tice as jokingly mentioned in his spoof Carter mentions “He seemed to be able and this led to the now infamous wall documentary ‘Ripperland’). Andrew to completely immerse himself in the visit, when a group of us, led by the Firth remembers, “Only at a gather- subject at hand. I listened intently, unassuming Rob Clack, under the ing of Ripperologists, would so many and let me assure you all, Mike Covell direction of Liza Hopkinson, went to people be so enthusiastic about going knows Hull, inside out. There cannot look at a piece of wall that was prob- to look at a bit of wall. Well, maybe a be many places in this city that remain ably the back wall of the building men- gathering at a bricklayer’s conference. unknown to him. The history of every tioned by John in his talk. I can confirm After John Bennett had mentioned in place, house and street he talked that it was indeed definitely a wall. his talk that he’d spotted some brick- of was thorough. He walked us all Philip Hutchinson started it all by work that looked like being the back through Hull, walked us through the asking John at the end of his talk if he of one of the doss houses in Flower & people connected to the case, and did thought the said wall was indeed of the Dean Street, the majority of delegates this without a script. I sat there won- doss house. Philip later stated that he marched across Spitalfields to have dering if this level of knowledge could failed to realise the group had set out to a look at this hitherto ignored bit of ever be attained by the likes of myself. look at the wall or else he would have brickwork. Us? Dedicated to our chosen I concluded that it was impossible.” joined in. The most priceless bewilder- subject? Definitely!” Trevor Bond, the founder of the ment appeared on the face of one of the Mike Covell had some sad news Frances Coles Memorial Appeal, deliv- workers in the restaurant whose build- as he travelled to the conference as he ered a talk about … well you guessed it, ing on Brick Lane now incorporated later publicly revealed on his blog: his Frances Coles. Norma says, “Finally the the brickwork. He came out to see what father, for whom he credits his inter- persuasive talk by Trevor Bond took us exactly we were doing (we were argu- est in the topic passed away on that further into the construction of the per- ing about and looking at a wall!). This Friday. Our thoughts are with Mike at sonal life of Frances Coles and helped to was after Liza went into the kitchen this difficult time. He nonetheless gave begin the process of crediting that life. to ask to see the wall from the other a good talk and I’m sure his father In doing so he reminded us, lest we grow side (sadly obscured). On following her would have been very proud of him. As immune to the callousness and savagery out of the premises all he saw was a Norma remembers, “The third speaker of the murders, that she, […] was once large gathering of Ripperologists star- was Mike Covell who took us on a part of a family with brothers and sisters ing at his back wall; well one can only breathtaking tour de force tour of Hull, and descendants today.” Phil Carter,

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 125 f r o m l e ft t o r i g h t Th e t e a m s p r e p a r e f o r t h e q u i z i n a i d o f t h e Fr a n c e s Co l e s Me m o r i a l App e a l Th e Sw a l l o w Ga r d e n s Ma s s i f s h o w o ff t h e i r w i n n i n g s . Fr o m Le ft t o r i g h t , Je n n i f e r Sh e l d e n , La u r a Pr i e t o , Su z i Ha n n e y , Di d d l e s , Jo h n Be n n e tt a n d Pe t e r Wh i t b y Th e g r o u p h e a d t o l o o k a t a w a l l d u r i n g Sa t u r d a y ’s l u n c h b r e a k Li z a Ho p k i n s o n a n d Ro b Cl a c k a t t h e w a l l Co l i n Co b b s i n g i n g As m a n y w o m e n a s Li z a c o u l d f i n d s i n g i n g Ma m m a Mi a a t t h e k a r a o k e A g r o u p d a n c e . Su z i Ha n n e y a n d Tr e v o r Bo n d also a trustee of the Appeal, states that ‘continuation session/debrief’ at the Belfast, which seems to have emerged the “presentation of Frances Coles was White Hart was the crowning glory!” at present as the possible front-runner. brilliant. Overlooked by many in this It was a cracking good confer- As Suzi manages to sum up “Thanks to field, she somehow does not attract ence, from which I for one was still Adam as ever for his WONDERFUL attention, though still a victim of the recovering many days later! As Suzi work and every good wish to whoever Whitechapel murders. Trevor told remembers “All four speakers, John takes on the mantle!!” us all of the life, family and times of Bennett, Gareth Williams, Mike Covell I will leave you with some final Frances Coles.” After the talk Trevor, and Trevor Bond were excellent and thoughts: Norma says, “It is always aided once again by his assistants, provided a wonderful combination of such a pleasure to be able to talk to old Andrew and Liza, auctioned off sev- information, humour and some deftly friends and this time to meet so many eral items for the Appeal, including a answered questions!” Meanwhile lovely new people as well”. Of his first painting by Jane Coram that went for Andrew recalls, “It was my first confer- conference Andrew remarked “One of over £100. As Norma recalls “Finally ence, and what a great day it was. The the nicest things about the conference I must not forget here Jane Coram’s four speakers clearly highlighted just for me, was meeting up and socialising lovely portrait of Frances in which she how much research is presently being with people who up until then were just hints that her attractive young subject done in the world of Ripperology; a names on the forums, or on Facebook. may in fact be aware, as she looks over theme that Adam Wood, the organiser, Plus of course, catching up with people her shoulder, that she was living such touched upon in the conference pro- I already knew from previous events a precarious existence.” gramme.” Jon reminisces, “All the like the London Job. It’s always a The evening entertainment speakers’ talks were both informa- pleasure meeting up with those who included dancing, drinking, karaoke, a tive and engrossing, and it was nice as have a shared interest. The social side raffle and for some a late night trip to always to see familiar faces and meet of Ripperology is always great fun! the White Hart. Suzi fondly remembers some new ones.” Thanks to everyone who contributed to that, “The evening karaoke was as great With the news that Adam Wood the conference, it really was a brilliant as ever seen from both inside the venue has made this his last conference, weekend.” Gail Dowle sums up her and from the highly popular ‘Pavement thoughts began to turn to who will experience thus “That was my second Gallery’.” Jon adds “And once again run the next conference and where conference and was the official photog- the evening entertainment was a real it will be. The Whitechapel Society rapher at both. I love being around so treat with Colin Cobb’s fantastic kara- Committee commented that they many like-minded people and always oke (and his infamous Elvis imperson- would be discussing the matter. Whilst enjoy myself immensely. I have always ation!).” And as for the White Hart, as Colin and Richard Cobb put in a highly had an interest in the East End in the Suzi again recalls, “An end of evening passionate and convincing case for Victorian period and it is nice to see

