October 2019 No. 165 DAVID BARRAT On the Missing ripper files MICHAEL HAWLEY • JOE CHETCUTI • DAVID WOODHEAd SPOTLIGHT ON RIPPERCAST • NINA & howard brown the latest book reviews Ripperologist 118 January 2011 1 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 GUEST EDITORIAL: FALSE ACCUSATIONS Karl Coppack THE LOST RIPPER FILES David Barrat TUMBLETY’S SURGICAL KNIVES Michael Hawley DINNER AT THE MARDI GRAS Joe Chetcuti SIR ALFRED FRIPP AND JACK THE RIPPER David Woodhead Spotlight on Rippercast: KOSMINSKI WAS THE SUSPECT AND THE ANGELS SING.... Nina and Howard Brown BOOK REVIEWS Paul Begg and David Green THE LAST WORD Christopher-Michael DiGrazia Ripperologist magazine is published by Mango Books (www.MangoBooks.co.uk). The views, conclusions and opinions expressed in signed articles, essays, letters and other items published in Ripperologist Ripperologist, its editors or the publisher. 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The authors of signed articles, essays, letters, news reports, reviews and other items retain the copyright of their respective contributions. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or otherwise circulated in any form or by any means, including digital, electronic, printed, mechanical, photocopying, recording or any other, without the prior permission in writing from Mango Books. The unauthorised domestic laws and international agreements and give rise to civil liability and criminal prosecution. reproduction or circulation of this publication or any part thereof, whether for monetary gain or not, is strictly prohibited and may constitute copyright infringement as defined in Ripperologist 165 October 2019 Guest Editorial: False Accusations KARL COPPACK Can we talk about Sir William Gull? There’s a lot to talk about. Once the former Governor of Guy’s Hospital, he became one of EXECUTIVE EDITOR the ‘Physicians-in-Ordinary’ to Queen Victoria as well as the Fullerian Professor of Physiology Adam Wood and President of the Clinical Society. His work furthered the understanding of myxoedema, EDITORS Bright’s disease, paraplegia and anorexia nervosa. Gareth Williams Eduardo Zinna respect. A life well-lived. EDITOR-AT-LARGE This is a man who served the field of medicine in a manner deserving of honour and That’s before the late 20th century got his hands on him. Jonathan Menges I’m no expert on Gull. I took all that information from his Wikipedia page. I didn’t even REVIEWS EDITOR Paul Begg portrayals have painted him as landed gentry with access to the highest courts in the land. know he was born in Colchester and rose from pretty average stock, as the film and TV COLUMNISTS Nina and Howard Brown references ‘Jack the Ripper’, ‘Abberline’, ‘John Netley’, ‘Freemasons’, ‘suspect’ and, somewhat David Green moreWhat happily,I do know, ‘Michael though, Caine.’ is that every other reference on the first page of a Google search ARTWORK This is all seems very unfair. Sir William Withey Gull is no longer around to shake his head Adam Wood defend himself. He can’t even persuade us that he was a force for good in a naughty world, andat the that ludicrous he helped accusations in an age of where his being his talents ‘the Whitechapel were sorely fiend’ needed. or an He accomplice. went to his He grave cannot an eminent medic, and ended the last century as a suspect in the most famous murder case of his Ripperologist magazine is era. Somehow, because of lurid tales and expectation, his true history has been left behind. published six times a year and supplied in digital format. It is free Then there’s Walter Sickert. of charge to subscribers. He was an incredibly talented painter and artist of his time. Wikipedia claims him to be Back issues from 62-164 are available in PDF format on our Sickert was a true Renaissance man who strolled across various lives and intrigues in the website. ‘a prominent figure in the transition from Impressionism to Modernism’. A friend of Degas, same manner as Oscar Wilde, who, coincidentally, also resided in Dieppe for a while. Sickert An index to Ripperologist too went to his grave having left more than he took and was, for seventy years or so, lauded magazine can also be downloaded. To be added to the mailing list, Enter the banshee cry of suspectology. to submit a book for review or only as a major figure in British art. to place an advertisement, get in Now he’s a potential murderer, eviscerator, misogynist and wont to ‘slumming it’ with the touch at contact@ripperologist. female poor for kicks, and all because he had an interest in the case. Well, we all have that. co.uk We welcome well-researched were relegated as a consequence. Almost overnight Walter Sickert became the personification of Victorian evil, and his works articles on any aspect of the Not even his genitals escaped comment. Whitechapel murders, the East End or the Victorian era in As unlikely as it seems, at least one of these men are not ‘Jack the Ripper,’ not unless you general. believe that they acted in cahoots. That would make them the strangest double act to cross www.ripperologist.co.uk the E1 postal district. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that neither fit the bill. 1 Ripperologist 165 October 2019 site makes pretty much all of us suspects. Last October a Paul first noticed him for a start, and living near a murder I walked down that road last night. Had I been there on man was killed by his wife about a mile away from my flat. that dreadful night, would I be a suspect had there been no other candidate around? Would I then have to deal with that accusation for all eternity? Seems a bit harsh somehow. which irks. It’s the ‘case closed’ and the ‘we can finally reveal that…’ Of course, the second any refutation is aired the lofty accusation of “Yeah, but those ‘experts’ don’t want the case to be solved in case it ends their ‘industry’.” I’ll just sit back and think of all the people I know who are trousering bundlefuls of cash from not knowing the identity of the Ripper. Give me a minute. Where does this need come from? This urge to stand up and point at someone long-dead who is more than likely to have never been considered a suspect when they were alive? Is it the safety of time that gives us the right to pronounce them as the lowest of the low? And why the need to claim certainty and then shout at those who are uneasy with the suggestion? Melville Macnaghten had no such issues with pointing Walter Sickert: not the Ripper daughter Christabel had the good grace to ask Daniel But the cost of that fame is the legacy they now face. the finger at Kosminski, Ostrog and Druitt. At least his Farson for the names not to be revealed to avoid slander. It Both did much in their lives, but that’s been cast aside by a was a long time before Druitt’s name was revealed in full. hungry age with little care for reputations. Now, there seems to be a race to malign any poor sod Newcomers to the case are often brought in by the with the right postcode and access to a knife. ‘It might be whodunnit element. That may change to a fascination of him’ slowly alters into an accepted possibility that they’ve the topology, politics, the development of the police force committed numerous murders. That’s a hell of a leap. or an eagerness to discuss the victims of 1888, but it’s the After all, how many of us can picture Nathan Kaminsky as mystery which ensnares the newbie. a killer now, regardless of actual evidence. That comes with an easiness of slander. Famously, there Lately there’s been a heated argument about the point of Ripperology, about overlooking the poor women who some of them are murderers – Bury, Klosowski, Holmes et are over 150 suspects in the Whitechapel files and while had no choice but to be a part of this sorry tale. While that al – others are just lives unfairly contorted by the passing is true to some extent (though they are hardly ignored of time. Tumblety may have just been an eccentric with a when it comes to research), the same could be said of the love of exaggeration, Aaron Kosminski merely the holder of ease in which we accuse anyone and everyone. Like the a coincidental surname, and poor Druitt had a bad enough victims these are people too, and just because destroying time during his own life, never mind in the centuries that reputations of the dead comes with little cost it should followed his demise; but they’re now fair game. always be remembered that some have left ancestors who The ‘Ripper’ may have been one of those men, but the may not like the connotation, particularly if it is a false one.