Ripperologist 134

No.
134 October 2013
Guy Logan
vs the Ripper
JAN BONDESON on the journalist and his
fascination with the Whitechapel Murderer
JENNIFER SHELDEN on The Fifth Victim by Antonia Alexander

LYNN CATES examines Catherine Eddowes’ last days
MICHAELA KORISTOVA on a German policeman in London
GREG ALEXANDER with a look at Toulouse Lautrec as a suspect
NINA AND HOWARD BROWN | PRESS TRAWL | AN ALPINE DIVORCE IN VICTORIAN FICTION
Ripperologist 118 January 2011 1
Quote for the month
“Planet Earth holds many mysteries. There’s the Bermuda Triangle,
Bigfoot, Jack the Ripper and the Loch Ness monster to mention a few.
Then there’s Fabio Borini, Liverpool’s number 29.”
As the new football season starts, Liverpool FC supporter Carl Magnus Magnusson explains
that the game really is a matter of life and death.
The Mystery of Fabio Borini, empireofthekop.com, 14 September 2013

www.empireofthekop.com/anfield/2013/09/14/the-mystery-of-fabio-borini-by-cmmagnusson
Ripperologist 134
October 2013
EDITORIAL: FOR BETTER OR WORSE EXECUTIVE EDITOR
by Adam Wood Adam Wood
GUY LOGAN VS JACK THE RIPPER EDITORS

by Jan Bondeson Gareth Williams
Eduardo Zinna
THE FIFTH VICTIM: HAND OF A WOMAN?
by Jennifer Shelden EDITOR-AT-LARGE
Christopher T George
HER FINAL HOURS: A RECONSTRUCTION OF THE LAST
THREE DAYS IN THE LIFE OF KATE EDDOWES REVIEWS EDITOR
by Lynn Cates Paul Begg
A GERMAN POLICEMAN IN LONDON COLUMNISTS

by Michaela Koristova Howard Brown
Mike Covell
HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC Chris Scott
by Greg Alexander The Gentle Author
HUNT THE RIPPER ARTWORK
by Colin Saysell Adam Wood
THE MEN WHO WOULD BE JACK
by Howard and Nina Brown
CHRIS SCOTT’S PRESS TRAWL
SPITALFIELDS LIFE Follow the latest news at
by The Gentle Author www.facebook.com/ripperologist
I BEG TO REPORT: NEWS ROUNDUP BACK ISSUES. Single PDF files of issue
62 onwards are available at £2 each.
VICTORIAN FICTION: AN ALPINE DIVORCE ADVERTISING. Advertising in
by Robert Barr Ripperologist costs £50.00 for a full
page and £25.00 for a half-page.
REVIEWS
The Fifth Victim and more! www.ripperologist.biz
We would like to acknowledge the valuable assistance given by the following people in the production of this issue of Ripperologist: Loretta Lay and the
Gentle Author. Thank you!
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civil liability and criminal prosecution. Ripperologist 118 January 2011 2
For Better or Worse
EDITORIAL by ADAM WOOD
This editorial was going to be about the London Underground. With interest in the Whitechapel
murders now at its highest peak since the 1988 centenary due to it being the 125th anniversary,
it has quietly slipped by that it was 150 years ago that the Tube first opened, the first trip along a
four-mile track between Paddington and Farringdon on 10 January 1863 representing the world’s
first journey by underground train. I was going to write about the tube stations available to the
Ripper in 1888, and the possibility of him using one to escape detection.
But then, a week after we published our latest issue, Don
Souden suffered a stroke.
With our colleague Paul Begg still in hospital (he was

admitted in March and is presently detained at his nurses’
pleasure, writing our reviews from his bed), and long-time
columnist Chris Scott undergoing a bone marrow transplant
as part of his fight against chronic lymphatic leukemia, the
shock of another of the Ripperologist family being taken
seriously ill put a different complexion on things. Don, Editor
at the Rip for more than 40 issues between 2006 and 2010,
was paralysed on his left side and has since also suffered
pneumonia.
Adding to the list serious health issues being suffered by

Ripperologists Tom Wescott and Phil Carter, 2013 has proved
to be less of a year to remember in the field as would have
been anticipated on New Year’s Day.
It has been uplifting to see posters on Casebook and The Rip’s Adam Wood, Eduardo Zinna and Don Souden at the
jtrforums.com rallying to support those taken ill, and puts 2007 Jack the Ripper Conference in Wolverhampton
into perspective the online arguments and bitterness often

seen on discussion of certain aspects of the Ripper murders.
One of the best things which could come out of the spotlight currently shining more brightly than usual on our shared
interest would be not for the public to believe that Sir John Williams had an affair with Mary Kelly (more on that in this
issue) or that there was in fact no Jack the Ripper, but for those of us who study the Ripper case year-in year-out to
be more respectful to our fellow researchers, starting with the imminent Conference where hopefully people who spit
bile at one another on the message boards will bury the hatchet over a drink and resolve to debate in a more civilised
manner.
Life’s too short.
To Don, Paul, Chris and every reader suffering illness right down to an ingrowing toenail: Be well.
Ripperologist 134 October 2013 1

Guy Logan vs.
Jack The Ripper
By JAN BONDESON
Guy Bertie Harris Logan was born at St Leonards-on-Sea,

Sussex, in July 1869. He was the only son of Captain George
Eugene Logan and his wife Louisa. The Logan family was
quite a distinguished one: Guy’s great-grandfather was
Walter Logan Esq, of Fingalton, Renfrewshire, a wealthy
and influential squire and business man. His grandfather was
Major General George Logan, of the old Indian Army, who
had married Eugenia Emma Harris, the granddaughter of the
distinguished soldier Lord Harris. His father died suddenly
and unexpectedly, from an aortic aneurysm, when visiting
his mother at Hampton Court in February 1875. Louisa Logan
was now alone with three children, and her circumstances
in life must have become seriously straitened after the
untimely death of the family breadwinner.
Already as a schoolboy, Guy Logan took a strong interest in London’s
criminal history. After school, he made excursions to look for houses
where famous murders had taken place. Setting out from the Bloomsbury
lodging-house where the Logan family had secured a gloomy asylum,
young Guy went to see No. 11 Montague Place, where old Mrs Jeffs had
been murdered by a mystery assailant in 1828, and No. 12 Great Coram
Street, site of the unsolved murder of Harriet Buswell on Christmas Eve
1872. In 1879 there was sensation when an old lady in Richmond, Mrs Julia
Thomas, had been murdered by her servant Kate Webster. The horrid
circumstances of the murder, with the harmless old woman being brutally
done to death by her sturdy, muscular domestic, who then proceeded to
dismember the body with a chopper and boil it in the kitchen copper,
A signed photograph of Guy Logan, with his racecourse binoculars,
made a great impression on young Guy. He of course went to No. 2 Vine from his Dramas of the Dock.
Cottages (today No. 9 Park Road), Richmond, where the murder had taken
place, to admire this famous murder house. When a friendly aunt took
Guy to Madame Tussaud’s, he shocked her by demanding an immediate descent to the Chamber of Horrors, to which
an effigy of Kate Webster had recently been added. As Guy himself later expressed it, “My depraved interest in the
models of the notorious criminals was such, I have been told, that it was with difficulty I was persuaded to return to the
‘central transept’, where the waxen Kings, Queens, and other celebrities held court. I could not be induced to come
away from Kate Webster, whose image I regarded with fascinated horror. There, in front of me and as large as life, was
the waxen counterfeit of the dread woman whose crime had caused such a stir, and who looked capable, in my youthful
imagination, of boiling half a dozen mistresses in as many coppers.”

The 1881 Census finds the 32-year-old Louisa Logan at No. 3 Peak Hill Avenue, Lewisham, with the children Eugenie,
Guy and Violet, aged 12, 11 and 10, all listed as ‘scholars’. There is no record of Guy attending a private school, but by
some stratagem or other, his mother made sure that he received a good education. As an adult, Guy would write good
English, read French without difficulty, and display excellent general knowledge. He was a keen student of the works of
William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, and of poets in the school of Thomas Hood and Richard Harris Barham. Guy
joined the Royal Artillery as a private soldier in 1891, but only to desert from the army after a few weeks service, to
marry the young barmaid Melville Stroud.
Guy and Melville settled down in lodgings in Kennington Road, trying their best to make ends meet. Guy rather fancied
himself as an actor, but he could only get miserably paid ‘extra’ parts. He also began dabbling in journalism, writing
about celebrated crimes, and reporting on trials and horse-races. A graduate of the Tom and Jerry school of journalism,
he learnt his job as he went along. He claimed to have reported on the latter part of the hunt for Jack the Ripper, but
for this to be at all true, there must be a strong emphasis on the word latter. In March 1893, Guy was in Liverpool,
representing a London morning newspaper. Returning to his Kennington Road lodgings, he was dismayed to find that his
wife Melville had deserted him, for good, taking their infant son Eustace with her. Making inquiries, Guy found that she
was living with an Australian named Harry Verner, as his ‘wife’. The unexpected breakdown of his marriage must have
been a serious blow to Guy and his self-esteem. But still, he remained a member of bohemian London’s sub-literary and
thespian circles, hob-nobbing with his fellow journalists and actors.
Guy made sure that from the early 1890s onwards, he did not miss any trial for murder at the Old Bailey. In 1895,
Guy decided to try his hand as a playwright. He wrote a two-act comedy entitled Up the River, with music composed by
a certain Dr Storer. In September 1896, when his comedy A Society Scandal premiered at South Shields, ‘the young and
clever author Guy Logan’ was presented as the author of His Agency, An Actor’s Frolic and Sunny Sundown. Although Guy
does not appear to have acted in any of his own plays, one of the mainstays of his existence in the late 1890s was touring
with various provincial theatrical companies. A jolly extrovert, he liked the bohemian existence of a travelling thespian.
*****
In 1900, the Illustrated Police News commissioned Guy to write an ultra-patriotic novel about the Boer War. Realizing
that he had come on to a good thing, he did not mention that he had never been anywhere near South Africa, or that
as a former army deserter, he was singularly ill-equipped to depict military heroism. Instead, he started writing with
alacrity, since the editor of the Illustrated Police News wanted ‘Violet Kildare, A Romance of the South African War’, to
begin straight away.
In Violet Kildare, the pretty and virtuous young heroine departs from home to visit her aunt in South Africa. On board
ship, she meets the young gentleman Cecil Goldworthy, the son of a retired major-general who regrets his previous
bohemian life, and wants to enlist in the army as a private soldier. Violet also comes across a tall Boer named Paul
Flaubert, who is a secret agent plotting to make sure war will break out. When the lustful Boer tries some hanky-panky
with young Violet, Cecil comes to the rescue of the swooning heroine, manfully exclaiming “Release that lady! Are you
man or brute?” The tall Boer replies “You verdoomed Englishman, I’d sjambok you if I had you across the Vaal! I’d...”
But Cecil interrupts the sturdy, barrel-chested cad by striking him a tremendous blow on his glass jaw, knocking him out
cold.
Cecil joins forces with the funny ‘stage Irishman’ ‘Patsy’ Nolan, a loyal old retainer of the Kildare family. As soldiers
in the Cape Mounted Rifles, they enjoy many adventures together. In Guy’s version of South Africa, there are no black
people, nor any African animals: the British and Boer armies are depicted as if they were out on manoeuvres near
Aldershot. The British generals are wise and noble, and the soldiers honest and brave; although the Boers try various
dastardly and unsporting ruses, they are slowly heading for defeat. The villain Paul Flaubert lies and cheats, and makes
use of his sjambok to discipline helpless prisoners. His aim is to abduct and ravish Violet, who works as a nurse at the
military hospital, but the brave Cecil is always there to protect her, landing some powerful blows on the villain’s glass
jaw. In the end, Flaubert tries one final roll of the dice, namely to lure Violet on board a ship full of explosives. But
when the clumsy Boer tries to blow the ship up, he has miscalculated the length of the fuse, and is himself blown to
smithereens. All ends well for young Cecil: he is welcomed back to London by his proud father, marries Violet, and lives
happily ever after.

The serialization of ‘Violet Kildare’ in the Illustrated Police News was concluded on March 16 1901, to general
acclaim. Guy would remain one of the most trusted and regular contributors of that newspaper for a decade and a half
to come. He wrote both poetry and prose, and both fiction and non-fiction. The Illustrated Police News did its best to
advertise the activities of their star performer, pointing out that ‘Mr Guy Logan, author of our popular serial story Violet
Kildare, is the author also of a new musical-farcical play in three acts, entitled When a Man’s Married, which is to be
produced at the Theatre Royal, Dover, on Monday next. The music is by Colet Dare and Arnold Cooke... Mr Logan is also
engaged on a drama for the same management, and a new musical comedy on a very big scale for the well-known Mr
Alexander Loftus, of New Barmaid fame.’ Guy also found time to write for the excellent but little-known true crime
weekly Famous Crimes Past & Present, edited by his friend Harold Furniss, contributing some of his most original and
interesting work.
*****
In 1905, the editor of the Illustrated Police

News approached Guy with a suggestion that
must have gladdened his heart. The time had
come to serialize another thrilling novel in this
newspaper, written by the stalwart Guy Logan,
since there was not enough serious crime to fill
its twelve weekly pages, about – Jack the Ripper!
Guy Logan’s novel The True History of Jack the

Ripper, of which the reader can find a ‘taster’
at the end of this article, attracted positive
notice from the readership of the Illustrated
Police News, and his literary career was
looking brighter than ever before. He became
a permanent contributor to this newspaper,
‘Is He the Whitechapel Murderer?’, from the Illustrated Police News, 22 September 1888 with a not inconsiderable output of poetry and
prose, as well as several articles on the history
of crime. It must have been a disappointment to him that none of his early novels were ever published in book form. The
title of The True History of Jack the Ripper alone would have sold thousands of books, and it is a mystery indeed why no
enterprising publisher took it on, when they could have bought the rights from the Illustrated Police News for a pittance.
In his novel, Guy adhered to what can

be termed the Macnaghten version of
events, as originally outlined in Major Arthur
Griffiths’ Mysteries of Police and Crime. The
Whitechapel Murderer had five victims and
five victims only, and the major suspect was
a doctor in the prime of life, presumed to be
insane or in the borderland of insanity. He had
disappeared after the murder of Mary Kelly,
and was found drowned in the Thames a month
after the Miller’s Court atrocity. The journalist
and author George R Sims, who knew both Sir
Melville Macnaghten and Major Arthur Griffiths,
was another early proponent of the ‘Doctor
in the Thames’ version of events. A successful
playwright and poet in his time, and an early
Women are arming themselves to take on the Ripper, from
proponent of social reform, Sims has become the Illustrated Police News, 22 September 1888.
almost totally forgotten. It is not generally
known that the author of ‘Christmas Eve in the Workhouse’ and other overblown poems was actually a journalist of

some standing. Sims was fond of London’s criminal history, an area where he was tolerably well informed. A blatant
self-publicist, he was often fond of hinting that he possessed secret information about the unsolved mysteries of the
great metropolis. He more than once speculated about the identity of Jack the Ripper in his ‘Mustard and Cress’ column
in the Referee newspaper. The bold Sims claimed that he knew that Jack the Ripper had twice been incarcerated in
lunatic asylums, but each time, the benign alienists had let this monster loose to continue his sanguinary career. Another
dubious addition from Sims was that the police had been in search of the doctor alive when they found him dead.
In a serial about ‘My Criminal Museum’ in Lloyd’s Weekly News, George R Sims provided some further useful hints
about the ‘Doctor in the Thames’. The
Doctor had lived in a suburb about six miles
from Whitechapel. He had suffered from a
horrible form of homicidal mania, directed
against women of a certain class, as Sims put
it. He had once been an inmate in a lunatic
asylum, but had been liberated and regained
his complete freedom. After the murder of
Mary Kelly, the doctor had disappeared, and
his friends had made inquiries about him,
detailing their own suspicions to the proper
authorities. A month later, the doctor’s
body was found in the Thames, looking
as if it had been in the river for nearly a
month. It is not known what proportion
of Sims’ speculations was based on fact,
and how much was invention. Nor is Sims’
original police source known, but it is likely
to have been either Sir Melville Macnaghten ‘The Fifth Victim of the Whitechapel Fiend’, from the Illustrated Police News, 6 October 1888
or Major Arthur Griffiths.
Guy Logan and George R Sims moved in

the same circles: both were playwrights
and journalists, and they shared an interest
in criminal history. Guy’s ‘Leaves from
our Notebook’ column in Famous Crimes
indicates that he knew Sims, and that he
quoted this senior journalist’s opinion
with respect. It is unfortunate that we do
not know if these two were friends or just
nodding acquaintances, but it is safe to
presume that the plot of Guy’s ‘The True
History of Jack the Ripper’ owes much to
George R Sims and his lucubrations about
the Ripper’s identity. Mortemer Slade is a
doctor, who makes sure he gets out of the
asylum. He suffers from homicidal mania
and murders five prostitutes, before he
plunges into the Thames. Although Guy
‘Finding the Mutilated Body in Mitre Square’, from the Illustrated Police News, 6 October 1888.
adds some sensational improvements to the
story, he still adheres to what he believed to be the accepted basic facts about the mystery of the Whitechapel Murders,
as presented by George R Sims.
The story of the Doctor in the Thames is still debated today. The major problem has been that no medical man,
of any description, was fished out of the river at the relevant period of time. When Sir Melville Macnaghten’s original
memorandum was rediscovered in 1959, the ‘doctor’ was named as Mr M J Druitt, however. There was immediate
enthusiasm among the Ripperologist community when it turned out that Montague John Druitt, a young barrister turned

schoolmaster, had really committed suicide in December 1888. He had been sacked from the school where he had been
teaching, and his mother had been certified insane and committed to a lunatic asylum. Montague Druitt’s suicide note
said that since he was fearful of going the same way as his mother, the best thing was for him to die. The note did not
at all refer to the Whitechapel Murders.
For more than fifty years, Ripperologists have been searching for corroborative evidence against Montague Druitt,
whose life has been described in some detail. He had been quite talented as a young man, and a useful cricketer, but he
failed to achieve anything worthwhile as an adult. The reason he had been fired from Mr Valentine’s School, Blackheath,
where he had been teaching for eight years, may well have been homosexual tendencies. But nothing has emerged to
incriminate this rather inadequate young man, or to suggest that he was capable of committing a series of gruesome
murders. It is left unexplained why Macnaghten, Major Griffiths and George R Sims all described Druitt as a doctor,
when he lacked any medical education, nor is there an obvious reason why Macnaghten stated that the suspect was
41 years old, when Druitt was in fact only 31. It has been discovered that as early as early as February 1891, Mr Henry
Richard Farquharson, a West Country MP, told a journalist that Jack the Ripper was the son of a surgeon, and that he had
committed suicide on the night of the final murder. Now the Druitt family came from Wimbourne in Dorset, not far from
Farquharson’s country seat at Tarrant Gunville, and Montague Druitt’s father was a prominent local surgeon.
*****
In the mid-1920s, Guy Logan finally decided to make some positive use of his encyclopedic knowledge of criminal
history, and to establish himself as a
writer on true crime. It was not easy
for a little-known former penny-a-liner
like him to get his first book published,
however. In the 1920s as well as today,
patronage and influential friends were
important factors conducive to success
in London’s nepotistic literary world.
George R Sims had died in 1922, and
he and Guy do not appear to have been
close friends anyway. Although Sims had
been an enthusiastic member of Arthur
Lambton’s Crimes Club, there was no
hope for Guy to be invited to hob-nob
with the snobbish members of this select
dining club. In fact, his only ally among
Britain’s true crime authors appears to
have been Wynifried Margaret Jesse, a
Some of Guy Logan’s books.
successful writer on criminal and other
topics under her gender-neutral pen-name F Tennyson Jesse. She befriended Guy in the 1920s and encouraged him to
keep writing.
It took until 1928 before Stanley Paul Publishers, a reputable London house, published Guy’s first proper book,
Masters of Crime, a study of multiple murders. A nicely bound and well illustrated hardback, it sold for 12 shillings and
sixpence. On the title page, he is introduced as the author of ‘Mystery of a Second Class Carriage’, ‘Chronicles of Crime’
and ‘The Tragic Tale of Thurtell’, but these are some of his old Illustrated Police News serials, which their canny author
had disguised as proper books to give the impression that he was an experienced and much-published writer. Masters of
Crime is likely to be the first full-length book dealing with multiple murders. It begins with a long chapter about Jack
the Ripper. The Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 are also dealt with in full: unlike some later commentators, Guy does
not doubt the guilt of John Williams, the man arrested for the crimes, who committed suicide while in custody. The
book ends with a long chapter on ‘Scenes of Celebrated Crimes’, in which Guy shows off his considerable murder house
detection skills.
Although receiving few and lukewarm reviews, Masters of Crime sold well enough for Stanley Paul to commission

its successor Guilty or Not Guilty, arguably Guy’s best true crime book. Published in April 1929, it consists entirely of
British murder mysteries. Guy provides a brilliant retelling of the mysterious murder of Jane Clousen at Kidbrooke Lane,
Eltham, in 1871, for which a young man named Edmund Pook stood trial and was acquitted. Guy clearly thought him a
very lucky man. Guy resurrected the well-nigh forgotten mystery of Mrs Ann Reville, murdered in a Slough butcher’s shop
in 1881. A boy named Augustus Payne stood trial for the crime, but was acquitted; Guy instead hints, quite possibly with
some right, that Mrs Reville’s husband Hezekiah might have been the guilty man. Guy also provides a superior account
of another Victorian mystery: the disappearance of the baker Urban Napoleon Stanger from his shop at No. 136 Lever
Street. Quite possibly, his remains were roasted in his own oven by Franz Felix Stumm, another German baker, who had
designs both on Stanger’s wealth and his wife. The book’s other unsolved murder mysteries include those of Rose Harsent
of Peasenhall, George Harry Storrs of Gorse Hall, and the North London railway murder of little Willie Starchfield.
Again, the sales of Guilty or Not Guilty proved sufficient for Stanley Paul to commission Guy’s third outing in the
true crime field: Rope, Knife and Chair, published in May 1930. A collection of celebrated British, French and American
murders, its contents include the Louise Masset and Mrs Pearcey cases, and Guy also makes an early mention of that
monstrous American boy murderer, Jesse Pomeroy. Guy’s fourth true crime book, Dramas of the Dock, published in
November 1930, is of higher quality, providing intriguing full-length accounts of the Euston Square mystery of 1879, and
of the mysterious Manchester murder of Jane Roberts in 1880. Guy resurrected the almost unknown Northampton case
of Andrew McRae who murdered Annie Pritchard in 1893; he also managed to find and photograph the murder house in
Dychurch Lane. He dedicated Dramas of the Dock to F Tennyson Jesse, “to whom the author is beholden for much help
and encouragement”.
In September 1931, the prolific Guy released his fifth true crime book, Great Murder Mysteries, a hodgepodge of
British and foreign cases ‘left over’ from his earlier books. But although published in London
by Stanley Paul, and in New York by Duffield & Co, this book was hardly reviewed at all, and
sold very poorly. The year after, Stanley Paul dropped Guy from their list of authors, for good.
It took him several years to find another publisher: Eldon Books, who normally specialized in
cheap novels. His 1935 book Verdict and Sentence had a preface by Sir Basil Thomson, the
former Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard, who had written several useful true crime
books himself. Sir Basil admired the depth of Guy’s research, and the fact that since the
early 1890s, he had attended every important murder trial at the Old Bailey. The sprightly
chapter on the Mannings includes a mention of Guy’s grandfather Major-General George
Logan, who had met Mrs Manning in Edinburgh in 1849. Albeit a woman of a certain age, she
had been very friendly to young Lieutenant Logan, whose advise she sought concerning how
to dispose of the valuables of her former friend Patrick O’Connor, whose mangled remains
she and her husband had left behind under the flagstones of their kitchen at No. 3 Miniver
Place, Bermondsey. Guy’s Verdict and Sentence also contains a curious chapter about the
murder of Mr Paas by the bookbinder James Cook in Leicester in 1832. The murder house,
said to be the smallest house in Leicester and situated down a narrow yard approached from
Wellington Street, had been pulled down just a few years earlier. Another chapter deals
with Christiana Edmunds, the celebrated Brighton chocolate-cream poisoner. The chapter
entitled ‘On the scaffold’ has tell-tale similarities with the long essay ‘Last Words on the The lurid cover of one of Guy Logan’s
Mellifont reprint paperbacks.
Scaffold’, originally published in Famous Crimes. Guy’s final full-length book Wilful Murder
contains chapters on Courvoisier, Kate Webster and William Seaman the Whitechapel murderer of 1896, among others.
A brilliant chapter deals with the mysterious axe murders on board the American barkantine Herbert Fuller in 1896. The
second mate, a man named Thomas Bram, was convicted for murdering the captain, his wife and the first mate, but he
was later released on parole and pardoned by President Woodrow Wilson in 1919.
The relative scarcity of his books has meant that Guy Logan has not received the recognition he is due. Well written
and amusing, his true crime books are based on a lifetime of study of criminal history. Guy had personally attended the
trials of many of his protagonists, and had kept accumulating material ever since. It has to be remembered that Guy
was 59-years-old when Masters of Crime was first published: some of his coy and old-fashioned literary mannerisms hark
back to Victorian times. Syphilis is referred to as “a disease that should be nameless” and paedophilia is “a crime which
I cannot detail”. The major drawback of his books, for the reader with an academic bent, is that they all entirely lack
footnotes and sources, even with regard to the origin of their illustrations. Still, the factual reliability of the books is

very good, and they provide interesting sidelights on some curious British murder mysteries. Guy Logan died at Milton
Road, Weston-super-Mare, on 10 February 1947, aged 78, from acute pneumonia according to his death certificate.
*****
When he wrote about Jack the Ripper in his 1928 book Masters of Crime, Guy Logan had clearly moved on from his
1905 theory about the murders. Indeed, he sneers that ‘The late George R Sims was fond of declaring that, in the end,
the murderer’s identity was known to the police, that he was a doctor who had become insane, and that his body was
found in the Thames soon after his last exploit, but nothing to establish this story was ever put forward, and I regard
it as pure myth.’ Instead, Guy was the first theorist on the Ripper case to suggest that the murderer might have been
an American, and that after committing the Whitechapel Murders, he had returned to his native land. He speculated
that the American might have contracted syphilis from an East End prostitute, and that he had developed neurosyphilis
resulting in a murderous mania against the class from which he chose his victims. Not unreasonably, Guy found it likely
that the American had access to a secret lair in Whitechapel. Interestingly, he further speculated that there had been
those in London who knew about the murderer’s proclivities, but were too timid to denounce him.
It has been suggested that Guy Logan’s musings about the American Jack the Ripper may well have been inspired by
a letter sent to George R Sims by the Detective Chief Inspector John George Littlechild, formerly of Scotland Yard, in
1913. When Sims had been sniffing around for further information about the ‘Doctor in the Thames’, who he interestingly
referred to as ‘Dr D.’, Littlechild’s reply was a startling one:
I never heard of a Dr D. in connection with the Whitechapel murders but amongst the suspects, and to my
mind a very likely one, was a Dr T. (which sounds much like D.) He was an American quack named Tumblety
and was at one time a frequent visitor to London and on these occasions constantly brought under the notice
of police, there being a large dossier concerning him at Scotland Yard. Although a ‘Sycopathia Sexualis’
subject he was not known as a ‘Sadist’ (which the murderer unquestionably was) but his feelings toward
women were remarkable and bitter in the extreme, a fact on record. Tumblety was arrested at the time of
the murders in connection with unnatural offences and charged at Marlborough Street, remanded on bail,
jumped his bail, and got away to Boulogne. He shortly left Boulogne and was never heard of afterwards. It
was believed he committed suicide but certain it is that from this time the ‘Ripper’ murders came to an end.
After the leading ‘Ripper’ collector Stewart P Evans had purchased the Littlechild Letter in 1993, and realized
its considerable significance, he made sure that the antecedents of this
mysterious Dr Tumblety were properly investigated. It turned out that ‘Dr’
Francis Tumblety, an American quack, had been in London at the time of the
Whitechapel Murders. A native of Ireland, his family had emigrated to the
United States in the 1830s. He established himself as a prominent member
of America’s booming ‘herbal medicine’ industry, and earned a good living on
Tumblety’s Pimple Destroyer and other well-publicised nostrums. When one of
his patients died unexpectedly, quite possibly as a result of his ministrations,
he could afford a good lawyer, and got off scot free. A flamboyant character
with a liking for pseudo-military attire, the tall ‘doctor’ sported an over-large
moustache and was accompanied by a favourite dog. A practicing homosexual,
he was said to be known for his misogyny and his hatred for prostitutes. He
travelled incessantly, and more than once visited Europe.
It is a fact that Francis Tumblety was in London at the relevant time, since
we know that he was arrested on 7 November 1888 on several charges of
‘gross indecency’, involving homosexual practices with various young men.
Awaiting trial, he jumped bail and escaped to France using a false name,
before leaving for the United States. The problem was that the good ‘doctor’,
who was already notorious for his self-promotion and habitual untruthfulness,
had accumulated a good many enemies within the American newspaper press.
These individuals published articles about Tumblety’s escape from London,
hinting that his arrest had been connected to the Jack the Ripper murders, and
even untruthfully alleging that Scotland Yard was trying to get him extradited. Chief Inspector Littlechild

But the New York City Police, who kept Tumblety under surveillance, said that there was no proof of his complicity in the
Whitechapel murders, and the crime for which he was under bond in London was not extraditable. Far from committing
suicide like Littlechild had suspected, Francis Tumblety lived on until 1903, in comfortable circumstances.
The discovery of Tumblety as a bona fide Jack the Ripper suspect has meant that the good doctor’s past life has been
put under the microscope, but just like for Montague Druitt, there has been a distinct scarcity of additional incriminating
evidence. Tumblety lied and bragged, and cheated people with his dubious herbal medicines, but he did not seem to
possess any violent tendencies. A very tall and broad-shouldered man with an enormous handle-bar moustache, he would
have stuck out like a sore thumb in the Whitechapel slums with his weak, effeminate voice and obvious American accent.
And as a homosexual, he would be almost unique in the annals of male serial killers of women.
Are there any other Ripper suspects that fit Guy Logan’s profile of the ‘travelling serial killer’? One was the abortionist
and serial poisoner Dr Thomas Neill Cream, who was said to have tried to confess to being the Ripper just before his
execution, but he is recorded to have been in an American prison at the time of the Whitechapel Murders. Slightly more
promising is the Hungarian Alois Szemeredy, once charged with murdering a woman in Buenos Aires, but evidence is
lacking that he was in London at the time of the murders. After the German seaman Carl Feigenbaum had been executed
for murdering his landlady in New York City in 1894, his lawyer gave press interviews pointing out his client as Jack
the Ripper. It has later been argued that a sailor visiting London occasionally on a German ship would have excellent
opportunities to commit murder during these visits, before taking refuge on board ship, but again evidence is lacking
that Feigenbaum was in London at the relevant time.
Another, more promising ‘travelling serial killer’ was Severin Klosowski, aka George Chapman, convicted for murder
in 1903. A violent man with a misogynistic streak, he left London in April 1891 and went to the United States. He
returned to London in 1893, took the lease of several pubs, and poisoned three of his mistresses. Chief Inspector
Frederick Abberline, Hargrave Adam and Superintendent Arthur Neal all considered Chapman a credible suspect, as
has leading modern Ripper author Philip Sugden. Chapman was the right age, had the right temperament, and knew
Whitechapel well. But on the other hand, it is strange for a serial killer to change his modus operandi so radically (ie
knives to poison); whereas Jack the Ripper murdered (presumably) unknown street prostitutes, Chapman murdered
women who were well acquainted to him. As Guy Logan put it in Masters of Crime, ‘Some where, some when, this
monster died, whether by suicide, in a lunatic asylum, or quietly in his own bed, and took with him his fearful secret.
The truth can never be known now.’
This is an edited and extended extract from The True History of Jack the Ripper (Amberley Publishing, 2013), by
Jan Bondeson and Guy Logan, available in a signed limited edition of 40 books at a reduced price of £15. See page 34.
The True History of Jack the Ripper

by Guy Logan
1. The Escape
Half-way between the villages of Broxbourne and Hoddesdon in Herts, and standing in its own grounds, some
little distance off the main road was, in the year 1887, the private lunatic asylum of one whom, for the purposes
of this history, we will call Dr. Kent. Private asylums for the insane have not, since the revelations of the novels
Hard Cash and Valentine Vox been in very good odour in this country; but the establishment of Dr Kent was
exceptionally well favoured. To be a patient there was almost to be distinguished. None could be received at
that model abode whose relatives were not prepared to pay highly for the privilege. Dr Kent’s ‘Home for the
Mindless’, as it was termed, in that gentleman’s admirably drawn up prospectus, was only suitable as a resort
to those with more money by a great deal than brains, and that is how Mr Mortemer Slade became an inmate.

