No.

130 February 2013

David Cohen
SCOTT NELSON on the
Butcher’s Row suspect

MIKE HAWLEY
visits the waxworks
in Whitechapel in 1888

PAULINE MORGAN
on the Village Bobby

PETER HODGSON
peers through the
Mists of Time Ripperologist 118 January 2011 1
 Quote for the month
“This is another celebration of a misogynistic English institution
which is ‘a bit of fun’ like Page 3.”
Jeanne Rathbone, member of the Battersea Labour Party, complains about London Blue Badge-holding
Councillor Rex Osborn’s Jack the Ripper tour following the launch of a local Forum focused on violence against women.

Jamie Henderson, Wandsworth Guardian, London, UK, 12 December 2012

www.wandsworthguardian.co.uk/news/10103661.Councillor___s_Jack_the_Ripper_tour_likened_to__page_3_

Ripperologist 130
February 2013
EDITORIAL: QUARTER, HALF AND WHOLE EXECUTIVE EDITOR
by Adam Wood Adam Wood

DAVID COHEN: TALKING POINTS OF A STORYLINE EDITORS

by Scott Nelson Christopher T George
Gareth Williams
WHITECHAPEL’S WAX CHAMBER OF HORRORS, 1888 Eduardo Zinna
by Mike Hawley
EDITOR-AT-LARGE
THE VILLAGE BOBBY Paul Begg
by Pauline Morgan
COLUMNISTS
THE MEN WHO WOULD BE RIPPER Howard Brown
by Howard and Nina Brown Mike Covell
Chris Scott
RIPPER FICTION:
ARTWORK
JACK THE RIPPER THROUGH THE MISTS OF TIME
Adam Wood
by Peter Hodgson
CHRIS SCOTT’S PRESS TRAWL
AMAZING DOGS
by Jan Bondeson
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by The Gentle Author
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civil liability and criminal prosecution. Ripperologist 118 January 2011 2
 Quarter,
Half and Whole
Anniversaries of the Ripper
EDITORIAL by
ADAM WOOD

Welcome, Dear Reader, to the first Ripperologist of the Quasquicentennial of the Whitechapel
murders - not to be confused with the Sesquicentennial, which will take place in 2038. For 2013 is
the 125th anniversary of the crimes of Jack the Ripper.
It’s already been announced that the Conference later this year will commemorate the anniversary (see www.
ripperconference.com), but it remains to be seen whether there will be a raft of new books and other media released
specifically to tie in; with the constant stream of new titles in recent years it would seem that this anniversary has not
yet been embraced as a landmark in its own right as was the Centenary in 1988.

While just three books were published in the previous decade (Frank Spiering’s Prince Jack; Will
the Real Jack the Ripper? by Arthur Douglas; and Alexander Kelly’s Bibliography and Review of the
Literature), six were released in 1987 alone and Paul Begg’s Uncensored Facts published was in
1988 itself. Michael Caine’s Jack the Ripper was aired on television, and the Jack the Ripper pub on
Commercial Street reverted to its more famous name, the Ten Bells.

As John Bennett commented in his article ‘1988 and All That...’ in Rip 120:

With the arrival of the actual 100th anniversary during the late summer and autumn,
blanket coverage of the centenary began in earnest. The guided tours were now getting
more exposure and were even being filmed for daytime television programmes such as the
BBC’s Breakfast Time. The East London Advertiser published a weekly, twelve-part overview
of the Ripper crimes... as a result of these prominent articles, the Advertiser came under
fire from Anne McMurdie of the group Action Against the Ripper Centenary, who complained
that “by printing the mortuary photograph of Polly Nichols and recounting explicit details
of the mutilation she suffered, you are using the sexual murder of women to entertain and
titillate your readership... when will journalists realise that they are contributing to the
mass industry of glamourising a murderer?”

John recorded the Advertiser’s curt response:

We are not ‘commemorating’ Jack the Ripper. Far from being irresponsible our articles
are recounting a unique episode in the history of the East End which reflects on the
social conditions that existed at that time. Jack the Ripper is not being “glamourised” or
“trivialised” by us and Ms McMurdie should know this from the publicity we gave her Action
Against the Ripper demonstration.

But what happened at the time of the 75th anniversary? Were there accusations of a ‘mass industry
glamourising a murderer?’

The answer is a resounding ‘no’. In 1963, not much had happened in Ripperworld since the last 1950s, when the
Lee Patterson movie Jack the Ripper (1958) was released, followed the following year by the publication of Donald
McCormick’s The Identity of Jack the Ripper and Doctor in the Nineties by Dr D G Halsted, which included a chapter on
the Ripper. 1959 also saw the broadcast of Dan Farson’s television mini-series Farson’s Guide to the British, in which he
showed the newly-discovered Aberconway Version of Sir Melville Macnaghten’s memorandum, and interviewed several
survivors of the East End from the late 19th century.
Ripperologist 130 February 2013 1
 In 1961 the US television series Thriller aired an episode
introduced by Boris Karloff which was based on Robert Bloch’s story
Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper, and the following year saw the finger
pointed at Prince Albert Victor in print for the first time by Philippe
Juliene in Edouard VII. It wasn’t until 1965 that a full-length book
on the Ripper was published, and then two heavyweights in the
same year: Tom Cullen’s Autumn of Terror and Robin Odell’s Jack
the Ripper in Fact and Fiction, which could hardly draw accusations
of cashing in.

Going back further still to the time of the 50th anniversary in

1938, three books now known for varying degrees of importance
were published: first, in 1935, Jean Dorsenne’s Jack L’Eventreur,
followed two years later by Jack the Ripper: Or, When London
Walked in Terror by Edwin Woodhall, and finally William Stewart
published his Jack the Ripper: A New Theory in 1939.

Sandwiched between these was I Caught Crippen, the

autobiography of Walter Dew published in 1938, the anniversary
year itself. Whether this was deliberate is uncertain, but as Dew
resigned from the Metropolitan Police in 1910 it would seem that
the 50th anniversary loomed large as a good opportunity.

Many of Dew’s police contemporaries had also left, resigned or

retired, by the time of the 25th anniversary in 1913, and several
had written their memoirs, putting down in writing as much as
they knew - or supposedly dared to reveal - about the Whitechapel
murders. Among these were Sir Robert Anderson’s The Lighter
Side of My Official Life and Sir Henry Smith’s From Constable to
Commissioner: The Story of Sixty Years: Most of Them Misspent
(both 1910), while Sir Melville Macnaghten published his Days of
My Years in 1914.

It could be argued that we have moved into a period in the past

20-something years of saturation of the Ripper market, but it could
also be said that this has always been the case, and it is just a
matter of scale. 25 years after the murders there was a bubble of
information brought to the public’s attention with the release of
memoirs by officers involved with the case; after 50 years the first
books exploring the crimes and different suspects had appeared. 75
years on from 1888 saw an era of responsible research using newly-
uncovered evidence, and by the Centenary both the Metropolitan
Police and Home Office files had been opened to researchers. In
the 25 years since, the advent of the internet and digitisation of
archives has lead to the opportunity for researchers to discover the
most obscure detail and share with colleagues instantly.

What advances will be made by the 150th anniversary? Will we

know the identity of the Ripper beyond a shadow of doubt?

WRITE FOR RIPPEROLOGIST!

We welcome contributions on Jack the Ripper, the East End and the Victorian era.
Send your articles, letters and comments to contact@ripperologist.biz

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 2

 David Cohen:
Talking Points
of a Storyline 1

By SCOTT NELSON

Did the City of London Police Force watch Aaron Davis (David)
Cohen, possibly the Butcher’s Row suspect? To my knowledge,
this question has not been adequately addressed. When
Melville Macnaghten described three Jack the Ripper suspects
in his confidential 1894 police memorandum, one of them was
‘Kosminski,’ a Polish Jew and resident of Whitechapel. Macnaghten
also thought this suspect went to an asylum about March 1889.
Was there some confusion of Kosminski with another immigrant
Polish Jew who resided in Whitechapel in 1888? Could this other
Jew have worked in or near Butcher’s Row and been given or
changed his last name to ‘Cohen’?
On the occasion of City Police Inspector Robert Sagar’s retirement in 1905,
some of his reminiscences were published in an article in The City Press of 7
January 1905:

...suspicions fell upon a man, who, without a doubt, was the murderer.
Identification being impossible, he could not be charged. He was, however,
placed in a lunatic asylum...

But on the death of Inspector Sagar, The Brighton and Hove Herald of 6
December 1924 had this to say in his obituary:

Among the famous crimes in the investigation of which Mr Sagar shared

were the “Jack the Ripper” murders. It was Mr Sagar’s view that the
murders were committed by an insane man employed at Butcher’s Row,
Aldgate, who was subsequently placed by his friends in a private asylum. The three suspects named by
[Author’s emphasis..] Melville Macnaghten in his 1894 Memorandum

The journalist Justin Atholl, writing years later in the Reynolds News of 15 September 1946, added these further
remembrances from Sagar:

We watched him carefully. There was no doubt that this man was insane, and after a time his friends thought
it advisable to have him removed to a private asylum.

David Cohen was an unmarried Jewish tailor, recorded as aged 23, with brown hair and eyes, and a beard. Arrested on
7 December 1888 by the Metropolitan Police and charged as ‘a lunatic found wandering at large,’ he was sent later that
evening to the Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary. The records further listed his ‘length of settlement’ as ‘unknown’ and
relatives, ‘unknown.’ Cohen remained at the Workhouse Infirmary until 21 December, whereupon he was transferred to
Colney Hatch Asylum. Cohen was described as suicidal and very violent, and he threatened other inmates. He died from
‘exhaustion of mania’ ten months later on 20 October 1889.

1 This article is a revised version of an article by the author that previously appeared in Ripper Notes. Scott Nelson, ‘Was Aaron Cohen
the City Police Suspect?’ Ripper Notes Vol. 2, No. 4, April 2001.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 3

 Police Surveillance
The recollections by Robert Sagar after the Whitechapel Murders may reflect a similar
story told by a fellow City Police officer, Inspector Henry Cox. As related in Thomson’s
Weekly News, 1 December 1906, Cox and his colleagues began watching a suspicious man
sometime after the Miller’s Court murder of Mary Kelly on 9 November 1888. This man was
said to be living somewhere in the East End of London and kept or stayed at a number of
shops. Cox and his fellow officers maintained watch from a house across a certain street
from one of the shops that the suspect occupied. There was a heavy population of Jews
on this street and Cox and his colleagues had to disguise themselves as inspectors of the
sweatshop clothing trade to ward off their suspicions. Detectives told the denizens they
were monitoring for child labor violations. Cox actually described entering, on occasion,
the shop where the suspect worked. There is thus a strong possibility that the suspect they
Robert Sagar from the Star of 7 January 1905
were watching was a Jewish tailor, as David Cohen was. The period of Cox’s surveillance
lasted from mid-November 1888 to January or February 1889, during the early part of which
period we know Cohen was at liberty. Cohen was arrested on the street as a wandering and
incoherent lunatic by the Metropolitan Police on 7 December 1888.

Both Sagar and Cox were City of London detectives, and so it would seem quite probable
that they watched their suspect(s) in the jurisdiction of the City of London Police, which
included the entirety of Butcher’s Row on Aldgate-High Street. Many narrow courts and
alleyways ran south of Butcher’s Row, such as Goodman’s Yard and Little Somerset Street.
The latter went east almost directly to Great Alie and Leman Streets, crossing into
Metropolitan Police territory, where one night the suspect attempted to give Cox the slip
as he made his way towards another shop. Leading off the west side of Goodman’s Yard was
Swan Street, another route which led to Great Prescot Street, which crossed the southern
part of Leman Street, again leading out of City of London territory into the jurisdiction of
Henry Cox from the Police Review the Met.
of 7 December 1906.

Where Did He Stay?

If Cohen was this suspect, was Leman Street his
destination on the night that he was followed by Cox?
If Cox’s suspect only worked in the shop, he may have
been attempting to return to a residence on Leman
Street. But he undoubtedly wanted to avoid leading the
police to his doorstep. If the suspect left his shop near
Goodman’s Yard, he would have walked via Great Prescot
Street to Leman Street. However, as soon as he became
aware that he was being followed, he ducked into a shop
on Leman Street. He then emerged, but finding that Cox
was still waiting, made his way south to St. Georges-in-
the-East. The Stepney Register of Whitechapel Lunatics
in Asylums recorded that Cohen lived at 86 Leman Street.
But the Kelly’s London Business Directory for 1888
indicates that this address was the East London Blue
Riband Shoeblack Refuge and the Whittington Boys Club
& Chambers, a Protestant establishment with William
Tourell as the manager. Unfortunately, neither the
Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary nor the Colney Hatch
Asylum records give another address, unless the address
Butcher’s Row, Aldgate High Street. The boundary between City and
number was a misreading for the Leman Street Police Metropolitan Police can be seen on the top right corner.
Station, so we are left with this perplexing location for a By permission of the British Library
pauper Jewish immigrant.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 4

 Martin Fido has suggested that the address of 86 Leman Street listed for David Cohen on the Stepney Register was
probably in error and that the entry should have read 84 Leman Street, ie, the Poor Jews Temporary Shelter, which was
on the west side of Leman Street, just north of the junction with Great Prescot Street. This shelter was for pauper Jews,
many of whom could not stay at the shelter for more than about two weeks, after which many were found menial jobs,
or cared for by their parishes. Assuming Cohen was at the shelter no longer than two weeks, he would have arrived
there no earlier than about 24 November, unless he hid in the shelter or somehow coerced the shelter management into
allowing him to stay longer, possibly under the guise of a newly arrived immigrant. The shelter thus may have served as
an intermittent abode for David Cohen. But if No. 86 next door was actually Cohen’s address, it is therefore possible that
he was not a recent immigrant to London, and had not necessarily ever stayed at the homeless shelter.2

Murder Connections
The police were looking for a Jewish suspect after the murder of Annie Chapman on 8 September 1888. Mrs Thompson,
a tenant of 29 Hanbury Street who lived on the second floor front room, said that, about a month before the murder,
she found a man lying on the stairs at about 4:00am:

He looked like a Jew and spoke with a foreign accent. When asked what he was doing there, he replied that
he was waiting to do a “doss” before the market opened. He slept on the stairs that night and I believe he
has slept on the stairs on other nights.

Mrs Thompson also said that she could recognize the man by his personal appearance and peculiar voice. The police
took a full and careful description of this man. In his book, The Complete History of Jack the Ripper (2002), Philip
Sugden does a superb job of demolishing the myth propagated in some of the contemporary newspapers that this man
was actually seen in the house by Mrs Thompson on the night of Chapman’s murder. He was not seen by any of the
tenants on that night. However, this doesn’t mean that the same man wasn’t seen on other nights, as Mrs Thompson
said he was, or that this man could not have been Chapman’s murderer. Having slept on the stairs on other nights, this
man would have been familiar with the comings and goings of the inhabitants, and he undoubtedly used the backyard
on occasions.

In a 19 September report to the Home Office, Sir Charles Warren wrote:

A brothel keeper who will not give her address or name writes to say that a man living in her house was seen
with blood on him on the morning of the murder [ostensibly Chapman’s blood from her murder on the morning
of 8 September]. She described his appearance and where he might be seen – when detectives came near him,
he bolted, got away and there is no clue to the writer of the letter.3

This incident may indicate recurrent behavior related to a later court record involving David Cohen, in which a
brothel keeper, Mary Jones, and the procuress, Gertrude Smith, were brought before the Thames Magistrate Court
on 7 December, along with a prostitute, Ellen Hickey, to answer brothel keeping and assault charges. A person named
‘N [Nathan, Nathaniel?] Cohen’ was identified in the police raid of their brothel, in which Hickey is alleged to have
assaulted him.4 But N Cohen never appeared in court with the women. Could N Cohen have been related to ‘Aaron Davis
Cohen’ as David was called when he was brought before the bench along with the women? It can be reasonably certain
that David and N Cohen were different people, otherwise Hickey would have been charged with assault had N Cohen
appeared to testify in court. When the police took Aaron Davis Cohen to the Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary later that
evening, he was just identified as David Cohen. It has been theorized that since Cohen was uncommunicative at this
point, the police dubbed him ‘David Cohen’ – a ‘John Doe’ for unidentified males.

2 If the asylum-bound David Cohen was in the UK for the April 1881 census, a strong candidate lived at 2-1/2 Well Row, Whitechapel:
David Cohen, 21, born Poland, Russia, occupation Tailor; sharing premises with two female relatives, Rebecca Cohen (widow), 62,
born Poland, Russia and Sarah Cohen (daughter), 21, born Russia Poland. Only four other foreign-born David Cohens of the
approximate age range were: a naturalized British Subject born 1863 in Poland, occupation Jeweler, living at No. 40 Lord Street
in Manchester; a Butter(ine) Merchant, living at No. 8 Alma Road in London, born in 1862 in Amsterdam; a married Tailor, born 1860
in Poland and living at 39 Chicksand Street, London and a Glazier, born 1864 in Russia and living at 100 Hyde Road, Ardwick.
3 HO/144/221/A49301.C ff 90-2.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 5

 Several months had elapsed between the September report made by the brothel keeper regarding the fleeing man
with blood on him and the arrests of the brothel women on minor charges and the date of their court appearance in
December. If the bloody man seen on the morning of the Chapman murder was Cohen and if he temporarily left the
brothel for good after the murder, why did not Mary Jones or Gertrude Smith identify him as the suspect when the police
brought them before the bench on 7 December 1888? Perhaps the women feared his imminent release. For all they
knew, David could have only been present to testify about the raid. However, it is possible that the women did identify
him and gave evidence to the police that resulted in his incarceration. Or, perhaps, another Jew, a patron in the brothel,
could have told Jones or Smith he had seen Cohen with blood on him on the morning of the Chapman murder and later
went to the police? It is also possible that the police independently made a suspicious connection to related attacks
on prostitutes, and that the assault on N Cohen by Hickey was moot at the time of their scheduled court appearance,
since the primary intention of the police was to lock David Cohen away as a lunatic, and possibly a suspected murderer.

Despite Cox’s claims that ‘never once did we allow him to quit our site,’ at one time or another, the suspect may
have left police surveillance and ventured to a safe house in Metropolitan police territory. Inspector Sagar tells us that
after a time, his friends thought it advisable that the suspect be removed to an asylum. This account could depict David
Cohen, who was arrested by the Metropolitan Police as a lunatic wandering at-large. But he could have been arrested
as a murder suspect as well. Work associates, shelter staff, or brothel prostitutes and patrons who knew something of
his actual background, may have come forward to the Metropolitan Police, vouching for his observed insanity. So by
the time Cohen was taken directly from the Thames Police Magistrate Court to Leman Street police station and then to
the Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary for evaluation, he was already suspected of having committed the Whitechapel
murders.

Cox maintained that as far as he knew, the suspect he watched was never arrested, but simply gave up his nightly
prowls when he knew he was being watched and was eventually ‘removed from his usual haunts.’ This suggests that
the desire of somebody like Cohen to attack people and his frustration by being continually watched may have finally
reduced him to a shambling wreck wandering about the streets aimlessly. In early December 1888, the City Police may
not have known the full details of Cohen having been ‘removed’ until contacted by the Met to conduct what was to
prove to be a failed identification with an eye witness and to watch the suspect for a short time thereafter.

Early Hiding
It would appear that by early August 1888,
Cohen was possibly sleeping in doss houses or
on the stairs of rental buildings, and by mid-
September he had moved into a brothel. He may
not have spent much time there as he shortly
found new work as a tailor or a butcher’s assistant
after leaving his job as a cobbler/tanner and was
able to sleep mostly in his employer’s shop.

Martin Fido has written:

We do know that a House of Lords committee

on immigration in 1888 established that the
Jewish community employed completely
unskilled immigrant workers in tailoring
and bootmaking sweatshops, rather than
have them become a pauper expense to the
parish. So there is always the possibility
that if he did have nominal employment as Former butcher shop of Morris Bosman at 62 Butcher’s Row circa 1902.
Entrance to the Still & Star pub in Harrow Alley can be seen on the left.
a tailor, Cohen was really just an unskilled Did Sagar’s suspect work here?
worker.5

4 Thames Police Magistrate Court proceeding, 7 December 1888.

5 Information reported by Howard Brown on the jtrforums.com website.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 6

 Unskilled workers were more prone to change
occupations quickly as the need arose. Over time,
the brothel was watched by police or local parish
informants and eventually, about 1 December, the
brothel was raided after reports of a disturbance
in which David Cohen’s friend or relative, N Cohen,
was initially identified as the victim of an assault.
The Thames Magistrates Court proceedings for 7
December were reported in Reynold’s Newspaper6
on 9 December 1888:

KEEPING A BROTHEL IN WHITECHAPEL

Gertrude Smith, a well-dressed middle-aged

woman of 254 High-street [sic Whitechapel
Road], Whitechapel, surrendered to answer a
charge preferred against her by Mr Metcalf,
vestry clerk of St Mary, Whitechapel, on behalf
1899 Goad map showing location of Getrude Smith’s brothel of the overseers of the parish, for unlawfully
at 254 Whitechapel Road just prior to its renumbering as no. 64.
Courtesy Robert Clack keeping her house as a brothel. Uriah Harvey,
who was specially engaged by the vestry of
Whitechapel, owing to gross immorality taking place in certain houses, to keep a watch, gave evidence of the
number of both sexes which entered and left the defendant’s house. On Saturday night, the 24th November,
ten men and as many well-known prostitutes infesting the neighbourhood entered
and left defendant’s house; Sunday, the 25th, twelve couples; Monday, the 26th,
three couples; Saturday, December 1st, eighteen couples. It was ostensibly a cigar
shop, and when the parties entered, the defendant was at the door letting them
in. When Inspector Ferris [Metropolitan Police Inspector Arthur Ferrett] entered,
he found two well-known prostitutes in bed. In answer to Mr Lushington, Inspector
Ferris said there had been no complaints of disturbances or robberies at defendant’s
house. Mr Lushington convicted the defendant in taking part in keeping a brothel
and fined her £10 and £5 costs, or one month. The money was paid.7

David Cohen may have been present on any one or more of the days the house was
under observation, if he stayed there. It seems likely that he was in the brothel on the
last day it was under observation, 1 December, and he spent the following week under
surveillance until brought to court on the 7th by PC Patrick. Was Cohen subjected to an
identification during this week? And did these premises also constitute one of the houses
watched by Cox, Sagar and their City Police colleagues following the murder of Mary
Jane Kelly?

In this reconstruction, the City Police became suspicious in late November (just
after the Kelly murder) and initiated surveillance on Cohen. Sagar passed information
on to the Metropolitan Police during one of their nightly liaisons, and they eventually
tracked him from the brothel to the temporary shelter, virtually under their very noses
(the Leman Street Police Station was only a few doors away). David Cohen was finally
arrested on the same day as his scheduled court appearance partially as a result of
an eye-witness statement during the earlier brothel raid and because of his obvious
derangement observed while he was wandering about the streets. Therefore, the City
Police must have been briefly watching him, and contacted the Met to take him into
custody when it became apparent he would not appear in court on his own. The Jews Temporary Shelter in 1920

6 Information reported by Howard Brown on the jtrforums.com website.

7 One indeed expected that the money would be paid, given that 18 couples passed through the premises in one day. Inspector
Ferrett brought charges against Smith and Mary Jones for brothel-keeping, and had PC John Patrick bring Cohen to court as a material
witness, but it became readily apparent that Cohen was insane and therefore, useless as a witness.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 7

 Cohen’s Questionable Background
David Cohen’s admission records indicate no next of kin. But who provided this information to police? Was it the
workhouse or asylum authorities? Who was the ‘N Cohen’ who failed to appear before the Thames Magistrates Court to
file assault charges against Ellen Hickey on 7 December 1888 – was he possibly a brother to David?

It has been surmised that Cohen had been residing in London for up to a year when he was arrested. However, it is
unclear what this assertion could be based on. The entry on his workhouse infirmary record notes his length of settlement
as ‘unknown.’ Who could have supplied different information to the police? If Cohen had a nuclear or extended family,
did they disown him?

In the 9 September 1888 issue of Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, a description of an encounter with ‘Leather Apron’ near
the corner of Albert Street concludes with the following statement:

The inquiries of our special representative led to the discovery that he is the son of a fairly well-to-do Russian
Jew, but he is discarded by the Jewish fraternities as one who is a disgrace to their tribe.8

The name, age, and occupation of anyone as insane as Cohen is unlikely to have been established accurately without
any witnesses or known relatives present at his incarceration. Was Cohen in fact staying at 84 or 86 Leman Street,
being otherwise homeless after leaving 254 Whitechapel Road? Was the brothel, the homeless shelter or a shop also the
residence of his ‘brother’ who sheltered David during the short period of police surveillance?

Police Confusion
It may be significant that the City Police watch on the Butcher’s Row suspect continued until about February 1889 or
so, when he was possibly removed to an asylum. But Cohen was incarcerated on 21 December 1888. City officers may
have spent the subsequent weeks watching other potential suspects, or even attempting to persuade a reluctant witness
to testify.

Macnaghten wrote in regards to Kosminski that he was removed to a lunatic asylum about March 1889, which could
partially fit Cox’s recollections of his surveillance duties until February or so. Macnaghten may have confused certain
evidence about an early City suspect with Kosminski, or had information of a Kosminski (Cohen?) watched by City Police
and who had actually entered an asylum around that time. Or was this event in March 1889 later misremembered as
when Cohen was actually taken from the asylum to be identified at a seaside home and returned to the asylum? When
he was arrested by police, Cohen gave his forename, or else shelter records showed it, as ‘Aaron,’ similar to the later
presumed Polish Jew suspect, hairdresser Aaron Kosminski.

Was Cohen a ‘Leather Apron’ Sort?

Several days after the murder of Polly Nichols on 31 August 1888, the existence of a sinister
man began to emerge in press and police reports from the stories told by local prostitutes.
The first widely known mention of this mysterious man, ‘Leather Apron,’ appeared in
the Star on 4 September. This story was followed the next day by a detailed description
of him from the supposed testimony of victims of his reputed abuses and blackmailing
behavior. It is suspected by some that the American-born journalist for the Star, Harry
Dam, was responsible for the creation of the Leather Apron story to increase circulation of
his newspaper. Dam actually cabled the story first to the New York Times on 3 September,
the day before it appeared in the Star. Leather Apron was reportedly a slipper-maker who
always wore a leather apron, dark, close-fitting cap and carried a sharp knife. Physically,
he was described as thickset, about 5 feet, 5 inches tall, aged 38–40, with semitic features,
short black hair and a small black moustache. He had the habit of hanging around common
lodging houses, carried a knife and was once thrown out of Crossingham’s Lodging House on
Dorest Street by the manager, Timothy Donovan, for threatening a woman. Harry Dam

8 In view of this story, it is interesting that the David Cohen living in Manchester in 1881 (see note 2) was the eldest son of Zusman
Cohen, a prominent rabbi and dayan of the Manchester Hebrew Congregation and the London Beth Din. Zusman, born near
Bialystock, Poland (currently Vilkaviskis, Lithuania) in 1841, was the son of a wealthy merchant. Zusman and his family emigrated
to Cheetham, Lancashire in 1872. Two of his other sons, Harris and Barnett Isaac, served as rabbis at the Nottingham, Stoke
Newington and the Sheffield Congregations.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 8

 But there was actually an earlier report of Leather Apron in the 1 September edition of the Sheffield and Rotherham
Independent and several other publications, in which it was reported,

The women in a position similar to that of the deceased [Polly Nichols] allege that there is a man who goes
by the name of “Leather Apron” who has more than once attacked unfortunate and defenceless women. His
dodge is, it is asserted, to get them in to a house on the pretence of offering them money. He then takes
whatever little they have and “half-kills” them in addition.

This story was sourced to an unnamed ‘Star reporter.’ The Pall Mall Gazette of 8 September actually alleged that the
police had been discussing Leather Apron around the time of the Nichols murder, one week earlier. Thus, it would appear
that the name ‘Leather Apron’ was publicly known for at least several days prior to the detailed story that appeared in
the 5 September issue of the Star.

Eventually, a boot finisher, John Pizer, was accused of being this ‘Leather Apron’ menace. He was arrested on 10
September on suspicion of the Nichols and Chapman murders, but released the next day for lack of evidence. Pizer
would appear to have been arrested only on the assertion that he was nicknamed Leather Apron, not because there was
any evidence that he either murdered anyone or habitually accosted prostitutes. There was, in reality, no evidence of
anyone other than the police naming Pizer as Leather Apron. There was even considerable doubt that Pizer was the man
evicted by Donovan months before and Donovan was never asked to identify Pizer.

The Evening Standard of 11 September reported,

On being asked whether he knew the man called “Leather Apron,” Donovan said he knew him well. He came
to the lodging house about twelve months ago [author’s emphasis], a woman being his companion. In the
early hours of the morning the woman commenced screaming murder, and it seemed that “Leather Apron”
had knocked her down and torn her hair and clothes. “Leather Apron” said the woman was trying to rob him,
but he [Donovan] did not believe him, and turned him out of the house. The man had come there several
times since for a lodging, but they would not admit him.

After Pizer’s release, the stories on the streets continued to proclaim Leather Apron’s existence. Was Leather Apron
actually a myth or could there be have some basis of fact for the story, ie, some man who actually was terrorizing
prostitutes? The Echo of 5 September simply described this man as wild-looking, wearing a leather apron and ‘who was
believed to be an escaped lunatic.’ This report, unlike those in the Star, did not say he was called ‘Leather Apron,’ or
that he had terrorized local streetwalkers.

Pizer’s explanation for the suspicion against him, according to the 12 September Echo, is that he was walking along
Church Street, Spitalfields on the previous Sunday (the 2nd) when he was accosted by two women, the younger of whom
accused him of being the Buck’s Row murderer. Pizer denied the accusation and quickly walked away; he did not mention
any policeman being involved. But this story may be completely different from another story that happened on the same
day, in which an ‘eye-witness’ wrote to Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper (and published on 9 September) stating that a woman
rushed up to a policeman shouting, ‘There goes Leather Apron, the Whitechapel murderer.’ [Author’s emphasis.]

After following and questioning this man in the company of two other constables, the policeman let the man go. So
Pizer may not have been the same man in the eyewitness story that the woman in the Echo story denounced as being
Leather Apron and who was temporarily detained by the police. Pizer could have been confused with this other man
because both men were near the same street on the same date, but at different times, fostering subsequent police
beliefs that Pizer was actually Leather Apron. The man temporarily in police custody was described as aged 30 years;
height 5 ft 3 in; complexion dark, sallow; hair and moustache, black; thick-set; dressed in old and dirty clothing; and
of Jewish appearance. And how did the woman come to know the name, ‘Leather Apron’ and that the police had been
looking for him, two days before that sobriquet was first announced in the London press?

Pizer self-confined himself to his house on 6 September, until his arrest on the morning of the 10th, sealing his alibi
for the Chapman murder on the 8th. On the 10th, the Echo also had more to say on the exploits of Leather Apron:

On Saturday night [the 8th] the police at Holloway received information that a man resembling the published
description of “Leather Apron” entered a house at Eltham-Road, Holloway, and that when conversation ensued,
with regard to the murder at Whitechapel, he hurriedly left the house. The Police of Limehouse, on Saturday,
also received information that “Leather Apron” entered a coffee-house on Colt Street, and that when he heard
reference to the murder he again hurriedly left the house without being served what he required.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 9

 But this man was not Pizer, who had stayed at Crossman’s lodging house on Holloway Road the night of Polly Nichols’
murder the week before, when the 8th September Pall Mall Gazette alleged that the police first began been discussing
‘Leather Apron.’

A week after Pizer’s release, the Echo on 16 September, recounted a reporter’s walk with John Richardson, whose
leather apron found in the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street had added more fuel to the Leather Apron scare,

Passing afterwards through Spitalfields with John Richardson, a curious incident occurred. A rough, demented-
looking fellow came from a group, grinning, and, with clenched fist, muttered some threat to John Richardson.
In answer to the question “Who is he? What does he mean?” Richardson then replied: “That is the man who
they say is mad. A great many of the women and people round our house think that he is the real ‘Leather
Apron.’” When asked to go back to inquire what the man meant, Richardson said, “You had better not, for
he would be most likely to spring upon you and knock you down at once, without a word. I shall not stop and
speak to him, for he is very dangerous; and a great many of the women think that he is the murderer.”