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 127 that although the area is in another phase or change one can still see the Pu z z l i n g Co n u n d r u m s history through the eyes of others.” Jon reminisces, “Adam Wood has pulled Just how good a detective are you? At You could print the puzzle to work on it, out all the stops and organised another the annual Jack the Ripper conference, or click on the relevant boxes on the next fantastic (if brief) conference.” Nathen the MC has mixed up his notes and lost page to fill them in with an X or O. adds, “I feel I made the right decision in the order of the speakers, their topic of Then click and hold on the attending, meeting these same people discussion and what they had ordered box below to see if you solved the as well as learning much more specific for dinner. Use the clues provided to help case correctly! issues around the case”. I’ll let Phil him out and save the Ripper Conference Carter have the last word, as I couldn’t from catastrophe! Although the names agree more with him when he says might seem familiar, this is purely for “Ladies and gentlemen, I can assure fun and is not meant to be historically you that should you ever wonder if it accurate! is worth the effort to attend a “Jack If you are not sure how to solve the Ripper” conference, then doubt not. a logic puzzle like this one then go to Socially and intellectually, it really w w w .l o g i c -p u z z l e s .o r g for instructions was superb. And everybody I met, and and a video tutorial. I mean everybody, were really fine company, one and all. I felt honoured to be a small part of this occasion.” Go to the next page for the puzzle

Acknowledgements Casebook Examiner would like to thank the following people for their help in putting together this report: Nathen Amin, Norma Buddle, Phil Carter, Robert Clack, Gail Dowle, Andrew Firth, Suzi Hanney and Jon Rees, thank you! Photos courtesy of Rob Clack, Suzi Hanney and Andrew Firth, thank you!

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 128 On The Case… Pu z z l i n g Co n u n d r u m s

1. The person who spoke second didn’t discuss the Goulston Street graffito. 2. Rob Bennett spoke right after Trevor Morris. 3. John Bond had shepherd’s pie and spoke fourth. 4. The five speakers were John Bond, Caroline Bell (who had fish and chips), the one who spoke second, the one who discussed the Maybrick diary, and the one who had bangers and mash. 5. Neil Clack, who didn’t discuss William Gull, spoke after John Bond. 6. The speaker who discussed the graffito (who wasn’t Caroline Bell) didn’t have bangers and mash. 7. The speaker who discussed William Gull didn’t have fish and chips. 8. The last presentation of the evening wasn’t about cockney rhyming slang. 9. Of the first speaker and the one who had tagliatelle, one was Rob Bennett and the other discussed the Maybrick Diary.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 129 Ultimate Ripperologists’ Tour: From Canterbury to Hampton and Herne Bay, Kent A compendium of travels through locations pertinent to the Ripper case.

his issue’s leg of our Ultimate Tour takes us the short route Tfrom the pretty and historical city of Canterbury in the Kentish coun- tryside to the blue seas of Hampton and Herne Bay on its coast. This issue we will be travelling by train, bus and on foot, so get set and go! The first leg of this issue’s journey is Canterbury, a city that can be reached by train easily from the London Station of St Pancras. He r n e Ba y

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 130 Historic Canterbury is associated with several Saints. at the time of the Whitechapel mur- Canterbury, located on the River The city also has a Norman Castle and ders, was born 21st March 1846 in Stour, is a city that has been inhabited historical city walls, dating from the Beer Cart Lane, above the Pickfords since prehistoric times. Therefore it is 14th Century. Removals Office, in the city. From the full of history. In the first century the Once you have acquainted your- High Street take the turning down St Romans captured Canterbury, and their self with this beautiful city, it is time Margaret’s Street and you will come name for the settlement, Durovernum to go and look for its Ripperological to the small and picturesque street, Cantiacorum, is where the modern connections. The first of these is that on your right. As an aside Beer Cart place name originates. Edmund Reid, head of H Division CID Lane now has a fantastic little second- One of the most imposing buildings in Canterbury is its cathedral. In AD 597 missionaries from Rome con- verted the King of Kent to Christianity. The Augustine leader of the mission was made its Archbishop and a cathedral was established in Canterbury. It was here that the murder of Thomas Becket, then archbishop of Canterbury, took place in 1170. It is also the site of St Thomas a Becket’s (as he is now known) tomb, which was subsequently destroyed, on orders of Henry VIII in 1538, as his cult questioned the king’s supremacy on church matters. Other notable burials here include Edward the Black Prince (died 1376) and King Henry IV and his Queen, Joan of Navarre. Canterbury is also the setting, unsurprisingly, of Geoffrey Chaucer’s best-known book, about pilgrims going there, Canterbury Tales. Canterbury Be e r Ca r t La n e