It was the evening of a fine October day in
1887. Ordinarily speaking, summer had long since
taken its departure, and the rigours of early
autumn seemed close at hand; but this was the
last warm day of the year, the last expiring effort
of a genial and benevolent summer to maintain
its supremacy. It had been an ideal day, and
the inmates of Grange House, sane and insane,
normal and abnormal, had been loath to abandon
the grounds in which cricket, tennis, and even
the old-fashioned croquet had for the last six
hours been in full swing.
The gardens of this rural Bedlam were the

admired of all the countryside. The house
stood on a gentle eminence looking towards the
north, and green lawns and verdant plantations
“Finding the body of Martha Turner” stretched away for a mile and a half towards
from The True Story of Jack the Ripper
the main road to Sawbridgeworth and Bishop’s
Stortford. Great banks of rhododendron bushes intersected the various fields, and these were topped by oaks
and chestnuts and limes that were universally pronounced to be the finest in the county. In this spot, nature was
at her loveliest. In this same spot poor Humanity, staggering under a load of mental afflictions, was at her worst,
for the men and women who gazed with lacklustre eyes upon the beauties of the surroundings were mad – some
more, some less – but all indisputably, undeniably mad.
Two men were walking apart on the paths which skirted the boundary of the higher grounds. A high fence and
then a higher hedge divided the garden at this point from the high road beyond. It was about half-past six in the
evening, the sky was still clear and of a beautiful pale blue colour, while the air had all the peaceful balminess
and charm of early summer. Away in the distance, beyond a belt of trees, the madhouse stood on its prominent
hill. How little it seemed to have in common with the gay surroundings and the mild and pleasing air.
The two men – of a height, both tall and spare

– slowly paced the well-trimmed paths in friendly
arm-in-arm. They were Dr Crosbie, one of the
assistant medicoes attached to the sanatorium and
Mortemer Slade, an inmate of the asylum. On the
former we need bestow only a brief description;
of the latter, we shall have much to say. Dr
Crosbie was one of the most treasured assistants
to Dr Kent, the urbane and talented principal. He
was admittedly an expert, a connoisseur in all
matters that directly or indirectly concerned the
insane. He had learning. He had theories. He had
enthusiasm. He had the divine gift of sympathy.
He believed from his heart that all men are mad,
but that some are more mad than others. He did
not scoff, even in his own mind, at the foibles of
the mentally weak. He had a hobby for collecting
“‘There! Drink your fill,’ he said” the corks from champagne bottles. One of his
most hopeless patients insisted on collecting
old bootlaces, of which useful commodity he

was the proud possessor of some
seven hundred pairs. ‘For the
life of me,’ said Dr Crosbie in
an occasional burst of candour,
‘I don’t know which of us is the
bigger idiot.’
Mortemer Slade had also

qualified for the medical
profession. Mad or sane, he
was an intensely clever man.
Both Dr Kent and Dr Crosbie, his
ablest assistant, had often been
surprised and even awed at the
extent of his understanding. They
reverenced him for his erudition,
but they were equally convinced
that Mortemer Slade was very
mad indeed. Yet they considered
him to be mad in a peculiar,
unconventional way. Slade could
“Finding the body of Annie Chapman” be permitted to mix with any
society with the certainty that
he would not betray his want of mental equilibrium. He could be left at any time and anywhere. He might be
trusted, under all circumstances, to behave like a gentleman; he would never betray himself to be the harmless,
clever, pleasant, easy-going maniac his ‘keepers’ one and all pronounced him to be. They even had hopes of
curing him some day; of restoring him to his wealthy relatives sane and healthy in mind and body. ‘Mark you,
Crosbie,’ Dr Kent would often proclaim oracularly, ‘If Slade recovers we shall give the world a great surgeon!’
Slade paused for a moment in his walk, unlinked his arm from that of the friendly doctor, and proceeded to
light a cigarette. There was nothing in his aspect or demeanour to suggest the mental warp which had wrecked a
promising career. Insanity and genius, we know, are closely allied. The soul of Mortemer Slade hovered over the
borderland between the two.
‘Even now, doctor,’ he remarked in suave, even tones, ‘though I am, unhappily, a patient under the care of a
mental specialist, I feel that I am destined to become famous – or infamous. Which, I wonder?’
Dr Crosbie smiled. ‘When you have undergone our treatment a little longer, Mr Slade,’ he said, ‘neither fame
nor happiness should be beyond your grasp. You will be restored to your friends and fortune, and modern surgery
will have cause to rejoice thereat.’
Mr Slade smiled grimly. He had not a nice smile. His lips were thin, his teeth rather sharp and discoloured,
his eyes placed rather close together in his head. He had a fine, intellectual brow, and his face was pleasant in
repose, but the smile was sinister, and he never laughed.
‘The world shall yet hear of me,’ he said calmly. ‘I feel sometimes a moral elevation, doctor, which seems
to place me beyond and above the common wants, the likes and dislikes, of conventional humanity. Let us take
Alexander of the Great, St John the Divine of the very Good, and Nero of the very Bad. I could not hope to eclipse
the first two. But I, even I, might surpass the deeds of the Roman Emperor whose name posterity abhors.’
Dr Crosbie glanced at him unobserved. Slade seemed calm, dignified, intelligent as ever, but something in
his tone vaguely alarmed the doctor, and he determined to report this speech to his principal. The words had
been said lightly enough, but the tone was significant of much. They returned to the house together, and Crosbie
marked and called a game of one hundred up between Slade and a mad squire of considerable property, who,

except when he was playing billiards, of which game he was passionately fond, imagined himself to be one of his
own fox-hounds, and conducted himself in approved ‘doggy’ fashion.
After dinner, at which Dr Kent

presided, and which was not taken
till eight o’clock, Slade sat in the
magnificent library reading the
evening papers, which had just
arrived. He had professed a mild
sort of interest in a case of murder
recently reported from the East-
end. A woman had been found dead
beneath the archway of a bridge
with her throat cut. The assassin had
not been found. He tossed the paper
aside with an impatient movement.
‘Some day,’ he said aloud, ‘I shall be
credited with that, and it was only
a bungling piece of work after all.’
The patients – ‘guests’ as Dr

Kent preferred to call them – were
not permitted to leave the building “Discovery of Elizabeth Stride’s body”
for any purpose after dinner; but
certain privileges were granted to a very few, and Slade was one of them. He had the right, if he chose, to sit
on the terrace and enjoy his evening or even to walk in the grounds, if the night was fine. At nine o’clock on this
particular occasion he put on his hat and overcoat, for the night was chilly, and proceeded towards the garden.
Four attendants, strong, active, muscular men, promenaded the grounds till all the inmates of the establishment
were in bed; but these did not take much notice of Slade as he passed, for he was regarded as three-fourths sane
and one fourth mad, and treated accordingly. Slade walked towards the great gates which separated the grounds
of Grange House from the outside world. To the left of them were beautifully appointed stables. Several of the
wealthier patients possessed carriages and horses, and Dr Kent, a famous whip, had his own drag, which was
a familiar feature of the main London road. On either side of the great gates ran a hedge dividing the Grange
House estate from the road.
At exactly twenty minutes past nine by his watch, Slade, looking cautiously around, gave a low whistle.
This he repeated two or three times. Then he lightened intently, and from the other side of the hedge came a
responsive whistle, somewhat shriller than his own. He approached closely to the hedge.
‘Is that you, Dagenham?’ he asked.

‘Yes sir,’ was the reply.
‘No one stirring your side?’
‘Not a soul, sir. It’s a dark night, and just suited to your purpose. I’ll hand you the ladder.’
As noiselessly as possible a small ladder of the telescopic kind was placed on the top of the thick hedge,
and instantly secured by Slade. He placed it against the hedge, which was high and of dense thickness, and
proceeded to ascend it. On the other side a similar ladder was in readiness. In less than a minute Slade was in
the road standing by the side of Dagenham, a groom employed by Dr Kent, whom he had contrived to bribe to
assist his escape.
‘I’ve got the trap and horse ready, sir,’ whispered that worthy. ‘It’s a-waitin’ for us down at the Black Bull.
You’ll be in London inside an hour and three-quarters. Leave the turn-out at the place we appointed, and I’ll
look after it.’

Slade considered a little.
‘I don’t think it prudent to go to the inn,’ he said. ‘The landlord has often seen me, and my appearance there
at this time would excite remark. He is one of those ignorant fools who think that every poor devil staying at
Grange House is of necessity a dangerous lunatic. Go you and fetch the conveyance. I’ll wait in the hollow of the
hedge there. How long will you be?’
‘Seven or eight minutes,’ replied the

groom.
‘Hurry up, then,’ said Slade, turning up

his coat collar, slouching his hat over his
eyes, and slinking back into a recess in the
hedge. The man departed with light and
hasty tread. Slade waited. With haste and
restlessness, however, that characterises
the actions of the morbid-minded, he
presently ventured from the obscurity of his
shelter, and approached the gates. Peering
through, he was able to see the lights of
the great house through the intervening
trees. He chuckled at the thought of Dr
Crosbie’s face when he heard of the abrupt
and unannounced departure of the model
patient! An escape from the well-ordered
establishment of Dr Kent! Unthinkable!
“He sups with his last victim”
from The True Story of Jack the Ripper Then his mood changed, and he threatened
the distant mansion with his clenched hand.
‘When yonder wise-acres pronounced me mad,’ he muttered, ‘I there and then determined, in a spirit of pure
mischief, for I am saner than any of them, to justify their decision. The time is ripe. The moment has come! Let
the madman live up to his reputation. The whole world shall ring with the dread name I shall assume. I will flout
every protection which an effete civilisation has created for its own safe-guarding. The resources of all the forces
of detection shall not avail themselves against me. I will strike terror to every heart, and plunge this great ugly
London of ours – the home of vice, and filth, and crime – into a miasma of death and desolation. To the end of
time, humanity shall shudder at the name of–’ He stopped. Stealthy footsteps were rapidly nearing. He swung
round and made for the sombre aperture in the hedge. Too late! A dark figure sprang forward and confronted him.
‘Don’t you think, Mr Slade,’ said the voice of one he knew, ‘you had better return to the house with me?’
Slade replied with an angry snarl like that of a wild beast. The newcomer, who had arrived so inopportunely,
was a young medical man attached to the Grange House establishment. Slade had disliked him vigorously. This
young man had seemed to fathom the dark passions which animated the madman’s mind. Others – experts in
lunacy – had thought him nearly sane. Young Welman had never thought so, and Slade knew it.
‘I do not propose to return to Dr Kent’s,’ said the latter. ‘The farce has been played long enough. Stand aside,
sir, and permit me to pass.’
‘I have my duty to perform,’ said the other firmly, ‘and I shall not shrink from it. Come, sir,’ he added,
persuasively, ‘you are too sensible to perform foolish little tricks like this. Let us return to the house.’
He made a movement towards the gates. If he could but reach them, ring the great bell and thus give an
alarm! Slade understood. He remembered the bell. Its clings would arouse the two keepers in the lodge, the
stable-helps, and the employees in the servants’ hall. He strode past Welman and permitted that gentleman to
get nearer to the gates. But the doctor knew too much to turn his back on the other, or to remove his eyes from
his face. They continued to face each other. Suddenly the sound of wheels from behind Welman reached the
ears of both. A vehicle was approaching. Involuntarily, Welman glanced behind him. With a spring like a tiger,

Slade was upon him. He had contrived to secure, unseen, a heavy, jagged stone and with this implement he
struck the other a tremendous blow, cracking the back part of his skull like an egg-shell. Without a groan, blood
and particles of bone pouring from his fractured head, Welman fell to the earth as a horse and trap driven by
Dagenham reached the spot.
‘My god!’ said the groom, springing from the box. ‘You’ve killed him.’ He stooped and examined the prostrate
man. ‘Sir – sir –’ he stammered, ‘you’re a murderer.’
‘I commence well,’ said Slade, tossing the blood-stained stone into the hedge. ‘That was not bad for a
beginner. Help me to hide the body in the hedge.’
Dagenham hesitated. He had 100 pounds of Slade’s in his breast-pocket, but he looked round as if seeking the
means to fly.
‘Help me, you fool,’ hissed the murderer, and threatened him with upraised arm.
Dagenham seized the legs of the dead man, averting his eyes from the poor, battered head, and Slade lifted
the body by the shoulders. They placed it in the dark recess of the hedge, and Slade covered it as best he could
with dead leaves and decayed branches.
‘Not a word to a living soul,’ he said to his unwilling accomplice, ‘as you value your life. When that corpse is
found, let them assume what they please. Remember this, however. I will never murder another man.’
He sprang into the trap, seized the reins, and turned the horse’s head towards London.
‘Free!’ he said. ‘Free to pursue the course I have mapped out.’ He plied the whip with vigour, and was soon
swallowed up in the darkness.
This was the beginning of a series of crimes without parallel in the history of the civilised world.
The True History of Jack the Ripper:

The Forgotten 1905 Ripper Novel
The earliest full-length English-language work of fiction to be entirely

based on the mystery of Jack the Ripper has been rediscovered by Jan
Bondeson.
Guy Logan had been active as a London journalist during the latter part of
the hunt for the Whitechapel murderer and established contacts with the
Scotland Yard detectives investigating the case. What revelations did he
have to make in his 1905 novel, when many people still remembered the
Autumn of Terror when Jack the Ripper stalked the Whitechapel streets?
There is a limited number of copies for Ripperologist readers at a reduced

of £15 inclusive of P&P in the UK. Email Jan Bondeson at BondesonJ@
cf.ac.uk for details.
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.

The Fifth Victim:
The Hand of a Woman?
By JENNIFER SHELDEN
Watch your thoughts; they become words.

Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Lao-Tze
The 125th Victim

In June 2013 Chris Scott mentioned on a post on the Casebook: Jack the Ripper Forums
that The Fifth Victim, a book by Antonia Alexander, would be released in August 2013 for
the 125th anniversary of the Whitechapel murders. A quick look at the cover told me all I
needed to know. Sir John Williams’s face was staring back at me, together with the claim
that the author was a direct descendant of Mary Jane Kelly, the fifth canonical victim of
the Ripper - hence the book’s title. The whole tale sounded eerily familiar from the blurb:
a family story that linked Sir John to the murders. In 2005 Tony Williams, a descendant
of Sir John, had co-authored Uncle Jack, in which he fingered his ancestor as the Ripper.
It was clear that once a suspect’s name was out there as such, it was difficult, if not
impossible, to get it back. Only last year, after all, John Morris had published Hand of a
Woman, claiming that not Sir John but his wife Lizzie was the murderer, but relying on
theories first put forward in Uncle Jack. Now there was a third book completing the unholy
trinity.
Within a few hours of getting my copy of The Fifth Victim, I had read it all and puzzling
details began to emerge. Page after page led me to one clear conclusion and I began to
put this piece together. In her book, Antonia Alexander had written: ‘Where did I start? The
beginning would be good, I thought.’1 Her words, which I had just read, seemed pertinent
to my own task.
In Captain Cook’s Footsteps

It was the winter of 2000 and life on the tiny island of Maina in the Cook Islands couldn’t be better for one
family seeking a retreat from the modern world. The clear blue water of the lagoon lapped the shore, the sand
was white and the sun beamed down. The family - Dad, Mum and three kids - collected coconuts and fished off
the shoreline. Michael Anthony ‘Tony’ Williams, born in 1961, had first realised his childhood dream of living on a
deserted island in 1989 when he and his wife Cathy had gone to live on Maina for a few months. Several years later,
in 1993, he returned with his entire family, including his three children, Craig Anthony, born in 1981, Matthew
Ryan, born in 1985, and the youngest, his daughter Stacey, born in 1988. Tony recounted the family’s adventures
in his first book, Island Of Dreams (Signet, 1994).
1 Alexander, 2013, p.29.

Tony Williams was the son of Thomas Graham Williams and Iris Cooper, who had been
married in 1955. He grew up in a small village in the Welsh Valleys with his older sister, his
older brother Alun (also known as Wyn) and his younger sister Rhian. A younger brother,
Mark, had sadly died of cot death in the 1960s.2
Tony’s world was turned upside down by the separation and divorce of his parents,
which resulted in his living with his mother and siblings in a caravan in Swansea. When he
left the Welsh Valleys he was unable to speak a word of English. He recalled:
We moved just before the street fell away. Not really because of the danger, but
because our mother was seeing another man and our father wanted us out of there.
The old village shut down around that time in any case. Warnings were given, most
people were allocated council houses elsewhere, and one night the street six doors
down from our house just gently slid into a hole. The side of the mountain, weighed
down with rain and rotten inside from years of mining, opened up to the sky. The
road broke like a crust and those who dared to tiptoe to the edge said you could see
no end to the blackness.3
Tony Williams
He would tell a slightly embellished version of this story in Uncle Jack (2005, p.3):
My family had lived in a small village built along the side of a mountain riddled with
old mines. One morning we woke up to find that the street just six doors away had
vanished into a large hole which had opened up in the ground. We went to have a
look; it was black, down as far as you could see. We would drop some stones down it,
but you couldn’t hear them land.
His father, known as Graham, a gifted poet, had described his marriage to Tony’s mother
on his website as an ‘insane decision’, adding that it had been filled with ‘turmoil’. In 1973
he married his second wife, Jean.
The relationship between father and son, as described by Tony Williams, comes across
as extremely strained. Tony recalled how he had bumped into his father in Swansea and
his father had said: ‘You know bugger all about me. Your mother marched you off as soon
as you could walk. You’re a liar, you always were. Look at you, you shifty little devil.’4
Tony also gives the impression of being intimidated by his father and of resenting him:
‘He was a man who would lock a six-year-old child away by itself because it had dropped
something’, he wrote of him in Island of Dreams. He added:
When I was about seven, I got a punchbag for Christmas. It was wrapped up, in the lounge, near the
tree, but it had my name on and I could guess what it was. My father came in from work and there was
a huge row. I was frightened.
I forgot the incident, until years later, my mother explained it. She said my real father was an amateur
boxer, and that’s why she’d bought the punchbag. I didn’t know what was going on. It was a coded
message only my father could read.
...
When I was on Takutea and started writing, everything I put down turned into a diatribe against my
father; once I got ten thousand miles away from him I could pour out all the resentment that had been
there for years.5
Besides the impact that his mother’s disclosure that the man Tony Williams had always known as his father was
not his real father may have had on a sensitive young man, it is worth noting that it disposes of the notion that
he was a descendant of Sir John Williams.
Tony left his home, where he’d lived with his mother and siblings, at about the age of 16, and married his wife,
Catherine, in 1980.
2 Williams, 1994, p.39.

3 Williams, 1994, pp.39-40
4 Williams, 1994, p.75.
5 Williams, 1994, pp.184-185.
One day in the winter of 2000, as the Williams family looked across the clear turquoise
sea, they heard the unwelcome din of neighbours they had not been expecting. It was
9 January 2000 and the TV series Shipwrecked had begun production on the nearby and
similarly uninhabited island of Moturakau, another of the Cook Islands. The tranquil
quietness that the family had been enjoying for the last decade was abruptly halted by
the boats of the production crew and the party lifestyle of the yobbish castaways, all aged
between 16 and 24, on the adjoining island. ‘They were the neighbours from hell living
next door to us’, Williams stated.
The family decided enough was enough; this would be the sad end to their dream. They
left the Cook Islands and returned to Swansea in South Wales, a place from which Tony
Williams had been trying his best to escape. On returning home, Williams published Black
Pearls, an amalgamation of his earlier works Island of Dreams and The Forgotten People,
together with additional stories and recollections from their life in the Cook Islands. In
The Forgotten People Williams had told the tale of the trip he had taken with his family
in 1996 to visit the Mandan, a Native American tribe of North Dakota, who are supposed
Welsh heritage.
“Uncles”
Soon Tony Williams’s eye was caught by the life of Sir John Williams. An obstetrician to
royalty and the founder of the National Library of Wales, Sir John is a prominent figure
in Wales thanks to his saving many rare books written in Welsh. Yet this would not be the
angle that Tony Williams chose to take. Uncle Jack, co-authored by Humphrey Price, an
editor and now a notable ghost writer, was released in a blaze of publicity in 2005.
Back in 2005/06 I had identified several problems with Uncle Jack and written two
articles highlighting some of the most important ones. The book, I am now told by Professor
JDR Thomas (a relation of Sir John via one of his uncles), started with an inaccurate family
tree. I had already observed that Uncle Jack followed a somewhat dubious course in
outlining an ultimately weak case against Sir John; something of the truth had obviously
become lost in the telling of the story. The research conducted into the book at the time Sir John Williams
raised many questions, the answers to which have not been satisfactorily answered by
the authors to this day. The evidence that Sir John Williams had worked in Whitechapel was false and based on
a mistaken belief. His alleged connection to Mary Ann Nichols was predicated on an entry in a book that did not
match the other entries, did not seem to be in his hand and was seemingly not contemporaneous with the other
entries. The allegation that his 1888 diary pointed to his guilt could be proved inaccurate by the remaining pages
of the diary. The ‘Dear Morgan’ letter, with its odd provenance, was contradicted by the same diary. A letter that
Sir John had supposedly written in Welsh to a lover could not be found at the National Library of Wales, and the
reference the authors gave for it when confronted was incorrect. The ovariotomy operation mentioned in the
book was not similar to the mutilations inflicted on the Ripper victims. So did the list of problems go on, seemingly
forever. Sales of the paperback edition were not what the publishers, Orion, had hoped for, and the book was
quietly dropped from their list.
The title would be picked up again in 2011, this time by the vanity press Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie, under the
title Uncle Jack: A Victorian Mystery, and without Humphrey Price’s input. As part of the publishing deal, Pegasus
agreed to release also Tony Williams’s novel Shadow of an Angel, which was published in 2011.
The articles I had written had clearly left an impression on Tony Williams. Speaking of Ripperologists in his
foreword to the 2011 edition, he noted: ‘The obsession of their lives is the case of Jack the Ripper and his victims,
and any book published on the subject is closely examined indeed’. He added ‘They read my book over and over
again, scrutinizing every section – how could they have missed him?’6
6 Williams, 2011, p.18.

Like Minds
The Fifth Victim came out on 15 August 2013. I ordered it the same day and it arrived promptly. While I was
at work, my husband Neal read the book. Neal is an author and researcher specializing in the genealogy of the
Ripper victims. He quickly identified the Mary Kelly to whom Antonia Alexander said she was related, even though
she gave only the name of the man whom this Mary married - George - but not his surname. I was relieved to get
home and not have to search out the information that I had been wondering about all day!
The Mary Kelly named by Antonia Alexander as her ancestress was born in 1858 in Swansea, Wales, the daughter
of Anthony Kelly and Catherine née Sullivan. In 1879 she married George Morrell, and the 1891 census recorded
that they had five children born between 1881 and 1889. Mary Kelly/Morrell lived all her life at various addresses
in Llangyfelach Street, Swansea, and died in 1923 aged 59. Despite Alexander’s claim that Mary had gone to
London to embark on an affair with Sir John Williams, there was no evidence that she had ever left Swansea.
Furthermore, the births of her children in 1887 and 1889 seemed to indicate that she had not experienced marital
problems. Alexander’s claim that a friend who had accompanied Mary Morrell to London had taken on her maiden
name and was the person who died in Miller’s Court has not been substantiated.
With Mary Morrell’s birth date confirmed as 1858, Alexander’s story makes little sense. Her book describes how
Mary met John (not yet Sir John) in Swansea and they fell in love. Yet John moved to London and, although he
wanted to marry Mary Kelly, as she then was, he married someone else, Mary ‘Lizzie’ Hughes, because she was
wealthy. This family story certainly was problematic. In fact, John and Lizzie were married in 1872, the year when
he moved to London. The future Mary Morrell would have been only 14 at this time.
Just after The Fifth Victim was published I asked for an interview with Antonia Alexander for my blog. She did
not grant me an interview but answered some questions via email on 3 October. One of my questions was ‘Did
you know much about Mary Kelly before you started researching the book? Was she spoken about in your family?’
and she replied ‘I only found out about Mary Kelly when my grandmother showed me the magazine article.’ In her
book, Alexander outlines that her grandmother showed her an article in Spanish about Sir John Williams and Jack
the Ripper which alerted her to the alleged family connection.
I picked up Alexander’s book and flicked through it. My attention was drawn to the photographs. First, there
was a photograph of Sir John and another of his wife Lizzie, both widely available on the internet. Next there
was a photograph of Antonia Alexander’s Nan, her grandmother, whose name was not given. Then there was
a photograph of Sir John’ knife being held by a man, from the collection in the National Library of Wales,
and photographs of the graves of Mary Ann Nichols, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. I stared at the
photographs. Something was odd. Immediately it clicked and I rushed upstairs to find my 2011 edition of Uncle
Jack. I laid it open and looked at the photographs of the victims’ graves.
At first I thought the photographs in both books were identical. In the photograph of Mary Kelly’s grave in Uncle
Jack, Tony Williams sits next to the grave and flowers and various trinkets surround the headstone. The photograph
in The Fifth Victim is framed more tightly and shows the headstone closer up. I examined the photographs
carefully. The flowers and the trinkets, such as a cat ornament, a plate, a flag, and several milk cartons, were the
same and were arranged in exactly the same manner in both photographs. The photographs of the graves of Mary
Ann Nichols and Catherine Eddowes - which are always less decorated than Mary Kelly’s grave - in both books
show the same flowers in nearly the same position. It was clear that, if not exactly identical, the photographs of
the graves in The Fifth Victim were almost certainly taken on the same day as those in Uncle Jack.
When I forwarded to Alexander the questions for my blog, I asked ‘Did you go and do any activities connected to
the Ripper in London, such as a Ripper walk, or visiting the murder area or similar in the course of your research?’
and she replied ‘I just visited the graves of the victims (the ones I could find).’ I thought it was extremely odd
that, despite her claim in The Fifth Victim that she had only learnt of her family’s connection to Mary Kelly and
the Ripper crimes in 2012, the photographs she had reproduced in her book – which were presumably from her
visits to the graves - were so similar to those in Uncle Jack, which had come out a year before she said her own
investigation began.

Analysis of Photographic Content
The Fifth Victim - Illustrations Cross referenced
1 Sir John Williams Uncle Jack, 2005 (widely available)
2 Lizzie Williams Uncle Jack, 2005 (widely available)
3 ‘Nan’ (Antonia Alexander’s Grandmother)
4 Knife Uncle Jack, 2005 (close up of)
5 Mary Ann Nichols’s grave Taken same day as Uncle Jack, 2011
6 Catherine Eddowes’s grave Taken same day as Uncle Jack, 2011
7 Mary Kelly’s grave Taken same day as Uncle Jack, 2011
When The Fifth Victim came out, there was no indication as to whether the locket which appeared on the front
cover was the actual locket which Alexander found with a photograph of Sir John Williams in it, or if it was an
artistic illustration. Alexander’s interviews given to the newspapers The Western Mail and Daily Mail in September
were accompanied by a photograph of the locket. It showed the real locket being like that on the cover, but the
image of Mary Kelly was not in it. I assumed it must have been added by someone in the art department to show
the title character of the book on the cover. I knew the photograph which was inside the locket well. It had also
been in Uncle Jack (2005 edition). I wondered whether this was just a coincidence.
As I read the book I came across a sentence which caught my eye: ‘My first duty was to ask Tony Williams for
information relating to his ancestor,’ she wrote. ‘He was very helpful and emailed me tons of data.’7 Later she
added: ‘I knew everything I needed to know about John Williams thanks to Tony Williams’s research’.8 I pondered
whether the photographs had been supplied by Tony Williams as well.
In The Fifth Victim, Alexander recalls how she felt on learning that there was a connection between her
ancestress Mary Kelly and Sir John Williams, who had been linked to the Ripper crimes. On pages 27-28 she writes:
The feeling that I had discovered something that I was not meant to lingered with me for the next few
days. It made it harder to have a normal conversation with my family; at first, I did not want to tell
even my husband, Philip, what I had learned. But eventually the information I had bottled up inside me
had to come out. Not only did I need to tell him what I had found out, I also needed to have someone
question it. If he was convinced by my argument, then perhaps I would be convinced as well. Or perhaps
I wanted to poke holes in my findings; perhaps I wanted to be proved wrong. If so, I was wasting my
time. Philip was shocked at first, but then became as carried away by the story as I had been. Neither
of us knew much about the Jack the Ripper killings but we made it our business to find out. We read an
array of paperbacks from our local library; and nothing we read contradicted what little I knew about
it. But we also came up against a new problem; we now knew a lot about the Ripper, but comparatively
very little about my relative.
I thought about what I knew from Nan, and what she had told me about the man Mary had supposedly
had an affair with. I thought that if Mary had some kind of secret life, my first step must be to uncover
something about it, and maybe that would shed more light on whether or not my suspicions had any
foundation. I needed to find out exactly who this man was, and whether or not there could be any link
to my relative. But how to go about this? Although I had spent time researching subjects before, those
were fairly easy tasks; the books were in the library, nobody had anything to hide, it was all reasonably
straightforward to put together. This was going to be very different; I would have to work hard to find
the information I needed, and nowhere would this be true than in my own family.
7 Alexander, 2013, p. 29.

