THE CASEBOOK Rogues’ A Cat’s Lick Gallery or Two Tom Wescott Jane Coram issue seven April 2011 JACK THE RIPPER STUDIES, TRUE CRIME & L.V.P. SOCIAL HISTORY Melville Macnaghten Revisited Part II: The Honourable Schoolboy BY JONATHAN HAINSWORTH Deemed Insane: Daniel Olsson An Interview with takes us on a tour Rob House of Gothenburg THE CASEBOOK The contents of Casebook Examiner No. 7 April 2011 are copyright © 2010 Casebook.org. The authors of signed issue seven articles, essays, letters, reviews and April 2011 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, maybe reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, CONTENTS: transmitted or otherwise circulated in any form or by any means, including digital, electronic, printed, mechanical, Has it Really Been a Year? Pg 3 Photographs of Dr LionelDruitt photocopying, recording or any other, Adam Went Pg 69 without the express written permission Melville Macnaghten Revisited of Casebook.org. The unauthorized Jonathan Hainsworth Pg 5 Book Reviews Pg 73 reproduction or circulation of this publication or any part thereof, A Berner Street Rogues Gallery Open Book Exam whether for monetary gain or not, is DonSouden Pg 81 Tom Wescott Pg 30 strictly prohibited and may constitute copyright infringement as defined in Ultimate Ripperologists’ Tour A Cat’s Lick or Two domestic laws and international agree- Gothenburg ments and give rise to civil liability and Jane Coram Pg52 Daniel Olsson Pg 87 criminal prosecution. The views, conclusions and opinions expressed in What if It Was? Deemed Insane: An Interview with articles, essays, letters and other items Don Souden Pg 63 Rob House Pg 99 published in Casebook Examiner are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, conclusions and opinions of Casebook. org, Casebook Examiner or its editors. Editor in Chief Don Souden Assistant Editors: Ali Bevan, B. McCabe Publisher Stephen P. Ryder Mark Ripper for Casebook.org Acknowledgements: Jennifer D. Shelden Design Casebook Graphics Editorial Has it actually been a year? Has it actually been a year? suddenly and without notice quit. We shall ever subscribers, but the original intent—to inform be in their debt as Dave created the very and to entertain our readers—remains the same. Yes, it truly has been a year—a full twelve readable format of Examiner and Jennifer wrote In the meantime, we need to catch our months—since Casebook Examiner was and edited and . well just did an incredible collective breath and see about filling out our launched with a great deal of hope. some amount of things that helped ensure the staff once more. Most crucially, we will need fanfare and, admittedly, a little trepidation. magazine’s immediate success. someone with graphics experience to lay out the Right from the first issue, though, our That said, however, their decision—without pages for each issue. We will also need someone magazine has proved a stunning success. Early even a hint it was coming, far less any notice— to handle the book review section; this means on, Chris Phillips provided us with our first certainly left the rest of us in an uncomfortable harrying publishers for review copies, assigning exclusive, the earliest known photograph of position. But, with the inestimable help of books to reviewers and writing some reviews Joseph Lawende and throughout the year we several of our regular editors, notably Ali Bevan and editing others. We could also use another have published a number of outstanding and Mark Ripper, as well as Bunny McCabe and copy editor or two. articles from eminent Ripperologists, including Tom Wescott, our usual fine group of Regardless, even as we pause to regain our Neil Bell, Corey Browning, Stewart P. Evans, contributors, and the aid of others, the issue breath, Casebook Examiner will only grow and David Gates, Jonathan Hainsworth, Benedict slowly came together and is now presented with get better as we continue to present the very Holme, Christer Holmgren, John Malcolm, pride to our readers. best articles in the field on Jack the Ripper and Roger J. Palmer, Neal Shelden, J.G. Simons, The important point is that Casebook LVP true crime and social history. We hope that Adam Went and Tom Wescott, as well as Examiner will continue to be around providing you, too, will continue to be a part of that providing entertaining features. the same great articles and some of the same experience. Things got a bit difficult after Issue Number features that it always has. There will be some 6, however, when features editor Jennifer changes, including a somewhat greater focus on Don Souden. Shelden and her brother, designer David Pegg, research as well as a new method of securing subscriptions that will be explained soon to our THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 7 