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 131 hand bookshop on its corner. Another three and a quarter miles to the north but the Lower Red Lion seems to have Reid connection to the city is that he of Canterbury between it and the Isle of all but vanished. Reid also sat on the married his first wife, Emily Jane Thanet. The village today only contains committee that organised celebra- Wilson in 1868, in the Baptist Chapel around one hundred and forty houses. tions at Herne for Queen Victoria’s 60th in Canterbury. The Chapel is located It is reachable from Canterbury via the Jubilee. on St George’s Place, just outside the Stagecoach bus route 8. Get back on the bus and head for- city walls: from Beer Cart Lane make It was in the churchyard here that ward to the coast and Herne Bay. You your way down Watling Way, which Sir Charles Warren was buried, after will need to get off the bus once more runs off St Margaret’s Street in the his military funeral had taken place in before reaching the coast in order to other direction, then at Upper Bridge nearby Canterbury, next to his wife, stop off at Herne Bay Cemetery just Street follow the path along the city in 1908. The Church is located, unsur- on the outskirts of town; the bus stop walls and St George’s Place runs to prisingly, on Church Lane. is directly opposite. Edmund Reid was the right after the roundabout, and the Now head back to Canterbury bus buried here when he died in 1917 and Chapel is opposite the superstore and depot and get on the triangle route, the funeral service was also held here. just after the cinema. heading firstly to Herne (luckily a Once you have paid your respects, head Another police link is to Sir ticket of a flat rate of £5.50 will get you back to the same bus stop and wait for Charles Warren, Commissioner of the on all the local buses all day!). the next bus to Herne Bay. Metropolitan Police at the time of the ripper murders. After his death in 1908 Herne Beside the Seaside at in Weston-Super-Mare in Somerset, Once you are on the bus get off at Herne Herne Bay he was given a military funeral in Street, in the picturesque village of Getting off the bus on the High Street Canterbury. Herne, just outside of the coastal town in Herne Bay, one can smell the sea To get to Herne we must use the of Herne Bay to where we will then air. We have come a long way from triangle bus route 4A/B/X and 6A/B/X, be heading. Edmund Reid has several our original location and are now operated by Stagecoach, that runs reg- connections to this town in which he seven miles north of Canterbury. The ularly between Canterbury and Herne became landlord of the Lower Red Lion name Herne Bay is derived from the Bay. However, before joining the bus Public House after his retirement in nearby town of Herne, meaning place towards Herne we are going to make a 1896, despite having been a teetotal- on a corner of land. The town began small diversion… ler for many years. He gave up the pub as a shipping community receiving in 1898 and moved to nearby Herne passengers from London on route to …To Westbere Bay. The Upper Red Lion, which was Canterbury and Dover. It became a Westbere is a small village about next door, is still in existence by name, seaside resort in the 19th century and a

From Canterbury to Hampton and Herne Bay, Kent group of investors built the promenade and first pier. Herne Bay’s seafront is home to the world’s first free-standing purpose built clock tower, built in 1837. Also of historical note is the fact that Reculver, to the east, is where the bouncing bomb was tested during World War Two before it was deployed, with devastating effect, in Germany. A statue to its creator, Sir Barnes Wallis, is erected on the sea front in Herne Bay. Herne Bay’s shingle beaches have been awarded blue flag status. There have been three piers here, the first of these was built after London businessmen visiting Canterbury, had the idea to go and look at the sea. On doing so the thought occurred to them that it would be the ideal place to have a resort with a pier to bring paddle steamer passengers from London, as they had done in nearby Margate and Ramsgate. George Burge, who had also built Southend-on-Sea’s pier in Essex, was called in to help with the first pier’s construction. Parliamentary authority for this was given to the Herne Bay Pier Company. The first pile of this new pier was driven into the seabed in 1831. However, the Herne Bay Pier Company started to run into financial difficulties and so the pier He r n e Ba y , n o w a n d t h e n

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 133 itself began to deteriorate. At the end battered by ice after the sea got so cold number 80 (sadly the building today of 1862 the first pier was closed and it that it froze in places! In 1968 after a is not as it was, the first storey having was demolished in 1871. The towns- structural survey, it was decided that vanished). The couple also briefly lived folk were keen on the idea of a short the pier was unsafe and it was put out at Kingsbury Villas, King’s Road in the modern promenade pier and so a new of bounds. The council decided to rede- town prior to their fatal residence along Pier Company was put together with a velop the front portion of the pier to the the High Street. Bessie was buried at new second pier being opened in 1873, pavilion but just as it was completed Herne Bay cemetery. and a pavilion was added to the shore a fire, probably caused by a spark in For our Ripper connection we once end of the new pier in 1884. It also had the equipment being used to repair it, again turn to Inspector Edmund Reid, a bandstand on the shore end. In 1890 started in the pavilion’s theatre, totally who coincidentally resided in this area the Pier Company changed its name destroying it. It was replaced in 1973 during the time of the above crimes. back to Herne Bay Pier Company and with the sports centre that can be seen The first of Reid’s addresses was Mercy some of the management was altered. today (and is butt ugly). The end of the Villa on Stanley Road where he resided They set about building a longer pier pier became unsafe and in 1980 the after leaving Herne in 1896. He then that could once again accommodate centre section was removed completely moved to nearby Hampton-on–Sea (see steamer traffic. The third pier ulti- leaving the pier head stranded out at below). However, he returned to Herne mately achieved the length of 3, 787 sea on its own, as it was too expensive Bay in 1916 and resided at Palm Villa, feet (1154 metres) making it one of to remove it. The residents of Herne 6 Pier Avenue until his death in 1917. the longest in the country. In around Bay are now campaigning and raising Herne Bay has a wonderful and 1910 a pavilion was added to the pier. funds to restore the pier to its former atmospheric inn, called the Ship Inn Sadly the third pier was to suffer a glory, and remove the 1970’s sports that dates back to the eighteenth cen- series of misadventures. In 1928 the centre and replace it with something tury. It comes highly recommended as pier’s entrance building burnt down in more appropriate. a place to have a drink and a bite to a savage fire, then during the Second On July 12th 1912 the first of the eat; it falls into the pricey but nicey World War, two gaps were cut into it Brides in the Bath murders occurred category. Also there are a few guest for defensive purposes. The pier could and it was in Herne Bay the murder houses on the sea front. The one I only ever be repaired with wooden took place. George Joseph Smith mur- stayed in was the Eveningtide, and it rather than metal fixtures due to the dered his wife Bessie Mundy whom he was of very high quality. need for metal elsewhere after the war had married under the alias of Henry effort. There was a terrible storm in Williams, by drowning her in a bath- A short walk to Hampton 1953 that weakened the pier further tub. The location of this murder was A short walk along the coast to the west and then in the winter of 1962-3 it was 159 High Street, which was then of Herne Bay is the site of what used to