8 Alexander, 2013, p. 181.

Something seemed familiar. I noted that in Uncle Jack Williams and Price stated:
The feeling that I had discovered something that I was not meant to lingered on with me for the next
few days. It made it harder to have a normal conversation with my family; at first, I did not want to
tell even my wife, Cathy, what I had learned. But eventually the information I had bottled up inside me
had to come out. Not only did I need to tell her what I had found out, I also needed to have someone
question it. If she was convinced by my argument, then perhaps I would be convinced as well.
Or perhaps I wanted to poke holes in my findings; perhaps I wanted to be proved wrong. If so, I was
wasting my time. Cathy was shocked at first, but then became as carried away by the story as I had
been. Neither of us knew much about the Jack the Ripper killings but we made it our business to find
out. We read an array of paperbacks from our local library; and nothing we read contradicted what
little I knew about my great-great uncle. But we also came up against a new problem; we now knew a
lot about the Ripper, but comparatively very little about my relative.
I thought about what I knew from Wyn, and what Nanny had told him about the woman Uncle Jack had
supposedly had an affair with. I thought that, if John Williams had some kind of secret life, my first
step must be to uncover something about it, and maybe that would shed more light on whether or not
my suspicions had any foundation. I needed to find out exactly who this woman was, and whether or not
there could be any link to my relative. But how to go about this? Although I had spent time researching
subjects before, those were fairly easy tasks; the books were in the library, nobody had anything to
hide, it was all reasonably straightforward to put together. This was going to be very different; I would
have to work hard to find the information I needed, and nowhere would this be true than in my own
family.9
The above passages show that Antonia Alexander, the author of The Fifth Victim, has told a story identical to
the story told by Tony Williams, the author of Uncle Jack. Both narratives are word for word the same, except for
a few changes of name, eg Cathy to Philip.
Both authors quote M Jeanne Peterson’s The Medical Profession in Mid-Victorian London. Peterson’s original
text reads:
pp. 84-85:
In his last year of medical studies a student was required to serve at least three months as a clinical
clerk to a hospital physician or a dresser to a surgeon. These posts involved the basic care of medical
and surgical patients in the wards under the supervision of the house physicians and surgeons, who
were in turn responsible to the senior staff. (See Appendix C for a chart of the organizational structure
of a hospital and medical school.) Such undergraduate posts provided essential care to in-patients and
important experience for the student. Clerkships and dresserships brought the closest relationships a
student had with the medical teachers. Students who came to the medical school with connections to
the staff often severed under those ‘friends’ during the period of practical work.
Beyond the immediate educational value of these posts, they often had far-reaching career effects.
Clerks or dressers serving under the same houseman became known as a ‘firm.’ They often kept close
ties, both personal and professional, long after medical school. Such friends could be a source of
patients or consulting work. As valuable as peer relationships may have been, connections with senior
staff could be even more important. When George Makins was in his fourth year of medical study he
became a dresser to Sir William MacCormac, Surgeon at St Thomas’s Hospital. ‘This appointment,’
Makins records, ‘was the commencement of a friendship which lasted the whole of MacCormac’s life and
materially influenced my entire career.’ Makins enjoyed patronage and assistance from the senior man.
His testimony reflects the experience of a number of medical students whose associations in medical
school paved the way to a prosperous future. On a less elevated scale, William B. Page enjoyed similar
assistance. Page served as one of Sir Astley Cooper’s dressers, and Cooper, when asked to recommend
someone for a junior post in a new hospital in Cumberland, nominated the young page. Senior men
recommended their dressers and clerks to military posts, private medical service with aristocratic
families, and a variety of other appointments that helped them start their careers.
9 Williams, 2005, pp. 17-18.

p. 87:
These early career decisions had a critical influence on a young man’s professional life. If he had
ambitions to rise to the ‘top of the tree,’ it was important to stay in London, to continue his affiliation
with the world of hospitals and medical teaching, and eventually to gain appointments at the centre
of English medical life. If he planned to practice generally, in London or the provinces, these first
appointments could lead to the establishment of a practice. In both instances, he was dependent on the
ties of family and, more and more, on the ties to his medical teachers.
p. 137:
Qualifying at age twenty-one, the aspirant to consulting status stayed in London, serving in minor
hospital posts, seeking the beginnings of practice, and making what connections and income he could.
At age twenty-six, he became a Fellow of his College and, with luck, by age thirty he might be appointed
assistant physician or surgeon at one of the London hospitals. For most young men this decade as
primarily a time of surviving and waiting for the posts that would secure their future as consultants.
Uncle Jack, pp. 53-54, quotes the text as follows:

Young doctors in those times did not expect this to be the way their careers began. In The Medical
Profession in Mid-Victorian London, M Jeanne Peterson writes:
In his last year of medical studies, a student was required to serve at least three months as a clinical
clerk to a hospital physician or as a dresser to a surgeon. These posts involved the basic care of medical
and surgical patients in the wards under the supervision of the house physicians and surgeons, who were
in turn responsible to the senior staff.
Beyond the immediate educational value of these posts, they often had far reaching career effects.
Clerks or dressers serving under the same houseman became known as a ‘firm’. They often kept close
ties, either personal or professional, long after medical school. Such friends could be a source of
patients or consulting work. Senior men recommended their dressers and clerks to... a variety of other
appointments that helped them start their careers.
If he had ambitions to rise to ‘the top of the tree’, it was important to stay in London, to continue his
affiliation with the world of hospitals and medical teaching, and eventually to gain appointments at
the centre of English medical life.
Qualifying at age twenty-one, the aspirant to consulting status stayed in London, serving minor hospital
posts, seeking the beginnings of practice, and making, what connections and income he could. At age
twenty-six, he became a Fellow of his college, and, with luck, by age thirty he might be appointed
assistant physician or surgeon at one of the London hospitals.
The Fifth Victim, pp. 60-61, quotes Peterson as follows:

Young doctors in those times did not expect this to be the way their careers began. In The Medical
Profession in Mid-Victorian London, M Jeanne Peterson writes:
In his last year of medical studies, a student was required to serve at least three months as a clinical
clerk to a hospital physician or as a dresser to a surgeon. These posts involved the basic care of medical
and surgical patients in the wards under the supervision of the house physicians and surgeons, who were
in turn responsible to the senior staff.
Beyond the immediate educational value of these posts, they often had far reaching career effects.
Clerks or dressers serving under the same houseman became known as a ‘firm’. They often kept close
ties, either personal or professional, long after medical school. Such friends could be a source of
patients or consulting work. Senior men recommended their dressers and clerks to... a variety of other
appointments that helped them start their careers.
If he had ambitions to rise to ‘the top of the tree’, it was important to stay in London, to continue his
affiliation with the world of hospitals and medical teaching, and eventually to gain appointments at
the centre of English medical life.

Qualifying at age twenty-one, the aspirant to consulting status stayed in London, serving minor hospital
posts, seeking the beginnings of practice, and making, what connections and income he could. At age
twenty-six, he became a Fellow of his college, and, with luck, by age thirty he might be appointed
assistant physician or surgeon at one of the London hospitals.
In late July, they moved into 28 Harley Street, in the heart of London, and shortly afterwards, ‘John
began doing Dr Hewitt’s work’.
It can be seen that the two books quote, as though it were one passage, the same elements of Jeanne Peterson’s
book. However, The Fifth Victim also contains the added segment: ‘In late July, they moved into 28 Harley Street
in the heart of London, and shortly afterwards, “John began doing Dr Hewitt’s work”.’ This was obviously not part
of Peterson’s text, of which I have a copy. Where had it come from? The answer can be found on page 52 of Uncle
Jack, which reads, ‘In late July, they moved into 28 Harley Street, in the heart of London, and shortly afterwards,
“John began doing Dr Hewitt’s work”.’
Comparison of the text used in The Fifth Victim with the text used in Uncle Jack
The table below shows the known instances where The Fifth Victim directly lifts text from Uncle Jack, and the
part of the latter from which the text is taken.
FIFTH VICTIM UNCLE JACK
Chapter Page Page Chapter
Chapter 1
Chapter 2 pages 1-26
Chapter 3 pages 27-28 pages 17-18 Chapter 2
page 28, para 3 to page 29, para 1 n/a
page 29, para 2 to page 38 pages 27-32 Chapter 4
page 38, para 4 to page 39, para1 n/a
page 39, para 2 to page 42, para 2 pages 34-36 Chapter 4
page 46 (blank page)
Chapter 4 page 47 to 49, para 1 pages 43-44 Chapter 4
page 51, para 2 n/a
page 52 (blank page)
Chapter 5 page 53 to page 57, para 2 pages 49-51 Chapter 5
page 57, para 3 to page 58, para 3
page 61, para 5 page 52 Chapter 5
page 70
page 88, paras 2 and 3
page 88, para 4 to page 100, para 4 pages 80-83, 84, 85-88 Chapter 7

FIFTH VICTIM UNCLE JACK
Chapter Page Page Chapter

page 105, para 2
page 114 to page 116, para 2 pages 165-166 Chapter 13
page 121, para 5 to page 122, para 1 page 172 Chapter 13
page 122, paras 2 and 3 pages 183-184 Chapter 13
page 125, para 4 to page 26
page 132 to page 140, para 1 pages 194-200 Chapter 14
page 146, paras 3 and 4
page 154, para 4 to page 157, para 2 pages 151-152, 152-153 Chapter 12
page 159, para 2 to page 160
page 160, para 2 lines 1-3 page 153 [sic only] Chapter 12
page 168, para 3 to page 173 pages 205-207, 207-209 Chapter 14
page 176, para 2 to 177, para 1 pages 210-211 Chapter 14
page 177, para 1 lines 11-14 page 21 Chapter 2
Chapter 12 page 181 to page 187, para 3
page 187, para 4 to page 188 page 192 Chapter 14
Chapter 13 pages 189-200

Shadows
As I looked at the list of what correlated directly with Uncle Jack, I noted that, perhaps not surprisingly, the
first two and last chapters did not seem to have many correlations. I decided to complete my Tony Williams
collection by ordering his novel Shadow of an Angel. While I waited for it I took a closer look at the chapters that
seemed to contain the new information to see if I could find out more about Antonia Alexander.
Alexander spends the first few chapters of The Fifth Victim discussing her life. She explains how she met her
husband and they went on a date at the beach overlooking the bay in Swansea. On page 9, she writes of her date:
The sky was completely blue - no shades, no hesitations or doubts, just endlessly, solidly blue. Yet
as I stared up at it I couldn’t find the source of the blueness - the part where the world ended and
heaven began. I remember staring for so long that my point of view changed and I felt as though I was
looking down from the sky at myself - a dun-coloured dot, insignificant yet surrounded by the most
breathtaking scenery.
It sounded familiar, and I knew why. In Island of Dreams, Tony Williams describes how he went to live on an
island in the South Pacific with his family. He writes of the sky:
There were no shades in it, no hesitations or doubts; it was endlessly, solidly blue, yet when you stared
up at it you could never find the source of the blueness, the part where the world ended and heaven
began. If you gazed at it for long enough your point of view changed and you were looking down from
the sky on yourself, a dun-coloured dot on the sand on an islet of coconut palms in a tiny atoll in a dark
ocean on a beautiful planet, slowly revolving.10
In Black Pearls, Williams describes the sky:

There were no shades in it, no hesitations or doubts: it was endlessly, solidly blue. Yet when you stared
up at it you could never find the source of the blueness, the part where the world ended and heaven
began.11
In Williams’s novel Shadow of an Angel, the lead female character, Alice, states:
On clear days the sky was completely blue - no shades, no hesitations or doubts, just endlessly, solidly
blue. Yet, when they stared up at it, they could never find the source of the blueness - the part where
the world ended and heaven began. Alice remembered staring for so long that her point of view changed
and she felt as though she was looking down from the sky at herself - a dun-coloured dot, insignificant,
yet surrounded by the most breathtaking scenery.
The text in The Fifth Victim was virtually identical to Tony Williams’s Shadow of an Angel, a work of fiction,
and his other books, Island of Dreams and Black Pearls, which were autobiographical.
Alexander describes her house:
The house was Victorian, most of the original features had been taken out when the owners had
refurbished it. The two bedrooms, large bathroom and living/kitchen area were all we needed for the
time being, although we had talked of maybe getting something a little bigger.12
Flicking through Williams’s novel Shadow of an Angel, I noted the following:

Although it was an old Victorian building, most of the original features had been taken out when the
owners refurbished it. The one bedroom, small bathroom and larger living/kitchen area were all she
needed, as she lived alone.
It seems that Alexander’s house was almost identical to that of the fictional character Alice from Tony Williams’s
novel.
10 Williams, Island of Dreams, p. 38.

11 Williams, Black Pearls, p. 6.
12 Alexander, The Fifth Victim, p. 11.

In The Fifth Victim Antonia Alexander describes how she first met her husband Philip:
It was the hen night of one of my best friends, Jessica. I always took ages deciding what to wear on
a night out and this night was no exception. I finally decided on a snug-fitting black halter neck dress
which I felt very sexy in. I could hear a car horn beeping outside signalling the arrival of my taxi.
Stepping into the cab I was greeted by Emily, my oldest friend and confidant; we had gone to primary
school together, then comprehensive, then college and now University. Emily had arranged the hen
party and was her usual boisterous happy self as I took a seat in the cab.
‘Wow Tonia, you look great!’ she squealed, hugging me to her ample bosom; all my close friends and
family called me Tonia, all except for my Dad who always called me Antonia.
I returned Emily’s compliment, ‘Thanks, so do you.’
And she did with her blonde, not-a-strand-out-of-place hair, low-cut red top and black pencil skirt. She
has the looks a lot of girls would be envious of.
We had arranged to meet the others at a club; Emily had been there on numerous occasions and had
guaranteed us all a great night. We headed down the stairs of the club, receiving admiring looks from
some of the male staff and customers; I hadn’t been out socially for a long while, so I was unused to
such attention and I could feel myself blush. The room was smaller than I imagined, but I liked it. There
was a cosy feeling with candlelit tables around the dance floor, stools placed discreetly at each corner,
and a friendly-sounding DJ churning out all the latest chart hits.
‘Over there, look,’ Emily shouted above the noise. ‘The others.’
Emily pulled me by the arm towards a table just ahead of us. I was looking forward to the evening, it
was the first time in over a year that we’d all got together, and we all got on really well despite being
very different characters. There was Jessica, the bride to be, a petite blonde, who had been with her
fiancée since she was 18; she was always quiet and unassuming. Then there was Brooke - a very giggly,
happy-go-lucky girl, curvaceous with long, dark-brown hair. And then there was Ebony — the serious one
who went out even less than me. Tall and very elegant, she has strawberry-blonde hair and the most
amazing green eyes.
Emily and I ordered some drinks; the others looked as if they’d had a few already. After a lot of talking
and some more drinks we were all ready to take to the dance floor.
‘Come on, girls!’ shouted Emily. ‘Let’s go show ‘em what we’re made of.’
Although I rarely went to clubs, I loved to dance; I was convinced that dancing around the house to the
radio or the music channel was what kept me in shape. We were all having a great time. Even Ebony had
loosened up and was shaking herself around as much as the rest of us.
‘Wahoo!’ Jessica screamed above the noise of the music. ‘I’m having the best time.’
‘We should do this more often!’ admitted Brooke.
‘Well, it’s not like I haven’t tried.’ Emily’s I-told-you-¬so tone left us in no doubt.
After what seemed like an eternity on the dance floor, I went back and sat down at the table. Emily and
Ebony kept dancing while Brooke took Jessica to the toilet. The ‘hen’ was beginning to look a little the
worse for drink and quite unsteady on her feet. I looked around at my fellow clubbers. Some obviously
made this a weekly visit, while others looked a bit out of place.
I called out to a passing waitress. ‘Excuse me; can I get some drinks, please? Two Bacardi and diet cokes,
a vodka and lemonade, glass of white wine and a soda waiter with lime.’
Soda and lime seemed a good option for Jessica. She’d need to sober up a bit if she was to enjoy the
rest of her night. Still dancing, Emily edged closer to the table, then bent down to speak, as quietly as
the club’s noise allowed, into my ear.
‘Don’t look now, but you’ve got an admirer. Over by the bar.’
Feeling a little self-conscious, I took a sneaky look anyway. Sure enough there was a guy looking at me.
I turned away quickly, but knew he was still staring. I turned to look again.
‘Oh my God!’ I said, panicking. ‘He’s coming over.’13
12 Alexander, The Fifth Victim, pp. 2-5.

In Tony Williams’s novel Shadow of an Angel, Alice meets her husband-to-be Mark for the first time:
One of her work colleagues was getting married soon and tonight was the hen party.
‘What do I wear?’ she thought. The party was to be at the Metra Club in Leicester Square, but wasn’t
that for youngsters? At almost thirty, she didn’t socialise much. She’d had a few dates in the past -
mostly colleagues from work - but the relationships never lasted more than a week or two. Alice quickly
tried on umpteen outfits, but in the end decided on a snug-fitting, black halter-neck dress. It wasn’t
the type of thing she usually wore but her sister had insisted she buy it when they’d been shopping
on Becky’s last visit. Glancing at herself in the mirror, Alice had to admit the dress complimented her
loosely curled, auburn hair, making her unusually sexy. A car horn beeping outside signalled the arrival
of her taxi.
Stepping into the cab, she was greeted by Carly, her boisterous work colleague who’d arranged the hen
party.
‘Ali, wow, you look great!’ she squealed, hugging Alice to her ample bosom. Alice hated to be called Ali,
but didn’t have the heart to tell Carly in case she hurt her feelings.
‘Thanks. So do you.’
And she did, with her blonde, not-a-strand-out-of-place-hair, low-cut red top and black pencil skirt. If
she didn’t like Carly so much, Alice could have been quite envious of the younger girl.
They had arranged to meet the others at the club. Carly had been there on numerous occasions and had
guaranteed them all a great night, which was just what Alice needed. Saturday night, and Leicester
Square was bustling with tourists, theatregoers and clubbers. It was now one of the busiest spots in
London, but it was hard to imagine that not so long ago it had been a haven for drunks and junkies,
with many locals avoiding the area.
Alice and Carly headed down the stairs of the underground club, receiving admiring looks from some of
the male staff and customers. Unused to such attention, Alice could feel herself blush. The room was
smaller than she’d imagined, but she liked it. There was a cosy feeling with candlelit tables around
the dance floor, stools placed discreetly at each corner, and a friendly-sounding DJ churning out all the
latest chart hits.
‘Over there, look,’ Carly shouted above the noise. ‘The others.’
Carly pulled Alice by the arm towards a table just ahead of them. Alice was looking forward to the
evening. It was the first time all the girls at work had actually been out together, and they got on
really well despite being very different characters. There was Stacey, the bride-to-be. A twenty-five-
year-old petite blonde, who had been with her fiancée since she was eighteen, she was always quiet
and unassuming. Then there was Carol - a very giggly, happy-go-lucky girl, curvaceous with long, dark-
brown hair. And there was Isabelle - the serious one who went out even less than Alice. Tall and very
elegant, she had strawberry-blonde hair and the most amazing green eyes.
Alice and Carly ordered drinks, although the others looked as if they’d had a few already. After a lot
of talking and some more drinks they were all ready to take to the dance floor.
‘Come on girls!’ shouted Carly, ‘Let’s go show ‘em what we’re made of.’
Although Alice rarely went to clubs, she loved to dance. She was convinced that dancing around the flat
to the radio or the music channel on cable TV was what kept her in shape. They were all having a great
time. Even Isabelle had loosened up and was shaking herself around as much as the others.
‘Wahoo!’ Stacey screamed above the noise of the music. ‘I’m having the best time.’
‘We should do this more often!’ admitted Carol.
‘Well, it’s not like I haven’t tried.’ Carly’s I-told-you-so tone left the others in no doubt.
After what seemed like an eternity on the dance floor, Alice went back and sat down at the table. Carly
and Isabelle kept dancing while Carol took Stacey to the toilet. The ‘hen’ was beginning to look a little
the worse for drink and quite unsteady on her feet. Alice looked around at her fellow clubbers. Some
obviously made this a weekly visit, others looked a bit out of place.

‘Excuse me,’ Alice called to a passing waitress. ‘Can I get some drinks, please? Two Bacardi and Diet
Cokes, a vodka and lemonade, glass of white wine and a soda water with lime.’ Soda and lime seemed
a good option for Stacey. She’d need to sober up a bit if she was to enjoy the rest of her night.
Still dancing, Carly edged closer to the table, then bent down to speak, as quietly as the club’s noise
allowed, into Alice’s ear. ‘Don’t look now, but you’ve got an admirer. Over by the bar.’
Feeling a little self-conscious, Alice took a sneaky look anyway. Sure enough, there was a guy looking
at her. Alice turned away quickly, but knew he was still staring. She turned to look again. ‘Oh my God!’
she said panicking. ‘He’s coming over.’14
It was clear that passages from the first chapter of The Fifth Victim had been lifted from Tony Williams’s novel
Shadow of an Angel. But what about the rest of the information concerning Antonia Alexander?
Alexander provides information about herself in the pages of her book. She says she is a medical student. Her
husband Philip is seven years older than she is. They were married on a Greek island. Their children are Lana and
Maddie, the younger by two-and-a-half years. Alexander’s Nan, who told her the story of Mary Kelly, lives in La
Cala, a resort in southern Spain.
In the acknowledgements Alexander thanks her literary agent, Cate Lewis, ‘for
her help and understanding’. Given our shared interest in Sir John Williams, whose
biography I was now determined to write, I wondered if Alexander would agree to an
interview with me. First, I decided to Google her agent, but, oddly, I could find no
such agent. As I typed the name and its variations again something clicked into place
in my mind. Tony Williams had been married in 1980. As I looked through my notes
from previous research, I realised that his wife’s maiden name was Catherine Lewis.
I also discovered that Tony Williams’s wife listed the Royal Queens Hotel in Benidorm
as a previous workplace on social media sites. Then I noted that Benidorm was next
to La Cala and wondered whether this was just another coincidence.
I also found out that the middle name of Tony Williams’s youngest child, his
daughter Stacey, was Antonia. A little more research revealed that the middle name
of Stacey’s husband, Lee Miggins, was Philip. He was born in the last quarter of 1980,
making him seven years older than Stacey, whose birth was registered in June 1988.
In the dedication to Shadow of an Angel Tony Williams writes ‘for Blake, Brooke,
Antonia Alexander
Ebony, Alanna, Cody and Madison’. It didn’t take long for me to find out that these
were his grandchildren - the children of his two sons, Craig and Matthew, and his daughter Stacey. Furthermore,
it seemed likely that Alanna and Madison were the children of his daughter and not of his sons. I had established
that each of the other children belonged to one of his sons but Alanna and Madison did not. The similarity between
the names of Stacey’s children - Alanna and Madison – and those of Antonia Alexander’s children - Lana and Maddie
– could hardly be a coincidence. I further noted in The Fifth Victim that amongst Alexander’s friends on the hen
night were Ebony and Brooke - the names of two other of Tony Williams’s granddaughters.
On 18 September, Wales Online posted on their site an interview with Antonia
Alexander in the course of which she stated that she was a nurse - although in The
Fifth Victim she says she is a medical student. A quick search of the nurse register,
however, showed no results which matched her name. This was another instance where
odd similarities existed between Antonia Alexander and Stacey Miggins, Tony Williams’s
daughter. Stacey Miggins has several friends with degrees in nursing, but I couldn’t find
her on the nurse register either.
I compared the photographs in the Western Mail and the Daily Mail, first, with
photographs of Stacey Miggins as a child in Island of Dreams and The Forgotten People.
I thought there were similarities. I then compared the photographs to Stacey Miggins’s
Facebook profile photograph. I concluded that it was very likely that all the pictures
were of the same person, and this person was not really Antonia Alexander but rather
Stacey Miggins
Stacey Miggins, the daughter of Tony Williams.
14 Williams, Shadow of an Angel, pp. 20-22.

Conclusion
At first glance it would be possible to assume that the author of The Fifth Victim has
heavily plagiarised Uncle Jack. A more detailed analysis of the text, however, shows that
there is something altogether different at play. From the acknowledgement section in
The Fifth Victim, with its echoes of Uncle Jack and its thanking of an agent who does
not seem to exist, but shares the same maiden name as Tony Williams’s wife, to Antonia
Alexander’s description of her feelings on learning of the liaison between Mary Kelly and
Sir John Williams matching Tony Williams’s feelings, and to the heavy reliance of Antonia’s
life story on Tony Williams’s novel, the facts speak for themselves. I wondered whether it
was a coincidence that in The Fifth Victim Mary Kelly’s parents were called Anthony and
Catherine - like Tony and his wife. Was it in fact an in-joke? The lifting of elements of
Tony Williams’s novel into Alexander’s life story, together with her photographs showing
a striking resemblance to Tony Williams’s daughter, left no doubt in my mind. Antonia
Alexander is not a real person; she is actually Tony Williams, the author of Uncle Jack,
working together with his daughter Stacey Antonia Williams Miggins.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the following people for their help: Professor JDR Thomas, relation
of Sir John Williams, who has been generous with his time and information about the
Williams family; and to Neal Shelden, Jon Rees, Mark Ripper, Eduardo Zinna and Adam
Wood – thank you all for keeping my secret research to yourselves until it was finished.
Also Lorna Mackinnon at John Blake who forwarded my blog questions to the author of The
Fifth Victim.
Bibliography
Alexander, Antonia (2013) The Fifth Victim, John Blake, London; Evans, Sophie Jane
(2013) ‘Has this locket finally unmasked Jack the Ripper? Descendant of fifth victim
claims tiny photo proves serial killer was Queen Victoria’s surgeon’, accessed at www.
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2432987/Jack-Ripper-Queen-Victorias-surgeon-Sir-
John-Williams-claims-book-written-victims-descendant.html 26 August 2013; Jeanne
Peterson, M. (1978) The Medical Profession in Mid-Victorian London, University of California
Press, Berkley; Osmond, Adrian (2013) ‘Was Jack the Ripper a Welsh Surgeon?’ accessed at www.walesonline.
co.uk/news/jack-ripper-welsh-surgeon-6054929 18 September 2013; Servini, Nick (2000) ‘Paradise Lost, Pacific
family Flee TV Invasion’ reproduced from Daily Mirror, 15 January 2000, accessed at www.thefreelibrary.com/
PARADISE+LOST%3B+Pacific+castaway+family+flee+TV+invasion.-a060289284 15 August 2013; Williams, T Graham
(2013) ‘Biography’ accessed at www.cefnfab.co.uk/biog.htm 15 August 2013; Williams, Tony (2011) Shadow of
an Angel, Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie, Cambridge; Williams, Tony and Price, Humphrey (2005) Uncle Jack, Orion,
London; Williams, Tony (2000) Black Pearls, Genesis, Cardiff; Williams, Tony (1997) The Forgotten People, Gomer
Press, Ceredigion; Williams, Tony (1994) Island of Dreams, Signet, London.
JENNIFER SHELDEN has been interested in the Jack the Ripper murders for 13 years. She has
written and worked for several Jack the Ripper magazines, including Ripperologist. She gave
a talk at the 2005 Brighton Jack the Ripper Conference and the 2011 Cardiff Job, on both
occasions speaking about her research into the book Uncle Jack and Sir John Williams, a
Ripper non-suspect. She was part of the organising committee for the York Conference and is
involved with the upcoming 125th anniversary Conference to be held in London. In 2007, at
the Wolverhampton Ripper Conference, she met fellow Ripperologist Neal Shelden and they
married in December 2008.

Her Final Hours
A Reconstruction of the Last Three Days
in the Life of Kate Eddowes
By LYNN CATES
Most of what we know about the last seventy-two hours of Catharine Eddowes’ life comes
from the inquest testimony of her partner, John Kelly. This is frequently supplemented by press
interviews—again, of John Kelly—and a few snippets from witnesses who are purported to have
seen and interacted with her upon her arrival back in Spitalfields, ostensibly on Thursday, 27
September, 1888.
The purpose of this essay is to try to reconstruct John and Kate’s movements from the time of their arrival in London,
supposedly from picking hops in Kent, until the time of her death in Mitre Square, usually fixed as just after 1.30am,
Sunday, 30 September. I shall also spend some small time on the immediate aftermath of that tragedy.
Home from Kent:

Were they really picking hops?
“If you go down hopping, hopping down in Kent,
You’ll see old mother Riley a- putting up her tent.
With an ee-aye-o, ee-aye-o, ee-aye-ee-aye-o.” 1
The vast tracts of land stretching away from London to the south and east, all the way to the sea, contain numerous
fields of hops.
According to a web site devoted to the history of hops

in Kent, “Hops, the ingredient that adds bitterness to
beer, have been grown in Kent since the 16th century.
In Victorian times it was the biggest industry in the
county. Every September the plants were ready to be
picked and casual workers from Kent, London, Sussex
and East Anglia would come to Kent to work in the
hop gardens for 6 weeks. Once the hops were picked,
they were dried out in oast-houses and sold to the
breweries”.2
Were John and Kate actually hopping in Kent that

September in 1888? I propose a pro et contra approach
here. I shall present views for both sides.
1 www.hoppingdowninkent.org.uk
Hopping in Kent 2 www.hoppingdowninkent.org.uk/intro1.php

The best reason to think John and Kate were not hop picking in Kent—at least, not until the last week of September—
is that the harvest was so poor that year that many harvesters were coming back to London early. The plight of such
agricultural labourers is contained in the following story from The Echo. “Many thousands of the London poor could not
find employment as hop pickers in the neighbourhood around Maiden in the Weald of Kent.”3
When was this situation first apparent? According to another Echo report, as early as 5 September, 1888, the hops
harvest was seen as a disaster. “The unfortunate people who have gone hop-picking this year seem to have had a
decidedly poor time of it. Many who went to the gardens in hope are walking back in despair, having got nothing to do.
One lad who, with three others, last week, walked to Maidstone informs us that he found the ‘home dwellers’ were able
to accomplish all the work there was to do, and his opinion is that Maidstone is the best place for hops this year; but
outsiders could get nothing to do. He went on to Yalding, and there discovered that, for the most part, the hops were
not considered worth picking. After trying many quarters for work, he started to walk back to London, having earned
nothing during his stay in the hop district. His experience seems to be that of a great many more.”4
Considering that year’s poor harvest, and that many were already heading back to London by the end of the first
week in September, one wonders why John and Kate stayed away from London an additional three weeks. What were
they doing for that time?
Another reason for doubting that John and Kate were in Kent until 27
September revolves around some points made by John in his Echo interview of
3 October, in which he indicated that, “When we got back here Kate could not
get any work, nor could I. Some days we did not have anything to eat at all, and
many a day we’ve only earned enough to pay for our bed at night.”5 Obviously,
if one takes “many a day” in its most robust sense, it is at loggerheads with a
mere seventy-two hour time frame.
On the other hand, there are three bits of evidence which may be read to
indicate Kate’s presence in the hop fields of Kent.
First, we have the condition of Kate’s apron. According to Walter Dew, Kate’s
apron appeared black at first6 and, as researcher Jane Coram argues, “Hop
picking initially stains your hands and clothes green, but it soon turns to black
and filthy from the juice.”7 So the claim that Kate had been picking hops in
Kent would fit with the condition of her apron. Unfortunately, at this distant
remove in time, we have no way of dating those stains to determine when they
occurred.
Second, Dr Brown noted of Kate that, “The hands and arms were bronzed.”8
One way to account for the dark colouration of her hands and arms is to posit
that she’d recently worked in the sun. Hopping with sleeves rolled up would Kate Eddowes
be congruent with that possibility. Of course, to be fair, her dark colour would
likely be the same whether she’d returned to London on the 27th or three weeks earlier. Moreover, any kind of sustained
outdoor activity would suffice to account for her obvious tan.
Last, we have Kate’s own words. According to James Byfield, Station Sergeant at the Bishopsgate Street Police
Station, “She said she had been hopping.”9 She did not, however, give the dates of her excursion, so far as we know.
So, were John and Kate picking hops in Kent until near the end of September? I shall leave that for the reader to
decide.
3 The Echo, 11 September, 1888.