April 2011 3 Melville Macnaghten Revisited Part II: The Honourable Schoolboy 1 BY JONATHAN HAINSWORTH The future Chief Constable of CID, Fred ‘paternal interest’ he took in his career and that Mr Macnaghten, the Chief Constable, or Wensley, was frustrated in the late Victorian of many other junior officers — and by second in command of the Investigation years because he was anxious for promotion disarmingly addressing him as ‘Fred’. Now Department, is essentially a man of action. from his then more humble position. In his Wensley needed his powerful patron to come to A man of presence is Mr Macnaghten – tall, memoir, Forty Years in Scotland Yard , Wensley his aid and Macnaghten did not let him down. well-built, with a military air, although his writes that his immediate superior was not In fact, Macnaghten resolved Wensley’s antecedents are rather those of the public sympathetic because promotion usually always dilemma on the very same day he met with his school . meant a transfer — and his boss was less than superior’s superior to ask for help. The Chief enthusiastic at the prospect of having to train Constable ‘cut the knot in his own way’ by Major Arthur Griffiths, Mysteries of up a new officer. With calculated shrewdness promoting Wensley yet having him remain Police and Crime , 1898 Wensley went over his superior’s head to contact ensconced ‘overstrength’ in the same police a senior police administrator: Chief Constable station. To know Eton is to love her, and that love Melville Macnaghten. It was, he writes, ‘a Wensley, who went on to have a very lasts as long as life itself. daring thing to do’ because it was not the done successful law enforcement career, partly Sir Melville Macnaghten, Days of My thing . Wensley explains that he took the risk, thanks to Macnaghten’s patronage, writes ‘thus Years , 1914, p. 7 nevertheless, because he had met the Chief everyone was satisfied’. Constable on a previous case when the latter This allows us a glimpse into the managerial had unexpectedly ‘strolled’ into the Leman St modus operandi of Macnaghten; as a hands-on Police station — and utterly charmed the pants operator who always sought a discreet off the younger policeman. compromise that would keep competing interests, and egos, in relative harmony. He was 1 The title of this article is lifted from John Le Carre’s 1977 With fine tact he said just the right things in entirely a product of the upper bourgeoisie yet best seller of the sane name. Though superspy George Smiley is a key player in this labyrinthine espionage yarn the titular just the right way to impress a young detective one with a commendable, muscular sense of protagonist is actually one of his ‘people’, Jerry Westerby, who officer . I had gained a firm friend. public service — summed up in this ditty which is as romantically foolish as he is courageous. I think that the In a rigidly class-stratified society, one he approvingly quotes in his memoirs by the nickname for Le Carre’s gentleman-adventurer is a perfect fit for the enigmatic Etonian Sleuth of the Ripper mystery. permeated with repressive manners and morals, great English writer William Makepeace Macnaghten impressed Wensley by the friendly Thackeray: Melville Macnaghten Revisited JONATHAN HAINSWORTH ‘Who misses or who wins the prize; capable enough to rise still further — to the Go strive and conquer if you can, very top of his department. But if you fall, or if you rise, Many studies of the Jack the Ripper mystery, Be each, pray God, a gentleman’ on the other hand, have relegated Macnaghten to the role of amiable dunce, due to his basic (Macnaghten, 1914, p. 7) ‘errors’ about his preferred suspect. To be fair, In his own memoirs of 1931 Frederick Porter the retired police chief, himself, candidly Wensley is effusive in his praise of Sir Melville admitted in his memoirs that his memory was Macnaghten — ‘a very great gentleman’ — obviously not perfect, and became much less so already by then a decade in his grave. That even as he aged (and perhaps was further impaired after Macnaghten had retired due to a long and by illness). Yet Macnaghten, at nearly sixty, painful illness — ‘ so gallantly borne’ —he had could still wistfully recall, in detail, the remained Wensley’s friend, about which the sensational crimes which had fascinated him as latter writes with touching pride. a boy — perhaps better than the Ripper mystery? Wensley is hardly alone. I used to take away the six-penny catalogue Source after source from the late Victorian and study them deeply, with the result that I and Edwardian eras are virtually unanimous in really remember the details of the murders describing Melville Macnaghten as a friendly, committed by J. Blomfield Rush, the Mannings diligent and beloved figure at Scotland Yard [et al.] .