From Canterbury to Hampton and Herne Bay, Kent be Hampton-on-Sea, and is now known Gardens, Eddington Gardens next to alongside the old Hampton Farmhouse; as the Hampton Area of Herne Bay. Hampton Farmhouse and Herncliffe and Pleasant Cottage, later called Hampton literally means home farm. Gardens incorporating the oyster fish- Hampton Bungalow, was built in It started off, before the development ery’s Hampton Terrace. However, Swalecliffe Avenue in the late 1890s. there, as a settlement of just two farm- only eight plots bought from the Land A great storm of 28th to 29th houses, a beerhouse, a few cottages Company were developed namely November 1897 damaged houses and the West Brook which was also Hampton Terrace in Herncliffe Gardens in Herncliffe Gardens and brought known as Hampton Brook. Hampton which was extended by three villas; coastal erosion closer to the proper- Farmhouse was then 300 yards from four villas were built in Eddington ties. Numbers One and Two Herncliffe the sea and dated back to the 17th cen- Gardens (where Edmund Reid resided) Gardens were abandoned in July tury. Hampton-on-Sea grew up from a tiny fishing hamlet in 1864, at the hands of an oyster fishing company. A land company then developed it from 1879 to 1916. The site of Hampton-on- Sea was at the west side of the northern end of what is now Hampton Pier Avenue. Besides the stub of Hampton Pier and the Hampton Inn, the curved shape of the Land Company’s 1900 sea wall, visible at low tide, is all that is left today of Hampton-on-Sea. After twenty years the unsuccessful oyster company was wound up by the Board of Trade. Frederick Francis Ramuz, then Mayor of Southend and a land agent, bought the property cheaply and began the town’s development. This included the planned street names of Swalecliffe Gardens, Hampton Grand Parade, Marine Drive, Canterbury Gardens, Hampton Ed m u n d Re i d a t He r n c l i ff e Ga r d e n s , 1910

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 135 1899, but numbers Three to Twelve plight of the residents of this area. He unsafe and knocked it down. By 1916 remained tenanted until at least 1902. moved into 4 Eddington Gardens in Reid was the last remaining resident In 1899-1900 a sea wall was built to 1903, his house was at the landward in Hampton-on-Sea and he was forced protect the houses but to no avail. By end of the terrace and is said to have to abandon his house, moving back to 1901 number Three had been aban- cost him approximately £300. At the nearby Herne Bay. doned, though officially listed as occu- point he moved in the sea was still 300 The pier itself is said to be the pied, and the high water mark had yards away from his house. He named cause of the ultimately devastating ero- reached the corner of number One. By his house Reid’s Ranch, painted cas- sion that was to make Hampton-on-Sea 1905 Hampton Grand Parade and half tellations and cannon on its side and into Hampton-in-the-Sea. Hampton of Marine Drive had been eroded away, is said to have had an eclectic mixture Pier was built of wood and concrete by then a storm broke through the sea of things in the house, including a the oyster company in 1865 at a cost of wall and reclaimed the land. The Land parrot, and photographs of his London £28,000 as a clause from the Board of Company continued to advertise empty cases. His garden had a cannon ball, Trade agreement for the oyster fishing houses in Herncliffe Gardens for sale, retrieved when a water main was was that they must build a pier to land even though they were damaged and being laid in the village. Reid was boats on. Unlike the nearby pier at eroding and they were having to buy asked to donate the cannon ball to Herne Bay, Hampton’s was constructed back land from investors. By 1910 the the museum, as it was similar to one with a solid base. After Hampton Pier two seaward-end houses of Herncliffe that had been retrieved in Herne was built, the flow of the sea running Gardens had been demolished, whilst Bay, but he refused. He had a wooden west along Herne Bay beach dropped by the end of 1911 all twelve of the kiosk in his garden that he called the its sand and pebbles on the east side of houses on the terrace were abandoned Hampton-on-Sea Hotel from which he the pier instead of replenishing beach and then demolished. sold postcards of the vanishing town, material in front of the new develop- Just less than one mile from as well as light refreshments! He flew ment. Therefore, after being forced the pier at Herne Bay is the pier at the Union Flag from a flagpole also in into a loop around the pier-end it was Hampton-on-Sea. There is a signpost his back garden. Reid was not a fan of possibly forced inshore by deep-water adjacent to the pier here that pictures the Hampton Brook, which he sarcas- currents. That means that at a certain Edmund Reid and tells of the drown- tically referred to as Lavender Brook; point in the flow-tide it could have con- ing of the village. It doesn’t mention he wrote many letters to the council tinued briefly westward past Hampton- Reid by name or explain his links to about this and other issues affecting on-Sea, then turned inshore and looped the Ripper and the now drowned vil- the town’s people. With the help of back strongly eastwards along the lage, but I will. In his retirement two neighbours he built a bridge over beach towards Hampton Pier Avenue, Edmund Reid chose to champion the the brook, but the council declared it eroding land at Hampton-on-Sea and