The encounter with this man who was recognizable to Richardson could have been with the same man mentioned
earlier that sometimes slept on the stairs at 29 Hanbury Street.

As late as 19 September, Metropolitan Police Inspector Frederick Abberline reported that inquiries among prostitutes
revealed that there was still a feeling of terror against Leather Apron for blackmailing and ill-using them, but the police
still hadn’t heard any accounts of his having murdered anybody. If this man wasn’t Pizer, then who was he? The next day
the Echo reported that:

Inspector Reid, Detective-sergeant Enright, Sergeant Goadby, and other officers then worked upon a slight
clue given them by “Pearly Poll.” It was not thought much of at the time; but from what was gleaned from
her, coupled with statements given by Elizabeth Allen and Eliza Cooper, of 35, Dorset-street, Spitalfields,
certain of the authorities have had cause to suspect a man actually living not far from Buck’s-row. At present,
however, there is only suspicion against him.

It will be recalled that 35 Dorset Street was the lodging house where Timothy Donovan threw out Leather Apron
the year before and to which Leather Apron supposedly returned several times. What is also significant about the Echo
story is that both Cooper and Allen, along with Mary Ann Connelly (Pearly Poll) stayed at Crossingham’s lodging house,
two doors away from Miller’s Court. Early on, Connelly gave evidence to the police after Martha Tabram’s murder
on 7th August, but this was before Chapman’s murder on 8th September, whom she also probably knew. One could
therefore surmise that the 20th September Echo report suggesting an additional follow-up clue was given to police after
September 8th. This clue could have been further corroboration by Connelly of the man who periodically terrorized their
lodging house on Dorset Street.

Later, another interesting encounter occurred between one of the reporters for the Eastern Post & City Chronicle and
a prostitute staying at an infirmary on October 1st, as described in their 13 October edition:

During the week, a reporter accompanied Dr [John William Smith] Sanders in the St. George’s [in-the-East]
Infirmary to interview women – one prostitute, “Jenny”, said that a foreign 40-yr old, stout-built man
with fair-complexion had been constantly seen in the Whitechapel area and had assaulted and blackmailed
streetwalkers, threatening to rip them up. Dr Saunders seemed to think the statement made was strictly
accurate, and said, “They know all about Leather Apron.”

It seems that Leather Apron continued to terrorize the East End well after Pizer was cleared. The Echo on 28
September reported:

The Press Association learns that a matter that is thought to have a bearing upon the Whitechapel murders
is being investigated by the Metropolitan police. Early on Wednesday morning a man, apparently of about
33 years of age, accosted a woman in Whitechapel. At his request she accompanied him for a short distance,
when he suddenly caught her by the throat, and knocked her down. The woman states that her screams
alarmed the man, who then ran away. The description she gave of her assailant is as follows: - About 5ft 6in
or 5ft 8in high, small dark moustache, dressed in light coat and dark trousers, black felt hat, and wore scarf
round his neck.

Leather Apron may have been a composite of traits for several sinister or crazy men prowling the Whitechapel area,
including David Cohen.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 10

 Other Immigrant Jews Under Suspicion
Shortly after the start of the crimes, Robert Anderson postulated that the Ripper and
his people were “low-class Jews,” persuading police to be suspicious of pauper Jews in
Whitechapel. The results of a house-to-house search for the killer in October convinced
Anderson that a Polish Jew was actually responsible for the killings. Did the police encounter
Cohen and possibly one or more of his relatives during this search, noting their suspicious
behavior? It is interesting that the Gerald Donner-owned version of the Macnaghten
Memorandum describes one of the suspects as a Polish Jew cobbler or tanner, nicknamed
Leather Apron.

Martin Fido has written:

If Leather Apron (not being John Pizer) wished to get out of a leathered apronned
trade in a hurry because the heat was on for Jewish leather apronned workers, he
would, assuming, the H[ouse] of Lords Committee was right, have been able to find
immediate apron-free employment in a tailoring sweat shop.9
Sir Robert Anderson, Assistant Commissioner
of the Metropolitan Police from his son
At this point in time, did Aaron Davis change his occupation and anglicise his last name A P Moore-Anderson’s biography

to ‘Cohen’ to avoid detection?

Joseph Isaacs, another Polish Jew of no fixed address, was arrested by the Metropolitan Police in the Strand area on 6
December for stealing a watch from a shop in Spitalfields. It is interesting that no police records exist concerning Isaacs.
Yet, he was considered a very serious Jack the Ripper suspect. The only accounts we have of his arrest and suspicion
come from newspapers. Abberline took him personally from the Bow Station to the Leman Street Station under heavy
police escort. Could Isaacs’ arrest, one day before Cohen’s, and Isaacs’ presence at the Leman Street Police Station
when Cohen was brought in the next day, have contributed to later police beliefs that a Ripper suspect, a Polish Jew,
had been arrested and institutionalized? Isaacs and Cohen may have even briefly shared the same cell. The City Police,
reviewing arrest records, could thus have learned that Cohen had been detained, but not necessarily have known what
had happened to him afterwards. Despite the arrest of Isaacs by Metropolitan Police, and newspaper suspicions that
he was involved in the attempted murder of a woman in George Street, Spitalfields, Isaacs’ fate was never definitively
revealed.

Hyam Hyams, age 34, was another Polish Jew immigrant, who was brought to the
Whitchapel Infirmary by Metropolitan Police on 29 December 1888. He was sent to Colney
Hatch Asylum on 15 April 1889 as a potential homicidal maniac suffering from delusions
of persecution. He practiced ‘self abuse’ and attacked other asylum inmates.

Did the City Police maintain exclusive watch on Cohen? The City Press, 7 January
1905, said of Robert Sagar:

He was deputed to represent the City Police force in conference with the detective
heads of the Metropolitan force nightly at Leman Street Police Station during the
period covered by those ghastly murders.

It is possible that the City Police were watching the suspect in Metropolitan territory
due to a shortage of patrolling Met officers near the City side of the Aldgate area. This
may have contributed to jumbling of the suspects Cohen, Hyams and Isaacs, arrested
by the Metropolitan Police, with the detention two years later of the hairdresser, Aaron
Kosminski, who was also known to the City Force. But in fairness to the two forces, Home
Office reports by City Inspector James McWilliam (27 October) and by Chief Inspector
Donald Swanson (6 November) both stated that both police forces met daily to confer
Hyam Hyams and to share their inquiries on the subject.

9 See note 5.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 11

 Identification
The lack of official records or files on the alleged identifications by Anderson and Sagar has perplexed me for many
years. Assuming the identification did occur and that both men were referring to the same event, who conducted it?
Did asylum or workhouse staff take the suspect to a seaside home for convalescing City of London policemen in early
December 1888? Or did the police, with medical staff, escort the suspect to the place of his identification? If this
identification of the suspect was a police procedure, which police entity recorded the event – the City or the Met - if
either did? If it was the City Police, that record was likely destroyed in the Blitz. If the Metropolitan Police sent the
suspect to the seaside home, did they send one or two of their officers with the suspect and did they produce or receive
a written report of the event?

The Metropolitan Police may have been waiting for the identification results from the City Police, who were conducting
the affair. When the identification collapsed, did the City Police then verbally report back to the Metropolitan Police that
the procedure was unsuccessful, thus there being no need to supply them with a written report? If only an oral report was
made to the Metropolitan Police, it simply may have communicated that there was no information forthcoming because
of the witness’s refusal to continue with the confirmatory evidence after identifying the suspect. Internal written
reports by City Police on the identification were subsequently lost. Thus, the probability is that if the identification
process did take place, it was almost exclusively an affair conducted by the City Police, with the results being conveyed
verbally to Scotland Yard.

Identification Aftermath
It is interesting that Inspector Donald
Swanson, who headed the Ripper
investigation for the Metropolitan
Police, wrote privately that a suspect,
Kosminski, was ‘watched by police (City
CID) by day & night’ at his brother’s
house in Whitechapel. That statement
is partially similar to City Inspector
Henry Cox’s account referred to earlier,
especially since the City of London Police
occupied a (public?) house across from
the suspect, from which they could easily
watch the suspect by day and night. Cox
also provided us with a clue to the time
period of his surveillance, after the Kelly
murder, when Cox was on duty in the
street ‘for nearly three months.’ This
could eliminate the hairdresser Aaron
Kosminski as Cox’s suspect because
Kosminski was not incarcerated until
February 1891. Could N Cohen, possibly
David Cohen’s brother, assaulted at 254
Whitechapel Road by the prostitute
Ellen Hickey, have owned or lived in the
house?10

Swanson’s notes on the surveillence of Kosminski

Courtesy Adam Wood

10 The April 1891 census shows that these

premises consisted of two houses with a
married woman, Georgiana Waite, 47, and
her children as residents (RG12/233/f.
91/p14).

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 12

 City Police Perspective
One-time Assistant City Police Commissioner, Major Sir Henry Smith, in his reminiscences From
Constable to Commissioner (1910) wrote,

I must admit that... [the Ripper] completely beat me and every other police officer in London; I
have no more idea now where he lived than I had twenty years ago. [Author’s emphasis.]

Does this statement suggest that Smith knew where the suspect had at one time worked? Joseph
Hyam Levy, one of the Mitre Square witnesses in the Eddowes murder of 30 September 1888, probably
traded as a butcher in Butcher’s Row. Smith recalled that he interviewed one of the Mitre Square
witnesses, a ‘hybrid German,’ as he referred to him. This witness could have been Levy, a London-
born Jew of Dutch descent, who may have just come forward days after the Eddowes inquest saying
he actually recognized the man he saw with the woman near Mitre Square, especially if the man
worked in or near Butcher’s Row. Was it Levy who supplied Major Smith with information about where
the suspect worked? Joseph Lawende, the other possible witness to the Mitre Square murder, and the Major Sir Henry Smith

witness to the Berner Street Murder, Israel Schwartz, were Polish and Hungarian Jews, respectively.

That Smith didn’t think the Ripper was caught can be interpreted in several ways. One perspective is that he knew
who Kosminski or another City Jew suspect was, but that they had escaped justice through legal loopholes. Careful
reading of Smith’s chapter on the Ripper shows that he only said the Ripper was uncaught, but should have been. The
sentence about not knowing where he lived is more problematic - does Smith mean that not knowing where the Ripper
lived during the murders contributed to his eluding capture? It is worth noting that Smith is one of the officials listed
by H L Adam, in his The Trial of George Chapman (1930), as stating the Ripper’s identity was definitely known. Smith
may have had early information on the Ripper’s suspected identity, but not any follow-up information after the suspect
was detained by the Metropolitan Police, in late 1888. Smith could have been convinced later by Robert Anderson that
the Ripper’s identity was a known fact sometime after the publication of the latter’s serialized Blackwood’s Magazine
memoirs in 1910. Smith, subsequently interviewed by Adam about the identity of the Polish Jew suspect, explained his
altered opinion prior to publication of Adam’s Police Encyclopedia in 1920.

Lingering Puzzlement
The motive for the murders, according to Cox, was revenge. A woman had “wronged” the suspect (a misogynist), and
the murder victims were all of the lowest class, and he belonged to their class. This can be interpreted to mean that the
murders were committed by someone who believed himself to have been venereally infected by his victims or by women
of the same class. David Cohen was a threatening and violent lunatic. Joseph Isaacs threatened violence to all women
over 17 years of age. The Kosminski suspect “had a great hatred of women, especially the prostitute class” according
to Macnaghten. Another immigrant Jew, Hyam Hyams, stabbed his wife and was dangerous to others. Immigrant Jewish
suspects that emerged during and just after the Leather Apron scare not only caused alarm amongst the populace, but
also consternation between two jurisdictional police forces, each of which may have had specific dealings with these
“suspects.”

If Sagar, Cox and Swanson were describing the same suspect:

• He worked in a shop or in one of the abattoirs behind the shops along Butcher’s Row, Aldgate.

• The City Police initially watched the suspect on their own turf; later he was watched in Metropolitan territory.

• The suspect was Jewish.

• He was a cobbler, tailor or butcher’s assistant.

• He lived mostly in Metropolitan Police territory.

• He slept in his shop within City Police jurisdiction, however, because he knew he was being watched.

• His behavior following an assault in a brothel raid made police suspicious enough to keep him under surveillance.

• When arrested as a wandering lunatic, he was removed to the police station, then taken to the workhouse, after
information was supplied to the police by his former work associates, brothel residents or other witnesses.

• The motive for the murders was revenge against women, as described by Cox; this motive could be applicable to
Cohen, Kosminski, Isaacs and Hyams.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 13

 The City Police lost touch with Cohen and could have subsequently confused some of Cohen’s details with those
of Hyams and Isaacs, and later with those of hairdresser Aaron Kosminski. Isaacs and (possibly) Aaron Kosminski were
interrogated by the Metropolitan Police. The City Police may have initially watched Cohen in their territory, but then
he committed some offence or was found wandering aimlessly in Met territory and was arrested by the Metropolitan
Police. The Met had apparently learned from the City Police (ie, Sagar) where Cohen worked. City officers, conferring
with Met officers at the Leman Street police station, passed on their suspicions about Cohen, but not until he was locked
away for good as a violent lunatic with nothing more than their ‘suspicions’ noted in his records. To reiterate, this
assumption suggests that there wasn’t necessarily any attempt to conceal information deliberately from the other force,
just that cooperation between the two investigating forces was not as strong as thought during the Ripper scare. The
jurisdictional boundary between the two forces in Butcher’s Row, Aldgate was irregular enough to have caused reporting
inconsistencies if a suspect (or suspects) was (or were) kept under joint surveillance in this area.

In the 1880s, no. 254 Whitechapel Road was a cigar shop, headed by a John Levy. He was the brother of Fanny Levy, a
cigar and orange dealer living at 29 Mitre Street in 1888. She was quite possibly one of the Mite Square witnesses, Joseph
Hyam Levy’s, first cousin. Her brother, John’s cigar shop, was not only the address of the later brothel raid involving
Cohen in November-December 1888, but was also located next door to no. 253, the address of a Mrs Norah Christmas’
laundry. It was on the doorstep of this address where one Thomas Coram found a knife wrapped in blood-stained cloth
at 12:30am on 1 October, 1888, the day following the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes.

Conundrums of the Ripper’s Detection

In the Windsor Magazine, Volume 1 of January 1895, a piece by Major Arthur Griffiths
tells of Anderson’s dealings with the backlash of criticism during the early part of the police
investigation:

Much dissatisfaction was vented upon Mr Anderson at the utterly abortive efforts to
discover the perpetrator of the Whitechapel Murders. He has himself a perfectly plausible
theory that Jack the Ripper was a homicidal maniac, temporarily at large, whose hideous
career was cut short by committal to an asylum. [Author’s emphasis.]

But was this actually Anderson’s ‘theory’ on the Ripper’s identity in 1895, or merely Griffiths’
own impression of Anderson’s ‘theory’? A couple of years later, in his 1898 book, Mysteries
of Police and Crime, Griffiths went on to describe, but not name, two additional suspects,
obviously Ostrog and Druitt, of whom he apparently preferred Druitt, having perhaps been
influenced by the ideas expounded in Macnaghten’s 1894 confidential memorandum.

Another of the several anomalies about Scotland Yard’s position on whether the Ripper
had been caught or not is contained in a contemporary article by James Monro entitled ‘The
London Police’ published in the North American Review in November 1890.11 Part of this
article is significant for the time it was written and because of Monro’s position at the time,
Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police. Monro wrote:

Excluding the unique series of outrages in Whitechapel, - at the non-discovery of the

perpetrators of which none grieved more than the Metropolitan Police, - I cannot call to
mind half a dozen really serious cases of murder which, within the last five or six years,
have remained undetected; and the number of such offences committed is really small.
[Author’s emphasis.]

If David Cohen was Anderson’s Polish Jew suspect, surely Monro would have known about it, Major Arthur Griffiths from
The Licensed Victuallers’ Mirror
and in this passage, he clearly does not if he shared Anderson’s view. Cohen had also been dead of 26 March 1889
for over a year at the time this article was published. But to be objective, it is uncertain when
Monro wrote these words prior to their publication in the North American Review.

Monro’s view cited above also coincides with an opinion quoted in another article that appeared in the same year
in Cassell’s Magazine, where he told the interviewer that the police had nothing positive in the way of clues about the
identity of the Ripper.

11 James Monro, ‘The London Police,’ North American Review Vol. 151, No. 408, November 1890, pp 615–629.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 14

 I believe that these magazine comments by Monro means that he believed the Ripper was dead or at least was out of
the public spotlight and was never brought to justice. As with the opinion he expressed in the North American Review
article, the question arises, when exactly did Monro make the statement that the police had nothing positive in the way
of clues about Ripper’s identity? And did either of these articles reflect Monro’s views of the case held by him years later?
For example, Monro reportedly told grandson Christopher Monro that ‘The Ripper was never caught, but he should have
been.’ A statement that might seem to conflict with those views expressed in the two 1890 magazine articles.

In July 1889, Dr Bond was brought in by Robert Anderson to confirm or deny that
the murder of Alice McKenzie had been the work of the Ripper, while David Cohen
was in the Colney Hatch Asylum. If Cohen was at the time believed by Anderson to
have been the Ripper, he presumably would have known that Cohen was incarcerated
during the time of the McKenzie murder. Thus, the necessity for bringing in Dr Bond
to verify whether or not McKenzie was a victim of the Ripper or not would have been
moot.

The American journalist R Harding Davis spent a night with Inspector Moore in
Whitechapel and interviewed Robert Anderson toward the end of July 1889 about
the problems of recognizing criminals and how easily they could elude police in the
densely congested alleyways and byways of the East End. As reported in the 4 August
1889 Milwaukee Sentinel, Anderson said:

And after a stranger has gone over it he takes a much more lenient view of our
failure to find Jack the Ripper, as they call him, than he did before.12

Some writers have suggested that the ‘failure’ part of the statement pertains to
the difficulty of policing the narrow, circuitous streets and alleyways of Whitechapel
and thus the deftness of the Ripper to elude capture, and does not necessarily suggest
that Anderson was saying the Ripper’s identity was unknown. If the supposed time
period of this interview is correct, David Cohen had just three more months longer to
Dr Thomas Bond
live in the asylum.

In later years, Anderson is reported in the Evening Chronicle, 1 September 1908, to have said:

I could not accept responsibility for the non-detection of the Ripper crimes. [Author’s emphasis.]

This statement, I believe, has been misinterpreted by researchers to mean that the Ripper was never identified, but
in all probably meant that by the legal means of the Victorian judicial system, the police could not bring a convincingly
guilty case against the suspect to the public 1) based on circumstantial evidence obtained via the identification of the
suspect after the canonical murders, and 2) because of the reality that criminal lunatics were extremely difficult to
convict in a court of law. Ten years later, Anderson, quoted in the Daily Telegraph, 19 November 1918, said that:

The necessary evidence for his conviction is unobtainable. [Author’s emphasis.]

Conundrums of the Ripper’s Death

In May 1895, it was reported in the Pall Mall Gazette that:

Mr Swanson believed the crimes to have been the work of a man who is now dead.

While this could be a reference to David Cohen, Swanson wrote some years later in his endpaper annotations to the
Anderson book

...he was sent to Stepney Workhouse then to Colney Hatch and died shortly afterwards - Kosminski was the
suspect. [Author’s emphasis.]

These statements actually better fit Cohen, as Kosminski was still alive at the time they were made.

12 See note 5. This report precedes by three months the more commonly cited story in the Pall Mall Gazette, 4 November 1889.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 15

 Anderson himself was reported by his son, Arthur Anderson, to have stated as a fact the man was an alien from Eastern
Europe, and believed that he had died in an asylum. But Aaron Kosminski was still alive after Anderson’s death in 1918,
so to whom was Anderson referring? In the case of something as important as the death of the Jack the Ripper suspect,
Anderson would have been personally involved in the assessment of the circumstances surrounding this event, assuming
the suspect died in Anderson’s lifetime, and not merely relying on hearsay.

Another report came from Detective Inspector Edmund Reid, who believed the killer had died. A journalist reported
Reid’s view in the Weekly Dispatch of 3 August 1896:

The mania was of a nature which must long ago have resulted in the death of the maniac - an opinion that is
borne out by the best medical experts who have studied the case.

And this from Chief Inspector Frederick Abberline in an interview with the Pall Mall Gazette on 31 March 1903,

I know... that it has been stated in several quarters that ‘Jack the Ripper’ was a man who died in a lunatic
asylum a few years ago, but there is nothing at all of a tangible nature to support such a theory. [Author’s
emphasis.]

Abberline then went on to expound upon his opinion that the wife poisoner, George Chapman, was the Ripper.

These various statements over a period of several years suggest something was known about a suspect who died in
an asylum shortly after his incarceration, although most police officials shared the belief that he was not the Ripper.

The Yard Would Not be Defeated

Scotland Yard Officials, who may have included Anderson, Swanson, Monro (and possibly Moore and Inspector Arthur
Ferrett – who had first-hand knowledge of Cohen), probably convened several years after the murders in 1892, while
many of these anomalous statements about the Ripper’s identification and death were being made, and went over a
short list of Jack the Ripper suspects, picking the likeliest man from amongst them. The positive identification of this
man at one of the City of London Police seaside convalescent homes in late November or early December 1888 was
probably the best deciding factor for pinning the mantle of Jack the Ripper on Aaron Davis Cohen, although the City
Police, sans Robert Sagar, may not have been aware of Scotland Yard’s conclusion. This would have been a guarded
conclusion on a need-to-know basis to curtail growing anti-semitism in the East End, if it became widely known that
the suspected Ripper was a Jew. Many immigrant families had diligently changed their last names to ‘Cohen’ to hasten
their assimilation after settling in London. Would the police want it leaked that somebody named Cohen had been sent
to an asylum as a Ripper suspect? The backlash against Polish families in London sharing this name would have been
detrimental, if the populace assumed they were related to the suspect. No, it was decidedly wiser to section the suspect
with no asylum case notes associating his anglicised surname with suspicions as a Jack the Ripper suspect. There were
only little more than a dozen immigrant Polish men surnamed “Kosminski” or variants of that spelling living in London
at the time. Thus, it was decidedly better to associate the suspect with police suspicions as the Ripper under his less
common Polish surname and limit retaliation against families sharing the name Cohen, should it be publicly leaked.

David Cohen (or David Kosminski) could have been the Ripper regardless of Martin Fido’s postulation of possible
confusion by police between the tailor Cohen and the hairdresser Aaron Kosminski. Recent research into Aaron
Kosminski’s family tree has shown that a number of his relatives were surnamed ‘Cohen’, having anglicised their Polish
last names to ‘Cohen’ after immigrating to England. The possibility remains that David Cohen and Aaron Kosminski were
related, possibly through Aaron’s sister-in-law’s brother, the butcher, Jacob Cohen (Kosminski), who gave information
about Aaron’s mental condition to authorities on his incarceration in February 1891. Was Jacob hastily covering up for
another relation, a cousin, say, the deceased David, and portraying the hairdresser Aaron in the worst possible light to
authorities? Both Aaron and David were insane and sent to Colney Hatch Asylum. These factors, along with their Polish
surname, could have been the source of later confusion between them. But only Cohen was raving mad by the time
he was picked up on the street, suicidal, violent enough to attack others, and the only foreign-born pauper Jew who
was arrested, certified insane and incarcerated shortly after the murder of Mary Kelly, widely considered as the last
canonical victim of Jack the Ripper. And he died soon after being incarcerated in the asylum as Swanson had said. Was
Cohen’s name known to the City Police as ‘Aaron Kosminski’ and was that the name they passed on to the Metropolitan
Police after Cohen’s incarceration in Colney Hatch Asylum?

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 16

 Conclusion
To conclude, the suspect, David Cohen, was likely watched by City Police until he was sent by Metropolitan Police under
City Police escort to be identified, but the procedure failed due to the reluctance of an eyewitness to provide further
evidence beyond a positive identification. The City Police, foiled by the witness, returned Cohen to his brother’s ‘house’
and rapidly lost interest in him after watching him for a few days, the matter being eventually dropped altogether.
He was then arrested by the Metropolitan Police on another offence and taken to court, then to the Leman Street
police station, and finally, later in the evening, to the Workhouse Infirmary. The police then decided to file suspicions
against him under his Polish surname, Kosminski, which they got from the City Force. This dichotomy of procedures
of dealing with Cohen partially explains why the suspicions of one force were not mirrored by the other. After several
years of reflective contemplation of Cohen/Kosminski’s case file, certain Metropolitan Police officials then decided that
Kosminski was the best Ripper suspect.

This storyline suggests that David Cohen was ‘Kosminski’, the Polish Jew suspect, and not the hairdresser Aaron
Kosminski. If it transpires that Cohen’s non-anglicised surname was actually ‘Kosminski’ it would give a whole new
meaning to Anderson’s suspect. The central question seems to be why there are no surviving workhouse or asylum case
notes that even remotely suggest that David Cohen (and Aaron Kosminski for that matter), was a Ripper suspect, unless it
was feared that information could be seen by subordinate workhouse or asylum staff, who could have foolishly disclosed
the name to the public. I continue to look into the backgrounds of certain Cohens and Kosminskis in Poland and Britain
in an effort to elucidate the conundrum of the Polish Jew suspect.

Acknowledgements
I thank Joe Chetcuti and Christopher T George for their earlier review of this article. I also owe a debt to Martin Fido,
whom I now think was right all along, and to the man who brought us the first Unified Field Theory of Ripperology, the
late David Radka.

General Sources
Adam, H L. The Trial of George Chapman. London: Hodge, 1930; Anderson, Robert. The Lighter Side of My Official Life.
London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910, pp 137–139; Begg, P, Fido, M, and Skinner K. The Complete Jack the Ripper A–Z.
London: John Blake Publishing, Ltd., 2010; Begg, Paul. ‘Did Leather Apron Really Exist?’ Ripperologist 109, December
2009, pp 24-35; Connell, Nick. Information on Joseph Isaacs. Ripperana 21, July 1997, pp 5-12; Connell, Nick. ‘The Death
of Anderson’s Suspect.’ Ripperana 22, October 1997, pp 10-15; Evans, Stewart, and Skinner, Keith. The Ultimate Jack
the Ripper Companion. London: Carroll & Graf, 2000, pp. 178-181 and pp. 637-644; Griffiths, Major Arthur. Victorian
Murders: Mysteries of Police and Crime. 1898, reprinted by The History Press, 2010; Fido, Martin. The Crimes, Detection
& Death of Jack the Ripper. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1993, pp. 221-225; Fido, Martin. ‘David Cohen and the Polish Jew
Theory.’ In: Jakubowski, Maxim, and Braund, Nathan. The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper. London: Carroll & Graf,
1999, pp. 164-186; Marshall, P, and Phillips, C. ‘New Light on Aaron Kosminski.’ Ripperologist 128, October 2012, pp 59-
69; Rubinstein, W, Jolles, M, and Rubinstein, H. Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History. London: Palgrave & MacMillan, 2011,
p 174; Smith, Henry, 1910, From Constable to Commissioner: The Story of Sixty Years, Most of Them Misspent, London:
Chatto & Windus, pp 158-160; Sugden, Philip. The Complete History of Jack the Ripper. Revised edition. London: Carroll
& Graf, 2002; forum.casebook.org; jtrforums.com.

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Ripperologist 130 February 2013 17

Whitechapel’s
Wax Chamber of Horrors,
1888
By MIKE HAWLEY

A waxwork ‘chamber of horrors’1 museum exhibiting ‘vilely executed waxen figures’2 of the most
notorious homicides of Victorian times operated in 1888 at just a few minutes’ walking distance
from the location of the Mary Ann Nichols murder scene. The museum’s main attraction were
images of the Ripper victims which were added to the display as they were murdered!
By February 1889, the museum displayed a total of six images of the murdered women,3 beginning with the unfortunate
Martha Tabram, who had met her death on 7 August 1888. In his 1892 memoirs, Worship Street Police Court Magistrate
Montague Williams recalled his walk through this chamber of horrors in early September 1888:

There lay a horrible presentment in wax of Matilda Turner [Martha Tabram], the first victim, as well as one of
Mary Ann Nichols, whose body was found in Buck’s Row. The heads were represented as being nearly severed
from the bodies, and in each case there were shown, in red paint, three terrible gashes reaching from the
abdomen to the ribs.4

Not only did the proprietor of the waxwork museum operate a chamber of horrors, but he also offered live entertainment
nightly in the adjacent building.5 Ever cognizant of the money-making formula consisting of, first, satisfying the public’s
desire for vice - in this case violence against women – and, secondly, adding a pinch of sex, the proprietor had as the
main attraction of the show a tough young lady named Miss Juanita. Dressed only in ‘fleshings’, a close fitting skin-
coloured garment intended to give the appearance of nudity, Miss Juanita engaged in daily boxing bouts with any man
weighing less than ten stone.6 Williams stated that ‘pugilism was high in favour with the management, for the audience
was’. As a result, an additional boxing match ensued between ‘Daniel the Dutchman’ and the ‘Welshman’.

In The True History of the Elephant Man: The Definitive Account of the Tragic and Extraordinary Life of Joseph Carey
Merrick (2010), Peter Ford and Michael Howell remarked:

A waxworks museum certainly flourished opposite

the London Hospital, for in September 1888, in the
midst of the Whitechapel murders committed by
‘Jack the Ripper’, a correspondent called John Law
was writing in the columns of the Pall Mall Gazette:
‘There is at present almost opposite the London
Hospital a ghastly display of the unfortunate women
murdered… An old man exhibits these things…7

1 Echo, London, UK, 13 September 1888, Waxworks.

2 Daily Telegraph, London, UK, 29 November 1888.
3 Era, London, UK, 9 February 1889, A Penny Show.
4 Williams, Montagu, Round London (1892), The London Hospital and the Whitechapel Road in 1896
Charles Dickens and Evans, Crystal Palace Press.
5 Echo, 13 September 1888; Era, 9 February 1889;
Williams, Montagu, op. cit.
6 Williams, Montagu, op. cit.
7 Ford, Peter, and Howell, Michael, The True History
of the Elephant Man: The Definitive Account of the
Tragic and Extraordinary Life of Joseph Carey Merrick
(2010), Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 18

 The reason why Ford and Howell wrote about the waxworks museum is because they believed it occupied the same
building at 123 Whitechapel Road (259 Whitechapel Road since 1910) where the Elephant Man was put on display for
three weeks in 1884 by his manager, Tom Norman. Ford and Howell quoted Norman:

The premises used for the exhibition of Meyrick [sic] had for several years previously been a waxworks
museum, owned by a man named Cotton. I came to London and rented it from him, and removed Meyrick
thereto…8

But Ford and Howell had mistaken Cotton’s pre-1884 wax museum for the museum that exhibited waxen images of
the Ripper victims in 1888.