4 The Echo, 5 September, 1888.
5 The Echo, 3 October, 1888.
6 Paul Begg, Martin Fido and Keith Skinner, The Jack the Ripper A-Z, p. 126.
7 Casebook thread, Eddowes in Kent, post # 6.
8 Evans and Skinner, The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook, p. 205.
9 Ibid, p. 210.

Thursday night:
John and Kate at Shoe Lane Casual Ward
According to John Kelly’s inquest testimony, he and Kate arrived back in London on Thursday, 27 September, 1888.10
They had no money and, in consequence, headed to Shoe Lane Casual Ward to find shelter for the night.11
The Shoe Lane Casual Ward seems to have been associated with the workhouse located at 41 Shoe Lane, falling under
the jurisdiction of the parish of St Andrew Holborn.12 The workhouse was opened in June, 1727.13 By 1888, a casual ward
was attached to it, presumably at the same address. The location of this complex at Shoe Lane was about two miles
west of Cooney’s lodging house.14
The idea behind any casual ward was to provide temporary shelter for vagrants and others who were impecunious.
Hence, when John and Kate returned to London, penniless, it made sense to go to a casual ward in order to get a place
to stay for the night.
What was a casual ward like? When those wishing to spend time at a casual ward arrived, they were checked for
money, alcohol and tobacco. If any were found, it was confiscated. Next, they were issued a night shirt and their supper
of bread and gruel.15
It might be asked why John and Kate went to Shoe Lane rather than the casual ward in Whitechapel, but I can give
no answer to that. Whatever their reason for going there, John gave little details of their stay. Consequently, we must
pass on to Friday night, 28 September.
Friday night:
John at Cooney’s, Kate at Mile End Casual Ward
According to John Kelly’s inquest testimony, he had earned 6d on the afternoon of
Friday, 28 September.16 One presumes that he obtained this income “jobbing about
the markets.” That is to say, he likely picked up a job for a couple of hours at market
carrying wares or such and in consequence was paid the 6d indicated.
What should they do with this windfall? Well, there

seems to have been a divergence of opinion between
John and Kate on this head. John pointed out that Fred
Wilkinson, deputy at Cooney’s lodging house, would trust
them for their doss and let they stay the night without
funds.17 (Wilkinson corroborated this later under oath.
He stated, “Kelly and the deceased were at breakfast
together between ten and eleven on Saturday morning.
John Kelly at the inquest If they had told me the previous day that they had no
money I would have trusted them. I trust all lodgers I
know.” ) Given that Wilkinson might have let them stay “on tick”, John felt that they
18
should use the money for food and drink.19 Kate, however, suggested that John take 4d
and use it as doss for Cooney’s, whilst she would go to the Mile End Casual Ward.20 (In a Frederick Wilkinson, Deputy of Cooney’s
slightly different version of this story, John suggested the converse—he to Mile End Casual
Ward; she to Cooney’s.21) Kate’s argument won, and they went their separate ways around 4.00pm.22
10 Evans and Skinner, The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook, p. 217.
11 Loc. cit.
12 www.workhouses.org.uk/CityOfLondon/parishes.shtml
13 Loc. cit.
14 Google maps.
15 www.workhouses.org.uk/vagrants/index.shtml#CasualWard.
16 Evans and Skinner, p. 217.
17 Loc. cit.
18 The Daily Telegraph, 5 October, 1888, accessed from Casebook.
20 Loc. cit.

It might naturally be asked at this point, “Why didn’t they return to Shoe Lane Casual Ward?” The answer may lie in
the regulations attaching to such institutions. The Casual Poor Act of 1882 seems to have “made it a requirement for
casuals to be detained for two nights, with the full day in between spent performing work. The casuals could then be
released at 9.00am in the morning after the second night. Return to the same spike (casual ward) was not allowed within
30 days with the penalty being four nights detention with three days work being performed in between.”23 Given this
law, it is clear why they chose not to return to Shoe Lane; however, it is not clear why John and Kate were discharged
from Shoe Lane on Friday morning and not kept for an extra night according to rule. Having no good answer to give, I
pass on.
It is at this point that John Kelly’s story becomes fraught with difficulties.
According to him, Kate arrived at Cooney’s lodging house around 8.00am
Saturday morning.24 This is problematic for several reasons. First, at a
casual ward, one is expected to perform menial services in exchange for
one’s meagre room and board. Typical of this is to break rocks or to pick
oakum. If one is breaking rocks, one thousand pounds is expected to be
broken; if oakum, the tale is set at four pounds. Given such a workload,
these tasks often lasted until the afternoon.25 Consequently, Kate’s early
arrival at Cooney’s astonished John26—to say nothing of an unnamed juror
at inquest.27 To be fair, John explained that a “bother” had occurred
resulting in her early release. He did not, unfortunately, explain the exact
nature of that bother.
As we’ve seen, the distance from the Mile End Casual Ward to Cooney’s
lodging house was roughly two miles.28 If one walks at a good brisk pace of
four miles per hour, such a jaunt can be negotiated in a half hour. However,
a more leisurely pace of three miles per hour would require approximately Oakum picking
three quarters of an hour. It seems, then, that in order for Kate to arrive at
Cooney’s at around 8.00am, she must have left the casual ward between 7.00am and 7.30am. So, whatever the “bother”
at the casual ward was, it was an extremely early one.
By Saturday morning, John claimed that his penury was so severe that he and Kate decided to take his new boots,
bought from the money at hop picking, and pawn them.29 The pawning purportedly took place at Jones’s in Church
Street.30
But now John’s story becomes quite perplexing. As noted above, he claimed that the boots were pawned on
Saturday morning. A problem arises, however, since the pawn ticket indicated the transaction took place on Friday, 28
September.31 Indeed, although John claimed at inquest that, “I think it was on Saturday morning that we pawned the
boots,”32 this was called into question by Mr Crawford: “Is it not the fact that the pawning took place on the Friday
night?”33 John then emended his story to, “I do not know. It was either Friday night or Saturday morning.”34 When the
ticket was produced, it was marked Friday (vide supra)35 John then pled that he was “all muddled up,” presumably, as
a result of Kate’s death.36
23 www.workhouses.org.uk/vagrants/index.shtml#CasualWard
25 William . Fishman, East End 1888, p. 113.
26 Evans and Skinner, p. 217
27 The Daily Telegraph, 5 October, 1888 accessed from Casebook.
28 Google maps.
30 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.

It must be pointed out here that the pawn ticket for the boots was found on Kate, and stored in a mustard tin.37 The
ticket was made out to Anne Kelly38—presumably, an alias for Kate.39 Along with that ticket was another made out for
Emily Birrell and for redemption of a man’s shirt.40
(I would be remiss in my scholarship were I not to point out that John seems
to have given two different versions of the story concerning the ticket for the
shirt and his dealing with it. In his Star interview, John claimed that, “We went
hopping together mostly every year. We went down this year as usual. We didn’t
get on any too well, and started to hoof it home. We came along in company
with another man and woman who had worked in the same fields, but who parted
with us to go to Chatham when we turned off towards Maidstone. The woman
said to Kate, “I have got a pawnticket [sic] for a flannel shirt. I wish you’d take
it, since you’re going up to town. It is only in for 9d, and it may fit your old man.
So Kate took it and we trudged along.”41 This is eminently plausible. Mrs Birrell
had pawned a shirt at Jones’s shop. She received 9d for the shirt along with a
ticket—just in case she wished to redeem the shirt. She didn’t, but thought the
shirt would fit John. Kate got the ticket and, if she could scrounge up 9d, plus
usury, she could have a nice shirt.
However, there is a second story in The Echo which runs like this: “About
three weeks ago, on the road, we picked up with another couple. They used to
live in London, and the woman made Kate take a pawnticket [sic] she had for a
flannel shirt that had been ‘popped’ at Jones’s in Church-street. It was only for
ninepence [sic], but Kate took it and we got the money.”42 Clearly, this is not
possible. Jones would not give 9d to Mrs Birrell and to Kate as well. Moreover, if
that had been the case, Kate would have needed to have surrendered the pawn John Kelly
ticket.) 43
Whether the boots were pawned in the evening or the morning, serious problems begin to emerge regarding the date.
In what follows, I shall examine the possible times disjunctively.
Let’s first suppose that John and Kate pawned the boots on Friday evening—just as the ticket indicated. In that case,
I find the following anomalies regarding John’s story.
1. According to the version of the inquest found in The Daily Telegraph, John was asked point blank whether he had
been drinking when the boots were pawned.44Astonishingly, he replied, “Yes.”45 This is truly amazing since,
according to the testimony he had given, he and Kate possessed only 6d after he had worked at a job that
afternoon. In fact, they had already discussed precisely how that money was to be divided and spent. To put it
succinctly, whence the money whereby John bought drink?
2. If the boots were pawned on Friday night, it seems scarcely credible that Kate would not have extracted a mere
2d—leaving 28d—and gone to sleep at Cooney’s with her partner. Instead, she opted to go to Mile End for shelter.

38 Ibid. p. 194.
39 Kate had given the name Mary Anne Kelly at Bishopsgate Street Police Station—Ibid, p. 195.
40 Ibid. p. 194.
41 The Star, 3 October, 1888, accessed from Casebook.
43 Another difficulty is that, in this interview, John seems to indicate that Kate came into possession of the pawn ticket about three
weeks before. But, in the Star interview, John indicates she came by it as they were headed home. If these interviews are taken in
conjunction, it seems that John and Kate were headed home around the first week of September (vide supra).
45 Ibid.

3. When the Coroner asked John as to the time Kate had left him for the Mile
End Casual Ward, he replied, “I cannot tell, but I think it would be about
three or four in the afternoon.” This is problematic because we know that
John found some work on Friday afternoon and was paid 6d for it (vide
supra). Now, after working some hours—we cannot know how many—he
must have met Kate, presumably at Cooney’s, made the decision to pawn
the boots, and have accompanied Kate all the way to Jones’s pawn shop in
Church Street. There seems hardly enough time for all these activities to
occur. Besides that, the pawning was described as occurring on Friday
night.46 Clearly, the time range John gave is not congruent with a claim of
its being night. Needless to say, it becomes even more acute if a visit to a
pub gets factored in.
4. Kelly remarked concerning the pawning that, “I stood at the door in my

bare feet.”47 What does this entail? Well, surely it means that John had
Coroner Samuel Langham
to walk back to Cooney’s barefooted. I also raises the question, “What did
John do for foot wear in the days after the pawning?” Perhaps he had
another pair of boots/shoes? Then it seems that a better procedure would
be to put on the auxiliary pair, take the boots in hand to Jones’s shop and
then pawn them.
But suppose that the pawning took place on Saturday morning—as John preferred to explain it? Very well, at what
time did the pawning take place? Well, we know that John claimed that Kate met him at Cooney’s around 8.00am (vide
supra). Fred Wilkinson claimed that they were together between 10.00 and 11.00am at the lodging house48—presumably
having breakfast. So a sequence for events on this scenario might be: Kate’s discharge from Mile End Casual Ward
between 7.00 and 7.30am, arriving at Cooney’s around 8.00am when she met her partner, deciding to pawn the boots,
making the trek to Jones’s, pawning the boots, and returning to Cooney’s.
If, however, they were hungry, as seems likely—typical supper fare in the casual ward was one half pound of gruel and
one half pound of bread49—they would need to stop first at a chandler’s shop. Indeed, John acknowledged as much when
he accounted for tea, coffee and sugar in Kate’s possession when she was found dead.50
Where next? Well, John indicated, “We had been drinking together out of the 2s 6d.”51 Although it is not clear exactly
when this drinking took place, it seems one must assume that it was after both the pawning and their arrival back at
Cooney’s and subsequent spotting by Wilkinson, “I think it was on Saturday morning that we pawned the boots. She was
sober when she left me. We had been drinking together out of the 2s 6d. All of it was spent in drink and food.”52
If this is correct, and they had spent a good deal of their windfall drinking, this could account for part of the time
between Wilkinson’s sighting between 10.00 and 11.00am, and Kate’s departure from John in Houndsditch around
2.00pm.53 A slight puzzlement, however, involves John’s statement at inquest that, “She left me quite sober to go to her
daughter’s.”54 If they had expended a good deal of the 2s 6d drinking in a pub, it is difficult to see how Kate could be
“quite sober.” Of course, one could urge that John did the bulk of the drinking. This, however, seems to fly in the face
of Wilkinson’s pronouncement about John that, “Kelly was not in the habit of drinking, and I never saw him the worse
for drink.”55
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid.
49 Fishman, p. 113
52 Ibid.
53 It must be noted, for the record, that in his Star interview, John claims that he left Kate from Cooney’s, not Houndsditch (q.v.)
55 Ibid.

Now let’s examine some problems with this Saturday pawning scenario.
1. If the pawning took place on Saturday morning, it seems distinctly odd that the money should be spent in three or
four hours time, thus necessitating a trip to Bermondsey by Kate to obtain further funds. If one allows even 6d
for sugar, tea and coffee, and another 6d for food, it is unclear where the other 1s 6d went. If that were expended
at a pub, as suggested above, it is difficult to believe that Kate was quite sober.
2. In the broad daylight of morning, and given that John was just outside the shop, it would be natural for the
pawnshop’s agent to assume that John was Kate’s husband. Why would it be important for the agent not to know
that? I reproduce the following from Contract of Pawn, 1883:
At Common Law, a married woman can neither make a contract nor possess property, apart from her husband.
Hence a pledge by her and on her own behalf, was doubly invalid. Having no title to the chattel herself,
she could confer none upon the pawnee, from whom the husband might recover the pawn by action. And,
by reason of her own absolute incapacity to make or become bound by a contract, she incurred no liability
to fulfil the engagement the pledge was meant to secure. She will not lose the benefit of this personal
disability in any civil proceeding, even when she has induced the pawnee to enter into the contract by
fraudulently representing herself as a single woman, because, in her case, as well as that of an infant,
such a misrepresentation is implied whenever a person under disability professes to enter into a contract.
She may, however, bind her husband by a pledge made by her as his agent, when her power to bind him will
be determined by rules applicable in any other case of principal and agent. Express authority is general,
exercisable only within the limits which the husband, as principal, has prescribed. The extent of implied
authority will vary with the circumstances out of which it arises. Thus, as a wife whom her husband fails
to provide with maintenance suited to his quality, may pledge his credit for necessaries, it would seem
that money properly advanced to the wife to procure necessaries, and properly so applied by her, may now
be recovered in an action against the husband, and that money so advanced may be set off by the pawnee
in an action brought against him by the husband. Hence it would follow that a pledge properly made by
the wife for the purpose of procuring necessaries, and the proceeds whereof are properly applied, will
be good against the husband, unless the parties have voluntarily separated, agreeing upon an allowance
(sufficient or insufficient) which the husband has paid. And though a married woman is unable to bind
herself personally by contract, she may, if possessed of separate estate, or carrying on business separately
from her husband (c), so bind her estate or the assets of her business by a pledge, as to entitle the pawnee
or other contractee, to a decree charging her estate with the fulfillment [sic] of her obligation, unless the
same instrument which creates the separate estate imposes restraint on alienation or anticipation, when
the pledge will only be good to the extent of dividends and profits already accrued.56
Clearly, the strictures of this law could have a deleterious effect upon a shop’s margin of profit, and it would
behoove them not to take an unnecessary chance.
3. A more grave problem, however, with the Saturday pawning is to explain away the pawn ticket’s clear marking
of a Friday transaction. How to account for it? Well, it has been suggested that the ticket was deliberately
backdated. But such a dishonest manoeuvre seems opposed by the good record which Joseph Jones, the
pawnbroker, had with the police. In witness whereof, I submit the following compilation of testimony given by Mr
Jones at various Old Bailey trials:
August 1880
JOSEPH JONES, JUN. I am employed by Joseph Jones, of 31, Church Street, Spitalfields, pawnbroker—I
produce a signet ring pledged on the 29th June with me by the prisoner, Richard Wood, of 47, Lansdown
Road.
March 1884—
JOSEPH JONES. I am a pawnbroker, of 31, Church Street, Spitalfields—I produce a pair of girl’s boots
pledged on the 17th January by E. Lea for George Smith, 6, Fore Street.
56 Contract of Pawn, courtesy of Simon Wood.

December 1887—
JOSEPH JONES. I am a pawnbroker, of 31, Church Street, Spitalfields—I produce an overcoat pledged
with me on 5th December, at 2pm, by Kotcher—he was alone—this (produced) is the ticket. (Pawned for
10s. in the name of Charles Smith, 14, Sun Street.) I made the usual inquiries of him as to whether it
was his own property, and he said “Yes,” but he was short of money.
November 1888—
JOSEPH JONES. I am a pawnbroker at 31, Church Street, Spitalfields—I produce a shawl pawned with me
on 23rd October, it was wrapped in this piece of table-cloth—this is the duplicate—I do not recognise
the girl—she gave the name of Ann Seed, 1, Vine Court.
February 1889
JOSEPH JONES. I am a pawnbroker, of 31, Church, Spitalfields—on 7th January, at 8.15am, the prisoner
brought me these boots to pawn, but being odd ones I refused them.”57
Note that:
i. According to these cuttings, Jones was likely asked by a barrister or solicitor for help identifying pawned
merchandise in these trials.
ii. Apparently he kept impeccable records, for he was able to supply some fine details about some of the
pawnings.
iii. In the Kotcher case (1887), Jones noted that there is a detailed procedure through which he goes in order to
ascertain whether the merchandise might be stolen.
Hence, it seems—at least on a prima facie perusal—that Jones was likely an honest pawn broker. And if an honest
pawn broker, it is not clear that he would knowingly have become engaged in deliberate misdating. (It is
interesting that, in the 1888 snippet, Jones apparently did not recognise the patron, although, presumably, he
had been asked about her. This compares to Kate, whom Jones could not identify;58 but, contrasts with the
Kotcher case (1887) in which Jones recalled even the fact that the patron was alone.)
4. But perhaps the gravest problem with a Saturday pawning arises when looking at John’s interview from The Echo,
3 October. John states that, “Saturday we did’nt [sic] know what to do. We had got nothing. I went into the
Spitalfields-market early in the morning, and earned 4d, but that’s all I could get. Towards the afternoon I told
Kate to take my boots and pawn them. She wouldn’t for a long time, and offered to pawn something of hers, if
I’d let her. I wouldn’t hear of that, so Kate took my boots and got 2s 6d for them.”59 He then indicated that from
the proceeds they were able to manage breakfast.
The question naturally arises, then, concerning John’s foray into the Spitalfields market. When did it occur?
Well, one possibility is that John arrived there when they opened around 6.00am. That would mean that he would
have located the work that paid 4d rather quickly and have discharged his duties, been paid and returned to Cooney’s,
ALL before Kate arrived at 8.00. Now, I grant that this could physically be accomplished. But it is puzzling why John did
not remain there seeking further employment. After all, according to his inquest testimony, he had made 6d there just
the day before—and had done so, in the afternoon.60
One might suggest here that he wished to be back at Cooney’s to greet Kate. But we need to recall that, in his
testimony, Kelly had indicated that he was not expecting Kate back at such an early hour.61
57 All snippets courtesy of Simon Wood.

58 Evans and Skinner, p. 194
61 Loc. cit.

If, however, John went into the market seeking employment after Kate’s arrival, then there is a severe impairment
of the sequence of events as related. For we are given to understand that Kate had arrived at Cooney’s around 8.00. If
John had gone into the market for work after 8.00, then he would have needed:
i. to proceed to Spitalfields market.

ii. to have located work.
iii. to perform his duties.
iv. to have been paid.
v. to return to Cooney’s.
vi. to make the decision to pawn the boots.
vii. to go with Kate to Jones in Church Street and pawn them.
viii. to make a trip to a chandler’s shop.
ix. to return to Cooney’s and prepare a meal with Kate.
Moreover, this sequence must have been completed before 11.00—and perhaps as early as 10.00 – to dovetail with
Wilkinson’s sighting. And this sequence says nothing of John’s story about their having bought drink—presumably alcohol—
with some of the proceeds.
So, clearly, the interview with The Echo is difficult to harmonise with events on Saturday morning, especially if one
takes the pawning to have occurred then.
So, when were the boots pawned? I must leave that for the reader to decide.
Saturday Afternoon
This brings us to the last purported meeting between John and Kate. At inquest, John stated that, “I was last in her
company on Saturday last at 2 o’clock in the afternoon in Houndsditch. We parted on very good terms. She said she was
going over to see if she could see her daughter, Annie, at Bermondsey, a daughter she had by Conway. She promised me
to be back by 4 o’clock and no later. She did not return.”62
The question which naturally arises is, “Where did Kate go when she left John at 2.00pm in Houndsditch?”
Scenario One:
Kate Mooching
In the first scenario, Kate was supposed to be headed to her daughter’s residence in Bermondsey in order to solicit
funds. As I pointed out above, this is decidedly odd. If the boots were in fact pawned early that morning, it seems
incoherent that they could have spent two shillings, six pence in food and drink so rapidly, to say nothing of the 4d
earned at market. Of course, it is frequently urged by historians of the London East End poor during the Late Victorian
Period that they were simply not adept at money management—they let it slip through their fingers, as it were.63 Let us,
then, tentatively accept this explanation and proceed.
The distance from John and Kate’s location in Houndsditch to Bermondsey is roughly two miles.64 Consequently,
a round trip there and back should have taken somewhat over an hour. Add to this the time taken in exchanging
pleasantries, getting caught up on family news, applying for the funds and receiving them, and one could easily add
another hour or so to the errand. And Kate was not to return to where she parted from John but to Cooney’s lodging
house at 55 Flower and Dean Street. Hence, it would be prudent to allow Kate a good two hours in order to accomplish
her task. And this was precisely the time Kate herself estimated. She averred that she would see John by 4.00pm.
Now, there are two serious problems with this part of John’s story.

63 Don Souden, “Friday 28th Sept. 1888 Shoe Lane Casual Ward” Post #9, accessed from Casebook.
64 Google maps, and a correction by Simon Wood.

First, John noted that Kate’s daughter lived on King Street in Bermondsey.65 But Annie had moved from that location
over two years previously.66 Hence, one must meet John’s claim here with a good deal of skepticism. Surely Kate would
have been aware of the move at some point—if not when it happened, then later, whenever she had next applied to
Annie for funds? But, according to her daughter’s testimony, she had not seen her mother since that time.67 Is it possible,
then, that Kate proceeded to Bermondsey in search of funds, but was thwarted given her daughter’s moving away? That
is quite possible. Yet, one wonders whether Kate had made no attempt at contact for over two years.
(An interesting story appeared in The Daily News concerning this. “Last night Eliza Gold, or Frost, the sister,
who lives at 6, Thrawl-street, Spitalfields, made the following statement. She did this with difficulty, as she
is suffering from a serious attack of illness consequent on the sudden discovery of her sister’s shocking end.
“...She was not married to Conway, but she went to live with him while in London. She has lived here almost all her life.
Her name was Catherine Eddowes. Conway was in the army, but I don’t know in what regiment. She had two or three
children by him. It’s rather strange - one of them, the girl that’s married [ie, Annie Phillips], came to me last week and
asked me if I had seen anything of her mother. She said it was a very long time since she had seen her; but it was a long
time since I had, too, and I told her so.””)68
Second, Annie stated flat out that she had not been visited by her mother in search of funds.69 In consequence, I
believe that we must reject scenario one. Let us now proceed to the second scenario.
Scenario Two:
Kate Soliciting
If Kate was not heading to Bermondsey to obtain money from her daughter Annie, then where was she and what was
she doing?
A fairly common tack here is to suggest that, given their situation of dire poverty, Kate made the decision to solicit
in Aldgate Saturday afternoon, and that John concurred in this.
So should we say that Kate spent the time from 2.00pm until roughly 8.30pm when she was found drunk by PC 931
Louis Robinson,70 first in soliciting, then in spending the proceeds in drink?
Let’s assume that this is precisely what happened and examine where this line of enquiry takes us.
For Kate to reach the level of intoxication which she evinced when discovered by the PC, it seems reasonable to
assume that she had three or four large glasses of gin. The cost of a large glass of gin would be, roughly, 3d or 4d.71 Now,
to obtain money for the proposed drinking spree, it would have been needful for Kate to have found and serviced three
or four clients—given, of course, that the usual fee for such a service was about 3d, or possibly 4d, as well.72
Now if we assume that Kate did not begin spending her windfall until, say, 7.00pm, that would give her nearly five
hours to locate, proposition, service and collect from the three or four clients suggested above. That seems more than
sufficient time to engage in those activities.
One suggestion to the contrary is that, had Kate spent the entire afternoon engaged as we have suggested above,
then, given the limited geographical area involved, she would almost surely have been recognised by someone who
would subsequently have testified to this at inquest.
Although this seems a likely counter explanation, it may well turn out that a person thus soliciting had become rather
adept at blending into a crowd and, subsequently, disguising her activities. Therefore, for the sake of argument, let us
suppose that this is exactly what happened—that Kate was soliciting clients and then servicing them from about 2.00pm
until 7.00pm, and that she had successfully avoided detection.

66 Ibid. p. 209.
67 Loc. cit.
68 The Daily News, 4 October, 1888, courtesy of Simon Wood.
70 Ibid., pp. 209 & 10.
71 www.casebook.org/victims/polly.html
72 Loc. cit.

But the real problem with this scenario surfaces when we recall that Dr Frederick Gordon Brown at inquest stated
that, “There were no traces of recent connection.”73 What did he mean by this? Well, in the Late Victorian Era,
“connection” was a euphemism for sexual intercourse.
What were the signs of “connection”? The most obvious would have been to inspect the vaginal opening for presence
of seminal fluids. But this is misleading for two reasons.
First, it disregards alternative forms of sex—oral and anal. The latter, of course, can be checked in a manner analogous
to the way of checking for vaginal intercourse; the former, however, cannot be so easily detected.
Second, it disregards the most “popular” alternative to vaginal intercourse amongst Victorian prostitutes—namely,
inter-femoral (“between the thighs”) intercourse. Why was this so frequently engaged in during this, and subsequent,
periods by prostitutes? It is a simple fact that prostitutes wished to avoid insemination, whenever possible, and that for
two reasons. First, insemination could lead to pregnancy and that would be a nuisance for the lady who made a living
from providing sex. Second, full genital intercourse could lead to venereal infection, and such was to be avoided if at
all possible.
Would, or could, a medical examiner check for signs of inter-femoral intercourse? An interesting parallel can be
drawn with the case of Polly Nichols, the first “canonical victim” of “Jack the Ripper.”
When Polly was engaged in discourse with Jane Oram (aka Emily Holland), she indicated that she had her doss money
three times that day but had spent it.74 How did Polly obtain her doss money? It seems rather obvious that she obtained
it earlier in the day in the selfsame manner in which she was seeking to obtain it when she left the boarding house at
1.40—she sold sex.
Given that Polly had had sex three times that day, and assuming that she in fact had inter-femoral intercourse, were
there any signs of it? No. How can we be sure? Simply because Dr Llewellyn checked for that. How can such a check be
accomplished? Well, it seems rather obvious that the thighs are examined for dried seminal stains. But none were found
in her case. Indeed, the medical examiner was astonished by their extraordinary cleanness.75
Are we to assume, then, that Polly had not had inter-femoral intercourse the day of her death? No. Her thighs were
clean, but that makes it likely that she had bathed. After all, she was said by Jane Oram to be a clean woman,76 which
suggests that she washed fairly frequently—likely at some point subsequent to such intercourse.
Now, what about Kate? In her case, too, the thighs were checked for inter-femoral intercourse by the medical
examiner. He pronounced that there was no “...secretion of any kind on the thighs...”77 But could not Kate have adopted
a similar stratagem to Polly, hence obviating the seminal evidence? This is unlikely since Kate had no doss house in which
to bathe and, had she used Cooney’s, someone would have recognised her and that would have made its way to inquest.
And if john were there, obviously he would have known it.
The answer, then, seems clear—Kate had not engaged in inter-femoral intercourse on Saturday afternoon. Whence,
then, came her money for drinks? John testified that she had no money when they parted.78 It seems one must say, then,
that someone bought her drinks.
Who Buys the Drinks?