From Canterbury to Hampton and Herne Bay, Kent then turning north along Hampton Inn, where one can affectionately Herne, Herne Bay and Pier Avenue and the pier itself, carry- remember Reid and almost picture him Hampton-on-Sea ing soil with it. Another problem was sitting there. Indeed he did attend the Connell, N and Evans, S.P (2009) The that water ran under the cliffs causing inquest of William Lingham who was Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper, them to become unstable. found drowned off the coast there and Amberley, Stroud. By the 1920s only Hampton whose body he witnessed being recov- Gough, H (2008) Herne Bay’s Piers Farmhouse and numbers One and Two ered to the mortuary. In this quiet bay Herne Bay Historical Society, Herne Eddington Gardens were all that was it is hard to imagine a whole village Bay. left in Hampton-on-Sea, and the latter once stood, now lost to the sea, proba- e n .w i k i p e d i a .o r g /w i k i /He r n e _Ba y ,_Ke n t two were demolished in 1921. It is at bly due to the fluke of the construction e n .w i k i p e d i a .o r g /w i k i /Ha m pt o n _o n _s e a that point that Hampton-on-Sea is offi- method of a solitary pier built to help e n .w i k i p e d i a .o r g /w i k i / cally said to have been finally drowned. the townspeople and not hinder them. Br i d e s _i n _t h e _b a t h By the 1920s and 30s the higher land One can almost picture the Victorian of Hampton was being developed and village of Hampton-on-Sea before it so Travel Writers Needed! the streets Hampton Pier Avenue and sadly vanished into the sea. Is there a Jack the Ripper connec- Swalecliffe Avenue were built on the tion to your local town or district? higher ground, this time as a suburb to To check train and travel info go to: - Why not tell us about it? We would Herne Bay. Where Herncliffe Gardens w w w .t r a v e l i n e .o r g .uk be delighted to include a guide to and Eddington Gardens stood, there w w w .n a t i o n a l r a i l .c o .uk your area in a future issue as we are is now the 1959 sea wall, beach and on the lookout for would-be travel undersea mud. Altogether the coastline References writers to tell us about the places at this site receded by 175 metres (574 Canterbury and Westbere they know with a Ripper connection. ft) in the years between the comple- Canterbury Cathedral (2010) – A Tour Simply email the features editor at tion of Hampton Pier in 1865, and the – Official Guide. e x a m i n e r @c a s e b o o k .o r g with a few start of construction of modern coastal e n .w i k i p e d i a .o r g /w i k i /Ca n t e b u r y brief details about the place you have defences in 1958. e n .w i k i p e d i a .o r g /w i k i / in mind and we’ll take it from there! It is with the thought that here Si r _Ch a r l e s _Wa r r e n We look forward to featuring your area used to be a village community with w w w .c a n t e r b u r y b a pt i s t c h u r c h .o r g .u k / soon. our very own Edmund Reid at the Gr o u p s /76461/Ca n t e r b u r y _Ba pt i s t _ centre that we must leave this leg of Ch u r c h /Ab o u t _Us/Ou r _Hi s t o r y /Ou r _ our tour. I recommend a drink in the Hi s t o r y .a s p x pleasant surroundings of Hampton

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 137 CSI: Whitechapel

September 1888 Catherine EdDOWES

Location: Mitre Square, City of London

Date: 30th September, 1888

Time: 1:45 AM

The Victim: Catherine Eddowes a.k.a. Conway, Kelly. She was a resident of Cooney’s lodging house Flower and Dean Street, where she had been living with a man named John Kelly. She had been locked up at Bishopsgate Police Station at 8:45 pm for drunkenness but, being sober, was discharged at 1:00 am. She was identified by her sister Eliza Gold and by John Kelly her partner..

THE CASEBOOK ExaminerExonerating Michael Kidney: A Fresh Look At Some Old Myths Tom Wescott Issue 4 October 2010 138 Victim Discovered By: Mitre Square (and would have been at Dr Frederick Gordon Brown was PC Watkins, City of London Police, the end of the passage at approximately called for by the City Police at 2:00 whose beat encompassed Mitre Square. 1:39 am) saw no one and heard no cry or am and arrived at 2:18 am to make a The beat took him between twelve noise until George Morris approached more detailed examination. The doc- and fourteen minutes to walk and he him and told him of the murder. tors remained until the arrival of an had been continuously patrolling from ambulance to take the body to the mor- 10:00 pm until 1:30 am and in all this Medical Assistance: tuary. The body of Catherine Eddowes time nothing caught his attention. At Dr George Sequeira was fetched and was taken to Golden Lane Mortuary at 1:30 am, his lantern freed on his belt, was the first of the medical men to the direction of Dr Frederick Gordon he noticed nothing (he had looked into arrive and he pronounced life extinct. Brown. different passages) and he saw no one. At 1:44 am as he turned to his right he saw the body of Catherine Eddowes. On discovering the body PC Watkins ran to Kearley and Tongue warehouse and finding the door ajar pushed it open and called out to the night watchman, George Morris (a Metropolitan Police pensioner) who was inside and he came out and was sent for assistance.

First Police on Scene: Was PC Watkins, who as discussed above discovered the deceased. Inspector Collard was sent for and he was on the spot within a few minutes arriving at approximately 2:00 am. PC Watkins remained with the body whilst assistance was fetched. PC Holland arrived and went to fetch Dr George Sequeira. PC Harvey whose beat included Church Passage which he went down as far as Mi t r e Sq u a r e 1888

CSI: WHITECHAPEL Catherine Eddowes The Crime Scene: was exposed. Catherine’s right leg was the body was removed. There was Mitre Square was only 300 yards from bent at the thigh and knee and her left fluid blood and serum that had flown the City boundary and is a small square leg was extended in a line with her under the neck to the right shoulder, heading off Mitre Street, Aldgate. It body. There was great disfigurement the pavement slopping in that direc- has three entrances: the first one from to the face and the throat had been tion. There were no traces of recent Mitre Street; the second leading from cut across, below this cut there was a sexual activity. The body was quite Duke Street via the narrow Church neckerchief. There was a little mud on warm and rigour mortis had not set Passage; and the third leading from her left cheek. in. Therefore, Dr Brown concluded, St James’s Place. Frederick Foster, an The intestines were drawn out and she must have been dead most likely architect and surveyor, made plans in placed over the right shoulder; they within half an hour. There was no three sections: one of eight feet to an were smeared with some feculent appearance of any struggle having inch; another twenty feet to an inch; matter. A piece of about two feet was taken place. and a third from an ordnance map to detached from the body and placed Her clothes had been drawn up above the same scale. He found that from between the body and the left arm the abdomen and her thighs were Berner Street to Mitre Square it was apparently by design. There were no naked. Her bonnet was at the back approximately three quarters of a mile superficial bruises and no blood was of her head. The upper part of the that equated to a twelve minute walk. on the skin of the abdomen or any dress was pulled open a little and her secretion of any kind found on her clothes were up above her waist. When The Discovery of thighs. The blood was in a liquid state Sergeant Jones looked on the left side the Body: and was not congealed. There was of the deceased, he picked up three Inspector Collard stated that no one no spurting of blood on the bricks or small black buttons generally used for touched the body prior to the arrival of on the pavement around. There was women’s boots, a small metal button, Dr Frederick Gordon Brown. Catherine no blood on the front of the clothes. a common metal thimble and a small was lying on her back, with her feet There were no marks of blood below mustard tin containing two pawn tick- facing towards the Square. Her body the middle of the body. Her head ets in a tin box. They were made out was on its back her head was turned and neck and shoulders were lying in the name of Emily Birrell and Anne to the left shoulder and her arms were in a pool of blood on each side of her. Kelly and the articles had been pawned by the side of her body, as if they had There was a quantity of clotted blood for 1s and 6d with Mr Jones of Church fallen there. Both of her palms were on the pavement on the left side of Street Spitalfields. facing upwards and her fingers were the neck and round the shoulder and When the body arrived at Golden Lane slightly bent; a thimble was lying off the upper part of the arm. Several buttons Mortuary some of the blood was dis- finger on the right side. The abdomen were found in the clotted blood after persed through the removal of the body

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 140 to the said mortuary. Her clothes were taken off and carefully removed from the body. When this occurred a piece of the deceased’s ear dropped off from her clothing. After washing the left hand carefully a bruise the size of a sixpence was discovered, recent and red on the back of the left hand between the thumb and first finger.