An article titled A Penny Show in the Era of 9 February 1889

reported on the waxwork museum displaying the Ripper victims and the
adjoining live entertainment shows: ‘There was a waxworks inside, and
boxing and other performances went on.’9 The article added that the
penny show occupied two buildings at 106 and 107 Whitechapel Road
(Now 223 & 225 Whitechapel Road; the former now being occupied
by a McDonald’s) at the corner of Thomas Street. It even named the
proprietor: Thomas Barry. It underlined that 106 Whitechapel Road was
the wax museum, which even had pictures of the Ripper victim exhibit
in the front window, and added: “One picture showed six women lying
down injured and covered in blood, and with their clothes disturbed.”10

In an editorial in the Echo of 11 September 1888, the pseudonymous

‘East-Ender’ discussed the show, which he considered as an evil business:

I refer to several low penny shows at the corner of Thomas’s-

street, Whitechapel-road, nearly facing the London Hospital.
The location of the waxwork museum shown on an 1890 Goad map
These sinks of iniquity are at the present time doing a roaring
trade by exhibiting horrible pictures representing the poor victims
who have been so brutally murdered of late.11

On the same day, the Irish Times had something to add:

SCENE AT A WAXWORKS

There is a waxworks show to which admission can be obtained for one penny, in the Whitechapel road, near
the Working Lad’s Institute. During the past few days a highly-coloured representation of the George Yard and
Buck’s Row murders – painted on canvas - have been hung in front of the building, in addition to which there
were placards notifying that life size wax models of the murdered women could be seen within. The pictures
have caused large crowds to assemble on the pavement in front of the shop. This morning, however, another
picture was added to the rest. It was a representation of the murder in Hanbury street. The prominent
feature of the picture was that they were plentifully besmeared with red paint - this of course representing
wounds and blood. Notices were also posted up that a life-size waxwork figure of Annie “Sivens” [sic] could be
seen within. After the inquest at the Working Lad’s Institute had been adjourned a large crowd seized them
and tore them down. Considerable confusion followed, and order was only restored by the appearance of an
inspector of police and two constables. A man attired in workman’s clothes and who appeared to be somewhat
the worse for drink then addressed the crowd. He said - “I suppose you are all Englishmen and women here;
then do you think it right that that picture (continued the orator, pointing to the one representing the
murder in Hanbury street) should be exhibited in the public streets before the poor woman’s body is hardly
cold.” Cries of “No, no, we don’t” greeted this remark, and another scene of excitement followed. The
crowd, however, was quickly dispersed by the police before the showman’s property was further damaged.12

8 Ford, Peter, and Howell, Michael, op. cit.

9 Era, 9 February 1889.
10 Era, 9 February 1889.
11 Echo, 11 September 1888, A Disgraceful Scene.
12 Echo, 13 September 1888.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 19

 The East London Observer was lighter in tone:

The vendors of a doggerel ditty meant at first to

describe the details of the Buck’s-row tragedy,
but slightly and ingeniously altered in order
to include that of Hanbury-street, reaped a
rich harvest of coppers, but by no means so
large as that obtained by the proprietor of a
small waxworks concern in the Whitechapel-
road, who, by daubing a few streaks of red
paint over three sadly mutilated figures that
have done duty on many previous occasions,
and by exhibiting three horrible-looking
pictures outside his establishment, contrived
to induce several hundreds of the gullible
public to pay their pennies and witness the
“George-yard, Buck’s-row and ‘Anbury-street
wictims.” But his triumph was short-lived,
for a police-inspector, with some respect for
decency, had the pictures hauled down, and left the waxworks proprietor using the whole of his h-less (?) and
ungrammatical, if strong, vocabulary against the police in general, and that police inspector in particular.13

In the meantime, Thomas Barry’s solicitors, Abbott, Earle and Ogle of 11 Worship Street, had come to the assistance
of their client in an editorial published in the Echo on 13 September 1888:

There are only two houses [operated by Thomas Barry and his daughter] at the corner of Thomas Street,
Whitechapel, and they are next door to one another… There are wax figures of celebrated persons, a chamber
of horrors, an exhibition...14

On 6 February 1889, The Times returned to the subject:

At the corner of Thomas-street was No. 106, Whitechapel-road, and next door was 107. Up till November,
1887, shows were carried on at the two houses, pictures and placards being exhibited… In the autumn of last
year waxwork effigies of the women who were murdered in Whitechapel were included in the show, and a
picture on the subject was exhibited. This picture was, however, considered by the public to be too strong,
and the people threatened to tear it down. [Thomas Barry] took the picture away. A wax effigy of ‘Jack the
Ripper’ was added to the exhibition.15

An editorial in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 10 February 1889, not only commented on the proprietor operating out of
two locations but it also described the public’s reaction to the Ripper display:

[Thomas Barry] was the occupier of two houses in the Whitechapel-road… finding his ordinary attractions
had entirely failed to arouse public interest he took advantage of the excitement which had been caused by
the murders in Whitechapel to exhibit ghastly and disgusting representations of the victims. It was stated
that the public exhibited disgust at this feature of the exhibition, and that it was modified to some extent,
but the horrible crimes that had taken place in the neighbourhood were still sought to be made objects of
attraction to the public.16

In their 13 September 1888 editorial in the Echo, Thomas Barry’s solicitors referred to the wax museum as a chamber
of horrors. Why did they so describe it? There are actually two answers to this question. The first is, simply, because of
its contents.

12 Irish Times, Dublin, Ireland, 11 September 1888, Scene at a Waxworks.

13 East London Observer, London, 15 September 1888.
14 Echo, 13 September 1888.
15 The Times, London, UK, 6 February 1889, Central Criminal Court, Feb. 5.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 20

 A reporter from the Daily Telegraph named William Beatty-Kingston visited the museum in November 1888.17 In the
29 November 1888 edition of the newspaper, he noted that the museum was filled with all the most notorious homicides
of the day:

Another establishment, bearing some distant relation to one of the plastic arts, is situated at a street corner
nearly opposite the democratic picture-shop, within a vigorous stone’s-throw of the London Hospital. It is no
exaggeration to say that the most remarkable waxworks of this or any other age are now on view in a western
section of the Whitechapel-road… The show itself, however, despite its many repulsive characteristics, could
not possibly lower their moral tone; and yet it is unquestionably a “penny dreadful” of the most blood-curdling
description, mainly consisting of long rows of vilely executed waxen figures and plaster busts, propped up,
some upright, some askew, against either wall of the showroom, rigged out in the refuse of a Petticoat-lane
old clothes shop, and professing (according to the halfpenny catalogue) to be striking likenesses of all the
most notorious homicides of modern times. From Palmer to Pranzini the collection claims to be complete,
and its serried ranks, whatever their artistic shortcomings may be – and in this respect we believe them to
be unrivalled…18

Beatty-Kingston then commented upon the Ripper victim display:

The chief attraction of the show, as might have been expected, considering its locality, is a blood-boltered
display of revolting figures, purporting to represent the victims of the Whitechapel murders, laid out on
the floor, side by side, at the farther end of a darksome cellar, connected with the ground-floor room by a
rickety corkscrew staircase. These horrible objects are like nothing that ever lived or died. They can only
be compared to the visionary offspring of an uncommonly severe nightmare – unearthly combinations of
hideous waxen masks and shapeless bundles of rags. One of them is tightly swathed in a cerement of bright
blue glazed calico, scored and blotched with dabs of red ocre, indicative of the unknown assassin’s butcherly
handiwork. The others are somewhat less grotesquely arrayed in dark wrappers profusely stained with mimic
gore…19

Besides the horrific and gory display of current murder scenes of the Whitechapel murder
victims, the wax museum was said to have the most complete wax collection of murderers,
mostly in the act of being executed. Beatty-Kingston mentioned a display of the execution
of Henri Pranzini, the ‘Rue Montaigne assassin’. Pranzini’s execution was by decapitation
with the guillotine, which clearly made for an entertaining and gory display. He had been
convicted of a triple homicide in Paris. A woman called Marie Regnault, her maid Annette and
the maid’s daughter Marie were found in March 1887 with their throats cut. Mme Regnault’s
body was also mutilated. An article in the New York Times of 31 August 1887 reported:

The triple murder in the Rue Montaigne, for the commission of which Henri Pranzini has
just surrendered his head to the guillotine, was one of the most sensational tragedies
which even Paris has furnished to the criminal records of the world… Marie Regnault,
who was also known as Madame de Montille, was found on the floor of her chamber
dead, her throat cut and her body terribly mutilated. Lying near the door leading
from the chamber to the drawing room was the dead body of Annette, whose throat
had also been cut, and in her bed in another apartment was little Marie Gremeret,
her head almost severed from her body by the murderer’s knife.20 [Emphasis added]. Henri Pranzini

16 Lloyd’s Weekly, London, UK, 10 February 1889, Whitechapel Nuisances.

17 Beatty-Kingston, William, A Journalist’s Jottings (1890), London: Chapman and Hall.
18 Daily Telegraph, 29 November 1888; Beatty-Kingston, William, op. cit.
19 Daily Telegraph, 29 November 1888; Beatty-Kingston, William, op. cit.
20 New York Times, New York, NY, USA, 31 August 1887, Execution of Pranzini.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 21

 Henri Pranzini was born to Italian parents in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1856. He was handsome, charismatic, and fluent
in many languages. After being fired from the Egyptian post office for theft at a young age, he began a lucrative career
as an interpreter. He was hired in this capacity by the English army in the Sudan, and had worked in countries such
as Burma and Afghanistan. Pranzini was also hired by the Russian army during the Russo-Turkish war. Curiously, during
Pranzini’s short service with the Russians a few years prior to the Paris murders, he was employed by General Skobeleff.
Soon afterwards, the general’s mother was robbed of her money and brutally murdered. Pranzini mysteriously left
the service of the Russian army just after the crime and the case went unsolved. By 1886, he made his way to Paris,
jobless and in need of money. In order to satisfy his affluent lifestyle, he began to exploit wealthy single women, such
as Madame Regnault, by charming them, gaining their trust, and then spending their money. It was later discovered
that just prior to the murder of Regnault, Pranzini was in correspondence with another wealthy woman who lived in the
United States. Apparently Pranzini had murdered the three women at Regnault’s home in order to steal her jewellery so
as to finance his journey to the United States.21

At the end of his article in the Daily Telegraph, immediately after his vivid account of the Ripper victim display,
Beatty-Kingston stated:

To what extent it may influence the East-enders deleteriously, by fostering a morbid interest in crime and
criminals, can of course only be a matter of conjecture; but it seems a pity that such a debasing exhibition
should constitute one of the principal amusements available to the population of a poverty-stricken
neighbourhood.22

The details of Pranzini’s preferred method of murder certainly do sound eerily familiar; the Ripper victims were
also murdered with their throats being cut deeply and their bodies mutilated. Compounded with the murders being
‘immortalized’ in the museum at the same time as the unfortunates were being killed, this certainly makes for an
intriguing theory for a possible motive. It is worth noting in this respect that a wax museum might have provided an
incentive for the murder spree of Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. The crime historian and author Elisabeth Wetsch
wrote:

The roots of Sutcliffe’s homicidal rage are difficult to trace. His family appears to have been torn by dark
suspicions, on his father’s part, of infidelity by Peter’s mother, and the boy’s opinion of all women may have
suffered in an atmosphere of brooding doubt. As a young man, he found employment with a local mortuary,
and was prone to “borrow” jewelry from the corpses; in his comments, easily dismissed as “jokes” by his
co-workers at the time, there is a hint of budding necrophilia, more disturbing than the strain of larceny. A
favorite outing for the would-be ripper was a local wax museum, where he lingered by the hour over torsos
that depicted the results of gross venereal disease.23

21 Te Aroha News, Te Aroha, New Zealand, Volume V, Issue 25, 22 October 1887.
22 Daily Telegraph, 29 November 1888; Beatty-Kingston, William, op. cit.
23 Wetsch, Elisabeth, Yorkshire Ripper, 2005, www.crimezzz.net.
Ripperologist 130 February 2013 22
 How intriguing it is that the very first of the Ripper’s canonical victims, Mary Ann Nichols, whose body was found
less than one hundred metres from the wax effigy of Pranzini’s execution, was murdered on 31 August 1888, the first
anniversary of Pranzini’s execution! This suggests the possibility that the Ripper was retaliating against the female
gender for causing the ruination of men, specifically Henri Pranzini, and honouring him by killing them in a similar
fashion.

The second reason for the Whitechapel Road wax museum being called a chamber of
horrors seems to have been of a legal nature. In 1857, the Obscene Publications Act had
been passed in Britain. The Act was, in part, a response to public anatomical museums
which, under the guise of medical professional education, displayed graphic and sexually
explicit models and sold supporting pamphlets and literature to the public.24 One of the
most popular wax displays in these anatomical museums was the Florentine ‘Anatomical’
Venus, a lifelike image of an attractive woman lying down in a seductive position. Both her
sexual and her internal organs were fully exposed. In 1873, Dr Joseph Kahn’s Anatomical
and Pathological Museum was successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act,
which set a precedent for the bringing of lawsuits against other anatomical museums and
led many of them to close their doors. In his article Dr Kahn’s Museum: Obscene Anatomy
in Victorian London, Dr A W Bates of the Department of Histopathology at the Royal Free
Hospital, London, stated:

The prosecution of Kahn’s museum in 1873 effectively ended public anatomy

museums as an arena for medical education in England. The Jordans [a family of
museum operators] shipped Kahn’s collection to America, where it competed with
increasingly sensational dime museums in the Bowery. The Liverpool Anatomy
The Florentine ‘Anatomical’ Venus Museum, successor of the Manchester Museum, closed and specimens were sold to
Louis Tussaud’s waxwork show (‘true-to-life representations of prominent people’).25

Interestingly, Kahn’s museum was closed down alongside three other New York anatomical
museums in January 1888, the very year of the Ripper murders. The police acted in cooperation with
Anthony Comstock, a United States Postal Inspector and crusader against gambling, prostitution
and obscenity. An article in the New York Sun of 10 January 1888 titled Raiding the Museums read:

Kahn’s Museum, the most pretentious of those raided, has been in existence for 26 years.
Its manager threatens to make it warm for Comstock, who in turn threatens to make it too
warm for their waxworks.26

One London wax museum avoided this prosecution: Madame Tussauds. According to Pamela
Pilbeam of the University of London, not only did Tussauds cater to a higher-end audience but also
focused upon wax representations of well-known historical personalities, especially contemporary
figures, and eschewed the less savoury popular anatomical museum approach. In her dissertation,
Madame Tussaud and the Business of Wax: Marketing to the Middle Classes, Pilbeam states:

Much of the Tussaud’s wax fare was similar to that in other shows, the royals, assorted
witches, and aspects of history, but her models were better made and far more luxuriously
dressed and housed than in the average waxworks… There was never a risk that Tussaud would fall foul of
the Obscene Publications Act of 1857. They were careful to avoid anatomical models, some of which were
sexually explicit, without having any real scientific or medical rationale.27

24 Bates, A.W., “Indecent and Demoralising Representations”: Public Anatomy Museums in Mid-Victorian England, Medical History,
V. 52 (1): 1-22, Jan 1, 2008.
25 Bates, A.W., Dr Kahn’s Museum: Obscene Anatomy in Victorian London, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, V. 99 (12):
618-624, December 2006.
26 Sun, New York, 10 January 1888, Raiding the Museums.
27 Pilbeam, Pamela, Madame Tussaud and the Business of Wax: Marketing to the Middle Classes.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 23

 Even though Tussauds shied away from sexually explicit models, it did realize that much of its business came from
its waxworks of celebrated villains and murderers and decided to separate these into a ‘side gallery’ in order to detach
them from the waxen representations of prominent figures in history. This allowed Tussauds to boast that its main
emphasis was still on respectable waxworks.

Tussaud’s primary galleries exhibited exquisite effigies of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Czar Alexander II of Russia,
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, Garibaldi, Bismarck and Presidents Lincoln and Johnson.
They also had historical and literary figures, such as other Kings and Queens of England, Voltaire, Lord Byron and Sir
Walter Scott, and even King Louis-Philippe of France. There were many others. By separating waxworks into galleries,
Tussauds could also name them, and named officially its villain and murderer gallery the ‘Chamber of Horrors’.28

The stage was now set for ‘penny show’ waxwork museums, such as the Whitechapel Road wax museum, to offer a
gory and brutally explicit chamber of horrors show without fear of legal repercussions from the Obscene Publications
Act of 1857. Note how Thomas Barry’s solicitors’ editorial in the Echo on 13 September 1888 compared his establishment
to Tussauds. They were responding to a previous editorial in the 11 September edition which complained about how
disgraceful Barry’s low penny shows were, especially the Ripper murder victim display and its pictures:

Sir, Referring to your letter under the above heading in your last night’s issue, we beg to be permitted to
place the real facts before you. There are only two houses at the corner of Thomas street, Whitechapel, and
they are next door to one another. The one belongs to Mr. Barry, who holds a lease of the premises, and this
has for seven years been carried on by him as a waxwork show. The other premises are leased to his daughter,
Mrs. Roberts, and here she has, in conjunction with her husband, carried on a similar show to that of Mr.
Barry for the last twelve months. These places, we are informed by the proprietors, so far from being “sinks
of iniquity,” as alleged by your Correspondent, simply serve at the East, at the cheap rate of one penny for
admission, the highly useful purpose that the deservedly well patronized exhibition of Madam Tussaud
serves at the west [emphasis added]. There are wax figures of celebrated persons, a chamber of horrors,
and exhibition of ghosts (according to the plan of Professor Pepper). As regards the pictures at which your
Correspondent is so horrified, we are informed there are only two, the one single and the other double in the
events depicted, and that their character has been greatly exaggerated. Trusting you will find space for this
explanation in the next issue of your valuable paper. We are, Sir, yours faithfully,
Abbott, Earle, and Ogle, Solicitors for Mr. Barry and Mrs. Roberts. 11 Worship street, Sept. 12 29

Another connection between the Whitechapel Road’s wax museum and

Madame Tussauds chamber of horrors is that both had the murderer Henri "The popularity of
Pranzini on display. The Otago Witness of 18 November 1887 stated:
Madame Tussaud’s museum may
The murderer Pranzini has been added to Madame Tussaud’s Chamber
of Horrors. The artist has obtained a realistic effect by placing
be gauged by the fact that on a
his model murderer near the guillotine, an exact facsimile of the single day in the spring of 1888
one used in the Place de la Roquette on the morning of Pranzini’s some twenty-eight thousand visitors
execution.30
passed through the turnstiles to
The Pranzini display at Tussauds was seen by multitudes of people even see royal personages and political
in the spring of 1888. In Jack the Ripper and the London Press, L Perry
Curtis comments:
heroes on display as well as such
‘foreign-born’ murderers as Lipski
The popularity of Madame Tussaud’s museum may be gauged by
the fact that on a single day in the spring of 1888 some twenty- and the Parisian triple-murderer
eight thousand visitors passed through the turnstiles to see royal Pranzini."
personages and political heroes on display as well as such ‘foreign-
born’ murderers as Lipski and the Parisian triple-murderer Pranzini.31

28 Church, Roy, and Godley, Andrew, The Emergence of Modern Marketing (2003), Routledge.
29 Echo, 13 September 1888.
30 Otago Witness, Dunedin, New Zealand, 18 November 1887, Theatrical.
31 Curtis, L Perry, Jack the Ripper and the London Press (2001), Yale University Press.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 24

 Thomas Barry was finally convicted in Central Criminal Court. His crime had not been violating the Obscene Publications
Act but being a nuisance in Whitechapel Road. The live entertainment had spread on to the street and tradesmen and
the administrators of the London Hospital finally got together and successfully prosecuted Barry. The Era of 9 February
1889 reported:
Thomas Barry, a showman, was indicted at the Central Criminal Court, on Tuesday, before the Recorder, upon
the charge of creating a nuisance and exhibiting figures illustrating a show, and thereby causing idle people
to assemble and remain in the Queen’s highway… After a long consideration, the jury returned a verdict of
guilty…The only object of the prosecution was to stop a nuisance [to the satisfaction of the inhabitants of the
locality]. The Recorder adopted this course and the defendants were discharged on entering into their own
recognisances in the sum of £100 each to come up for judgment if called upon.32

When Martha Tabram’s life was literally cut short

on 7 August 1888, a chamber of horrors wax museum
located in the very same East End community was
already well-established, visited nightly by huge crowds
large enough to cause a nuisance to nearby businesses
and the neighbouring London Hospital. Even though
shady anatomical wax museums had been forced to
close their doors years before the Ripper killings, this
shady museum was allowed to continue because it
imitated the business practices of the famous Madame
Tussauds Chamber of Horrors on the West End of London.
The ground floor had multitudes of waxen exhibits of
executions of recent convicted murderers; in other
words, government-sponsored killings and mutilations of
human beings presented to the public – among whom
there might have been possible serial killers - to gaze
upon. The proprietor of the Whitechapel Road centre
of attraction had recently put on display a recreation of
the execution of Pranzini, a notorious murderer, by the
The Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud's Waxworks in 1849
severing of his head with a guillotine. Pranzini claimed
the life of three Parisian women in the spring of 1887 by cutting their throats, Ripper-style – although, since the French
murders occurred first, it would be more appropriate to say that Jack the Ripper murdered the five canonical victims
Pranzini-style, with the first of these murders curiously occurring on the anniversary of Pranzini’s execution.

As Jack the Ripper added to his list of victims during the late summer and autumn of 1888, the chamber of horrors
proprietor followed suit by adding a waxen figure of each victim immediately after her murder, thus immortalizing the
Ripper’s handiwork. If the Whitechapel fiend did visit the chamber of horrors at any time during his murder spree, he
would have had the opportunity to re-live his ghastly passion over and over again in the company of an audience eager
to see the horrific display. He might even have experienced a perverted feeling of power and exhilaration by watching
his craft recreated and observing the reactions of the many visitors. The authorities finally brought the proprietor of this
chamber of horrors wax museum to court, and even got a guilty verdict against him, but had to accomplish it indirectly
through a charge of creating a nuisance.

32 Era, 9 February 1889.

Michael Hawley holds a master’s degree in science (invertebrate paleontology) and secondary science education
at State University of New York, College of Buffalo, and has published research in fossil faunal distribution,
microstratigraphy, and rock correlation. He has been involved in genealogical research since 1992, which
ultimately led to his interest in Ripperology research. He just retired as commander and naval aviator in the US
Navy, and is currently enjoying a career as a secondary earth science and chemistry teacher. He resides with his
wife and six children in Greater Buffalo, New York.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 25

The Village Bobby
By PAULINE MORGAN

70 YEARS WED
“Radium” Wedding – Ex-PC’s Ripper Memories
Mr and Mrs Henry Hoare, of Axmouth, near Seaton, Devon, yesterday celebrated their “radium” wedding
– seventy years of marriage. They were both born in the village and were married there. Afterwards Mr
Hoare served in the Metropolitan Police.
His reminiscences of police work include vivid memories of the murders of Jack the Ripper; he knew
some of the victims personally.
On Mr Hoare’s retirement from the police he retired to his birthplace. At ninety years of age he and his
wife enjoy fairly good health.
The above anniversary report, from the Daily Mirror of 6 November 1933, includes what is no doubt a common claim
by long-retired policemen; that they had personal involvement in the Ripper case, with some going so far to say they
knew the victims, as Walter Dew did about Mary Kelly in his autobiography I Caught Crippen when claiming that “Often
I saw her parading along Commercial Street, between Flower and Dean Street and Aldgate, or along Whitechapel Road.
She was usually in the company of two or three of her kind, fairly neatly dressed and invariably wearing a clean white
apron, but no hat.”

Whatever the true nature of these acquaintances, at the time of the Whitechapel Murders there were hundreds of
policemen serving in H Division, all hailing from different parts of the country. This is the story of one, a native of a small
village in Devon, 150 miles from the East End of London.

*****

Henry John Hoare was born in Axmouth on 21 March 1845. His father
Elias, a cordwainer (shoemaker), was born in Axminster, Devon, his
mother Frances, a lodge keeper, was born in Canterbury, Kent. After
leaving school Henry worked as a labourer. On 5 November 1863 he
married a lace-maker, Mary Ann Real, in Axmouth church; she had
been born in the village in 1846. According to the 1851 census, her
parents John and Mary Real (nee Spiller) were the licensees of The
Ship Inn, Axmouth.

At the time, Axmouth had a tiny population of just 690. The only
water supply would have been the brook which rises at the top of
the village and babbles clear and sparkling down through the village 19th Century Axmouth

and into the river Axe. Candles or oil lamps would have provided the
lighting, with heating and cooking taken care of by solid fuel. During 1858, 45 ships came into Axmouth harbour from
destinations as far afield as Middlesborough, London and Cowes on the Isle of Wight, carrying cargoes such as coal,
timber and hides. Local men would have earned a living in the various jobs available at the harbour.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 26

 The setting for Henry’s rather sheltered upbringing was therefore a poor, yet
idyllic village with a harbour, orchards, farms, older houses, two pubs and a
church. It was a place where trades-people ran their small businesses.

Perhaps work was scarce, or maybe Henry wanted a more adventurous life,
for he moved away from the security of Axmouth by the time of the 1871 census,
which finds him at the age of 26 as a Police Constable in Hazelbury Bryan, Dorset,
with wife Mary Ann and their three daughters Emily (‘Polly’), Anne and Kate.

On 22 September 1873 Henry joined the Metropolitan Police in K Division,

advancing to 2nd Class on 19 January 1878. He transferred to H Division on 30
June 1880. H Division covered one-and-a-quarter square miles and was served
by four police stations: 76 Leman Street (Divisional HQ), 160 Commercial Street
(Spitalfields), Arbour Square (Stepney) and King David Lane (Shadwell).

H Division had been formed on 1 February 1830 and by August of that year it
consisted of a Superintendent, four Inspectors, eighteen Sergeants and 168 Police
Constables - 191 in total. By 29 December 1888 there were 587 Police Officers in
H Division.

The 1881 census finds Henry, Mary Ann, two daughters and the addition of a
son, Walter, living at 29 Bower Street, Ratcliff, London.

By 1888 London was the largest capital city in the world, yet the East End had
the worst slums and the greatest poverty and overcrowding. It was made up of
narrow alleys and courts with the streets dimly lit by gas lamps; dealing with ‘Polly’ and Walter, two of Henry Hoare’s children

drunkenness, robbery, fighting and assaults with weapons would have been the
policeman on the beat’s ‘bread and butter’, which is borne out by the following report involving PC Henry Hoare from
Reynold’s News of 9 October 1892:

ANOTHER PUGILIST SENT TO GAOL

James Donovan, 24, a well known pugilist, was charged at the Thames Police Court on Friday with assaulting
Constable Hoare 393 H. The Officer said that on Thursday evening, while on duty in Watney-street, St
George’s, a woman, who was bleeding from a wound in the face, complained about having been stabbed. He
accompanied the woman to Morris-street, and saw the prisoner, who was given into custody. Donovan said,
“All Right”, and walked with witness for a distance of about forty yards. He then said with an oath, that he
would go no further, and butted witness with his head. Donovan also struck him a blow on the side of the head
and in the scuffle he lost his helmet. Prisoner was violent all the way to the station and tried to bite. It took
no less than six constables to get the prisoner to the station. Donovan, who had been drinking, knew what
he was about. Mr George Hay Young for the defence said the constable made a mistake in saying the woman
pointed his client out as the man who had assaulted her. The prisoner did not intentionally assault the
constable. Previous convictions against the accused for assaults having been proved, Mr Dickinson sentenced
him to fourteen days’ hard labour. Donovan begged to be let off with a fine.

Henry Hoare’s truncheon

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 27

 In the East End in 1888 there were 76,000 residents living in abject poverty, battling daily for survival. It was
commonplace to find nine people living in one room; outside the stench would have been overpowering with the sewage
being thrown into the streets.

For those who didn’t have a room of their own, there were two hundred and thirty three lodging houses, with eight-
and-a-half thousand people looking for lodgings every night. A double bed in such a place would cost 8d per night, a
single 4d and for those who had only 2d there was a rope stretched from one side of the room to the other which one
could lean on to sleep standing up.

There was a large Jewish community in Whitechapel, made up of Russian, Polish and Romanian immigrants, who
spoke their own languages. Not surprisingly there was a certain amount of animosity toward them, for it was thought
that they took the jobs and the housing away from the local people.

Life was unimaginably difficult for many existing in the East End in those days, so people did whatever they had to do
to survive – there were 1,200 prostitutes working the streets of Whitechapel.

It was in this area and under those conditions that PC 393 H Henry Hoare patrolled his beat.

We can only imagine the anguish of a policeman with a wife and daughters living in Whitechapel when Jack the Ripper
was at large in their locality, as Henry and his family were by this time.

As an officer on the beat, Henry would have known many of the prostitutes on his patch; he would have seen them
and spoken with them on a regular basis. Whether any of the Ripper’s victims were among them we will never know.

On 24 October 1888 Henry was put on ‘plain clothes duty’ and was paid an extra 2/6d per week. According to
newspaper reports, he worked on the Whitechapel murder investigations; one of the victims he described as “a friend”.
Some of the plain clothes officers dressed as women and walked the streets of Whitechapel, hoping to catch the killer
red handed.

Two of the five Ripper

murder victims were found
within a mile of 29 Bower
Street, Ratcliff, still the home
of Henry (by this time aged 46),
Mary Ann and Walter when the
1891 census was taken, where
we find an addition to the
family, Percy, aged seven.

Henry resigned from the

Force on 26 September 1898.
Details on his pension certificate
describe him as 5 feet 9 inches
tall, grey-haired with hazel
eyes and a fresh complexion. He
had served 25 years and 4 days,
and was awarded a pension of
£51.11s.9d per annum.

Although the pension

certificate gives Henry’s address
as 29 Bower Street, by the time
of the 1901 census three years
later the family had returned
Henry Hoare’s pension details
Courtesy Keith Skinner to Devon, to Uplyme, but sadly
without Percy, who died in 1894
aged ten.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 28

 When the 1911 census was taken
Henry and Mary Ann were back in their
native village of Axmouth, where they
are shown to be living at Stepps, which
in times past was a terrace of thatched
cottages; Henry and Mary Ann occupied
No. 2.

Henry subsequently took an interest in

village affairs and became Parish Clerk.
We can only guess about their lives after
1911; no doubt Henry and Mary Ann would
have picked up the threads of childhood
friendships and family who had remained
in the village; what joy that must have
been for them! But a few short years
later they would have witnessed great
sadness as the village waved goodbye
to their young men – family and friends
going off to the Great War; with many not
returning to their loved ones.

As with most peoples’ lives, Henry had

experienced a share of joy and sorrow
and had seen many changes; he had lived
a diverse lifestyle between Axmouth and
London.

In 1934 Henry and Mary Ann celebrated

72 years of marriage, but sadly by that
time Henry had lost his sight. He died the
following year aged 91, at which time he
was Axmouth’s oldest resident. Mary Ann
died in 1937, also the oldest resident in
the village.

Acknowledgements
My thanks to Debra Arif, Howard Brown,
Chris Scott, Keith Skinner and Adam Wood
for their help with this article, especially
in providing information on Henry Hoare’s
career with the Metropolitan Police.
Mary Ann and Henry Hoare

PAULINE MORGAN was born in Axmouth, Devon, in 1941. She moved to Exeter when she married Chris, an
Exeter City Police Officer. They had two sons and have five grandchildren. Pauline, a retired Reflexologist,
moved back to Axmouth in 2000 to live in the house in which she was born. Since then she has been
writing and researching her family history.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 29

 The Men
Who Would Be Ripper
The Trouble With Teenagers: Part 2 of 2
Hall of Shame: The Frank Hall Story
By NINA and HOWARD BROWN

In the previous installment of this series, we focused on John Stevenson, a Glaswegian youth
charged and sentenced for assault upon a woman with a knife in early January 1889. Stevenson’s
defense counsel claimed his mind had been affected by reports of the recent Whitechapel Murders.
While it would seem more likely to us that attacks upon women by men using the trade name ‘Jack the Ripper’
would happen to prostitutes or sadly, wives or girlfriends, we have discovered that there were instances of drunken,
spontaneous attacks upon women who were neither prostitutes nor wives or girlfriends, nor street attacks upon women
in the early morning hours as occurred in the canonical and other Whitechapel murders.

Most scholars of the Whitechapel murders, and in particular those who trawl the newspapers on a regular basis, are
familiar with the comparatively long prison sentences issued by late Victorian period judges to persons who committed
crimes involving property. It isn’t extraordinary to find youths and the aged serving prison terms of years for what today
we would consider simple misdemeanours.

On the other hand, researchers and casual readers alike are familiar with the comparatively lenient sentences doled
out to individuals who committed domestic crimes (spousal abuse or mutual battery in the confines of the parties’
homes). Very unpolitically correct to us in 2013.

The Chance to be like Jack the Ripper

Sailor Frank Hall, the young perpetrator in this story, never claimed to be the real Jack the Ripper beforehand,
although in his drunkenness he may have said later that he was the Whitechapel Murderer, according to one press report.
Indeed, he may very well have been at sea when the skein of murders began in the East End of London in August 1888.
He fits in our frame this month because, as this story unfolds, we learn that someone offered him the chance to be like
the Whitechapel Murderer.

