Edmund Reid NICHOLAS CONNELL on the Further Adventures of the Detective Inspector
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No. 147 December 2015 Edmund Reid NICHOLAS CONNELL on the Further Adventures of the Detective Inspector LINDSAY SIVITER on the Masonic Career of Frederick Abberline From the Archives: Sweated London by GEORGE R SIMS JAN BONDESON’S Murder House Casebook NINA and HOWARD BROWN Victorian Fiction by DINAH MARIA MULOCK Ripperologist 118 January 2011 1 Quote for the month “Seriously I am amazed at some people who think a Pantomime of Jack the Ripper is okay. A play by all means but a pantomime? He was supposed to have cut women open from throat to thigh removed organs also laid them out for all to see. If that’s okay as a pantomime then lets have a Fred West pantomime or a Yorkshire Ripper show.” Norfolk Daily Press reader Brian Potter comments on reports of a local production. Sing-a-long songs include “Thrash Me Thrash Me”. Ripperologist 147 December 2015 EDITORIAL: THE ANNIVERSARY WALTZ EXECUTIVE EDITOR by Adam Wood Adam Wood EDITORS THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF Gareth Williams DETECTIVE INSPECTOR EDMUND REID Eduardo Zinna by Nicholas Connell REVIEWS EDITOR BROTHER ABBERLINE AND Paul Begg A FEW OTHER FELLOW NOTABLE FREEMASONS by Lindsay Siviter EDITOR-AT-LARGE Christopher T George JTR FORUMS: A DECADE OF DEDICATION COLUMNISTS by Howard Brown Nina and Howard Brown David Green FROM THE ARCHIVES: The Gentle Author SWEATED LONDON BY GEORGE R SIMS From Living London Vol 1 (1901) ARTWORK Adam Wood FROM THE CASEBOOKS OF A MURDER HOUSE DETECTIVE: MURDER HOUSES OF RAMSGATE Follow the latest news at by Jan Bondeson www.facebook.com/ripperologist A FATAL AFFINITY: CHAPTERS 5 & 6 Ripperologist magazine is free of charge. To be added to the mailing list, Nina and Howard Brown send an email to contact@ripperologist. biz. DEAR RIP Back issues form 62-146 are Your letters and comments available in PDF format: ask at [email protected] VICTORIAN FICTION: To contribute an article, please email THE LAST HOUSE IN C-- STREET us at [email protected] by Dinah Maria Mulock (Mrs Craik) Contact us for advertising rates. REVIEWS Jack the Ripper- Case Solved, 1891 and more! www.ripperologist.biz Ripperologist is published by Mango Books. The views, conclusions and opinions expressed in signed articles, essays, letters and other items published in Ripperologist are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, conclusions and opinions of Ripperologist, its editors or the publisher. The views, conclusions and opinions expressed in unsigned articles, essays, news reports, reviews and other items published in Ripperologist are the responsibility of Ripperologist and its editorial team, but do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher. We occasionally use material we believe has been placed in the public domain. It is not always possible to identify and contact the copyright holder; if you claim ownership of something we have published we will be pleased to make a proper acknowledgement. The contents of Ripperologist No. 147, December 2015, including the compilation of all materials and the unsigned articles, essays, news reports, reviews and other items are copyright © 2015 Ripperologist/Mango Books. The authors of signed articles, essays, letters, news reports, reviews and other items retain the copyright of their respective contributions. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or otherwise circulated in any form or by any means, including digital, electronic, printed, mechanical, photocopying, recording or any other, without the prior permission in writing of Ripperologist. The unauthorised reproduction or circulation of this publication or any part thereof, whether for monetary gain or not, is strictly prohibited and may constitute copyright infringement as defined in domestic laws and international agreements and give riseRipperologist to civil liability 118 and criminalJanuary prosecution. 2011 2 The Anniversary Waltz EDITORIAL by ADAM WOOD The thing about anniversaries is that there’s something to be found when you need one. As we publish this edition of Ripperologist, on 31 December 2015, it’s 127 years to the day that Henry Winslade recovered the body of Montague Druitt from the Thames at Thornycroft’s torpedo works, Chiswick. And tomorrow will be the 126th anniversary of James Kelly’s escape from Broadmoor. It’s doubtful that Mark Galloway was contemplating these events when he hit upon the idea of bringing together like- minded people to meet and discuss the Ripper crimes over a pint or two, but that’s exactly what he did late in 1994. His most excellent plan quickly captured the imagination of many and the Cloak and Dagger Club was formed, with a ten-page Pilot Newsletter published to mark the first meeting on 3 December, making us 21-years-old this month. And boy, do we feel old... As the Club grew so did the newsletter, being renamed Ripperologist magazine with