The Evidence: There were extensive mutilations to the body of Catherine Eddowes. Firstly, she had suffered extensive facial mutilations; there was a scratch through the skin on the left upper eyelid near the angle of the nose and the right eyelid was cut through by about half an inch. There was a cut of about a quarter of an inch through the lower left eyelid dividing the structures completely through the upper eyelid on that side. There was a deep cut above the bridge of the nasal bone down near the angle of the jaw on the right side across the cheek and membrane of the mouth. An oblique cut from the bottom of the nasal bone to where the wings of the nose join the face detached the tip of the nose. A cut from this divided the upper lip and extended through the substance of the gum over the right

CSI: WHITECHAPEL Catherine Eddowes upper lateral incisor tooth. About half laid open from the breastbone to the about two and a half inches and below an inch from the top of the nose was pubes. The cut commenced opposite this the left lobe of the liver was slit another cut and there was a cut on the the enciform cartilage with an incision through by a vertical cut. The abdomi- right angle of the mouth as if by the cut that went upwards but that did not nal walls were divided in the middle of a point of a knife that extended an penetrate the skin that was over the line to within a quarter of an inch of the inch and a half parallel with the lower sternum. It divided the enciform carti- navel; the cut then took a horizontal lip. There was on each side of the cheek lage; therefore the knife must have cut course for about two and a half inches a cut that peeled up the skin form- obliquely at the expense of that carti- towards the right side then divided ing a triangular flap of an inch and a lage. The liver was stabbed as if by the round the naval on the left side and half. On the left cheek there were two point of a sharp instrument and below made a parallel incision to the former abrasions. There were also two slight this was another incision in the liver of horizontal incision leaving the navel abrasions under the ear. The throat was cut to the extent of six or seven inches. There was a superficial cut that commenced about an inch and a half below the lobe, about two inches behind the left ear, and extended across the throat to about three inches below the lobe of the right ear. The big muscles across the throat were divided through on the left side and the large vessels in the left side of the neck were severed. The larynx was also severed below the vocal chords. All the deep structures were severed to the bone and the knife marking the cartilages. The sheath of the vessels on the right side was just opened and the carotid artery had a fine hole opening. The internal jugular vein was opened an inch and a half but not divided. The abdomen’s front walls were St. Ja m e s Pl a c e 1884

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 142 formed by the right thigh, attaching the right labium extending up to the spine of the ilium. The muscles on the right side inserted into the frontal ligaments were cut through. The skin was retracted through the whole of the cut through the abdomen, but the vessels were not clotted, nor had there been any appreciable bleeding from the vessels. The intestines had been detached to a large extent from the mesentery and about two foot of colon was cut away. The sigmoid flexure invaginated into the rectum very tightly. Her right kidney was pale and bloodless with slight congestion at the base of the pyramids and her pancreas was cut, but not through, on the left side of the spinal column. Three and a half inches of the lower border of the spleen by half an inch was attached only to the peritoneum. The peritoneal lining was cut on a tongue of skin. Attached to the was a cut of three inches going through through on the left side and the kidney navel on the left side of the abdomen, all tissues and making a wound of the on this side was carefully taken out and were two and a half inches of the lower peritoneum about the same extent. An removed. Dr Brown determined that part of the rectum muscle. On the left inch below the crease of the thigh was this was done by someone who knew side of the abdomen the incision took a cut extending from the anterior spine the position of the kidney and had cut an oblique direction to the right that of the ilium down the inner side of the through the left renal artery. The lining went down the right side of the vagina left thigh separating the left labium of the membrane over her uterus was and rectum to half an inch behind the and forming a flap of skin at the top of cut through. The womb was cut through rectum. There was a stab of about an the groin. The left rectum muscle was horizontally leaving a stump of three inch to the left groin and below this not detached. There was a flap of skin quarters of an inch; the rest of the womb