Not Charlie Kane
Given, then, that someone stood treat for Kate in a pub, the question naturally arises, “Whom?” A related question
concerns the pub in which Kate was most likely drinking. I shall consider these in inverse order.
Kate was found in a neighbourhood easily accessible to three pubs. Those were The Three Nuns, The Bull Inn, and The
Essex.79 Of the three, Kate was found closest to The Bull Inn.80

75 Begg, Fido, and Skinner, p. 320.
77 Ibid, p. 205.
78 Ibid, p. 216.
79 Roy Corduroy, “Catherine Eddowes”, Post #4, accessed from Casebook.
80 Loc. cit.
The Bull Inn, located at 25 Aldgate High Street, was already built by 1750.81
According to the Catalogue of Drawings of Old London by Phillip Norman,

its history (by 1886) includes this: “It was at its zenith shortly before the
advent of railways, when Mrs Anne Nelson, coach proprietor, was the
landlady. It has been said that she could make up nearly 200 beds there,
and she lodged and boarded about three dozen of her guards and coachmen.
Most of her business was to Essex and Suffolk, but she also owned the Exeter
coach.”82 ”It was torn down in 1902.83
Next, we take up the question concerning the funding of Kate’s drinks.

I have claimed above that funding for her alcohol consumption may have
amounted to near a shilling. Who paid for this? Here I give a list of partial
possibilities: 1. Kate, from money she had on her; 2. Kate, as executrix of
newfound wealth from soliciting; 3. Kate, as possessor of monies recently
obtained from her daughter in Bermondsey; 4. Kate, as owner of money from
charring or hawking merchandise; 5. A poor friend known intimately to Kate,
and of her own social class; 6. A generous chap who was throwing a party and
standing treat for all comers 7. An acquaintance of a different social class.
The Bull Inn, Aldgate High Street Let us consider these in order.
1. According to John in his inquest testimony, Kate had no money when she left him in Houndsditch.84 This seems to
rule out number one, given the veracity of her partner.
2. If Kate had been selling sex, and had done so successfully, she may indeed have earned sufficient funds to have
become as inebriated as she was when found by PC Robinson. But, again, the signs of inter-femoral intercourse
were not there (vide supra).
3. If Kate had gone to Annie’s in Bermondsey, and she had consented, she would have had enough money for
some drinks—depending, of course, on the size of her daughter’s largesse. Unfortunately, Mrs Phillips did not live
in Bermondsey,85 nor did she give money to her mother.86 Hence, this option seems not to be viable.
4. It is possible that Kate could have found a spot of work on Saturday afternoon. It was pointed out at inquest that
Kate would sometimes obtain funds by charring for Jewish people.87 Such work would normally take place on,
or just before, the Sabbath. And, of course, Kate was trying to obtain funds on precisely the Jewish Sabbath—
Saturday. A slight problem arises, however, given the greatly truncated time frame in which Kate needed both to
locate and perform any such work. And this seems exacerbated given the amount of funds she would need to
achieve the level of intoxication she evinced. If, however, she were hawking, then that person by whom she were
employed, should surely have been aware of her tragedy and have reported to inquest. Note that such a person
would surely have nothing to hide by employing Kate to hawk his goods.
5. Could a poor friend, one of Kate’s own socio-economic class, have stood her treat at a pub? This seems unlikely
for economic reasons. Surely an acquaintance of Kate’s, given a similar financial situation, would be unable to
provide such a great deal of hospitality?
6. It was not unheard of that, someone with a windfall (eg, a sailor having recently been paid) would have a bit
of a party, and stand treat for others. According to researcher Neil Bell, one may draw a parallel between
Tom Sadler’s behaviour with Frances Coles and what happened in The Bull Inn on Saturday afternoon.88 Of course,
in Sadler’s case, he had expected some “compensation” for his generosity. And in Kate’s case, given her
incarceration, it may well be that she could not “reciprocate,” thus causing a bit of frustration for her benefactor—
given his motivation approximated Sadler’s.
81 pubshistory.com/LondonPubs/Aldgate/BullInn.shtml
82 Phillip Norman, Catalogue of Drawings of Old London, p. 8.
83 pubshistory.com/LondonPubs/Aldgate/BullInn.shtml
85 Ibid., p. 208.
86 Ibid., p. 209.
87 Ibid., p. 200.
88 Neil Bell, “Did Jack kill only 3?” Post #416, accessed from Casebook.

7. Could an acquaintance from a higher social class have bought drinks for Kate? Of course. Unfortunately, however,
we have no record of any such acquaintance.
Who bought the drinks? One cannot say. So I shall leave it to the reader to decide.
John’s Delayed Reaction

Perhaps the most inexplicable item in John’s testimony and behaviour, with respect to the tragedy in Mitre Square,
regards his timing in seeking Kate—and this on three occasions.
First, he claimed that she had informed him that she would be back at Cooney’s by 4.00pm. (vide supra.) Now
obviously a bit of tardiness here is no cause for alarm, but surely by, say, 5.00 or 6.00 John should have become
concerned? This would be especially true given the veracity of his remarks to Kate about “that knife.” (“She told me
she had made up her mind to go to her daughter’s in Bermondsey. I begged her to be back early, for we had been talking
about the Whitechapel murders, and I said I did not want to have that knife get at her.”)89 Notwithstanding, John never
went to check on Kate at this time.
Second, John took a single bed for the night at Cooney’s. He later gave as a reason for just ordering a single bed that
he’d heard about Kate’s incarceration from some older women in the lane.90 (The time given by Wilkinson about John’s
information is problematic. Fred claimed that, “When Kelly came in on Saturday night between half past 7 or 8 I asked
him, ‘Where’s Kate?’ He said, ‘I have heard she’s been locked up,’ and he took a single bed.”91 BUT, obviously, this could
not have been correct as Kate was taken into custody around 8.30 and arrived at Bishopsgate around 8.45.) According to
City of London police rules, a person gaoled for public intoxication could be released when judged sober enough to take
care of himself or herself.92 John seemed aware of this rule and expected her out of custody next morning.93 But when
the day wore on, surely he must have become concerned?
Third, John deflected this line by contending that he had thought that Kate had gone on to Bermondsey to her
daughter’s—again, to apply for funds.94 But even if we allow her the whole day at Annie’s—and the entire night to avoid
travelling in the dark—surely John should have been concerned by end of day Monday?
Finally, at end of day Tuesday, John is supposed to have discovered the truth about Kate’s demise and gone voluntarily
to the police.95 This seems hardly credible for a man who had claimed that he was concerned about his partner three
days previously.
John’s Living without Funds

A final concern for John’s testimony involves the very reason why Kate supposedly was heading to Bermondsey to
solicit funds from her daughter—impecuniousness.
According to his inquest testimony, John had worked on Friday afternoon and received 6d for his efforts. But that had
allowed him and Kate to get accommodations only. Nor is there a mention of his obtaining additional funds.
Granted this may have been inadvertently omitted from his inquest testimony; nevertheless, it is quite germane to the
investigation and reason dictates that his source of funding beyond Saturday afternoon should have been investigated.
Moreover, John, in his interview for The Star, claimed that, “I was out in the market all day [Saturday], but did no
good.”96 Furthermore, he stated—regarding Monday—that, “Yesterday morning I began to be worried a bit, but I did not
guess the truth until after I had come back from another bad day in the market.”97 So, if John had made some money on
Saturday or Monday, it must NOT have been at his usual place of business—given of course, his veracity in this interview.
89 The Star, 3 October, 1888 accessed from Casebook.

91 Ibid., p. 200.
92 Ibid., p. 210.
93 Ibid., p. 199.
94 Loc. cit.
96 Ibid.
97 Ibid.

But if John had spent all his funds by Saturday afternoon, how was he able both to pay his doss at Cooney’s and buy
something to eat? Regarding the former, it could have been that Wilkinson had extended credit for Sunday through
Monday nights. We know that John paid his doss for Saturday night;98 and, by Tuesday he may indeed have found work.
Of course, this situation would tend to obviate Kate’s need to seek funds in Bermondsey—just apply to Wilkinson for
credit. Regarding his meals, perhaps John fasted in accordance with his story about his and Kate’s return to London, and
having gone many days without food (vide supra.)
So what was John doing for money on Saturday night, Sunday and Monday? I leave that for the reader to decide.
Summary
The time has now come to summarise our findings.
The most vexing question, to my mind, concerns where John and Kate had been during the bulk of September. John
clearly stated at inquest that he and Kate had come back to London on Thursday, 27 September. On the other hand,
many other of the London migrant workers had left Kent during the first week of September, having found no work in the
hop fields. The harvest was so poor that the locals were sufficient to do the work. Moreover, the Echo interview has John
talking about being without food and having only the price of a bed for many a day. This is difficult to reconcile with his
inquest testimony. This is quite puzzling.
A second serious problem arises concerning Kate’s stay at both The Shoe Lane Casual Ward and The Mile End Casual
Ward. In the first case, she and John seemed to be required by law to stay another night. But they did not. In the latter
case, Kate seems to have been discharged very early in the morning before performing her mandatory duties. John’s
explanation for this event is quite vague and unhelpful in establishing Kate’s whereabouts.
A third problem involves the pawning of the boots. John claimed a Saturday pawning; the ticket claimed otherwise.
But both times seem at loggerheads with the other purported events of Friday and Saturday.
A fourth problem deals with the couple’s financial situation as described by John. According to his testimony, he was
penniless upon arrival in London. He had worked at two small jobs—one Friday and one Saturday—paying 6d and 4d
respectively. Add to that the 2s 6d for the boots, and the sum is 3s 4d. But all was spent between Friday afternoon and
Saturday mid-day. And John claimed that he had no further income on Saturday or Monday. Yet, in spite of this, he was
able to stay Saturday, Sunday and Monday at Cooney’s and, one presumes, to have had a bite to eat as well.
A fifth problem includes Kate’s whereabouts on Saturday afternoon between her leaving John at 2.00 in Houndsditch
and her arrest at 8.30. Now obviously, the last hour or so of that time was likely spent in a pub, possibly The Bull Inn,
but where was she before that?
A final problem considers Kate’s ability to fund her alcohol consumption just before her arrest. Who provided it? She
was penniless at 2.00 according to John’s inquest testimony, and yet by 8.30, she had been on a drinking binge. And if
she had earned the money in the oft-suggested way, there were certainly no signs of it.
Here, then, are some of the conundrums involved in reconstructing Kate’s final hours. I am certainly not the first
researcher who has noted these difficulties, nor do I claim to have found a suitable solution. I hope, however, that I
have piqued the curiosity of others to research further and supply a plausible explanation for some of these lacunae.
Acknowledgements
I wish to acknowledge the following people whom have contributed to this essay: Neil Bell, Howard Brown, Jane
Coram, Roy Corduroy, Peter Higginbotham, Don Souden, Tom Wescott and Simon Wood.
LYNN CATES lives in Pflugerville, Texas. He teaches classes in Logic, Philosophy, Humanities and
Freshman Orientation for three different institutions of higher education. He lives with his wife of 24
years, Deborah, and his son John Calvin, aged 20.

A German Policeman in London
Excerpts from the Diary of Hans von Tresckow
By MICHAELA KORISTOVÁ
The eldest son of an aristocratic family with a long military tradition,

Hans von Tresckow was born in Neissa (today Nysa, Poland) on 3 May
1866. Although the von Tresckows usually reached the highest ranks of
the army, they were not rich. An officer’s pay was not high in either
the German Empire or the neighbouring Austro-Hungarian Empire.
At one time, being an army officer was considered as an honour by
aristocrats with independent means. Yet by the 19th century this idea
was obsolete, as many scions of noble families had gradually lost their
lands and descended to the level of commoners. They had nothing left
but their name. For them work was no longer a question of honour but
a necessity, since they had no other source of income. The less affluent
noble families frequented local society but could ill afford to provide
their daughters with dowries and their sons with higher education.
Yet, despite their inadequate means, those aristocratic families were
keenly aware of their ancestry and instilled in their children a certain
sense of superiority. This was also the case of the von Tresckow family.
Hans von Tresckow spent his childhood in various German cities including Neissa,
Hans von Tresckow
Berlin and Braunsberg. His father was a high-ranking army officer - a Generalleutnant
(lieutenant general) - and a batallion commander. When he was transferred to Darmstadt, Hans was enrolled at the local
Gymnasium, a secondary school, where he took his final exams. In 1883 he joined the army as a one-year volunteer.1 He
subsequently studied law and contemporary history at universities in Königsberg (today Kaliningrad, Russia), Berlin and
Strasbourg. His father died while he was still at university. As a result, he had to give up his dreams of a career in law,
abandon his studies and look for employment.
In mid-1888, von Tresckow applied to the Polizei-Präsidium, the Police Headquarters, in Berlin for a position as a
police-officer candidate. He started his training on 15 January 1889. First of all, he was sent to familiarise himself with
the work of police stations. In his memoirs, Von Fürsten und Anderen Sterblichen2, an account of the most interesting
cases of his career which remains an important source of information to the present day, he observed that the work of
policemen at a police station was quite complicated, for people habitually turned to them whenever they had any sort
of problem. He quoted one of his colleagues as saying: ‘If a wet nurse runs out of milk, people call a constable.’
1 The One-Year Volunteer Enlistee (Einjährig-Freiwilliger) programme In Imperial Germany was a voluntary short-term form of
active military service open to enlistees up to the age of 25. Such volunteers were usually high school graduates who served a
one-year term rather than the regular two or three-year conscription term. They could choose their military service branch and
unit, but had to equip themselves at their own cost and provide for their subsistence. One-Year Volunteers were usually officer-
material sons from affluent families. For more information, see German Army Volunteers, One-Year Men From The Universities,
Promotions and Social Distinctions, New York Times, New York, NY, USA, 10 July 1881, p.9.
2 Tresckow, Hans von: Von Fürsten und Anderen Sterblichen, Erinnerungen eines Kriminalkommisars, (Of Princes and Other Mortals,
Memoirs of a Police Inspector), F. Fontane & Co., Berlin 1922.

Besides acquiring practical experience at a police station, candidates were taught criminal law, criminal procedure,
administration of justice and other subjects by police officers and advocates. After several months, the candidates were
transferred to Department 2, which specialised on trade crime, and later to Department 4, the Criminal Investigation
Department - which von Tresckow liked best. Next the candidates must go to yet another police station for several more
months to complete their training before taking the examination. Von Tresckow was eager to take the examination as
soon as possible. During training, which in his case took nearly a year and a half, neither he nor the other candidates
received a salary from the police. To make matters worse, his mother could not afford to give him an allowance because
she had to take care of his younger siblings.
A few weeks after von Tresckow passed his examination, a position fell vacant in the Criminal Investigation Department
and he was appointed as police inspector. He earned as much as a circuit judge and enjoyed several perquisites: he
did not pay for public transportation, could benefit from free seats reserved for police officers at various theatres and
had a telephone line installed in his flat. In addition, he made some money writing crime and hunting stories for the
newspapers, although he had to sign them with a pen-name; police officers were actively discouraged by their superiors
from writing for the newspapers. Now financially independent, Von Tresckow could afford to start a family. In 1894 he
married Gertrude Reiser (1874-1945?). The couple had two daughters, Margarete (1895-1976) and Hildegard Gertrude
Dorothee (1896-1917).3
During the first few years of his career, von Tresckow worked under the authority
of senior inspectors. He was given his first responsible position in the Erpresser-und
Homosexuellendezernat (Extortion and Homosexuals Department). In the late 19th century,
the homosexual community in Germany was numerous, prosperous and prominent. In
Psychopathia Sexualis,4 Richard von Krafft-Ebing observed that homosexuality in Germany
was steadily in the increase. Von Tresckow concurred specifically with him. In his memoirs
he remarked: ‘At the present time in Berlin, there are for certain more than one hundred
thousand persons who are addicts of this practice. They are closely banded together and
even have their own paper, Die Freundschaft, which appears regularly and defends their
interests.’
Yet despite the community’s influence, homosexuality was

a crime in the German Empire. Section No. 175 of the German
Criminal Code of 15 May 1871 read as follows: ‘Unnatural
sex offences (widernatürliche Unzucht) committed between
males or between human beings and animals shall be punished
Prince Philip of Eulenburg-Hertefeld
by imprisonment; loss of civic rights may also be imposed.’ As
a consequence, many homosexual men fell victim to blackmailers. Von Tresckow observed
that ‘homosexuality… gives rise to an enormous amount of male prostitution. Many persons
who are completely normal find it a lucrative though disgraceful trade. In Berlin there are
many centres where homosexuals make the acquaintance of accomplices who will serve
their requirements. And there are many cafés and taverns which are frequented almost
exclusively by such people. The police are powerless to put down this practice, because
they require legal authorization to intervene. My experience is that male prostitution has
been steadily increasing for some decades past and cases of blackmail are accordingly
becoming more numerous; for a person who goes in for this profession is almost always a
Friedrich Krupp blackmailer.’
Although von Tresckow’s statements reflected the prevalent position at the time, he did not overtly condemn
homosexuality. In his memoirs he compared the persecution of homosexuals to the witch trials of the Middle Ages.
In time, he became an expert in the field and was involved in the investigation of many important cases, such as the
Harden-Eulenburg affair of 1907-1909, which revealed the influence of homosexual noblemen on the court of Kaiser
Wilhelm II, and the apparent suicide of steel industrialist Friedrich Alfred Krupp in 1902.
3 Dobler, Jens: Hans von Tresckow (1866-1934). Archiv für Polizeigeschichte, Lübeck, vol. 10(28). 1999. p.48.
4 Krafft-Ebing, Richard von: Psychopathia Sexualis: eine Klinisch-Forensische Studie (Sexual Psychopathy: A Clinical-Forensic Study),
Verlag von Ferdinand Enke, Stuttgart,1886 and subsequent editions.

When World War I started, von Tresckow joined the army with the rank of captain and left with his company for
France. He remained in active service until August 1918, when he applied for a discharge and resumed his police work
in Berlin. But the years spent in the battlefield had affected his health, and on 1 December 1919 he retired. He bought
a small country house at Rinteln, Lower Saxony, where he spent his days growing fruit trees, keeping bees and writing
his memoirs. Hans von Tresckow died in 1934.
Most of the time von Tresckow’s work as a policeman required him to stay in Berlin or travel within Germany, but
he also made several journeys abroad during his career. In 1897 he was sent to London to investigate a blackmail case.
Von Tresckow described it in the chapter of his memoirs entitled ‘Trip to London’. Von Fürsten und Anderen Sterblichen
is generally considered reliable and free from sensationalism as regards contemporary German events and cases. We
can therefore assume that von Tresckow did not embellish the facts of his trip to London either. At the same time, the
reader will on occasion discern a certain irony in his remarks about his London colleagues. Some of the most interesting
passages concerning his stay in London and his excursion to London’s East End as seen through the eyes of a German
police officer follow.
On 10 April 1897, Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III, the ruler of the Grand Duchy
of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in northern Germany, died in Cannes in mysterious
circumstances. Conflicting reports about his death appeared in the press. First, the
newspapers stated that the Grand Duke, delirious with high fever, had commited
suicide by throwing himself off the parapet of a bridge. Later, the official account of
his death said that he was in his garden when he experienced breathing difficulties
– he suffered from asthma - staggered giddily and fell over a low wall into the
street.5 He was succeeded by his son, Friedrich Franz IV, the last Grand Duke of
Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Since the new Grand Duke was under age at the time of
his father’s death, his uncle, Duke Johann Albrecht zu Mecklenburg, the late Grand
Duke’s younger brother, was appointed regent.
Soon the regent received letters from London asking for a large sum of money
to be sent to their author under a special code care of general delivery. If the
money were not paid, the blackmailer would publish letters in his possession which
contained evidence of the late Grand Duke’s homosexuality. As proof that he indeed
had these letters, he enclosed part of a letter in the Grand Duke’s handwriting
whose authenticity was beyond question.
Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III
Duke Johann Albrecht sent his adjutant, General von Maltzahn, to Berlin.
His mission was to ask Ludwig von Windheim, the Polizeipräsident (Police
Commissioner), to send a suitable police officer to London to retrieve the letters
from the blackmailer. Von Windheim entrusted von Tresckow with this assignment.
First of all, von Tresckow spent some time acquiring some knowledge of the case
and of the blackmailer, who called himself Nowack. He soon discovered that Nowack
was often in Berlin, where he frequented criminal circles. His best friend was a
tailor called Rode, also a blackmailer, who was currently serving time at the prison
built in 1895 at Wronke (today Wronki, Poland), in the eastern part of the German
Empire.
Von Tresckow went to Wronke to interview Rode. At first, Rode did not want
to talk about Nowack. But as soon as von Tresckow mentioned the Grand Duke’s
letters, Rode became furious and told him that the letters were in a trunk that he
had given to Nowack for safekeeping. He did not want to add anything else and von
Tresckow was forced to leave for London with little background information.
Police Commissioner Ludwig von Windheim
5 The Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin Shown to Have Committed Suicide, New York Times, New York, NY, USA, 13 April 1897;
The Grand Duke of Mecklenburg Schwerin Did Not Commit Suicide, New York Times, 15 April 1897.

He described his journey as follows:
I arrived in London in an excellent mood as I was not

seasick during the passage and checked at the de Keyser’s
Royal Hotel, which had been recommended to me.6 Then I
went to the German General Consulate to ask for a letter
of recommendation for an English police officer. I took it
to Scotland Yard, the police headquarters in London. The
officer recommended to me was Mr Bartels, a former German
police officer in Hamburg who had joined the English police.
I explained my mission to him without naming my client.
He considered the matter for a while and put forward the
following proposal: ‘As soon as we find out where Nowack
is staying, I will send some policemen to attack him in the
street and take all the papers that he is carrying. Nowack
will think he was attacked by hoodlums.’
I rejected this proposal, which I found somewhat odd;
moreover, I did not think that Nowack would carry the letters
with him whenever he went out. I asked Bartels to help me
to find Nowack’s whereabouts. In Berlin, tracking him would
be easy, since every resident must register; it would only
be necessary to check the Registration Office lists which
are open to the public. It is much more complicated to find
somebody’s whereabouts in England, for no obligation to
register exists. Anybody can use an assumed name without
fear of punishment. English police officers are prohibited to
carry out any official acts in a house, such as a search or an
arrest, pursuant to the English rule: An Englishman’s home
is his castle. The policeman may enter a house only if he
has a warrant. For that reason, English policemen are in a
far worse situation than their German colleagues and must
often resort to well-paid informers and grasses. Large sums
of money are available to them and they need not give a
Top: Polydor de Keyser, Lord Mayor of London
Bottom: De Keyser’s Royal Hotel detailed account of every penny spent.
Bartels suggested asking an informer to find out about Nowack’s whereabouts. I agreed. The informer, who
had worked for Bartels many times before, called himself Cliet, but his name was in fact von Kleist and he
came from the Russian Baltic Provinces. He spoke several languages and worked as a guide, since the police
only required his services from time to time. He had lived in London for several years and was considered as
relatively reliable. He did have a fault: he was a heavy drinker. His alcoholism was the reason of his social
downfall.
Next morning, Herr Cliet came to my hotel and made quite a good impression on me, except for his red nose,
which was evidence of his predilection for whisky and brandy. Cliet agreed to search for Nowack, saying that
finding his address would be a trifle. He asked for payment of one pound per day. I found the sum rather high
but approved it with the remark that he should not expect to continue to get his remuneration for weeks on
end without giving me any information. His work should not take more than three days and he would get an
extra five pounds as soon as he produced the information required. I also gave him the address of the pub that
Nowack frequented. Cliet agreed to the conditions and promised to report back in the evening.
6 Belgian-born British subject Sir Polydore de Keyser (13 December 1832 - 14 January 1918) founded the Royal Hotel, later to be
called the De Keyser‘s Royal Hotel, and ran it personally from 1856 to 1887. The De Keyser‘s Royal Hotel had approximately 400
rooms and was mostly used by foreigners. While not in the very best class of London’s hotels, it none the less enjoyed a splendid
reputation. ‘Next comes a somewhat more moderate class, though still with excellent accomodation, such as... De Keyser’s Royal
Hotel at the corner of Blackfriars-br...’, Hotels, Dickens’s Dictionary of London 1888, p.130. It is worth noting that Polydore de
Keyser was Mayor of London from October 1887 to November 1888, that is to say, for most of the period during which the
Whitechapel murders took place.
But Cliet only showed up two days later saying he
had not been able to find Nowack’s whereabouts. He
asked for his money but Von Tresckow did not believe
he had been working hard enough and decided to follow
him.
At Ludgate Circus, Cliet went straight into a pub

which had a large window opening on the street
so that it was possible to watch the patrons at the
bar. He asked for a large glass of brandy and drank
it. Afterwards he consumed a slice of roast beef
with much pepper on it. At least three large glasses
of whisky and soda followed. The man must have
been quite thirsty if he could already drink that
much in the morning, I thought. He staggered out
into the street and I followed him. Unfortunately,
another pub was nearby and he had to go past
it. He hesitated a little and went in. I waited for
nearly an hour for him and was very bored. I went
inside the pub to see what Herr Cliet was doing.
Ludgate Circus
At first, I was not able to find him. Then I saw him
lying dead drunk in the corner. I tried to wake him up but gave up when I heard him snoring.
I went to Scotland Yard to inform Inspector Bartels of the behaviour of his informer. Bartels laughed and
said: ‘The man is a habitual drunk, yet can be quite useful. You were out of luck to meet him during one of
his drinking bouts.’
‘Well, what next?’ I retorted a bit irritably, ‘Must I wait until Herr Cliet sobers up?’
‘You might be bored to death, for I know him well: he will drink for eight more days after which he will be
so exhausted and morally hung over that he will be good for nothing. If it’s all right with you, I’ll come to
your hotel tonight and perhaps furnish you with the information you want. I have asked my men to search for
Nowack but they have not given me any information yet.’
I had to content myself with that but I had lost much of my faith in the ingenuity of the English police. Just as
I feared, Bartels came to the hotel but could not tell me anything new. Nevertheless I asked him to share with
me a bottle of wine, which became several bottles. I tried to turn the meeting to my advantage as much as
possible. I asked for guest houses and pubs run and frequented by Germans and wrote down their addresses.
The very next day, I went to track Nowack on my own, for it was obvious that despite his outward courtesy
Bartels was not taking the job seriously.
At about 9 in the morning I went out feeling reinvigorated by an excellent English breakfast of which the best
was the baked sole. As I walked through the less reputable streets of the East End I was greeted by a shabbily
dressed man who carried a basket of food over his arm. Surprised, I instinctively stopped. The man addressed
me: ‘Guten Morgen, Herr Kommissar. Visiting London?’ I looked at him and recognized a pickpocket and pimp
from Galicia called Mordche Leibowitz whom I had arrested in Berlin two years earlier. He did not seem to
resent me for it at all, for he went on talking in a friendly manner: ‘Could I assist you in any way? You’re here
on business, right? Surely you wouldn’t come to such a rough district for your pleasure.’
‘You’re right. You would indeed be of use to me if you could find out the address of the person I am looking
for. It wouldn’t be to your disadvantage. You could make a few pounds out of it.’
‘I would like to very much, for my Trine is ill and can’t go out. I must even bring her breakfast. But first of
all, tell me, are you going to arrest the person you’re looking for and have him extradited?’
‘No, Mordche. You can assuage your conscience for you won’t betray anybody. Never fear. I just want to talk
to the man about something.’
‘Well, in that case I’ll help you. I know you’re a gentleman and I can trust you. Who are you looking for?’