Even in an age in which people were recipients of lighter jail terms for battering their fellow human beings around
like cricket balls, the sentence Hall received is frankly startling, given that he admitted that he was drunk at the time
of the incident and said he knew ‘very little about it’—meaning his violent assault on Sarah Brett at the instigation of
Mrs Brett’s intoxicated common law husband on the night of 15 October 1888.

The Hall/Brett affair is mentioned in three books which proved of use to us: Jack the Ripper
and the London Press by Lewis Perry Curtis Jr (Yale University Press, 2001); Urban Culture: Critical
Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies edited by Chris Jenks (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 2004);
and City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London by Judith R
Walkowitz (University of Chicago Press, 1992). We also used several newspaper reports and the
transcript of Hall’s trial at the Old Bailey. Note that in the first cited press report Hall is said to
have been age 19 at the time of the crime but the other press reports and the trial transcript
give his age as 20. Of course, possibly he had a birthday between the 15 October incident and his
processing for the crime by the police and courts.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 30

Daily News
17 October 1888

Attempted Murder Of A Woman At Camberwell

Great excitement was caused last night in the neighborhood of Camberwell by a report that a woman had been found
in the gutter of Hornby-road with her throat cut. It appears that a woman named Brett, aged about 40, had been living
at No. 66, Hornby-road with a carman named Onley, aged 64, for some time past. About two weeks ago, a sailor, named
Frank Hall, aged 19, came to live with them. Last night all three were out drinking together and shortly before ten
o’clock a discussion arose, in which the woman said, “We’ll give Frank 10 shillings if he’ll get rid of me.”

No sooner had those words been uttered than Frank, it is alleged, took up a large carving knife and cut the woman’s
throat. She rushed into the street, where she staggered and fell. Inspector Taylor, of the B Division, with several
constables quickly appeared, and upon being asked by the Inspector who committed the deed the woman replied,
“Frank did it.”

Dr Munyard was called and stated it to be a dangerous wound extending from ear to ear. A search was at once made,
and the two men were discovered in bed in an intoxicated condition, the sailor being the worse of the two. On the way
to the station the youth said he was “Jack The Ripper” and wanted to know if they thought he was the “Whitechapel
bloke”.

Lloyd’s Newspaper
4 November 1888

The Alleged Attempted Murder At Peckham

Thomas Onley, 62, traveller, and Frank Hall, 20, sailor, were charged on remand with being concerned together in
attempting to murder Sarah Brett by cutting her throat with a carving knife at 68 Hornby-street, Camberwell.

Mr Chance said, as the case had been partly gone into by Mr Biron it would be advisable for that gentleman to hear
the remaining evidence. Mr Chance asked the inspector if only Onley had made any statement. Inspector Taylor said
the prisoner had declared that he was in bed and asleep at the time the crime was committed. Mr Chance ordered the
prisoners be remanded, accepting bail for Onley in 100 shillings. Onley’s employer standing for that amount.

Morning Post
7 November 1888

Thomas Onley, 62, traveller, and Frank Hall, 20, sailor, were charged on remand with being concerned together
in attempting to murder Sarah Brett by cutting her throat with a carving knife at 68 Hornby-street, Peckham. The
prosecutrix had up to now been unable to give evidence. Inspector Taylor was recalled, and said that at the station Hall
said to Onley, “You done it, and I’ll be a witness against you.” Onley said, “I was in bed and asleep and know nothing
about it.” The prosecutrix was now called and said she lived at 66 Hornsby-road, Peckham. She had lived with Onley
as his wife for 18 years. On the 3rd of October her son came home from sea, bringing with him the prisoner Hall. Hall
remained in the house, and he was treated as one of the family. On the 15th ult. Onley was out until about a quarter-
past three o’clock, but shortly after left. He returned about five o’clock and commenced abusing her. He then went
to a public house opposite. She went to the public house about eight o’clock and asked Onley to come home. He was
very drunk then. He said he should come when he liked. She went home and prepared supper. The two prisoners came
in about a quarter past eight o’clock. Onley said, “I’ll let them know you are no wife of mine and have no business
here.” Hall got up and said, “I mean to look after Mr Onley.” Witness said, “Get out of here, you ungrateful villain;
you don’t lodge here.” He, with an oath, struck her on the face. She returned the blow, which sent him back in the
chair. She said, “I think it quite sufficient to have Mr Onley on me.” Onley then said, “I’d give anyone 10s who would
do another Whitechapel murder of you.” Directly he said that he went upstairs to bed. Hall immediately knocked over
the lighted lamp on the table. He then struck her on the side of the head, which caused her to fall. She felt him grab
her by the throat. She struggled and became insensible. She did not know how she got into the street and remembered
no more until she was in the infirmary. The carving knife produced was upon the table at the time of the attack upon

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 31

her. She came out of the infirmary on Wednesday last and had since been living with Onley. Dr Maynard stated that he
was summoned to attend the prosecutrix and found her lying in the carriage was in Hornby-road. He found a wound on
the left side of the neck about six inches in length. the depth of the cut was at the commencement hardly half an inch.
It was not that depth the whole length. It was a clean cut wound at the commencement and might have been caused
by the carving knife produced. He dressed the injury and had her removed to the infirmary. The wound in itself was
not dangerous. Mr Biron thought a jury would not convict Mr Onley and he would be discharged. The prisoner Hall, who
declined to say anything in defence, was committee to take his trial for attempted murder.

Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 19 November 18881

Before Mr Justice Hawkins

FRANK HALL (20), Feloniously wounding Sarah Brett, with intent to murder. Second Count, with intent to do grievous
bodily harm.

MESSRS. POLLARD and MEAD Prosecuted.

SARAH BRETT. I have been living with Thomas Onley, at 66, Hornby Road,
Peckham—I have a son, a sailor, who arrived home on 3rd October, bringing the
prisoner with him as a messmate—I allowed the prisoner to remain in the house,
having board and lodging till 15th October, without payment; I treated him as my
own child—on 15th October Onley and the prisoner went out together, and came
home about three in the afternoon—I provided tea for them—Onley went out again
and came home about half-past five, and then he and my landlord went out to have
a glass—about half-past eight Onley and the prisoner came home together very
drunk—Onley is 62 years of age—there were knives and forks on the table, including
a carving knife—Onley said, “You b—— old thing, I will let you know you are no wife
of mine, and have no business here”—the prisoner said, “I mean to look after Mr
Onley, b—— you and your son too”—I said, “It is quite sufficient for Mr Onley to
commence upon me without your interfering”—the prisoner gave me a smack on
the left side of my face—I returned it, of course, and knocked him down in a chair,
and said, “You scoundrel, you ungrateful villain! get out of the house; you don’t
lodge here to-night”—Onley said, “I will give you [Hall] 10s. to do a Whitechapel
murder upon [her]”—then he went upstairs, leaving the prisoner with me—the
prisoner then deliberately knocked over the lighted lamp and knocked me over
likewise, and I felt his grasp on my throat, and I remember no more, only the knife
across my throat—I ultimately found myself in the workhouse infirmary, where I
remained till the 31st—I am not well yet; my throat is gathering now tremendously;
I have had to go to the doctor—this is the knife (produced)—it was on the table.

MARY ANN FAYERS. I live at 60, Hornby Road—on the night of 15th October I
was passing Mrs. Brett’s house—her door was open, and I saw her standing in the
kitchen and the prisoner standing in front of her—all of a sudden I saw the lamp
knocked over and smashed—I could not see how it was done—the prisoner and Mrs.
Brett were the only persons in the room—I spoke to some one who was passing
by—shortly afterwards I saw the prisoner come out of the house—he said to me, “I don’t want no row with them”—I said,
“Why don’t you go indoors and go to bed and take no notice of them—he said, “No, I am going on board my ship to sleep
to-night”—I told him he was too drunk to walk up the ship’s side—he was drunk—he began to unbutton his coat, and said,
“Hold my coat, and if he hits her again I will knock his b—— jaw in”—and with that he went in doors—and about five
minutes after I saw Mrs. Brett’s little boy, about seven—he came and halloaed through the keyhole of my door and called
me—I came out and found Mrs. Brett lying in the gutter, bleeding from her neck—I assisted her, and then went home.

1 Old Bailey Transcript available at www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t18881119-name-347&div=t18881119-64

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 32

 WILLIAM BRETT. I am a sailor—on 15th October I was visiting in the neighbourhood where my mother lives, and was
fetched home about half-past nine—I found her in the gutter with her throat cut—I tied my handkerchief round her
neck—a doctor was sent for, and she was sent to the infirmary—I went into the house and saw this carving-knife lying
alongside of Onley, who was on the bed in the front room, drunk—there was blood on it—Hall was in the back room,
drunk—on 23rd October I went to one of the cells at the Police-court, and saw Onley and Hall in the same cell in
custody—I asked Onley if he knew anything about it—he said no, he was in bed and asleep at the time—I asked Hall what
made him do it—he said he had no animosity whatever against mother—I asked him where he put the knife—he said he
put it somewhere in the front room, but where he did not know—I know the prisoner’s hand-writing—this letter is his.

MRS. BRETT (Re-examined). I received this letter by post. (This letter expressed his sorrow for what he had done, and
stated that he did not know what he was doing at the time.)

JAMES TAYLOR (Police Inspector P). About ten on the night of 15th October I went with two other officers to Hornby
Road—opposite 66 I saw Mrs. Brett with her throat cut—there was a wound about four inches long—a number of persons
were there—a surgeon was sent for; Mr Munyard came—she made a statement to me as to who had done it—I went into
the house, and found the prisoner in a back bed-room, partly dressed, helplessly drunk, lying on the bed—I found this
knife in the front room; the prisoner said nothing about it—I examined it and found fresh stains of blood on it—he was
detained at the station and Onley also—when the charge was read over, the prisoner said, looking at Onley, “You done
it, and I will be a witness against you”—Onley said, “I was in bed and asleep, and I know nothing about it”—Onley was
discharged by the Magistrate, and the prisoner made an admission.

THOMAS MUNYARD. I am a physician,

and practise in Southampton Street,
Camberwell—on this night, about half-
past ten, I was sent for to see the
prosecutrix—I found her bleeding from
a wound in the neck, about six inches
long; none of the large vessels were
severed; it was a clear cut wound such
as might be caused with a knife; it was
not dangerous in itself—I stitched it up
and sent her to the Infirmary.

Prisoner’s Defence. I know very

little about it; I was drunk at the time.
I had no reason for doing it whatever.

GUILTY of unlawfully wounding.—Six

Southampton Street, Camberwell Months’ Hard Labour.

NINA and HOWARD BROWN are the proprietors of JTRForums.com.

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Ripperologist 130 February 2013 33

 Ripper Fiction
Through the
Mists of Time
By PETER HODGSON

Would we be any the wiser if we were given absolute proof of the identity of Jack the Ripper?
Some people would be surprised and, no doubt, others would be disappointed. I think I know who
committed the murders, and I am sure that some of you will have a preferred suspect in mind...
but we can never be certain. There are some who believe that the Ripper is a fictional character.
In many ways he was, and still is. ‘Through the Mists of Time’ provides an answer to the question
regarding ‘absolute proof.’

*****

Friday, 28 October 2011. Dr Thomas Luce, the tall and

distinguished doctor of medicine, was standing at the first
floor window, hands clasped tightly behind his back. He
glanced down into the narrow and deserted Brick Lane. The
mist that had previously soaked up the road and pavements
was beginning to clear, and the light from the street lamps was
shining more brightly.
Not many members had turned up this time, Dr Luce
thought. Maybe it was the weather. The main enthusiasts were
there of course – Charlie Brookes, for one. Now Charlie was a
good all-rounder, an amiable fellow, full of interesting facts,
and nonsense too, if he was drinking too hard. He was a good
listener, but then again you had to be when in the company of
the charismatic Bill Faulkner.
The delectable Tracy Sanderson had, to the delight of everybody, managed to make the long trip. She was tall
and blonde – always welcome. They could never have too much of this adorable lover of true crime.
Dr Luce turned away from the window and returned to his chair. ‘Tracy,’ he said, ‘you were speaking about Joe
Barnett. What were you saying before the noise from the street disturbed us?’
‘In my opinion, Joe Barnett had a very strong love for Mary. She was killed with a deep hatred that could only
have been born of a passion that knew no boundaries. I mean, look what he did to her...’
‘What exactly are you saying here, Tracy?’ Bill Faulkner asked, leaning forward.
‘Well, for a person to do that to somebody there has to be a tremendous reservoir of emotion. And don’t forget
he left his clay pipe on the mantelshelf. You being a pipe smoker should be well aware that Joseph Barnett could
only have left his pipe if he was in a hurry. And he was in a hurry because he had just savagely mutilated his lover.
There is no doubt about it, Bill. Barnett was Jack the Ripper. He was the only other person to possess a key for
her room.’
Before Bill could reply, Carl Leenehan, the editor of Ripperworld, said, ‘There is new evidence to suggest that
Mary’s landlord was a serious suspect for quite a while. We shall be printing the article in question in the next
edition.’

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 34

 Bill looked pensive. Everybody had their eyes on him. ‘I still say you’re attaching too much importance to the
missing key,’ he said. ‘Remember the article I wrote about every door lock and key produced in 1888? You simply
did not need a key to lock that door; you only needed to pull it shut.’
Dr Luce pointed to Greg Payne who was holding his hand up in the air. He was a relative newcomer who had
travelled 120 miles to be present at the monthly meeting of the Gladstone Bag Club. ‘If I might suggest, uh,’ Greg
said, ‘the police used a pickaxe to open the door to Mary’s room. McCarthy must have had a spare key and the
fact that he didn’t use it, or for that matter show the police how the door could be opened by reaching through
the window, is an indication that he was hiding something. McCarthy is far more likely to have been the culprit.’
And so the discussion continued for another hour or so. Marjorie brought a tray of drinks from the downstairs
bar and offered them to the dozen or so club members present. There were 300 members of the Gladstone Bag
Club, many of whom lived in areas too far away to afford the time and money to make the monthly trip. They met
once a month to discuss crimes past and present, but usually the conversation focused on the mystery of ‘Jack’s’
identity. Dr Luce had a relative who had driven a police inspector to Mitre Square on the night when poor Cathy
Eddowes was murdered.
Every member of the club had a deep interest in the Ripper case; everybody held their own opinions on who
the Ripper was. Nearly half the members believed the reason for the Ripper murders was connected with royalty:
a certain victim had been involved with a royal personage, and the results of their dalliance gave rise to a plan
to keep the ‘indiscretion’ totally secret. The remaining members of the club supported many different theories,
and names like Druitt, Sickert, Kosminski and Tumblety were mentioned time and again.
By 10.30pm, a sudden quietness came over the group as Dr Luce rose unexpectedly from his chair and looked
sternly at his friends. He waited a few seconds and then picked up his small glass of whiskey off the table next
to him. The fans of Victorian mystery could sense a change of mood. There was a ripple of excitement. Finally,
he spoke:
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I have something of particular interest to tell you. What I am about to say must be
considered very carefully and is not to be taken lightly.’
‘Don’t tell us you’re retiring, Tom,’ Bill joked. ‘That would be the end for us all.’
‘This could indeed be the end,’ the doctor continued. ‘In my hand I have a letter from Harris University in the
North-West. You may have heard the names of three very talented students who have been working under the
guidance of Dr Paul Darrell, who is the Head of Science and Technology there.’
‘I read an article about him,’ said Tracy. ‘Apparently, three students have successfully isolated the particle
associated with gravitational force.’
‘That is correct. The particle in question is called graviton and its discovery has led to a remarkable invention –
what we would call a “time machine”. The three chaps who made the discovery are James Henry Wright, Clifford
Byrne and Adrian Humphries. This letter is from Dr Darrell himself, who tells me that the invention will probably
be used, on special occasions, for the detection of unsolved crimes. There are difficulties associated with time
travel and the invention itself has only been used for experimental trials.’
‘Are you telling us, Tom, that they can go back in time and tell us who Jack the Ripper was?’
‘No, Charlie. It’s not that simple. We are very fortunate because the opportunity has come our way to test
this machine, or whatever you want to call it, and to verify whether or not it can successfully connect with dates
going back one hundred or more years, and sustain contact for a significant period of time. They want to put it
to the test. With this in mind, why not try to unravel one of the world’s greatest mysteries at the same time? You
wanted to say something, Bill?’
‘It sounds very exciting, but in all honesty I can’t see it working. It’s just too fantastic. The Ripper, whoever
he was, escaped from every murder scene. One or two people actually saw him. But we don’t really know what
he looked like, and if one of us was to be transported back to Whitechapel in 1888 he wouldn’t know where to
hide. You can’t just walk down Buck’s Row waiting for Jack the Ripper to come along because he would see you;
he wouldn’t commit murder and consequently you would be unable to catch him in the act. Not only that, but
you could be a suspect yourself.’

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 35

 ‘What a fascinating idea,’ said Tracy. ‘You could commit the murders, Bill, and then transport yourself back to
the Gladstone Bag Club and we’d have Red Jack sitting right beside us!’
Gentle laughter sounded amongst the group. Dr Luce waited for his turn.
‘It’s an opportunity we will never have again, but you must realise this experiment could be extremely
dangerous. As I understand it, the journey itself is through time and not space. The destination point has to be an
area that is free from any physical obstruction, otherwise the time traveller could be killed.’
‘What if we don’t get an answer?’ asked Tracy. ‘Suppose the Ripper is too quick when making his escape. It
might be impossible to follow him through all those dimly lit courts and alleys.’
‘It could well be that we don’t get an answer. I’m afraid that’s a risk we would have to take. This time-machine
invention is an expensive piece of kit to run and there won’t be a second chance. Now - bearing in mind that
the whole mission must be carried out with the utmost care because of the dangers involved - who wants to
volunteer?’
Several people raised their hands immediately, including Tracy. Bill looked at her with a stern expression. ‘You
can’t go, Tracy. Do you realise that if you are seen by the Ripper you could be a victim too?’
She smiled wryly. ‘Impossible, Bill. You know that I was not murdered in 1888.’
Dr Luce continued. ‘That is a valid point, actually. Whoever is chosen to take the journey must be acutely
aware of his own actions. For example, if he decides to wait in the shadows of Buck’s Row for the murderer to
appear with his victim, he would have to take care to remain hidden. If the Ripper saw him his intended victim
would not be murdered. This situation would be referred to as a time paradox. We simply cannot alter what has
already happened. As soon as a situation develops that could change the historical events, the time traveller is
instantly transported back to the present time.
‘Let’s say that the observer carries a flash camera and takes a photograph of the murderer. The murderer would
immediately alter his actions and proceed to do something that he would otherwise not have done; and this has a
knock-on effect. So, as soon as you press the camera button you would end up back in 2011.’
Carl felt uncomfortable at this and appeared to be quite concerned. ‘It sounds like a very dangerous experiment,
if that’s what you can call it; but frankly I’m excited by the prospect of knowing the truth.’
Dr Luce nodded. ‘Well, the next meeting is in a month from now and I’m sure you will all be looking forward
to it. I suspect there will be a larger turnout in the view of recent developments. Everybody will be contacted by
email. Thank you.’
The members left the club and dispersed into the chilly
October night air. Dr Luce was standing at the window once
again watching his friends as they moved off in opposite
directions. A strange feeling of loss came over him – a feeling
of sadness; but as for the reason why, he couldn’t even
begin to understand. He slumped into his chair. Everybody
had gone and the only sound came from the ticking of the
clock which hung over the door.
The sound of footsteps came closer. Marjorie’s voice
broke into his thoughts. ‘We’re locking up soon, Tom. Has
everything been all right?’
‘Yes, thank you. I’ll be leaving in a moment or two.’
The landlady smiled and closed the door behind her. The
doctor took a piece of paper from his inside pocket and
unfolded it. It was a pencil sketch that he had drawn some
forty-five years before. The sketch was that of a man’s face, the face of the Ripper, or at least the face as he had
perceived it to be. That’s a long time, he thought, forty-five years. Even now, with all the theories, suspects and
new information that had come to light, he couldn’t make his mind up regarding the identity of the Whitechapel
murderer. One thing had been decided: in a few months’ time, all being well, he would be able to write the
murderer’s name underneath that sketch.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 36

 Two days later every club member received an e-mail containing proposed details of the time-travel experiment.
Charlie Brookes’s e-mail was slightly different. It read:

Dear Charles,

Since our last meeting in Whitechapel I have carefully considered the proposal made by Dr Paul Darrell,
along with the prospect of solving the world’s greatest murder mystery.

Recently, I spoke to James Wright about the concept of time travel and there is little doubt that once our
‘traveller’ reaches his destination – 1888 – certain situations might arise that could prove to be harmful,
if not fatal, not only to the traveller himself but also to people in our present time. However, Dr Darrell
is convinced that if the mission is carefully planned the risk of danger would be greatly minimised.
Having said this, it is absolutely vital to be fully aware of the dangers inherent in such an undertaking.

You have been selected because of your detailed knowledge of the Whitechapel area as it was in 1888
and as it is today. I also think you have the presence of mind to cope with seeing the murderer in action,
and then to follow him back to his base. In truth, Charles, it is a horrible mission and I must say, in all
honesty, that I would not volunteer for such a ghastly venture.

If you are in any doubt at all, feel free to withdraw from the trial experiment. If, on the other hand,
your mind is made up and you wish to participate, please let me know as soon as possible. We shall meet
Mr Wright at The Archers at 9.30am on 4 November to discuss the details of gravitime.

Sincerely,
Thomas

Charlie thought the matter over again. He felt apprehensive, though the prospect of solving the greatest crime
puzzle ever was simply electrifying. This could be the answer at last. He gazed at the books on his shelves and
wondered which one held the truth about the Terror of Whitechapel. There again, there might not be a single
shred of truth in any of them. He had been a collector for fifteen years and was very proud of his books and
magazines. Jack the Ripper in Fact and Fiction, Whitechapel Jack, Murder in 1888, The Final Solution, The Diary,
The Complete Jack the Ripper – the list was endless. There was a space left for just one more book and Charlie
decided to keep that space for his own title: Jack the Ripper - Through the Mists of Time.
For three or four nights he tried to relax in front of the television, but nothing could stop the buzz of excitement
running through his body. The strange tingling sensation could not be ignored. Then came the fear, not of the
experiment itself, but of knowing what was going to happen to Jack’s victim as she lay on the cold ground waiting
to be slashed and mutilated. There was also the fear of seeing this madman who would be a shadow no longer, but
as real as Charlie’s brick fireplace. And then the ‘what if?’ syndrome kicked in. What if he couldn’t come back to
2011? What would it be like to live in the squalid East End, trapped in a world where nobody knows you? Supposing
the Ripper came after him. What then? Oh, such nonsense! he thought. It will not do.
He didn’t sleep too well either, but he knew he could
opt out at any time. Dr Luce had made it absolutely
clear to him. He could hear his voice over and over,
‘Remember, Charlie, you only have to say the word...
say the word...’
He never said the word ‘no.’ On Friday 4 November
he travelled to Whitechapel and found himself at the
entrance to the upstairs meeting room in The Archers.
He was late as it happened, and made his apologies
before being introduced to James Henry Wright.
‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr Wright,’ said
Charlie eagerly.
‘Call me James.’
Dr Luce poured Charlie a cup of tea and began: ‘Mr Humphries is making preparations for the machines to be
brought to London. Mr Byrne is here in Whitechapel with Bill Faulkner and they are making plans for the trial. I’ll
let James fill you in with the details.’

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 37

 James Wright was relaxed in his chair, legs crossed. ‘The concept of time travel is not easy to explain, but think
of time as a track running through space, and instead of visualising it as an eternal straight railway line running
on a surface, imagine it as being like a ball of string endlessly crossing and doubling back on itself. Using this idea
it becomes possible to see that there will be occasions when our position, or point on the track, is very close to
another point on the track of time.’
Charlie nodded. ‘Yes, I follow you so far.’
‘Good. The search for the fundamental particles of the universe has been going on for decades now. There
are four of these particles and they are associated with gravitation, electromagnetism and the strong and weak
nuclear forces. My associates and I have discovered the particle responsible for gravitation – the graviton. We have
also discovered how to isolate it.’
‘This is a discovery of monumental proportions,’ the doctor said, his voice full of excitement. ‘Do continue,
James.’
‘The graviton not only bends light, but it can alter the fabric of space and, more importantly for our quest, it
can affect the time element of the space/time continuum.’
‘H’m,’ said Charlie, looking puzzled, ‘I am getting a little confused. Physics was never my strong point.’
‘You don’t have to be concerned with the theoretical details. We have built a machine that allows a supply of
gravitons to be transferred to a portable unit, a bit bigger than a mobile telephone, which can easily be carried
by hand or even fastened to a belt. The release of these gravitons allows various adjacent points on the track of
time to be connected together, and this is the fantastic part: a person can actually move through this connection
to the other point. We’ve tried it and it works!’
‘You have really tried it, then?’ asked the doctor.
‘Indeed we have, sir, but only on a small time scale. Clifford Byrne used it over time periods of one year. In
other words he located time tracks which were one year apart, a total of ten years in all. To facilitate the return
journey to the correct time, a small locator unit must be positioned at the departure time. The locator acts as a
link with the portable graviton unit. As I have mentioned, the graviton unit is portable and would be carried by
the traveller.’
‘So, with this machine strapped to my belt I can walk down Durward Street in 2011, press a button and then
find myself in Buck’s Row in 1888. It’s brilliant!’
James pointed a finger upwards. ‘It’s a dangerous mission Charlie, make no mistake. I possess a little knowledge
about Jack the Ripper’s crimes and Tom has described the murder sites and their surroundings. This aspect is
absolutely crucial to the success of this time-travel experiment. Remember, we cannot alter what has already
happened; you cannot affect any events in the past...’
At that point, Marjorie came into the room. ‘Excuse me, gentlemen. Can I get you something to eat? A sandwich
perhaps?’
Dr Luce looked at the two men. ‘No thanks, Marjorie,’ he said. ‘You can take the trolley now if you wish.’
The landlady wheeled the squeaky trolley out of the room. The young physicist continued. ‘As I was saying, you
cannot alter any past events because this would, in effect, alter the path of the time track from the destination
point onwards which would then cause the departure location to have a different separation. The link would
automatically be broken and the traveller would return to the departure time, with the dangers inherent in an
unknown return point in space.’
‘This is the tricky bit,’ Dr Luce broke in. ‘Again, we must stress this point. We touched on this at the last
meeting, Charlie. If you went into the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street the murderer would see you and then flee
the scene; but that can’t happen – you would then return to the backyard as it is today. As you know, it’s a parking
area now, so just imagine what could happen to you.’
Charlie shook his head. ‘If I follow the Ripper through the streets then anyone could see me. It will be practically
impossible for me not to be seen. Under these conditions, Tom, there doesn’t seem much point in doing it at all.’
‘It’s not impossible,’ said the doctor eagerly. ‘If somebody else sees you, whether it be a publican or a policeman
even, your link between 1888 and 2011 will not be broken if that event is not recorded, and you must not attempt
to make any contact. Anyway, you don’t have to go ahead with this.’

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 38

 ‘No, no, I still want to do it... James, if I wanted to come back to our present time how would I do it?’
‘Merely by inserting a key and turning it. I may as well tell you now, Mitre Square will be your destination. You
will observe the murder of Catherine Eddowes from inside an empty house. Trials will be carried out to ensure
your safe arrival, which will be several minutes before the murder takes place. The door to the empty house will
already be unlocked for you, and our involvement goes no further than that. It’s up to you from there onwards.
The portable graviton release unit can only hold enough gravitons to last for one hour. You must return before the
machine runs out. If the Ripper’s base is somewhere in Whitechapel you should have a fair chance of success.’
‘What happens if there is only ten minutes left and the Ripper still hasn’t reached his destination?’
‘There will be designated “safe areas” for you to return
to. Several small locator units will be situated in different
directions leading away from Mitre Square. Whichever
direction the killer takes there will be a safe area for you
to retire to, but make sure you have enough time left to
be able to get to it. These areas have not been worked out
yet. The safe area will be a departure point situated in
Whitechapel 1888 that will guarantee a safe return to the
destination point in 2011. You will need to know exactly
where they are. When you return you will not be knocked
down by a car speeding down the Whitechapel High Street!’
‘That’s reassuring to know,’ said Charlie, nodding. ‘And
when does the journey begin – in a few months?’
Dr Luce stood up and fastened his jacket. ‘No. The
departure time is two weeks from today at 9.30am’
Friday, 18 November 2011 would be the date when Charlie Brookes would become H G Wells’s time traveller. It
might also be a date when, hopefully, he could gain information that would prove invaluable in determining, once
and for all, the identity of Jack the Ripper.
A week later Charlie was sitting in the living room of his home in Hounslow, staring into his coal fire, and in his
mind’s eye were images of the Ripper stalking the drabs of Whitechapel amidst the swirling fog. He could hear the
sound of horses’ hooves and the voices of newspaper boys shrieking, ‘Jack the Ripper – another ‘orrible murder!’
Who was Jack the Ripper? His identity was shrouded in mystery and it was still possible for it to remain so. Just
like James Wright said, there was no guarantee of success.
The sound of the phone broke Charlie’s reverie.
‘Hello,’ said Dr Luce. ‘I’m just ringing to let you know about the designated safe areas. The six safe points will
radiate away from Mitre Square, in different directions of course, but all more or less the same distance from the
Square itself. I’ll have more details for you in a couple of days. Do you still feel the same way about taking that
step back in time, Charlie?’
‘If you mean am I still interested, yes I am. Funny thing though, I’m not scared about visiting 1888, but the
prospect of being within a few feet of the most infamous murderer ever... well, I find it rather unnerving.’
‘I think I know what you mean. The Ripper can’t hurt you, and by the same token you can’t hurt him. Listen,
if it all becomes too much just turn that key whilst you’re still in Mitre Square and we’ll have you back safe and
sound. Incidentally, the safe areas will be cordoned off for an hour after your departure.’
‘OK. Give me a call whenever. I’ll see you on Friday.’
A few days later the prospective time traveller came down for his breakfast. It was 8.15 and already the phone
was ringing. It was some young journalist who had got wind of the forthcoming event. Obviously, he wanted to
write an exclusive about the real Jack the Ripper. He asked where and when the ‘journey’ was to take place, but
he was given no answers. He was told that the press would be duly informed of the outcome.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 39