CSI: WHITECHAPEL Catherine Eddowes had been taken away with some of the were made after death and that there for a man’s flannel shirt and the other ligaments. The vagina and cervix of the would not be much blood on the mur- is in the name of Jane Kelly of 6 Dorset womb were uninjured. The bladder was derer. The cut was made on the right Street and dated September 28, 2s for uninjured and contained three or four side of the body while kneeling below a pair of men’s boots (both addresses ounces of water. There was a tongue- the middle of the body. The cause of were false), a printed handbill and a like cut through the anterior wall of the death was a haemorrhage from the printed card for ‘Frank Carter, 305, abdominal aorta. The other organs were left carotid artery. Death was immedi- Bethnal Green Road, a portion of a pair healthy. ate and the mutilations were inflicted of spectacles and also one red mitten. Dr Frederick Gordon Brown believed after death. He stated that the murder She was wearing a black straw bonnet that the perpetrator must have had con- was the act of one person and he would trimmed in green and black velvet with siderable knowledge of the positions of not expect much blood to be found on black beads. Black strings, worn tied to the organs in the abdominal cavity and the person who did it. the head, a black cloth jacket trimmed the way of removing them, although around the collar and cuffs with imita- the part removed would not have been On her person: tion fur and around the pockets in black any use for any professional purpose. Catherine had with her two small blue silk braid and fur, large metal buttons, It required a great deal of knowledge to bags made of bed ticking, two short dark green chintz skirt, three flounces, remove the kidney and know where it black clay pipes, one tin box contain- brown button on waistband. The skirt was, but one in the habit of cutting up ing sugar, one tin matchbox that was was patterned with Michaelmas daisies animals might possess such knowledge. empty, twelve pieces white rag (some and golden lilies, a man’s white vest, Dr Brown also felt that the murderer slightly bloodstained), one piece coarse matching buttons down front. She also had sufficient time or he would not have white linen, one piece of blue and white had on a brown linsey bodice, black nicked the lower eyelids. shirting, three cornered, one piece velvet collar with brown buttons down Dr Brown stated that it would red flannel with pins and needles, six front, grey stuff petticoat with white have taken the killer at least five pieces of soap, one small tooth comb, waistband, a very old green alpaca minutes to inflict all the injuries that one white handle table knife, one metal skirt (worn as undergarment), very Catherine suffered. The wound on the teaspoon, one red leather cigarette case old ragged blue skirt with red flounces, throat was the first inflicted. At the with white metal fittings, one ball of light twill lining (worn as undergar- time she would have been lying on the hemp, one piece of old white apron with ment), white calico chemise and she ground. The throat was instantly sev- repair, several buttons and a thimble, a was wearing no drawers or stays. She ered, this meant that Catherine would mustard tin containing two pawn tick- had on a pair of men’s lace up boots, not have had time to scream/call out. ets - one in the name of Emily Birrell, with mohair laces. The right boot It was concluded that abdominal cuts 52 White’s Row, dated August 31, 9d repaired with red thread, one piece of

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 144 red gauze silk worn as a neckerchief, which a great many communications face towards a man. Lawende only one large white pocket handkerchief, were received. Officers were sent to saw her back. She had her hand on one large white cotton handkerchief all lunatic asylums in London to make the man’s chest. The man was taller with red and white bird’s eye border, enquires about suspicious persons than she was. She was wearing a black two unbleached calico pockets, tape who had recently been admitted or jacket and bonnet, which he believed strings, one blue stripe bed ticking discharged. The divisions of the City were the same as those he saw on the pocket, brown ribbed knee stockings, Police and the Metropolitan Police deceased. She appeared to be short. darned at the feet with white cotton. Force were telegraphed a description The man had a cap with a cloth peak. of Catherine and her clothing. On Joseph Lawende stated that the cloth- The Murder Weapon: the 1st October the Lord Mayor gave ing of the deceased was black and Dr Brown stated that it was the case authority for a reward to be offered. similar to that of the woman he had that a sharp, pointed instrument such There was some graffiti found in a seen. However, he doubted if he would as a knife performed all these inju- nearby street, this will be analysed in have known the man again. Levy said ries. The wounds on the abdomen and more detail in the next issue. he saw the man and woman standing face prove that a sharp pointed knife in the corner of Church Passage but inflicted them. Witnesses: he passed them and took no further It is said that no one saw the deceased notice of them. The man was three The search for clues: after the time she was discharged, fol- inches taller than the woman but he DC Halse, Outram and Marriott had lowing her arrest for drunkenness, could not describe either. been searching the passages in the from the Bishopsgate Police Station, George Clapp, who resided at 5 immediate neighbourhood of the spot until she was discovered dead, apart Mitre Street, and whose house backed where the murder was committed and from three gentlemen on their way onto Mitre Square, was sleeping in where the doors were left open all home from the Imperial Club, Joseph the back room of his house on the night. Upon hearing of the murder, Lawende, of 79 Fenchurch Street and second floor at the time of the murder. which they did at 1:55 am, they set off his two friends Jacob Levy and Harry During the night he heard no sound in different directions to look for sus- Harris. Lawende said that he left the or noise of any kind and did not hear pected persons. The neighbourhood Imperial club at 1:30 am and he was of the murder until the morning. was searched. A search was made at walking a little in front of his friends, the back of the empty houses backing Levy and Harris. He saw standing in Suspects: onto the Square but no trace could be the corner of Church Passage in Duke John Kelly, the man with whom found whatsoever. Printed bills were Street, which leads to Mitre Square, Catherine had been living prior to her ordered and circulated in response to a woman who was standing with her death, was investigated at once. The

CSI: WHITECHAPEL Catherine Eddowes result was that it was clearly shown Gordon Brown stated that he could see Conclusion: that he was not the murderer. It was no reason why the portion sent was The murder could be one in a series, found amongst her friends and rela- not the same as taken from Catherine connected to that of Mary Ann Nichols tions there did not exist the slightest Eddowes’ body. He could not say if it and Annie Chapman and Elizabeth motive to commit this murder. was the left or right kidney and said Stride (see our last files). Despite that it had been trimmed. It had been numerous suspects being investigated The limitations of the cut previously and immersed in spirits, the case remains unsolved and the file day: which exercised a hardening process, is still open. On the 16th of October George Lusk, but it had not been in spirits for more head of the vigilance committee, than one week. It had not decomposed Sources: received a letter and half a human which was surprising due to the length Evans, S. and Skinner, K. (2001) The kidney in a parcel wrapped in brown of time lapsed if it were to be found to Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook, paper. This letter is now known as the be from Eddowes. Dr Openshaw felt Constable and Robinson, London. From Hell letter. The parcel contained that the kidney had come from someone postmarks but from them it could not who had drunk heavily. He examined Lane, B (1993) The Encyclopaedia of be said whether it was posted in the the kidney under the microscope and he Forensic Medicine, Headline, London. E or EC district. There was no enve- believed it was a left human kidney. lope with the letter so the police were The forensic team of the time had Sugden, P. (2002) The Complete unable to make further inquiries in that more difficulty in determining where History of Jack the Ripper, Revised regard. George Lusk took this kidney the kidney came from than would a paperback edition, Constable and to Dr Reed of Mile End Road and sub- modern forensic team. The doctors Robinson, London. sequently to Dr Thomas Openshaw of agreed that the kidney was human and the London Hospital, Whitechapel. It not from an animal. Some of them went w w w .c a s e b o o k .o r g /v i c t i m s /e d d o w e s was also taken to Leman Street Police further, but the most detailed examina- Station and examined by Dr Frederick tion they appear able to do was to look w w w .c a s e b o o k .o r g /v i c t o r i a n _l o n d o n / Gordon Brown. The kidney was of a at the kidney under a microscope, which s i t e p i c s .w-m i t r e human adult and was divided longitudi- is primitive in today’s terms. Today it nally. According to Reed the kidney was would probably be possible to examine human and had been preserved in spir- DNA samples from the kidney and the its of wine. Openshaw stated the kidney body of Catherine Eddowes, to ascer- was from a woman who was about tain if there was a match. forty-five years of age. Dr Frederick

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 146 from the Next issue we casebook will have a look at archives: Elizabeth Jackson James Monro

his issue’s look at the Casebook’s about the Ripper murders. Meanwhile, extensive archives focuses the second of Morrison’s essays ‘A Ton James Monro. Assistant Mystery Play: Police Opinions on Jack Commissioner of the Metropolitan the Ripper’ can be found h e r e and Police (CID) until August 1888, he sub- instead focuses on the similarities and sequently replaced Sir Charles Warren differences of the leading police offi- as their Commissioner on Warren’s cials’ views on the murderer. resignation in November 1888. A further dissertation that is of Why not look at Andrew L. interest in relation to this official is Morrison’s two excellent essays on Martin Fido’s ‘Anderson, Monro and Casebook covering this topic? Dip Jsfmboe’ which can be found h e r e. In into this essay, ‘A Very Discreet Man: Martin Fido’s own words it focuses on James Monro and the Whitechapel the need to ‘understand Anderson and Murders’ h e r e as this offers a look at Monro and the extraordinary Jubilee the man including a timeline of his plot they agreed they had foiled’ which career, as well as some analysis about apparently one needs ‘some knowledge of exactly what Monro could have known Jsfmboe’ in order to do. If this has piqued

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 147 your curiosity, why not head over to the … Casebook and read the full essay!? For an unlikely suspect profile of Ripper James Monro from Christopher Morley’s comprehensive e-book A Suspect Guide suspect go to h e r e and find out how on earth Monro managed to get the unfortu- rather nate tag of Ripper suspect rather than Ripper hunter. Morley explains in part than stating that ‘Monro has been mentioned as a possible Ripper suspect by a theo- Ripper rist in Australia who claims Monro had a pathological hatred of Sir Charles hunter Warren, though has offered no evidence to support this claim.’ … For those of you interested in reading a contemporary source on his appointment to the rank of Metropolitan Police Commissioner go to h e r e. Drop into the message boards to see what everyone has been chatting about on this man by heading to h e r e This is a thread that starts by saying it’s a pity there was no thread before and if you agree then add your opinion based on the information you have gleaned!

From The Casebook Archives James Monro Scenes of Crime Robert Clack

Wh i t e c h a p e l Ro a d c1910 ast issue I concentrated on a small area of the Whitechapel LHigh Street, for this issue I thought I would travel a little further to the East, and into Whitechapel Road. This stretch of the road will be familiar to most of us; hopefully the photos will be new to you. The photograph on the previous page is a view looking eastwards and is from around 1910. Moreover, as you can see from it the Whitechapel Road then was just as busy as it is today. The photograph was taken just before the junction with Court Street, which is on the left. On the western corner with Court Street is the ‘Star & Garter’ Public House, which, in 1888, was run by Clement Dixon. Further along, in between the two horse-drawn buses, nearest the camera, you can see the ‘Whitechapel Working Lads Institute’ where the Inquests of Martha Tabram, Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Alice McKenzie and Frances Coles were held. Built in 1885, the building was officially opened at 4 o’clock on Saturday 31st October 1885 by the Prince and Princess of Wales. Just across the road on the right is the London Hospital, which was opened Wo r k i n g La d s in 1757. In s t i t u t e c1905

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 150 This photograph was taken around forty years later and shows us a quieter scene than the earlier one. The ‘Working Lads Institute’ stands out prominently. Next door is the Whitechapel Underground Station, opened on Monday 10 April 1876. At first, it was only the East London Line (now the Overground Line) that went through Whitechapel. The District and Metropolitan Line did not arrive until Monday 6th October 1884. The building to the right of Toy Centre is ‘The Grave Maurice’ Public House, while not having a Jack the Ripper connection it was a known haunt of the Kray twins in the 1960s; William Gordon Crow was the Licence holder back in 1888. This stretch of Whitechapel Road from Court Street to Brady Street had diverse amounts of businesses; Alexander Dippie kept a grocers at 143, George Gut was a baker at 150, Louis Floringer a watchmaker at 137 and Henry Cole a pork butcher Wh i t e c h a p e l Ro a d c1950 at 151 to name a few. Most importantly to us, other than ‘The Working Lads Institute’ Doctor Ralph Rees Llewellyn lived at number 152 next door to Henry Cole. Along with several public houses, ‘The Lord Nelson’, ‘The Queens Head’ and ‘The Lord Rodney’s Head’, there

Scenes of Crime Rob Clack were several other refreshment places, George Milward’s Refreshment Rooms and ‘Lockert’s Cocoa Rooms’. What is remarkable looking at these photographs is that nearly all these buildings are still standing and would easily be as recognisable today as they were a hundred years ago. The only noticeable difference would be the new Ideal Store Library on the Eastern corner of Brady Street and Whitechapel Road, which is a ghastly modern glass building.

THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 152 Biography Robert Clack

obert Clack, from Surrey, England, has been studying the RWhitechapel Murders for over 25 years. At the 2009 Jack the Ripper Conference he was presented with the Jeremy Beadle Award for his outstanding contributions to Ripperology. He is the co-author of the book The London of Jack the Ripper: Then and Now, with Philip Hutchinson.

Scenes of Crime Rob Clack The End

Wh i t e c h a p e l Ro a d a n d t h e Ju n c t i o n o f Br a d y St r e e t c1950. Ki n g ’s Fu r n i t u r e St o r e w a s ‘Th e Qu e e n ’s He a d ’ Pu b l i c Ho u s e i n 1888. Th e Li c e n c e Ho l d e r w a s Jo h n Ho p e Tu r n e r . THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 4 October 2010 154