‘Nowack, a waiter who used to live in Berlin and here frequents the Zum Deutschen Haus public house. I was
planning to go there directly and enquire after him.’
‘Don’t do it. You won’t find out anything there for people are afraid of the police and will tell you nothing;
let me do it for you. Tomorrow morning I’ll know where Nowack lives. Which hotel do you stay at, so that I
could come have a word with you?
‘At the De Keyser’s Hotel.’
‘That’s too grand for me. I can’t go in, but I’ll wait in front of the hotel at eleven in the morning and we’ll
talk. Don’t worry, tomorrow I’ll be decently dressed. But you mustn’t tell anyone I’ve helped you. How much
will you give me if I find Nowack?’
‘I’ll give you one pound right now and two more tomorrow, if you succeed.’
‘Let’s make it three pounds, Herr Kommissar. You’ll be pleased with me.’
I agreed to the three pounds and Mordche went quickly away to bring breakfast to his tart. Fortune smiled
on me and I hoped for good news the following day.
When I left the hotel at eleven, as agreed,
Mordche was already waiting for me.
He was togged up so much that I nearly
didn’t recognize him. Instead of his scarf
he sported a white standing collar and
instead of his cap he wore a hat. After
we had walked on a little way, he looked
round several times and started to speak:
‘Nobody has followed me and we are safe.
Nowack used to frequent the Deutsches
Haus, a German waiters’ club. They are
not reputable waiters but unemployed
ones who are also doing other business.
They are crooks and one has to be careful.
He doesn’t go there any more for he is
completely broke and has run up many
debts. Because of his situation he has
pawned everything he had and owns only
Berlin in the late 19th Century the suit he has on. His lodgings are at 103
Wilson Street, fourth floor.7 He lives alone
in the attic. He came here with a girl from Bohemia with whom he was living in Berlin. He had filched some
stuff and left Berlin to come here because he was afraid of the police. At first, he just stayed in while the
girl went out in silks and satins and he gambled every evening, but the gamblers plucked him. Then in his
rage he beat up the girl and she left him. On the evenings she goes to Piccadilly where she earns good money.
My girlfriend knows her well. What a pity she’s ill! Otherwise, you could pay her a visit. She is much prettier
than Nowack’s girl and not half as cheeky.’
‘Thank you, Mordche, I am not looking for female company. I am pleased with you and will go straight to
Nowack’s flat to speak to him.’
‘It’s too late now, Herr Kommissar. It’s past noon now and he has already fled. But go there tomorrow morning
at about nine, when he’ll still be sleeping. Be careful, for he is violent and lives in a rough area. You will
recognize him at once; he is tall and has black hair and a scar in the face where he was stabbed.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of myself. I know from Nowack’s case file that he has a criminal record for assault.’
I gave Mordche the stipulated three pounds which he put contentedly into his purse. ‘If you’re working on
something in the future, Herr Kommissar,’ he said, ‘I’d be pleased to be of service.’
7 Wilson Street marks the western edge of the Broadgate area of the City of London. The street begins at Eldon Street and runs
north, crossing Lackington, Sun, Earl, Christopher and Dysart Streets, and becomes Paul Street at the junction with Worship
Street. St Mary Moorfields Roman Catholic Church is round the corner from Wilson Street at Eldon Street. Finsbury Square is nearby
and Bunhill Fields, the dissenters’ cemetery where William Blake, Daniel Defoe and John Bunyan are buried, is slightly farther
away.
I had no reason to doubt this man’s word. What he told me sounded plausible and Nowack’s description tallied
with the personal description I had found in his criminal record. I pondered whether I should tell Inspector
Bartels that I had found Nowack and ask him for a constable to accompany me. A visit to such a violent man
as Nowack was not without danger and I was not familiar with London customs. On the other hand, I needed
to accomplish my mission with as much discretion as possible; the presence of a third person might hinder my
discussion with Nowack. For this reason I decided to go alone. I located Wilson Street in the map, dressed as
plainly as possible and slipped a revolver with the safety catch released into the right pocket of my coat. At
about 9 am I climbed a narrow, well-trodden staircase in an old, dilapidated house at number 103. When I was
already upstairs I ran into a shabby old woman. I asked her whether Mr Nowack lived there. She looked at me
distrustfully and pointed at a door without saying a word. I knocked on the door and opened it at the same
time; it led into a small room on the street side of the building. The furniture consisted of only one chair and
a narrow bed. A man who had been lying on the bed sat up quickly, looking at me with surprise and hostility. I
identified him as the man I sought by the scar on his cheek. I gave him no time to show his astonishment and
greeted him with the words: ‘Good morning, Nowack. I’ve come for the letters.’
‘My name is not Nowack and I don’t know nothing about no letters, so piss off.’
‘Lying won’t help you. Be reasonable and let’s talk quietly. If you give me the letters willingly, you won’t lose
anything, for my employer has authorized me to give you some money for them, although not as much as
you had asked for in your blackmail letters. If you behave like a fool, you’ll have to bear the consequences.’
‘What consequences?’ he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed. I realized that he had been lying in bed fully
dressed.
‘I’ll have you arrested for extortion and theft. You have been long enough in England to know the punishment
for people like you. Not even the strongest man can survive walking the treadmill in gaol for five years.’
Before I had finished talking he jumped out of bed and locked the door.
‘We’ll see about that. I’ll kill you before you report me to the police.’
He stood before me menacingly, glaring at me as viciously as a trapped animal. I took my revolver from my
pocket and walked slowly to the window, watching him carefully. I thought I knew how to render him as meek
as a lamb.
‘Come here and look out of the window. Those two men walking on the other side of the road are from
Scotland Yard. All I have to do is whistle and they’ll come upstairs and arrest you.’
I was speaking quietly and convincingly. Nowack did not come to the window but sat on his bed, staring ahead.
I left him to collect his wits for a moment and then I took the chair and sat close to him. I was convinced
that he was no longer dangerous. When a criminal realises that he has no way out, he accepts his fate and,
if treated right, turns to putty in the hands of the criminal investigator. He was sitting quietly and did not
say a word. He looked thin and forlorn, for he probably had not eaten properly for days. I offered him ten
pounds for the letters and promised not to press charges if he gave them to me immediately. I had to repeat
what I said many times until he believed me. The threat of the treadmill had sent shivers down his spine.
He pulled his trunk from under the bed, opened it and showed me a batch of papers tied together with a
string. A brief look sufficed to convince me that these were the letters I sought, for the handwriting was
the same as in the specimen sent previously. Since I was not sure whether there were other letters hidden
somewhere else, I searched the room thoroughly. It was not too much of a chore because there was only the
bed in the room. Nowack had to pull apart the bed in my presence and I felt every cushion but found nothing.
After that I also searched Nowack’s clothes with the same result. He had nothing on his person but for a
grimy diary, some obscene pictures, which criminals of his kind like to carry with them, and a sturdy knife
in a leather sheath. I returned his belongings and gave him ten pounds. I placed the letters in an envelope
which I had brought for them, closed it and sealed it with my official seal.
Nowack watched my actions with interest and looked pleased; indeed, he helped with the sealing. I wanted
to learn more about him, and since I knew that a man whose stomach is empty is not in a good mood, I
asked him to have breakfast with me saying: ‘Let’s go have breakfast together. You have certainly not eaten
anything for some time.’ His mistrust returned and he asked anxiously: ‘You won’t have me arrested, will
you?’ I assured him that there could be no question of it since I had achieved my objective of retrieving the

letters and had no interest whatsoever in having him arrested. This seemed to make sense and he came with
me eagerly. We found a quite decent public house and I invited him to come in with me. He hesitated again
and asked whether there were Scotland Yard people inside. I laughed at him and said he should look about
before sitting down.
The pub was quite empty and we found a table where we could talk undisturbed. I told him to order something
to eat and he asked for roast ham and fried eggs. I have seldom seen a man so ravenous. He emptied his
plate in a few minutes. ‘Do order something else if you’re still hungry,’ I encouraged him. A second helping
vanished just like the first one. After that he looked full and I offered him a cigarette and ordered a bottle
of port wine. While we were drinking it, he became trusting and talkative. In my experience, it is much easier
to talk with a well-nourished man than with a hungry one.
Nowack asked me whether I was a police inspector from Berlin, since I had acted too professionally to be a
civilian; he had noticed it during the body search. I had no reason to deny what I was and admitted it. Then
he inquired after several friends of his in Berlin, wanting to know whether they were at large or imprisoned
in the Moabit or Plötzensee gaols. I gave him the information and asked him about Rode, for I wanted to
know as much as possible about him. Nowack conceded that he had befriended him and stolen the trunk that
Rode had entrusted to him before his arrest. Rode was the worst blackmailer in Berlin. He associated only
with distinguished gentlemen and lived in great style. He always talked of the late Grand Duke as if he were
his best friend and he could get as much money from him as he wanted. He had accompanied the Grand Duke
to Cannes, which he visited for its mild climate, for he was consumptive. The Grand Duke had written some
very friendly letters to Rode.
When I showed my astonishment that a gentleman in such a high position could befriend a humble tailor,
Nowack explained: ‘You know the score. People of that inclination don’t care what the position of the other
person is, if they like him well enough. Distinguished gentlemen associate with grubby women if they fancy
them. Rode went in and out of the Grand Duke’s rooms in
Cannes and had a chance to steal private family letters from
his desk. He wanted some money to ensure his future for he
knew that the Grand Duke had been seriously ill. If Nowack
had not taken the letters, Rode would have used them for
blackmail as soon as he was released from Wronke.’ Those
letters confirmed what I had thought from the very beginning.
I had a lot to do with Rode later for he would not give up his
blackmailing activities.
The next day I travelled back to Berlin and reported to the
Polizeipräsident. I sent the sealed package to General von
Maltzahn. Some days later, Herr von Windheim was decorated
with the Commander’s Cross and I with the Knight’s Cross of
the Order of the Griffon of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
Acknowledgements
I should like to thank my husband, Milan, and my son, Emil, who remained supportive and sympathetic while I pored
over musty old books on crime and criminals in search of background information for the present article. I should also
like to thank Eduardo Zinna for his assistance with the completion of this article for publication.
MICHAELA KORISTOVA studied history at the university of Brno, Czech Republic, with a focus on the history
of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She lives in Brno with her husband and son.

Suspects in Short
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
By GREG ALEXANDER
We are delighted to announce the launch of a new occasional series, Suspects in Short, in which
readers are invited to submit those ideas, observations or snippets of information which might
not yet be formed into a full article. If you have a theory which you would like to share with our
subscribers, please get in touch: contact@ripperologist.biz
We begin the series with a look at Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec by Greg Alexander, in a summary of
the theory outlined in his unpublished book “Jack the Ripper: The Case Solved”.
Although I am identifying the Post-Impressionist painter Henri de

Toulouse-Lautrec as a brand new suspect in the Whitechapel murder
case, I do not in any way believe that he himself had any direct hand in
what took place. As a result of a personal handicap, his legs had stopped
growing as a teenager due to a genetic infirmity, he was not able to walk
very far even with the help of a walking stick. On the contrary, although
the name of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec may be linked with the crimes
that took place in Whitechapel in 1888, I believe it far more likely that a
member of Lautrec’s immediate family had taken the law into their own
hands by avenging what they considered a wrong committed against their
only son.
So what exactly led me to even consider Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as a leading
character in the case? My line of reasoning was fairly complex but there were three
main observations that led me in the direction of Lautrec. Firstly, there is quite
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec some evidence to suggest that the Whitechapel murders were not the work of a
psychosexual maniac. The “canonical” crimes took place over a comparatively short
period, from August to November 1888. This represents a span of a little over two months. This strikes me as far
too short a time for this to be the work of the kind of psychopath who occasionally kills for gratification over a
period of many years.
Could it be possible, therefore, that the crimes represented some form of “hit” where ultimately the last
victim, Mary Kelly, was the intended target? It is a notable coincidence that the penultimate victim, Catherine
Eddowes also sometimes called herself “Mary Kelly”. Indeed, this was the name she had given the police on her
arrest on the night of her murder.
Could it also be possible that there were only four victims in total rather than the accepted five? Elizabeth
Stride had none of the classic injuries of other Ripper victims, only a cut throat, and that inflicted by an entirely
different weapon than in the other murders; a short curved blade instead of a long straight one. We have to ask
ourselves how likely it would be that the killer had used two separate murder weapons on the same night, as we
see in the cases of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes?

My second observation was that the last victim, Mary Kelly, who as I’ve noted could well have been the killer’s
target all along, had comparatively recently returned from Paris where she had briefly lived. The story of Kelly’s
stay in France did not just derive from a single source; it featured in her life-story as told to the police by
Joseph Barnett, and a number of Kelly’s acquaintances were also of the same opinion. Indeed, the name that
appeared on Kelly’s death certificate and which was also engraved on her coffin, “Marie Jeanette”, was a name
she had apparently picked up while staying in France. And there was also the story from Mrs Carthy, one of Kelly’s
landladies, of Kelly being accompanied to Knightsbridge where she had picked up some items of clothing from a
French ‘Madame’. Had these items been recently shipped back from Paris, Kelly having been unable to carry them
in person at the time? A third, and final, observation which led me to look at Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec a little
more closely was that Lautrec practically lived in the brothels of Paris where Kelly herself may have worked. It
is a fact that Lautrec knew practically all the girls who worked in those establishments he frequented, that he
painted pictures of them in various situations, and had relations with them also. His artwork is a testament to this.
But such behaviour alone does not represent a motive for murder. However, there could have been another
aspect on Lautrec’s life that may well have angered his immediate relatives, namely that he may have contracted
syphilis from the very prostitutes he visited. The chief evidence for this was a letter to his mother dated November
1888 in which he speaks of “la petite vérole” being a “fly in the ointment”. The phrase ‘la petite vérole’ can refer
to either smallpox or syphilis, but it seems unlikely that Lautrec meant “smallpox”
which is a highly infectious and very dangerous disease. That he meant “syphilis” is
supported by Lautrec’s close friend for many years, Thadée Natanson, who was in
no doubt that Lautrec had contracted syphilis and that Dr Henri Bourges had been
treating him for the condition.
But if this wasn’t enough there were rumours in circulation around Montmartre,
Paris that Lautrec had contacted syphilis from a notorious prostitute named ‘Rosa
la Rouge’. La Rouge had apparently received her nickname from a song by Aristide
Bruant, a popular singer in Montmartre at the time, in which a prostitute lures her
clients into dark alleyways where an awaiting pimp then robs and kills them:
It’s Rosa... I don’t know where she comes from
She has red hair, a dog’s head...
When she passes they say, here comes ‘Red’
At Montrouge.
When she gets a ‘John’ in a corner,
Me, I’m right there... not far at all...
And the next day the cop finds ‘red’ all right,
Aristide Bruant by Lautrec
At Montrouge.
Lautrec had painted a picture on the same theme, called À Montrouge - Rosa
la Rouge, sometime in 1886, in which a prostitute lingers in an open doorway. The
subject for the painting, Carmen Gaudin, quickly became Lautrec’s favourite model
as a result of her red hair, of which Lautrec was enamoured. Coincidentally, 1886 was
the same year when Lautrec and Gaudin parted company, and rumours of Lautrec’s
venereal disease started circulating around Montmartre. There was another rumour
in circulation that the same prostitute who had infected Lautrec had come to an
untimely end. Lautrec’s friend, Thadée Natanson, had expressed the opinion that
the unfortunate woman who had infected Lautrec was ‘most likely already dead”.
But how could he have known such a thing? That this woman’s health was in such a
bad condition that she was close to dying anyway would seem extremely unlikely
under the circumstances. So what had Lautrec’s friend been referring to exactly?
The question must be asked therefore whether it is possible somebody close
to Lautrec had taken offence at his infection with syphilis and taken the law into
their own hands? Given the artist’s popularity in Montmartre at the time and his
aristocratic background (he was descended from the historic Counts of Toulouse),
it is likely that many would have found the rumours both disturbing and upsetting.

À Montrouge - Rosa la Rouge by Lautrec
Indeed the immediate members of Lautrec’s family, who possessed both wealth and prestige, would have been
appalled at hearing such news.
But how can we be at all certain that the prostitute we are talking about had been none other than Mary Kelly?
However unlikely it may seem there is at least some circumstantial evidence that suggests these two individuals
might have been one and the same. In a letter Lautrec wrote to his mother dated December 1884, the name
‘Jeanette Hathaway’ appears in the corner of the letter.1 No explanation is given at all as to who this individual
is, or why their name had been written there. The first thing that strikes us is that the name ‘Jeanette Hathaway’
sounds more English than French, and this is echoed by the last four lines of the letter which are written in the
English language. There is a further peculiarity about this name which can’t be missed. If it were the case that one
of Lautrec’s lady friends had been called ‘Jeanette Hathaway’ then Lautrec would probably have addressed her as
‘Marie Jeanette’. This is because Lautrec was in the habit of placing the name ‘Marie’ in front of the first name
of all his female friends. But of course we are already familiar with the name ‘Marie Jeanette’ as this was the
very same name Mary Kelly had picked up while staying in Paris, and which was entered on her death certificate.
It can be established from the records that Mary Kelly was in Paris sometime between the years 1884 and 1886.
Kelly must have travelled to Paris not long after her arrival in London, which was said to have happened sometime
in 1884. She had then returned from Paris circa 1886 when she had lodged with a Mrs Carthy on Breezer’s Hill.
The dates in which Kelly was likely in Paris are broadly consistent with Lautrec’s encounter with the notorious
prostitute in Montmartre.
Is it possible this is all just coincidence? We have to seriously ask ourselves the following questions:
1 Had Kelly got into trouble while working in a Parisian brothel and had a vengeful pimp or hired hit man then
been sent to track her down?
2 Had she offended an important individual while employed in one of these brothels and had this individual
or someone close to them then hired the services of the professional killer?
3 Had it been a case of mistaken identity that led to the deaths of Catherine Eddowes, who gave her name
as “Mary Kelly” on the night she died, and the two other victims Mary Ann Nichols and Annie Chapman?
It has to be admitted that the crimes committed in Whitechapel were audacious as well as cold and calculating.
The killer had committed his atrocious acts in the open street without apparent fear of being discovered. He
seems to have behaved with a cool professionalism that belies the image of a frenzied sadist bent on satisfying
depraved desire.
If the crimes committed in Whitechapel had indeed involved the name of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec then how
could we finally prove this contention once and for all? If Lautrec had painted a picture of Kelly (which seems
highly likely if a relationship had existed between the two), then there is just the slightest possibility of being
able to identify her from this painting using modern forensic techniques. And from there, who knows what other
evidence may emerge which could finally unmask, once and for all, the man responsible for the Whitechapel
murders.
1 The Letters of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec edited by Herbert D Schimmel, 1991 Oxford University Press.
GREG ALEXANDER is an author on ancient history with an interest in criminology. He says: “The Jack the Ripper
case has always fascinated me because it was completely unsolved. I have always had a spooky feeling about
Lautrec but it is only comparatively recently that I decided to fully research the lead. I also found that the
nineteenth century is a far richer source of information than the ancient history books are. Fortunately I also
have a passing interest in Modern Art and Impressionism.” Greg’s other interests include computer chess and
fossils. He currently lives in Yeovil, Somerset.

‘Hunt the Ripper’
By COLIN SAYSELL
Misty was a weekly UK horror-cum-mystery comic, one of

the now defunct IPC-magazines titles, which ran for 101 issues
between February 1978 and January 1980.1 It was essentially
aimed at the children’s end of the market where, for a few
pennies a week, one could read of peri-menarchic girls, all huge
eyes filled in equal measure with terror and tears, who would risk
losing body and soul to the restless and vengeful dead.
‘Misty’ herself, from which the comic gained its title, was a ‘child of the
mists’, whatever one of those is or was. With raven-black hair and eyebrows
that would stop the onslaught of a dinosaur, she would welcome readers and
introduce each issue. Although apparently a self-portrait of the artist who
penned her (Shirley Bellwood)2 she seemed to bear a remarkable resemblance
to popular ‘70s B-movie actress Caroline Munro (note: my opinion entirely).
On a week-by-week basis, the Devil and his acolytes walked through the
pages on human feet where stories seldom had a happy ending. Far from being
moralistic yarns where the unlucky protagonist would end up learning a well
deserved lesson and live to tell the tale, they would frequently meet their maker
in a spectacularly memorable fashion, and often for quite innocently being in
the wrong place at the wrong time.
Monsters both human and otherwise would entertain the morbid child, ‘Misty’
including a vignette by none other than Adolf Hitler himself. Though the story
I happened upon contains another cameo by an equally memorable, though as
yet faceless monster, Jack the Ripper. Entitled ‘Hunt the Ripper’, it appeared in
the issue dated 17 February 1979.3 Here the Ripper goes head to head with the
monarch of the un-dead, Count Dracula, which ends in what would appear to be
mutual destruction.
Ably penned by, as far as I am aware, veteran Spanish comic artist Enrique
Badia Romero, this is another one of the innumerable yarns that, although not
getting us any closer to the holy-grail of Ripperology (just who was the Ripper?),
it makes for another interesting footnote in the vast Ripper mythos. The peculiar
and whimsical story which appears on the following pages also seems to imply
that the vampire was an able ventriloquist!
1 Albion British Comics database at www.britishcomics.wikia.com/wiki/

Misty_(Comic); The official (and authorised by the current copyright holders)
Misty comic website at www.mistycomic.co.uk
2 ‘Great British Comics’, by Paul Gravett, Aurum Press Ltd, 2006.
3 Author’s collection. Caroline Munro

This was the first and last appearance,
albeit typically cloaked and hatted, that the
Ripper made in Misty, though I can’t help
but ponder upon what the outcome would
have been had Jack and Adolf crossed paths
instead (the fact that Hitler was yet to be
born at the time of the Ripper murders is
neither here nor there). One cannot choose
but wonder, though.
In conclusion, should you appetite for

macabre and frankly disturbing kids comics
of the moustachioed, mullet-ed and garishly
coloured ‘70s be suitably whetted, old issues
of Misty are readily available to purchase
on the second-hand comics market. For
best results, read in a darkened room, with
thunder roaring without and Mussorgsky’s
Night on Bald Mountain playing loudly
through the headphones.
Adolf Hitler appears in ‘Prisoner in the Attic’, published in the 7 April 1979 issue of‘Misty’.
*****
The title Misty and all associated characters and artwork are copyright
Egmont Inc and are used here for review and non-profit purposes only.
All opinions expressed here are entirely those of the author and no
other.
COLIN SAYSELL is a practicing pathologist, who, having performed numerous Coronial autopsies, can attest to the
difficulty one may experience when attempting to remove a kidney or a uterus, especially in the dark and in a hurry!
Read into that what you will.

The Men
Who Would Be Ripper
The Provincials
By NINA and HOWARD BROWN
For this issue’s column, we thought it might be interesting to

feature articles on men who, while not living in the East End, were
nevertheless compelled to claim or act in the way they thought
Jack the Ripper would.
The accompanying map is dotted with the stomping grounds of these minor
miscreants.
The East End, nor London, was by no means the only area of the UK where one
found these want-to-bes pounding their chests and bellowing out bloody oaths that
they were the Ripper.
This article covers twelve men from the North of England.
It appears that a fine of five shillings was the established standard if these cases
are typical of misdemeanors of this degree... except if the momentary madcap
verbally assaulted a constable and not a housewife.
The following articles featured characters from Auckland, Barnsley, Boughton,

Broxton, Cheshire, Chorley, Derby, Halifax, Little Budworth, Liverpool, St Helens
and West Hartlepool.
Northern Echo
13 November 1888
“JACK THE RIPPER” IN COURT
Edward Larmonth, a pauper and vagrant, who terrified the inmates assembled in the Auckland Workhouse dining-hall
on Saturday by declaring himself to be “Jack the Ripper”, and using execrable language, was yesterday taken before
the Bench and committed to hard labour for three weeks.
Reynold’s Newspaper
27 October 1889
MURDER AT HALIFAX
An inquest has been held at Halifax on the body of Margaret Brett, wife of Frederick Brett, labourer, who was found
dead with her throat cut, in a bedroom. The evidence showed that Brett and wife, who lodged with James Hindley, in
Mile Thorn-yard, Gibbet-street, had a quarrel, arising from the former’s jealousy. On Sunday they drank a good deal
of beer. At night the woman was heard to scream, and the landlord found her with her throat cut. The husband told a
neighbour that he had been acting “Jack the Ripper.” The jury found him “Guilty” of wilful murder.

Cheshire Observer
20 October 1888
Isaac Pasco, a man in custody, who described himself as a “maker of flowers from vegetables” was charged with
being drunk and riotous in Bridge-street at midnight on Tuesday. PC Lea, in proving the case, deposed that prisoner was
shouting that he was “Jack the Ripper”. He was quite drunk. In defence prisoner pleaded that he was enquiring his way
to some lodging, when the officer met him and kicked him on the back. The constable, however, denied this, and said
prisoner fell down. Inspector Farrell having corroborated, prisoner was fined 5s and costs, or in default seven days hard
labour.
Liverpool Mercury
15 September 1891
ANOTHERING WANDERING LUNATIC AT ST HELENS
Yesterday, at St Helens Police Court, a seafaring man named James Malone was brought up as a lunatic found
wandering at large - Constable Wilkes stated that at three o’clock that morning he saw the prisoner conducting himself
in a strange manner in the streets and he took him to the police station. On being asked where he was going he said
he did not know, but he knew that a lot of people were
after him. Inspector Goodall afterwards ascertained that
Malone had a sister living in Tontine-street and on the
prisoner being taken there the sister said she was very
much afraid of him.
He was in the habit of throwing knives about, and had

said he was “Jack the Ripper”. - Alderman Harrison asked
if the prisoner was a St Helens man - Dr M’Nicoll replied
that he came to St Helens to his sister’s house when he
returned from sea. He asserted that he was being pursued
by figures of men and he (Dr M’Nicoll) would recommend
that he be detained for 14 days. That would probably
meet the case. He had been in an asylum before and had
suffered from sunstroke while in India. - The Bench made
Tontine Street, St Helen’s an order for his detention in the workhouse for 14 days.
Cheshire Observer
27 October 1888
BROXTON
ANOTHER “JACK THE RIPPER.”
At the Court House, Broxton, on Tuesday last, before Mr J H Leche, John Foy, an Irish labourer, was brought up in
custody under the following cicumstances. Simon Rowland, labourer, Tilston, said about half-past three on thee previous
afternoon the prisoner came up to him at Tilston village, and picking up a handful of stones, threw them at him, using
bad language to all who passed. He threw stones at a person with a bassinette - PC John Hunt (Tilston) said about a
quarter to three o’clock on the previous afternoon his attention was drawn to the prisoner by Rowlands. A nurse from
Tilston Rectory was passing with a bassinette with a child in it, and prisoner picked up a stone and deliberately threw it
at her, nearly striking her. Prisoner was drunk. He went off towards Wetlane and witness followed and apprehended him.
He had previously had several complaints respecting prisoner’s conduct. He had stopped several women and terrified
them by proclaiming that he was “Jack the Ripper,” at the same time using filthy and abusive language. Prisoner was
very abusive all the way to the station, brandishing a clasp-knife and saying he would not mind giving him (witness) a
“dig” with it; he also threatened to break the windows of several houses as they passed if he could get stones; he also
made two or three attempts to strike witness. When searched 7s 8½d and a knife were found on the prisoner. - He was
remanded till the next sessions.

Sheffield & Rotherham Independent
6 October 1888
A LIVERPOOL SCARE
John Solomon Jones, slate merchant, Port Madoc, was fined 10s and costs in Liverpool yesterday for being drunk and
disorderly. On Thursday night he was running about the streets in a drunken condition followed by a mob, yelling that he
was the Whitechapel Murderer and threatening to have the lives of those following him. He now said he knew nothing
about it. On the previous day he was fined 5s for being drunk and disorderly.
Cheshire Observer
13 October 1888
CITY POLICE COURT
YESTERDAY (FRIDAY). - Before R Frost, George Dickson, H T Brown, and W Parish, Esqre.
ANOTHER “JACK THE RIPPER.” - Patrick Gallagher, a young man, living at 3 Allen’s-court, was charged with being
drunk and riotous in Boughton on the previous night. PC Stokes, in proving the case, said the prisoner was making use of
very obscene language and calling himself “Jack the Ripper.” - Prisoner, who it was stated had been before the court on
a previous occasion, was fined 10s and costs, or in default 14 days with hard labour.

4 October 1888
THE “WHITECHAPEL MURDERER “ AT DERBY
Yesterday, at the Derby Police Court, Charles Standen was charged

with drunkenness and disorderly conduct on St Thomas’s road, on Tuesday
afternoon.--When apprehended by Police-constable Allbutt, prisoner
threatened the officer, and said he was the “Whitechapel Murderer”. When
approaching the lock up, he commenced to cry.--He was now fined 10s and
costs or 14 days imprisonment.
St Thomas’s Road, Derby
Cheshire Observer
28 June 1890
A CRUEL HUSBAND
Thomas Nield, gardener, Little Budworth, appeared in answer to a summons charging him with assaulting and
neglecting the maintenance of his wife, Mary Nield. the wife, a delicate looking young woman, told a sad story of
neglect and cruelty. She had three children, the youngest only six weeks old: she had been very ill, and had nothing to
eat except what the neighbors brought her and even that her husband ate when he could get it. In consequence of his
conduct witness was obliged to go and live with her mother, and when she went on Thursday week for her children’s
clothes the defendant thrashed her, leaving black marks on her body. She had often previously been afraid to sleep, for
the defendant had stood over her saying he would, “Jack the Ripper her”.--The Chairman told the defendant he had
treated his wfe in a most brutal manner and had ill-treated her in many ways. He would have to pay 5s and costs for the
assault, a 6s a week for the maintenance of his wife and children.
The Courier
19 January 1889
The Barnsley magistrates this week committed for trial Thomas Roebuck, a collier, for wounding Mary Marsden, his
mother, with a large carving knife. The prisoner, returning home at nearly midnight, drunk, attacked his mother with a
large knife, swearing he would do for her, and “Jack the Ripper” the whole family. He proceeded upstairs, placed the
knife close to his niece’s breast, and attacking his brother in bed, ran the knife through the clothes into the mattress.

Church Street, West Hartlepool
North Eastern Daily Gazette

19 October 1888
“JACK THE RIPPER” AT WEST HARTLEPOOL
Considerable commotion was created in Church-street last night by a man who stood in the middle of the thoroughfare
and shouted at the top of his voice that he was “Jack the Ripper from London”. A crowd gathered round, but as the
fellow was evidently drunk, his ravings excited nothing more serious than ridicule.
PC Taylor shortly came upon the scene and marched him off to the lock-up, where he gave the name of Benson Hilton,
describing himself as an artist from Bradford. He was brought up this morning before the County Bench, and after having
expressed regret for his conduct was fined 2s 6d and costs or seven days for being drunk and disorderly. The money was
paid.

16 October 1888
“JACK THE RIPPER” AT CHORLEY
Yesterday morning, at Chorley, a stranger giving the name of John Williams was brought before the magistrates under
singular circumstances. On Saturday night he went into a public-house, and drawing a sharp knife from a sheath, boasted
that he wss “Jack the Ripper”, and that he had polished four off and meant to do another. A paper was found on him
showing that he had recently travelled in the neighbourhood of London.
NINA and HOWARD BROWN are the proprietors of JTRForums.com.

CHRIS SCOTT’S
Press Trawl
The Daily Mail
2 December 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.
‘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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Feb, 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
WRITE FOR RIPPEROLOGIST!

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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
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.
Bill Crome, Window Cleaner

This is Bill Crome, a venerable window cleaner with thirty years’
experience in the trade, who makes a speciality out of cleaning the
windows of the old houses in the East End. You might assume cleaning
windows is a relatively mundane occupation and that, apart from the
risk of falling off a ladder, the job is otherwise without hazard – yet
Bill’s recent experiences have proved quite the contrary, because
he has supernatural encounters in the course of his work that would
make your hair stand on end.
“It wasn’t a career choice,” admitted Bill with phlegmatic good

humour, “When I left school, a man who had a window cleaning
business lived across the road from me, so I asked his son for a job
and I’ve been stuck in it ever since. I have at least sixty regulars,
shops and houses, and quite a few are here in Spitalfields. I like the
freedom, the meeting of people and the fact that I haven’t got a boss
on my back.” In spite of growing competition from contractors who
offer cleaning, security and window cleaning as a package to large
offices, Bill has maintained his business manfully, even in the face
of the recession, but now he faces a challenge of another nature
entirely. Although, before I elaborate, let me emphasise that Bill
Crome is one of the sanest, most down-to-earth men you could hope
to meet.
“I’ve heard there is a window cleaner in Spitalfields who sees ghosts,” I said, to broach the delicate subject
as respectfully as I could. “That’s me,” he confessed without hesitation, colouring a little and lowering his voice,
“I’ve seen quite a few. Five years ago, at the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings in Spital Square, I
saw a sailor on the second floor. I was outside cleaning the window and this sailor passed in front of me. He was
pulling his coat on. He put his arms in the sleeves, moving as he did so, and then walked through the wall. He
looked the sailor on the Players Navy Cut cigarette packet, from around 1900 I would guess, in his full uniform.