 Minutes later Dr Luce telephoned to discuss the safe areas. This was an important point. Charlie’s personal
safety came before anything else. A little later, Tracy Sanderson rang. She also wanted to know when and where
the journey would take place as only a few members of the Club had been given specific details just in case too
many turned up at the murder sites. This would attract too much attention and the team did not want hundreds
of onlookers. However, Tracy managed to tease the info out of Charlie Brookes. He was flattered by her concern
and charm. Her last words were, ‘Be careful now. I want you back in one piece. You’re not going to be another
victim of Jack the Ripper.’
The next couple of nights offered little sleep, and before he knew it Charlie was driving to Whitechapel. He
felt uneasy and yet there was a thrill of adventure in his heart. At 8.00am the traffic was starting to build up. He
slowed the car down as he turned into Brick Lane. A tall attendant met him at the gate to the car park and took
the parking fee from Charlie’s outstretched hand. It took little more than thirteen minutes to reach Mitre Square
on foot.
Mitre Square had kept some of its original rectangular cobbles from Victorian times. It was taped off now with
bright orange ribbon. Two men were standing next to a small van which was parked on the road behind a flower
bed. One of them turned as Charlie came into view. Dr Luce was happy to see he’d made it on time. He stood
back, admiring the ‘old’ clothes and flat cap that Charlie was wearing, and looked down at his footwear.
‘Yes,’ replied Charlie, stamping his foot on the ground, ‘rubber soles, Tom, just like you said... James, good to
see you again.’
James Wright extended his hand for a firm greeting. ‘How do you feel about the journey then?’ he asked,
rubbing his cold hands together.
‘Apprehensive – but excited.’
James started to walk towards the back of the van. He pointed to the driver’s door and said, ‘Get in, Charlie.
You can have a hot drink and I’ll show you the kit.’ Dr Luce entered on the passenger side, poured coffee from a
flask and passed it to Charlie. James climbed into the back of the van and sat on a chair facing a complex control
panel which made an intermittent hum. There were sets of flashing blue, yellow and red lights. The stuff of Dr
Who’s Tardis, Charlie thought.
‘This is the locator unit,’ James explained. ‘We are keeping this one in Mitre Square. If you wish to terminate
the event at an early stage, for whatever reason, you can return here. That’s why it’s taped off – to keep people
out. All the other safe areas are taped off; of course, we don’t know which one you will return to. This is your
portable graviton unit. As you can see, there is a small key on a chain.’ He handed the unit to Charlie, who felt
the weight of it.
‘I’m surprised. It’s quite light, isn’t it?’
James nodded. ‘Just insert the key and turn it, when you need to. Fasten it to your belt. Let me remind you
again: the blue light indicates that the time track is starting to diverge and you have fifteen minutes to return to
one of the designated safe areas. The flashing red light and low beeping sound is an indication that you only have
ten minutes left at the most.’
Charlie finished his coffee and wound the window down a little. He
could hear children’s voices bouncing off the office buildings. Curious
office clerks were sitting by the windows, glancing down into Mitre
Square.
9.00am. The final preparations were made. At 9.20, Charlie
fastened the unit to his belt and stood close to the kerb on the exact
spot where Catharine Eddowes had been murdered. Dr Luce looked
into Charlie’s eyes. ‘Have you got the stopwatch and the small torch?’
he asked. Charlie nodded. Dr Luce exited the square, stood next to the
van and waited. Dozens of faces were peering from the surrounding
buildings. They were getting their last glimpse of the time-traveller
before he disappeared from this world into another. Kids’ faces were
pressed up against the gate of the school close by. They watched in
awe. There was total silence – with just one minute to go.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 40

 Sunday, 30 September 1888, 1.20am
There was blackness before Charlie’s
eyes. The damp, chilly air had a
different smell now. For a few seconds
he was confused; there was nothing he
could relate to. Then, in an instant, he
came to his senses and realised he was
standing in the darkest corner of Mitre
Square. A banging noise emanated
from the warehouse and distant
voices echoed through the night air.
The Square itself looked smaller than
he had imagined. The cobbles were
glistening in the struggling light from a
couple of gas lamps and the surrounding buildings were black and ominous. Directly opposite stood the narrow
Church Passage which ran toward Duke Street.
With no time to waste Charlie altered his wristwatch to read 1.21 and made his way to the unlocked door on
Mitre Street. The door groaned as he pushed it open. Once inside he switched his torch on and scanned the room.
There was nothing of interest, only a few wooden tables and sticks of wood in one corner.
A few steps took him to the grimy window that overlooked the murder scene. Charlie spat on the glass and
rubbed a clean circle with his handkerchief. He peered through the window and could clearly see the lamps on
the other side of the square. The area immediately below the window was dark, but there was just enough light
to make the pavement visible from where he was situated. The setting seemed strange, so ordinary, but somehow
different to the way he had imagined it to be. At 1.30 he could hear the measured tread of the police constable
whose beat took him into the square every fifteen minutes. The constable shone his bull’s-eye lantern into the
corner that Charlie was watching. He then made off towards the warehouse where he made polite conversation
with the night watchman. A few seconds later they were both gone.
And now the anticipation and fear began to swell inside him. In the next few minutes he would see the man
who was the most notorious killer in criminal history.
At 1.35, Charlie surveyed Church Passage very closely but it was impossible to see much beyond the lamp that
stood at its exit from Mitre Square. He took a deep breath and waited for the murderer and his victim to come
into view. His eyes were wide open, his breathing more intense, his nerves on edge. He quickly wiped more
condensation from the window to clear the view but nobody entered the passage - not even PC Harvey, whose
beat would have taken him to the end of the passage.
At 1.38, the sound of footsteps came from the left. A man and a woman stopped by the window, only a few
feet from their observer, and before any sense could be made of the situation, it began - the murder of Catherine
Eddowes was happening before his very eyes. Without warning, the killer’s fingers bit into her neck, stifling a
momentary scream, squeezing the life from her weak body until she slumped helplessly onto the cold pavement.
‘My God,’ Charlie whispered, ‘it’s him.’
Fighting back the overwhelming urge to rush to help the poor woman, he fumbled for his stopwatch. Certain
people were interested to know how long it took the killer to murder and mutilate her. Charlie pressed his face
against the window but couldn’t make out much detail.
With lightning speed the Ripper sliced the woman’s throat and slashed and cut her clothes. The abdominal
assault then began. Charlie cringed as the Ripper ripped her again and again as if she was a dead animal. He
wrenched her intestines out and threw them onto her shoulder. This was followed by more frenzied ripping and
cutting at the internal organs. Pausing momentarily, the Ripper glanced around the Square. He then proceeded
with his devilish task, removing one of her organs and then another. He held his face close to the steaming, open
gash and stabbed furiously again before plunging his hand inside her abdomen. The frenzied attack had ceased,
giving way to a more precise exploration of the warm, slimy organs. He made a few incisions and lifted out
something which he placed on the ground next to the corpse. More cutting was to follow until he located what

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 41

he was looking for. Next, he stuffed two of her organs into his coat pocket. For the first time in his life, Charlie
experienced real horror... and a sense of shame.
The final phase of the mutilations involved some fine cutting to the face. Charlie moved back suddenly as the
Ripper paused to look around the Square again and then proceeded to tear a piece from Cathy’s filthy apron. With
the piece of apron secured he made towards Church Passage.
Two minutes had passed – he had taken just two minutes to murder and butcher her.
Charlie made a mental note of the time as he
hastened to the front door of the house. He carefully
looked to his left. PC Watkins had not yet turned into
Mitre Street. The coast was clear. He moved quickly,
his heart pounding with the stress of Harvey’s
impending arrival... and his subsequent demise; but
Harvey was nowhere to be seen. At the end of the
narrow passage Charlie looked to his right. Jack the
Ripper had almost reached the end of the street,
unaware that he was being followed by a determined
yet anxious fellow from the next century. The
distance between them became shorter as they
crossed Aldgate High Street. The street sweepers
nearby paid no attention to them. Little did they
know that a myth was in the making as London’s East
End was about to awaken to what would be referred
to as the Double Event.
The Ripper was walking at a steady pace, but not so fast as to attract attention to himself. He was oblivious to
the man who was following in his footsteps.
Indeed, this was the most important journey in the life of Charlie Brookes. It would ultimately prove to be
equally as important for dozens of people who were waiting right next to him, so to speak, in a different century.
The man was walking down Jewry Street, seemingly avoiding the rancid alleys, and, to Charlie’s surprise,
heading away from Goulston Street. Was he following the wrong man? His fear melted into panic. Aware that he
was constricted by time, and the location of the safe areas, he had no option but to continue his perilous journey.
There was no stopping now; he simply had to go on in the hope of discovering the truth.
It was 1.47. The graviton unit would sustain its contact with the time track for at least another thirty minutes.
They were now in the Minories. The Ripper was thirty yards in front, aware of the sound of distant voices and
the night watchman’s whistle sounding from Mitre Square. Charlie kept moving as best he could, but the strain of
the situation was beginning to overwhelm him. Suddenly, the man in his sights discarded the foul piece of apron.
Every doubt evaporated in an instant. Charlie turned left into Swan Street and felt his heart jump into his mouth.
Inexplicably, he was encapsulated inside a timeless myth. Jack the Ripper had stopped in front of a dwelling,
close to its front door. The street was empty and silent and the man, standing only a few feet away, was bathed
in a peculiar yellow light from a nearby gas lamp. Sheer terror froze the blood in Charlie’s veins. This monster
was standing motionless and silent, his blood-speckled, sallow face almost glowing in the light, his protruding
eyes black as night, his lips pale and quivering. For some unknown reason Charlie had not been transported back
to 2011. His ordeal was not over. Although paralysed with fear and helplessness, Charlie made a mental note of
the man’s appearance: mid-twenties, five-feet nine-inches tall, slim build, small dark moustache, wearing a grey
cloth cap, a dark-brown jacket and a black scarf tied about his neck.
The Ripper slowly took his crimson-stained hand from his coat pocket ...Oh those terrible hands that had
squeezed the last breaths from his chosen victims... those hands stained with the blood that a short time ago
was coursing through the scarlet, gin-ridden veins of Catherine Eddowes...
In an instant the Ripper opened the door behind him and disappeared forever.
The face of the Whitechapel fiend would burn brightly in Charlie Brookes’s mind - an image he would carry into
eternity.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 42

 Charlie’s stupor suddenly evaporated as he became aware of a beeping sound. The graviton unit was flashing
its blue light. With only fifteen minutes left he moved on swiftly towards Mansell Street. A few minutes walking
took him into Great Prescott Street where he encountered several early morning revellers. He continued at a brisk
pace, hoping not to be noticed, trying desperately to sustain his resolve, until he finally reached his destination.
With a sigh of relief he inserted the key into the unit and turned it.
He was standing in the middle of a car park next to the Grange Tower Bridge Hotel, feeling dazed by the
shattering event that had just befallen him. Several men and women rushed towards him and cameras clicked and
flashed amidst a group of journalists. A circle of agitated people formed around him.
‘Did you see him?’ asked one person.
‘Did you see Jack the Ripper?’ shouted another. ‘Who was he?’
Charlie felt a warm hand take hold of his. ‘Come on,’ said Tracy Sanderson. ‘Tom is waiting for you. He’s going
to take you home now.’
Tracy managed to stave off reporters and TV officials and spoke to Dr Luce on her mobile. Five minutes later the
doctor arrived in his car. Charlie jumped hastily into it. Before the crowd had a chance to surround the vehicle,
Dr Luce made a quick manoeuvre and joined the flow of traffic.
‘How do you feel, Charlie?’ he asked.
Charlie took several deep breaths. ‘I’ll be all right. Just give me time to recover.’
Ten minutes elapsed before Charlie spoke again. ‘I can tell you now, Tom, the murderer dropped the piece of
Catherine Eddowes’ apron in the Minories, not Goulston Street.’
‘Really? So the Ripper didn’t write that graffito after all. I can’t imagine someone else picking it up... It can
only have been a dog.’
‘Must have been. It’s not the only thing we so-called Ripperologists have got wrong... but more about that
later... My God, what a drab and depressing place! I don’t mind telling you how terrified I was. Really bloody
scared.’
‘I’m sorry Charlie, really I am. I should not have asked anyone to volunteer.’ There was a long pause, then came
the important question that Dr Luce was bursting to ask. ‘You saw the Ripper then?’
‘I saw him. He was standing right in front of me. There were several people in the area at the time of the
murder, and all kinds of noises. It wasn’t like in the films, you know. There was no mist, no prostitutes standing
under gas lamps – and no murderer wearing a top hat and carrying a Gladstone bag.’
An hour later Charlie was relieved to see the front door of his own house. That evening he took a hot bath, ate
a hearty meal and sat in his favourite chair once again. The only thing he could think about was the Ripper’s face
- those dark eyes burning into his soul. He wondered what aberration of the human mind could lead a man to kill
and mutilate women in such a hideous, sadistic manner. For Charles Brookes had been there when it happened,
had seen a helpless woman being butchered by a maniac whose crimes eventually formed the Ripper myth - the
lust killer as immortal monster and master criminal.
A special meeting was held at the Gladstone Bag Club two weeks later. By that time, all the necessary research
needed to bring the Ripper’s identity into focus had been completed. The meeting room was packed solid. Charlie
told his story and gave all the known details pertaining to a certain young man - except his name. The moment
they had all been waiting for finally arrived. An eager reporter raised his hand in the air.
‘So, according to your account you actually followed the Ripper back to a house?’
‘That is correct,’ answered Charlie. ‘I can categorically state that Jack the Ripper was a 26-year-old dockland
worker who died in April 1889 from a crush injury. His name was William Jarvis.’
‘Who the hell – William Jarvis, did you say?’ a news editor asked. ‘We’ve never heard of him. Now look here,
Mr Brookes, we expected something better than this!’
There was heated discussion amongst the crowd. Charlie picked up his coat ready to leave. ‘You have the
answer,’ he said, edging his way towards the exit. ‘Who the bloody hell did you expect – the Duke of Clarence?’
He reluctantly paused for several photographs and then made his way out of the building.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 43

 For the next few weeks the phone kept ringing and Charlie would explain the details of his journey through
time and his confrontation with the murderer. Many researchers and enthusiasts were not at all happy with his
story. How could Brookes observe Jack the Ripper without being returned to the present time? It was impossible
and shouldn’t have happened. What about the killer’s exit from Mitre Square? Was it not possible for Brookes
to have followed the wrong person? Also, his observation of the Ripper discarding part of Eddowes’ apron in the
Minories didn’t fit with the known facts of the case.
Charlie eventually settled down to his routine way of life, trying not to dwell too much on his experience. More
than a year later, Dr Luce called at his house. The time traveller had not attended any of the Gladstone Bag Club
meetings and had made little contact with friends and Ripper historians.
The good doctor was sitting opposite Charlie, glass of whisky to hand. Charlie wasn’t saying much.
‘What’s been keeping you away from the Club?’
‘Well, Tom, I’ve been rather busy this last year or so. Anyway, the mystery is solved now, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’ Dr Luce rose from his chair and placed his glass on the table. ‘I see you still have all your Ripper books,
eh? Mind you, it’s not quite the same as it used to be.’ He looked expressly into Charlie’s eyes and picked a book
from the shelf. ‘You have a copy of the latest title, then,’ he said, flicking through the pages of Jack the Ripper -
Unsolved, by Eugene Gardner. ‘An attack on the account as given by Charles Brookes: Brookes followed the wrong
man, Jarvis was too young to have been the murderer, and so on. I must admit the book is very convincing, but,
what happened to the book you were writing?’
‘I don’t see the point, really. My encounter with the murderer was covered by the newspapers and all the
relevant journals, wasn’t it?’ Charlie had resigned himself to the fact that his story was beginning to lose
credibility. ‘Nobody wants to believe me anymore,’ he continued. ‘Maybe Jack the Ripper has truly escaped us all
forever and, well, maybe that’s the way it should be.’
The doctor had a look of suspicion in his eyes. He had no desire to ask questions or to probe deeper. He took
a call on his phone. ‘I must be on my way,’ he said, feeling rather disappointed. ‘Take care. Please try to attend
one of our meetings. I’m sure some of the members will be interested in what you have to say.’
Charlie shook his hand but said nothing.
Dr Luce said goodbye and went to his car. Before driving off he looked at his sketch of the Ripper. Charlie was
right, he thought; you can’t expose Jack the Ripper... nobody ever will.
Underneath the drawing he wrote the name William Jarvis.
He paused, and added a question mark.
The rest of the day was one of reflection. Was the time-travel experiment a waste of time? Had it all been for
nothing?
Charlie was irritated by the doubt, the disbelief and, from some quarters, the ridicule. Damned Ripperologists,
he thought. He didn’t consider himself to be one of them anymore. How could anyone ever destroy such an
awesome legend? Certainly not Charlie Brookes. So, the disbelievers got what they wanted. ‘The research will
continue,’ Charlie said to himself, bitter with contempt. ‘New suspects will emerge, new theories propounded to
explain this and that.’
William Jarvis was an unlikely candidate - that seemingly insignificant, ordinary dock worker that nobody had
heard of. Still, Charlie had described the Ripper accurately with regard to his age and appearance, and that
dwelling in Swan Street held many grim secrets. But he had known all along that he couldn’t destroy the myth of
Jack the Ripper. And one day he would tell the truth... perhaps.
Jarvis existed right enough but, apart from a few misdemeanours, had led a perfectly normal life.

PETER HODGSON studied ecology and humanities at Poulton-le-Fylde Teacher Training College in the 1970s
and thereafter gained employment as a chemical analyst at a major industrial site in the North-West of
England. He has had a lifelong interest in the mystery of Jack the Ripper. Peter has published two books:
Critical Murder (2009) and Jack the Ripper - Through the Mists of Time (2011). He is currently working on
a third book. He is married and lives in Blackpool.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 44

CHRIS SCOTT’S

Press Trawl
New York Sun
16 January 1910

From an article entitled

LATEST ACHIEVEMENT OF THE TUSSAUDS IN LONDON
about Louis Tussaud
Mr Tussaud is full of interesting stories concerning Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks and his own connection
therewith.
“There are many collections in the establishment that the average visitor never sees; for example, the knives
with which people have been killed, the pillows on which they have slept the sleep of death, bits of hangmen’s
ropes and other gruesome material. The trouble and expense of acquiring these articles have been great, requiring
patience in unearthing them, skill in determining their authenticity, and money to back endeavor.
“For ten years I was connected with Scotland Yard, and before the Bertillon system was established I copied
the heads and hands of criminals. Once I was nearly stabbed to death in the cell of a notorious thief who had
concealed a weapon and resisted my artistic endeavors. Possibly he did not approve of the likeness. At any rate
his criticism was emphatic if not kindly.
“You probably do not remember the Carroll murder, which a number of years ago created a great excitement
in England. I made a wax figure of Carroll from the only photograph which we could find in existence, and this
was placed in the Chamber of Horrors. It was by means of this that the criminal was arrested, a woman who had
been to Mme. Tussaud’s recognizing him and putting the police officers on his trail. I received for this work a
compliment from the Judge on the bench, who called the attention of the officials to the help my figure had been
in running the murderer to earth.
“I trailed about with the Scotland Yard detectives for many months among the dens of Whitechapel and the
worse slums of London, trying to run the famous Jack the Ripper to earth. The adventures of that time would fill
a volume by themselves. I succeeded in getting casts and masks of his victims, but the murderer himself eluded
our vigilance and I never had the pleasure - shall I say so? - of a vis a vis with him. The most satisfactory account
of his absence was the explanation that he had gone to America. I may find him yet.”

The Times
1 October 1888
Charles Carver was charged on remand with begging. Joseph Bosley, mendicity officer, stated that he saw
the prisoner in the neighbourhood of Denmark Hill. He had in his hand some printed pamphlets relating to the
Whitechapel murders. He frequently held these prints between his clasped hands and prayed that persons might
be saved from cutting up men and women. When he received money he poured out blessings upon the giver, and,
among other quotations, uttered the expression, “Those who give to the poor lend to the Lord.” When refused
assistance the prisoner used foul language, and called persons servants of the devil. It was now shown that the
prisoner was a rank impostor, and had for years under the cloak of religion made a great deal of money. Mr Chance
sentenced the prisoner to three months’ hard labour, and told him that next time he would be sent to the sessions
for trial.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 45

 Lloyd’s Weekly
15 February 1891

JUMBO’S EVIDENCE
In consequence of the importance which the detectives attached to the evidence of the young man Friday,
known as Jumbo, we yesterday morning secured his attendance at Lloyd’s offices, when he made the following
statement:-
I have been engaged at the G.N. Railway Good depot about 11 years. They used to call me “Fourfoot” and
another boy there was called “Sixfoot,” but when we got bigger they called me Jumbo, and it has stuck to me
ever since; in fact, I am better known by that name than I am by my right name, William Friday. My work calls
me out early in the morning. We have to meet the fish trains, and the first one that gets there gets the best job.
I generally get to the yard early, but that night I had been to the Foresters’ music hall, so I did not go home to
bed. I went round to the goods yard, and I went through the archway home (83 Chamber Street) and I called up my
two pals, John and Joe Knapton. It was about half past twelve o’clock then. We all walked along to the station,
and finding the gates were not open, we thought we’d have a little walk, so we went down the Minories, along
Aldgate, and into the Whitechapel Road. When we got to the corner of Great Garden Street we found there was a
row going on between a gentleman and a chap, and the gentleman wanted to lock the man up. I went across the
road and stopped to listen, but my pals went back, and I missed them, so I walked back to the station by myself.
I went back through Union Street, across Commercial Road, into Backchurch Lane, along Cable Street, and down
Royal Mint Street.
As I was passing the Seven Stars public house, in Royal Mint Street (some people call it Rosemary Lane), I
noticed a man and a young woman standing near a street door just a little way off the public house. It must have
been just about a quarter to two o’clock. I did not take much notice, because a lot of young chaps and girls stand
there, and I thought it was a young fellow bidding his young woman goodbye. I was on the opposite side of the
way to them, and I went straight on up Mint Street into the yard, and looked on. After this I walked on the same
side of the Seven Stars, and the same side as they were. They were still standing there; in fact, just the same -
they hadn’t shifted a bit. When I got close up to them I caught sight of her face, and I thought I knew her. She
was dressed in black; the man’s back was to me, and they were talking, but, of course, I could not hear what they
said. As I passed the woman bent her head down.
It was then between ten minutes and five minutes to two, or it might have been a little more. I only saw the
man’s back. He was taller than the girl, and looked down a little at her. He wasn’t standing right in front of her;
he was just a little on the left side of her. When she bent her head I saw she had a black crape hat on, and some
black beads in front of it; they were sticking out in front. She was dressed in black. I then looked at the man. He
was taller than me, and had a brown overcoat on, with a velvet collar. He had a muffler or scarf round his neck. I
can’t say if it was a silk or woollen one. I know it was a plaid or a check. His hat was at the back of his head, but
not right at the back, and what made me notice him more was his ears - they came out, like. I should know him if
I saw his back and he had the same coat on. I spotted his ears in a moment, and what made me notice them more
was the brim of his hat, which was broader than mine. He was dark, and I just caught sight as I passed of enough
of the side of his face to see he did not have a beard.
I went on to the stable and harnessed my horses, but when I came by then they were gone. It must have been
then about five minutes past two - it could not have been more. I took the horses into the yard, and stood talking
for some time - I should think a good 20 minutes or half an hour - perhaps more; and as I went to the gate I saw
a policeman run. My pal Joe came up then, and said to me, “Jumbo, have you seen the woman what’s under the
arch with her throat cut?” I said, “No,” and asked him what sort of woman she was. He said, “A young woman,
not an old ‘un.” So I said then, “Was she dressed in black?” When he said, “Yes,” I said, “Well, I’ll bet a wager
it’s the young woman I saw speaking to a man when I went along to get my horses.” So I ran up to the archway,
but a policeman stopped me and told me I couldn’t have a look at her. I told him I thought I knew her, and so he
says, “Well, go to the mortuary.”

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 46

 By this time there was a lot of gentlemen up the archway, doctors and policemen and detectives. While I stood
there several came up in cabs. I heard the inspector say she had a black hat with crape on it, and I said to him,
“Well if that’s so I can bet any money it’s the one I saw near the pub, talking to a man.” Then the inspector asked
me what she was like, and I told him; and then he put a lot of questions to me about the man, and after I told
him, he said, “Jumbo, it’s a pity you didn’t have a better look at him,” and I said, “Yes, I wish I had.”
I went back to the yard and done two loads of fish to Billingsgate, and then I went home, and feeling a bit
tired, I fell asleep. Joe comes up to me and says, “Wake up, here’s a policeman wants you;” and then I was taken
to Leman Street, and I told them just what I have told you. They asked me how the girl was dressed, and I told
them that she was in deep black, and had a light black jacket on. They asked me how tall the man was, and I said
about three inches taller than I am, so they put me in the dock and measured me against the rule on the wall;
they said I was 5ft 5 in, and then I said the man must have been 5ft 8in, or at any rate half a head taller than I
am. I told them I could recognise the hat she had on, so the inspector says, “There you are, then, there’s two hats
over there; which one did she have on?” I picked it out. Then the inspector picked the other one up, and said,
“Didn’t she have this one on?” and I said, “No,” and he said, “Yes, that’s quite right; that’s the hat she had on.”
I think it was someone from Scotland Yard who said to me, “It’s a pity you did not have a better look at him;
you would not have had to have done any work for a little while.”
I was then taken to the mortuary, and shown the body. It was a sight, and I don’t want to see it any more; the
great big gash in her throat makes you feel awful. Well, I never eat any dinner or tea. Yes, it was the same woman
I saw speaking to the man; if I hadn’t seen her face I could have told her by her clothes. She was lying on a table,
and while I was there one of the big people from Scotland Yard lifted her head up with a stick, and then parted
the hair away from the back of her head, and he said, “They can say what they like - that’s a clean cut, and must
have been done with the same knife. It was never done with the fall.” Then he said to someone, “If she fell on
the back of her head how is it the side of her face is all bruises?” And then they both looked at the cut and said it
must have been done with the knife. I was very glad to get out of the place. I can tell you it looks a bit horrible. I
don’t think her face has changed much; she ain’t good looking, but the cut made her look horrible. The cut starts
just under her left ear and goes right round her neck.
How far is it from where I saw them standing to the archway where she was found? Why, not more than 40
yards, and, what’s more, I know very well that they did not go into the archway when I passed with my horses,
because one of our chaps came through the arch about 10 minutes past two with two horses, and if she had been
there he would have seen her. It is impossible for two persons to stand against the fence while two horses and a
man pass.

Salt Lake Herald

25 August 1901

HUNTING “JACK THE RIPPER”

Thrilling Experiences of a Man Who Posed in Woman’s Garb
(John T Sullivan) in Denver Post
The recent scare among Denver women because of the raids of the Capitol Hill thug reminds me of the reign of
terror among the denizens of the Whitechapel district, London, during the months of September and November,
1888. I had been in London for some months playing at Henry Irving’s Lyceum Theatre, and during the months
mentioned was appearing as Joseph Surface, with Kate Vaughan, in “The School for Scandal.”
“Jack the Ripper” at that time was a common phrase around the town. Those three words, “Jack the Ripper,”
were enough to blanch the cheek of every woman and send children shrieking into their homes. No one can
understand the reign of terror that there existed, and strangely, for among that class fear is an unusual emotion.
No one had ever met the creature and lived to tell the tale, so that impenetrable mystery seemed to surround
him. It was this element of the wonderful that assisted in making his murder so successful.
The first murder was that of a woman described as a blear eyed hag. She was found on an embankment in the
Whitechapel district, her throat cut from ear to ear, her body frightfully mutilated.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 47

 The second victim was Martha Turner, a hawker. Her body was found on the first floor landing of the George Yard
buildings, in Commercial Road, Spitalfields. Tuesday, Aug. 7.
The third was Mary Ann Nichols. This murder occurred two days later in Bucks Row, near the house of Mrs Green.
The fourth victim was Annie Chapman, who was killed Aug. 17 (sic) in the back yard of a Mr Richardson, 29
Hanbury Street.
The fifth was on Sept. 23, when an unknown woman was found dead at Gateshead, Newcastle on Tyne.
The sixth was Hippity Lip Annie, Sept. 30, on Berners Street. Her throat was cut, but before he could mutilate
her the murderer was frightened away.
The seventh happened fifteen minutes later on the southwest corner of Mitre Square. The murdered woman
was unknown.
The eighth victim was found Oct. 1 on the site of the intended Metropolitan opera house. She was unknown and
the body was decomposed.
The ninth occurred Nov. 9. Jane Lawrence was the unfortunate. She was killed in her room on Dorset Street.
The tenth crime was committed Nov. 28, and the victim was without a name.
During the ten days prior to Fen, 9, 1889, ten crimes of an identical character to those perpetrated in
Whitechapel were committed in Managua, Nicaragua.
July 17, 1889, a doctor in London, at times demented, confessed that he had used surgical instruments at times
when he was unconscious and had not assisted in any operation.

Victims All of One Class

This was all the data obtainable. The victims were all dissolute women, and the same sort of mutilation
characterized each case. The throat was invariably cut - as a rule from ear to ear - and the body was savagely
slashed and mutilated.
It was the night of Sept. 3 (sic), 1888, that made London, great as it is, roar with indignation from center to
circumference. In Berners Street, Commercial Road, Whitechapel, the body of a woman, identified as “Hippity
Lip Annie,” was found by a teamster, still warm and cut and mutilated as in the other cases, thus adding another
to the crimes of “Jack the Ripper.”
Twenty minutes later, at a distance of a mile, a policeman stumbled over the body of a woman in Mitre Square.
She had been similarly murdered.
When you take into consideration the fact that on that very night, in Berners Street, there was a social
gathering of the members of the Working Mens’ Club, an organization in Whitechapel, and that these men were
continually going back and forth to the “pub” adjoining the archway where the woman was found, it seems almost
incredible that a murder could have been committed without noise or screams that could have been heard by the
revellers. It was only twelve feet from the body to the floor of the saloon.

Murders Deeply Mysterious

Still more incredible seems the next murder. The Berners Street body was found at 11:20 p.m. The Mitre Square
body was found at 11:40, yet the policeman, at 11:33, had passed down Mitre Street within twenty five feet of
Mitre Square and had looked in and had seen nothing wrong.
On his return at 11:40, in passing the square under a gas lamp at the immediate corner, the policeman saw a
woman lying on the ground. Running to her assistance, he discovered that another victim of “Jack the Ripper” was
in evidence. He had the body taken to the Old Jewry station house.
When you consider that it would take twenty minutes, as it took me, to walk from Berners Street to Commercial
Road; up that road to Whitechapel; west on Whitechapel to Mitre Square, one wonders how this thing was done.
The next morning London rang with the news. The papers devoted pages to it, calling on the police to suppress
this scourge. Scotland Yard put in its best men, and Sir Charles Warren, since famous in the Boer war, then
London’s chief of police, called upon the guards and volunteers to patrol Whitechapel thoroughly. At least 2,200
men were serving as detectives in that celebrated district.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 48

Interest Was Universal
Naturally, all classes were interested; particularly so were the American residents of London, of whom there
were a great number at that time. We used to meet, probably twelve to twenty of us, after the performances at
the theatres, at the Victoria Hotel. A number of the boys felt like volunteering.
I might say, incidentally, that the City of London had offered £1,000 reward for the apprehension of the
murderer. Sir Charles Warren offered another additional £1,000. The Board of Aldermen offered another £1,000,
and at last the reward aggregated £5,000. This was to be paid to anyone producing “Jack the Ripper” dead or
alive. No one could give any description of him, as none who had met him had ever lived to describe him. Various
theories were offered as to his identity, but all were faulty and useless.
The only thing to be done was to catch him red handed - but how was this to be done? Well, we Americans
thought we could solve the problem. During the month of August a number of us attended a garden party, given
by Lady Mackenzie at her charming villa on the Surrey side. In presenting a charade I appeared in a burlesque of
a vivandiere masquerading as a guardsman, but still a woman. It was a very clever conceit, and William Jing of
Buffalo, son of millionaire King, suggested a plan for catching “Jack the Ripper.”
King had seen me at this garden party, and two nights after the double murder at the Victoria Hotel he startled
us all by saying, “I’ve got the plan of catching ‘Jack the Ripper,’ and it’s the only one.”

Jack Jolly Prospect

We all exclaimed, “What is it, Willy?”
“Well,” he said, turning to me, “Jack, it’s up to you - it concerns you principally.”
Answering my look of inquiry and turning to the boys, he said:
“The plan is this: Jack here looked so like a woman the other day that he could easily pass for one. Now, let him
dress as a woman - not too swell, but like the Whitechapel women - and patrol the streets and alleys and yards.
We will follow him up - have our guns ready, watch, and, if he is accosted, close in on the man - and that is the
only way ‘Jack the Ripper’ will ever be caught.”
Needless to say, I didn’t look at the scheme in quite the same optimistic light that my friend King did, as the
fact was evident that the women who had been killed had never had time to even utter a cry.
I was not so sure whether it would be “Jack the Ripper” or I who would “get it.”
Well, we sat discussing the plan until daylight, and they finally persuaded me that it was my duty to go
masquerading through Whitechapel - a perilous errand, mind you - provided I was given permission by Sir Charles
Warren to carry a revolver or a knife, to defend myself. Incidentally, too, there was the question of the $25,000
reward, beside the glory and renown to be attained.

In Skirts and Wig

At 7 o’clock in the morning I was at the shop of Madame Auguste, a sister of the late Sir Augustus Harris. She
was the best costumer in London, and had furnished me many dresses for the parts I had played. She entered into
the plan enthusiastically, fixing me up with a hat, waist and skirt. C.J. Fox, a noted perruquier of King Street,
Covent Garden, got up a wig for me at short notice. By 5 o’clock in the afternoon I was duly rigged out, and looked
like a healthy country girl. I had a slit made on the right side of my skirt that opened on a leather holster, which
was to hold a revolver, a hammerless Smith & Wesson, which I had brought from America.
Meantime, while I was contriving the costume, the boys were arranging for a permit for my appearance and
permission to carry firearms. Warren, then chief of police, thought a great deal of the scheme, but considered
that there was great risk attached to it. He willingly gave the permit for my costume so far as the police
authorities were concerned, but absolutely refused the permit to carry arms.
Nothing daunted, I went down to Scotland Yard and told my story to Marshall, one of the most famous detectives
in England. He assured me that the permit to pass the police lines would also include a defensive weapon, and
told me to go ahead.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 49

On a Perilous Mission
It was the night of Oct. 2, 1888, that I left the Globe Theatre, where I was playing, and started on my perilous
but extremely fascinating undertaking. It was 10:30 o’clock, and King and Elliott, fellow Americans whom I have
mentioned, were with me. I was fully equipped. My revolver I could feel pressing against my thigh at every step.
I reached through the slit I had made in my dress and found the revolver ready for use. It was arranged on a
swivel, by which I could turn it in any direction and shoot through my skirt in such fashion as I pleased, and at a
moment’s notice.
I cannot quite describe my sensations. I was all excitement through holding myself down and displaying no
trepidation. I knew the great risk I ran. I was to become a target. I was going out to be killed - unless I should
prove quicker with my revolver than the “Ripper” was with his knife, and his awful swiftness and certainty with
that weapon were indisputable.

Start for the Slums

Well, at the Globe theatre we entered a bus, went through the Strand into Fleet Street, to Ludgate Hill, through
St. Paul’s churchyard, into Whitechapel. At Commercial Road we alighted, and then began our quest. We entered
a couple of “pubs” near Spitalfields Market, went into the women’s bar and mingled with the many habitues of
the crowded groggery. I attracted some attention from the women, but the men paid no attention to me. Out into
the street again, over through the market and then into the slums and mews of the wickedest part of London.
To be sure my friends, dressed as sailors and rolling along drunkenly as if they were tars just given shore leave
and out for a holiday, followed me closely. But they were always twenty or more yards behind me, and I kept my
hand on my revolver and thought of the “Ripper” and his swift work.
I was a plain country hussy, not over particular as to neatness and willing to drink with any of the hardened
male debauchees whom I met. I made my second stop at a “pub” called “The Twin Anchors,” I pretended to be
considerable under the influence of liquor. I called to the men to come and drink with me. They did so, without
comment. They were meanly dressed and dirty, but they made no effort of affront. My two watchful trailers
halted and put in the time bantering two women of the streets.

Failed to Find Trouble

After I had got my drink and found that nobody had any indignities or insults to offer, I reeled along the purlieus
of ignorance, filth and vice, working my way through the Whitechapel district.
But I want to say now, and I remarked it with astonishment at the time, that not once during the entire fortnight
which I gave to this work was I offered insult, or even accosted, by the best or the worst of those debauched
denizens of that horrible dirty and most vicious and uncontrolled district.
The sights I saw would disgust a satyr. The drunkenness, the wantonness, the vileness, the foul language and
utter depravity of the Whitechapel district are things I will never forget.
Whitechapel, you know, has no counterpart in any other country. This great, populous home of the debauched
is a perfect labyrinth of twisting alleyways, queer shaped courts, blind passages and all sorts of odd nooks and
corners. It is easy to get lost there, and one might wander for days without encountering a familiar locality to
guide him back to his starting point.

‘Mid Scenes of Squalor

In these courts and narrow passages, thousands of hucksters and peddlers back their wagons at night. In many
places these vehicles are so closely packed together that it takes ten minutes to wind among them for the space
of a square. The entire district is at night a perfectly safe harbor for thieves, cut throats and all manner of social
outcasts. The masses of depraved and debauched humanity I saw beneath those wagons were pictures of vileness
that so impressed me that they remain as vividly in my mind today as that first night when, with my false hair
touzled like that of the veriest drab, my face smudged with soot and my hand ever pressing the pistol inside my
dress, I wandered through the mazes of that great, dark area of filth and drunkenness, and the mystery of sudden,
horrible and totally inexplicable death.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 50

 I soon grew sick of the sights I saw and, but for the overpowering interest of the quest and my keen desire to
meet and see and conquer this bloody fiend who kept the thousand silly tongues of Whitechapel wagging, I should
have given up the undertaking after the first two hours. But, as it was, my determination increased each moment
- and I will tell you that I had some thrilling moments, too.

Followed by Friends
My friends, dressed as roistering sailors and playing the parts with great effect, were always within forty or
fifty yards of me, but they could not keep me every moment in sight. There were sharp angles to turn, and I must
turn them, else be detected in my masquerade. I realized how easy it would be, unless I proceeded with unusual
caution, to be struck down from behind, from overhead, maybe, or by some dark imp springing from out the gloom
beneath one of the wagons that crowded the courts.
The women of the district were full of gossip and all sorts of wild guesses concerning the mysterious murderer.
It was pretty generally agreed, however, that the fiend was a man called “Leather Apron,” who had suddenly
appeared at various times to several women and given them awful frights. No definite description could be had of
him, beyond the statement that he wore a leather apron reaching down from his chin to his knees. The fact that
he had been seen in various parts of the district on the same night gave strength to the theory that he was the
“Ripper,” and you may wager that I kept especially keen watch for anything that looked like leather.
Well, we worked hard, we three Americans. Every night after my work at the theatre, I put on my slum togs,
my friends did the same, and we started on our zigzag saunterings through Whitechapel. It was hard work, for we
seldom left the field of our efforts before dawn began to send its murky white shafts down among the sleeping,
blear eyed, carousing denizens.

Very Little Doing

My only adventure during the entire campaign was on the tenth night of my vigil. It was about 3 o’clock in the
morning, and I was greatly fatigued, and, I presume, showed my weariness in my walk. I had dishevelled the hair
at the back of my wig, and, as I wandered carelessly along, I must have been about the most dejected looking
figure abroad.
I had just turned a sharp corner into Dorset Street, near the spot where one of the murders had been committed,
when suddenly I felt, rather than saw, a man close behind me. He appeared so swiftly and so silently that I could
not form the slightest idea of where he had come from. It really seemed as if he had sprung out of the earth.
A cold chill went over me as I got the revolver firmly in my grasp, ready to fire into the body of my enemy at a
second’s warning. I saw a man of apparently 45 years glancing up at me with a peculiar look in his eyes - a wild,
demented look. He had a stubbly, reddish beard on his chin, and below that a leather apron down to his knees.
This, then, was “Leather Apron.” Would he grasp me by my head, and, passing a quick hand beneath my chin,
cut my throat as the throats of others had been cut? I had not much time at my disposal - in fact, the whole thing
was over in a flash. But I did a good deal of thinking during that fateful moment. Then I made a sudden grab at his
shoulder with my disengaged hand, but he was too quick for me. He gave me another wild stare, turned suddenly
and was off like a shot, running noiselessly but swiftly.

An Exciting Foot Race

I ran after him, and my two friends, seeing this, ran after me. We could not overtake the man, but we notified
Scotland Yard, and, by great luck more than anything else, “Leather Apron” was apprehended and the newspapers
were full of it, all claiming that the “Ripper” had been caught.
But it wasn’t the “Ripper” at all. I went down to the court next morning and identified him as the man I had
encountered in Dorset Street, but it was shown that he was an eccentric but harmless employee in a harness shop
in Fleet Street, and that his only object in stealing about at night was to frighten women, and see them run.
After two weeks of this sleuthing, my physician told me I would have to give it up. The continuous excitement
- or, more properly, suspense - together with the unavoidable loss of sleep, was wearing on me and would soon lay
me on my back, he said, so I gave up the cause. But I will never forget that experience.
One significant fact, however, marked my connection with the case. I commenced my search two days after
the murder of the woman “Hippity Lip Annie,” which occurred Sept. 30. Other murders, preceding this one, had

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 51

been committed at intervals of only a few days. No murders were committed during the period of our sleuthing.
Other murders followed close upon the conclusion of our vigil. My deduction was that the “Ripper” knew of our
movements, and I believe that to this day.

Solution of Famous Mystery

As to the identity of “Jack the Ripper,” both the man and his habitat are known. But, mind you, it is only in
the last three months that this fact has come out. At the time of which I write London was divided in its opinions.
Some thought the work was that of a frenzied sailor - a butcher on one of the cattle transports, who had taken
this form of revenge upon those poor outcasts for a fancied wrong. Others held that it was a physician who had
suffered in the same way. The latter surmise was correct. It was a physician, a reputable man in London - a perfect
Jekyll and Hyde. He had developed a homicidal mania and had been confined in a private sanatorium in a suburb of
London. How he escaped was a mystery, but Scotland Yard knows that man today. He is an exile from his country.
He lives at Buenos Ayres, in the Argentine Republic, and there being no law of extradition between that nation
and England, he is entirely safe there. I have this on the best authority, although this is the first time the facts
have been given to the public.
“Jack the Ripper” has not been in evidence since Dr. E left England. I need hardly say that he is under close
surveillance in the Argentine capital, so that there will no repetition of his offense.

The Daily Mail

December 2, 2006

THE SKELETON IN MY CUPBOARD

Many of us have dark family secrets. But when one writer saw a TV documentary
about Jack the Ripper this week, he was forced to confront a chilling possibility
Last week, in an absorbing Channel Five television documentary, three criminologists attempted to apply
modern forensic science to put a name and face to the most notorious serial killer in criminal history. For more
than ten weeks in the terror stricken autumn of 1888, an unknown solitary assailant stalked the noisome alleys of
Whitechapel, in London, killing and mutilating five prostitutes, and possibly 13 other women.
He has entered folklore as Jack the Ripper. Yet after 118 years of concentrated investigation, millions of
words, more than 200 suspects, and every sort of conspiracy theory and myth imaginable, we are still no nearer
to discovering his identity.
Last week’s ingenious attempt (by Laura Richards, a behavioural psychologist with the violent crime directorate
at New Scotland Yard, John Grieve, formerly head of the Yard’s murder squad, and Dr Kim Rossmo, of the
Department of Criminal Justice in Texas) to find out who he was, ended in failure.
A shawl allegedly taken from the butchered body of the Ripper’s fourth undoubted victim, Catherine Eddowes,
failed to render DNA - either her own or her killer’s. The door appeared to have slammed shut on the last chance
of solving the greatest unsolved crimes of all time.
Despite this, I found myself watching the documentary transfixed, and with an overwhelming morbid fascination.
Some of the content in the documentary startled me and forced me to confront an alarming possibility that I
had rejected and pushed to the back of my mind for almost 30 years. Could Jack the Ripper have been a member
of my own family?
I was 37 and living in a flat opposite the Royal Mews in Buckingham Palace Road in 1978, when I first heard this
astonishing story from my half-sister, Doreen Gillham, who was 25 years my senior, and the child of my father’s
first marriage.
She told me: ‘Grandpa was a rather funny man - funny peculiar. Very peculiar in fact. Grandpa was a man who
had secrets.
‘When I was 16, I remember Granny telling me once: “Len has a dark side to his life.” And for a long time she
would never tell me what she meant.
‘Then, one day, not long before she died, it all came out. They had married for love, but the first years of their
marriage were really difficult.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 52

 ‘There were differences between them - sexual differences, also religious differences. Then, three years after
they got married, Grandpa was investigated by the police, who thought he was Jack the Ripper.’ ‘He was never
charged, but Granny suspected it was true, and I am convinced of it.
Doreen was sometimes given to bold statements, but this time I thought she had lost the plot.’ I asked
incredulously: ‘You think our grandfather was Jack the Ripper?’ She looked back at me with a calm, unblinking
stare. ‘Yes,’ she said.
Doreen was 63 at that time and I attributed this pronouncement to the ageing process.
My sister, Jean Wheeler, the last surviving member of the family who knew my grandparents, says: ‘I don’t
believe this story, but no one knew them as well as she did.’ Before last week’s documentary, I had not realised
the police tracked down 13 eyewitnesses in 1888, all of whom probably saw the Ripper as he went about his
murderous onslaughts.
To my astonishment, the physical details described - in terms of age, height, colouring and appearance -
matched my grandfather with uncanny precision. This caused me to look more deeply into his life.
Leonard Booker Thornton (‘Len’ to his family) was born on September 24, 1859, at 24 London Terrace, Bethnal
Green, a short walk away from the dark Whitechapel streets where the Ripper went about his gruesome work.
Len’s ancestors had been rectors of Birkin, Yorkshire. One branch of the family became extremely rich and
influential, producing a banker, an MP, and the celebrated novelist, E M Forster, of whom his cousin, my grandfather,
disapproved deeply on account of his homosexuality.
The other branch, by comparison, was poor. My grandfather was the son of a well-to-do master linen draper,
Tom Thornton. He owned several shops, but when he discovered his son did not intend to follow him into the
business, planning to study medicine instead, he told him he must earn the money to pay for his tuition.
Accordingly, Len, at 18, went to work for a Bethnal Green blacksmith, transporting lame, sick and elderly
horses to the slaughterhouse in Whitechapel, where he learned the grim task of dismembering the carcasses.
In time, he earned enough money to train at the London Hospital in Whitechapel Road, the merest stone’s
throw from the scene of the Ripper gruesome murders.
There, he studied anatomy, performed amputations and other surgical procedures, and found himself deeply
affected by the poverty and disease in the area.
In his diary, now in my possession, he wrote of ‘the terrible bacilli of consumption. There, under the specialist’s
eyes was the minute life more vicious than a hungry beast, more deadly than a sword’.
Late at night, invariably short of money, he would walk home alone through the darkened streets, sometimes
bloodstained from his work, ignoring the blandishments of the prostitutes, and carrying his surgical tools in a little
black Gladstone bag, an accessory that has become an indispensable part of Ripper folklore.
By the age of 25, he had qualified as a chemist and druggist, and on July 26, 1885, he married Hannah
O’Sullivan, an Irish Catholic and a member of the famous O’Sullivan clan of County Cork.
Her family felt she was marrying beneath her, and they were aghast when she abandoned her Catholicism to
marry in a Wesleyan Methodist chapel in Lambeth.
Their first child, Mabel, was born the following year, but was to be sickly all her life, dying unmarried at the
age of 23.
It was during Hannah’s second pregnancy, which began in December 1887, that the Ripper murders commenced.
By that time, there was already trouble in the marriage on both religious and sexual grounds. Len, an atheist,
wrote in his diary: ‘Religion is the opium of the poor,’ and added: ‘I consider religion to be a mania when it
interferes with the legitimate development of human nature.’ According to Hannah’s later revelations to her
granddaughter, Len, deprived by the pregnancy of sexual relations, became moody and began coming home in the
middle of the night.
‘I could not help noticing that his clothes were often bloodstained,’ she said, ‘but he told me that this was
from his hospital work’.
Two Whitechapel prostitutes, Mary Ann Nichols - ‘Polly’, and ‘Dark’ Annie Chapman, had been killed and
mutilated, the latter on September 8, 1888, only two days before the birth of Len and Hannah’s son, my father,
Reginald Leonard Thornton.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 53

 There was a respite of almost three weeks before two more prostitutes, Elizabeth (‘Long Liz’) Stride and
Catherine Eddowes, were butchered on the same night.
The last and most terrible of the Ripper murders, that of Mary Jane Kelly, followed on November 9. She had
been horribly mutilated, with her sexual organs and other body parts distributed around her room.
Dennis Halsted, a doctor at the London Hospital, observed that these mutilations had been performed with
‘great surgical skill’.
It was shortly after the Kelly murder that the police descended on my grandfather. He owned two houses, with
servants, and two chemist’s shops in Lambeth, but his outward respectability did not prevent him from becoming
a suspect.
The eyewitness accounts of the Ripper all described a man aged between 25 and 30. My grandfather was 29.
The killer was said to stand between 5ft 5in and 5ft 7in. My grandfather was 5ft 7in. The murderer was said
to have a brown moustache, ‘carroty in colour’. My sister, Jean, who sat on his knee aged six, remembers my
grandfather’s moustache as ‘gingery’.
Doreen was told by our grandmother that Len was not arrested by the police - but they were clearly very
suspicious of him, even though they had no evidence. He was asked some searching questions, and for a time was
followed by plain clothes officers.
Len’s diary entries of the time, scrawled in black ink, often seemed to reveal a man deeply troubled.
On one page he wrote: ‘The devil will lead you down into hell.’ On another: ‘The mainspring of human actions
is human passions. For good or evil, passions rule this poor humanity of ours.’ My grandfather’s name does not
appear in any surviving records of the Ripper investigation, nor in the list of more than 200 potential suspects.
Many of the names proposed, like that of Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, Queen Victoria’s grandson,
have long been discredited by serious Ripperologists on the grounds that they have alibis for the dates of the
murders.
Other preposterous non-starters are the Queen’s physician, Sir William Gull, author Lewis Carroll, painter
Walter Sickert and poet Francis Thompson.
One ingenious theory presents the murders as part of an organised conspiracy by Freemasons, but there is no
proof to support it.
Virtually every other Ripper suspect has been discredited over the years.
Christabel, Lady Aberconway told me in 1972 that her father, Sir Melville MacNaghten, formerly an assistant
chief constable with the CID, was ‘convinced’ the Ripper was Montague John Druitt, a 31-year-old barrister who
drowned himself in the Thames soon after the murder of Mary Jane Kelly.
‘He was sexually insane,’ wrote MacNaghten. But Inspector Frederick Abberline, who led the Ripper investigation,
disagreed, believing there was no real evidence against Druitt.
In the years following the Ripper killings, my grandfather became a respected analytical pharmacist who
frequently gave evidence in murder cases, especially those involving poison.
In 1910, he assisted pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury to analyse human tissue found in the cellar of 39 Hilldrop
Crescent, Holloway, which led to Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen being hanged for the murder of his wife.
My father, who was 22 at the time, commented that Crippen had ‘got what he deserved’. My grandfather
replied: ‘You should feel pity for him. Men can be driven by provocation into all manner of extremism.’ My
grandfather became increasingly distant from my father, who, when the Irish ‘troubles’ began in 1916, took to
calling himself ‘Pat’, and went around London with a gun in his belt, announcing himself as ‘a founder member
of the IRA’.
When my father’s first wife, Mary, died in 1926 at the age of 41, leaving three young children, my grandfather
was deeply sympathetic, but his Victorian sense of propriety was scandalised when my father married again, only
16 months later, his new wife my mother, Anne Roberts, a young Welsh nurse.
After the death of his wife on March 21, 1932, at the age of 72, my grandfather appeared a haunted and broken
man. He was distressed by the activities of his convent-educated elder granddaughter, Irene, who went on the
stage as the blonde assistant of a magician.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 54

 She married a chorus boy from Ivor Novello’s musicals, and outraged my grandfather by appearing on stage at
the Windmill Theatre, wearing no clothes. Later, her glamorous looks won her a small role in the film The Mill On
The Floss, but she was to die at only 32 from pulmonary tuberculosis.
In old age, Len became increasingly preoccupied by the plight of fallen women. ‘Poverty of pay is a crime,’
he wrote in his diary, ‘particularly in the case of a girl, because it can make a girl desperate, and all the teashop
girls suffer from poverty of pay’.
When Len developed cancer, and was nursed by my half-sister, he said to her: ‘Thank you for looking after me,
but if you knew what I have done in my life, you would not even come near me.’ He died on September 23, 1935,
at the age of 75.
Just the other day, I stood by his grave, which I am planning to restore.
The memorial stone has blackened with age, so that the name Thornton is almost indistinguishable. It looks as
if time is trying to shroud our family mystery in secrecy.
Was my grandfather Jack the Ripper? The truthful answer is I don’t know. But while I cannot prove my half-
sister’s belief that he was, I equally cannot prove that he wasn’t.
There are too many coincidences to dismiss.
And just how many of us are fully acquainted with all the skeletons in our family cupboards, or get to know the
innermost secrets of the generations that went before us?
Behavioural psychologist Laura Richards believes the killer was ‘socially skilled’ and ‘probably came across on
a superficial level as charming’. She says: The police thought they were looking for an obvious lunatic, someone
more animal than man. But I don’t buy into that.The offender is someone who’s been totally overlooked because
he’s so ordinary and so mundane.’ What last week’s television documentary made clear is we shall never know the
identity of the man who brought horror and carnage to the dark streets of London’s East End during that long-ago
autumn of terror.

Lloyds Weekly
21 October 1888
We are informed that yesterday morning the Clapham police had handed to them five photos which had been
found mysteriously at Clapham. They were wrapped up in a piece of white circular paper tied with string, and
outside of which the following was written:-
“Whosoever finds these photos, please take care of them, as the cabinet is one of the murdered women in
Whitechapel, and the others her sister. The victim I kissed 20 times, and tried it on again, but I got no brass, so
she told me to kiss her and to a dreadful end she came on the eve of her death.”
Our attention has been drawn to a rather curious fact in connection with the East End atrocities, and that
is that the murders have been committed in the form of a dagger shaped cross, Mitre Square, George yard,
Hanbury Street, and Berner Street forming the hilt of the dagger in the order named, and Buck’s Row the point
of this imaginary dagger. A reporter says: In connection with the above, it may be stated that for some time past
a man has been noticed going about London and drawing crosses of the shape of the above in red pencil on the
pavement. His description is as follows:-
Height about 5ft 7in; age about 45; dark complexion and moustache; rather shabbily dressed, and wearing a
soft felt hat, knocked in at the top.

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Ripperologist 130 February 2013 55

Amazing Dogs
Newfoundland Dogs
To The Rescue!
By JAN BONDESON

In the final part of the series, Jan Bondeson reveals the amazing deeds, often criminal or heroic, of dogs of
the Victorian era.

N is for Newfoundland, of all dogs the best;

Just give me this dog, you may keep all the rest.

In the water he’ll jump and will struggle to save
A dear little child from a watery grave.
A lover of children, a boy’s closest friend,
A servant of man on which to depend.
He’ll carry a basket or drive home the cow,
Or keep back a tramp with his fierce
Bow-wow-wow!
From The Natural History A*B*C*, printed by M A
Donahue and Co., Chicago.

In Victorian times, Newfoundland dogs were considered the most admirable and sagacious of all dogs. Not
only were they large and handsome, but also brave and heroic. In particular, the swimming ability and water
rescue skills of these great dogs was much admired. The dogs soon became fashionable and expensive. Keeping
a Newfoundland dog seems to have been something of a status symbol in those days. The Earl of Home had a
Newfoundland dog celebrated for catching salmon, sometimes retrieving twenty in a morning, a success rate that
clearly annoyed Lord Tankerville, the owner of the fishing rights. He instituted a process against the dog, but when
the case went to court, it was won by the four-legged defendant.
Lord Byron kept two Newfoundland dogs,
named Boatswain and Thunder. A tenant farmer
at Newstead told that at the Upper Lake, he
sometimes saw the poet get into the boat with
his two noble Newfoundland dogs, row into the
middle of the lake, and tumble into the water,
having the two dogs seize him by the coat and
drag him away to land. When Byron went to
Boatswain being given a hearty meal by Lord Byron’s servants, visit his friend Edward Long at Little Hampton
an amusing vignette from the children’s book Memoires d’un Caniche
in Sussex, he was accompanied by his favourite
Boatswain. When the poet practiced with pistols, shooting at oyster shells by a tall pier, Boatswain leapt into the
water from the pier, a feat Long could not persuade his own dog to perform.
Lord Byron seems to have been quite an irresponsible dog owner, even by Georgian standards, allowing his
large, fierce dogs to roam free and terrorize the neighbourhood. The concept that it was advisable to have some
degree of control over a large and potentially aggressive dog seems to have been entirely alien to the poet’s mind.
Byron’s friend and neighbour Elizabeth Pigot, who regularly corresponded with him about the dogs, was also very

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 56

 fond of Boatswain. The great dog often visited Elizabeth and her brother at their
cottage nearby. Once, when Elizabeth Pigot was having tea with some elderly lady
friends, Boatswain frightened them by suddenly jumping in through an open window.
He approached them wagging his tail, perhaps hoping to share their meal, but since
the timid old ladies objected to his presence, Elizabeth managed to decoy the great
dog out of the room by opening the door and exclaiming ‘Cat Bos’n!’
After Boatswain’s death, from hydrophobia, in 1808, Lord Byron had a fine
monument and vault constructed at Newstead, inscribed with a suitable epitaph.
Since he had been so remarkably fond of the great dog, Byron instructed that his
own remains should one day be interred in Boatswain’s tomb, but this did not happen
due to the poet’s untimely demise in Greece.
*****
The Cult of the Newfoundland dog continued throughout Victorian times: books
of anecdotes about dogs had much to say about their heroism and sagacity. Since
the dogs were no longer ruinously expensive, any middle-class person could afford a
specimen. As a result, these useful animals exerted a wholesome influence of good
in Victorian society. They drove off robbers and vagabonds, captured burglars, and Boatswain’s monument at Newstead Abbey,
saved many a child from a watery grave. from an old postcard

In July 1868, Mrs Jane Titherleigh, the

wife of a Hull ironmaster, was taking a
cruise with her little son in a small sailing
boat, when the son suddenly fell overboard.
Consternation ruled among the humans on
board, who were all indifferent swimmers,
but a Newfoundland dog leapt overboard
without being prompted in any way, swum
up to the young lad, and dragged him back
to the vessel. The boy was none the worse
for his ducking, but poor Mrs Titherleigh
fell into hysterics.
In February 1872, some watchmen on
duty at Sable Island, off Nova Scotia, saw
A sagacious Newfoundland dog saves a child from drowning, from the a large Newfoundland dog come walking up
Illustrated Police News, July 4 1868. Note the swooning Mrs Titherleigh in the background
to them. Although the dog seemed quite
exhausted, it whined like if it wanted them
to follow it. The Newfoundland dog led
the men to the shore, where they found
a woman and a child, both half dead from
privations. It was the wife and daughter of
Captain Fletcher, of the Liverpool barque
Lilly Palmer, which had been shipwrecked
nearby. When the ship had sunk, Mrs
Fletcher had hung on to her little daughter
with one hand, and to the Newfoundland
dog’s collar with the other. After the
powerful dog had dragged them ashore, it
spontaneously went to look for help.
The clever Newfoundland saving Mrs Fletcher and her daughter, In June 1875, some children were sitting
from the Illustrated Police News, March 30 1872
on the Thames embankment between
Waterloo and Hungerford. A gust of wind
suddenly blew a little girl into the river,

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 57

where she could be seen to be struggling. A gentleman passing by unleashed his Newfoundland dog, appropriately
named ‘Ready’, and made the dog aware of the girl’s situation. Without further prompting, the dog leapt into
Thames, seized the girl by the collar of her cape, and swam to the stairs nearby.
In June 1896, some children were playing on the tram lines near Daubhill Mill,
Bolton. They were watched by a Newfoundland bitch named ‘Princess May’, lying
down in front of the door of her master’s house. But when the tram-car approached
at a brisk pace, one of the children fell down in front of it. The driver desperately
tried to rein in the horses, and people shouted with alarm, but Princess May dashed
across the road, grabbed the three-year-old boy by his frock, and pulled him to
safety.
When some journalists were incredulous of this novel instance of Newfoundland
sagacity, they were taken to task by Mr Fred. Lomax, the secretary of the Bolton
and District Humane Society, who had carefully collected witness testimony of the
rescue. He, too, had initially doubted this extraordinary story, but four witnesses
unanimously stated that Princess May had acted independently, and that she had been
The life-saving dog ‘Princess May’,
clearly seen to drag the boy to safety before any human rescuer could reach him. from Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper,
In November, Princess May appeared at a Humane Society presentation ceremony 15 November 1896
at Bolton Town Hall, along with eleven humans who had performed various heroics.
Lord Stanley MP and the Mayor of Bolton presented them a silver medal each; the dog also received a silver collar
to be able to wear hers in a becoming manner. The next month, Princess May was the guest of honour at a grand
dog show in London; the dog-breeding London snobs stood to attention as she walked round the ring to show off
her collar and medal.
In my book Those Amazing Newfoundland Dogs, I have collected twelve primary newspaper accounts
of Newfoundland dogs being ordered by their masters to leap into the water and rescue a drowning person.
Furthermore, there are not less than eighteen newspaper stories of these dogs spontaneously plunging into the
water to go to the rescue, without any command. The majority of these accounts provide the place, the name
of the person rescued, and sometimes even the name of the dog and its owner. Most of these accounts were
published in good-quality newspapers, and published by more than one version, by different journalists, providing
additional credibility. There are also five primary newspaper accounts of Newfoundland dogs either swimming to
shore from a ship carrying a rope, or swimming from shore with a rope to a stricken vessel.

*****
Already the dog author Rawdon Lee found it peculiar that so many early
Victorian authors extolled the superior intellect of the Newfoundland
dog; in his opinion, they were much like other dogs. He has support
from Professor Stanley Coren’s The Intelligence of Dogs, which ranks the
Newfoundland as number 34 out of 78 breeds, with regard to obedience
and working intelligence. Some present-day Newfoundland breeders have
objected that although the Newfoundland is hampered by its independent
nature and short attention span, the dogs are definitely more clever
than most large breeds, particularly with regard to problem solving. An
anecdote in Professor Coren’s book would support their case: a tired
Newfoundland bitch was annoyed by a yapping little Maltese terrier
wanting to play. In the end, the great black dog seized the little terrier
by the scruff of the neck and walked out to the bathroom, where she
deposited it into a large, empty bathtub, where it was securely confined,
before contentedly returning and settling down to sleep. This not only
shows a very good example of creative action in dogs, but also that some
of the old stories of sagacious Newfoundlands ducking annoying little dogs
Forgotten to lock the brakes on the pram?
in ponds or ditches may well be true.
No danger, if there is a Newfoundland dog nearby.
From the Illustrated Police News, June 8 1907

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 58

 Professor Coren also has a low opinion of the Newfoundland as a watchdog. In my opinion, this is true for most
bitches, and also many male dogs, due to their placid and friendly nature, and lack of suspicion towards strangers.
Any burglar who takes on a large and alert Newfoundland male used to guard his territory, and being protective of
the other members of the household, may well be mistaken to rely too much on the Professor’s advice, however.
It is curious to note that many of the early Newfoundland dogs in Britain, Lord Byron’s Boatswain prominent among
them, were known for their pugnacious nature. According to many sources, they were also excellent watchdogs:
vigilant and wary of strangers. The files of the Times newspaper provides many examples of burglars emerging
second best from encounters with fierce Newfoundlands, and even reports of smugglers and thieves keeping
Newfoundlands to set on the police and customs officers.
To analyze the problem of the changing Newfoundland dog, it is it important to take into account the work
of Professor Jasper Rine and coworkers, with regard to canine genetics. A Border Collie is a very intelligent dog,
concentrated and intense; it has a strong herding instinct: crouching and ‘giving eye’ when it sees some recalcitrant
sheep, or sometimes even a human being it considers to require some herding. The present-day Newfoundland is
friendly and easygoing, has webbed feet and loves water, and holds its tail high. Rine and his colleagues cross-bred
a male Border Collie with a Newfoundland bitch; the union of this mismatched couple produced seven healthy
puppies, which were in turn bred with each other, resulting in a third generation of 23 ‘grandchildren’. These
dogs exhibited a seemingly quite random combination of ‘Border Collie’ and ‘Newfoundland’ traits: for example,
one of the dogs might be very intelligent but also friendly and easygoing, holding its tail high but hating water,
and possessing the herding instinct to ‘give eye’. It is important that the typical traits of these dogs appear to be
inherited separately.
With these arguments in mind, let us return to the early Newfoundland dogs. These dogs were selectively bred
to have webbed feet and a talent for water work, but also to be intelligent and altruistic, with a strong instinct to
rescue some person falling into the water. The dogs should also be watchful and wary of strangers, not fearful to
‘have a scrap’, and ready to defend their masters. Understandably, these remarkable dogs were widely admired
in Georgian and Victorian Britain. The stories of Newfoundland sagacity recounted here and in my recent book
Those Amazing Newfoundland Dogs are only the tip of the iceberg; there is no wonder these remarkable dogs
were so widely featured in magazines, children’s books and books of anecdotes on natural history. We will never
know what genetic event triggered the development of these remarkably intelligent early Newfoundland dogs.
A recent study aimed to determine whether dogs would seek help from a bystander if their owner feigned a
heart attack, or pretended to be trapped underneath a falling bookcase; they did not. There is a marked contrast
between these very Ordinary Dogs standing by uselessly when their owner was in trouble, and the heroics of the
amazing Newfoundlands described earlier; for example, the extraordinary ‘Princess May’ not just sensing danger
to the child on the tram line, but taking appropriate action with commendable alacrity. There really seems to
have been something special about the Newfoundland dogs in those days, something that set them apart from
other breeds of dog.
With time, the Newfoundland dog fanciers valued different qualities in their dogs, and adapted their breeding
accordingly. For example, since they were not used as watchdogs, there was no need for them to be watchful and
wary of strangers; in recent times, the dogs have become increasingly placid and friendly, not just to their owners,
but to everyone else. A calm and stolid temperament, great size and solid black fur were valued characteristics,
whereas the spirit and watchfulness formerly exhibited by the dogs was no longer appreciated. It would appear as
if selective breeding in the last 150 years has led to the Newfoundland dogs losing a good deal of their pugnacity
and guarding instinct along the way – and also some of the remarkable intelligence for which these amazing dogs
were once rightly admired.

This is an edited extract from Jan Bondeson’s most recent book, Those Amazing Newfoundland Dogs (CFZ
Press 2012), available from Amazon now.

JAN BONDESON is a senior lecturer and consultant rheumatologist at Cardiff University. He is the author
of The London Monster, The Great Pretenders, Blood on the Snow and other true crime books, as well as
the bestselling Buried Alive.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 59

Spitalfields Life
By THE GENTLE AUTHOR
of www.spitalfieldslife.com

“In the midst of life I woke to find myself living in an old house
beside Brick Lane in the East End of London.”
These are the words of The Gentle Author, whose daily blog at spitalfieldslife.com has captured
the very essence of Spitafields since August 2009. We at Ripperologist are delighted to have the
The Gentle Author’s blessing to collate these stories and republish them in the coming issues for
your enjoyment. We thank the Gentle Author and strongly recommend you follow the daily blog at
www.spitalfieldslife.com.

Chaplin in Spitalfields and Whitechapel

Somehow, it came as no surprise to discover that he had been here – because
I always thought of Charlie Chaplin as the one who carried a certain culture
of the penniless, the ragged and the downtrodden from Europe across the
Atlantic, translating it with such superlative success into an infinite capacity
for hope, humour and resourcefulness in America. For centuries, Spitalfields
has offered a refuge for the homeless and the dispossessed, so it makes sense
that the most famous tramp of all time should have known this place.

Last year, Vivian Betts who grew up in The Primrose in Bishopsgate gave
me handful of playbills that had been in the pub as long as she remembered
and which she took with her when they left in 1974 before the building was
demolished. These bills were for the Royal Cambridge Theatre of Varieties in
Commercial Street. Opening in 1864, this vast two thousand seater theatre
with a bar capacity of another thousand must have once presented a dramatic
counterpoint to the church on the other side of the Spitalfields Market. Yet
in the nineteenth century, it was one among many theatres in the immediate
vicinity, in the days when the East End could match the West End for theatre
and night life.

The ten-year-old Chaplin performed here as one of The Eight Lancashire

Lads, a juvenile clog dance troupe, on Tuesday 24th October 1899 as part of
the First Anniversary Benefit Performance, celebrating the reopening of the
theatre a year earlier, after a fire that had destroyed it in 1896.

Before he died, Chaplin’s alcoholic father signed up his son at the age of eight, in November 1898, to his friend
William Jackson who managed The Eight Lancashire Lads, in return for the boy’s board and lodgings and a payment
of half a crown a week to Chaplin’s mother Hannah. The engagement took Chaplin away from his pitiful London
childhood and from his mother who had struggled to support him and his elder brother Sydney on her own, existing
at the edge of mental illness while moving the family in and out of a succession of rented rooms until her younger
son ended up in the workhouse at seven.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 60

 “After practising for eight weeks, I was eligible to dance with
the troupe. But now that I was past eight years old, I had lost my
assurance and confronting the audience for the first time gave me
stage fright. I could hardly move my legs. It was weeks before I could
do a solo dance as the rest of them did.” Chaplin wrote of joining
The Eight Lancashire Lads with whom he made his debut in Babes in
the Wood, on Boxing Day 1898 at the Theatre Royal, Manchester.“My
memory of this period goes in and out of focus,” he admitted
later, “The outstanding impression was of a quagmire of miserable
circumstances.”
Charlie Chaplin performed with The Eight Yorkshire Lads at the
Royal Cambridge Theatre of Varieties in Commercial Street Yet Chaplin’s experience touring Britain when Music Hall was at its
(below) on Tuesday 24 October 1899 peak of popularity proved both a great adventure and an unparalleled
schooling in the method, technique and discipline that every performer
requires to hold an audience. “Audiences like The Eight Lancashire
Lads because, as Mr Jackson said, we were so unlike theatrical
children. It was his boast that we never wore grease paint and our
rosy cheeks were natural. If some of us looked a little pale before
going on, he would tell us to pinch our cheeks,” Chaplin recalled,“But
in London, after working two or three Music Halls a night, we would
occasionally forget and look a little weary and bored as we stood on
the stage, until we caught sight of Mr Jackson in the wings, grinning
emphatically and pointing to his face, which had a electrifying effect
of making us break into sparkling grins.”

The handbills that Vivian Betts gave me for the Royal Cambridge
Theatre of Varieties date from 1900 and, significantly, one contains
the announcement of Edisonograph Animated Pictures as part of the
programme, advertising the new medium in which Chaplin was to
become pre-eminent and that would eventually eclipse the Music Hall
itself.

As soon as he had mastered the dance act, Chaplin was impatient

to move on to solo comedy. “I was not particularly enamoured of
being with being just a clog dancer in a troupe of eight lads. Like the
rest of them I was ambitious to do a single act, not only because it
meant more money but because I instinctively felt it would be more
gratifying than just dancing,” he wrote later of his precocious ten-
year-old self, “I would like to have been a boy comedian – but that
would have required nerve, to stand on the stage alone.”

It was in Whitechapel in the autumn of 1907 that the seventeen-year-old Chaplin made his solo comedy debut,
at a Music Hall in the Cambridge Heath Road. “I had obtained a trial week without pay at the Foresters’ Music Hall
situated off the Mile End Road in the centre of the Jewish quarter. My hopes and dreams depended on that trial
week,” he admitted. Yet the young Chaplin made a spectacular misjudgement. “At the time, Jewish comedians
were all the rage in London, so I thought I would hide my youth under whiskers. I invested in musical arrangements
for songs and funny dialogue taken from an American joke book, Madison’s Budget.” Chaplin was foolishly unaware
that a Jewish satire might not play in the East End in front of a Jewish audience. “Although I was innocent of it,
my comedy was most anti-Semitic and my jokes were not only old ones but very poor, like my Jewish accident.”

The disastrous consequences of Chaplin’s error in Whitechapel were to haunt him for the rest of his career.
“After the first couple of jokes, the audience started throwing coins and orange peel and stamping their feet and
booing. At first, I was not conscious of what was going on. Then the horror of it filtered into my mind. When I came
off stage, I went straight to my dressing room, took off my make-up, left the theatre and never returned. I did
my best to erase the night’s horror from my mind, but it left an indelible mark on my confidence.” he concluded
in hindsight, conceding, “The ghastly experience taught me to see myself in a truer light.”

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 61

 In 1908, Chaplin signed with Fred Karno’s comedy
company in which he quickly became a rising star and,
touring to America in 1913, he was talent spotted by the
Keystone Film Studios and offered a contract at twenty-
four years old for $150 a week. “What had happened?
It seemed the world had suddenly changed, had taken
me into its fond embrace and adopted me.” he wrote in
astonishment and relief at his change of fortune in a life
had previously comprised only struggle.

Now I shall always think of the ten-year-old Chaplin

when I walk down Commercial Street, on his way to
the Cambridge Theatre of Varieties, pinching his sallow
cheeks to make a show of good cheer and with his whole
life in motion pictures awaiting him.

At the northern end of Commercial Street is the site

of The Theatre, the first purpose-built theatre, where Foresters Music Hall, 95 Cambridge Heath Road, where Charlie Chaplin
gave his first solo comedy performance in 1907. It was demolished in 1965
William Shakespeare performed and his early plays were
staged. At the southern end of Commercial Street is the
site of the Goodman’s Fields Theatre where David Garrick made his debut in Richard III and initiated the Shakespeare
revival. And in middle was the Royal Cambridge Theatre of Varieties where Charlie Chaplin performed. Most that
pass down it may be unaware, yet the line of Commercial Street traces a major trajectory through our culture.

My grateful thanks to David Robinson, Chaplin’s biographer, for his assistance with this article.

Shakespeare in Spitalfields
This nineteenth century Staffordshire figure of Shakespeare stands on my
chimney piece in Spitalfields to remind me of the writer I love best. On the
right is Sarah Siddons as Lady Macbeth and on the left is her brother John
Phillip Kemble as Hamlet.

Coming across William Shakespeare’s younger brother Edmond‘s tombstone

in Southwark recently and learning that some of William’s plays were first
performed in our neighbourhood has set me wondering about whether he was
actually here in Spitalfields.

According to a memo by fellow actor Ned

Alleyn, in 1596 Shakespeare lived “near the
Bear Garden in Southwark.“ London Bridge
was the only bridge across the Thames
in those days, so Shakespeare must have
walked up and down Bishopsgate (he knew
it as Bishoppes gate streete) whenever
he made his way between Southwark and
Shoreditch, while his plays were being
performed at the Theatre and the Curtain
Theatre here on Curtain Road.

Maybe he got sick of trudging to and fro, commuting across the City, because
in 1598 there is a William Shakespeare listed by the tax collectors as resident
in the parish of St Anne’s, Bishopsgate, though we cannot be certain if this
was our man. We know he was lodging on Silver Street (at the south of the
Barbican) in 1604, based on the words of a maid “one Mr Shakespeare laye
in the house” and a court deposition signed by Shakespeare himself when his
landlord was challenged with not paying his daughter’s dowry.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 62

 For five years I lived in the Highlands of Scotland and I remember the Gaelic weavers’ working songs, so it
touched a chord with me when in the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays I came across Falstaff’s line from “Henry IV
Part One” in a scene at the Boar’s Head, Eastcheap in the City of London, “I would I were a weaver. I could sing all
manner of songs.” Wool was the primary industry in Shakespeare’s day and in Spitalfields we have Tenterground,
where once pieces of newly woven woollen cloth were staked out to dry. Surely the weavers sang at their work
here just as the those in the Hebrides still do today? Shakespeare could have heard them singing when he walked
through Spitalfields.

I was further intrigued to discover that in the earlier Quarto edition of 1598 the line reads “I could sing psalms
or anything”. Many of the wool weavers in Shakespeare’s time were Calvinist exiles from Flanders who fled the
Duke of Alva and were known for their love of psalmody. Scholars believe the line was altered in the First Folio to
prevent any politically incorrect anti-Protestant reading.

I rest my case with a line from Shakespeare’s fellow playwright and drinking pal Ben Jonson, whose character
Cutbeard in The Silent Woman has the line, “He got his cold with sitting up late and singing catches with
clothworkers”.

So there you have it, Shakespeare knew Spitalfields and it is no stretch of the imagination to envisage him
and Jonson enjoying late night singing sessions with the weavers here, just like the guys who come on all-night
benders to the clubs in Brick Lane nowadays. And of course, Shakespeare portrayed a weaver in the character of
Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream – is it possible he met the prototype in Spitalfields?

David Garrick at Goodman’s Fields Theatre

“Have mercy, Heaven” – David Garrick as Richard III

This modest Staffordshire figure of c.1840 upon my dresser illustrates a

pivotal moment in British theatre, when David Garrick made his debut aged
twenty-four as Richard III at Goodman’s Fields Theatre in Aldgate on Monday
19 October 1741. Based upon William Hogarth’s painting, it shows Garrick in
the momentous scene on the night before the battle of Bosworth Field when
those Richard has killed appear to him in a dream foretelling his death and
defeat next day.

The equivocal nature of the image fascinates me, simultaneously incarnating

the startling ascendancy of David Garrick, a new force in the British theatre
who was to end up enshrined in Westminster Abbey, and the sudden descent
of Richard III, a spent force in British monarchy who – if we are to credit
the recent discovery – ended up buried in a car park in Leicester. You can
interpret the gesture of Garrick’s right hand as attention seeking, inviting
you to “Look at my acting” or, equally, it can be Richard’s defensive move,
snatching at the air with fingers stretched out in horror. It is, perhaps, both at
once. Yet my interest is in Garrick and how he became an overnight sensation,
introducing a more naturalistic acting style to the London stage and leading
the Shakespearean revival in the eighteenth century. And it all started here in
the East End, just a mile south of Shakespeare’s first theatre up the road in Shoreditch.

Garrick’s family were Huguenots. His grandparents fled to London in 1685 and David was born in 1717 as the
third of five children while his father Captain Garrick was travelling the country with a recruiting party. Suitably
enough, at the age of eleven, David played the part of Kite in George Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer. Then, in
1737, since there was no money to pay for university, David and his literary classmate Samuel Johnson left their
school in Lichfield to walk to London and seek their fortunes. But the sudden death of Captain Garrick within
a month delivered an unexpected legacy that permitted David to set up a wine business in the Strand with his
brother Peter.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 63

 In that same year, the Licensing Act closed all the
playhouses in London except Drury Lane and Covent
Garden, yet the management of the unlicenced Goodman’s
Fields Theatre managed to get a dispensation to present
concerts. Far enough east to avoid the eye of the Lord
Chamberlain, they bent the rules with posters declaring
concerts – even if the performances they advertised
were actually plays. Thus Richard III is advertised as a
“A concert of vocal and instrumental music” at “the late
theatre in Goodman’s Fields.” David Garrick’s name as
the leading actor is not given, he is merely referred to as
“A GENTLEMAN (Who never appeared on any stage)” - a
common practice at this theatre.

Next day, the London Post & General Advertiser

reported that Garrick’s “Reception was most
extraordinary and the greatest that was ever known upon
such an occasion.” And he wrote to his brother Peter
immediately, quitting the wine business,“Last night, I
play’d Richard ye Third, to ye Surprize of Every Body &
as I shall make near £300 p Annum by It & as it is really
what I doat upon I am resolv’d to pursue it.”

Garrick continued playing Richard throughout his

career, essaying the role as many as ninety times, and
this account written years later for The Gentlemen’s
Magazine may give us some notion of his performance.
“His soliloquy in the tent scene discovered the inward
man. Everything he described was almost reality, the
spectator thought he heard the hum of either army from
camp to camp. When he started from his dream, he was a
spectacle of horror. He called out in a manly tone, ‘Give
me another horse.’ He paused, and, with a countenance
of dismay, advanced, crying out in a tone of distress,
‘Bind up my wounds,’ and then falling on his knees, said
in a most piteous voice, ‘Have mercy, Heaven.’ In all this,
the audience saw the exact imitation of nature.”

By 27 November 1741, Garrick’s performance had

turned into a phenomenon which all of London had to see,
as The London Daily Post described, “Last night there
was a great number of Persons of Quality and Distinction
at the Theatre in Goodman’s Fields to see the Play of
Richard the Third who express’d the highest Satisfaction
at the whole Performance, several hundred Persons were
William Hogarth’s painting of The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay, performed as
obliged to return for want of room, the house being full
the closing production at Goodman’s Fields Theatre on 27 May 1742 soon after Five o’Clock.”

Yet the success that Garrick brought to the Goodman’s Fields drew attention to the unlicensed theatre – forcing
its closure within six months by the authorities, encouraged by the managements of Drury Lane and Covent
Garden who were losing custom to their East End rival. Meanwhile, Garrick considered his options and, after a
triumphant summer season in Dublin, he walked onto the stage of Drury Lane as an actor for the first time on 5
October 1742 and he had found his spiritual home.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 64

 The myth of Garrick as the gentleman who
stepped onto the stage, drawn magnetically
by his powerful talent and declared a genius of
theatre upon his first appearance, concealed
a more complicated truth. In fact, Garrick had
taken his first professional speaking role on the
stage that summer in Ipswich, appearing under
the name Lyddall. His own play, Lethe or Aesop
in the Shades, had been produced at Drury Lane
the year before. And, having played Harlequin
in an amateur performance in the room above
St John’s Gate in Clerkenwell, he took over at
Goodman’s Fields Theatre one night when the
actor performing the role became sick. So Richard
III was far from Garrick’s first time in front of an
audience, although it was the moment he chose
to declare his talent, and it is likely that he made
significant preparation.

Whenever I look at my Staffordshire figure of

Garrick, whether he appears to be waving joyfully
or reaching out in despair at the universe is an
unfailing indicator of my state of mind. Ironically,
Garrick’s monument in Westminster Abbey follows
a similar design with a tent rising to a central
apex, surrounding an effigy of the great actor
making his final curtain call, yet here the proud
gesture is entirely unambiguous, he’s saying “Look
at me!”

Goodman’s Fields today

THE BOOK OF SPITALFIELDS LIFE. It is my delight to announce that the book of

Spitalfields Life was published by Saltyard Books (an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton)
on March 1st. For over a year, I have been working to bring this mighty four hundred
and fifty page book into existence, and here you will find one hundred and fifty of
your favourite stories, published as a handsome illustrated hardback designed by
distinguished typographer David Pearson.

When I set out to write my daily stories of Spitalfields Life in 2009, I had hardly
written prose before and I did not know where it would lead, but it was my intention
to pursue the notion of recording the stories that nobody else was writing. Although
it was not in my mind that this would become a book, over time many readers wrote
asking for a collection of these stories and then, in the Summer of 2010, several
esteemed publishers came over to Spitalfields to discuss the notion of publication in
print. Buy a copy at spitalfieldslife.com/the-book

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 65

 Dear Rip
Your Letters and Comments

Dear Rip,
Chris George’s Editorial in Ripperologist 129
(‘Assessing the Number of Suspects’)
You hit the nail on the head, Chris. There are some fine researchers and people who do
try to apply standards based upon historical analysis, but in the public vein beyond our little
group, it is the sensational theorists who get the publicity, and thus, the scrutiny of the
academic field. They don’t read Ripperologist. They see the books that generate sales to the
curious but uninformed masses. They see the news interviews that almost always tout some
outlandish angle or personage and see no value in entering a field believed to be more of a cult
than an active pursuit of simply assimilating information and providing perspective without
straying too far from what is actually known. There’s nothing sensational or exciting in that.

Ripperology is a victim of the enticement to the subject matter itself - the most classic
of unsolved mysteries that sparks imagination more than academic dissemination... where
the unknowns are accepted as such and what is known is not assessed beyond what is reasonably feasible by historical
standard. One only has to look at the best selling books on the subject (almost always suspect based) or what has been
promoted in cinema, or even what generates the most posts in threads on forums.

Try to write something that may be educational on this subject or add new research that may be enlightening but not
sensational, and see how far it gets compared to promoting wild theories and suspects that appeal to those who would
rather be morbidly entertained than enlightened, and see who garners the most attention.

Nothing sells beyond a small group unless it steps out of the box or offers all of the answers. Some of us have chastised
new people who have come along for their methods - such as Trevor Marriott or Mei Trow for example - but they do
understand the concept of marketing a product.

And that’s what Jack the Ripper is. What he may really have been doesn’t mean Jack Schitt to most whose attention
span and interests are no more than a child with a new toy who quickly gets tired of it and decides to play with the box
it came in. Its not what the contents contained, but what it is wrapped in and how it is packaged.

Cris Malone

Dear Cris,
Thanks for your positive response to my editorial. The thrust of the editorial was to remark upon the sheer number
of suspects that have so far been named in the case, but also to point out the lack of criteria that have been used
by some recent theorists in putting their suspect forward. As I estimated, ‘the number of proposed suspects today is
approaching or exceeding 300.’ Part of the problem is self-publication which allows an author to get his or her book out
without any type of peer review. But I think it would also behoove commercial publishers to take more care about some
of the books they publish. A forlorn hope, no doubt. As we both noted, the field of Ripperology is not well regarded by
the public or by academia. People who have outrageous theories are getting unmerited attention, to the detriment of
more carefully argued theories about the case and less showy studies of the Whitechapel murders. I fear that this trend
will continue and only worsen as further suspects are proposed, and the publishing world becomes further saturated
with Ripper titles.

Best regards, Chris George

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 86

 Dear Rip,
David Green’s Indexes
Latest Ripperologist safely received. There seems to be much good reading within, judging from my initial scan
through. Intriguing to see just how many candidates for Jack the Ripper there are - 300? Good grief.

I also note with some joy that someone is producing indexes for previously unindexed Ripper works. What a marvellous
project. I’ve done much the same for two of M R James’s books - his autobiographical Eton and King’s and the collection
of his letters, Letters to a Friend. Both indexes are on the GHOSTS & SCHOLARS website. The latter was especially
hard to produce as MRJ’s handwriting is notoriously awful, and when she edited the letters, Gwendolen McBryde
mistranscribed innumerable names. In the index I included the corrected names (as far as I could track them down) as
well as her misreadings. Anyway, what I really wanted to say (before I started rambling on) was that I totally agree with
the view that a non-fiction book should NEVER be published unindexed, and it seems to be an increasing problem. Self-
publishing is a wonderful thing, but I wish the authors would devote a little time to creating an index (a recent sinner is
Paul Newman’s otherwise excellent book on the Meon Hill and Hagley Wood murders).
Yours sincerely,
Rosemary Pardoe
Rosemary Pardoe is probably the foremost authority on the work of the distinguished scholar and celebrated ghost-
story writer Dr Montague Rhodes James and the editor of The Ghosts and Scholars M R James Newsletter (www.pardoes.
info/roanddarroll/GS.html).

Dear Rosemary,
Thank you for your kind words. We strongly believe that readers and researchers deserve that authors and publishers
make the extra effort necessary to provide full indexes to non-fiction books. We should also like to emphasise again that
David A Green, who has been creating retrospective indexes for Jack the Ripper titles which were originally published
without an index, offers these indexes totally free of charge to interested readers in any part of the world who request
a copy and even mails the indexes to them at his own expense. Kudos, David, indeed!

Rip

Dear Rip,
The Lydia Manton Affair
It’s nice to find occasional connections to Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, and there is one in the latest
issue, on which I will report to my readers in the next issue of my monthly newsletter for Sherlockians and Doyleans:

The electronic journal Ripperologist continues to cast a wide net: the December issue (#129) has an interesting
article (“Taken as Magnificent: The Lydia Manton Affair”) by Robert Linford, David O’Flaherty, and John Savage,
that discusses in some detail a royal scandal involving Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence. The Duke of Clarence,
the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, is one of the many people suspected of being Jack the Ripper, and there’s a
Sherlockian connection: the solicitor George Lewis, who had royal connections, was present at the inquest into the
death of Miss Manton and is mentioned in “The Illustrious Client” (a case that some Sherlockians believe involved the
Prince of Wales).
Yours sincerely,
Peter Blau
Peter E Blau is the owner, editor and publisher of Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press. The monthly newsletter is
addressed mainly to Sherlockians and Doyleans, but Ripperologists will find in it much they want to see. A good link to
the newsletter is www.redcircledc.org/index.php?id=39.

Dear Peter,
When the greatest detective of all time and the most infamous serial killer in history live in the same town at the
same time their paths are bound to cross now and then. Unfortunately, they never met in real life, but they often do in
fiction and they have met, and will certainly continue to meet, in the pages of Ripperologist!
Rip

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 87

I Beg To Report
NEWS ROUNDUP
FROM AROUND THE RIPPER WORLD

GET LOST WITH MARY KELLY. It’s 1888. The fog

rolls along the gaslit streets of Whitechapel and
a storm is brewing... can you find your way out
of the narrow, winding streets as panic builds?
Luckily for visitors to the London Dungeon’s new
attraction, Whitechapel Labyrinth, Mary Jane Kelly
is on hand. She’ll reveal about the Whitechapel
murders and you’ll see the most recent victim
for yourself... but as the Ripper strike again,
will you keep your wits about you and escape the
Labyrinth? As we revealed in Ripperologist 126,
June 2012, the London Dungeon has moved from
Mary Kelly graces The London Dungeon’s ‘Whitechapel Labyrinth’ attraction
its home of 37 years and is set to open its doors at
its new location next to the London Eye, ironically situated in the former County Hall, where coroner Wynne Baxter’s
inquest papers were sent in 1921 (see Rip 69). Along with familiar attractions such the Ripper and Judge Jeffreys, the
London Dungeon has added attractions on Guy Fawkes, Henry VIII, Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett as well as poor Mary
Jane. If you pay Mary a visit, please tell us how it goes!
www.thedungeons.com/london/en/explore-the-dungeon/the-whitechapel-labyrinth.aspx

DETECTION OPPORTUNITY SLIPPED THROUGH MET’S FINGERS. On 12 December

2012, an auction of papers relating to a murder in 1840 at Sotheby’s in London
included a letter which proposed the examination of fingerprints - more than 50
years before they were first used by detectives. Lord William Russell, a 73-year-
old MP was found in his bed with his throat cut on 5 May 1840, with bloody
handprints on his bedsheets. After reading newspaper reports of the murder, a
surgeon in Grimstone, Norfolk named Robert Blake Overton wrote a three-page
letter to the victim’s nephew, Lord John Russell, the future prime minister: “It
is not generally known that every individual has a peculiar arrangement [on]
the grain of the skin... I would strongly recommend the propriety of obtaining
impressions from the fingers of the suspected individual and a comparison made
with the marks on the sheets and pillows.” The letter was passed to the then-
fledgling Metropolitan Police and was briefly looked into then filed and forgotten,
with the police not grasping the wider implication of Overton’s suggestion. Last
year the Law Society examined 700 documents relating to the investigation of
the murder and subsequent trial of the killer, Russell’s valet Francois Benjamin
Courvoisier, and discovered Overton’s letter amongst signed witness statements,
trial papers and Courvoisier’s statement.

Sketch of the killer mde during the trial,

part of the collection sold by Sotheby’s

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 88

 Sotheby’s manuscript expert, Dr Gabriel Heaton, got a little carried away, saying: “If this idea had been taken up, the
whole criminal history of the Victorian period – of the foggy streets and of Sherlock Holmes and of Jack the Ripper –
would have looked very different. They’d have had this incredible tool. This obscure village surgeon was suggesting the
forensic use of fingerprint evidence for identification purposes a full 50 years before the procedure was adopted. It was
only in the 1850s that William Hershel began experimenting with fingerprints as a means to identify villagers in India.
Decades passed before the identification process was systematised... and it was not until the 1890s that pioneering use
was made of fingerprints in criminal investigations. Even Sherlock Holmes did not use fingerprints until 1903. Perhaps
even Jack the Ripper might have been caught. Instead, this letter was filed away and Overton himself disappears from
the history of forensics.”

The collection sold for £4,375.

Vital clue ignored for 50 years
Dalya Alberge, The Independent, London, UK, 9 December 2012
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/vital-clue-ignored-for-50-years-8395985.html
Sotheby’s auction records, London, UK
www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2012/english-literature-history-l12408/lot.22.html

REDISCOVER DISAPPEARING SPITALFIELDS. While many Ripperologists are content with reading and researching the case
and discussing the various theories, there is a growing number who regularly visit the area and - especially in these
days of relentless redevelopment - have a special appreciation of the influence on Spitalfields by the Huguenots, the
large community of persecuted members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France who settled in Spitalfields in
the 17th Century. A major celebration of their legacy is to be staged by the Bishopsgate Institute as The Huguenots
of Spitalfields Festival, with numerous events taking place at various venues between 8 and 21 April 2013. Of these,
perhaps that of most interest to Ripper students will be a lecture by writer, broadcaster and Spitalfields resident
Dan Cruikshank entitled The Huguenots of Spitalfields Festival: Disappearing Spitalfields. Describing this lecture, the
Bishopsgate Institute website says that Professor Cruikshank will be highlighting “the physical losses alongside the social
and economic changes Spitalfields has experienced and considers the way in which these changes continue.”

The Huguenots of Spitalfields Festival: Disappearing Spitalfields takes place at 7.30pm on 17 April 2013. Tickets are £10
(concessions £8). Call 020 7392 9200 to book, or visit the Bishopsgate Institute website.
www.bishopsgate.org.uk/events_detail.aspx?ID=284&Keyword=the+huguenots&TypeID=

VALENTINE’S BELL FOR LIZ. While Dan Cruikshank probably

won’t be discussing the redevelopment of the area south
of Whitechapel Road in his lecture, in fact it was the
scene of Elizabeth Stride’s death which was the first of the
Whitechapel murder sites to be redeveloped when Berner
Street was demolished in 1909 to make way for a new
school, which was opened the following year. The actual
murder spot, in Dutfields Yard, is part of the playground.
Having celebrated its centenary in 2010, Harry Gosling
Primary School has just installed a new bell which was
forged at the nearby Whitechapel Bell Foundry, famous as
the makers of Big Ben and the Olympic Bell. The bell was
inaugurated on Valentine’s Day, with a poignant inscription
reading “Every time our bell rings, we step closer to our
Harry Gosling Primary School. The playground is the site of Dutfields Yard dreams.”

New bell set to peal out from Whitechapel primary school

Chloe Mayer, East London Advertiser, London, UK, 5 February 2013
www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/news/new_bell_set_to_peal_out_from_whitechapel_primary_school_1_1864754

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 89

Victorian Fiction
Man Overboard!
By WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL
Edited with an Introduction by Eduardo Zinna

INTRODUCTION
Victorian authors were masters of the three-volume novel and the long short story. They went
deep inside their characters’ minds and did not hesitate to expound at length their thoughts for
the benefit of their readership. They knew the past, the present and the future and could describe
events happening at the same time in different places. They loved detail and digression, diegesis
and device, decorum and dystopia.
The present offering in Ripperologist’s Victorian Literature series,
Man Overboard!, a short story first published in 1899, is very different.
To begin with, it is a very short short story. It is also precise, polished
and, as will be seen, unforgettable.
Despite his youth – he was barely 24 at the time of the story’s
publication – its author was no novice. He had begun his literary career
with accounts of military campaigns in which he had participated in his
capacity as an army officer. Shortly after the present story appeared in
print, he resigned his commission and entered politics, a field where
he was eventually to make his mark. He did not, however, neglect his
literary career. Indeed, writing was always for him an important source
of income. It is estimated that during his lifetime he wrote eight to ten
million words and published more than 40 books, including one novel,
collections of speeches, biographies of his father and an illustrious
ancestor, histories of the First and Second World Wars and of the English-
speaking peoples, thousands of newspaper and magazine articles and a
handful of short stories, including On the Flank of the Army, The Dream
and, of course, Man Overboard!, which appeared in The Harmsworth
Monthly Pictorial Magazine in January 1899 (Vol. 1, No. 6 (1898-1899),
pp. 662 – 64.) In 1953, Winston Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize
for Literature.
Oddly enough, there was another Winston Churchill who was not only
an almost exact contemporary of the future Prime Minister but also a
writer – indeed, a better known writer. He was an American novelist,
poet and essayist born in in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1871. By 1899 he had
Winston Churchill in 1901
published two novels, the second of which sold two million copies and
made him rich. When the British Churchill became aware of his namesake he wrote to him proposing to sign his
own works ‘Winston S. Churchill’, using his middle initial, to differentiate them. This suggestion was accepted by
the American Churchill with the comment that he would have done the same had he had a middle name. In 1899
the existence of two writers with the same name and surname was still sufficiently confusing for the Harmsworth
Magazine to accompany Man Overboard! with the following footnote: ‘As by a very remarkable coincidence there
are two Winston Churchills, both writers, we may mention that this Winston Churchill is the son of the late Lord
Randolph Churchill.’
Ripperologist 130 February 2013 94
 Man Overboard!
An Episode Of The Red Sea
It was a little after half-past nine when the man fell overboard. The mail steamer was hurrying through
the Red Sea in the hope of making up the time which the currents of the Indian Ocean had stolen. The night
was clear, though the moon was hidden behind clouds. The warm air was laden with moisture. The still
surface of the waters was only broken by the movement of the great ship, from whose quarter the long,
slanting undulations struck out, like the feathers from an arrow shaft, and in whose wake the froth and air
bubbles churned up by the propeller trailed in a narrowing line to the darkness of the horizon.
There was a concert on board. All the passengers were glad to break the monotony of the voyage, and
gathered around the piano in the companion-house. The decks were deserted. The man had been listening
to the music and joining in the songs. But the room was hot, and he came out to smoke a cigarette and
enjoy a breath of the wind which the speedy passage of the liner created. It was the only wind in the Red
Sea that night.
The accommodation-ladder had not been
unshipped since leaving Aden, and the man
walked out on to the platform, as on to a balcony.
He leaned his back against the rail and blew a
puff of smoke into the air reflectively. The piano
struck up a lively tune, and a voice began to sing
the first verse of ‘The Rowdy Dowdy Boys.’ The
measured pulsations of the screw were a subdued
but additional accompaniment. The man knew the
song. It had been the rage at all the music halls,
when he had started for India seven years before.
It reminded him of the brilliant and busy streets
he had not seen for so long, but was soon to see
again. He was just going to join in the chorus,
when the railing, which had been insecurely
fastened, gave way suddenly with a snap, and he
fell backwards into the warm water of the sea
amid a great splash.
For a moment he was physically too much
astonished to think. Then he realised that he must
shout. He began to do this even before he rose to
the surface. He achieved a hoarse, inarticulate,
half-choked scream. A startled brain suggested
the word ‘Help!’ and he bawled this out lustily
and with frantic effort six or seven times without
stopping. Then he listened.
Hi! hi! clear the way
For the Rowdy Dowdy Boys!

“The railing gave way,

and he fell backwards into the sea
with a splash”

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 95

 The chorus floated back to him across the smooth water, for the ship had already passed completely by.
And as he heard the music a long stab of terror drove through his heart. The possibility that he would not
be picked up dawned for the first time on his consciousness. The chorus started again—
Then—I—say—boys,
Who’s for a jolly spree?
Rum—tum—tiddley—um,
Who’ll have a drink with me?
‘Help! help! help!’ shrieked the man, in desperate fear.
Fond of a glass now and then,
Fond of a row or noise;
Hi! hi! clear the way
For the Rowdy Dowdy Boys!
The last words drawled out faint and fainter. The vessel was steaming fast. The beginning of the second
verse was confused and broken by the ever-growing distance. The dark outline of the great hull was getting
blurred. The stern light dwindled.
Then he set out to swim after it with furious energy, pausing every dozen strokes to shout long wild
shouts. The disturbed waters of the sea began to settle again to their rest. The widening undulations
became ripples. The aerated confusion of the screw fizzed itself upwards and out. The noise of motion and
the sounds of life and music died away.
The liner was but a single fading light
on the blackness of the waters and a
dark shadow against the paler sky.
At length full realisation came to
the man, and he stopped swimming.
He was alone—abandoned. With the
understanding his brain reeled. He
began again to swim, only now instead
of shouting he prayed—mad, incoherent
prayers, the words stumbling into one
another.
Suddenly a distant light seemed to
flicker and brighten. A surge of joy and
hope rushed through his mind. They
were going to stop—to turn the ship and
come back. And with the hope came
gratitude. His prayer was answered.
Broken words of thanksgiving rose to his
lips. He stopped and stared after the
light—his soul in his eyes. As he watched
it, it grew gradually but steadily
smaller. Then the man knew that his
fate was certain. Despair succeeded
hope. Gratitude gave place to curses.
“The light of the ship got smaller and smaller
Beating the water with his arms, he as he threw up his hands and sank”
raved impotently. Foul oaths burst from
him, as broken as his prayers—and as
unheeded.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 96

 The fit of passion passed, hurried by increasing fatigue. He became silent—silent as was the sea, for even
the ripples were subsiding into the glassy smoothness of the surface. He swam on mechanically along the
track of the ship, sobbing quietly to himself, in the misery of fear. And the stern light became a tiny speck,
yellower but scarcely bigger than some of the stars, which here and there shone between the clouds.
Nearly twenty minutes passed, and the man’s fatigue began to change to exhaustion. The overpowering
sense of the inevitable pressed upon him. With the weariness came a strange comfort. He need not swim
all the long way to Suez. There was another course. He would die. He would resign his existence since he
was thus abandoned. He threw up his hands impulsively and sank. Down, down he went through the warm
water. The physical death took hold of him and he began to drown. The pain of that savage grip recalled his
anger. He fought with it furiously. Striking out with arms and legs he sought to get back to the air. It was a
hard struggle, but he escaped victorious and gasping to the surface. Despair awaited him. Feebly splashing
with his hands he moaned in bitter misery—
‘I can’t—I must. O God! let me die.’
The moon, then in her third quarter, pushed out from behind the concealing clouds and shed a pale, soft
glitter upon the sea. Upright in the water, fifty yards away, was a black triangular object. It was a fin. It
approached him slowly.
His last appeal had been heard.

“Upright in the water, fifty yards away, was a black triangular object — a fin”

WRITE FOR RIPPEROLOGIST!

We welcome contributions on Jack the Ripper, the East End and the Victorian era.
Send your articles, letters and comments to contact@ripperologist.biz

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 97

 RIPPING YARNS

Reviews

JA
CK ER
THE RIPP

Jack the Ripper:

CSI: Whitechapel
Paul Begg and John Bennett
224 pages, Illustrated
Andre Deutsch Ltd
ISBN-10: 0233003622
It is impossible to begin any review of this book without mentioning its visual impact. Although a
relatively slim volume, it presents an immediate impression of quality, covered as it is with a wraith-
like image of the stereotypical ‘top-hatted toff’ superimposed onto one of Jaakko Luukanen’s superb
illustrations. The lay-out of the content maintains the same high standard with plentiful reproduction
of contemporary images, photographs, both old and new, and clearly laid out maps of the various
murder sites and their surrounding streets.

Paul Begg and John Bennett are both known and respected figures in the field. Their combined knowledge of the
Late Victorian Period, and of the geography of London’s East End in the 19th century, is apparent throughout in such
noteworthy trivia as the origin of street names such as Fashion, Dorset and Flower and Dean. Much use is made of insets
described as “Background Intelligence”, covering various subjects of interest, including details of the premises where
the various victims had been known to reside. ‘Common Lodging House’, ‘The Workhouse’ and ‘The Casual Ward’ will all
be familiar phrases to most, but I found it helpful to have their differences explained.

The book covers, in chronological order, the murders, not only of Macnaghten’s so-called ‘canonical’ five victims, but
also all those which fall within the overall compass of the ‘Whitechapel Murders’ from Emma Smith to Frances Coles.
It also includes reference to the Thames Torso Murders. Each chapter begins with a section entitled ‘Briefing’, before
expanding into details of the crimes themselves. The text is well-presented and balanced, with none of the suspect-led
distortion of fact which blights so many works in this genre. If either of the authors has a preferred suspect, this is not
evident from the content of their book. Some are mentioned, and a little detail is provided concerning those who were
contemporaneously suspected, but the likes of Vincent Van Gogh and Lewis Carroll are quickly (and properly) dismissed.
The focus though, as the title of the book suggests, is on the crimes themselves, their locations and the historical and
geographical background. The title, abbreviated from Crime Scene Investigation, is perhaps something of a misnomer
because, in truth, very little remains of the crime scenes themselves, bar the streets on which they were situated, the
buildings themselves having, for the most part, long since disappeared. Having said that, the lavish CGI illustrations,
from the hand of Jaakko Luukanen, are a glory to behold and will delight the eye of all who see them. It has always
been possible, to some degree, to visualise these locations in the mind’s eye although, for this reader at least, that has
always been a monochrome experience – but no longer. The images created are so detailed and (so far as I am able to
discern) so accurate in that detail, that it is difficult to resist the temptation to seek out and identify figures lurking in
the all-pervading gloom.

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 98

 So where does this book stand in the ever-expanding library of Ripperology? It cannot be described as an all-
encompassing, comprehensive history of the Whitechapel Murders, but it doesn’t set out to be such, although a surprising
amount of interesting detail is provided. There are no dubious claims of startling new revelations but the realistic
reader, with even my own rudimentary knowledge of the subject, will not expect them. It is factual, accurate, unbiased
and interesting. Unfortunately the authors have been rather let down, in places, by an inattentive proof-reader and (a
printer’s error) the beats of PCs Harvey and Watkins are incorrectly aligned to the map. These though are matters which
can be rectified in later editions and should not be allowed to detract from the high quality of the work as a whole.
It is not, in truth, a Crime Scene Investigation so much as a Crime Scene Experience, but none the worse for being
so. CSI Whitechapel is an ideal Jack the Ripper Primer, for the newcomer who seeks a well-constructed, well-written
introduction from authors with a sound knowledge of their subject. It is also, simultaneously, a work which will interest
the wider, more knowledgeable, audience. The text presented by Begg and Bennett will make a worthy addition to the
bookshelves of any student of the subject, but its place in history will be won by the genius of Luukanen.
Review by Colin Macdonald

Jack the Ripper: Blood Lines

Anthony J Randall
Cloister House Press, 2013
Paperback: 280 pages
ISBN-10: 095682479X; ISBN-13: 978-0956824790
£12.99
This remarkable volume positions itself as a Digest of the History and Genealogy of the Canonical
Victims, and, on the second point, it delivers in spades. On the first point, this book covers the
victims’ histories in very much “digested” form; the author sensibly deferring to other sources, and
reminding the reader that the victims’ biographies have been amply catered for elsewhere.

The sheer amount of data presented is enormous, and there are times when navigating the
genealogical ocean gets a bit choppy. Randall thoughtfully provides each of the protagonists with
an index number, which is just as well given the sameness typical of Victorian family names, Fountain Hamilton Smith
notwithstanding. Many was the time when I had to double-check which William, Elizabeth or Mary was being discussed,
and those reference-numbers became an essential guide through the nominative fog.

One Mary not discussed was Mary Kelly, and her entry in the volume is of necessity brief, given the paucity of reliable
information surrounding her. If and when Randall turns his focus on the elusive Ms Kelly, then I look forward to this book’s
sequel. Kelly aside, there is a wealth of reliable information about the other four canonical victims, and it is with regard
to these that Randall’s meticulous research bears significant fruit.

Blood Lines contains scores, if not hundreds, of entries on these victims’ ancestors and spouses, in-laws and cousins,
not to mention their “brothers and sisters and aunts” – a fact that should please the Savoyards among us. Practically
every member of the victims’ immediate and extended families is given a “Who’s Who” vignette treatment, right
back to the 18th Century. Each main chapter ends by reproducing copious transcripts from censuses and other official
sources, which are thereby handily pulled together in one place.

Appendices provide an ostensible glossary of relevant Victorian terms, a gazetteer of places, as well as a useful
primer on Scandinavian patronymic names, all of which are interesting to read and useful in themselves. The main thrust
of the book, however, is resolutely genealogical, and you’d struggle to find a better treatment of its subject matter than
that presented here. The keen-eyed reader might spot the occasional typo (Joe Barnett turns up as “John” once) or
inaccuracy (Stora Tumlehed appears consistently as Stora Humlehed), but these are very few and far between.

This book is therefore not for the casual Ripper reader, and certainly not for those who like the occasional wallow in
a familiar horror-story retold. However, those interested in the wider aspects of the case, who care about the victims’
antecedents, their (and our) history, or who simply have a general interest in family sagas, will find much of interest
within these pages. If you like, this is a perfect book for “ripperipherologists”, to coin a phrase.

What you won’t find in Blood Lines is a continuous, biographical narrative of the victims and their families; for that,
The Victims of Jack the Ripper by Neal Shelden is essential reading, and remains indispensible. Anthony Randall takes
a rather different approach, covers rather different territory, and in so doing Blood Lines is a worthy addition to the
genre. Recommended.

Review by Gareth Williams

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 99
 The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook
Stewart Evans and Keith Skinner
Kindle ebook
£8.51
The Ultimate... is available for the Kindle. Fantastic! Now you can quickly dip into it, search it,
make notes, and just generally have all the files immediately to hand wherever you go – assuming you
have a Kindle. Or you can have it on your desktop or iPad with a free Kindle app.

Okay, if you are new to Ripperology or have been living on Mars for the last thirteen years, The
Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook contains all the surviving official documents relating to the
Ripper investigation, plus a lot more contemporary material, and it is probably the single most
important Ripper reference book. It should be on the shelf or bedside table or Kindle of any even
moderately serious Ripperologist. This is an ebook of the 2001 paperback edition, complete with all
the illustrations. My only criticism is that whilst it is worth every penny of the price, the price is steep for an ebook,
especially when you can pick up the paperback for a fiver. As said, though, simply having it on the Kindle is worth it. My
biggest complaint is that I was shocked to discover that this book was first published thirteen years ago! Where the hell
has the time gone?

Review by Paul Begg

The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper

Stewart P Evans and Nicholas Connell
Kindle ebook
£6.41
A biography of Inspector Reid, now made famous by Matthew Macfadyen in Ripper Street, this
groundbreaking book paved the way for the appallingly neglected field of biographies of Victorian
policemen. In the past I have been critical of the book because it doesn’t cover in any depth Reid’s
early life, notably his ballooning exploits and life as the fictional Detective Dier, but it does cover his
police career and retirement years in some depth and contains a lot of valuable information. There
can be no higher accolade than for me to say that I actually paid good money for the Kindle edition
of the book and read it – for the fifth time! - during one of my brief and precious moments set aside
for reading for pleasure, aided by a Subway footlong and a coffee.

Review by Paul Begg

Jack the Ripper: The Theories and the Facts

Colin Kendall
Kindle ebook
£6.41
The book was published back in 2010 and I got the impression that Colin Kendall had supplied
Amberley with the manuscript of a book he’d written years earlier and had left sitting in a drawer,
untouched, gathering dust. The ebook, lacking a bibliography and an index, does nothing to dispel
that feeling.

Review by Paul Begg

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 100

 Victorian Lives Behind Victorian Crimes:
The Women Who Made Jack the Ripper Famous
Amanda Harvey Purse
Kindle ebook
£1.91
Amanda Harvey Purse has had the neat idea of having the Ripper’s victims tell their own stories in
their own words, and she has executed it entertainingly, but unpersuasively, and at only 95 pages you
may well find it mercifully short. It’s all very cor blimey and lord luv a duckish. It begins with Fairy
Fay - “Why! Hello my sweeties! I hear you want to know all about little old me, aren’t I the lucky
one, I should say!” and it ends with Herta Mary Anderson - “And to think that little me could have
been murdered by the famous serial killer, Jack the Ripper! I mean that is big, do you not think?” In
between we get Elizabeth Stride - “Hello, my name is Long Liz and I guess you could say I am a foreigner, even though
I have spent many years living on these shores...” – and Mary Kelly, “Hello there, my name is Marie Jeanette Kelly and I
was a French actress don’t you know?” Not my cup of tea.

Review by Paul Begg

VI N
CT DO
ORIA
N LON

Fanny and Stella:

The Young Men Who Shocked Victorian England
Neil McKenna
London: Faber and Faber, 2013
www.faber.co.uk
www.neilmckennawriter.com
hardcover; 396pp; illus; notes; index
ISBN: 978-0-571-23190-4
£16.99
There is an undeniable fascination for the underbelly of Victorian society, but the reasons are
not easily definable and I can only suppose that it is the contrast with the determined outward
respectability that never really was. It is that contrast which is brought sharply into focus in Fanny
& Stella, an example of the establishment trying – and spectacularly failing – to bring a charge of
sodomy against two young men, Ernest Boulton and Frederick Park, who dressed as women and gave themselves female
names.

One gets the impression that Boulton and Park weren’t far off the ‘ladeeze’ of Little Britain, but as they were also
reasonably good drag artistes it is possible that this impression comes from the picture on this book’s front cover. They
were also male prostitutes. They were also wild extroverts who liked going to public venues dressed as women, even
using the ladies lavatory, and behaving outrageously, as they did when they went to the Strand theatre. They were drunk
and from their private box they leered at the men and behaved in a lascivious fashion. Outside they were arrested and
charged with sodomy, for which they faced prison for life. The court case was a sensation.

Fanny and Stella is a great read. The only problem is that McKenna adopts a slightly annoying literary style and, far
more importantly, resorts to imagination when the facts are sparse, treating us to invented dialogue and the character’s
innermost thoughts. It adds a splash of colour, but goes beyond strict historical acceptability. Recommended.

Review by Paul Begg

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 101

 CRIME

Medical Detectives: The Lives and Cases of Britain’s Forensic Five

Robin Odell
Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2013
www.thehistorypress.co.uk
softcover; 223pp; illus; glossary, biblio; index
ISBN: 978-0-7524-6449-7
£12.99
Kindle ebook £8.15
Forensic pathologists have always been popular on television, from Quincy through to Body of
Proof, but the reality of the job is quite different, although one wonders if Francis Camps would today
get away with autopsying a body with the habitual cigarette dangling from his lips! The development
of forensic pathology in Britain really began with Bernard Spilsbury, lauded in his day and such a
powerful media celebrity that he probably remains better and more widely known, albeit only by
name, of the men whose careers and lives are discussed in this book. In fact Spilsbury’s testimony alone was generally
all that was needed to secure a conviction, but as Andrew Rose superbly demonstrated in Lethal Witness (Kent State
University Press, 2009), Spilsbury was far from omnipotent. Those who followed Spilsbury all left their marks and Robin
Odell provides five pen portraits of pathologists who between them performed over 200,000 post-mortems and were
involved in some of the most infamous cases of the 20th century, from Bernard Spilsbury and the Crippen case to Keith
Simpson and the controversies surrounding James Hanratty and Roberto Calvi. In between he looks at the lives of Sir
Sidney Smith, John Glaister and Francis Camps.

This book has Robin Odell’s name on it, so one doesn’t really have to say much more. He knows his subject and he is
objective, portraying these men warts and all, all wrapped up in a highly readable and entertaining text. Recommended.

Review by Paul Begg

Doctor Crippen: The Infamous Cellar Murder of 1910

Nicholas Connell
Stroud, Gloucestershire: Amberley, 2013
www.amberleybooks.com
hardcover; 224pp; illus; notes; biblio; index
ISBN: 978-1-4456-1015-3
£20
A Ripperologist of sufficient note that, one would have thought, nobody reading this could be
unaware of his contributions to the field over the last two decades, Nick Connell is also the leading
authority on Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen’s classic uxoricide. With this new book, he cements his own
reputation, and, perhaps as decisively, nails his murderous subject’s.

And yet, already, no more than a paragraph into this review, there are murmurs of dissent, and
obscure shapes moving through the shadows. Are those the adherents to the famous and poisonous new doctrine,
the one popularised through irresponsible documentaries, lethargic thinking and overblown headlines? ‘Crippen was
innocent!’: do you hear their desperate cries, do you see them squinting at us in the darkness? Shall we admit them to
the daylight here?

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 102

 We better had. The efforts to belatedly exonerate Crippen have become a twenty-first century bandwagon for all
of those who find it not only easy but also desirable to dispense with the inconvenient and cluttering impedimenta of
history and law: bothersome junk like evidence and reason. For Connell, none of the arguments of Crippen’s recent
apologists hold water, and he pulls apart their tangled assumptions, carefully underpinning his analyses with the too-
often overlooked narrative of the official files. Even the (perfectly unremarkable) public availability of these files
becomes a platform for hyperbole in the hands of some theorists. For John Trestrail, the forensic toxicologist who
recently re-investigated Crippen’s case, and whose mélange of sub-evidential DNA results and looking-glass ratiocination
finally stood, dumb and inert, where his argument ought to have been, being given ‘access to the original Crippen
case files … [which were] confidential until recently’ sounded like a coup. But anyone can access them – they’re in the
Public Record Office, and have been open to public inspection since 1985. Connell generously attributes the ‘grandiose’
tone with which the disclosure of these apparently-near-secret files has been described to the weird requirements of
‘television publicity’. But he is, quite rightly, less forgiving when discussing the flaws in Trestrail’s investigation – from
wonky readings of the trial records to Goldacre-esque bad science, Connell’s thorough understanding of the case and its
controversies enables him to add a responsible and sensible voice to the excited clamour.

Away from the glare of the TV-friendly showmanship, Connell excavates the facts of the case. Crippen, as we all
know, fled by sea from London to Canada; Ethel le Neve, his secretary and lover, was with him, dressed in boys’ trousers,
split and safety-pinned at the rear. Newswires all round the world buzzed with their fugitive status, but, on board the
Montrose, neither Crippen nor le Neve knew that Chief Inspector Walter Dew was tailing them, mile by nautical mile,
west across the Atlantic. When the Montrose reached Father Point, on the St Lawrence River, Dew was there, awaiting
his opportunity. On ship, Crippen was promptly arrested for the murder of his wife, Cora – and what did he say? ‘Gosh,
n-no – murder? Inspector, there’s some mistake. Murder? I didn’t – I couldn’t! What murder? Have you found her body?
Where? Inspector Dew – I know nothing about it!’

No. ‘I am not sorry,’ muttered Crippen, dully beneath the dull western skies. ‘The anxiety has been too much.’

Review by Mark Ripper

The Great Train Robbery:

The Untold Story From The Closed Investigation Files
Andrew Cook
Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2013
www.thehistorypress.co.uk
softcover; 255pp; illus; appendices; sources and notes; biblio; index
ISBN: 978-0-7524-5903-5
£18.99
Kindle ebook £11.87
It was fifty years ago that a band of criminals stopped a train at a place called Sears Crossing in
Buckinghamshire and relieved it of £2.6 million (the equivalent of £45 million in today’s money), a
robbery that passed into folklore as The Great Train Robbery, and as one might expect, several books
retell the story. This is one of them.

Andrew Cook seems to be carving a niche for himself as a writer by taking a fresh look at accepted history, but
his books are sufficiently hit and miss to require some caution. I don’t think his book about Melville came anywhere
close to establishing the blurb’s claim that he was the origin of Ian Fleming’s M, his book about Prince Albert Victor
didn’t manage to reverse the long-established view of him as a bit of a dolt, and the less said about his foray into Jack
the Ripper the better. In this case he has had access to the files, many still closed, and can at last solve some of the
mysteries still surrounding the case.

Cook tells a book story in a readable way and it will be interesting to compare this account with the other offerings.

Review by Paul Begg

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 103

 John Christie of Rillington Place:
Biography of a Serial Killer
Jonathan Oates
Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Wharncliffe True Crime, 2013
www.pen-and-sword.co.uk
204pp; illus; notes; biblio; index
ISBN: 184563141-2
£19.99
Another anniversary for 2013 is that of the execution of John Reginald Halliday Christie in 1953.
Christie, somewhat like Crippen, was a man who you wouldn’t give a second glance to on a bus (as he
said himself), was executed on 15 July 1953 for the murder of his wife, but his tally of victims was at
least seven. He is generally credited with the murder of Geraldine Evans, the baby daughter of Timothy
and Beryl Evans, for which Timothy Evans was executed in 1950 and has since been posthumously pardoned.

Jonathan Oates controversially concludes, ‘…it seems fairly certain that he can be cleared of the murders of Beryl
and Geraldine Evans.’, thus supporting the conclusion of John Scott Henderson, who investigated whether the execution
of Evans was the miscarriage of justice it was later decided to have been.

Oates has called upon a wealth of source materials and done a lot of genealogical research to shed light on the
character of Christie.

Review by Paul Begg

Death By Chocolate:
The Serial Poisoning of Victorian Brighton
Sophie Jackson
Fonthill Media
Hardcover, 208 pages
ISBN-10: 1781551049 / ISBN-13: 978-1781551042
The case of Christiana Edmunds – the would-be poisoner of a whole town, via the medium of
chocolate creams – is one of the classics of the mid-Victorian period, but it has been rather under-
represented in monograph form. No NBT, no nothing – until now. Sophie Jackson’s Death by Chocolate
ought to fill a bit of a gap.

Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a missed opportunity. I’m aware of two writers who abandoned work
on Edmunds when they realised that Death by Chocolate had first-mover advantage, but both would
have produced pieces to compare favourably with this book. Ms Jackson finds herself unfortunately drawn into the trap
of developing a somewhat over-familiar dogged-sleuth character – in this example, Inspector Gibbs of the Brighton
Borough Police. Whatever merits Gibbs may have possessed, Ms Jackson’s portrayal of him seems to lean more heavily
upon modern representations of heroic, Saturnine Victorian detectives than it does upon the facts of the case. I know of
only one other source which depicts Gibbs as a man quite so praeternaturally talented, and his work as so remarkably
finessed – this being a semi-fictionalised account published in America, in a serial called Detective Fiction Weekly, in
1936. In this (unreliable) version, Gibbs is ‘dour, silent, swift-moving’, and his investigation is ‘brilliant and painstaking’;
in other words, he is the classic private eye of American literature in the inter-war period. As far as I can tell, Ms Jackson
is unaware of Gibbs’s characterisation in Detective Fiction Weekly, and I am drawn to conclude that her Gibbs is, at
heart, little more than a post-Whicher stereotype. This isn’t the first book to co-opt the manners of Kate Summerscale’s
Whicher, and, of course, all detectives are, ultimately, only what we want them to be – it’s not a crime. But I’m sure
I’m not alone in thinking that the tendency towards homogenisation among Victorian detectives in true-crime stories is
something to be discouraged.

A few other complaints, I’m afraid. More focus and fewer deviations into other subjects might have resulted in a
more enjoyable read. It’s not as if the material isn’t there with dear old Christiana – she’s practically begging to be
treated properly by a sceptical and informed writer. Unfortunately, Ms Jackson seems not to know of the existence of
several key sources, and her narrative suffers as a result. Christiana’s life in Broadmoor is peeked at briefly, but more
comprehensive research would have enabled us to enjoy a more satisfying, lingering look behind the high walls. And

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 104

it is to be regretted that Ms Jackson was unable to find the carte de visite which did the rounds in Brighton in the
wake of Christiana’s infamy. There must be one out there. Instead, Ms Jackson’s etching of Christiana is one which is
pretty familiar to internet users. Perhaps it is not just coincidence that her other images of key figures in the case –
Professor Letheby, William Ballantine and John Humffreys Parry alike – are also available for copying and pasting from
the internet. The slight pixellation affecting the three gentlemen, in particular, betrays their electronic origins. Closer
inspection shows that the images of Ballantine and Parry have come from Wikipedia, via the National Portrait Gallery.
They are available for use in non-commercial projects under a Creative Commons licence – but it is not true to say that
they can then be ripped from Wikipedia with quite the same impunity. Five separate images of the Royal Pavilion, a
Brighton landmark which has as little to do with the Edmunds case as, say, St Paul’s Cathedral has to do with the Ripper,
scarcely make up for the shortfall in the book’s illustrated content. I do not know who will relish paying £18.99 – or
nearly $30 on the other side of the Atlantic – for this sort of thing. Caveat emptor.

Review by Mark Ripper

POLICE

Sir Robert Anderson: The Thinking Man’s Guide To The Bible

Biblical Insight by the Real Life Sherlock Holmes
Who Solved the “Jack the Ripper” Case
Gerald B Shugart
www.twonewcovenents.com
Kindle ebook
£3.94
It may come as a surprise to many to realise that Sir Robert Anderson is still quite an important figure
in religious fundamentalism, his theological writings still widely read, all still in print in hard copy and
as ebooks. This book, with a subtitle guaranteed to raise the hackles on many a Ripperologist and a
content that will be meaningless to many and a struggle to most, including me, doesn’t greatly inspire
when one reads that Anderson’s suspect was “Alan Kosminski” and that he was arrested following a
house-to-house search. Fortunately, Shugart isn’t concerned with Anderson the policeman, and he is
on much safer ground with Anderson the theologian, which is what this book is about. And what it is
about specfically is dispensationalism, which is where it will part company with most readers. It is an interesting book,
insofar as one understood it, and will perhaps repay a more careful reading than I was able to give it, shedding some
insight into the mind of this rather complex man.

Review by Paul Begg

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 105

 The Yard
Alex Grecian
London: Penguin Books, 2013
www.alexgrecian.com
www.penguin.com
583pp
£7.99
Kindle ebook 4.99
We missed this debut novel from Alex Grecian when it was published in hardback last year, so
thought it worth taking a look with the publication of the paperback. It’s 1889, the aftermath of the
Ripper murders, and Scotland Yard has set up a new Murder Squad to battle against a crime wave that,
like the Ripper, seems to defy the best efforts of the police to bring under control. When the body of a
detective is found in a suitcase, his eyes and lips sewn together, the Yard’s newest recruit, Walter Day,
finds an ally in the forensic pathologist Dr Bernard Kingsley (Walter Dew and Bernard Spilsbury?).

The author is American who had never visited London before or during the writing of this book, a boast his American
publisher needn’t have made, as the language is American and modern, and some may find the recreation of late-
Victorian London, whilst certainly very atmospheric, owing more to a romantic vision of what it probably was like rather
than what is actually was like. The story is daft, the ending dafter, and as an adventure novel it’s neither good nor bad.
Overall, I’ll give the next adventure in the series, due sometime later this year, a whirl.

Review by Paul Begg

RESE
A RCH

Going To The Sources: A Guide To Historical Research and Writing

Fifth Edition
Anthony Brundage
Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013
www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell
162pp; appendices; index
ISBN: 978-1-118-51531-0
£12.99
‘Jack the Ripper’ is a mystery to tax the brain of the armchair detective, and one can speculate
and theorise, and come up with a plethora of what ifs, but the bottom line is that ‘Jack the Ripper’ is
history and is subject to the self-same rules and practices as is all history.

What is surprising, however, is that some people don’t really understand what history is and
Brundage begins this book by telling an anecdote about being at a cocktail party where a psychologist
said ‘I don’t suppose there is much that’s new going n in your field’ and who clearly laboured under the misapprehension
that history is dead, static, unchanging. Needless to say, it isn’t. History is fluid and ever-changing.

This book is written primarily for a student in school and those beginning university and it embraces almost everything
from the basics of the historian’s craft through locating, interpreting and utilizing sources, to historical writing. It’s
simply written, is easy to understand, and extremely useful. It’s also short, so it’s not too taxing for the casual reader
either.

Review by Paul Begg

Ripperologist 130 February 2013 106

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hb/dw inscribed to Adam Wood by both authors £20 s/c signed £20

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s/c signed labels Yost and Begg (Foreword) £30 5 volume set £675

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new hb/dw signed £20
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Curtis Jr (L Perry) PRINCE OF QUACKS: THE NOTORIOUS LIFE
JACK THE RIPPER AND THE LONDON PRESS OF DR FRANCIS TUMBELTY
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Facsimile hb/dw signed labels Richard and Molly £45 THE DIARY OF JACK THE RIPPER: ANOTHER CHAPTER
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hb/dw signed label £15 JACK THE RIPPER QUEST FOR A KILLER
new hb/dw signed label £20
Griffiths (Major Arthur)
MYSTERIES OF POLICE AND CRIME Turnbull (Peter)
Vols I, II, and III (1920 edn.) h/b £85 THE KILLER WHO NEVER WAS
h/b £140
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h/b £100 A CASEBOOK ON JACK THE RIPPER
h/b signed label £250
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h/b signed £500 A COLLECTION OF PRESENT-DAY THEORIES AND OBSERVATIONS
Ripperologist
new reprint hb/dw 130 February
with 5 signatures £1002013 107
 A new line-up of characters get set for
the re-opening of the London Dungeon in March.
Clockwise from front:
Guy Fawkes, Sweeney Todd, Mrs Lovett,
Henry VIII, Mary Jane Kelly and Jack the Ripper.
See I Beg to Report.