Issue 5, December 1995 - making it 20 years of publication under this name with Rip 147. And ten years ago this month we ran the gauntlet by relaunching as an electronic journal, our last print edition being Rip 61, September 2005. It’s fair to say reaction in the Ripper community was ‘mixed’, with many posts from the likes of ‘Outraged of Tunbridge Wells’ expressing their opinions on Stephen Ryder’s Casebook: Jack the Ripper site. By happy coincidence, 2016 sees Casebook itself celebrating its 20th birthday. Over the years Casebook Left to right: Pilot issue; the first electronic Ripperologist; our 100th edition launched many innovative, free platforms for Ripperologists such as the message boards, chatroom and the Jack the Ripper Wiki. While that site continues to house the largest collection of transcribed Ripper-related newspaper articles and other crucial content, perhaps the platform for most discussion today is JTRForums.com, run by Howard Brown and which - you’ve guessed it - in September this year celebrated an anniversary of its own, ten years since doors opened. Elsewhere in this issue, How Brown describes those heady early days and the well-oiled machine which is the message boards of JTRForums today. To finish this numbers-based editorial of exactly 1,888 words (it’s not really, but did you start counting?), here’s a look to the future... we’ll be publishing the 150th issue of Ripperologist in August 2016 - perfectly timed to coincide with the 128th anniversary of the Autumn of Terror. In fact, we anticipate publishing the special edition on the anniversary of Polly Nichols’ death. We’re planning something very special to mark the occasion, so keep reading future issues to make sure you don’t miss out... Finally, the team at Ripperologist wish every single one of our readers good health and happiness in the New Year. Thank you for your support over the past 21 years. Ripperologist 147 December 2015 1 The Further Adventures of Detective Inspector Edmund Reid By NICHOLAS CONNELL Since the publication of the last edition of The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper several new sources have come to light that provide new information on Edmund Reid, the former head of Whitechapel CID. Upon retiring in 1896 Edmund Reid was interviewed by several newspapers including the News of the World who boasted that their feature on his involvement in the Jack the Ripper investigation would ‘place before the public facts they never before learned, and to clear up a volume of curious misconceptions which were made by theorists, learned and unlearned, who took a deep interest in the crimes at the time of their committal.’ The News of the World journalist justifiably described Reid as ‘one of the most remarkable men ever engaged in the business of detecting crime.’ They met at Reid’s home and when sat at the drawing-room table the journalist bluntly asked the detective: ‘Tell me all about the Ripper murders.’1 Reid responded by opening a cabinet drawer that contained ‘assassin’s knives, portraits, and a thousand and one curiosities of criminal association.’ Among the criminological ephemera was ‘probably the most remarkable photographic chamber of horrors in existence.’ Reid owned a set of Jack the Ripper victim photographs which he spread out on the table before telling the tale of the Whitechapel murders: ‘The first Ripper murder was one which is not generally associated with the series. This was the Brick-lane murder, committed on a bank holiday in 1888. A woman named Smith was met by a man in Brick-lane who carried a walking- stick, and committed a most terrible outrage upon her.’ It is impossible to repeat the description of the outrage. Reid proceeded – ‘The woman, strange to say, made no cry, and raised no alarm. She took a scarf from her neck, bound up the terrible wound, and quickly walked round to George’s-yard, some distance, and told some of her female friends what had happened. Seeing her fainting condition, these women took her walking to the London Hospital. Here she retained consciousness for some time, but could give no description of the man who assaulted her. She died the next day. This was the only woman who lived after seeing the Ripper. She could afford us no information News of the World, 12 April 1896 about him.’ 1 Presumably the interview took place at Stepney Buildings, Stepney, the address given in Reid’s pension papers (PRO, MEPO 21/25). Ripperologist 147 December 2015 2 So you never obtained a description of the man from anyone? ‘Never. Indeed that the murderer was a man, is only an inference from the fact that no one but a person believed by the women themselves to be a man could have been taken by them to the secret haunts in which the murders were all committed.’ All the murders were committed in secret haunts? ‘Yes, all the murders were upon women of the most degraded class, and in the darkest, most secret places, inaccessible to the police, where the murderer was taken by the women themselves.