And then I saw a twelve year old girl on the stair, she was
bent down, peering at me through the staircase. I was about
to clean the window, and I could feel someone watching me,
then as I turned she was on the next floor looking down at
me. She had on a grey dress with a white pinafore over the
top. And she had a blank stare.
I did some research. I went to a Spiritualist Church in

Wandsworth and one of the Spiritualists said to me, ‘You’ve
got a friend who’s a sailor haven’t you?’ They told me how
to deal with it. When we investigated we found it was to do
with the old paintings at the Society for the Preservation of
Ancient Buildings, amongst the collection were portraits of
a sailor and of a girl. Once I was walking up to the top floor,
and I looked at the picture of the girl and she had a smiling
face – but when I went back to collect my squeegee, I looked
again and she had a frown. It sounds really stupid doesn’t it?
I found a leaflet in the house explaining about the history of
the paintings and how the family that gave them was dying
off. The paintings are off the wall now, yet they had a nice
feeling about them, of sweetness and calm.”
Bill confirmed that since the paintings were taken down,

he has seen no more ghosts while cleaning windows in Spital
Square and the episode is concluded, though the implications of these sinister events have been life changing, as
he explained when he told me of his next encounter with the otherwordly.
“I was cleaning the windows of a house in Sheerness, and I looked into the glass and I saw the reflection of an
old man right behind me. I could see his full person, a six foot four inch very tall man, standing behind me in a
collarless shirt. But when I turned round there was no-one there.
I went down to the basement, cleaning the windows, and I felt like someone was climbing on my back. Then I
started heaving, I was frozen to the spot. All I kept thinking was, ‘I’ve got to finish this window,’ but as soon as
I came out of the basement I felt very scared. Speaking to a lady down the road, she told me that in this same
house, in the same window, a builder got thrown off his ladder in the past year and there was no explanation for
it.
I won’t go back and do that house again, I can tell you.”
As Bill confided his stories, he spoke deliberately, taking his time and maintaining eye contact as he chose his
words carefully. I could see that the mere act of telling drew emotions, as Bill re-experienced the intensity of
these uncanny events whilst struggling to maintain equanimity. My assumption was that although Bill’s experience
at the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings might be attributed to a localised phenomenon, what
happened in Sheerness suggests that Bill himself is the catalyst for these sightings.
“I feel that I have opened myself up to it because I’ve been to the Spiritualist Church a few times,” he revealed
to me. “I do expect to see more ghosts because I work in a lot of old properties, especially round Spitalfields. I
don’t dread it but I don’t look forward to it either. It has also made me feel like I do want to become a Spiritualist,
and every time I go along, they say, ‘Are you a member of the church?’ But I don’t know. I don’t know what can
of worms I’ve opened up.”
Bill’s testimony was touching in its frankness – neither bragging nor dramatising – instead he was thinking out
loud, puzzling over these mysterious events in a search for understanding. As we walked together among the
streets of ancient dwellings in the shadow of the old church in Spitalfields where many of the residents are his
customers, I naturally asked Bill Crome if he has seen any ghosts in these houses. At once, he turned reticent,
stopping in his tracks and insisting that he maintain discretion. “I don’t tell my customers if I see ghosts in their
houses.” he informed me absolutely, looking me in the eye,“They don’t need to know and I don’t want to go
scaremongering.”

Kevin Read, Spitalfields Milkman
Dawn has broken over the East End and there goes Kevin, the agile
milkman, sprinting down the street with a pint of milk in hand. With
enviable stamina, Kevin Read gets up at two thirty each morning, six
days a week, and delivers milk in a round that stretches from the
Olympic Park in the East to Hoxton Square in the West, doing the
whole thing on the run.
The East End is a smaller, more peaceful place in the morning,

before all the people get up, and I was inspired to see it through
Kevin’s eyes, when I joined him on the round yesterday at four thirty.
As we careered around the streets in the early sunshine, travelling
effortlessly from one place to another down empty streets that are
Kevin’s sole preserve for the first three hours of daylight at this time
of year, landmarks appeared closer together and the busy roads that
divide the territory were quiet. Kevin’s East End is another land,
known only to early birds.
“I never look at it as a job, it’s my life,” admitted Kevin, still

enthusiastic after thirty years on the rounds.“Born in Harlow. Educated
in Harlow. Top of the class at school. Bunked off at fourteen. Failed
all my exams. Moved to London at fifteen. Started as a rounds boy at
the Co-op Dairy, just at weekends until I got a proper job. Left school at sixteen. Junior Depot Assistant at Co-op,
swept yard, parked milk floats and made coffee for the manager. Don’t know what happened to the proper job!”
said Kevin with a shrug, taking his life story at the same breakneck pace as he does his round. But, in fact, this was
the mere prologue to Kevin’s current illustrious career, that began in Arnold Circus delivering milk to the Boundary
Estate in 1982, where he ran up and down every staircase making a long list of calls for each block. Today, Kevin
still carries his vocabulary of Bengali words that he picked up then.
In the intervening years, an earthquake happened. The Co-op Dairy was bought by Express Dairies, then Kevin
worked for Unigate until that was sold to Dairy Crest, next working for Express Dairies until that was also sold
to Dairy Crest, and finally working for Hobbs Cross Farm Dairy until they went out of business. Quite a bumpy
ride, yet Kevin persevered through these changes which included a dire spell in the suburbs of Chingford. “They
complain if you put the milk on the wrong side of the doorstep there!”he revealed with caustic good humour,
outlining a shamelessly biased comparison between the suburb and the inner city streets that were his first love.
While we drove around in the dawn yesterday, Kevin told me his life story - in between leaping from the
cabin and sprinting off, across the road, through
security doors, up and down stairs, along balconies,
in and out of cafes, schools, offices, universities
and churches. No delivery is too small and he will
consider any location. Yet it is no small challenge to
work out the most efficient route each day, taking
into account traffic and orders that vary daily. Kevin
has two fat round books that describe all the calls he
must do, yet he barely opens them. He has it all in
his head, two hundred domestic calls (on a system of
alternating days), plus one hundred and thirty offices,
shops and cafes. “A good milkman knows how to work
his round,” stated Kevin with the quiet authority of a
seasoned professional.
Setting a fierce pace, always quick, never hurried,

he was always thinking on his feet. With practiced
dexterity Kevin can carry six glass bottles effortlessly

in his bare hands, with the necks clutched between each of his
fingers. He makes it all look easy, because Kevin is an artist. The wide
chassis of Kevin’s diesel milk float permits him to cross speed bumps
with one wheel on either side – avoiding chinking milk crates – if he
lines up the float precisely, and during our seven hours together on
the round, he did it right every time.
Yet, before he embraced his occupation, Kevin rejected it. When

the industry hit a bump, he tried to find that “proper job” which
haunted him, working in a kitchen and then a bakery for three years.
But one day he saw a milk float drive by the bakery and he knew his
destiny was to be in the cabin. Taking a declining round on the Cattle
Road Estate, he built it up to hundred calls, and then another and
another, until he had five rounds with four milkmen working alongside
him. A failed marriage and an expensive divorce meant he had to sell
these rounds, worth £10,000 a piece, to Parker Dairies. But then in
1999, the dairy offered him his old territory back – the East End.
“I realised the only time I was happy was when I was working for
myself,” confided Kevin with glee, “It was my favourite round, my
favourite area, my favourite pay scheme, commission only – next to
my first round Arnold Circus! The best of everything came together
for me.”
But, returning to East End, Kevin discovered his customers had become further apart. Where once Kevin went
door to door, now he may have only one or two calls in a street, and consequently the round is wider. Between
three thirty and eleven thirty each morning, Kevin spirals around the East End, delivering first to houses with
gardens and secure locations to leave milk, then returning later to deliver milk to exposed doorsteps, thereby
minimising the risk of theft, before finally doing the rounds of offices as they open for business. During the day
Kevin turns evangelical, canvassing door to door, searching for new customers, because many people no longer
realise there is a milkman who can deliver.
Kevin is a milkman with a mission to rebuild the lost milk rounds of the East End, and he has become a local
personality in the process, celebrated for his boundless energy and easy charm. Now happily settled with his new
partner, whom he met on the round, he thinks he is delivering milk but I think he is pursuing life.
Terry Penton, Painter and Decorator

You might think that the life of a painter and decorator might be
uneventful, but this has not been the case for Terry Penton. “I’m
thinking of writing a book,” he revealed to me, “I’ve been through so
many things and so much has happened to me, and with everything
I’ve done there is a story to tell.”
After bringing up his family in Bethnal Green, Terry moved to

Chingford ten years ago. At one end of the street is the expanse of
the King George V Reservoir and at the other is Epping Forest where
Terry walks his dog every day, observing the sunset over the East End.
“People don’t realise there’s sheep grazing in E4,” he informed me.
With a restless spirit and a fearless nature, Terry has always been
open to the opportunities that life offers and, as a consequence, he
has been granted an enviable breadth of experience and knowledge –
as I quickly discovered when I sat down for a chat with him yesterday.
“I was born at 5 Treby St, Mile End, and lived there until I was
four. John, my dad, was a Painter and Decorator for Stepney Borough

Council. He died of lung cancer when I was three and we couldn’t afford the rent. Eve, my mother had four
children so she took refuge at Parnell Rise Methodist Church and she worked there as a caretaker.
At the church, she met someone. George’d not long come from Jamaica on the Windrush. He was a bus
conductor on the number eight route. She and George got married, and all her family disowned her and all her
family disowned us too. The church wrote and said that now she had a husband we must get out. But we read it
as because she had married a black man. They gave her one week’s notice.
I was six when we moved to Brooke Road, Clapton. At first, it

seemed everything was fine because there were other families from
the West Indies but there was a lot of resentment and we had all
sorts of trouble including bricks through the window. The black
community didn’t like it that my step-dad had married a white
woman. When my mother got pregnant and had another baby, one
of the neighbours in the street asked to have a look, when she had
it in a pram, and when they saw it was a mixed race baby, they spat
in her face and called her a whore.
Because of my dad, I didn’t see colour. He brought me up like a

Jamaican and I could speak the patois. I learnt that what colour or
religion you are doesn’t matter, there’s good and bad in all. I was in
a bunch of kids that included Irish kids, kids from Manchester, black
kids, Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots. We hadn’t been exposed
to racism so it didn’t matter to us.
After we moved to Brooke Road, my step-dad started drinking

and we had holes in our shoes – he had a nice suit and tie, and we
had nothing. My mother worked in a laundrette and I used to go
round the bins collecting Domestos bottles for the tuppence deposit
on each one. I walked to Manor House on Saturday to wash motors
at nine years old. We learnt to survive. My old man hit me with a
buckle until I stopped him at sixteen.
I never liked school from day one. The only subjects I engaged
with were Carpentry, Geography and English – and that was because
you could write stories. I had an argument with a teacher who pulled me up to the front of the class and told me
to bend over, and he kicked me and he caught me underneath which resulted in me having to have an operation.
Three months later, I got out of hospital and went back and bashed him up. Then I got suspended and stayed
suspended, I left school at thirteen years and four months. By then, I was working for a local butcher, going down
to Smithfield at three o’clock in the morning and loading lorries up. I went back to school at fifteen but left after
three months and started as a trainee butcher in Bethnal Green at West Layton Butchers at £3 a week.
They played pranks on me, sending me to walk all the way to the Roman Road and back buy wire mesh gloves
when such things didn’t exist. At the time I thought it was funny, so what I decided to do was to throw a bucket of
livers’ blood over them through the grille at the side door, while they was putting the rubbish out. Unfortunately,
two old ladies walked past. One had just had a blue rinse and it was covered in blood, so she went into the shop
to complain and I was sacked on the spot.
I couldn’t get another job in butchery because I couldn’t get the references, so I worked five years in the rag
trade and then I went into the building game at eighteen, until I was twenty years of age when I got a job worked
as a mobile caretaker for the Greater London Council. I became resident caretaker in the Ocean Estate, Stepney.
I was courting then and a maisonette became available in Bethnal Green, so I put in for it – only the local office
didn’t like the fact that my girlfriend was living with me and I was told to get married. We married in St Matthews
Bethnal Green on 29th March, 1980. After two years, my son Daniel was born in Barts Hospital, two years later my
son Steven was born and twelve months later my son Frankie was born.

At that time, we were told that the GLC was handing over our caretakers’ contracts to Tower Hamlets, so at
this point I joined the National Union of Public Employees as a Shop Steward, becoming Branch Secretary, Branch
Chair and negotiating our terms and conditions, so we would be protected when the handover came. D-Day came
on 31st October 1985, and if you didn’t sign your contract you were dismissing yourself. I was approached by
management and offered a senior position if I got the other guys to sign, which I refused to do. Out of thirty-three
caretakers, eleven refused to sign and were dismissed. We had to fight on our own because we were without
contracts and I set up tent and camped outside the Town Hall, and we occupied the Town Hall on an number of
occasions. It went to court but, in the end, I left after thirteen years caretaking with nothing. I always believed
being a caretaker was a kind of social work, I started a football team for kids on the block and I kept an eye on
the old folks. A well-organised caretaker is the key to a good estate.
I became a member of Stepney and Bethnal Green Labour Party and went to Nottingham to support the miners,
I was on the picket line in Wapping for a year and I was in Dover supporting the P&O workers. I even stood for
election in Weavers’ Ward but got a disappointing six hundred votes.
While working for the Council, I attended Hackney Building College in my own time and did a City & Guilds in
Painting and Decorating. I had three children and a wife, and rent to pay, so once I lost my job I went out and did
Painting and Decorating. I also did decorative effects and I used to sell furniture and fireplace surrounds and then
I’d marbleise them. I took a workshop in the Sunbury Workshops in the Boundary Estate but the recession kicked
in and I couldn’t afford it. I was approached by a printer called “Johnny the Ace” who was looking for a little
workshop to share for printing leaflets and flyers and he would pay 80% of the rent. So I partitioned the unit, and
I could do my furniture at the front while he was doing his printing at the back.
A couple of months went by and I discovered he was printing money. I was faced with the option of going to the
police and face the consequences of being revealed as a grass, so I decided not to say anything. But the workshop
was wired and I was charged with conspiracy to produce counterfeit goods. The printer “Johnny the Ace” was
working for the police, and it was a complete set up and there was nothing I could do about it.
I pleaded my innocence and told them I’d been set up, but I was advised by my barrister to go guilty and seek
leniency. I received three years of which I served eighteen months. I’d been going to Tower Hamlets College
doing an Access Course to go to University with a view to becoming a Probation Officer. I studied English, Maths,
Sociology, Economics, Law and Politics. I went to London Guildhall University where I was studying for an Honours
Degree in Law and Politics.
When I come out of prison, they approached me to return to University but I said ‘No,’ and I went back to
Painting and Decorating. I’d like to give something back and I’d like to teach young people Painting and Decorating
and decorative effects. My eldest son works with me as as Plasterer, I taught him Painting and Decorating. All my
children work, they’ve got a sense of responsibility and they’ll never forget where they’ve come from.
Now we live in North Chingford and it’s not as friendly as Bethnal Green, but there’s this politeness here.
People say, ‘Good morning’ and they thank the driver when they get off the bus. It’s taken me ten years to get
used to it.”
David Dupre, Grand Master Chimney Sweep

My father was a master sweep,” explained David Dupre with a cocky flourish of his brush, “He taught me
everything he knew, and I’ve learnt more – that’s why I am a grand master sweep, self-qualified.”
The nature of the sweep’s profession, going into people’s homes to sweep their chimneys and seeing all the
diversity of human life, yet at the same time being reliant upon no-one, encourages a propensity to free-thinking
and breeds an independence of spirit, and David is the unapologetic possessor of both. “People don’t tell me what
I can and can’t do,” he informed me unequivocally.
On the day David Dupre left school, he came home in his school uniform at midday and his father was waiting
for him in the kitchen to ask, “What are you going to do, David?”
“At twelve o’clock, I was in my school blazer, by one o’clock I was in my dirty overalls – and I never looked
back.” declared David recklessly, with a crazed grin, after he had swept my chimney yesterday. “He was a hard

man to work for, my father. He’d look at me when he
was standing there with his brush up a chimney and he’d
say, ‘What are you going to do?’ As if there was anything
I could do at that moment.” continued David with
mixed feelings of respect and frustration,“If there was
a spanner out of place in the van, he blamed me for it.
But there was nothing he wouldn’t do, I remember him
climbing down the inside of a two hundred and seventy
foot chimney in his seventies.”
Of French Huguenot descent, David’s father was born

in South Africa and became the head chef and boiler
stoker on a Merchant Navy vessel - “that was back in the
days when the butcher was also the doctor,” explained
David helpfully. From there he travelled to Yorkshire
where he met an old man who taught him to be a
chimney sweep, and that is all David knows. “He was
an elusive man, he didn’t say much,” admitted David,
‘When I was fifteen, he was pushing sixty. He lied about
his age and worked till eighty-three. He told me, ‘If I
can’t sweep chimneys any more, I’ll put my head in the
oven.’ And one day I went round and he had burnt his
head, because he had tried to kill himself but the oven
was electric.”
Significantly, David’s earliest memory of his childhood

in a tenement in Brady Street, Whitechapel, is how his
mother used to put a scarf round his neck as a baby to
protect him from the soot in the days of the London
smogs. Yet it was the smoke of coal fires that created his family’s livelihood as well as a public health problem,
both of which have declined since London was declared a smokeless zone and coal fires were banned.
“I made a lot more money in the eighties and nineties than now. In 1987, I was making a couple of grand a
week. I could do ten or eleven chimneys in a day if the calls were close together…” recalled David, his eyes
shining in swanky delight, “I’ve been in grand homes that chimney sweeps built in the nineteenth century. They
were loaded! Before central heating existed to heat water, all the fires were going all the time and they used to
sweep chimneys every three months. People have no idea now, they think you don’t ever need it done again.”
Relishing his distinguished pedigree and status as a free agent, David also appreciates the social mobility that
goes with it. “I’ve swept the chimneys in Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace, lovely places and the Royal
staff are very pleasant people.” he confided to me in a whisper of patriotic veneration, “I remember going to
the grand house of an Admiral in Whitehall with my father and they treated him with such respect. It was ‘Mr
Dupre this’ and ‘Mr Dupre that.’ I’ve worked for multibillionaires and for those who are so poor I’ve given them
money. But, if you see me out of my overalls, you wouldn’t think it was me. I drive a nice big yankie car and I
wear expensive clothes, because I’ve earned it myself.”
Possessing the necessary diminutive stature and tenacious energetic nature for a sweep, David ran up the stairs
in my house with his brushes in an old golf caddy. Once he had slotted all the poles together, he asked me to go
outside and check the brush was sticking out. And, sure enough, when I reached the pavement and peered up at
the stack, there was David’s brush, like a strange cartoon flower growing out of my chimney pot. Climbing the stairs
again, I found that David had made short work of the job, which he had completed with strenuous determination
and was already cleaning up when I returned. “My father designed the screen I place over the fireplace, most
sweeps use a cloth,” he told me as he worked. “And all my brushes are specially made – I’m very particular about
what I use. I’ve got the Inland Revenue to pay. I’ve got my advertising to pay, they stole the magnetic signs off
my van – why would they do that? I’m just a chimney sweep.” he mused. Then, before I knew it, he tossed the

vast steel drum of his vacuum cleaner
over the shoulder and was barrelling off
down the stairs again.
Once the job was done, it was time

for the serious business of catching up,
with David breaking the dramatic news
that since he last swept my chimney, he
got divorced from his second wife and
found true love with a new fiancée.
“It was the first time in my life I had
a drink,” he confessed - with eloquent
understatement – speaking of the stress
of the divorce, before his change of
fortune. “I didn’t think I’d ever be so
happy, I’ve got this lady in my life now
that is my life,” he disclosed, “She’s
amazing, she does my cooking!”
It was a moment to take stock, and

I was favoured to hear David Dupre’s
assessment of his existence as a grand
master chimney sweep. “I’ve been
working now for twenty-seven years and
I’ve never had an action against me.
I’m happy with my job, though I am a
bit gutted that the work decreased by
seventy-five per cent.” he said, pulling
a long face, “But even if I won the
lottery tomorrow, I’d still be sweeping
chimneys.”
The Temperance Sweep from

John Thompson’s Street Life in London, 1876
THE BOOK OF SPITALFIELDS LIFE. 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

Please come to the free launch at Christ Church Spitalfields
for music, cakes and Truman’s Beer
18th October
Book retails at £25
More information at spitalfieldslife.com/the-album

I Beg To Report
NEWS ROUNDUP
FROM AROUND THE RIPPER WORLD
TERROR BY TWITTER. In what is probably the ultimate sign of

our times, the day-by-day account of the 125th anniversary
of the Whitechapel murders is currently being marked a
realtime series of tweets by the History Press, publishers of
several books on Jack the Ripper. Covering the four-month
period during which the Canonical Five victims were killed,
the tweets have been reporting on events as they happened,
with police officers, journalists and witnesses involved
in the case all having their say. The History Press set up a
similar project last year to mark the centenary of the sinking
of the Titanic, Titanic Live, at twitter.com/titanic_live.
Spokesman Jamie Wolfendale said the subject had been
thoroughly researched earlier this year by a team of Ripper
experts, with the aim of the project being to employ social
media to encourage a younger generation to engage more
with history. They hope that the project will educate and
entertain in equal measure. Perhaps missing the point of
the project, Alex Werner of the Museum of London voiced
his concern that by revealing each murder as it happened
it would be difficult to explain them in context: “This is an
interesting approach, but what would be really interesting is
to have all the other ‘baggage’ of the period as well. We had
quite a bit of debate about how we would put on our first
exhibition about the murders [Jack the Ripper and the East
End, 2008] without glorifying violence against women.” Visit
www.twitter.com/WChapelRealTime to follow the tweets.
Twitter real-time explores Jack the Ripper murders.
Andy Dangerfield, BBC News, London, 23 August 2013.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23759777
Jack the Ripper murders to be played out via Twitter
Emma McFarnon, historyextra.com, 23 August 2013.
www.historyextra.com/news/jack-ripper-murders-be-
played-out-twitter
FUTURE OF METROPOLITAN POLICE MUSEUM NOT SO BLACK? As we reported in our last issue (Rip 133, August 2013), the
London Assembly Conservatives had called for a three-month exhibition of artifacts currently held at Scotland Yard’s
Crime Museum, producing a report called History’s Life Sentence in which it was estimated that £4.5million could be
generated from visitors. The idea appears to have snowballed and it has been reported that talks are underway between
London’s Mayor Boris Johnson, the Office for Policing and Crime and the Museum of London to create a permanent
museum, possibly on the site of the former Bow Street Magistrates Court. It is proposed that the museum would reach
further than a publically-accessible Crime Museum, instead taking exhibits from the Met’s archive warehouse in Charlton,
its Heritage Centre in West Brompton, the Thames River Police in Wapping, the Mounted Branch Museum in Thames Ditton
and the Metropolitan Police Historical Vehicle Collection in Hampton. Neil Paterson, Curator of the Heritage Centre,

commented: “For years I’ve
thought there was a real
need for a police museum.
“We’ve played such an
important part in the
development of London.
It would be amazingly
fascinating to Londoners.
We’ve got the stuff. It’s
just that they can’t see
it. I think it’s a terrible
shame.” Paul Bickley of the
Crime Museum said that
a combined Metropolitan
Police museum would be
“fantastic”, but warned
that the public would have
to visit with an “academic
Medals belonging to Sir Edward Bradford, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police 1890-1903, mind”, and not to expect
and the claws of the tiger responsible for the loss of his left arm.
Exhibits in the Metropolitan Police Heritage Centre. Photograph Adam Wood a tourist attraction.
Perhaps the most sensible
comments were made by Robert Jeffries of the Thames River Police Museum, who said: “I don’t think it’s ever going
to happen. “There’s long been a thought the Met should have some sort of historic collection. The Met is facing huge
restrictions in its funding. Where’s the money going to come from?”
Plan considered for first complete London police museum.
Josephine McDermott, BBC News, London, 15 September 2013.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24067335
HORRIBLE HAIR HOAX. Here at Ripperologist Towers

we love a bit of memorabilia. Our bookshelves are
lined with signed copies of books by the likes of Sir
Robert Anderson, Melville Macnaghten and Sir Henry
Smith. Paintings by Walter Sickert adorn our downstairs
bathroom, and framed facsimiles of Dear Boss and the
Saucy Jacky postcard hang on the walls of our study.
However, even we would balk at the thought of owning
a bloodstained lock of Mary Kelly’s hair. The object, a
replica created by ‘Derek H.’, is currently on offer at
the Rag N Bone Emporium alongside other recreated
horror-based memorabilia such as the Lusk letter, a
verterbra taken from the skeleton of the Elephant
Man, vampire fangs and the severed ear of Vincent Van
Gogh. The description of the Mary Kelly item records its
‘provenance’: “During the investigation of her murder,
Sgt Edward Badham of the “H” Division Whitechapel
police collected a lock of her blood drenched hair. The
hair sample was framed and filed away, not to be seen
for over 100 years. That was until an antique dealer
name George Payne purchased a box of files from the
estate sale of one of Badham’s grandsons. Tucked neatly in the rear of the box was the hair sample, perfectly preserved
in the frame.” Framed in aged wood, the item measures 8x6 inches and costs £10.72. Unfortunately for UK-based
Ripperologists keen to own a lock of Mary Kelly’s hair, the Rag N Bone Emporium only ships to the United States.
www.etsy.com/listing/124705365/lock-of-hair-from-jack-the-ripper-victim

Victorian Fiction
An Alpine Divorce
By Robert Barr
Edited with an Introduction by Eduardo Zinna
Robert Barr was born in Glasgow on 16 September 1849. His father, also named Robert, was a
carpenter, and his mother, Jane Watson, a housewife. A few decades earlier, he would have had
little option but to take up his father’s trade; in the second half of the nineteenth century, his
choices were significantly broader. He would become a journalist, a novelist, an editor, a socialite,
a bon vivant and a friend of the rich and famous. Others have matched his achievements, but few
have followed such a circuitous route.
In 1854, the Barr family migrated from Scotland to Canada, where they settled on
a farm in Muirkirk, Ontario. Robert was educated in Dunwich and became a teacher
in Kent County. In 1873 he entered the Toronto Normal School. He was already a born
raconteur who could turn any personal experience into a good story. Years later he
would recall that, in his daily trip to and from school, he used to pass an office above
which hung a sign reading ‘Luke Sharpe, Undertaker’ - which he found oddly amusing.
He never forgot the sign or the incongruous name written on it. After obtaining a
teaching certificate from the Normal School, Barr taught in Walkerville. In 1874 he was
appointed Principal of the Central School of Windsor, Ontario. For a while he seemed
destined to a distinguished career in his chosen profession.
To while away the free time his teaching job allowed him, Barr wrote sketches,
essays and short stories. Soon he was contributing to Canadian publications such as
Grip, a satirical magazine published in Toronto, and to the Detroit Free Press, then
as now the largest newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, United States. He did not sign his
work with his own name but as ‘Luke Sharp’, a pseudonym he had derived from the
Robert Barr
undertaker’s sign he had seen in Toronto.
In 1876, Barr abandoned teaching, crossed the border into the United States and joined the Detroit Free Press
as a reporter. He soon became a columnist and eventually the newspaper’s exchange editor. In 1881, the Free
Press sent him to Britain to launch a weekly edition of the newspaper leaning more towards entertainment than
to news, in contrast with the more sober British newspapers. The American edition of the Free Press – and its
editor – did very well indeed, both professionally and financially. Barr settled down in Surrey and never returned
to live in Canada, although he travelled back and forth regularly across the ocean.
Having secured his financial independence, Barr looked for new horizons in the publishing industry. In 1892
he joined forces with Jerome K Jerome, the journalist, playwright, novelist and author of Three Men in a Boat,
to found and co-edit the monthly illustrated magazine The Idler. Jerome’s collection of essays, Idle Thoughts
of an Idle Fellow (1886), provided the title and the format of the new magazine. Despite its name, The Idler
did not cater to the indolent but to the discerning gentleman with leisure at his disposal. It published serialized
novels, short fiction, poetry, memoirs, interviews, travel sketches, sporting notes, book and theatre reviews,
and a regular column entitled the ‘Idlers Club’, where several authors set forth their views informally on a given
topic, as though they were talking convivially in front of the fire. Its contributors included Rudyard Kipling, Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle, H G Wells, Israel Zangwill, Max Beerbohm, William Le Queux, W W Jacobs and American

authors such as Bret Harte, Stephen Crane and Mark Twain. The editors’
humorous, light-hearted writing style determined the contents of the
magazine. The Idler was instantly successful: its ‘liberal, irreverent, and
sentimental’ tone and the quality, number and nature of its illustrations
were all praised.
Following a dispute with Jerome arising from a libel action, Barr
withdrew from co-editorship of The Idler in 1895. Two years later
Jerome also left and in October 1902 Barr became the sole proprietor of
The Idler, which he continued to edit until its final issue in March 1911.
Although he was at his best in the short story and the comic sketch,
Barr also published over 20 novels, among which are In the Midst of
Alarms (1894), about the threatened Fenian invasion of Canada in 1867,
Tekla: A Romance of Love and War (1898), a Ruritanian romance about
an Emperor acting incognito, Jennie Baxter, Journalist (1898), a New
Woman story, and The Measure of the Rule (1907), a memoir of his experience as a teacher
which sternly criticised the contemporary Canadian educational system. Worth mentioning is
his ingenious novella From Whose Bourne (1893), in which a dead man solves his own murder.
He also left several collections of short stories, among them In a Steamer Chair and other
Shipboard Stories (1892), The Face and the Mask (1894) and Revenge! (1896), from which the
present Victorian Fiction offering, An Alpine Divorce, has been taken.
Barr was especially blessed with a gift for parody. In 1892, writing as Luke Sharp, he
published in The Idler a Sherlock Holmes spoof, Detective Stories Gone Wrong - The
Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs. He was none the less a good friend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
who contributed to The Idler most of his stories of the medical profession later collected in
Round the Red Lamp. In 1894, Barr accompanied Doyle on a lecture tour of Canada and the
United States, during which they quarrelled bitterly and loudly over Sherlock Holmes’s death
at Reichenbach Falls. Yet their friendship remained unimpaired. Barr would use Sherlock
Jerome K Jerome
Holmes, Doyle and Sir George Newnes, the Strand publisher, as characters in yet another
parody: The Adventure of the Second Swag. One of Barr’s most memorable books –also a parody of Doyle’s work - is
The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont (1906), a collection of stories featuring a conceited, arrogant and condescending
French private detective whose encounters with aristocrats, anarchists, jewel thieves and confidence men all end
in failure. It is perhaps ironic that a century later, Barr’s caricature has become the norm and the latest incarnation
of Doyle’s Great Detective in film should itself be an admittedly entertaining but determinedly irreverent parody.
Robert Barr died of a heart condition in Woldingham, a small village to the southeast of London, on 22 October
1912.
I first read An Alpine Divorce many years ago in Victorian Nightmares, one of the many
superb collections of Victorian ghost and horror masterpieces edited by my good friend
Hugh Lamb. In his introduction, Hugh described An Alpine Divorce as ‘a story years ahead
of its time, from a book far in advance of its contemporary works. Revenge!...was a unique
volume for the time it was written, being short stories dealing uncompromisingly with
passion and greed, all using the motif of revenge.’ Hugh further stated that Revenge!
contained Barr’s best work in the horror field and An Alpine Divorce was one of the finest
tales he had ever written. Praise from someone so knowledgeable and exacting as Hugh is
high praise indeed, and Barr and his sardonic little tale fully deserve it.

AN ALPINE DIVORCE
By Robert Barr
In some natures there are no half-tones; nothing but raw primary colours. John Bodman was a man who
was always at one extreme or the other. This probably would have mattered little had he not married a
wife whose nature was an exact duplicate of his own.
Doubtless there exists in this world precisely the right woman for any given man to marry and vice versa;
but when you consider that a human being has the opportunity of being acquainted with only a few hundred
people, and out of the few hundred that there are but a dozen or less whom he knows intimately, and out
of the dozen, one or two friends at most, it will easily be seen, when we remember the number of millions
who inhabit this world, that probably, since the earth was created, the right man has never yet met the
right woman. The mathematical chances are all against such a meeting, and this is the reason that divorce
courts exist. Marriage at best is but a compromise, and if two people happen to be united who are of an
uncompromising nature there is trouble.
In the lives of these two young people there was no middle distance. The result was bound to be either
love or hate, and in the case of Mr and Mrs Bodman it was hate of the most bitter and arrogant kind.
In some parts of the world incompatibility of temper is considered a just cause for obtaining a divorce,
but in England no such subtle distinction is made, and so until the wife became criminal, or the man
became both criminal and cruel, these two were linked together by a bond that only death could sever.
Nothing can be worse than this state of things, and the matter was only made the more hopeless by the fact
that Mrs Bodman lived a blameless life, and her husband was no worse, but rather better, than the majority
of men. Perhaps, however, that statement held only up to a certain point, for John Bodman had reached a
state of mind in which he resolved to get rid of his wife at all hazards. If he had been a poor man he would
probably have deserted her, but he was rich, and a man cannot freely leave a prospering business because
his domestic life happens not to be happy.
When a man’s mind dwells too much on any one subject, no one can tell just how far he will go. The
mind is a delicate instrument, and even the law recognises that it is easily thrown from its balance.
Bodman’s friends - for he had friends - claim that his mind was unhinged; but neither his friends nor his
enemies suspected the truth of the episode, which turned out to be the most important, as it was the most
ominous, event in his life.
Whether John Bodman was sane or insane at the time he made up his mind to murder his wife, will never
be known, but there was certainly craftiness in the method he devised to make the crime appear the result
of an accident. Nevertheless, cunning is often a quality in a mind that has gone wrong.
Mrs Bodman well knew how much her presence afflicted her husband, but her nature was as relentless
as his, and her hatred of him was, if possible, more bitter than his hatred of her. Wherever he went she
accompanied him, and perhaps the idea of murder would never have occurred to him if she had not been so
persistent in forcing her presence upon him at all times and on all occasions. So, when he announced to her
that he intended to spend the month of July in Switzerland, she said nothing, but made her preparations
for the journey. On this occasion he did not protest, as was usual with him, and so to Switzerland this silent
couple departed.
There is an hotel near the mountain-tops which stands on a ledge over one of the great glaciers. It is a
mile and a half above the level of the sea, and it stands alone, reached by a toilsome road that zigzags up
the mountain for six miles. There is a wonderful view of snow-peaks and glaciers from the verandas of this
hotel, and in the neighbourhood are many picturesque walks to points more or less dangerous.
John Bodman knew the hotel well, and in happier days he had been intimately acquainted with the
vicinity. Now that the thought of murder arose in his mind, a certain spot two miles distant from this

inn continually haunted
him. It was a point of view
overlooking everything, and
its extremity was protected
by a low and crumbling wall.
He arose one morning at four
o’clock, slipped unnoticed
out of the hotel, and went
to this point, which was
locally named the Hanging
Outlook. His memory had
served him well. It was
exactly the spot, he said
to himself. The mountain
which rose up behind it was
wild and precipitous. There
were no inhabitants near to
overlook the place. The distant hotel was hidden by a shoulder of rock. The mountains on the other side
of the valley were too far away to make it possible for any casual tourist or native to see what was going
on on the Hanging Outlook. Far down in the valley the only town in view seemed like a collection of little
toy houses.
One glance over the crumbling wall at the edge was generally sufficient for a visitor of even the strongest
nerves. There was a sheer drop of more than a mile straight down, and at the distant bottom were jagged
rocks and stunted trees that looked, in the blue haze, like shrubbery.
‘This is the spot,’ said the man to himself, ‘and tomorrow morning is the time.’
John Bodman had planned his crime as grimly and relentlessly, and as coolly, as ever he had concocted
a deal on the Stock Exchange. There was no thought in his mind of mercy for his unconscious victim. His
hatred had carried him far.
The next morning after breakfast, he said to his wife: ‘I intend to take a walk in the mountains. Do you
wish to come with me?’
‘Yes,’ she answered briefly.
‘Very well, then,’ he said; ‘I shall be ready at nine o’clock.’
‘I shall be ready at nine o’clock,’ she repeated after him.
At that hour they left the hotel together, to which he was shortly to return alone. They spoke no word
to each other on their way to the Hanging Outlook. The path was practically level, skirting the mountains,
for the Hanging Outlook was not much higher above the sea than the hotel.
John Bodman had formed no fixed plan for his procedure when the place was reached. He resolved
to be guided by circumstances. Now and then a strange fear arose in his mind that she might cling to
him and possibly drag him over the precipice with her. He found himself wondering whether she had any
premonition of her fate, and one of his reasons for not speaking was the fear that a tremor in his voice
might possibly arouse her suspicions. He resolved that his action should be sharp and sudden, that she
might have no chance either to help herself or to drag him with her. Of her screams in that desolate region
he had no fear. No one could reach the spot except from the hotel, and no one that morning had left the
house, even for an expedition to the glacier - one of the easiest and most popular trips from the place.
Curiously enough, when they came within sight of the Hanging Outlook, Mrs Bodman stopped and
shuddered. Bodman looked at her through the narrow slits of his veiled eyes, and wondered again if she had
any suspicion. No one can tell, when two people walk closely together, what unconscious communication
one mind may have with another.

‘What is the matter?’ he asked gruffly. ‘Are you tired?’
‘John,’ she cried, with a gasp in her voice, calling him by his Christian name for the first time in years,
‘don’t you think that if you had been kinder to me at first, things might have been different?’
‘It seems to me,’ he answered, not looking at her, ‘that it is rather late in the day for discussing that
question.’
‘I have much to regret,’ she said quaveringly. ‘Have you nothing?’
‘No,’ he answered.
‘Very well,’ replied his wife, with the usual hardness returning to her voice. ‘I was merely giving you a
chance. Remember that.’
Her husband looked at her suspiciously.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked, ‘giving me a chance? I want no chance nor anything else from you. A
man accepts nothing from one he hates. My feeling towards you is, I imagine, no secret to you. We are tied
together, and you have done your best to make the bondage insupportable.’
‘Yes,’ she answered, with her eyes on the ground, ‘we are tied together - we are tied together!’
She repeated these words under her breath as they walked the few remaining steps to the Outlook.
Bodman sat down upon the crumbling wall. The woman dropped her alpenstock on the rock, and walked
nervously to and fro, clasping and unclasping her hands. Her husband caught his breath as the terrible
moment drew near.
‘Why do you walk about like a wild animal?’ he cried. ‘Come here and sit down beside me, and be still.’
She faced him with a light he had never before seen in her eyes - a light of insanity and of hatred.
‘I walk like a wild animal,’ she said, ‘because I am one. You spoke a moment ago of your hatred of me;
but you are a man, and your hatred is nothing to mine. Bad as you are, much as you wish to break the
bond which ties us together, there are still things which I know you would not stoop to. I know there is no
thought of murder in your heart, but there is in mine. I will show you, John Bodman, how much I hate you.’
The man nervously clutched the stone beside him, and gave a guilty start as she mentioned murder.
‘Yes,’ she continued, ‘I have told all my friends in England that I believed you intended to murder me
in Switzerland.’
‘Good God!’ he cried. ‘How could you say such a thing?’
‘I say it to show how much I hate
you - how much I am prepared to
give for revenge. I have warned
the people at the hotel, and when
we left two men followed us. The
proprietor tried to persuade me
not to accompany you. In a few
moments those two men will come
in sight of the Outlook. Tell them,
if you think they will believe you,
that it was an accident.’
The mad woman tore from
the front of her dress shreds of
lace and scattered them around.
Bodman started up to his feet, crying, ‘What are you about?’ But before he could move toward her she
precipitated herself over the wall, and went shrieking and whirling down the awful abyss.
The next moment two men came hurriedly round the edge of the rock, and found the man standing
alone. Even in his bewilderment he realised that if he told the truth he would not be believed.

RIPPING YARNS
Reviews
JA
CK ER
THE RIPP
Jack the Ripper: The Secret Police Files

Trevor Marriott
355pp
Published by Trevor Marriott, 2013
www.trevormarriott.co.uk
Kindle ebook £4.64
Trevor Marriott’s off-the-wall theories have brought him into conflict with some of the most
respected Jack the Ripper researchers and writers and turned him into a far more controversial
figure than he merits.
This book doesn’t help him much. Part of it is a continuation of the author’s 21st Century
Investigation and if you’ve read that or his posts to www.jtrforums.com you will have a pretty good
idea of what to expect. Marriott has long chapters about the victims and the suspects. Marriott brings
nothing new to the table and sometimes he brings a smile to one’s face, as when he proudly claims to have written to
the Queen to tell her that he was actively trying to exonerate Prince Albert Victor. In return, according to Marriott, Her
Majesty “was most helpful instructing the Royal Archives to forward me ...a detailed list of the whereabouts of Prince
Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale at the time of the murders.” The Queen, if she ever saw Marriott’s letter,
which is highly doubtful, must have felt quite bewildered by his wish to exonerate an ancestor who had already been
exonerated some thirty or more years earlier by the very list of PAV’s whereabouts that the Royal Archives provided.
Marriott’s bete noir seems to be the Swanson marginalia and Aberconway version of the Macnaghten Memorandum,
and each gets a chapter. With the Swanson marginalia, Marriott questions the authenticity of the handwriting and he
hired a handwriting expert who contacted him very soon after receiving the handwriting samples he had provided.
“There were significant differences...” she said. Marriott had been strongly advised not to use a graphologist. They
may take themselves seriously and have the trappings to go with it, but it takes mere minutes on the internet to see
that graphology is generally regarded as a pseudoscience like palmestry or reading tea leaves. So, who was Marriott’s
expert? She was Diane Simpson (www.nyc.co.uk/diane.hmtl), a member of the British Institute of Graphologists and the
Graphology Society, and the author of Graphology with Diane Simpson and Your Handwriting and You. No offence to Ms
Simpson, but was her opinion to be preferred to that Dr Christopher Davies, MA, Dphil, (www.forensic-access.co.uk),
who joined the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory in 1981 and worked there until 2010?
In the remainder of the book Marriott details his efforts to get a Special Branch “file” opened to public inspection.
I’m not sure how meritable these efforts were, but they came to nothing, as Marriott describes at great length. This

detailed, first-hand account is the only thing that gives the book its long-term value, but I’m not sure how objective
it is. Marriott presented his evidence in a document which he proudly tells us ran to an impressive 44 pages and which
he believed amounted to “a very strong case”. He “was quietly confident of winning the day,” but the information
commissioners didn’t see it the same way. Of the 44 page report they wrote, “It has to be said that much of it was pure
argument, rather than factual evidence.” There was none of this in Marriott’s book.
Marriott did manage to uncover three new “suspects”, but try as he might he can’t elevate their significance above
that of the average drunk who confessed at the local police station. Potentially far more important was a name he was
told about but did not actually see. Marriott was told that the “files” contained another entry which read, “perpetrator
of the Whitehapel murders. R Churchill”, and it was suggested that this was Lord Randolph Churchill, the father of
Winston Churchill. Marriott acknowledges that Lord Randolph had already been connected with the Ripper and he says
he was mentioned in Mike Holgate’s Jack the Ripper: The Celebrity Suspects. Marriott seems wholly unaware that Lord R
was also mentioned by Melvyn Fairclough in The Ripper and the Royals (1991), Fairrclough’s source being Joseph Sickert.
If the “files” do indeed contain a reference to R Churchill as the perpetrator, then Lord Randolph has to be reassessed,
as does Joseph’s story!
Marriott’s grammar and punctuation is appalling. The writing is dreadful. The trouble with this is that from time
to time you don’t know what he’s talking about. Overall, unless you want a long and detailed account of how Trevor
Marriott failed to open some closed files, this book is a waste of time.
Review by Paul Begg
Jack the Ripper At Last? The Mysterious Murders of George Chapman

Helena Wojtczak
Sussex: The Hastings Press, 2013
www.hastingspress.co.uk
272pp; illus; biblio; appendices; index
Hardback: ISBN: 978-1904-109-273; £20.00 (November, 2013)
Paperback: ISBN: 978-1904-109-228; £12.99 (January 2014)
We have had to wait more than a century for the first reliable and fully accurate account of George
Chapman’s life.
Helena Wojtczak’s long-awaited study of George Chapman is a major work of biography. Her research
has been extensive and painstaking, not just into Chapman’s life and criminal career but the lives of
his victims and their families. It offers a gripping narrative on perhaps the most sensational case of
criminal poisoning from the late Victorian and early Edwardian age, and sheds new light on these dreadful murders and
the man who committed them.
Between 1897 and 1902, George Chapman worked as a publican in Bishop’s Stortford and London. With him was a
succession of women who appear to have been content to masquerade as his wife in feigned marriages. He liked his ladies
slightly on the plump side, otherwise glowing with teenage high spirits and vitality - all the better to malnourish and
waste away. Chapman’s poison was tartar emetic, a yellowish-white powder containing the toxic substance antimony.
His three victims died slowly and horribly, and in excruciating, lingering distress. Ms Wojtczak does not spare us the
queasy details - the sickroom stench of vomit and diarrhoea is never too far away. Chapman was also an abortionist,
using his favourite green rubber syringe to force chemicals into the womb of nineteen-year-old Maud Marsh, who
more than anything wished to become a mother. There is a goosebumps moment – the book is full of them – when we
catch sight of Chapman washing his syringe and steeping it in a half-pint tumbler of water on the kitchen windowsill,
demonstrating far more concern for the servicing of his poison equipment than he ever showed for the well-being and
sexual health of the women in his life.
The fact that Chapman managed to evade suspicion for so long attests to the failure of the medical profession not
only to detect his criminal acts but to even consider the possibility of malefaction in the first place. In his summing-
up at Chapman’s trial, Mr Justice Grantham rightly castigated a procession of local practitioners and the staff at
Guy’s Hospital for their abominable dereliction of care. And yet, as the doctors themselves protested, what were they
expected to do? Chapman was a consummate gameplayer, devious, calculating, charming and always plausible, who
acted the role of distraught, grieving husband to perfection. He succeeded in fooling not only the professionals and the

live-in carers but the families of the victims as well, who could only watch in despair as their loved ones died slowly and
painfully in front of them.
Accordingly, the fascination of this case lies as much with the individual psychopathology of Chapman as with the
insights it gives us into the care and treatment of female patients at the turn of the nineteenth century. While the author
accepts that we may never truly understand the motives for Chapman’s murders, I found her analysis and interpretation
of events to be startlingly original and very convincing. We only have to compare Ms Wojtczak’s careful arguments
with the nonsense from previous commentators about three-in-a-bed romps and dismembered human remains beneath
floorboards, to realise there is an altogether sharper intellect at work here.
The author traces the course of Chapman’s life from his humble origins in rural Poland through to the beer cellars of
fin de siècle Southwark. Almost every page contains new research or a fresh idea, a correction to the historical record
or a debunking of a trusted and respected authority who has failed to check his or her facts. The author comments: “I
have yet to read an account of [Chapman’s] life, no matter how brief – and no matter how eminent the writer – that
is correct in every detail.” She shows how misinformation about Chapman began at his trial with unreliable witness
evidence and racist counsel, and how it has been sustained ever since through wild press conjecture and the outpourings
of memoirists and true crime writers who have unquestioningly passed on lies and errors. Several contemporary authors
are singled out for especial censure.
She discusses at length the theory that George Chapman was Jack the Ripper. Inspector Frederick Abberline was the
first person of note to espouse this theory in a series of interviews with the Pall Mall Gazette in 1903. But afterwards he
fell quiet on the subject and never mentioned it again. One imagines he was simply embarrassed by his earlier advocacy.
After reading Jack the Ripper At Last?, surely the definitive biography, I suspect there are going to be many more pundits
similarly embarrassed by their published pronouncements on Chapman.
It is a real delight to come across a work of such unarguably superior merit and significance.
Review by David Green
The Fifth Victim

Antonia Alexander
London: John Blake Publishing, 2013
www.johnblakepublishing.co.uk
200pp, illus, some in colour
Softcover/Kindle
£11.99/£4.79
The author is a 26-year-old mother of two who currently lives in Swansea and she claims to be the
great-great-granddaughter of Mary Kelly, supposed to be the fifth and last victim of Jack the Ripper,
but neither she nor John Blake can be so naïve as to suppose that anyone will accept such a claim
without a lot of evidence. Antonia Alexander offers none worth mentioning, she doesn’t even include
a photograph of her grandmother, from whom she first heard the story, as she is today, or of the locket
containing a picture of the man Alexander thinks was Jack the Ripper.
And that man is Sir John Williams.
Sir John is an absolute non-starter as a suspect. First advanced by Tony Williams in a piece of nonsense called Uncle
Jack which was exposed as utter rubbish in a magazine article by Jenny Shelden, Tony Williams has since volunteered
no new information, but Sir John has refused to die and appears in a piece of taradiddle called Hand of a Woman which
claimed that Jack wasn’t Sir John but his wife.
All three books have a similar “feel” about them, the plotting and writing are pretty much the same, and if you didn’t
know better you’d be forgiven for thinking that all three books were by Tony Williams. Anyway, The Fifth Victim reeks
of a con and if it is then it’s sad to see Blake caught up in it.
Review by Paul Begg

Jack the Ripper: The Terrible Legacy
The Whitechapel Society
Introduction by Robin Odell
The History Press (2013)
96pp, illustrated
Paperback
£9.99
This second collection of essays by members of the Whitechapel Society takes as its theme the effect
the murders had on the lives of other people, some witness to them and others about as far removed as
one could be, some distanced by geography and others, like the Royal Family, by social status.
The book kicks off with an essay by Clare Smith on the the way Inspector Abberline has been
depicted on screen, principally by Michael Caine and Johnny Depp.
Other contributors include Mickey Mayhew on the Royal Family, Andrew O’Day on Richard Mansfield, Alfred Beadle
on Carrie Brown (the author was actually William Beadle. I have no idea why the book calls him “Alfred”), and George
Fleming considers how the murders tainted Sir Charles Warren. Groups of people are the subject of Adrian Morris, who
looks at the Irish, Jacqueline Murphy, the Jews, Yasha Beresiner, the Freemasons, and Ted Ball, innocent bystanders.
Presiding over all is an interesting and informed introduction by Robin Odell.
Review by Paul Begg
CRIME
The Peculiar Case of the Electric Constable: A Tale of Passion, Poison, & Pursuit
Carol Baxter
London: One World Publications, 2013
391pp., illustrated
£12.99 / $17.95
Here’s a tricky trivia question: who invented the electric telegraph? If you answer Samuel Morse
you get an “A” for name recognition, but an “F” for historical accuracy. Morse’s telegraph was the
first successful American instrument. However, it was presented publicly in March 1844 in Washington,
DC. Earlier, in 1837, Charles Wheatstone and William Fothergill Cooke presented the first successful
telegraph in London, England. Wheatstone and Cooke have been unfairly overshadowed by Morse
because he also invented a signalling code that is still in use. Also his telegraph was simpler. But
the Wheatstone and Cooke deviced operated with growing but slow acceptance for seven full years.
There was public curiosity but nothing meriting fascination with the invention. It was somewhat
cumbersome and also incomplete: it did not use all the letters of the alphabet.
This changed forever on 1 January 1845. On that day a woman known as “Sarah Hart” was found by a neighbor dying
in agony in her house at Salt Hill near the town of Slough, England. The neighbor had run into a man leaving Ms Hart’s
home who was wearing the traditional costume of a Quaker. As soon as a local physician acknowledged that Ms Hart
was dead (and it looked like it could be murder) this mysterious Quaker was sought for questioning. He was eventually
traced to the local train station, but had just departed. Desperately his pursuers decided to use the Wheatstone and
Cooke telegraph. A message was sent to Paddington Station to detain this individual. The lack of the letter “Q” forced

the message to respell the word “Quaker” as “Kwaker”, which briefly confused the recipients of the message in London,
but they did find the individual and followed him. The following day they managed to detain and arrest him with police
assistance.
The capture of this man, one John Tawell, has been mentioned in passing through many books on criminal history. It
is the 19th Century’s version of the arrests of Dr Hawley Crippen and Ms Ethel Le Neve in 1910 with the aid of wireless
telegraphy. But there are many books on Dr Crippen (the latest being Thunderstruck by Eric Larson). There has not been
an individual study on Tawell. This has been rectified by the Australian criminal historian Carol Baxter with her excellent
The Peculiar Case of the Electric Constable. Ms Baxter is in a great position to write a detailed account of Tawell’s
career. Tawell was like a shooting star - rising up and gleaming through the heavens, but falling to earth as a burned out
meteor. A clever man - possibly too clever for his own good - he was a sharp witted go-getter with a mind for business.
However he wanted business success and respectability. He was also deeply impressed by the Quakers who seemed to
embody all he wanted by their simple style of living and their frequent financial success. He was accepted but he was
thrown out in 1814 when he committed an attempt at forgery of bank notes. This was punishable by death in 1814, but
Tawell got transported to New South Wales. Ironically this piece of misfortune was his good luck. Tawell (as a salesman
for drug concerns) knew about pharmacology, and eventually set up the first drug store in Australia. He branched out
and invested in land as well. Eventually he made a small fortune. After his term in prison ended he returned to England.
He hoped to gain readmittance to the Quakers, but despite his good works in general and for the Quakers he was not
officially readmitted (he was allowed to pray at their meetings with them).
It is the Australian career of Tawell that has prevented a full account of him to appear so far. Ms Baxter, an expert
on Australian crime, research, and geneology, was placed by geography in a position to show what Tawell’s Australian
years were like. In fascinating detail she shows his rise from convict to clerk to entrepreneur to merchant prince and
land owner and model citizen. He would create many firsts in Australia, including being the first man to give veterinary
medicine to a horse. Public spirited, he would donate the property for the first Quaker Chapel in Australia. He also would
do a well known publicity moment to preach abstinence from alcohol by dumping liquor he had purchased into Sidney
Harbor in 1836.
But the bulk of the story ties up the successful ex-convict with the poisoning death (by prussic acid, apparently) of
Sarah Hart. She was Tawell’s former servant, then mistress, and mother of his two illegitimate children. With lucid and
skillful prose Ms Baxter builds up the story of Tawell after he was returned to Slough and faced a far more serious charge
than forgery. The author shows how even today there are problems with Tawell’s trial. Was the evidence of poisoning in
the trial of 1845 adequate for the level of proof a jury would require in 2013? Did prosecution witnesses lie at the trial?
Was Tawell’s defense team (an expensive one) good or poor at their job? Did the Judge misdirect the trial jury? Finally
was there a confession that actually gave the lie to the prosecution’s “scientific” case? All these points are brilliantly
discussed by Ms Baxter, and leave the reader satisfied by her conclusions. This is a book well worth reading for a crime’s
impact on technology and on the early days of forensic science.
Review by Jeffrey Bloomfield
The Little Book of Murder

Neil R Storey
Stroud: The History Press
192pp, illustrated
£9.99
Shortly before the 2007 Jack the Ripper Conference in Wolverhampton, the event’s compere - the
late, great Jeremy Beadle - released a number of books chock full of his favourite topic: factual
oddities and curios. Titled Firsts, Last and Onlys, the series included a book on Crime, which for a
small volume provided an enormous number of facts and figures. It was both hugely enjoyable and
informative in equal measure. Sadly, Jeremy died soon afterwards.
With the 125th Anniversary Conference fast approaching, it’s appropriate that one of the speakers,
Neil R Storey, has resurrected the concept and assumed the (unwieldy) mantle of Compiler of Criminal
Compendiums. A veteran of approaching twenty books on crime, his series The Little Book of... began
innocently enough in 2011 with The Little Book of Norfolk, followed by The Little Book of Great Britain

(2012), before things took a sinister turn with The Little Book of Death, released earlier this year. The logical title next
in this sequence has happily just been published.
The Little Book of Murder is a joy. As Mr Storey comments in his introduction, the book can be read from cover to
cover, or dipped into when a few spare minutes present themselves. Obscure cases sit side-by-side with those more well-
known such as the Whitechapel murders, Crippen and the Boston Strangler in chapters including ‘Murderous Britain’,
‘Poisoners’ and ‘Dismemberment and Trunks’, all generously illustrated and packed with information, despite each case
being outlined in two pages and often less.
The final chapter, ‘A Date with Murder’, presents a calendar of crime starting with The Pimlico Mystery of 1 January
1886 and ending with the murder of Isabelle Cooke on 28 December 1957. In between are dozens of dark deeds spanning
a period of 150 years, written in bite-sized chunks guaranteed to increase your knowledge of criminals, their crimes and
their victims. Despite its title, The Little Book of Murder earns a big recommendation.
Review by Adam Wood
OVER 200 JACK THE RIPPER AND ASSOCIATED TITLES ON LAYBOOKS.COM
INTRODUCING A NEW FEATURE: ‘MAKE ME AN OFFER’!

If I have a higher priced title on the website which, in the current climate, is a little out of reach financially for you, please feel
free to make contact via www.laybooks.com and, literally, make me an offer.
Please don’t feel embarrassed - I will consider all offers made and get back to you with a yes or no, or possibly negotiate.
I will be listing the titles that are available over the next week or so, and will include any ‘newly added’ titles which fall into this
category as I catalogue them.
Ripper-related titles available for you to Make Me an Offer include:
A CASEBOOK ON JACK THE RIPPER. Whittington-Egan (Richard), MYSTERIES OF POLICE AND CRIME. VOLS I, II and III. Griffiths
£250.00 (Major Arthur), £85.00
AN EYE TO THE FUTURE. THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS. Cory PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. VOLS. 93-96 (1888),
(Patricia), £150.00 £120.00
I CAUGHT CRIPPEN. Dew (Ex-Chief Insp. Walter) Memoirs of, THE JACK THE RIPPER A TO Z. Begg/Fido/Skinner, £60.00
£450.00
THE KILLER WHO NEVER WAS: A RE-APPRAISAL OF THE
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS, Plimmer WHITECHAPEL MURDERS OF 1888. Turnbull (Peter), £140.00
(John F), £80.00
THE LIGHTER SIDE OF MY OFFICIAL LIFE. Anderson (Sir Robert),
JACK THE MYTH: A NEW LOOK AT THE RIPPER. Wolf (A P), £100.00 £250.00
JACK THE RIPPER. Farson (Daniel), £60.00 THE NECESSITY FOR CRIMINAL APPEAL AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE
MAYBRICK CASE AND THE VARIOUS JURISPRUDENCE OF VARIOUS
JACK THE RIPPER, A NEW THEORY. Stewart (William), £1,600.00 COUNTRIES. Levy (J H ) Ed. by, £500.00
JACK THE RIPPER: OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS. Colby-Newton WHO WAS JACK THE RIPPER? A COLLECTION OF PRESENT-DAY
(Katie), £60.00 THEORIES AND OBSERVATIONS. Wolff (Camille) compiled by,
£200.00
JACK THE RIPPER IN FACT AND FICTION. Odell (Robin), £50.00
JACK THE RIPPER REVEALED. Wilding (John), £130.00

The Mitre Tavern, Hatton Garden
From the Gentle Author’s London Album. See page xx

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134 October 2013

JENNIFER SHELDEN on The Fifth Victim by Antonia Alexander

The Mystery of Fabio Borini, empireofthekop.com, 14 September 2013

GUY LOGAN VS JACK THE RIPPER EDITORS

A GERMAN POLICEMAN IN LONDON COLUMNISTS

With our colleague Paul Begg still in hospital (he was

Adding to the list serious health issues being suffered by

into perspective the online arguments and bitterness often

Life’s too short.

Ripperologist 134 October 2013 1

Guy Bertie Harris Logan was born at St Leonards-on-Sea,

Ripperologist 134 October 2013 2

Ripperologist 134 October 2013 3

In 1905, the editor of the Illustrated Police

Guy Logan’s novel The True History of Jack the

In his novel, Guy adhered to what can

Ripperologist 134 October 2013 4

Guy Logan and George R Sims moved in

Ripperologist 134 October 2013 5

Ripperologist 134 October 2013 6

Ripperologist 134 October 2013 7

Ripperologist 134 October 2013 8

The True History of Jack the Ripper

Ripperologist 134 October 2013 9

The gardens of this rural Bedlam were the

The two men – of a height, both tall and spare

Ripperologist 134 October 2013 10

Mortemer Slade had also

Ripperologist 134 October 2013 11

After dinner, at which Dr Kent

The patients – ‘guests’ as Dr

‘Is that you, Dagenham?’ he asked.

Ripperologist 134 October 2013 12

‘Seven or eight minutes,’ replied the

‘Hurry up, then,’ said Slade, turning up

Ripperologist 134 October 2013 13

The True History of Jack the Ripper:

The earliest full-length English-language work of fiction to be entirely

There is a limited number of copies for Ripperologist readers at a reduced

Ripperologist 134 October 2013 14

Watch your thoughts; they become words.

The 125th Victim

In Captain Cook’s Footsteps

1 Alexander, 2013, p.29.

2 Williams, 1994, p.39.

6 Williams, 2011, p.18.

Ripperologist 134 October 2013 17

Ripperologist 134 October 2013 18

The Fifth Victim - Illustrations Cross referenced

1 Sir John Williams Uncle Jack, 2005 (widely available)

2 Lizzie Williams Uncle Jack, 2005 (widely available)

3 ‘Nan’ (Antonia Alexander’s Grandmother)

4 Knife Uncle Jack, 2005 (close up of)

6 Catherine Eddowes’s grave Taken same day as Uncle Jack, 2011

7 Mary Kelly’s grave Taken same day as Uncle Jack, 2011

7 Alexander, 2013, p. 29.

Ripperologist 134 October 2013 19

9 Williams, 2005, pp. 17-18.

Uncle Jack, pp. 53-54, quotes the text as follows: