Ripperologist 141

No.
141 December 2014
Elisabeth
Stride
in Life?
DANIEL OLSSON
examines the evidence
LINDA STRATMANN on the history

of the Illustrated Police News
ADAM WOOD on Sherlock Holmes

and the Case of the Polish Jew
JOE CHETCUTI reports on the

trial of an officer and a gentleman
JAN BONDESON on True Crime

writer Horace Wyndham
OBITUARY OF PROFESSOR WILLIAM J FISHMAN

2014 RIPPER CONFERENCE REVIEW
NINA AND HOWARD BROWN

SPITALFIELDS LIFE | PRESS TRAWL | VICTORIAN FICTION
Ripperologist 118 January 2011 1
Quote for the month
“There is nothing to state these items did not belong to Constable Edward Watkins. The provenance
as stated is strong, and these items, obviously, could have been collected by him over his career.
However, I would be very surprised if Watkins was carrying these items when he found Eddowes, and
would go as far as to say the whistle would definitely not have been upon his person that night.”
Police historian Neil Bell on a collection of items supposedly belonging to PC Edward Watkins
which sold for almost £18,000 earlier this month.
See I Beg to Report
Ripperologist 141
December 2014
EDITORIAL: MYTH AND REALITY: EXECUTIVE EDITOR
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE OF 1914 Adam Wood
by Christopher T George
EDITORS
THE FACE OF LIZ STRIDE Gareth Williams
by Daniel Olsson Eduardo Zinna
CRUEL DEEDS AND DREADFUL CALAMITIES REVIEWS EDITOR

by Linda Stratmann Paul Begg
SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE CASE OF THE POLISH JEW EDITOR-AT-LARGE

by Adam Wood Christopher T George
HOW THINGS GOT DONE: COLUMNISTS

AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN ON TRIAL Nina and Howard Brown
by Joe Chetcuti Chris Scott
The Gentle Author
HORACE WYNDHAM: NEW LIGHT ON
ARTWORK
AN OBSCURE TRUE CRIME AUTHOR
Adam Wood
by Jan Bondeson
ROSYLN D’ONSTON: UNDER FIVE FLAGS
Nina and Howard Brown
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CHRIS SCOTT’S PRESS TRAWL www.facebook.com/ripperologist
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infringement as defined in domestic laws and international agreements and give rise to civil liability and criminal prosecution.
Myth and Reality:
The Truth about the
Christmas Truce of 1914
EDITORIAL by CHRISTOPHER T GEORGE
I recently joined the Wonderful World of Twitter

under the handle @CThompsonGeorge. In this capacity,
I ‘tweet out’, among other things, on the Whitechapel
Murders and War of 1812 history, my two main interests
in the area of historical research. I have also subscribed
to a number of Twitter feeds on military and general
history, archaeology, art, literature, etc. Included among
those feeds are ones from World War I historians with
this past year having been memorably the centennial
of the Great War. This autumn I became aware that
some of these historians of the war had severe doubts
about the true nature of the famous ‘Christmas Truce’
WW1 soldiers playing football: did the truce happen as believed?
in 1914 that saw the German and British soldiers play an
organised football match (or matches) during the truce. The truth about the truce is not quite what
most people think, although a number of new memorials and a Sainsbury’s television commercial
continue to reinforce the popular myth. (See www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWF2JBb1bvM).
The public has a great need to see a neat solution to historical problems. Thus, the Whitechapel Murderer is, in the
imagination of the general public, a ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ type of figure, a toff in dark cloak and top hat who ventures into
the Whitechapel darkness to wreak vengeance on street walkers. This is a stereotype of course that has been reinforced
by Hollywood movies and other dramatic treatments despite the lack of clear evidence that ‘Jack’ was either such a
well-to-do toff or anyone other than a local man.
Thus, similarly, the Christmas Truce of 1914 was not quite the universally observed cosy affair that the public might
think. Jonathan Boff wrote in November on his ‘Thoughts on the First World War’ blog:
I have deep reservations about the Sainsbury’s ad. As a historian, I think the representation of the truce
plays into a stereotype of Christmas 1914 which is rooted in often weak evidence, much of it based either
on hearsay at the time or emerging in reminiscences 20 or (sometimes many) more years after the war, by
which time ‘memories’ have got overlaid with multiple other myths and agendas. A classic example would
be Henry Williamson, whose memoirs for many historians are tainted by his association with fascism in the
1930s and 1940s.
Partly as a consequence of this, partly because of the flattening media effect whereby the particular trumps
—and often stands for—the general, the true historical context of those truces has been lost. That some
truces did occur is beyond doubt. That someone kicked an improvised ball about is highly likely. But that’s
a long way 1) from saying there was a general truce and 2) from the sad and unpleasant fact that many or
most of the truces which occurred were for the much more pragmatic and distasteful purpose of burying
corpses. The need to respect the dead and prevent disease was much more pressing than goodwill and sharing
chocolate.1
1 Jonathan Boff, ‘Sainsbury’s, Christmas and #ww1’ on ‘Thoughts on the First World War’ blog. Entry of 13 November 2014 at
jonathanboff.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/sainsburys-christmas-and-ww1
Ripperologist 141 December 2014 1

Blogger and librarian Anna E Matthews tweeted out on Christmas Day this year: ‘It wasn’t all Xmas truce.’ Ms Matthews,
a 2013/14 Clore Fellow, composer and Devon Libraries project manager, wrote on her WordPress blog ‘Diary of the Great
War’ that 25 December 1914 would be
The 144th day of the war. Seven British naval airmen, assisted by HMS Arethusa and Undaunted, and
submarines, attack enemy warships off Cuxhaven, and are opposed by two Zeppelins, three or four seaplanes,
and by submarines. Flight-Commander Francis E T Hewlett, RN, missing, otherwise no casualties.2
Neither were the British and German front lines filled with back slapping universal good spirits that the Sainsbury’s
ad might imply. The Liverpool Echo noted in their Christmas Eve edition this year, ‘the seasonal cessation of hostilities,
which has become so famous, was not observed on all stretches of the front line.’ The newspaper added, ‘there were
still 136 recorded deaths among the United Kingdom’s forces on December 25, 1914.’3
As for the football, it does seem as if there is enough evidence to say that ‘up to 15 ad hoc matches took place along
the Western Front, [but] the evidence of an organised meeting between the British and Germans in no-man’s-land to
play football a century ago is thin...’4 In other words, what games that were played were ‘scratch matches’ rather than
ones that were properly organised.
The diary of Lieutenant Charles Brockbank of the Cheshire Regiment gives us a glimpse of what really happened a
hundred years ago on one section of the Western Front. As Ian Herbert in The Independent tells us, Brockbank ‘laid out
his daily testimony in black ink, capable, as he was, of stepping outside the physical agonies which were befalling the
6th Battalion and consigning them to paper’:
His Christmas Day entry is testament to a night the

likes of which we will not experience—‘the most
agonising I have ever had,’ as Brockbank described
it, enduring what reads like the onset of frostbite
until 4.30am, when even the threat of sniper fire
cannot deter him from stamping around in the mist
of the frozen dawn.
Then, a momentary release, rounding up hens with
his compatriots on a deserted farm behind the
lines. And then ‘the most extraordinary incident’,
Brockbank wrote. A cease to the firing at 2.30pm
and ‘the Germans started shouting to us to “come
out” and “have a drink” and also climbing about
in the trenches. One of them came out in front
without rifle or arms, as one of ours went out
too. A huge crowd formed... We had found a little
rubber ball so, of course a football match came off British and German soldiers during the WW1 Christmas Truce of 1914
and we exchanged various things...’
Note the casual description of the object which served as a football because it was not the laced-up pig’s
bladder which belongs to the legend of how two sides played out a game of football 100 years ago tomorrow,
perpetuated by the film Oh! What a Lovely War, the Sainsbury’s TV advertisement this Christmas and countless
others in between.5
2 Anna E Matthews. Tweet of 25 December 2014 from Anna @exeteranna and ‘Diary of the Great War.’ Blog entry for 25 December
2014 at dailydiaryww1.wordpress.com/2014/12/25/december-25-1914.
3 Catherine Jones, ‘Liverpool heroes still died on day of World War I Christmas truce,’ Liverpool Echo, Liverpool, UK, 24 December
2014 at www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/liverpool-heroes-still-died-day-8341650.
4 Ian Herbert, ‘The muddy truth of the Christmas Truce game. A new exhibition reveals that tales of an arranged football match
during the First World War are not quite as digestible as previously offered’, The Independent, London, UK, 23 December 2014
at www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/the-muddy-truth-of-the-christmas-truce-game-9943140.html.
That fraternization took place is borne out in newspapers of the time. See ‘The Story of the 1914 Christmas Truce as Reported in
WWI Newspapers’ at British Newspaper Archive entry of 19 December 2014 at blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2014/12/19/
the-story-of-the-1914-christmas-truce-as-reported-by-ww1-newspapers.
5 Herbert, op cit.

All Together Now by Stoke-on-Trent sculptor Andy Edwards on display in Liverpool this month
That there were no officially sanctioned matches makes sense because an organised match would require the approval
of the officers, and as history would show, the high command would henceforth attempt to clamp down on fraternisation
up to the war’s end on 11 November 1918, with Christmas 1914 alone being the time when that ‘feel good’ fraternisation
that has become famous most occurred.
Of the events in 1914, Captain Robert Hamilton of the 1st battalion Royal Warwickshire noted: ‘I am told the general
and staff are furious—but powerless to stop it.’ Indeed, when General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien heard of the socialising
with the enemy on 27 December 1914, he wrote in a confidential memorandum that ‘this is only illustrative of the
apathetic state we are gradually sinking into.’ He threatened disciplinary action to avoid a repeat of such behaviour.6
Even more darkly perhaps, a Bavarian dispatch runner, Heinrich Lugauer, later recounted that a fellow dispatch
runner voiced strong disapproval of the 1914 Christmas Truce. That chap was one Adolf Hitler, a character we often
more associate with the second great world conflict but whose psyche and moreover political motivations and strategy
were in many ways formed by the Great War—Hitler’s Nazis, indeed, would make ‘hay’ on the perceived humiliation
that the Kaiser’s Germany received at the hands of the victorious Allies. Whether Lugauer was gilding the lily or not,
he said Hitler was adamant that the sporadic truces between the Germans and the opposing forces were wrong and a
mistake. Lugauer maintained that Hitler made the statement at the time that ‘Something like this should not even be
up for discussion during wartime.’7
Despite the disapproval of the high command on both sides, Thomas Weber, the author of Hitler’s First War: Adolf
Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War, has unearthed evidence, including a letter written by a
soldier of Scottish descent serving with a Canadian regiment, which suggests that festive ceasefires continued to take
place throughout the war but were often downplayed in official war records. Fraternisation was bad for morale, after
all. Weber argues that the high command purposely ordered heavy artillery, machine gun, and sniper fire in anticipation
of new Christmas truces, and as a consequence any new truces were small-scale and localized to a greater extent than
the events of 1914 and as such are generally overlooked by the history books.8
6 Raf Casert, Associated Press, ‘Christmas 1914: The Day Even World War I Showed Humanity’ 24 December 2014 on Military.com
News at www.military.com/daily-news/2014/12/24/christmas-1914-the-day-even-world-war-i-showed-humanity.html.
7 Lugauer quote in Thomas Weber, Hitler’s First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2010.
8 Weber, op cit. Also discussion in in Joanne Ruston, ‘The Reality of the Mythic Christmas Truces of World War I’ review of Dr Weber’s
book posted 21 December 2010 at www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=31690.

The Face of
Liz Stride
By DANIEL OLSSON
For many years the victims of Jack the Ripper were as faceless as their murderer. Then, in the
sixties, Donald Rumbelow found photographs of the poor broken bodies of Catherine Eddowes and
Mary Jane Kelly among artefacts which had belonged to a City Police museum which closed down
in the Fifties. A couple of decades later, on the anniversary of the murders, mortuary photographs
of Annie Chapman, Mary Ann Nichols and Elizabeth Stride came to light. Finally, Neal Shelden
found a photograph of Annie Chapman in the possession of her descendants. We were at least
able to see one of these women, not on a marble slab, her features distorted by fear, disease and
death, but when she was alive and well and her future was still full of promise.
Since Neal Shelden discovered Annie’s photograph, there have been several photographs
purporting to show the Ripper victims in life. Once or twice photographs have been
published which were said to be of Mary Jane Kelly. None of them, however, proved to
be genuine.
If you do an image search of Liz Stride on Google, you will get a number of photographs.
But they are all reproductions of the mortuary photograph, which of course is genuine. A
couple of years ago, an image surfaced which was described as being a photograph of Liz,
taken in 1872 or, according to some sources, 1869. This photograph is now widespread
throughout the media; it has been posted on several not very scholarly websites and
reproduced in some even less scholarly books. Many people have come to think that the
photograph is indeed that of a young Liz, taken in 1869, when she was 26 years old, or
1872, when she was 29.
Several months ago, a popular Swedish magazine, Svenska
öden & äventyr (Swedish Destinies and Adventures), ran a five-
Annie Chapman; the only photograph
page special article on Liz which included the photograph and
of a Ripper victim in life stated that it showed Liz in her youth. I contacted the magazine
© Neal Shelden / The Chapman family
publishers and asked them why they had run the photograph
saying that it was a genuine likeness of Liz. What did they answer? They replied that
the photograph was indeed genuine. Several websites on the internet say so. Wow, the
internet! Talk about a reliable source.
The photograph has been discussed on several websites, including Casebook: Jack the
Ripper. But, as far as I know, nobody has tried to trace its origins. So my good friend
Wulvaricht and I decided we would. Elisabeth Stride?
We were pretty sure that the photograph must have come from a webpage because of its low resolution. We
were also sure that the caption of the photograph was nothing like Elizabeth Stride, or Jack the Ripper victim.
We knew that if we searched for either caption on Google we would get nowhere. What we needed was a program
that would recognize the photograph regardless of its caption. It is possible to do this type of search through
Google, but its program has many flaws. It does not derive enough elements from an image but merely searches
for images with similar colour and contrasts. We used instead a software called TinEye. Its manufacturer describes
it as a ‘reverse image search engine built by Idée currently in beta.’ Give it an image and it will tell you where it
appears on the web.

We got several hits, some of which led to pages connected
with the Ripper case, but the most Interesting was a
webpage dedicated to Victorian fashion: sensibility.com/
vintageimages/victorian.
The photograph displayed on this website was uncropped
and in its original size. Now, looking at the full photograph
(right), you quickly realise that it does not show a poor
Victorian girl, but a model in a stylish dress. The photograph
which appears on Ripper websites, by contrast, is always
cropped. Looking at it in this form even I get the impression
that it shows a sad, poor girl.
I decided to contact the company which had published
the photograph on its homepage. I asked them about the
whereabouts of the photograph and, in particular, whether
they could date the image by looking at the dress. I soon got
a reply from Jennie Chancey. She wrote:
I don’t own the photo - it came from a bunch of CDVs

[Cartes de Visite] that were sold on eBay years ago and
was in a lot of others that included pictures of the
lady’s family members. I’m afraid I didn’t keep any
detailed information, but I’m quite sure she wasn’t
Elisabeth Stride! I would say this picture was taken
somewhere between 1885 and 1895.
Some time later, Jennie contacted me again and told me

that she and her colleagues had re-examined the picture and
wanted to backdate it quite a bit. She wrote:
It's solidly 1860s - most likely 1860-1865 because of the

sleeve shape and the fact that the waist is right on the
natural waist (1850s gowns tend to have longer ‘V’ fronts or be shorter in the waist). It's not post 1866,
because the skirt is still a circle that is off the group (rather than trailing in the back).
My next step was to try to trace the photograph’s seller. After weeks of mailing back and forth I
finally located him. He is an elderly gentleman, who wishes to remain anonymous. The girl in the
photograph was his great-grandmother, who worked at a dressmaker's based at Southampton, where
this gentleman still lives. From time to time, she modelled dresses for commercial purposes. And
she was not named Elizabeth but Catherine.
For those who still are in doubt, I have a few other thoughts on the photograph:
1. The photograph shows an adolescent and not a 29-year-old alcoholic. This is a point which those
who think the photograph is from 1872 should bear in mind.
2. In the mortuary photograph of Liz Stride, we can clearly see that she had curly hair. The girl in the
photograph did not.
Mortuary photograph 3. The photograph was dated 1884, when Liz was 41. There is no way that the girl in the photograph
of Liz Stride
could be a 41-year-old destitute woman who drank too much, ate too little and made ends meet
by any means within her reach.
4. Finally, the photograph was taken when Liz still lived in Sweden.
DANIEL OLSSON is a 37-year-old Ripperologist from Elisabeth Stride's hometown, Gothenburg. He has written several
articles for Ripperologist on the early life of Elisabeth in Sweden.
Cruel Deeds
and Dreadful Calamities
By LINDA STRATMANN
The Illustrated Police News was accused of many things, of trashy gutter journalism, of wallowing
in the gruesome and sensational at the expense of accuracy and blatantly inventing some of the
stories in its pages. All of these things were at times true, but during its 74 years of existence, the
IPN passed through several ownerships, was redesigned and reformatted many times, and subject
to different editorial policies. Its heyday was undoubtedly the period from 1865 to 1892 when it
was under the commanding and visionary leadership of George Purkess Jr. Often referred to as the
first tabloid newspaper, it was actually published in broadsheet form until 1894.
The IPN was born out of two traditions, the popular press, and cheap sensational illustrated magazines with
tales of crime and adventure, both fictional and true, originally known as ‘penny bloods’. The term ‘Penny
Dreadful’ was not coined until later, possibly by Anthony Trollope. Newspaper articles of the 1870s refer to ‘what
Mr Trollope calls “the Penny Dreadfuls”.1
An upsurge in standards of adult literacy in the early years of the nineteenth century had led to a demand for
reading material for all classes of society, but taxation on newspapers made them expensive. Cheaper illegally
produced radical newspapers sold well, however, and copies passed through many hands.
The penny newspaper was made possible by a series of events that made the news available to everyone; the
development of the fast-moving rotary printing press, distribution via the railway, and the abolition of duties
payable on paper, advertisements and newspapers. The Illustrated Police News first appeared on 20 February
1864 and was an imaginative and well-executed response to the need for affordable illustrated news reporting
for the masses.
Although it concentrated on crime and disaster, the quality of the publication and the proprietors’ statement
that they intended it to have an educational purpose, gave it the sheen of respectability. It was a socially
conscious and radical newspaper from the start, supporting an extension of the suffrage, fair and consistent
sentencing of criminals, especially juveniles, co-operative societies, fair wages for police constables and proper
housing for the working man and his family. The term ‘New Journalism’ had not yet been coined, but its crucial
features – stories with mass market appeal and striking illustrations – a style long denigrated by the heavyweight
press, exactly describes the content of the IPN.
In the 1860s, the only economical way to illustrate a newspaper was with wood engravings. These were produced
on boxwood blocks held together with an iron band. The engraver, using either a sketch or a photograph as
reference, drew the outlines on the wood with a pencil. The blocks were then separated so that several engravers
could work on the same image. A close examination of the wood-cuts in the IPN reveals fine lines showing where
the individual blocks met.
The IPN encouraged interaction with its readership. It provided answers to correspondents’ questions, gave
advice on legal matters, or facts about criminal cases, claiming that all questions relating to legal matters were
answered by an eminent barrister.
1 Lincolnshire Chronicle, 11 March 1870 p. 6

In 1865 ownership passed to George Purkess Jr, an ambitious young newsagent, whose drive, business sense,
dedication to quality and sound understanding of what the public wanted to read made the Illustrated Police News
a national institution and a byword for sensational content. Purkess, born in 1832, was the son of a newsagent
and bookseller with a shop in Soho’s Wardour Street. George senior sold radical newspapers and was an active
supporter of freedom of the press. He became a prolific publisher of a series known as Purkess’ Library of Romance.
Under George’s ownership, the front cover of the IPN, which had previously featured both text and illustrations,
became entirely pictorial. This gave ample scope for the dramatic portrayal of large scenes such as the Tay Bridge
disaster. Soon, the IPN was being sold in Australia, Canada and South Africa.
The tone of the publication was both authoritative and informative. Where possible, sketch artists were
sent to the site of an event to make their drawings, otherwise local people could be contacted by telegraph,
or newsagents in the vicinity would find someone suitable. ‘I know there exists a popular impression that our
illustrations are largely imaginative,’ said Purkess in 1886, ‘but as a matter of fact we are continually striving
for accuracy of delineation.’2 The reputation of the paper was such that the artists were allowed access even to
private scenes. On 26 January 1867, following a tragedy on the ice, the bodies were laid out in the Marylebone
workhouse, and the IPN artist was given permission to enter the building and sketch the identification of the
dead. In cases where such access was not possible the artist obtained photographs or interviewed witnesses to
reconstruct events. Like today’s Crimewatch, the paper also supplied pictures of wanted criminals or unidentified
bodies to assist the police.
Pictures of individuals were copied from photographs if
available, and if there were none, the artist interviewed
friends to obtain a description. In 1881 the body of Frederick
Gold was found in a railway tunnel, and a young man, Percy
Lefroy who had been travelling on the same train, was
missing. The hunt for the murderer was on, and even the
Daily Telegraph, which was not usually illustrated, took a
leaf out of the IPN’s book and published a likeness of the
wanted man.
The IPN dispatched an artist to sketch the body of Mr Gold
as it lay in the stables at the Railway Inn Balcombe. He also
sketched the Inn, complete with the name of Mr Lelliott the
publican above the door, and the village schoolroom, to which
the inquest was adjourned. A portrait of Lefroy was engraved
from a sketch made by someone who knew him and the IPN
claimed that it was ‘one of the best likenesses at present
extant.’3 When Lefroy was arrested and appeared in court
the IPN could not resist publishing its own picture beside that
of the Telegraph for comparison, and making a satirical dig at
the higher-priced papers poaching on its territory.
Percy Lefroy Mapleton in the Illustrated Police News, 5 November 1881
Where it is possible to compare illustrations from the IPN
with vintage photographs of locations, the accuracy is very
apparent. This suggests that illustrations made during the heyday of the IPN of places that were never the subject
of photographs contain valuable historical material.
An important service to readers was detailed information. On 16 February 1867, reporting on a murder on the
railway tracks, both illustrations and text were used ‘In order that our readers may understand the spot where
the body was found'. There followed a description of where the body was ‘found weltering in blood’4 sufficient to
take the curious to the exact location. These early pictures in the IPN are often the only pictorial record we have
of such incidents.
2 Pall Mall Gazette, 23 November 1886 p. 2

3 Illustrated Police News, 9 July 1881 p. 2
4 Illustrated Police News, 16 February 1867 p. 2

Where, during Purkess’s ownership, there were pictures that undoubtedly illustrated events that never
happened, the accompanying article makes it clear that these were not news items, but a thinly veiled social
campaign, usually illustrating subjects such as the dangers of alcohol, or tight-lacing.
The IPN was primarily driven by what would make a good illustration, and portrayed even minor events or
personal achievements, featuring people with whom the reader could readily identify, and which received
scant attention from other newspapers, although it also provided portraits of personalities in the news, such as
Cetewayo the Zulu King.
Although the IPN had no connection with the police force, it championed the constable on the beat as the
public’s first line of defence against crime, showing the dangers and discomforts of his work. In 1884 in the wake
of a number of dynamite attacks, the artist, who sometimes strayed into allegory to make his point, depicted a
constable as St George, fighting a many-headed dragon.
The IPN did not employ reporters, but relied heavily on extracting material from other papers. News-piracy in
the nineteenth century was not only commonplace, but allowable. Reuter’s telegrams, for example, which were
paid for by a subscribing newspaper, could be copied by another paper, with no payment or acknowledgment being
necessary. English law did not recognise copyright on news.
Naturally the graphic content of the pictures attracted criticism – and sales. ‘Despite opposition, cavillers, and
the small fry of pharisaical critics, and envious detractors,’ wrote the editor in 1868, announcing an enlargement
of the paper, ‘the Illustrated Police News has steadily increased in circulation, and has enjoyed an almost
unprecedented share of public patronage.’5 It was often claimed that impressionable readers of the IPN would be
encouraged to commit crimes, but the moral message of the paper was clear. One example of this is the stunning
illustration published on 14 May 1892 of condemned murderer and Ripper suspect Frederick Deeming, awaiting
execution and haunted by the shades of his victims. Clearly he is about to go straight to Hell.
Frederick Deeming in the Illustrated Police News, 14 May 1892
5 Illustrated Police News, 18 April 1868 p. 2

Often, however, the reader could be stirred not by shock, but by pity and compassion. A substantial proportion
of the IPN’s output was comment on the evils of society, such as poverty, disease and alcoholism. The plight of
the poor and the homeless was a constant theme. In 1868, a series of pictures drove the point home, illustrating
examples of social inequality.
The IPN frequently appealed to its readers to treat animals with kindness, encouraged opposition to vivisection,
and published many stories of the intelligence, courage and loyalty of dogs and horses. Nowadays a cursory glance
at the illustrations has suggested to many that the IPN wallowed in details of cruelty, but by reading the text it
becomes clear that the editor was stirred to anger at cruelty to the helpless – towards children, animals, servants,
wives, the poor and inmates of asylums. The IPN was one of the few newspapers of its day that openly abhorred
domestic abuse, at a time when wife-beating was often reported with levity by other papers.
Although there was little in the IPN specifically aimed at women, there was a substantial female readership.
The portrayal of women in the IPN is especially striking, showing that they could be just as daring, courageous,
or even cruel, as men. On 1 November 1879, for example, it featured a crew of splendid girls who carried out a
rescue at sea and saved a man and boy from drowning.
In 1886 the IPN received a singular accolade, being voted ‘The Worst Newspaper in England’ by readers of the
Pall Mall Gazette, which George Purkess took in good humour. The IPN then had a circulation of 300,000, outdone
by only four other popular weeklies.
The IPN is best known now for the illustrations relating to the series of Jack the Ripper murders. When the body
of Mary Ann Nicholls was found on 31 August 1888, the IPN had been running a series of illustrations on one of its
favourite topics – boxing – but these were now dropped and the Autumn of Terror, as it came to be known, and the
crimes of Jack the Ripper, were to be leading features for many months. Initially the corpse of Mary Ann could not
be identified, and a mortuary photograph was taken and circulated amongst workhouse officials. The picture in
the IPN compares well with the photo, which strongly suggests that the artist used it as the basis for his drawing.
In addition to the cut throat it shows the facial bruising thought to have been caused by the murderer’s hand. The
The Jack the Ripper case covered in the Illustrated Police News, 8 September 1888

Israel Lipski in the Illustrated Police News, 16 July 1887
photograph still exists, much faded with time, but the IPN artist’s copy is still crisp and clear. It should be noted
however that the best clarity of the IPN Ripper copies is to be obtained from the microfilms made in the 1950s
held by the British Library, since the recent digitised copies were made from the originals, which have faded over
the years. The paper reprints of the Ripper series created in 1974 are still widely available (and often sold with
claims that they are original!) but it is still possible to get a set at a reasonable price.
Also of interest to Ripperologists are the pictures that accompany the case of Israel Lipski. On 28 June 1887
Miriam Angel was found dead in bed at 16 Batty Street. She had swallowed nitric acid. The door was locked from
the inside, and underneath the bed was Lipski, who had swallowed a smaller amount of acid and was still alive.
Lipski lodged in the same house and was a stick maker who used the acid in his trade. He claimed that he and
Miriam had been attacked by two men. He was arrested and charged with murder.
The case became a cause célèbre, with the Pall Mall Gazette publishing a series of impassioned articles
declaring Lipski to be innocent. Purkess, however was not interested in this kind of campaign, neither did the
IPN as some other newspapers did, speculate on whether or not Mrs Angel had been raped. In the issue dated 9
July the IPN depicted crowds gathering around 16 Batty Street, and the doctor’s surgery on the corner of Batty
Street and Commercial Road, the teeming centre of the Polish and Jewish immigrant community. The sketch of
Lipski being found under Miriam Angel’s bed is a good likeness, and may have been taken from descriptions. For
the issue dated 16 July, the artist must have obtained admission to 16 Batty street where he drew Lipski’s room,
a scene of Lipski peering through a landing window into the Angels’ bedroom, and his search of the yard early on
28 June, an incident mentioned in court but which was not in the event, linked to the murder. The exterior of the
shop on the corner of Fairclough Street where the acid was bought includes the exterior advertisements, and is
surely accurate. Lipski eventually confessed his guilt and was hanged.
In December 1892 George Purkess died after a lengthy and painful battle with tuberculosis of the larynx. An
obituary in the Family Doctor and Medical Advisor, another of Purkess’s publications, stated ‘He was ever foremost
in all good works for the relief of the poor and afflicted, it being solely to his kind heart that the initiation of our
“Advice Gratis” columns and “Hospital Fund” was due’.
His nephew, 33-year-old Charles Shurey junior, who had been managing the newsagents’ shop originally owned
by George Purkess Sr, might have expected to inherit his uncle’s business, but instead George’s will directed that
his property should be sold and the proceeds invested to provide an income for his wife and daughter.

Charles Shurey hired editor, author and artist Harold Furniss, and founded a rival publication, the Illustrated
Police Budget, which was launched on 10 June 1893. He went on to establish the business of Shurey’s Publications.
The IPN was purchased by a company and soon afterwards became a tabloid. The pictures, which were now steel
engravings, rarely achieved the accuracy and quality of earlier years. This is a period of divorce, scandal, breach
of promise, correspondents, faithless spouses, and vengeful women. The ‘New Woman’ is much in evidence, clad
in bloomers on her bicycle, capturing burglars and running wild in the streets, all while tightly corseted and with
a fabulous décolletage.
The outbreak of the war in South Africa resulted in many double page battle scenes but no picture is more
heartrending to the modern reader than one published on 30 September 1899, of children dressed as soldiers,
(no doubt future volunteers in 1914) cheering on the departing troops. The Great War of 1914-1918 dominated
the paper with fiercely patriotic and anti-German articles, while the period immediately following reveals a
right-wing tone which would have alarmed the Victorian radicals; rife with racist, sexist and anti trade union
sentiments.
Boxing had always been a regular and popular feature, but to this
were added football, cricket and horse-racing. In the 1920s film news and
football pools were added. By 1936 serious changes were afoot. Small
photographs were introduced into the film page and on 25 March 1937,
the first news photograph appeared. By then, almost half the paper was
given up to sport. On 3 March 1938 readers were told that the publication
had been re-titled, The Sporting Record, in which ‘the first and main
interest’ would be sport. The Illustrated Police News had ceased to exist.
The strength of the Illustrated Police News was its pictures. Once the
cover became entirely pictorial, it had an impact which other papers
could only strive to emulate, and by including captions in the engravings
the paper could provide eye-catching banner headlines many years before
they became possible in text only newspapers. It may seem extraordinary
that the paper did not publish photographs until 1936, but its engravings
showed the reader scenes that could not be photographed, because no-
one was there to record events. Only the IPN could illustrate the murder
taking place, the arrest of the culprit, the trial and the execution.
Today, courtroom artists still sketch scenes where cameras are not
admitted, while documentaries and dramas reconstruct crimes and
disasters. Witnesses to events no longer make sketches to send to the
newspapers – they use a camera phone and post pictures and video on the
internet. Love it or deplore it, the IPN tapped into a universal need for
news of startling events, and the demand for what it pioneered is as vibrant as ever, as witnessed by the popular
tabloids, the daily free compilations such as the Metro, and the involvement of the public in news reporting.
During its long and successful history, the Illustrated Police News outlived all its competitors, thanks to the clear
vision of its founders, and the determination of George Purkess Jr a man of sound business sense, who saw what
the public wanted and unapologetically gave it to them.
LINDA STRATMANN is the author of twelve non-fiction books including Cruel Deeds and Dreadful Calamities: The
Illustrated Police News 1864-1938 (British Library 2011) and four fiction books, the popular Frances Doughty
Mystery series featuring a Victorian lady detective. She is currently writing a history of nineteenth century
poison murders. Visit www.lindastratmann.com

Sherlock Holmes and
the Case of the Polish Jew
By ADAM WOOD
“There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is
to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.”
Sherlock Holmes to Dr John Watson
in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Study in Scarlet”
*****
When the 29-year-old Arthur Conan Doyle spent a few weeks in 1886 writing a novel concerning a ‘consulting detective’
named Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr John Watson, he could hardly have imagined that his characters would become
so popular as to enter the public consciousness to the extent that almost 130 years later new stories are being written
about their adventures, or indeed that some would believe them to be real people.
On screen, Holmes has pitted his wits against the Ripper many times over
the years, most notably in A Study in Terror (1965) and Murder by Decree
(1979), and the two have contronted one another in several books, most
recently in The Conan Doyle Notes: The Secret of Jack the Ripper by Diane
Gilbert Madsen (see review in this issue).
Conan Doyle’s first story, A Study in Scarlet, was written in 1886 and
appeared the following year in Beeton’s Christmas Annual before being
published in book form by Ward, Lock & Co. in July 1888. The second story, The
Sign of Four, was set in 1888 and appeared in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine
in 1890. Neither story captured the interest of the public, but Holmes started
to become popular when a series of short stories were published in The Strand
Magazine in 1891, with the iconic image created by illustrator Sidney Paget.
The following year a collection of stories titled The Adventures of Sherlock
Holmes was published, and by the time of 1894’s anthology The Memoirs of
Sherlock Holmes, the consulting detective’s fame was assured.
To the press, and especially the public, he became the byword for what
should be expected of a detective. An example of this is the North-Eastern
Daily Gazette’s report on a man being charged in 1894 with impersonating a
Sherlock Holmes: the iconic look
police officer while attempting to trace Jack the Ripper. For no reason other created by illustrator Sidney Paget
than to attract the attention of the reader, the newspaper titled their piece
“A Rival to Sherlock Holmes”:
At the Thames Police Court yesterday Alfred Cooper, 34, well dressed, who described himself as a detective
of 106 Elmore Street, Islington, was charged with unlawfully assuming the character of a police constable,
supposed for an unlawful purpose. Mrs Mary Finnigan, wife of the proprietor of the Sugar Loaf public house,
Backchurch Lane, Whitechapel, stated that shortly before 12 o’clock on Tuesday night Cooper entered the
house and called for a glass of ale. Witness served him. He then asked to see the “the governor,” and said,
“you can tell him I am a police officer from Scotland Yard.”
Defendant: “Quite right - Great Scotland Yard.”

Witness, continuing, said when her husband came down defendant said he had come to warn him about the
gambling that was being carried on in the house. He also said Detective Sgt White told him to come there.
Defendant: “Detective-Superintendent White of Stone. That is the man I trained.”
Det Sgt S White, H Division, said he found [Cooper] detained at Leman Street police station.
[Defendant on seeing witness] “That is the gentleman I mean.” Witness knew nothing about him.
Constable 96 H said he asked defendant what he was, and he replied “To tell you the truth I am a steward, but
out of a job now. The officer gave me 2d to go there and see if I could detect any gambling.” He afterwards
said he was an officer from Old Street.
Defendant: “Quite right. I have a roving commission. I am one of the greatest and cutest detective officers
in the universe, I have been kidnapped and detained in the City of London Asylum, at Stone, for 11 months.
On getting to London Bridge I saw, much to my surprise, the question ‘Where is Jack the Ripper?’ That woman
(pointing to Mrs Finnigan) is the one who holds Jack the Ripper’s tools. The bag, which contains the tools of
Theophilus Montgomery alias Jack the Ripper, and with which he did the murders, is in her house. It is close
to where the last murder was committed. I have also invented a machine to do away with Anarchists.”
Dr Grant of Commercial Road attended and said the defendant was insane.
Defendant: “You are a ------- liar. I have been trapped, and I am not insane.”
Mr Mead (magistrate) ordered defendant to be discharged, and gave instructions for the overseers to be
notified of his condition. Cooper had to be forcibly removed from the dock.1
In July 1894, just a few months after this case, Conan Doyle was asked by an American journalist how Holmes would
have tackled the Ripper case. He replied:
I am not in the last degree either a sharp or an observant man myself. I

try to get inside the skin of a sharp man and see how things would strike
him. I remember going to the Scotland Yard museum and looking at the
letter which was received by the police, and which purported to come
from the Ripper.2 Of course, it may have been a hoax, but there were
reasons to think it genuine, and in any case it was well to find out who
wrote it. It was written in red link in a clerkly hand. I tried to think
how Holmes might have deduced the writer of that letter. The most
obvious point was that the letter was written by someone who had been
in America. It began ‘Dear Boss,’ and contained the phrase ‘fix it up,’ and
several others which are not usual with the Britishers. Then we have the
quality of the paper and the handwriting, which indicate that the letters
were not written by a toiler. It was good paper, and a round, easy, clerkly
hand. He was, therefore, a man accustomed to the use of a pen.
Having determined that much, we can not avoid the inference that there
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
must be somewhere letters which this man had written over his own
name, or documents or accounts that could be readily traced to him. Oddly enough, the police did not, as
far as I know, think of that, and so they failed to accomplish anything. Holmes’s plan would have been to
reproduce the letters in facsimile, and on each plate indicate briefly the peculiarities of the handwriting.
Then publish these facsimiles in the leading newspapers of Great Britain and America, and in connection with
them offer a reward to anyone who could show a letter of any specimen of the same handwriting. Such a
course would have enlisted millions of people as detectives in the case.3
Facsimiles of the Dear Boss letter, along with the Saucy Jacky postcard, had of course been published both on
handbills and in the national press in October 1888. Perhaps Conan Doyle’s comment that he was “not the in the last
degree either a sharp or an observant man” was an accurate one, but nevertheless the author had a keen interest in
1 North-Eastern Daily Gazette, 1 March 1894.

2 According to Richard Whittington-Egan’s Jack the Ripper: The Definitive Casebook (2013), the visit took place on 2 December
1892.
3 The Evening News, 4 July 1894.
the Whitechapel murders and expressed a theory than the murderer might have
disguised himself as a midwife in order to explain the supposed bloodstains. On 19
April 1905 Conan Doyle had been part of a Crimes Club4 tour of the murder sites
arranged by Club member coroner S Ingleby Oddie, whose friend Dr Frederick
Gordon Brown, the City of London Police Surgeon who had performed the post
mortem on Catherine Eddowes, led the group. Also in the party were John Churton
Collins, actor H B Irving, Dr Crosse and three City detectives.5
It wasn’t long after the publication of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes that readers began to write in to the publishers
asking whether Holmes was real, and if so where he could be contacted. Several
letters were sent directly to Scotland Yard, asking the Metropolitan Police to
forward correspondence to the consulting detective, with the first letter arriving
on 21 November 1895, sent from Leipzig. Over the next two decades letters
regarding Holmes were kept in a file now held at The National Archives.6
The majority of correspondence was sent from overseas, from locations such
as Berlin, Moscow, Naples and Vienna. Many were translated by a Sgt Fitch of
Special Branch, who seems to have been multi-lingual, speaking at least Russian
and Romanian. The standard course of action was for these letters to be forwarded
to George Newnes Limited, publishers of the Strand Magazine, and signed by Chief
Clerk Charles L Bathurst. By July 1906, however, the company must have become
so inundated with letters regarding Conan Doyle’s creation that they asked that
letters not be forwarded. From that point, Scotland Yard replied directly to each S Ingleby Oddie
writer.
Later that year a writer from Hamburg asked whether Holmes and an American pulp fiction detective named Nick
Carter worked privately, or for the State.
In March 1907 the Secretary of Odessa Suburban Police, one Nicholi Ivanovitch Novaselski, wrote asking Scotland Yard
to settle a bet he had made with Inspector Von Lange that Holmes was real.
The last correpondence from the public retained in the file was received in October 1917, where a teacher named
Timothy Bogdarenko of Kursk, Southern Russia asked that his letter be passed to Holmes with a view to obtaining
assistance in “the revelations of the secrets of the eternal procession of the Laws of Nature”. The letter, translated by
a PC Morse of Special Branch, is marked “apparently insane” and no reply appears to have been made.
Those responsible for dealing with the correspondence must have cursed the fictional detective for the extra work,
but the thoughts held on Holmes by Scotland Yard, or more precisely the recently retired Assistant Commissioner Sir
Robert Anderson, would soon be revealed in a newspaper article titled ‘Detectives in Fiction: Sherlock Holmes Dissected
by Scotland Yard’s Chief’:
Sherlock Holmes confided to Dr Watson so many times his unreserved opinion of the official detectives, or
Scotland Yarders, that Conan Doyle’s readers will be especially interested in what Sir Robert Anderson, head
of London’s Criminal Investigation Department, has just written apropros of Holmes’ “return” concerning the
estimate which the “regular men” hold of the amateur sleuthhound of Baker Street.
Perhaps it will be best to give Sir Robert’s views as a practical criminal agent upon certain details of the
“Adventures” before quoting what the famous ex-commissioner of police has to say regarding Holmes’ gibes
at the methods of the regular police force.
“It implies no disparagement of Dr Doyle’s art,” he says, “that in the ‘Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ the
element of exaggeration is seldom wanting. ‘The Final Problem’ exemplifies this in a notable way. To an
expert, at all events, the story of Moriarty’s tracking Holmes to Switzerland is preposterous.”7
4 Now renamed ‘Our Society’. See Conan Doyle and the Crimes Club by Stephen Wade, 2012.
5 Chapter titled “The Ripper and Other Murders” in Inquest by S Ingleby Oddie, 1941.
6 MEPO 2/8449.
7 Progress (Indiana), 2 December 1903.
The article referred to had appeared two months earlier in T P’s Weekly of 2 October 1903. True to form, Anderson
was waspish when examining Holmes’ methods:
Sherlock Holmes, Detective

As seen by Scotland Yard
By Sir Robert Anderson KCB

Charles Reade, no mean authority on such a subject, has somewhere said that the creation of a character is a signal
proof of genius in an author. And judged by this test the creator of Sherlock Holmes must be accorded a high place
among contemporary writers of fiction. His success, moreover, is, in some sense, all the greater just because his hero is
devoid of every element which makes a personality either charming or repulsive. Sherlock Holmes interests us, but no
one either admires or hates him. And there is nothing about him fitted to inspire us with the enthusiasm which begets
great or beautiful or generous deeds. And yet his name has passed permanently into the language, and in that sense he
is immortal.8
Story interest and logic

This popularity, of course, is largely due to a somewhat craving for “detective
stories”. “Crime is common, logic is rare,” as Sherlock Holmes is made to say
on one occasion to his friend. And on the same occasion he adds: “You have
degraded what should have been a course of lectures into a series of tales.” But
not even Sir A Conan Doyle could galvanise a course of lectures on logic into a
fascinating “Society book”. The “logic” without the “tales” would have been
a signal failure, and apart from the “logic” the “tales” would have been but a
poor success. It is the combination of the two that has captured the public. The
distinctive charm of the various narratives is to be sought, not merely in the
incidents which display Sherlock Holmes’s powers as a high-class detective, but
also in the methods by which the recorded results are reached. Upon this it is
that the peculiar dramatic interest of the story depends.
Some Exaggeration and Absurdity

This being so, it implies no disparagement of the author’s art that the element
of exaggeration is seldom wanting. For it is for the most part the legitimate
exaggeration of the stage, and therefore it fails to offend. Sometimes, indeed,
those limits are exceeded; for, of course, the stories are of unequal merit. The
Resident Patient may be cited as an instance. The quite impossible piece of
thought-reading by which the story is prefaced suggests that the author was in
a wildly wanton mood when he penned it, and the forecast is fulfilled by the
sequel. The menage which the criminal Sutton established with Dr Trevelyn may
pass, and also his being tracked by the fellow criminals whom he had betrayed. Sir Robert Anderson
But all this only makes the further incidents more hopelessly unreasonable. As
they had secured an accomplice within the house, their visits to the consulting-
room were absolutely objectless, unless, indeed, they were meant to excite suspicion. And the midnight murder seance
in the victim’s bedroom is preposterous.
Sherlock Holmes and Scotland Yard

Most true it is, as Holmes is made to say by Sir Conan Doyle, that “life is infinitely stranger than anything that the mind
of man could invent”. And no one knows the truth of this dictum better than those who have practical experience of
the ways of criminals. But there is a method in the “strangeness” which characterises the events of actual life; and the
incidents of many of these tales could never be accepted as within the category of possible fact. In nothing, however,
8 Interestingly, in his book Criminals and Crime (1907) Anderson described the moniker by which the Whitechapel murderer had
become known in a similar way: “One enterprising journalist went so far as to impersonate the cause of all this terror as ‘Jack the
Ripper’, a name by which he will probably go down to history.”

has the author’s resourcefulness and art been more manifest than in the ease with which we are carried over the very
thin ice of extraordinary situations and impossible incidents. The Final Problem exemplifies this in a notable way. To an
expert, at all events, the story of Moriarty’s tracking his victim to Meiringen is preposterous. But the suggestion conveyed
by the title, and confirmed early in the narrative, that the story is leading up to a tragedy, keeps the reader’s mind in
suspense, and his judgment capitulates amidst the thrilling incidents of the closing scene. But in The Resident Patient
there is no dramatic ending to fill our thoughts as we lay down the book. Sherlock Holmes repairs to the “headquarters”
he delights to disparage, and Scotland Yard supplies him with the solution of the case. No other story of the series ends
in such a prosaic fashion. But some of them suffer by allowing Sherlock Holmes to appear too prominently before the
curtain at the close. A Study in Scarlet is emphatically an instance of this. In Part II of the book the author is at his best.
The first five chapters of it are altogether excellent, and if the story ended with the sixth the work would deserve the
highest praise. But the dramatic effect of the whole is spoiled by the tedious concluding chapter; and the reader’s last
impressions are in the line of Dr Watson’s first impressions, that Sherlock Holmes is insufferably egotistical and tiresome.
Sir Conan Doyle’s Real Aim

The above-cited “logic” dictum is one of many hints dropped by the author himself that he deprecates these works
being regarded as mere detective stories. This element, indeed, is merely the vehicle by which Sherlock Holmes would
teach us to keep our eyes and ears open, and to use our brains about everything we see and hear. The habit of observing
is rare. Far more rare is the habit of thinking. No one, by the way, has less right to complain of this than the writer of
fiction, for no one profits by it as he does. The ordinary novel reader is a sort of literary dram-drinker. His aim is not to
find food for thinking, but to escape thinking. Sherlock Holmes, the observer and investigator, is a rare type; but not so
rare as the Sherlock Holmes who can spend a whole evening with no company but his own thoughts.
Sherlock Holmes and the Police

Nor is it novel readers only who fail in these respects. Abnormal powers of memory are often mistaken for abnormal
powers of mind. But there is no necessary connection between the two. A man may gain a college fellowship or a
university chair, though he be utterly wanting in the qualities in which Sherlock Holmes excels. And he may be unrivalled
as an expert in his own particular line, albeit gifted with less power of judgment and common sense than an average
schoolboy. Mr Watts, RA, has said, with reference to his great symbolical pictures, “I want to make people think”. And
our author’s aim is not to make detectives of us all, but to teach us to be observers and thinkers. His stories, therefore,
partake of the character of parables; and in a parable the value of the narrative depends on its fitness to exemplify and
explain the truth it is designed to teach. But just as in the days when preaching was a power in England it was often said
that those who most needed the exhortations and warnings of the sermon supposed them to be specially intended for the
occupants of neighbouring pews, so here Sherlock Holmes has failed in his mission in the case of those who read these
tales as being an attack upon the police of the country. There is a wide difference between the work of the responsible
police officer, whose business it is to bring criminals to justice, and the work of the “private detective”, who has merely
to ascertain facts and to solve seeming mysteries. But the difference is not so vital as that which distinguishes the
fancies of the novelist from the facts of real life. He must be a poor sort of creature who cannot solve his own problems.
And it is delightful to notice how accurately the Sherlock Holmes key fits the Sherlock Holmes lock, and how invariably
his two and two make four. But in real life keys are apt to get mixed or mislaid, and two and two have sometimes a way
of making twenty-two; all which may be quite unpreventable, and is always most embarrassing.
Scotland Yard’s Real Problem

Moreover, it is not in finding the criminal that the greatest difficulty of police work consists, but in finding evidence
on which to charge him. Undetected crimes are rare, and in the case of high-class offences against property they are
extremely rare. If the Sherlock Holmes stories had been published anonymously we should expect to find the author
in the narrow circle of known writers of fiction. And when a big case of forgery or coining or safe-breaking occurs, the
criminals may be sought for among an equally limited class, A still quicker method of discovery in either case would
be to get the needed information from someone in the confidence of the author or of the criminal. And information is
generally to be had, and not information only, but proof. But information and proof are not necessarily legal evidence.

Holmes’s Contempt for Law
Difficulties of this kind do not embarrass police work with our neighbours. In France, for example, proof, or even
suspicion, is sufficient to justify an arrest, and the necessary evidence is obtained at leisure, the search for it being
helped and guided by admissions extracted from the accused. But in this country the control of a case is not with
the police. An accused person must without delay be brought before a magistrate, to whom both the crime and the
grounds of the arrest must be disclosed. And a prisoner is most jealously guarded against any attempt to obtain from
him admissions to his prejudice. But this does not trouble Sherlock Holmes. At his first introduction to us in A Study in
Scarlet, he declares his contempt for the solar system, and we need not be surprised at his indifference to the details
of English law. So we are told that Jefferson Hope was to be “put before the magistrates in the course of the week”.
In The Man with the Twisted Lip the police at Bow Street “hush the thing up” apparently without the intervention of
a magistrate at all. And in The Sign of Four the closing scene reminds us of one of Dickens’s bagman stories. Jonathan
Small makes a quartette with our two friends and the Bow Street officer, whose prisoner he is, in the Baker Street
lodgings we know so well; and ensconced in a comfortable chair, with a glass of spirits and water at hand, he spends a
pleasant hour in telling the story of his crimes. And even this is capped by Dr Watson’s being allowed to carry away the
treasure chest, the corpus of the crime, which is supposed to contain jewels of priceless value. He conveys it in a cab
to the house of his fiancee, and in her presence he breaks it open with a poker!
Felony-compounding
Even these amazing proceedings are thrown into the shade by our hero’s feats of felony-compounding. Some of us
have done a little in that line, but not without misgivings, and only in matters of small importance. But Sherlock Holmes
displays his magnificent contempt for law by dealing in this way with felonies of exceptional gravity, as in The Blue
Carbuncle and The Beryl Coronet. And in The Boscombe Valley Mystery he goes to the extreme length of screening a
murderer, albeit an innocent man stands charged with the crime. To pursue this further by calling attention to minor
slips in both law and practice would be ungracious to the distinguished author to whom we are indebted for these
charming tales. For, as we have seen, his purpose has been not to give us pattern cases of crime detection in order to
instruct police officers in their duties - some of his best stories, indeed, have no relation whatever to crime - but to
promote in all of us the habit of thinking; and to teach us, as he himself expresses it, “to think analytically” - “to think
backward”. All classes of the community may profit by this lesson; and by none is it more needed than by those who
fancy they need it least, our scientific experts and teachers of science.
*****
While Anderson may have been generally dismissive of Holmes, the fictional detective was obviously ingrained into the
former Assistant Commissioner’s psyche as much as that of the rest of the public. Describing his early days at Scotland
Yard and the difficulties he experienced with one of his senior officers, Anderson actually put himself in Holmes’ shoes:
When I took charge, I was no novice in matters relating to criminals and crime... I was not a little surprised
therefore to find occasion for suspecting that one of my principal subordinates was trying to impose on me
as though I were an ignoramus. For when any important crime of a certain kind occurred, and I set myself
to investigate it a la Sherlock Holmes fashion, he used to listen to me in the way so many people listen to
sermons in church...9
Three years later, in his autobiography, Anderson acknowledged the prowess of Conan Doyle’s creation when revealing
his own suspect for the first time:
However the fact may be explained, it is a fact that no other street murder occurred in the “Jack-the-Ripper”
series. The last and most horrible of that maniac’s crime was committed in a house in Miller’s court on the
9th of November. And the circumstances of that crime disposed of al the theories of the amateur “Sherlock
Holmeses” of that date.
One did not need to be a Sherlock Holmes to discover that the criminal was a sexual maniac of a virulent
type; that he was living in the immediate vicinity of the scenes of the murders; and that, if he was not living
absolutely alone, his people knew of his guilt, and refused to give him up to justice. During my absence
9 Criminals and Crime by Sir Robert Anderson, 1907.

abroad the Police had made a house-to-house search for him, investigating the case of every man in the
district whose circumstances were such that he could go and come and get rid of his blood-stains in secret.
And the conclusion we came to was that he and his people were certain low-class Polish Jews; for it is a
remarkable fact that people of that class in the East End will not give up one of their number to Gentile
justice.
And the result proved that our diagnosis was right on every point. For I may say at once that “undiscovered
murders” are rare in London, and the “Jack-the-Ripper” crimes are not within that category. And if the Police
here had powers such as the French Police possess, the murderer would have been brought to justice.10
Anderson’s fully-formed theory of the murderer being a Polish Jew who was ultimately held in an asylum had taken
some years to arrive at, at least in print, but the former Assistant Commissioner had missed few opportunities to bemoan
the lack of powers afforded to the Metropolitan Police compared to their French counterparts.
As early as 1892 his views on the differences in law were reported in Cassell’s Saturday Journal,11 but Anderson’s
views were probably best described in an interview which appeared in the Evening Post, when asked about Scotland
Yard’s adoption of the Bertillon system:
“We have not done so,” replied Mr Anderson coolly.

“Oh, dear, no. There will be a very wide difference between our method and the French, even after these
additional helps to identification have been put into full working order. You should understand that the
Scotland Yard method must always differ widely from the French method, because out law is so entirely
different in these matters to that of France.”
“For instance,” said Mr Anderson, using our representative as the corpus vile on which to illustrate this
difference in the system of the two countries, “you are walking along the streets of Paris, and are merely
suspected as a criminal who has been in the hands of the Police on a previous occasion. The evidence against
you may be of the flimsiest possible character - there may be really none at all - but you are seized all the
same, and at once subjected to a searching scrutiny at the hands of the Police. Your measurements are taken,
your finger prints etc examined, and you are not released until the authorities have satisfied themselves that
they have made a mistake. Such a method is repugnant to British law and feeling.”
“Here we cannot drag you to Scotland Yard and examine you in the summary fashion. If there is good reason
to suspect you of being a criminal all that can be done is charge you before a magistrate, and if the charge
fails there is no way by which you can be subjected to examination for purposes of identification. We can only
use our albums against you if you are remanded.”12
Anderson continued to bemoan the fact that his department did not have the powers of the French police in almost
every subsequent article. It is interesting that he includes it in his article on Sherlock Holmes as an example of the
freedom enjoyed by the fictional detective.
The Ripper Insane and Locked in an Asylum

The first published mention of Anderson’s belief that the Ripper had not been a sane man, but “a maniac revelling
in blood”, appears to be in the Cassell’s Saturday Journal of 11 June 1892. In 1895 Major Arthur Griffiths, writing under
the name “Alfred Aylmer”, confirmed Anderson’s theory:
Although he had achieved greater success that any detective of his time, there will always be undiscovered
crimes, and just now the tale is pretty full. Much dissatisfaction was vented upon Mr Anderson at the utterly
abortive efforts to discover the perpetrator of the Whitechapel murders. He has himself a perfectly plausible
theory that Jack the Ripper was a homicidal maniac, temporarily at large, whose hideous career was cut short
by committal to an asylum.13
10 The Lighter Side of My Official Life by Sir Robert Anderson, 1910.

11 ‘Representative Men at Home’, Cassell’s Saturday Journal, 11 June 1892.
12 ‘Spotting Criminals: A chat with the Prince of Detectives at Scotland Yard’, reprinted in The Police Review and Parade Gossip,
28 September 1894.
13 ‘The Detective in Real Life’ by “Alfred Aylmer”, The Windsor Magazine, 1895.

In an article in The Nineteenth Century of February 1901 Anderson again confirmed his belief:
…the inhabitants of the metropolis generally were just as secure during the weeks the fiend was on the prowl
as they were before the mania seized him, or after he had been safely caged in an asylum.
Three years later Anderson gave a lecture at the London Institute at which he stated that “the Whitechapel Murderer,
known as ‘Jack the Ripper’ was… undoubtedly insane, and was ultimately confined within an asylum.”14
The Ripper a Polish Jew

The first published appearance of Anderson’s theory that the murderer was a Polish Jew came in 1898, in Mysteries
of Police and Crime by Major Arthur Griffiths (who almost certainly got his information from Chief Constable Melville
Macnaghten, who wrote a memoranda dated 1894 disclosing the identity of three suspects):
The outside public may think that the identity of… “Jack the Ripper” was never revealed. So far as
actual knowledge goes, this is undoubtably true. But the police, after the last murder, had brought their
investigations to the point of strongly suspecting several persons, all of them known to be homicidal lunatics,
and against three of these they held very plausible and reasonable grounds of suspicion… One was a Polish
Jew, a known lunatic, who was at large in the district of Whitechapel at the time of the murder, and who,
having afterwards developed homicidal tendencies, was confined to an asylum.
In March 1910 a series of articles by Anderson discussing his career appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine. Over two
pages he wrote about the Whitechapel murders, concluding that the Ripper ‘and his people were low-class Jews’ and
that ‘the individual we suspected was caged in an asylum’.
The series was published in book form by Hodder and Stoughton that same month, titled The Lighter Side of My
Official Life. In Chapter IX Anderson expanded on his comments made in Blackwood’s by adding:
By saying that he was a Polish Jew I am merely stating a definitely ascertained fact. And my words are
meant to specify race, not religion. For it would outrage all religious sentiment to talk of the religion of a
loathsome creature whose utterly unmentionable vices reduced him to a lower level than that of a brute.
When these comments met with disapproval in the Jewish Chronicle, Anderson further explained his position:
When I stated that the murderer was a Jew, I was stating a simple matter of fact. It is not a matter of
theory... In stating what I do about the Whitechapel murders, I am not speaking as an expert in crime, but as
a man who investigated the facts. Moreover, the man who identified the murderer was a Jew, but on learning
that the criminal was a Jew he refused to proceed with his identification.15
*****
What happened during the house-to-house search conducted in Anderson’s absence? Whether he liked it or not,
Anderson had, in outlining the Met’s ‘diagnosis’, described a logical thought process worthy of Sherlock Holmes. But
unlike Conan Doyle’s detective, the Assistant Commissioner could not rest at simply identifying the murderer; the
difficult part was still to come. The tools needed to bring the suspect to justice, however, were not available to him.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Neil Bell for suggesting I write this article, and to Stewart Evans for posting a very useful timeline of
Anderson’s published articles at www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=7613.
14 The Otago Witness, 18 December 1904.

15 The Globe, 7 March 1910.
ADAM WOOD is Executive Editor of Ripperologist. He is currently writing a biography of Chief Inspector
Donald Swanson, scheduled for publication in July 2015. He lives in the Cotswolds.

How Things Got Done:
An Officer and
a Gentleman on Trial
By JOE CHETCUTI
The time had come for the secretary of the gentlemen’s club to contact the police. His objective
was to have the arrest processed in a discreet manner. The administrators knew that the suspect
was relaxing within the confines of their club, but they did not want him apprehended inside
this distinguished environment. Further planning would be needed.
Detective Sergeant H C Nearn also knew the score. At that time, he was a 14-year veteran of the force and
his career was on the rise. He would eventually become a Scotland Yard Inspector, but on this spring day in 1891
he was simply a hard-working Detective Sergeant for C Division. In response to the request for police assistance,
he agreed to meet the secretary at the club together with a sergeant. The two policemen went to Pall Mall with
notepads in hand, all set to take down some statements. Their Charles Street destination was a building known for
over 35 years as a respected military establishment, the Junior United Service Club. Its membership was chiefly
comprised of officers from the British armed forces. Retired officers and army physicians were also eligible if they
had served for at least five years in the military.
Nearn and his sergeant were welcomed by the
club’s secretary. Before long, they were escorted
into a private chamber. Seated in the room were four
youthful employees of the club who were ready
to talk. The one who seemed most victimized
and grieved by the situation was a lad named
Henry Parnell. His words were given a high degree
of attention. The young man dictated a statement
of complaint of which a copy was retained by the
club. The document had enough credibility to inspire
police action.
Nearn left the premises and, shortly thereafter,
obtained an arrest warrant against Parnell’s alleged
assailant. Upon notification that the suspect was
Junior United Service Club in 1890
indeed inside the club, he returned to Charles Courtesy the University of Toronto and Internet Archive
Street and positioned himself in a clandestine spot
in order to trail and arrest the suspect when he exited through the front door. This probably was a preferable
scenario for Nearn since it would cause no disturbance to the other members of the club. But if his prey remained
behind closed doors for a significant period, he would have little choice but to enter the building and execute the
arrest warrant.
The club administrators were in a difficult situation. They wanted to initiate criminal proceedings against the
suspect, but knew that the accused man had comrades at the club – influential military men - who would vouch
for a friend in trouble. Although it was desirable to have the arrest made in the street, the possibility existed that
the Detective Sergeant lurking outside would lose patience and enter the club, thus causing an unpleasant scene.
The administrators feared an escalation to the problem if indignant members chose to disrupt a police arrest

inside their gentlemen’s club. The venue was known as an exclusive drinking environment for men accustomed to
hollering out military orders, so wise thinking was needed to ensure that things remained under control.
The administrators ended up acting properly. They decided to ask the suspect to leave the premises at once.
If military officers wanted to come to his defense, they would be persuaded to do so in a court of law rather than
at the club. It was at this point that the administrators approached the suspect, Dr Hamilton De Tatham, and
informed him of the difficulty he was in. The doctor emphatically denied the accusations and may have shown
reluctance to leave. To hasten his departure, somebody in the club provided him with a copy of Henry Parnell’s
statement to the police. It could be said with certainty that De Tatham walked out of the Junior United Service
Club while reading Parnell’s charges against him for gross indecency. Once outside, the doctor may have sensed
that he was being followed by a policeman. Understandably, his mind was racing around and his nerves were
fragile. When the inevitable arrest came a few minutes later, his initial response was awkward. Nearn promptly
read him the arrest warrant.
Dr Hamilton De Tatham: I am surprised! What does it mean? What name did you say?
Detective Sergeant H C Nearn: With Henry Parnell.1
Nearn noticed that a copy of Parnell’s statement was

in the doctor’s hand, so he did not buy into the suspect’s
reaction about being surprised. He also probably did not
care much for De Tatham’s feigned ignorance of the name
of his chief accuser. The best defense the suspect had
going for him were his distinguished medical and military
records, the friendship of prominent West End men, and
the fact that he could visibly outclass any allegations made
by four youthful employees who quite likely were
just common servants. Still, things had to be taken step
Reynold’s Newspaper, 26 April 1891
by step, and the next chore Nearn needed to perform was
to bring his prisoner to Marlborough Street. The date of the arrest was Tuesday 21 April 1891 and it was most
likely conducted at night time. A Scottish newspaper reported that the doctor was remanded at the Marlborough
Street Police Court on Wednesday 22 April and charged with gross acts of misbehavior.2 Afterwards, a local London
newspaper provided more specific details.
The £400 amount set
by the Marlborough Street
Police Court was known as
police bail. It is a term to
which Ripper students were
introduced twenty years ago
through the knowledgeable
writing of Evans and Gainey.
When police bail was issued,
it was common practice to set
its duration at about a week.
Hamilton De Tatham’s gross
indecency case in 1891
was no different than what
Ripper historians were used
to reading about when they Marlborough Street Police Court
studied the actions of the
Marlborough Street Police Court during the Autumn of Terror. And true to form, exactly seven days later, on
Wednesday 29 April 1891, the doctor ‘surrendered to his bail’ and appeared again before the Marlborough Street
Police Court with his barrister. As reported in The Times, 65-year-old James Lennox Hannay, the well-known
Metropolitan Police Magistrate, was running the show.
1 Reynold’s Newspaper, 3 May 1891.

2 Dundee Courier and Argus, 23 April 1891.
Hannay set a higher bail amount this second time around,
and two sureties came forward enabling the defendant to walk
out of the police court once again. Hannay presumably had
the indictments3 sent to the Old Bailey and into the hands of
a Grand Jury. A ‘True Bill’ was declared and De Tatham’s trial
was set for Wednesday 6 May 1891. The defendant must have
been dismayed over the fact that a committee in his own West
End club initiated the legal case against him and deliberately
worked with the police to secure his arrest outside the building.
He must have also been concerned about the political aspects
of the case, since the barrister who represented the club at
The Times, 30 April 1891
the police court hearing, Forrest Fulton, was a Member of
Parliament and a former senior counsel to the Treasury at the Central Criminal Court.
It is not known if this additional political pressure had any influence on the Magistrate, but Hannay did openly
declare that he was unable to gather anything either from the statements or the cross-examination of the boys to
suggest that the lads were motivated by a sinister reason. It sounded like he thought that the accusations were
legitimate.
De Tatham’s barrister was quoted as saying that the only way
his client could meet the charges was to give evidence on his
own behalf before a jury. Another aspect of his defense plan was
to line up a series of fellow clubmen who would testify to the
good character of the defendant. It looked like a mighty battle
was heading for the Old Bailey. An established Pall Mall military
club, with its membership divided on the issue, geared up for a
6 May criminal case.
Let’s step aside for a moment to learn more about the three
main characters in this story. From what is known so far, this gross
indecency case was the only scrape with the law that De Tatham
Courtroom at the Old Bailey ever had. His accomplishments in life were impressive, but this
court trial would leave a stain on his legacy.
Dr Hamilton De Tatham
• He was born on 18 December 1843 in Paddington.
• In May 1853, he was enrolled in the Westminster School.
• He graduated in 1865 from St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington.
• He became a surgeon in the Indian Army in 1867 and served in the Abyssinian Expedition.
• In 1876, he attained his MD degree at Brussels University.
• He is in Hart’s Army List in 1879.
• He retired from the military in April 1888.
• The 1901 census listed him as a retired Surgeon Major.
• The same census showed him living at 8 Duke Street, St James’s, Westminster.
• He died on 25 November 1903 at Almonds Hotel, Mayfair.
• Probate papers listed him as unmarried with an estate valued at over £45,000.
Another man featuring in this drama is the Detective Sergeant who arrested De Tatham. The name H C Nearn
appeared in a handful of English newspaper articles during the years 1889-1902. Those reports tell us that Nearn
was experienced at representing the police at a Coroner’s Inquest and was not shy about bringing in numerous
3 It was later reported by the press that there were several indictments involved in this case against De Tatham, and an indecent
assault charge was included. Henry Parnell was not the only lad who claimed to have been victimized. But when we reviewed
the Central Criminal Court calendar for this case, gross indecency was the only charge listed.

witnesses to testify. He would take the stand for the prosecution at court trials and was introduced in 1899 as ‘a
first-class inspector’ for Scotland Yard. His most famous achievement was his work in obtaining the death penalty
for Alfred Chipperfield, who was convicted in a well-known Old Bailey murder trial in 1896. Nearn’s retirement
notice was printed in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper on 28 September 1902.
The third person who played a role in De Tatham’s gross indecency case was Forrest
Fulton, a man who would be knighted the following year. He was unseated as a Member
of Parliament for the Conservative Party in the general election of 1892, but soon
became a Judge of the Mayor’s Court in London. He was hired to represent the Junior
United Service Club’s interests in the De Tatham proceedings.
In today’s world, a courtroom drama like this would receive thorough press coverage,
especially since high-ranking figures were used as character witnesses for the defendant.
But back in the 1890s the British press was very guarded in revealing the details of this
kind of case, and news readers would rarely be privy to the graphic word-for-word
testimony of the victims. This censorship was firmly in place during the De Tatham case,
and despite the intense atmosphere, the actual reporting of the trial was as limited as
could be. The entire ordeal, verdict and all, was completed in one day.
A London newspaper informed its readers that ‘a great deal of evidence was given’ by
the prosecution at the 6 May trial. The defense responded by calling numerous Pall Mall
Sir Forrest Fulton luminaries to the stand in order to paint a clean picture of De Tatham. But there was no
from in Vanity Fair, 9 July 1903
mention of the doctor taking the stand to defend himself as was previously planned. This
Old Bailey trial did not appear to be a simple conflict where on the one hand we had four youthful club employees
making an accusation, and, on the other hand, a group of dignified men of authority contradicting the allegations.
If such were the case, a Victorian era jury in London would probably have taken less than five minutes to deliver
an acquittal. There seemed to have been more to it this time around. Besides the allegations of the victims, the
prosecution presented plenty of evidence, but the press would not specify on its nature. It looked like the jurors
had some bones to chew on when they went into deliberation.
Reynold’s Newspaper, 10 May 1891

At the (Central Criminal Court), before the Recorder, Hamilton De Tatham, an elderly gentleman,
surrendered to his bail to answer several indictments charging him with indecently assaulting boys.
A great deal of evidence was given and a number of persons holding distinguished positions gave the
defendant an irreproachable character. The jury, after a deliberation of nearly three hours, returned
a verdict of ‘Not guilty.’
You had to figure that De Tatham and his influential friends were favored to emerge victorious when the trial
began - and they did. But they had to work for their victory. Detective Sergeant Nearn and Forrest Fulton were
experienced men at this game, and their presence helped bolster the prosecution’s attack. There was evidence
to support the boys’ case, but it was not strong enough to sway the mindset of the jury.
A further example of how careful the press was over this trial can be seen by the actions of The Standard. That
newspaper reported the trouble De Tatham was in, but, when the verdict at the Old Bailey was announced, there
was no follow-up story. This prompted the solicitors for the defense to take action in a letter written on 7 May
and published the following day.
The Standard, 8 May 1891
Sir, - In The Standard of 30th April last, you reported the proceedings in Marlborough-street Police-
court in a prosecution which had been instituted against Dr De Tatham.
May we ask you to give equal publicity to the fact that Dr De Tatham was yesterday tried at the Central
Criminal Court before the Recorder and a Jury, and was, by their acquittal, pronounced innocent of all
the charges which had been preferred against him?
We are, Sir, your obedient servants,

Goldberg and Langdon Solicitors for Dr De Tatham.

A highly respected Ripperologist, Chris Phillips, found the De Tatham case in the Central Criminal Court calendar.
Although it was plainly revealed in the newspapers that the defendant had been granted bail twice during this
period, this obvious fact was not recorded in the court calendar. It is erroneous for anyone to conclude that if
the Central Criminal Court calendar failed to thoroughly display a defendant’s bail information, then no such bail
opportunity existed. That sort of thinking should be avoided not only when looking at the court calendar for the
De Tatham trial, but even more so, when studying the same court calendar while conducting 1888 research into
the Whitechapel mysteries.
Central Criminal Court calendar

Courtesy Chris Phillips
Chris Phillips: “[Above] is a photo of the relevant entry from CRIM 9/37. I think it is fair to point out that this
entry is evidently based on incomplete information, as the dates of the arrest and committal are also not given.
But it does illustrate further the fact that bail arrangements are not necessarily indicated in the calendar.”
There are two things that Ripperologists can learn from the De Tatham case. The first point is that the Old
Bailey’s court calendar cannot be relied upon to capture the entire story of how a suspect was administered
through the system. The other point is that the Marlborough Street Police Court processed the De Tatham case
in a similar fashion as was explained in the Evans and Gainey book a generation ago.4 When a doctor with West
End connections was arrested and brought into the Marlborough Street Police Court, the suspect was allowed to
walk out of the building through the process of police bail. This circumstance occurred in both November 1888
and April 1891. Upon the return of the suspect to the same police court seven days later, James Lennox Hannay
committed the 1888 defendant and the 1891 defendant for trial at the Old Bailey. Both cases involved alleged gross
indecency by a doctor against four male victims. The bail was set at £300 in the 1888 case and at £500 for the
1891 case. The estate records of the two defendants later showed that these bail amounts were well within their
means. In both cases, two sureties walked forward to allow the suspect to have his freedom until his Old Bailey
trial date came up. In his corner, De Tatham had legitimate Pall Mall men of distinction who could vouch for
his character. He therefore chose to appear for his 6 May trial and achieve an acquittal, as opposed to jumping
bail and fleeing the country.
4 Evans, Stewart P and Gainey, Paul: Jack the Ripper: The First American Serial Killer. Page 270.
Acknowledgments
A big thanks goes to Robert Linford, Chris Phillips, John Spanek and Eduardo Zinna for their valuable input.
Internet Sources
www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/clubs/6.html; www.amazon.com/Marlborough-Street-Police-Court-Scene
/dp/images/B002Q04HJ2; forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=6902&page=9; www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/
images/Old_Bailey_courtroom.jpg; victorianripper.niceboard.org/t1178-inspector-nearn-cid; en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Forrest_Fulton; www.ebay.ca/itm/Vanity-Fair-Print-1898-James-Lennox-Hannay-Police-/23017774813.
JOE CHETCUTI is a retired hospital worker who lives on the San Francisco peninsula. He has contributed articles to
Ripper journals for the past decade. He plans on doing further research, and is appreciative to all his colleagues in Great
Britain for their ongoing assistance over the years. Ripperologist 141 December 2014 24
Horace Wyndham
New Light on an
Obscure True Crime Author
By JAN BONDESON
In the annals of obscure true crime writers, Mr Horace Wyndham [1874-1970] also deserves
mention. His long and industrious life, writing more that forty books, in addition to much journalism
and magazine articles, has remained entirely unrecorded until the present day. There has even
been speculation, due to his diverse output of books, that there was more than one Horace
Wyndham: an army officer writing about military life, a flippant journalist who was also a lady’s
novelist, and a criminologist and social historian of some distinction. But since Horace Wyndham’s
life certainly had its ups and downs, there is no reason to doubt that these three ‘authors’ were
really one and the same.
*****
Horace Cowley Wyndham was born in Oxford in 1874. He would later claim that his father was a country rector, and
that another of his relations had been a published author; unfortunately for this version of events, the epistolary manual
supposed to have been written by Horace’s forebear does not appear to exist. Although Horace Wyndham came from a
respectable middle-class family, he decided, from reasons unknown, to enlist in the army as a private soldier in 1890.
He served with the King’s Royal Rifles in Ireland, Gibraltar, Malta and South Africa, rising to the rank of Sergeant. After
having purchased his discharge in 1897, he settled in London and became a journalist. He specialized in flippant social
commentary in the manner of George R Sims, although it is to his credit that he never sought to emulate Sims’ poetical
excesses.
In 1899, Horace Wyndham published two books about army life: The Queen’s Service and Soldiers of the Queen.
Horace believed that his seven years as a ‘gentleman ranker’ had made him quite an authority on military matters.
In particular, he claimed to know the nature of the British army soldier better than anybody, and provided many an
anecdote about the bonhomous ‘Tommy’ and his native Cockney wit. In 1901, he supplied a serial article on military
life to the Illustrated London News, and he kept writing about court martials, military chaplains, army recruitment and
military hospitals, for any newspaper or magazine willing to publish his work. In a long article about ‘King Edward’s
Native Forces’ in Munsey’s Magazine of May 1901, Horace confidently asserted that since the Empire’s ‘primitive races’
had a strong liking for uniforms with shiny buttons, there was a good supply of ‘cannon-fodder’ for future wars.
Between 1899 and 1905, Horace Wyndham published a good deal of journalism, and a play called The Nightingale,
but no books at all. This may well have been due to the initial reluctance from the publishers to taken on a debutant
with no university credentials, but from 1905 until 1914, Horace would publish not less than sixteen novels. All of them
are quite scarce today, having mostly been done by small firms, and it is a mystery how he managed to get them all
published. They fit roughly into three categories. Firstly we have the ‘funny soldiers’ book, in which various Cockney
military humourists exchange comments like “Gorblimey, Alf, it ‘baint ‘alf hot today!” Then there is the ‘adventurous
soldiers’ book, in which rebellious natives are pacified, Victoria Crosses liberally distributed, and military honour strictly
upheld. A typical plot would have the hero, an upstanding young officer from a guards regiment, resign his commission
after being accused of some heinous crime, like cheating at cards. Heartbroken, he changes his name, returns the ring
to his high-born fiancée, and joins another regiment as a private soldier. Here, he encounters some jolly Tommies of
the description quoted above, and their earthy and plebeian antics keep him amused. But when the natives are getting

restless, the regiment is called into action. After
a fierce battle, our hero lies wounded in a military
hospital, clutching his Victoria Cross, when news
arrives that another officer has confessed to being
the card-sharper, on his deathbed. As a result, the
hero is restored to his proper position in society.
In some of his other books, Horace shows the

feminine side of his character, depicting the
adventures of some dainty actress in London life.
She is approached by some moustachio-twirling
theatrical impresario, who makes her the star
of his theatre, and she also acquires a handsome
boyfriend, who might be a guards officer, a
successful author, or a leading journalist. When
the impresario makes some improper advances to
the heroine, the boyfriend tells him off. But the
theatrical director has connections in high life,
and lacks scruples to make use of them: the hero
is alternatively cashiered from the army, hounded
Some of Horace Wyndham’s books on display out of his literary clubs, or sacked from the
newspaper. Only the heroine can save him from
total disgrace, by accommodating the moustachio-twirling cad. But the hero saves himself from his predicament, by
some stratagem or other, rescues the swooning actress from her perilous situation, and administers some punishing right
hooks to the moustachio-twirler. It must be said that Horace Wyndham’s novels were formulaic and derivative, even by
the standards of the time. Some of them were serialized in working men’s newspapers, and this is likely to have been
more remunerative to Horace than the minuscule sales of the books themselves. He made no effort to ‘improve’ as a
novelist: his characters remained as one-dimensional, and his plots as stereotypical, throughout his career.
In 1913, Horace Wyndham was approached by Irene Osgood, a wealthy and much-married American literary lady, who
wanted him to run her struggling London publishing house, John Richmond Ltd. Horace accepted with alacrity, making
sure that the company’s list for 1914 included two of his own unpublished novels about theatrical life. He found working
for the eccentric Irene Osgood quite a struggle, however, since she had a very exalted opinion of her own abilities, and
an equally great reluctance to spend sixpence if she could avoid it. She provided Horace with a flat in her house to be
able to cut down on his salary. When Irene Osgood wanted Horace to edit two poetic anthologies, about insects and
garden plants, there were immediate difficulties since the budget to pay the contributors was quite minuscule. Although
some of the established poets kindly allowed their old poems to be reprinted for free, in The Winged Anthology and The
Garden Anthology, various needy poetasters drove a hard bargain, and Horace began to find his new job quite irksome.
It is to his credit that in November 1914, Horace Wyndham applied for an army commission. Although he was now
forty years old, he pointed out his seven years of military service as a ‘gentleman ranker’, and the fact that he came
from a good family: he was the grandson of Charles Tottenham MP, and the nephew of Lady Hornby. This stratagem had
the desired effect: after passing a physical examination and a test in French, Horace was given a temporary commission
as Captain, and appointed Railway Transport Officer. Initially, Irene Osgood was quite upset when Horace joined the
army, since she now lacked any ally to resurrect her ailing company. But then she found out that Horace had run the
company with blameworthy carelessness: the ledgers for books received and sold had not been filled in, and many boxes
of books were unaccounted for. The majority of these were gratis copies of the two poetic anthologies, which the canny
Horace had distributed liberally among the contributors, in lieu of royalties!
Just before Horace left for France, the 40-year-old bachelor finally got himself a wife, marrying the 32-year-old Ethel
Ada Mulready, a grand-daughter of William Mulready RA. Horace served on the French railways for almost a year, without
incident. A 1915 feature on ‘Authors in Khaki’ in the Daily Mail included ‘Captain Horace Wyndham’ and his important
work among the French railway trains. Horace even had the time to write a short patriotic about a ‘funny soldier’ named
Ginger, who serves on the Western Front, and amuses himself by various pranks. But later in 1915, Horace did something
quite unpardonable. Pointing out his age and the fact that he had recently married, he provided the name of another

railway transport officer who was willing to serve in France, and himself asked to be withdrawn from active service
abroad! This was an extraordinary request from a fit and able-bodied man, at a time when the Great War was very much
hanging in the balance, but nevertheless it was granted.
Although no person seems to have been unkind enough to leave three white feathers, or in his case perhaps three
white model locomotives instead, on Horace Wyndham’s desk, his request to be withdrawn from active service abroad
made him a marked man. It may well also be that the professional soldiers had identified Horace Wyndham the railway
transport officer with that obnoxious ‘gentleman ranker’ who had used to write various annoying newspaper articles
about army reform. At any rate, the army would henceforth treat Horace with firm disdain. In 1916, when Horace was
serving as a railway transport officer in Scotland, the Brigadier in command wrote a scathing report about his ability,
stating that he was clearly not up to the rigours of his important position, and that he ought to be sacked at the earliest
opportunity. This suggestion was adopted, with enthusiasm, and in August 1916, Horace achieved the ignominy of being
one of the few army officers to be sacked while there was a war on, and every man was needed.
To have been found unfit to serve as a military stationmaster in Scotland was a serious blow to Horace Wyndham’s
self-esteem. In particular, it must have been galling for the ‘gentleman ranker’, who had once prospered as a newspaper
authority on military matters, to be sacked from his post during wartime. The hapless Horace was appalled to find
that he had completed one year and 363 days of military service, just below two years. This was clearly a plot by his
treacherous superiors, to deprive him of part of his pension! Seizing hold of the weapon he could handle better than
either the sword or the stationmaster’s whistle, namely the pen, he wrote a number of long and angry letters to various
authorities, alleging that he had not been given formal notice that he was to be sacked. Stretching the truth a good deal,
Horace pointed out his flourishing career as an author, and the great expectations from his lucrative directorship of John
Richmond Ltd. In April 1917, he even wrote to King George V, at Buckingham Palace, and the various transactions of the
‘Horace Wyndham Case’ keep his dossier at the National Archives well filled. In the end, all Horace could achieve was
to obtain a commission in the Labour Corps, keeping his rank as Captain. After the peace, he was posted to a prisoner-
of-war camp in Cologne, from which he wrote some newspaper articles; in one of them, ‘Captain Horace Wyndham’
commented on the astonishment shown by the Germans when they saw that both officers and men played in the British
army football teams when there was a sports day.
*****
After being demobilized in 1920, Horace Wyndham must have re-evaluated his life. Irene Osgood was still alive, but
after the shenanigans back in 1914, she would hardly give him his old job back. Nobody would read books about military
life, written by a person who had not seen action in the Great War. Nor would any ‘modern woman’ be disposed to pick
up Audrey the Actress or other obsolete products of insipid pre-war ladies’ fiction. To keep poverty from the door, and
to provide his wife Ethel with a suitable lifestyle, Horace would have to ‘re-invent himself’. And fortunately, he thought
of a way to start a new career. From an early age, he had been a voracious reader of books on criminology and scandals
in high life, an area where he presumed there would be considerable public demand for novel literary offerings. The
problem was his embarrassing pre-war literary output. He wanted the pseudo-military outpourings from the ‘gentleman
ranker’ to remain forgotten, nor did he believe that people would be particularly inclined to purchase true crime books
written by the author of Irene of the Ringlets.
In his first post-war book, containing memoirs of literary and bohemian London, Horace adopted the pen name
‘Reginald Auberon’, taken from one of his own pre-war novels about a selfish and obnoxious young man. The Nineteen
Hundreds received decent reviews in the major newspapers, and sold much better than his obscure pre-war books.
It contains some amusing anecdotes from literary London. Horace had always been an enthusiastic clubman, and a
keen student of theatrical and bohemian life. He had once met Oscar Wilde, but found “something curiously repulsive
and unhealthy in his whole appearance”. Robert Ross, once Horace’s downstairs neighbour in Half Moon Street, was
more sympathetic: he liked to discuss literature and art with his younger colleague. Once, when Horace wrote to
the celebrated editor W T Stead, asking for advice and perhaps a commission to write for his paper, he received the
following reply: “I don’t see why I should be bothered to advise you or anybody else, and I decline to do so. Nor do I
want to read your silly specimens, which are returned herewith.”
In 1924, Horace published his first true crime book, Famous Trials Re-Told, about some society causes célèbres. He did
so under his own name, hoping that his embarrassing pre-war production would be forgotten. Sprightly and well-written,
Famous Trials Re-Told chronicles some high society miscreants, like Lord de Ros the card-sharper, Colonel Valentine Baker

who groped a young woman on board the train
from Midhurst to London, and Lieutenant
and Mrs Cameron the Edinburgh insurance
fraudsters. Showing his talent for resurrecting
interesting and forgotten cases, he devoted
a chapter to the mystery of Lady Twiss, the
wife of the legal grandee Sir Travers Twiss,
who fled London in 1872 after being accused
of leading a double life as a prostitute.
Among the educated public, there was a

healthy interest in true crime in the 1920s,
and an equally strong interest in society
life. To combine the two meant literary
success: Horace had found the formula for
a reasonably successful book, from which he
would never stray throughout his long career.
The Mayfair Calendar appeared in 1925,
chronicling the misdeeds of characters like
Mary Blandy, Lady Colin Campbell and Earl
Ferrers. Blotted ‘Scutcheons appeared the
following year, dealing with some sensational
cases like those of Sir Charles Dilke, the Rev.
James Hackman and Madame Rachel. The Sir Travers and Lady Twiss, and their accuser Alexander Chaffers
dealings of the divorce court was a source of
perpetual fascination for Horace, providing material for many a coy probing of the sexual mores of the time. Judicial
Dramas [1928] follows the same pattern, with chapters about the trials of Queen Charlotte, Colonel Blood, Baron de
Vidil and others. Professor Richard D Altick, who wrote the definitive account of the Baron de Vidil, a dodgy and cruel
French nobleman who stood trial for horsewhipping his wimpish son, mentions that Horace’s account “has several details
not found elsewhere”, either the product of thorough research or of an inventive mind. One of Horace’s more original
books appeared later in 1928: Continental Crimes departed from his usual pattern, being entirely devoted to continental
European miscreants, like the wife-killing Duc de Praslin, the uxoricidal Countess Tarnowska, and the vicious German
clergyman Franz Riembauer. The Austrian weirdo Lieutenant Adolf Hofrichter, who was convicted of poisoning his senior
colleagues in 1909, through sending them mail-order ‘potency pills’, also makes an appearance. The debate concerning
Hofrichter’s guilt has continued over the years, although the careless Horace takes it for granted. Nor was he right in
claiming that Hofrichter was imprisoned for 20 years; he was in fact liberated in 1918 and lived on until the other Adolf
had made Germany and Austria countries where scoundrels could flourish.
In 1929, the ever-diligent Horace was ready with his latest literary venture, Feminine Frailty, dealing with a variety of
female criminals and ladies of doubtful virtue. The courtesans Lola Montez and Mary Anne Clarke make an appearance,
as do the royal claimant Lavinia Ryves and the murderesses Maria Manning and Edith Carew. Romances of the Peerage
[1930] unearths various marital peccadilloes among the upper classes. Victorian Sensations [1933] contains a long chapter
about the rabble-rousing editor W T Stead, who had a young London girl kidnapped in order to prove that white slavery
was prevalent in the Modern Babylon, a caper that sent him to prison for three months. The Wicklow Peerage claim
is also dealt with, as are the immoral activities of Colonel Valentine Baker and Sir William Wilde, the father of Oscar.
Victorian Parade [1934] has a sprightly chapter about the eccentric Lady Florence Dixie, who invented a newspaper
story that she had been attacked by Irish nationalists, and rescued by her St Bernard dog Hubert [see Ripperologist 124].
In 1935, Horace published his best-known book, The Magnificent Montez. He had always had a liking for courtesans
in high life, and the sensational career of the beautiful Lola Montez in European society had fascinated him for years.
Doing his research in a more thorough manner than previously, and visiting Paris and Munich to dig out some original
sources, he could lay claim to have produced the definitive biography of his heroine. The Magnificent Montez enjoyed
decent sales on both side of the Atlantic, and was even translated into Spanish. In 1936, Horace produced Dramas of
the Law, yet another collection of historical cases. After a hiatus of 12 years, he returned to the mysterious Twiss

case, remaining quite unable to solve it in spite of his feeble witticisms
about Queen Victoria cancelling the errant lady’s presentation at court.
Another chapter dealt with the spiritualist Daniel Dunglas Home, another
notorious character he had always admired. The following year, he
published a full-length treatment of the career of the mysterious Home,
entitled Mr Sludge the Medium. Few people bought these books, however,
an indication that the popular taste had begun to change: obscure legal
cases in high life, or the misadventures of dodgy spiritualists for that
matter, no longer had obvious popular appeal. In spite of his large back
catalogue of books, many of which remained in print, Horace was now
living on literary credit.
Due to a combination of paper shortages and lack of inspiration,

Horace Wyndham published nothing during the Second World War, except
that his 1916 book about Ginger the military humourist was reissued by a
patriotic publisher, with Kaiser Bill’s name changed to that of Mr Hitler!
In 1946, the veteran criminologist published Consider your Verdict, a
sprightly retelling of historical trials with an [unintentionally?] bawdy
cover illustration. His next book was This was the News, a chronicle of
news stories from Victorian times, including a brief account of the exploits
of Queen Victoria’s Stalker, the notorious Edward ‘the Boy’ Jones. In
1949, Mellifont of Dublin issued low-quality abridged paperback reprints
The cover of Mr Sludge, the Medium of Society Sensations and Feminine Frailty; they sold badly and are today
very scarce indeed. In 1951, the now 76-year-old Horace presented his
two final literary offerings. Chorus to Coronet was an amusing survey of various actresses and music hall performers
marrying into the peerage, sometimes under dramatic circumstances. Speranza, a biography of Jane Lady Wilde, the
mother of Oscar, was praised by many reviewers, and sold reasonably well.
In two articles published in 1947 and 1958, Horace claimed to have

been employed at Woman’s World during the editorship of Oscar Wilde
[1887-1889], quoting some witticisms from the great man, who declared
answering letters to be an absurd practice, and only attended the office
one day per week. But since Horace was only 13 years old in 1887, the
highest position he could have aspired to at this magazine was that of
office-boy. And in his memoirs The Nineteen Hundreds he mentions nothing
of employment at Woman’s World, and states that he only met Wilde
once! Although the reputable biographers of Oscar Wilde have ignored
Horace’s articles, an article in English Literature in Transition of 1998
give them prime importance for proving Wilde’s unambitious approach to
editorial work. Personally, I would rather suspect that Horace made up his
anecdotes about Wilde, since Horace was a schoolboy at the time. This
episode raises some unpleasant questions about the reliability of his other
unreferenced statements.
In his old age, Horace Wyndham settled in Saxlingham, Norfolk, where

he lived on for many years. He is recorded to have died, peacefully, in
his sleep, on 28 December 1970, at the great age of 96. A correspondent
to the Times described Horace as a prolific and distinguished writer of
both fiction and criminology, who had been “acquainted with all the
The [unintentionally?] funny cover

of Consider your Verdict

most famous literary personalities of the day.” His
army record in the Great War had been particularly A checklist of the books of Horace Wyndham
distinguished [!], and the dinner parties he and Ethel The Queen’s Service 1899 £40
used to hold in the Temple were lit by his sometimes Soldiers of the Queen 1899 £20
caustic wit. A brilliant raconteur, he retained his mental The King’s Scarlet 1905 £40
faculties to the end. Audrey the Actress 1906 scarce
***** The Flare of the Footlights 1907 scarce

The Call of the Drum 1907 scarce
But in spite of the efforts of this over-exuberant Reginald Auberon 1907 £20
Times obituarist, Horace Wyndham has remained Brother Officers 1908 £20
almost completely forgotten ever since. He had no Irene of the Ringlets 1908 scarce
children, and no person has hitherto bothered to trace Roses and Rue 1908 scarce
even the basic outlines of his life and career. There is no The Magnificent Mummer 1909 scarce
portrait or photograph of him in the public domain, so Chetwynd’s Career 1909 scarce
we do not even know what he looked like. None of his Mortimer’s Marriage 1909 scarce
books is in print, expect as low-quality pirated ‘print- Hilary Onslow 1911 £20
on-demand’ paperbacks. Still, all his useful books about Following the Drum 1912 £10
crimes and scandals in high society are readily available For the Flag 1913 scarce
second hand, many of them for very reasonable prices. Limelight 1914 scarce
Although supply is quite limited, so is demand for Stage-Struck 1914 scarce
these obscure 1920s and 1930s books. As for Horace’s The Winged Anthology [Ed] 1914 £30
scarce pre-war books, some of them are advertised for The Garden Anthology [Ed] 1914 £10
considerable sums by avaricious specialist booksellers, Soldiers on Service 1915 scarce
but they can go on eBay for a fraction of that amount. Ginger 1916 £10
Horace Wyndham belonged to a quite vigorous school The Nineteen Hundreds 1922/US 1923 £7
of ‘popular criminology’ that flourished in the 1920s Famous Trials Re-Told 1924/US 1925 £10
and 1930s. Books about contemporary or historical The Mayfair Calendar 1925/US 1926 £5
criminals were never short of readers, and authors Blotted ‘Scutcheons 1926 £10
like Hargrave Adam, Guy Logan and Elliott O’Donnell Nights in London 1926 £15
flourished as a result. In spite of his considerable output [with Dorothea St George]
of books, Horace was not the most prolific of this school Judicial Dramas 1927/US 1927 £10
of authors: that title must go to the ever-active but [US: Crimes in High Life]
little-known Charles Kingston, who wrote a prodigious Crime on the Continent 1928 £7
amount of crime fiction and non-fiction. F Tennyson Criminology 1928/US 1929 £3
Jesse and Guy Logan were probably the most cerebral Feminine Frailty 1929 £10
of these ‘popular criminologists’, frequently providing Romances of the Peerage 1930 £15
new insights into historical murder mysteries. Even the Victorian Sensations 1933 £15
careless Hargrave Adam occasionally had something Victorian Parade 1934 £3
new and interesting to present, thanks to his excellent The Magnificent Montez 1935/US 1936 £10
Scotland Yard contacts. Elliott O’Donnell, who has Dramas of the Law 1936 £40
become notorious for not infrequently making up his Mr Sludge, the Medium 1937 £40
‘authentic’ ghost stories, took his true crime writing Society Sensations 1938 £30
more seriously, as evidenced by his excellent Strange Consider your Verdict 1946 £5
Disappearances and Great Thames Mysteries. This was the News 1948 £7
Feminine Frailty [Mellifont] 1949 scarce
Horace Wyndham had a more diverse output than
Society Sensations [Mellifont] 1949 scarce
most of his fellow ‘popular criminologists’, occasionally
Chorus to Coronet 1951 £7
dabbling in high society life, spiritualism and literary
Speranza 1951/US 1951 £10
biography. The past misdeeds of members of the
nobility interested him greatly, and inspired some of The books marked ‘scarce’ are unavailable on the
his most sprightly essays. His books are mostly factually Internet; the others are valued at the lowest price quoted
reliable, although there is reason to suspect that Horace for a Good or Very Good copy from an UK bookseller.

sometimes ‘improved on’ newspaper stories, and invented ‘contemporary’ poems to spice up his stories. Like his fellow
‘popular criminologists’, he provided neither sources nor footnotes in his books, thus seriously undermining their value
to the serious scholar. His books did not receive much attention from academic reviewers, except that his late offering
Speranza, the biography of Oscar Wilde’s mother, was considered old-fashioned and lightweight, long on unreferenced
anecdotes and short on analysis. The same criticism can be directed against many of his earlier books.
The crime writers of yesteryear do have a history to record. In The True History of Jack the Ripper, I managed to
resurrect Guy Logan from more than half a century of obscurity: a stylish writer, shrewd crime historian and pioneering
murder house detective, whose inclusion in the JtR A-Z is long overdue. In the third issue of the now defunct internet
magazine New Independent Review, Nicholas Connell dragged Hargrave Adam from a similar fate, adding a background
and a personality to a long-forgotten Ripperologist and crime writer of some repute. Just like Horace Wyndham, both
Logan and Adam died in obscurity, having written nothing in the final decades of their lives; Horace was slightly younger
than his two criminologist colleagues, and he survived them both by decades. Yet his books are the most old-fashioned
of the three: coy tittle-tattle about court life, and the marital shenanigans of the nobility and gentry. In contrast to
Guy Logan, who had a fascination with multiple murderers, and was a keen Ripperologist, Horace had a disdain for
‘gory’ crimes, and for serial killers. Although he occasionally described celebrated murder trials, they usually concerned
people from the upper classes of society. But as the author of not less than 43 published books, and a large output of
journalism, Horace Wyndham does not deserve near-total obscurity.
JAN BONDESON is a senior lecturer and consultant rheumatologist at Cardiff University. He is the author of
Murder Houses of London, The London Monster, The Great Pretenders, Blood on the Snow and other true
crime books, as well as the bestselling Buried Alive.
MURDER HOUSES OF LONDON deals with central

London’s architecture of capital crime: houses inside which celebrated
murders have been committed.
Pursue Lord Lucan as he escapes from his elegant Belgravia house,

leaving the dead nanny in the basement; prowl the Soho streets once
haunted by an elusive serial killer; and follow in the murderous
footsteps of the Blackout Ripper and the serial killer Patrick Mackay.
And read about London’s many forgotten murders, where only the
murder houses remain to tell a tale.
*****
‘You’ll never look at the closed doors of London the same way
again… MURDER HOUSES OF LONDON combines relentless
research with splendid story-telling to produce a book of unrivalled
interestingness.’ JAMES HARKIN, Head Researcher at BBC’s QI
‘[MURDER HOUSES OF LONDON] documents the grisly histories

of 163 London houses, many of whose current occupants have no
idea of their blood-soaked pasts.’ Daily Mail
‘Comprehensive and detailed... [Bondeson is a] meticulous and Includes

reliable author...I cannot recommend this book highly enough.’ JACK THE RIPPER,
STEWART P. EVANS, author of The Ultimate Jack the Ripper the KRAY TWINS,
Companion the BLACKOUT RIPPER
and ‘ACID BATH’
Ripperologist HAIGH
141 December 2014 31
Roslyn D’Onston:
Under Five Flags

by A Free Lance
By NINA and HOWARD BROWN
For the next two installments to our column Roslyn D’Onston will be the man of the hour.
“Sudden Death” has, for the most part, fallen off the radar for the last few years or so, and it
might be worth another look at this fascinating personality.
Two years ago researcher Debra Arif located a trove of D’Onston-related material. One item in the collection was a
letter written by D’Onston to another party and contained mention of an article he had written which was published
in the Pall Mall Gazette some 18 months before the Whitechapel Murders. This article has never been published in a
Ripper-related journal before.
Taking the cue from D’Onston, I hunted down the article in question to an item entitled ‘Under Five Flags’ in January
1887. It was signed “A Free Lance”. Those familiar with D’Onston’s many claims to fame will undoubtedly recognize
that during the timeframe in which most of these events occurred (1862-68), he was, in reality, a clerk at the Customs
House in Hull.
Although the article’s header makes it appear as if D’Onston planned on another installment to the original, no such
article has been located by us to date.
*****
Every one has read Ouida’s “Under Two Flags”. I have served under five
flags in my time: three of them Imperial standards and two of them those of
rebels. I have known as commander or as foe some of these men whom to this
day heroes worship as well as others less celebrated, but who still have carved
their names with their swords on the page of history. Among those are Gordon,
Garibaldi, Stuart, the Confederate raider, Belle Boyd, the invincible scout, the
Countess de la Torre, the lovely Garibaldian leader, Burgevine, the filibuster,
Turr, the Hungarian, and a host of others.
Gordon, for instance saved my life. It happened in this way. I was only a
youngster, when getting tired of the endless routine of barrack life in the _th
Dragoon Guards, I went out to China to fight the Taepings, who were then
in full revolt. General Ward, who commanded the “Disciplined Chinese Field
Force” had just joined ‘the majority’, and Burgevine had succeeded him in
the command. General Burgevine, a little dark man, who had come out to
China as a ship’s steward, but had been one of [William] Walker’s filibusters at
Nicaragua, was an able soldier and as brave as a lion. He was swarthy almost
to blackness and wore little gold rings in his ears. I joined his brigade. His men
were well armed with American rifles and bayonets, carefully drilled, and had
about thirty of us - English and American officers - to lead them. We defeated
Belle Boyd
the Taepings in a continuous series of battles, until our men began grumbling for
their arrears of pay, which were then something like six months overdue. General
Burgevine applied to the Foo-tai (or military mandarin governor of the province) for
the money. He solemnly declared that he had none. Burgevine happened to know
that a few days previously the Foo-tai had recieved a thousand bars of syce silver,
which were then in his palace. He ordered us to storm the palace and help ourselves.
We did so, with the natural result that the next morning placards were posted all
over the place, offering 150,000 taels of silver for Burgevine’s head, dead or alive.
We stuck to our commander; and the whole body, 3,000 strong, went over to the
Taepings. We were placed in the army commanded by ‘The Shield King” and we
defeated the Imperial troops as easily as we had the patriots.
All went well until one fine day we heard that the Imperial Government had
borrowed from the English 200 officers and non-coms, who had formed another
“Disciplined Force”, and under the command of one Major Gordon, R. E., were then
within three days march to attack us. They duly arrived, and when we saw the pith
helmets of the English officers we refused to draw swords from their sheaths. In the
short engagement which followed our men bolted, and we thirty white men were
Gordon’s prisoners. The next morning he paraded us and standing in the front of
the line said, “Of course, you know that I shall hang you all, not merely as rebels
in arms, but as deserters from the Imperial army”. He looked at us all individually,
very sternly, leaning on his thin rattan, which he always carried and used in action,
instead of his sword. He was beginning to address some more observations to us,
when Burgevine, turning his quid of honeydew over in his mouth, spat vigorously
close to Gordon’s well polished boot, and said, “D--n it, Gordon, if you’re going to
Istvan Turr
hang, hang! But don’t give us so much of that G-d da--nd jaw!” Gordon looked first
at his boot, and seeing that it was still spotless, gazed at Burgevine half a moment with an expression as though he
would like to have laid his rattan about his shoulders. Then, saying calmly, “You shall be quite satisfied presently, sir”,
turned on his heel and marched off. Burgevine and one or two of the other Americans, who were perfectly untameable,
had been previously tied hand and foot, or it would have gone hard with Gordon at that moment.
While we were watching the nimble Chinamen rigging the ropes on trees for our
accomodation and stopping every minute to sing out “Fanqui!” [red devils], an aide
came from Gordon to say that our lives would be spared but that he should deport us
from the country. Burgevine simply expectorated again and said “Wal! tell him from me
he’s a good old son!” and we marched cheerfully into the calaboose provided for us.
Gordon afterwards sent Burgevine and the Americans to New York in a Yankee ship and
the English to England. That is the way in which “Gordon saved my life”.
After Gordon, Garibaldi was my most famous acquaintance. What impressed me most
about him was the immense triceps, or shoulder muscles, he had. They were just like
two half cocoa-nuts sticking up underneath his white Mexican mantle. From Heenan and
Morrissey to Mace (Sayers had a remarkably small arm) I never saw anything like it. It
would have made two of theirs. And the sabre he used! Two of the Life Guards’ blades
forged into one would just have made it. Many a time have I seen that awful sabre
sweeping right, left, right, left like clockwork, as he mowed down the enemy like grass,
seated on his old white charger, leaving “a lane” (that is the only word) for us who followed
General Burgevine him closely. “Avanti!, Avanti!” rang from his lips all the while, and his trumpet voice rose
high above the loudest artillery fire. His strength was simply Herculean, and was only
surpassed by General Dunne. As an instance of Garibaldi’s enormous strength, I remember late one night leaving the Caffe
di Europa, in Naples, with some brother officers and seeing the General just passing on foot with only one attendant.
We followed him, as he was going towards an unlighted and dangerous part of the city, which swarmed with Borboni - ex
soldiers, sbirri, lazzaroni in the pay of Francis II. He was going to visit one of his dying soldiers, a boy of seventeen. We
had not long to wait: like lightning two men sprang at him, right and left, simultaneously, knife in hand. Ere their blades,

raised to strike, could fall,
Garibaldi had each one by the
throat, raised high in air to the
full extent of his arms. He then
knocked them together two or
three times, and let them drop
on the stones. You may guess
that our swords were out. But
no! The great hero said, “Leave
them alone; the poor fools have
had their lesson”.
This was the kind of man - the

demi-god - that he was; just as
he was when the tyrant Rosas in
South America hung him up by
the thumbs in face of a blazing
tropical sun for four mortal
hours. That night Garibaldi
escaped. In two days he had
Rosas in his power, and when Garibaldi
some of his men, many of whom
were vaqueros and bullfighters, drew their long navajas, and were actually - such is their brutified nature - proposing to
skin Rosas alive, Garibaldi not only furnished him with an escort of his own bodyguard to the frontier, but even collected
together every horse, bullock, and single article that had been looted from Rosas, amounting in specie and jewels alone
to several thousands of pounds, and had him and his immense wealth conveyed to a place of safety. The Neapolitans
realized this side of his character to such an extent that I have seen whole battalions of them actually kneel down in
the dust as “The Liberator” passed. He had only one formula for them, roaring out “Rise! That is the attitude of slaves,
not of freemen!”. They even carried their worship to a blasphemous pitch; and on one occasion I have a very vivid
recollection, and the only one on which I, or, I believe, any one else, ever saw Garibaldi lose his temper.
There was a grand fete in his honour - processions, bands, banners, flowers - everything that makes an Italian festa so
delightful. Garibaldi came out on the balcony of the hotel to address the people. Suddenly his eye caught the principal
banner - a huge affair bearing the Latin inscription “Iosephus Niceanus Redemptor Italia” so arranged that at the first
glance that only the ‘INRI” caught the eye. Garibaldi beckoned the bearers towards the balcony. They came with a proud
smile of exultation and held it higher for his inspection. The General seized it, tore it from the staves, and tearing it
to tatters, flung them in the faces of the cheering crowd with one word which dominated all their united voices like
a trumpet blast - “Ragazzi!” (canaille), and without vouchsafing another word, went inside. Not all their cheers, all
their deputations, could get him to appear before them again. For concentrated scorn of tone, for the most intensest
contempt and fury expressed in his features, it might well have been his friend, the greatest orator of our time, the
facile princeps - Gavazzi.
--A Free Lance--
*****
Special thanks to Debra Arif.
NINA and HOWARD BROWN are the proprietors of JTRForums.com.

CHRIS SCOTT’S
Press Trawl
THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS IN THE SCOTSMAN:
ONE NEWSPAPER’S VIEW
In a departure from our normal format, we felt it would be interesting to see how one provincial
newspaper - The Scotsman - reported the murders, and to see how the story developed. The final
part covers events after the canonical five murders, with reports on the deaths of Ellen Bury, the
Pinchin Street torso and Frances Coles.
*****
12 February 1889
SHOCKING TRAGEDY IN DUNDEE

A WOMAN STRANGLED AND STABBED
Great consternation was caused in Dundee yesterday when it became known that a tragedy of an extraordinary character
had taken place in the city. The occurrence had become known to the police on Sunday evening, but they kept the matter quiet
till yesterday morning. On Sunday evening an Englishman, who gave the name of William Henry Bury, and who said he was a
sawdust merchant, called at the Central Police Office and made a statement. He said that he and his wife, Ellen Elliott, aged
33, came to Dundee from London by steamer three weeks ago, and since their arrival in the city they had not done any work.
On Monday week (4th February) they were drinking rather heavily, and towards evening they were both very much the worse
for liquor, and he did not remember the hour at which they retired to rest. On Tuesday morning, however, when he awoke he
noticed that his wife was not in bed beside him, and on looking around the apartment he observed her lying on the floor. Calling
her, and receiving no reply, he got out of bed and saw that she was lying dead, and that there was a rope round her neck. After
looking at the body for some time, he was suddenly seized by a mad impulse, and lifting a knife which was lying near at hand,
he plunged it five or six times into the body of his wife. Soon afterwards, getting alarmed, he placed the body in a wooden
box in the room. having told his story, Bury handed over the key of his house. The detective inspector and an officer went to
the house, at 113 Prince’s Street. On entering they found that the dwelling consisted of two apartments. In the second or back
room there was a large white deal box in the middle of the floor. Lifting two loose boards of the lid they saw the leg and the
foot of a woman, and at once sent information of the discovery to the Central Police Station. The police surgeon was sent for,
and along with another medical man made an examination of the contents of the box. The box, though deep, was too short to
permit of the body being placed inside it at full length, and it had been crushed inside and packed tightly. The examination of
the body then made showed that there were a number of deep cuts in the lower part of the body. Dr Templeman and Dr Stalker
afterwards made a careful examination of the remains of the woman, occupying about four hours, the result of which has not
been made known.
Before Bury was locked up, a bank book was found on him, showing that he had several pounds at his credit in the bank,
besides a quantity of jewellery, including a watch, which he said belonged to his wife. In the course of a further statement,
Bury said he came from the East End of London. Mr Dewar, the Chief Constable, therefore, immediately communicated with
the London police with a view of ascertaining if anything was known regarding Bury’s antecedents.
When brought up at the Police Court, the prisoner, who is only 5 feet 4 inches in height, seemed cool and collected as he
stepped briskly to the bar on his name being cried out by the bar officer, but he had peculiar, hunted like look. The complaint
against him was that he murdered his wife, Ellen Elliott or Bury, either by strangulation or stabbing. On the motion of the
Fiscal, Bury was remitted to the Sheriff. In the course of the afternoon he was brought before Sheriff Campbell Smith for
examination. He was still collected, and stock to his story of his wife’s suicide, denying that he murdered her, but refusing to
give any explanation of his motive for packing the remains in a box.

The scene of the tragedy is a two roomed house on the basement of a four storey tenement at 113 Prince’s Street, and is
reached by a stair of seventeen steps. The place has a dirty and wretched appearance. In the kitchen, to which entrance is
gained from the outside, there is no furniture, but the windows were obscured by two pieces of red cloth. The room behind,
in which the couple seem to have lived, was poorly furnished. A small dictionary in the room had written on the front page the
name “Emma Perrott, 9 Arnold Road, Bow, E.” During the day the scene of the tragedy was visited by crowds from all parts of
the city.
The neighbours state that the couple came to reside in Prince’s Street about a fortnight ago. The man was often seen
going out and in, and was a frequent customer at an adjoining public house, but the woman was very seldom seen, and she
kept herself reserved. The last occasion on which she was observed was on Monday week. Since then Bury has been doing
the housework, which rather surprised the neighbours, but they had no suspicion of the murder, as they had heard no cries,
and their houses closely adjoin, so that in the event of a struggle they think they would have heard the woman’s screams. A
publican in the neighbourhood said Bury generally called several times a day. On Saturday week the deceased accompanied
him, and was served with liquor.
Some additional details regarding the tragedy in Dundee were learned last night. The body of the woman has been seen by
the stewardess on board the Dundee and London steamer Cambria, and she states that it is that of a woman who, accompanied
by a young man, left London on the 19th January and arrived at Dundee on the 20th. The stewardess states that the woman
was accompanied on board by a young woman whom she introduced as her sister. The couple were second cabin passengers,
and their luggage consisted of two large boxes, both of which were very heavy. The remains have also been identified by a
lodging house keeper and her daughter, who state that the prisoner and his wife came to her house on 21st January, mentioning
on their arrival that they had just come from London. They engaged a large parlour, and during the week they remained in
the lodgings they seemed kind and affectionate to each other. They were well provided with money, and looked, she says,
like a lady and gentleman. The woman wore a gold watch and chain, and had earrings and a brooch. On one occasion, when
the lodging house keeper went suddenly into the room, she was surprised to see the table littered with articles of jewellery.
The parties never stated what their means of livelihood was, but the deceased happened to remark one day that her husband
had been a contractor in London, but that he had given up the business. At the end of a week Bury asked that the terms for
their lodgings should be reduced; and when this was refused they left, as they said, to take a house of their own. They told
the landlady subsequently that they had got a house in the west end of the town, but this must have been incorrect, as they
called upon a house factor and got the key of a house in Prince’s Street, in the east end. They key was given to Bury so that
he might see the house, but he never returned with it; and although the factor sent repeatedly to the house, his messenger
could not get admittance.
There is no doubt a murder of a most atrocious character has been committed. The woman is believed to have been stabbed
to death with a long knife, some of the wounds being very deep, and then strangled. There are marks on the body which show
that a violent struggle had taken place. No motive for the crime has yet been suggested. The police incline to the theory that
Bury had come to Dundee to escape unpleasant attention in the South, and some force is given to this idea when the large
sum of money and the jewellery which were in possession of the couple are taken into account. Information is expected from
London which may go a long way to explain these suspicious circumstances.
A Press Association telegram states that Inspector Abberline, and other detectives who were engaged in investigating the
recent Whitechapel murders, instituted inquiries last night among the relations of the woman Bury. Deceased is described by
her friends as a quiet, inoffensive woman. She had lived very unhappily with her husband since their marriage about twelve
months ago. She then had about £240, to obtain possession of which it was believed Bury married her. Accused, who was a
sawdust merchant, well known in Whitechapel and the City, was a heavy drinker. About six months ago they went to lodge with
Mr W Smith, bricklayer and builder, 3 Spanby Road, Bow. Mr Smith states that he was not surprised to hear of the murder, as
Bury used to terribly ill treat her, he having at times to rescue the woman. Even now the walls of the room are bespattered
with blood. Before Bury left Mr Smith, he asked the latter to make him a box three feet by two feet six inches, and three feet
deep. He wanted the box made airtight, and so strong that Smith became suspicious; and when he questioned Bury he said he
was going to Brisbane, but he would never give him a satisfactory explanation. He ordered carmen to take their things to the
docks for Brisbane, but he went off to Dundee instead.
11 September 1889
ANOTHER LONDON HORROR

WOMAN MURDERED AND MUTILATED
London was startled early yesterday morning by the discovery of another horrible murder in Whitechapel, the crime being
attended with shocking mutilation of the victim. The scene of the discovery was a railway arch in Pinchin Street, which is close

to Cable Street, and in the immediate vicinity of the other murders. This arch is one of three used by the Vestry of St George’s
in the East as store yards, although they have only employed them for this purpose for the past eight weeks. Originally they
were all boarded up to a height of several feet, but in the particular arch where the remains were found the hoarding had been
taken away, presumably by the poor of the neighbourhood for firewood, and it is thus perfectly open to the street. The arch,
however, is dark, no lamplight shining into it.
Just before half past five yesterday morning Police Constable Pinnett, 239, observed in the growing light what appeared to
be a body, and closer examination showed it to be the remains of a woman. The head was absent, as were also the two legs,
these having been disjointed at the thigh. The body was perfectly nude and lying breast downwards. There was a clean cut
from the waist downward, and lying on the trunk was a rent chemise all crumpled and bloody. There was no blood upon the
ground, however, and very little blood upon the body, and this showed very conclusively that the crime could not have been
committed on the spot. Constable Pinnett blew his whistle, and in a very few minutes a police cordon was drawn around the
spot. Mr Thomas Arnold, the police superintendent of the district, was summoned, and took charge of the police arrangements;
while Detective Inspector Pinhorn was assisted by Inspectors Reid, Swanson and Moore. The most careful search was made in all
the courts and alleys adjoining, but the only discovery worth recording was three sailors who were asleep in an adjoining arch.
They were taken to Leman Street Police Station, where they were subjected to a rigid examination. Fortunately for themselves
they were able to explain their movements, and so far they satisfied the police that they had nothing whatever to do with the
horrible crime. They had neither seen nor heard anything unusual during the time they were in the arch, and accordingly they
were soon discharged.
Dr Clark, representing Dr Phillips, the police divisional surgeon, made a cursory examination of the remains very shortly
after the discovery. The deceased appears to have been about thirty or forty years of age. When alive she would probably have
stood about five feet three inches in height. The trunk measured two feet three inches, and the arms two feet two inches. She
must have been a brunette, but there are no traces of a wedding ring on the finger, and the woman does not appear to have
ever borne a child. There was a sharp cut, as of a cord, on the wrist, but this might well have been done in the removal of
the remains. The circumstances attending the crime bear a close resemblance to the mysterious outrages at Rainham, on the
Thames Embankment, near Whitechapel, and at Battersea. In each of these cases the heads were missing, and the manner of
mutilation similar. Constable Pinnett says he is certain that the body was not in the arch at five o’clock or a few minutes after,
when he passed the spot and threw his light on. He covers his beat in fifteen minutes, and on coming round the next time the
body was there. He saw no suspicious looking person during his round, nor have the police definite information yet of any one
having seen any such individual carrying a sack or large bundle at that early hour. The body of the deceased was removed to
the St George’s mortuary, and a large crowd gathered there directly, remaining throughout the whole day. Many “unfortunates”
called to see the trunk, but none could identify it. In fact, there are no marks whatsoever on the remains which would enable
any one to conclusively identify the body, and unless some other portions are discovered it is quite possible that the matter will
remain a mystery. The police are of opinion that the deceased had been dead at least two days, and that she was not murdered
in the Whitechapel district, but in some more outlying suburb.
The excitement in the district when the murder became known was very great, and groups gathered as near the fatal arch
as the police permitted, and there discussed the latest horror in all its phases. There was no diminution in the crowd as the
day wore on, many from outlying districts visiting the spot to satisfy their morbid curiosity. The inquest will be opened at ten
o’clock this morning at the Vestry Hall, Cable Street, before Mr Wynne Baxter, the Coroner.
Pinchin Street and its immediate neighbourhood is essentially a poor district, but the people residing there are mostly hard
working folks. It is singularly free from that unfortunate class of women who infest the courts and alleys of Whitechapel. The
place is wretchedly lighted, and the many little dark passages about render the place like a rabbit warren, and peculiarly easy
for a criminal to slip away undetected.
In its account of the discovery the Press Association says:
Backchurch Lane extends from Commercial Street to Cable Street, and is in the immediate locality of the Berner Street
tragedy in September last year, when Elizabeth Stride was barbarously murdered, and the Mitre Square murder was discovered
almost simultaneously. Shortly before six o’clock Scotland yard received a brief telegraphic message - “Whitechapel again;”
and in the space of a few minutes they were able to telegraph all over the Metropolitan police district as follows:- “At 5.40
a.m. trunk of woman found under arches in Pinchin Street; aged about 40; height, 5 feet 3 inches; hair dark brown; no clothing
except chemise, very much torn and blood stained; both elbows discoloured as if from habitual leaning on them. Post mortem
marks around wrists, apparently caused by a rope.” It may be mentioned that the first brief message was readily understood,
being in the form of a signal arranged as part of the police system organised for the detection of crimes in Whitechapel.
Immediately after the receipt of the message the Thames police, under Detective Inspector Regan and Chief Inspector
Moore, took prompt measures for watching and searching crafts in the river. Attention was specially directed to cattle boats

and those from Spain and America. Several vessels in the London Docks and Millwall Docks were boarded and searched, and
inquiries were made as to the men engaged in the crews. Mr Clarke made a brief medical examination of the remains after
their removal to the mortuary. It was found that the legs had been skilfully separated from the body, and that the head was
missing. There was a long incision in the abdomen extending from the inside of the left thigh up to the breast bone. None
of the internal organs were missing. The trunk exhibited signs of decomposition and, in the opinion of medical gentlemen,
death had taken place some four days ago. In the meantime, full particulars had been sent to Scotland Yard, and Mr Monro,
Chief Commissioner, Colonel Monsell, Chief Constable of the district, Superintendent Swanson, Detective Inspector Miller,
Superintendent Arnold of H Division, and Local Inspector Reid all visited the scene of the discovery and made inquiries into the
affair. Later in the day, Detective Inspector Tonbridge, who had charge of what was known as “The Thames Mystery” a short
time ago, went to the mortuary and saw the remains.
Dr Gordon Brown, city police surgeon, Mr Clarke, and two other medical gentlemen shortly afterwards made a close
examination of the remains. It was noticed that the trunk showed green patches, the flesh otherwise being white. The doctors
formed the conclusion that the cuts had been inflicted in a left hand manner. The throat was cut from left to right, and the
same peculiarity was observed in the other wounds. In more than one of the previous crimes the same peculiarity has been
noticed. the legs were taken out cleanly from the groins, and with the exception of these limbs nothing but the head was
missing. The severing of the head from the body was skilfully done, without hacking, and the fact that a saw had been used
to sever the bones in a skilful manner pointed to the possession of a good knowledge of anatomy on the part of the operator.
the body was well nourished and cared for. One of the doctors declared that, had he been asked to dissect the body in the
manner in which he saw it, he could not have done it more neatly and skilfully. In consequence of the similarity in the mode of
dismemberment adopted in this case and in the recent Battersea and Rainham mysteries, the officers engaged in those cases
were consulted. They consider that the present crime is of different origin to the previous Whitechapel atrocities.
Several expert officers were engaged making a minute search in and around the spot where the trunk was found. Nothing
whatever affording a clue was discovered. There were no footmarks or other traces of the murderer or his accomplice. It was
concluded that the body was thrown where it was found, possibly by some person waling past the spot. Inquiries in the vicinity
did not result in anybody being discovered who had seen a person carrying a suspicious parcel, and persons living in some
cottages in a court immediately opposite to the railway say they heard nothing at all unusual. That a person would hazard to
walk far with such a bulky and suspicious load seems incredible, and the police, therefore, rather incline to the belief that
the murder had been committed in a house in the neighbourhood within the last three or four days, and that the murderer
is disposing of the remains piecemeal.
An important conference in connection with the murder was held in Whitechapel Police Station last evening. Dr Phillips,
divisional surgeon, who has been entrusted with post mortem and other investigations connected with most of the East
End murders, was at Bournemouth for holiday, and was telegraphed for. He arrived in London last evening, and at once
proceeded to Leman Street Police Station, where he was joined by Chief Constable Colonel Monsell, Mr Arnold, several officers
from Scotland Yard, and Commissioner Monro. The strictest privacy was preserved regarding the deliberations, which lasted
upwards of two hours. Mr Monro and Dr Phillips both refused to state what steps had been resolved upon by the authorities.
At Arbour Square Station one man is detained in custody on suspicion, but no importance is attached to the arrest. It is stated
that last week a letter was found in the vicinity of the London Hospital, the writer stating his intention to perpetrate another
murder immediately. The letter was handed to the police, who, in view of the many similar productions received by them,
regarded it as a silly hoax.
12 September 1889
THE WHITECHAPEL MURDER

Although the police authorities continue to make the most active investigations, nothing had been gleaned by them yesterday
to elucidate the Pinchin Street mystery. Dr Phillips and his assistants were occupied during the early part of the day in carefully
examining the remains, and preparing an exhaustive medical report upon the affair. They naturally decline to state anything
concerning the case in the meantime. The search for missing portions of the body has not resulted in obtaining even a clue
to work upon. Without the discovery of the head identification is rendered extremely difficult, and there are no distinctive
marks or peculiarities upon the trunk. In previous cases of this sort in Whitechapel the clothing has generally afforded a clue
to identity, but the police are not similarly aided in the present instance.
The Times of yesterday gave some prominence to the following:-
“Scottish newspapers of August 31 give the following account of a discovery of human remains in Edinburgh:-
‘While one of the cleaners of the Union Canal, named Thomas Clark, was engaged in taking refuse from the Canal near
Fountainbridge, he was horrified on bringing to the surface the left leg of a human being. The leg was not very much

decomposed, and appeared to have been sawn off below the knee. It is supposed that a murder has been committed. Search is
being instituted for more remains. The spot at which the limb was found is beside the city slaughter house.’
It is suggested that inquiry should be made to ascertain whether the limb found in Edinburgh is a portion of the body found
yesterday.”
On inquiry at the Edinburgh police we learn that they satisfied themselves at the time of the discovery that it had been a
student’s specimen for dissection.
Yesterday Superintendent Arnold and Inspector Reid were informed of some chalk writing on the wall at the corner of
Frederick Street - a dark passage in the immediate proximity to the scene of the discovery. The name of “Joe Cleary”
was introduced with five or six other words written on the wall, and this being the name given by a man who made some
communication about a murder to a newspaper on Sunday morning, the coincidence attracted some attention. The police do
not, however, consider it a matter of much importance. Several persons applied yesterday to the police for permission to view
the remains, but only those who could give a reasonable cause were allowed to do so.
The medical examinations have made it quite clear (says today’s Daily Telegraph) that the cause of death was syncope,
caused by hemorrhage, but there is no evidence to prove in what manner the loss of blood was produced. Still, little doubt is
entertained that it followed upon some act of violence, perhaps by the fracture of the skull, or, more probably by the cutting
of the throat. There is no confirmation of the assertion that the injuries were inflicted by a left handed man. On the contrary,
the cutting seems to have been done with the right. The one fact is left undisputed, that the deceased met her death in no
ordinary way, and if she was murdered, the deed must have been accomplished by some person with an insufficient motive.
For, taking all the appearances together, it is supposed that the woman was of a low stamp, belonging, probably, to the same
class as the woman whose remains were thrown into the Thames at Chelsea or concealed in Battersea Park. The resemblances
between the Pinchin Street and the Chelsea cases are positively startling, and there is warrant for believing that the dissecting
knife had been employed by the same hand in both instances. Without entering into particulars, one point may be mentioned.
In the most recent murder the injuries appeared to have been commenced in exactly the same way as in the Chelsea case, but
the operator seems to have abandoned his task half way, and not made a cross cut, or the parallel would be complete. Up to the
present no adequate reason has been shown why Jackson, a poor unfortunate woman, should have been waylaid and cruelly put
to death by some man who had at his command special facilities for concealment, but, nevertheless, Jackson did meet her end
in a mysterious manner, and some man - still at large - put himself to infinite pains to distribute portions of her body in various
parts of Chelsea, with the hope of destroying all traces of the crime which must have taken place. To make detection less
likely, he removed the head. The same plan was carried into practice in Pinchin Street. That the latest victim did not belong to
Whitechapel is considered to be likely, from the absence of inquiries for missing women. In the district generally the opinion
is that the remains were brought from some place at a distance. The transportation need not necessarily have been done at
night, for although the body was decomposing the processes of decay had not advanced very far, and it is conceded to be quite
possible that death had even occurred within 36 hours of the discovery. The ghastly burden may, therefore, it is suggested,
have been carried in a barrow at dusk or in open daylight from another part of the Metropolis, and the moment might have
been chosen for depositing the trunk in the place where it was found. If, however, the transference took place at night there
would be nothing unusual in the sight of a laden coster’s barrow being wheeled along, and the circumstance would certainly
not attract much attention. Meanwhile there is no testimony of any kind to clear up the mystery which surrounds the discovery.
Opening of the Inquest

The inquest on the remains of the murdered woman was opened by the Coroner (Mr Wynne Baxter) at St George’s Vestry
Hall, Cable Street, London, yesterday. The proceedings created small public interest. Inspector Moore and Inspector Reid
watched the inquiry on behalf of the police.
William Pennett, police constable 239H, deposed:-
On Monday night I went on duty at ten o’clock.
Q - Did anything attract your attention as unusual?
A - No, sir.
Q - Had you a regular beat?
A - Yes, sir. I had to go through Pinchin Street at frequent intervals. The ground I had took me half an hour to cover. I always
came from Christian Street into Back Church Lane. Sometimes I turned into Frederick Street under the railway arches, and
came back again into Pinchin Street. I usually returned then to the starting point in Pinchin Street.
Q - At what time was it that you made this discovery?
A - About half past five.

Q - Which way did you come?
A - From the direction of Christian Street into Back Church Lane.
Q - What attracted your attention?
A - I was on the northern side of the road. I went across towards the railway arch.
Q - You had no reason for doing it?
A - Just to look at the arch, sir. Before I got to the arch I saw the body there.
Q - Perhaps that was the reason for going?
A - Well, I often looked there, not always.
Q - What did you see?
A - I saw a bundle like what some of the Jews throw away sometimes. The arch belongs to the Vestry, and leads to piece of
waste ground between two lines of railway. Two of the arches are closed in with a fencing about ten or twelve feet high. The
arch in which I found the body contained only the uprights and cross bars of the fencing, the planks having been taken away.
There are road stones piled up in various places. There is a cart entrance to this enclosed ground by a gate in Back Church Lane.
Q - What was the position of the bundle?
A - It was four and a half to five yards in the archway, measured from the pavement.
Q - Was it near the wall of the arch?
A - Yes. sir; on the western side.
Q - On going up to it what did you find?
A - I found that it was not a bundle, but the remains of a human body.
Q - Was it covered?
A - There were two or three pieces of rag on it. What they were I could not say at the time. Otherwise it was naked.
Q - I suppose you noticed at once that the whole body was not there?
A - I noticed that the head had been taken from the body, and that the two legs were missing. The trunk was lying east and
west with the shoulders towards the west.
Q - Was it a dirty place?
A - Yes, sir.
Q - Did you notice any marks of wheels?
A - No, sir.
Q - Of footprints?
A - No, the dust would not leave a good impression.
Q - Were there any drops of blood about?
A - None.
Q - What did you do?
A - I did not know whether to blow my whistle or not, as being so early in the morning it would have only caused a large
crowd to assemble. I waited a minute or two beside the lifeless body, and a man came along with a broom. I said to him, “You
might go and fetch my mate at the corner.” He said, “What’s on, governor?” I said, “Tell him I’ve got a job. make haste.”
Q - Did he go?
A - He then went up Back Church Lane towards the adjoining beat, where my mate was. I next saw two constables running
towards me. No. 205H, the acting sergeant, was first to arrive, and 115H followed. I said, “You had better go and see the
inspector, as there is a dead body here.” No. 205 ran off to the station, and 115 remained with me, and before long I saw
Inspector Pinhorn.
Q - Did any one pass up at that time?
A - No, sir. I saw no one.
Q - Did you then make a search?
A - Yes. We found two men asleep in the last arch, who had the appearance of sailors. They were a short distance apart. In
the middle arch there was a shoeblack lying on the stones.
Q - Were they all asleep?
A - The shoeblack was asleep. We had to wake him up.

Q - And the sailors?
A - The first one was asleep, but I am uncertain whether the other was or not. He had a pipe in his mouth, They were taken
to the station.
Q - Did they make any statement to you?
A - No, sir.
Q - Can you fix the time when you passed this place before?
A - Before five.
Q - Any nearer than that?
A - That might be five minutes past four, you know - I know it was all that, because coming along the night before a working
man asked me to call him when I passed through Pinchin Street.
Q - You mean just before five?
A - Yes, sir.
Q - Did you look in the arch then?
A - Yes.
Q - Did you cross over?
A - No. I looked across the road. I did not cross right over.
Q - Was it light at five?
A - Not exactly light, it was just before the break of day. I did not see anything in the arch. Had it been there I should have
seen it. After I left Pinchin Street I went along Back Church Lane to Christian Street. I did not see any one with a bundle. I saw
a barrow in Spitt Street. I saw no cart of vehicle about except in Christian Street, where there were some lying about. None
came down Pinchin Street. Dr Clarke arrived within half an hour of the discovery of the body. The remains were removed to the
mortuary soon after six o’clock. I don’t whether the arches are often used for sleeping. It is the first time I have been on the
beat. In reply to a juror, the Witness said the body looked as though it had been emptied out of a sack, or something of the sort.
There were no marks of sand or gravel on the trunk. There were no marks of a trail in the dust. The ground was not disturbed.
The blood at the neck was not covered with dust. There was a lot of stones and rubbish, as well as dust in the archway, and
there were no signs of a struggle having taken place.
A Juror - If you had seen a man carrying a bundle, would you have stopped him?
A - Certainly.
Q - How long have you been on the beat?
A - That was the first time I had been on the beat.
Inspector C Pinhorn, of the H Division, deposed:-
Shortly after half past five, I heard of the discovery and went to the spot at once. I ordered a search, and assisted in it. A
crowd began to collect, and I had the street cleared. Statements were taken at the station from the men found in the arches.
They stated that when they went to the arches there was nothing there, and they heard no sound. Two of the men went there
at four o’clock, and one went at two o’clock.
The Coroner - Do you know whether these arches are used by casuals? - They would be if we did not prevent them.
Q- Would a person who knew the neighbourhood well know there was a probability of sleepers being there?
A - That class of person would know it. The ground belonged to the Whitechapel District Board of Works. It is used for stone
breaking.
Inspector Reid - The police had no right in there? - Oh no. Still, extraordinary precautions have been taken for some time
past. All isolated spots have been searched through the night.
Inspector Reid said he had interrogated the three men found under the arches. They had been drunk, and having no money
to pay for lodgings slept under the arches.
The Coroner - It is a curious circumstance that the whole of the ground is property guarded except this one arch? - I don’t
know about property guarded, for the palings put all round are of a very temporary character. Yesterday, in Back Church Lane,
I had considerable difficulty in preventing the people who were trying to look through from pulling the railings down.
Q - Without going into the evidence, did any constable notice any one with a bundle that morning?
A - I have ascertained that none did.

Q - A bundle of that nature would attract attention?
A - Yes.
Q - Do you know whether costermongers are about with anything on them at that time of the morning?
A - Costermongers would not be passing in that direction. They would be passing towards Spitalfields Market.
Q - They would not be coming from Spitalfields Market?
A - No. Costermongers are not the first to buy like tradesmen. Their barrows do not leave the market till six o’clock.
Q - I suppose a general search of the whole neighbourhood was made?
A - Yes; without anything being found bearing on the case.
Q - Did these people say whether the body was there when they went?
A - Well, they did not see it.
Q - Could they say it was not there?
A - Their condition did not enable them to go beyond that. There is a lamp from twelve to twenty yards from the spot, but
it is so situated that it throws a light in the archway, but not a shadow. The body was found lying from eight feet to nine feet
from the footway. The ground under the arch lies fifteen inches lower than the footway. The position of the trunk was such
as to indicate that it had been carried in a sack or closely bound up together. The arms were close to the body, and the hands
beneath the abdomen. The chemise was cut jaggedly, and made to appear like rags. It was an old chemise, and had been worn
some time.
Q - I must have it accurately described. I do not know whether you will do it. What material was it made of?
A - Calico.
Q - Was it well made - handmade or machine made?
A - Machine made. It was very old, such as the very poor class of women wear. There was no lace on it. There were large
blood stains on it, though it was not saturated.
Q - Was there blood on the body?
A - No, not much.
Q - Had it been washed?
A - No, I should say not, from the somewhat dirty appearance.
Q - I suppose there is no name on the chemise?
A - None. There are no marks at all, and nothing to identify it.
Q - We shall have a full description, of course, from medical witnesses as to the state of the body, so that we need not go
into that.
The Coroner said Dr Clarke, who first saw the body, could not attend then, and Dr Phillips was at present making a careful
examination of the body. As the body had not been identified - and it was not a hopeless task, though a difficult one - it would
be well to adjourn the inquiry.
The inquest was accordingly adjourned till ten o’clock on the 24th inst.
14 February 1891
ANOTHER MURDER IN WHITECHAPEL

DETAILS OF THE CRIME
ESCAPE OF THE ASSASSIN
As was indicated in our second edition of yesterday, in the early hours of yesterday morning another terrible murder came
to light in Whitechapel; and there is little doubt that it is one more of that series which sent such a thrill of horror through
the community in 1888 and 1889, and baffled the utmost skill of the detective force of the metropolis. In the selection of the
locality and time for the perpetration of the deed, and the marvellously rapid disappearance of the miscreant, this last murder
corresponds with those that went before, and tends to substantiate the belief amongst all who have had occasion to investigate
the circumstances, that one person has been the perpetrator of them all. The effect produced by the crime of yesterday
morning in Whitechapel is extraordinary. The inhabitants had been lulled into apathy, and had almost ceased to remember the
previous nine murders which had been committed in their midst amongst the poor creatures from whose ranks the majority, if
not all, the victims have come. All the old fears have now been revived.

The facts connected with the discovery of the murdered woman’s body are briefly related. Police Constable Thompson was
going on his round through what is known as Swallow Gardens. When passing under one of the arches on which the railway
runs, he noticed something lying on the ground close to the wooden hoarding which forms one side of the archway. The time
was about quarter past two. When he had passed the same place some fifteen or twenty minutes earlier, nothing was there
to excite his suspicion. The constable turned his lantern upon the object, and was horrified to find that it was a woman, with
her throat cut from ear to ear. Life still lingered, but it was apparent that she was beyond human aid. The constable blew his
whistle, and was speedily joined by the officer on the adjoining patrol. Then some men came, and were dispatched for medical
aid. Dr Phillips, divisional surgeon, who had to deal with most, if not all, of the previous murders of a like character, was soon
in attendance, and pronounced life extinct. A cursory examination showed that the wound in the throat had caused death, and
that the woman had not been mutilated on any other part of the body.
So far as could be judged, the woman was comparatively young, being about 25 years of age. She lay in the roadway towards
the footpath, her feet being crossed. Her clothing was of black material, and a black crape (sic) hat was lying at her side. She
was bare headed, and while one arm was stretched by her side, the other was bent towards the breast. In her pocket was an
old striped stocking and a vulcanite earring. What, however, struck one most was the finding of another woman’s hat, partly
hidden by the folds of the murdered woman’s dress. Up to the present time nothing like a satisfactory explanation of this has
been forthcoming.
In the course of a conversation, one of the most experienced local police officers pointed out that this discovery suggested
a new and important clue. Hitherto, he remarked, nearly everything had been done on the supposition that the murderer was
a man, in man’s usual clothing. Might it not be the case that the crimes were the work of a man in female attire - if not a
woman? On the other hand, the officer pointed out that some strange inducement must have been offered to get one woman
to accompany another to such a spot.
That the scene of the tragedy was selected after careful investigation, or by a person thoroughly acquainted with the
intricacies of the neighbourhood, seems evident to any one who visits it. Despite its name, Swallow Gardens has little pleasant
in its surroundings. The place where the body lay is little more than a passage through a railway arch, bounded on the one hand
by a brick wall springing into the roof, and on the other by a wooden hoarding which has been run up, cutting off quite two
thirds of the space under the arch, which is apparently used to store such rubbish as gathers around a railway goods yard. One
end of the arch opens towards Royal Mint Street and the other in Chamber Street, these thoroughfares being turnings out of
Leman Street. At the Royal Mint Street end are some railway goods offices, whilst immediately facing the Chamber Street end
is a building used as a Church school. So narrow is the passage, that there is only just sufficient space between the hoarding
on the one side and the kerbstone on the other to permit of one vehicle passing at a time; and even then the pedestrian has to
keep close to the wall to avoid contact with the passing wheels. As regards light, the spot is very deficient, and in the middle
of the passage, where the murder was committed, there is practically none. With reference to the general surroundings, the
neighbourhood is a conglomeration of railway arches, narrow and winding courts and streets, affording a person every facility
for rapid and untraceable flight.
Notwithstanding all the cunning displayed in the choice of spot, it would appear that the murderer ran considerable risk
of detection. Constable Thompson, who is a young officer recently drafted into the division, approached the entrance to the
archway, it would seem, just as the victim’s throat had been cut, and apparently when the miscreant was about to carry out
his practice of mutilation. Indeed, the officer states that the heard the sound of retreating footsteps before his suspicions
were aroused.
Dr Phillips having declared life extinct, the body was conveyed on an ambulance to the mortuary, where it now lies awaiting
inquest. Meanwhile the discovery was being telegraphed to the police headquarters at Scotland Yard, and circulated throughout
the Metropolis. The gravity of the case was fully recognised, and every one connected with the Whitechapel murders was on
the alert. Before daylight Mr Macnaghten, Acting Chief Constable, Chief Inspector Swanson, Superintendent Arnold, Inspector
Reed, and another of the detectives in the force had been called together, and every effort to discover the trail of the criminal
was made. The following official description of the murdered woman was issued with promptitude:-
“Age, about twenty five; length, 5 feet; eyes and hair brown; complexion pale; dress - a black diagonal jacket, black dress,
satin bodice, white chemise and drawers, button boots, black ribbon round the neck, black vulcanite earrings, and black
earring in the pocket. Black crape hat, and another ditto found in the folds of the dress. In the pocket three pieces of black
crape, one old striped stocking and a comb.” There was no money, but the body was fairly well nourished.
Considerable energy was shown in endeavouring to discover the identity of the deceased, but for some time little could be
learned beyond the fact that some police officers believed they recognised her as an unfortunate in the habit of frequenting
the neighbourhood of Tower Hill and Whitechapel. As the news of the crime spread, many people came forward with stories as
to having seen a woman talking to a man near where the body was found, either late at night or in the early morning. Many of

these statements were obviously of little value, but the officials were careful not to hastily discard any suggestions likely to
be of the slightest assistance. The more credible statements were made by a man commonly known in the district as “Jumbo,”
and by William Friday. John and Joe Knapton, in the employment of the Great Northern Railway Company, asserted that they
saw the murdered woman speaking to a man at 1.25 a.m. at the corner of Rosemary Lane, near the scene of the murder.
The man they described as wearing a brown coat and brown hat. His height is about 5ft. 4in., and he was of stout build. The
three last named men went to some stables close by, where they remained about thirty five minutes, and on returning found a
constable in charge of the body. According to one man who resides in the locality, the murdered woman was seen in company
with another woman drinking in a public house near Swallow Gardens at half past twelve on Thursday night. The deceased is
stated to have said, “Make haste, because I have to meet some one at the arch at the half hour.” “What arch?” asked the other
woman; to which deceased responded, “Why, the Shedway Arch, School End.” This man states that he knew the murdered
woman as “Carrotty Hannan” - a declaration which is born out by some other persons. This statement goes to show that the
woman kept her appointment, which in all probability was with her murderer.
As the day wore on, the police received many applications from persons anxious to view the body. In and around the mortuary
not a few strange and pathetic scenes were witnessed. For the greater portion of the day the entrance to the mortuary was
surrounded by a throng of men and women of the poorest class. Now and then two or three women would be conducted by a
detective into the mortuary for the purpose, if possible, of identifying the body. The majority of these women were clearly of
the unfortunate class, but they appeared to be completely awe stricken when they emerged at the ghastly sight they had seen.
Two or three women asserted that in the features of the deceased they could recognise a young woman whom the Salvation
Army had endeavoured to reclaim, and who had recently been an inmate of one of the Army shelters. One woman asserted that
she knew the deceased, who some time ago lived in Thrawl Street by the name of Francis or Frances - whether a Christian or
surname she was unable to definitely say. This testimony was also supported by others, but it could not be completely verified,
although it seemed the most credible evidence on the point which the authorities have been able to procure. In consequence
of there being some doubt, the coroner’s officer has registered the name for the present as “unknown.”
The flight of the murderer seems to have been most remarkable in the completeness of the mystery surrounding it. The
night watchman at the pierhead of St Katherine’s Docks, William Paris, stated to a representative of the press that he had to
call up his foreman and other men two hours before high tide. He reached Royal Mint Square, which almost overlooks the scene
of the tragedy, about ten minutes past two a.m. He saw no one about, and heard no noise. He tapped at the window of his
foreman’s apartments, and receiving his answer left. As he was returning to the docks a constable turned his light on him, and,
recognising the watchman, said he was looking for “Jack the Ripper,” as there had been another murder. When Paris reached
the scene there were three or four policemen around the body, and Dr Phillips was already in attendance. It was perfectly
dark, and the only light shown was that from the constables’ lamps. He was not permitted to go near the body, but could see
that the woman was lying on her back in the centre of the road. All was quiet in the neighbourhood, and he saw no one about
but policemen. At the Royal Mint Square, which is close to Swallow Gardens, an officer in plain clothes was doing duty. He saw
nothing of the murderer, although the latter, judging from the condition of the body when found, must have hurriedly escaped
by one end of the thoroughfare as the officer entered at the other. By whichever end of the street the murderer escaped,
he must have run the risk of meeting railway workmen, the dock watchman, and the plain clothes policeman, as well as the
constable in uniform.
At three o’clock yesterday afternoon, the police authorities circulated an announcement that the crime was supposed to
be the work of “Jack the Ripper,” and ordered all docks, wharves, and stairs to be searched. This was promptly carried out
by Detective Inspector John Regan, of the River Police, whose efforts, combined with those of his men, soon disposed of the
theory that the murderer might be connected with the cattle boats or some steamer lying in the port of London. There were
none of the former in the dock, and the men of the other vessels were satisfactorily accounted for. Having concluded that,
so far as the river boats were concerned, the murderer had not left land, a conference of detective officers was summoned.
The inquest will be opened before Mr. Wynne Baxter this afternoon, and, after formal evidence has been taken, will
probably be adjourned until Monday.
The Press Association says a representative who has visited the scene of the murder writes:-
In the minds of the police officials there is now practically no doubt that it is the handiwork of the terrible miscreant who
has earned the name of “Jack the Ripper.” All important details correspond, and the absence of fiendish mutilation is only to be
accounted for by the supposition that the murderer was interrupted before the completion of his full intentions. The selection
of the scene of the tragedy, the appearance of the victim, and the way in which her death was brought about, all correspond
with the series of mysterious and, as yet, totally unexplained crimes which was thought to have closed with the discovery, in
September 1889, of the trunk of a woman in Pinshin (sic) Street. It should be stated, however, that there was some doubt as to
whether this discovery had any connection with the previous murders, and, making allowances for this uncertainty, the record

of the crimes included eight outrages. One of the most extraordinary discoveries, which suggests a totally new clue, was the
finding of a woman’s hat on the body beside the crape hat which she had evidently been wearing. It must be said that this fact
has caused no little surprise to the police, for it goes to support the suggestion that the crime might have been perpetrated by
a woman, or, at any rate, a man in female attire. The local police officials quickly recognised the gravity of the occurrence, and
saw that it was one of no ordinary character. Communications to this effect were telegraphed to the headquarters at Scotland
Yard, and at an early hour Mr Macnaughten (Acting Chief Constable), with a large number of the most experienced detectives
in the force, was soon in the locality. Mr Macnaughten, accompanied by other officials, paid a visit to the spot where the body
had been found, and made himself familiar with the surroundings. It must be admitted, however, that little came, under the
keen scrutiny of the detectives, to make them sanguine of an elucidation of the mystery surrounding the coming and going of
the murderer. A quarter past two is the time fixed as the time of the discovery, and it is said that not long before two a woman
was seen loitering about the archway; whether this was the poor unfortunate creature who met such a tragic fate soon after
cannot, of course, be stated at present.
Sir Edward Bradford, Chief Commissioner of the Police, stated to a representative of the Press Association that he felt
quite confident, from the evidence of previous murders in Whitechapel, that the murdered woman was the victim of the
same assassin who had previously struck terror in the East End. Whilst in India Sir Edward was particularly famous in devising
a means for putting down thuggism (a form of silent murder by strangulation with a whip cord noose), and he will utilise
his experience in that respect in searching for the miscreants in the present case. Sir Edward has now at his disposal all the
smartest detectives of the Criminal Investigation Department, and he will make use of them in the service of elucidating the
latest mystery.
The Central News says:-
The woman murdered is said to be an unfortunate named Frances; but this identification has not been completed, and the
police do not attach much importance to it. There is practically no doubt that the murder was committed by the miscreant
known as “Jack the Ripper.” and that the approach of the beat constable prevented him from following his usual custom of
mutilating the body. He must have been engaged at his murderous work when he heard the policeman’s footsteps, and he
had just time to run unobserved down a narrow court which led into the main street. There were two wounds on the victim’s
throat, one of which was not dangerous, while the other was of a terrible and fatal character. Several men were working
near the scene, and they, as well as the constable, must have heard the woman’s cries had she called for help. But in this,
as in other cases, the murderer first gagged his victim with his right hand, and then cut her throat with the weapon held in
his left hand. The railway man “Jumbo,” who saw a woman talking to a man in the archway known as Swallow Gardens, has
been closely questioned by the police, and from the statement made by him and by constable 240H, the detectives now are
convinced that it was the deceased whom “Jumbo” saw. His description of the woman, her height and dress, all corresponded
with that of the deceased, and the few moments which elapsed between his seeing her alive and the policeman finding her in
the throes of death leave little doubt upon the subject. Naturally “Jumbo” has been very closely cross examined in respect to
the man’s appearance, and fortunately he appears to have taken rather more than a cursory glance at the man. He describes
him as over the medium height, with somewhat the appearance of a foreigner. He looked much like a ship’s fireman. From
other information which the police have received, and which tends to bear out this man’s statement, a search was at once
organised among the foreign vessels in the Thames. This is now being conducted by Inspector Regan with a large staff. The
Spanish vessels in the river and in the docks were first singled out for examination. The concensus of opinion among the best
experts is that police constable 240H was within ten seconds of catching the “Whitechapel Fiend” red handed at his bloody
work. It was suggested after one of the former “Ripper” murders that the perpetrator had probably escaped in one of the
cattle boats lying in the Thames, but in this case the Thames police have ascertained that since the finding of the body no
person has left shore to board the Spanish and Oporto cattle ships, and that the crews on board the vessels were all accounted
for satisfactorily. It is therefore concluded that the criminal is now in hiding in the vicinity. The deceased woman has been
recognised as an unfortunate well known in the neighbourhood of Tower Hill as “Carrotty Nell.” Like so many of her class, she
was not known to many of her acquaintances by any regular name, and they are also ignorant of where she was in the habit
of living. Two or three women have, however, been able to identify the body as that of a young woman whom the Salvation
Army had endeavoured to reclaim, and who frequently slept at the Army Shelter in the Whitechapel Road. These women saw
her alive for the last time on Monday.
Telegraphing later, the Central News says the police have obtained information which leaves practically little doubt that the
name of the victim is Frances Coleman, who is believed to have relatives in the west of England. She has led a wandering and
irregular life, and has been well known in the Whitechapel district for some time past. Her last known place of abode was a
lodging house in White’s Row, Whitechapel. In the neighbourhood importance is attached to the statement of a man employed
at St Katherine’s Wharf, who, with a friend, passed along Royal Mint Street at half past one o’clock in the morning, and went
by a man who was in conversation with a woman at the corner of Swallow Gardens. Both made room for him to pass. This man

went to the mortuary at 11 o’clock last night, and at once identified the deceased as the woman who was talking to the man.
Other persons are prepared to state that the woman is Frances Coleman, of White’s Row, Spitalfields. A tradesman has been
found in Nottingham Street, Bethnal Green, who can state that he sold the crepe hat for one shilling ninepence halfpenny to
the deceased, and a woman from White’s Row can identify the hat which was tucked up in the folds of the deceased’s dress. A
haberdasher in Brushfield Street states that he sold the deceased, whom he knew very well, a pair of striped stockings, which
she was wearing when her dead body was discovered.
Today’s Daily Telegraph describes the scene of the murder, and says it was the ideal spot for a murder of the kind which has
rendered Whitechapel famous. The spot, nevertheless, was not so deserted at night as might be supposed, for the arches and
the railway abutting upon the City end of Chambers Street are used as stables for the horses belonging to the Great Northern
Railway yard; and the traffic soon after 2 a.m., in the ordinary course, becomes pretty constant in and from the railway sheds
and the stables on the other side of the line. It was while he was going through the dark arch in question that Thompson, the
police constable, came upon the body of a woman lying in the narrow roadway upon her back. At first he believed her to be
intoxicated, but turning the light of his bull’s eye lantern upon her, he saw that blood was still flowing from a frightful gash
in the neck, which extended almost from ear to ear. The constable must have passed the spot within half an hour previously,
but then saw nothing to attract his attention. The woman was still warm. The result of medical examination discloses that
the wound in the throat was not of that clear cut description which has been hitherto the marked feature of the Whitechapel
murders, but that it was jagged and clumsy, as though a blunt rather than a keen edged weapon had been employed. No
implement of any kind has yet come to light, so that everything is left to conjecture, as has been the case in every antecedent
instance. The greater part of yesterday’s work of the police related to identification. Upon this point the police themselves
have, it would seem, very little doubt. The deceased was recognised by constables as one of the unfortunate class, and her
apparel and the contents of her pockets all indicated her wretched and degraded condition. The evidence as to the movements
of the deceased on the night prior to and on the morning of her mysterious death will probably rest upon statements which
were communicated to the police by persons who are persuaded that they actually saw her. This information was discussed at
a conference of the detectives held at the Leman Street Police Station in the forenoon. A search among the shipping on the
river was directed to exhaust the possibilities of a man having hidden himself on board the boats which were about to sail, or
those which had crews shipped. From the London Docks to Blackwall the inquiry was made, and at least thirty five ships were
boarded, but in every case the crew were accounted for. Not a man was missing under circumstances which would have excited
suspicion. As it happens, no cattle boats have been in the Thames for some time, and no Spanish steamers have recently
entered the port of London. The “fireman’s” story may prove to have been based upon circumstances which will possibly be
detailed before the Coroner. It is stated that on Friday morning, shortly after midnight, a woman corresponding in description
to the deceased was seen drinking in a public house near to Royal Mint Street. Another person, a servant of the Great Northern
Railway Company, is believed to have noticed the woman near to St Mary Schools in the company of a man. This was about half
past twelve o’clock.
The woman was again seen at two o’clock, according to one account, in Royal Mint Street; and to another, in Chamber
Street, near to the school. A man was with her then. The persons who noticed her at this time were William Friday, Joseph
Knapton, and John Knapton, all carmen and living in the same house in Chamber Street. Joseph Knapton told his mother
that when he saw the man and woman he thought they were “sweethearting.” The description given of the man is, however,
vague, and amounts to little more than that he wore a brown overcoat and a black felt hat. The woman wore a crape hat. Her
companion was about 5 feet 7 inches, and looked like a working man. He kept his face away, and the chances of recognition
are not great. These carmen are among those who daily use the arch to take their horses from the stables to the depots early
in the morning. They do not seem to have seen anything in the dark passage, and Arly Shunter, who went through about two,
observed nothing. Detective Miller, of the City Police, was also in the neighbourhood at the time, but he, too, met no one.
Whitechapel yesterday positively swarmed with detectives, the course having been taken to withdraw for special duty one
man from each division, to assist the staff available from headquarters. The fact that two bonnets were discovered near to the
deceased, one being in the folds of her dress, was conjectured by some to afford colour to the suggestion that the woman had
been inveigled to her fate by a man disguised as a woman, who had left the hat behind him, but the explanation accepted by
the detectives is that both hats belonged to the deceased, and that she carried the spare one about her person in the same
way that she was compelled to take about with her from place to place all the poor little worldly goods she possessed, and
which are enumerated in the official description. The deceased had an old wound at the back of the head which must have
been attended at an hospital, and therefore something may be forthcoming by inquiry at the accident wards to make clear the
identity of the deceased, although, if the tale of one woman can be relied upon, she is a Mrs Frances, who had occupied a back
room for three months, and was a quiet, inoffensive woman.
Further inquiries materially corroborate the previous reports that deceased was a woman who was known by the name of
Frances. She usually lodged at Sherry’s Single Women’s Lodging House, 5 Thrawl Street, Spitalfields. Frequently she took her

meals at Shuttleworth’s Coffee House, Wentworth Street, Whitechapel, her last visit being at four o’clock yesterday (Thursday)
afternoon. She was then alone. A woman named Ellen Callaron has come forward to state that she was in the company of the
deceased as late as two o’clock on Friday morning. In regard to the statement that the deceased had a scar on the back of her
head, Miss Shuttleworth, the keeper of the coffee house, says that she recollects the woman falling down outside the shop
some three weeks ago and hurting her head, which was subsequently bandaged up with plaster.
16 February 1891
THE WHITECHAPEL MURDER

ARREST OF AN ASSOCIATE OF THE VICTIM
A MELANCHOLY EXPLANATION
London, Sunday night.
It now appears that, despite the utmost vigilance on the part of the police authorities, they have discovered but little to
throw any definite light upon the authorship of the latest Whitechapel tragedy. On Saturday they effected an arrest which at
one time seemed to be of an important character, but careful inquiries, it must be said, tend to support in the most material
particulars the genuineness of the man’s protestations of innocence. Up to a late hour, however, the man had not been
released, although no charge had been formally preferred against him. The chief reason for this is that the investigations
concerning him have not been completely concluded, and therefore the officials do not think themselves warranted in allowing
him to go free. The next reason evidently is that his mere detention without a formal charge against him permits of his being
questioned concerning his movements and antecedents.
The circumstances which led to his detention are peculiar. Soon after two o’clock on Friday morning Sergeant Edwards
was on duty at Tower Hill when a man passed him whose appearance excited his suspicions. He suspected him. He said to the
man that his clothes were blood stained. The man explained that he had been ill treated by some men, and as his general
appearance bore out this statement, the officer let him go. A short time thereafter the news spread about that another murder
had been committed, and the sergeant at once had his suspicion about the man he had seen only a short time before. He
reported what had come to his notice, and a description of the man was circulated. It was found that about an hour later the
man had called at a coffee house in the neighbourhood, and when having a meal told the same story to the proprietor. From
that point there was some difficulty in tracing his movements, but eventually about noon on Saturday Sergeant Gill, of the
Criminal Investigation Department, proceeded to the Phoenix Inn, Upper East Smithfield, and he then found a man named
Thomas Sadler, who was subsequently identified by Sergeant Edwards as the man he had met early on Friday morning. When
taken to the Leman Street Police Station the man protested his innocence of the crime, whilst admitting that he knew a woman
named Coleman, and had been with her on the previous night. Several people were then brought forward to see of they could
identify Sadler as the man they had seen in the company of the murdered woman Coleman, in and about Whitechapel. The
man was placed amongst several others, and the witnesses were asked to identify him. One woman recognised him as having
been in the company of the deceased during the evening, and another declared him to be the person who had formerly lived
with Coleman. The man “Jumbo,” however, when confronted with him, was unable to say that he was the man whom he had
seen talking to Coleman a short time before she was murdered. This was the first piece of evidence in the man’s favour, and
appeared quite consistent with his story.
When asked to explain his movements he readily agreed to do so. He said that he was a fireman on board a steamer in St
Katherine’s Docks, and had known the deceased for some time. He met her on Wednesday, and after they had been about
drinking during the day they went to what is known as a “double” lodging house in Dorset Street, Spitalfields, where they
passed the night. On Thursday he was about with her a good deal, and they undoubtedly had too much to drink, consisting
principally of gin and cloves. She asked him for some money in order to but a hat, and he, after telling her that he thought she
might better spend her money in buying some underclothing, gave her half a crown. She bought the hat, which came to about
two shillings. The two in course of their wanderings about the district came late in the evening to Thrawl Street, where the
man wanted to stay for the night. They went to a common lodging house, and stayed only a little while, as the woman wished
to go back to Dorset Street. In Thrawl Street they had some argument, in the midst of which, as alleged by Sadler, a woman
came up and struck him on the head with some instrument, which caused him to faint. In corroboration of this, he drew the
attention of the police officers to his head, upon which was a wound from which blood had apparently freely flowed on to his
clothing. Some other people, he asserted, came up, and added to his ill treatment. When he came to again, these people had
gone, and only the woman Coleman remained. He upbraided her for not having attempted to defend him, and charged her
with being the cause of the assault. They quarrelled, and he left her. This was between ten and eleven o’clock at night. He
made his way to the docks with the intention of going to his ship, but when he got there the gatekeepers refused to admit him
because of his intoxicated state. For some time he lingered around the gate abusing the officials. In the midst of this some

dockers came along, and he at once fell foul of them, and in all probability would have been roughly treated by them but for
the presence of a police sergeant and constable. His next move was towards the Victoria Home for Sailors, with the intention
of seeking shelter for the night. In this he was also unsuccessful on account of his drunken behaviour; and after pouring out
some more abuse upon the porter, he went away in the direction of Tower Hill, where he met the police officer who accosted
him. This, in effect, is Sadler’s account of his movements. Whilst giving it he appeared to have a particularly good recollection
for a man who had undoubtedly been the worse for liquor during the time that the chief incidents had been happening. Sadler
has the appearance of having led a hard and troubled life. Though only middle aged, he is described as looking nearly sixty.
and he has quite an average amount of intelligence. When telling his story he mentioned all sorts of little incidents likely to
prove its truth, and when interrupted for a moment by the officials putting a question, quickly resumed his narrative at the
point where it had been broken off.
Prominent police officials are prepared to admit that they have been able to ascertain little to substantiate the earlier
suspicion against Sadler. In the first place, it is pointed out that when he was met soon after two o’clock he was some distance
away from the scene of the crime, which had been committed only a few minutes before. Sadler, moreover, was wearing heavy
boots, which would render noiseless and rapid flight an impossibility. When, therefore, the information which appears to be
in the possession of the detectives is summed up, it seems that the arrest of the undoubted Jack the Ripper is as remote a
possibility as ever. This the police are themselves ready to admit, and to confess that the mystery attached to the personality
of the miscreant is as great as ever. It is a singular fact that in the midst of the crimes of 1888, the place where this last murder
was perpetrated was pointed out as a most likely spot for the commission of such a deed. It therefore received particular
attention from the police, and it was put under surveillance of a policeman on what is termed a “short beat,” whilst in addition
plain clothes officers paid frequent visits to it. Thompson, who discovered the body, is a young policeman, and it was his first
night on the beat by himself, he having previously been accompanied by an older officer to show him the proper way to work
the beat.
The effect of the crime is extraordinary. The inhabitants had been lulled into apathy, and had almost ceased to remember
the previous nine murders which had been committed in their midst amongst the poor creatures from whose ranks the majority,
if not all, the victims have come. All the old fears have now been revived, and a perfect panic prevails. The elaborate
precautions taken by the authorities in 1889 during the reign of terror have again been put in force, and additional police and
detectives patrol the suspected area. The men are placed so that they can constantly communicate with each other, and an
alarm once given will almost instantly put the entire force on the alert. Dr Phillips, divisional surgeon, has made a post mortem
examination of the remains. He has paid very careful attention to the character of the wounds in the throat, and in his evidence
before the Coroner he will draw comparisons with the much cleaner cuts in previous murders. Dr Phillips will probably not give
evidence until next week. A series of anonymous letters purporting to be from the murderer have been forwarded to the Central
News, but none of these bear the peculiar characteristics of the original letter forwarded to that agency by “Jack the Ripper.”
The inquest was opened on Saturday by Mr Wynne Baxter, Coroner. The name of the deceased is believed to be Frances
Colman (sic), but in order to avoid difficulties, such as arose on a former occasion, formal evidence of identification was not
taken for the present.
Police Constable Thompson deposed that about 2 a.m. he found the deceased, and saw her “open and shut one eye.” He
heard footsteps when about eighty yards from the railway arch, but saw no one. He could walk his beat in about fifteen minutes.
Police Constable Hart, who was summoned by the whistle of the last witness, said Dr Otley, the surgeon, arrived about ten
minutes after the discovery. He did not think he could see a person in the middle of the arch from the Royal Mint end.
Constable Elliott, who was in front of Baron Rothschild’s refinery, about seven yards off, said he did not recollect seeing any
one on the spot after half past twelve. The inquest was adjourned until Tuesday.
Later.
Sir Edward Bradford, Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, visited Leman Street Police Station tonight, and was engaged
with various police officials who have the case in hand. A long consultation took place, but up to ten o’clock it had not been
decided to prefer any charge against the man Sadler, who, however, remains in custody.
Sunday, midnight.
On inquiry at Leman Street Police Station, it was stated that, though the man Sadler is for the present detained, the police
are still without anything like a definite clue as to the perpetrator of the crime.
Today’s Daily Telegraph says:-
The public and the police have been alike needlessly misled by the hasty assumptions of reckless, people, who leaped to the
conclusion, because the authorities were under the necessity of making detailed inquiries into the movements of a man who

was for the time detained at Leman Street Police Station, that this unlucky individual was none other than the notorious author
of the Whitechapel murders. A solution of the mystery is still to be discovered, and there is as yet no clue. Although reports
that the Whitechapel murderer has been captured have been current, there was no excitement in the East End on Saturday.
17 February 1891
THE WHITECHAPEL TRAGEDY

CHARGE OF MURDER AGAINST THE MARINE FIREMAN
At the Thames Police Court yesterday afternoon - before Mr Mead - John Thomas Saddler (sic), aged 52, marine fireman,
Victoria Lodging Houses, Upper East Smithfield, was charged with wilfully causing the death of Frances Coles by cutting her
throat with a knife or some sharp instrument at Swallow Gardens on the 13th inst. Exceptional interest was manifested in the
case, but the prisoner was lodged in the Police Court during the night, and a large crowd who surrounded the Court house to
catch a glimpse of the accused was thus deceived. Saddler, attired in a blue serge jacket and dark trousers, and wearing a dark
beard and moustache, walked into the dock in a careless manner, and stood with his hands in his pockets. His face was dirty,
and there were still indications of old scratches on his cheeks.
Inspector Arnold, addressing the Magistrate, said:-
I have been engaged with the Public Prosecutor, who has directed me to request you to grant a remand after taking evidence
of the arrest.
The Magistrate - I must hear some evidence. I cannot tell until I hear the evidence whether it is sufficient to justify a
remand. You may put before me what evidence you please.
Samuel Harris, a young man, deposed:-
I am a fish curer. and live at 8 White’s Row, Spitalfields. I was in that dwelling house on Thursday night at 9.30. I had been
there about an hour, when I saw the woman whom I knew as Frances. She was sitting on a form, and had her head upon the
table. It was the kitchen of the lodging house where she sat. I remained in the kitchen till 11.30, and prisoner at that time
came in. He was alone, and looked around. On entering prisoner at once sat down beside Frances and asked her, “Have you any
lodging money?” She looked up, but made no reply. Prisoner than said, “I have been robbed, and if I knew who did it I would
do for them.”
Prisoner (to witness) - Be careful.
Harris, continuing his evidence, said at 12.30 prisoner went out, but the woman remained in the kitchen. Before going away,
prisoner showed him a discharge document.
Prisoner (again interrupting) - A kind of wages sheet.
Harris (resuming) - Prisoner, thinking I was the governor, showed me the document and asked me to let him go to bed, and
he would pay me when he got his money. I did not permit him, and he went away about three or four minutes afterwards. I
saw Frances put a black crape hat under her dress and leave the house. I did not see her again alive, but have identified her
body at the mortuary.
The Clerk asked prisoner if he had any questions to put to witness.
Prisoner - I wish to jog his memory as to the early parts of his statement that I said I would do for those who robbed me.
The Clerk - Well, put it to him.
Prisoner - I was with the girl at the time I was robbed. She knew well that I was robbed.
The Magistrate - He would not know that.
Prisoner - Let him repeat the early part of his statement again.
The Clerk read that part of the evidence referred (to).
Prisoner - You need go no further. I wish him to verify that statement, or else draw it back.
Witness - You did say so.
The Clerk - Have you anything else to ask him?
Prisoner - No, sir; the rest, I believe, is correct.
The Magistrate (to witness) - Was prisoner sober?
Witness - No, sir; he was intoxicated.
The Magistrate’s Clerk - Is there anything else you wish to ask the Witness?

Prisoner - I should like to know as to the disfigurement, as to what bruise he found upon me.
Witness - I know you had bruises on your left eye when you came in.
The Magistrate - On the eye or over it? There is a scar over the eye now, is that where you noticed it?
Witness - Yes, there was blood coming from the place where I now see the mark.
Prisoner (to witness) - Did you notice blood on the right side coming from the back of my head?
Witness - No.
Prisoner - I had a lot of blood on that side as well, which you don’t seem to have noticed.
P.C. Wesley, 7H, said on Friday evening the 13th I was on duty on the Mint pavement shortly before two o’clock, when I saw
the prisoner. He was then, in my opinion, drunk. I could see he was suffering from a cut over his left eye. He was standing on
the pavement holding his side. He said he had been knocked about by some men at the dock gates.
Prisoner (interposing) - Quite correct.
Witness (continuing) - I asked him how it occurred, and he said that his ship was lying in the docks. He went to the dock
gates in order to go on board. The gatekeeper refused to admit him, he said, because he was drunk. Prisoner then went on - “I
daresay I said something to the gatekeeper, when he told me that if it was not for one man he would give me what I deserved, a
good hiding, and if that one man would only turn his back he would do it now. The keeper also said, ‘I have plenty of others to
do it besides me.’ The constable (to whom the gatekeeper referred) then walked away and a gang of dock labourers came out
of the gates and started on me. They struck me, knocked me down, and kicked me on the ribs. I believe my ribs are broken.”
This, said witness, ended the prisoner’s statement. I walked a distance of about thirty yards with the prisoner, and I examined
his ribs to ascertain if they were broken. I was scarcely satisfied myself. I offered to take him to the hospital, when another
constable came on the scene and also examined his ribs. He found they were not broken, and prisoner said, “I daresay I was
not much hurt after all,” and walked away in the direction of the Minories. I left prisoner, and patrolled my section. When first
I saw him it was between four hundred and five hundred yards to Swallow Gardens. The town clock struck two just before I left
prisoner. When I left him he was going towards the Minories; that would bring him nearer to Swallow Gardens. In my opinion
he was drunk.
The Magistrate (to the prisoner) - Have you any questions to put to witness?
Prisoner - No, he is very near the mark. I was so drunk that I did not know which way I turned. I thought I turned Leman Street
way towards the London Hospital, but if he says I turned towards the Minories, I would not contradict him.
William Fewell, night porter in the receiving room of the London Hospital, deposed:-
A little before five o’clock on Friday morning prisoner came in with a lacerated scalp and a small cut over the eye. While
washing his face, I asked him how he came by the injuries. Prisoner replied, “I’ve been with a woman and she’s done me.”
Prisoner - Be careful.
Witness - I axed (sic) him how much it was for. He said, “Only 7s or 8s and a watch. I should not have noticed that if they had
not knocked me about.” He trembled, and on my axin’ why, prisoner replied, “I’m cold; I’ve been walking about. Unfortunately
I’ve got no lodgings. This is the first night I’ve been ashore, and I haven’t secured any lodgings.” Prisoner further said he
thought one of his ribs was broken. I noticed blood on his hands, and prisoner said his fingers were cut. I said that would not
cause all the blood. Prisoner answered that “they” or “she” had a knife, and that if the blood did not come from his fingers, it
must have come from his head. On my asking where it happened, prisoner said, “In the small street down the highway near the
bottom of Leman Street. I have been to one or two places to try and get a few halfpennies for refreshments.”
The Magistrate (to prisoner) - Have you any questions to ask?
Prisoner - Only one or two little things, but I’m not in good trim to cross examine. I’m thoroughly knocked up and cold, and
I haven’t had anything to eat since tea time last night. I don’t feel fit to take any interest in the proceedings. I have been kept
by direction of the inspectors and doctors changing my clothes.
The Magistrate - Have you any question to put?
Prisoner - No. I’ll do it another time. I want something to eat, your Worship.
Inspector Arnold, who was the last witness called, said shortly after three o’clock on the morning of the 13th I went to
Swallow Gardens. I there saw the body of a female with a cut in her throat. I saw it at the mortuary. It is the body which Harris
identified as Frances Coles.
The Magistrate (to prisoner) - Do you want to ask Inspector Arnold any questions? No doubt he will be called again.
The Prisoner - I hope the Inspector will see that I have some refreshment.

Inspector Arnold - You shall have some.
The Prisoner - It is about time.
The question of remand arising, the Magistrate’s Clerk asked whether Sir Augustus Stephenson had wished for any particular
date. A reply being given in the negative, the Magistrate appointed this day week, at two o’clock, for the resumption of the
hearing, and prisoner was formally remanded till that day.
Movements Of The Accused

The Press Association states that there is no foundation for the assertion that for eighteen months previous to the murder the
accused man Saddler had not been in London. It has been ascertained that he was in London in June, August, September, and
December of last year, and made several voyages to more or less distant foreign ports. On Christmas eve last he went on his last
voyage in the Fez to Madeira, and returned to England on Wednesday last. When engaging on his last voyage he gave an address
in the provinces, but on some former occasions he stated that he was living in London. Saddler has made only two voyages in
the Fez, which were separated by a considerable interval, and his other voyages have been of a miscellaneous character.
Sir Edward Bradford, Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan police, distinctly contradicts (says the Press Association) the
statement that he had said he felt convinced from the evidence of previous murders in Whitechapel that the murdered woman
was the victim of the same assassin who had previously struck terror in the East End.
7 July 1892
TERRIBLE MURDER IN LONDON

The Press Association says:-
Bermondsey was thrown into a state of excitement yesterday by a rumour that a “Jack the Ripper” murder had been
committed in that district. Investigation proved that while the rumour was unwarranted, there had nevertheless been
discovered at Pettywood’s Stables, White’s Grounds, Bermondsey, a crime to which considerable mystery attaches. The stables
in question, situated under No 18 Railway Arch, are in the occupation of Messrs. Pettywood, provision merchants, of Southwark,
who until recently have employed a man named Dent, alias Poole, in the capacity of stableman. On Tuesday, the 20th ult,
Dent telegraphed to a Mrs Lea, with whom he had been on intimate terms, asking her to come to him immediately, as he was
dangerously ill, and wanted to see her most particularly. Mrs Lea, aged forty four, and the mother of several children, had been
carrying on business as wardrobe dealer at Globe Road, Mile End, to which address she mad moved from Stratford after being
separated from her husband. Since the 20th ult. Mrs Lea has been lost to her family, who, becoming suspicious, gave information
to the police, suggesting that she had eloped with Dent, who had in the meantime absconded from his employment on the same
day. Yesterday morning Mrs Lea’s son, aged twenty three, who had been most active in inquiring as to the whereabouts of his
mother, visited Pettywood’s stables, and demanded permission from the man in charge to search them. This, being refused,
young Lea procured a search warrant from the police, and once more visited the stables. After a diligent search, he found in
a remote corner of the stables the body of a woman covered with straw. Apparently the body had been hidden there for some
considerable time, for the features were quite unrecognisable, and the clothes had begun to rot. It was at first thought that
her eyes had been gouged out, but the medical opinion is that this is not the case. They had evidently been gnawed by vermin.
Young Lea, however, was able to identify the body as that of his mother by the clothes, a bag which she had in her possession,
and also by a telegram found in her pocket. The telegram was from Dent, and, as previously stated, invited her to visit him
immediately in consequence of his being dangerously ill. The precise cause of death has not yet been determined, but it is
conjectured, from the marks on the neck and general appearance of the face, that the unfortunate woman had been throttled.
On account of the decomposed state a shell had to be obtained, and in this the remains were removed to Bermondsey Mortuary.
It appears that the deceased was a frequent visitor at Pettywood Stables, and she was seen to enter them on the 28th ult. Dent,
for whose arrest a warrant has been issued, is described as a well built and powerful man, aged about fifty years. The police
have as yet been unable to effect his arrest.
This ends the series of news reports from The Scotsman, and this is therefore the final instalment of
Chris Scott’s Press Trawl.
The column has been a permanent part of Ripperologist since March 2004, but with Chris’ passing
earlier this year we are closing the feature as a mark of respect.
RIP Chris.
OBITUARY
William J Fishman
Academic and Author
1 April 1921 - 22 December 2014
By JOHN BENNETT
There cannot be many people reading this who did not know, know of or have at least read something
by Professor Bill Fishman, who died on 22 December aged 93. For many of us his name was synonymous
with the East End; his work and output over the decades inspired and informed many, and his passing
is a sad loss to this particular field of history.
William Jack Fishman was born in Whitechapel, close to the London Hospital, on 1 April 1921 to a poor Jewish
family. Nonetheless, the habits of his father and grandfather and the respect they had in the East End community
inspired young Bill’s tolerance of different cultures, religions and social classes. Indeed, Fishman senior’s habit of
never turning beggars away stayed with the young Bill throughout his life. As a teenager in 1936 he witnessed the
Battle of Cable Street, where East Enders of all creeds set out their defiance of Sir Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts,
and the experience was to become one that would fashion his future as a historian, educator and political
commentator.
During the Second World War he enlisted as an infantryman and there began his
career as a teacher in the Far East. After teaching history at Morpeth School in
Bethnal Green he took up a degree at the London School of Economics and from then
on his educational career flourished. He set up the Tower Hamlets College of Further
Education and was chosen as a visiting lecturer at Balliol College Oxford in 1965. His
first book, The Insurrectionists, was published in 1969. From 1972 he was a Senior
Research Fellow and later Professor at Queen Mary College where he continued his
work on the radical politics of the East End, the result being his book East End Jewish
Radicals in 1975. This was followed by The Streets of East London in 1979 and East
End 1888 (1988).
It was the latter of these books which many Ripperologists turned to in order
to gain a full flavour of the East End in the Ripper’s time. The Streets of East London, a more accessible book
complemented by photos by Nicholas Breach, is a firm favourite with many and was influential in its own way.
But Bill Fishman was no dry academic. Stories of his enthusiasm and character, sometimes bordering on the
zany, have been recounted by those who knew him well. His pioneering East End walks influenced many and to
some, like author Rachel Lichtenstein, he became a mentor and great friend. And unlike some, he never flinched
from the Ripper story, describing it as a great catalyst for change in the Whitechapel area, a judgement that was
later picked up more famously by Jerry White. Many of his walking tour stops had relevance to the dark events
of 1888.
Though sometimes unwell and infirm in later life, it was when his memory was jarred into action with a
question about the Battle of Cable Street, for example, that he would launch into a description of those historic
events that made one feel as though he was still there, and perhaps, you were there with him too. On one of his
later prominent appearances, at the 2008 Museum in Docklands Ripper exhibition, he did just this.
Rachel Lichtenstein described him as one of the ‘last of the Mohicans’ as far as East End history was concerned –
his sheer knowledge, both researched and personally experienced, combined with his enthusiasm for the internal
and external properties of this most unusual part of London, means that he is irreplaceable. Bill Fishman’s legacy
is around us more than we probably realise.

I Beg To Report
NEWS ROUNDUP
FROM AROUND THE RIPPER WORLD
PC WATKINS MEMORABILIA SOLD. The Ripper community was on

tenterhooks recently when it was announced that items belonging
to PC Edward Watkins, who discovered the body of Catherine
Eddowes, were being put up for sale. The items - a truncheon,
handcuffs, whistle, leather notebook cover and a small collection
of contemporary newspaper reports - were described by the
auctioneers, J P Humbert of Towcester, near Northampton, as
being carried by Watkins on his beat on the night of the murder.
The vendor’s grandfather purchased the collection from Watkins’
widow in 1914 (PC Watkins died in 1913), and the items had
remained in the family in the subsequent 100 years. Each item
was estimated at between £500 and £800, but eventually went to
an unnamed bidder for a combined £17,700. The handcuffs sold
for £6,420, the notebook cover for £4,450, the truncheon for £3,950, the whistle for £2,600 and press cuttings for
£280. Jonathan Humbert said: “It was a sensible estimate for each item, but we didn’t have anything to compare
it to and the results exceeded our expectations. Five women died and you have to be sensitive, but these items
are undoubtedly of huge historical interest. Sometimes these unusual items just re-write the rule book.” The
buyer, who wished to remain anonymous, said he intended to put the items in a private museum in the UK.
While we do not doubt that Edward Watkins owned the collection at some point in his career, we wondered
whether they would have in fact been carried by the constable on the night of Eddowes’ murder, so sought the
opinion of police historian Neil Bell, who told Ripperologist: “Whilst I have not seen the items in person, and rely
on a rather poor photograph, I do have concerns. The notebook cover does not seem to have Watkins’ last collar
number, 944. The truncheon does not appear to be standard issue style for the 1888 period; it should be black
with the City of London coat of arms painted upon it, and stamped with the maker’s mark of Parker, Field & Sons.
The standard issue handcuffs for the period were Hiatt’s 104 Fixed Darby, whereas the ones shown are not fixed
cuffs, but seemingly rachet, something which would be very rare in 1888. Whistles were not standard issue for
the City of London Police in 1888, and therefore could not have been carried by Watkins when he found Eddowes’
body. The City trialled them in 1889 and they became standard issue by 1890. This whistle should be stamped with
the word ‘City’, in reference to the force who issued them, but is in fact stamped ‘Metropolitan Police’. All the
items should be marked either with ‘City’ or ‘CP’ if issued by the City of London Police. There is nothing to state
these items did not belong to Constable Edward Watkins. The provenance as stated is strong, and these items,
obviously, could have been collected by him over his career. However, I would be very surprised if Watkins was
carrying these items when he found Eddowes, and would go as far as to say the whistle would definitely not have
been upon his person that night.”
As Jon Rees commented in his Guest Editorial in our last issue, when it comes to purchasing historial artefacts
it really is a case of ‘buyer beware’.
Jack the Ripper: Auction of police items nets £18,000
BBC News, London, UK, 11 December 2014
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-30428747
Jack the Ripper: Memorabilia associated with London’s Whitechapel serial killer to be auctioned near Milton Keynes
MKWeb.co.uk, UK, 9 December 2014
www.mkweb.co.uk/JACK-RIPPER-Memorabilia-associated-London-s/story-25461819-detail/story.html#ixzz3N7keXshB

BLACK MUSEUM TO OPEN ITS DOORS. News reaches Rip
Towers that certain items from Scotland Yard’s infamous
Black Museum, more properly called the Crime Museum,
will soon be made accessible to members of the public
after talks were reported to have taken place between
the Metropolitan Police and the Museum of London for a
exhibition at the latter’s London Wall venue. At the time
of writing it is unclear whether the exhibition will be
permanent of temporary. The Crime Museum, created in
1874 at Great Scotland Yard by Inspector Neame, is now
home to an estimated 20,000 items relating to thousands
of criminal cases over the past 150 years. It was set up
as a training facility for new recruits and has been used
in that capacity since. Access to non-officers has been
restricted to invitation only, and the Museum has never
been open to the general public. It is currently housed in
The Black Museum in 1883
room 101 at the Met’s Victoria Street headquarters, but
with the recent sale of New Scotland Yard a new home will need to be found. Chief Supt Simon Ovens, chairman
of the Met’s museum board, said: “The wish is twofold: we’re obviously very proud of our history as the oldest
police force in the world and to also show the role that the Metropolitan Police has played in London since 1829.
It’s not up to the Metropolitan Police to act as a censor but I hold very closely in mind the effect it may have on
surviving family members of any part of the collection.” We understand that no decision has yet been made as
to whether visitors will be charged to access the exhibition, although note that the Museum of London’s current
Sherlock Holmes exhibition charges a £12.55 entrance fee.
Jack the Ripper’s letter ‘From Hell’ and pans Dennis Nilsen used to boil his victims’ flesh: Police exhibits from some
of the grisliest crimes to go on display to the public for the first time
Hannah Parrym Daily Mail, London, 26 December 2014
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2887645/Jack-Ripper-s-letter-Hell-pans-Dennis-Nilsen-used-boil-victims-flesh-
Police-exhibits-grisliest-crimes-display-public-time.html
YORKSHIRE RIPPER COPYCAT. Another disturbing case of a psychologically-disturbed man becoming obsessed
with serial murder was revealed earlier this month when 21-year-old David Parsons appeared at Teeside Crown
Court charged with attempted murder. As in the case of Stephen Griffiths, the self-styled Crossbow Cannibal
who became obsessed with the Jack the Ripper case and subsequently murdered three prostitutes in Bradford,
Parsons planned to become a serial killer and told psychiatrists that he wanted to kill more prostitutes than his
idol Peter Sutcliffe had done. Parsons bought a claw hammer as it was the Yorkshire Ripper’s weapon of choice,
and then used it to repeatedly bludgeon a £130-an-hour call girl he lured to his flat in Middlesbrough. He became
alarmed at her screams and ran from the flat before calling 999 from a public phone box and told police that he
had just attempted to murder the girl. At court on 6 December Parsons pleaded guilty to attempted murder and
was detained indefinitely under the Mental Health Act. Sutcliffe himself was recently reported to have suffered
a heart attack and described as “close to death”. Sources at Broadmoor denied that the killer had had a heart
attack, but confirmed that he remained in poor health following a hernia operation last year. It was claimed by
an unnamed friend of Sutcliffe that the 68-year-old serial killer had been waiting for almost two months to see
a specialist about a hacking cough.
Hammer wielding man obsessed with Yorkshire Ripper attempted to murder prostitute but fled when she screamed
Chris Brooke, Daily Mail, London, UK, 6 December 2014
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2863107/Hammer-wielding-man-obsessed-Yorkshire-Ripper-attempted-murder-
prostitute-fled-screamed-court-hears.html#ixzz3N7o0Er2N
Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe ‘on the brink of death’ after having a heart attack
Ben Wilkinson and Richard Marsden, Daily Mail, London, UK, 7 November 2014
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2824629/Yorkshire-Ripper-Peter-Sutcliffe-death-s-door-suffering-series-health-
problems-including-heart-attack.html#ixzz3N7oUuLyT
Yorkshire Ripper has NOT had heart attack but is in poor health, say Broadmoor chiefs
Alex Wellman, Daily Mirror, London, UK, 7 November 2014
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/yorkshire-ripper-not-heart-attack-4584908
Report on the Whitechapel Society
1888 Conference in Salisbury,
7–9 September 2014
By CHRISTOPHER T GEORGE and JON REES
On the weekend of 7th to 9th September, the Whitechapel Society 1888 held their conference in Salisbury - their
third such conference and the first held outside of London.The conference had a relaxed and casual start on Friday
evening with delegates meeting in the foyer of the Mercure White Hart Hotel, the main venue for the event on St
John Street, a centuries old coaching inn across the street from the ancient curtain wall of Salisbury Cathedral.
The first activity on the schedule was a ghost tour of Salisbury, venturing initially into the dark Cathedral grounds
and then to other locations. We feel that one of the frequent downsides to conferences in historic cities is that
delegates seem to spend most if not all of their time in the conference hotel. A walking ghost tour is the ideal
solution to this situation, and we had a brilliant opportunity to see some historic sites of this charming city at
night and hear stories of Salisbury’s past. All the usual ghost tour tropes were present - particularly monks and
grey ladies - but there were also interesting stories featuring the plague, the city workhouse, and the ghostly Duke
of Buckingham (for more information, see www.travelwessex.com/History-of-Salisbury.html). Following the tour,
the group gathered for a buffet at an Irish bar, after which a number of delegates ventured forth to seek out some
of the other historic pubs they had heard about.
On Saturday morning, conference MC Neil Storey welcomed us and kicked off proceedings. A quick word about
Neil Storey for those who are not acquainted with him: he is a historian and crime writer and a quintessential
eccentric academic. He is always immaculately dressed and is on a single-handed mission to bring tweed and
gingham back into fashion. Moreover, he has a charming and captivating speaking style that guarantees to keep
audiences enthralled. (It has been remarked that he could read out a shopping list and keep audiences in rapt
attention.)
The first speaker at the conference was New Yorker Robert

Anderson who presented on ‘Opening Pandora’s Box - Syphilis in
Whitechapel 1888.’ Robert took the podium decked out in medical
gloves, face mask, and syphilitic glasses (used by syphilis sufferers
whose pupils could no longer adjust to light) which by a happy
coincidence were the same prescription as his reading glasses.
A Powerpoint slide show gave the audience a gruesome tour of
a number of the disfigurements that tertiary syphilis can render
to suffererers. Robert noted that Ripperologist Donald Rumbelow
has made the point that by severing the nose of fourth canonical
Ripper victim Catherine Eddowes the killer might have done it to
simulate the nose of a patient lost to syphilis. Robert then showed
us examples of urethral syringes and other examination tools he had
collected, before explaining the causes, symptoms, and long-term
prospects of sufferers, the contagion methods and transmission
rates and the likelihood of the canonical five and the Ripper having
the disease and what treatments would have been available. His
presentation was both entertaining and informative.
Next was Alan Hicken talking about The Autobiography of Jack

the Ripper allegedly written by a fictitious killer named James
Robert Anderson Willoughby Carnac. Alan began by giving us some background

information on his life and on the small town of Montacute, Somerset where his toy museum is located. He
came across as a friendly and eccentric character, as might be anticipated of the owner of a toy museum. He
then detailed how he acquired the manuscript of the Carnac story among the effects of children’s author Sydney
George Hulme Beaman (1887–1932), originator of the Toytown series and Larry the Lamb. Then Alan and Paul
Begg, who wrote the introduction to the published book, discussed the manuscript’s possible origins and various
mysteries surrounding different typewriters used in its production. During the conference, the original Carnac
manuscript was displayed in a cabinet in the hotel lobby. The professional-looking blue-grey cover shows a view of
cobblestones and spreading blood which Alan noted was emulated for the American edition of the book although
not the British edition. Alan told us that he thought that an evident correction to the title on the cover of the
manuscript might be in some way significant. The title ‘The Autobiography of James Carnac’ appears to show
that the original wording was erased and the words ‘James Carnac’ inserted. An audience member made the
point that x-ray technology might reveal the original wording, and the sentiment was expressed, supported by
Alan Hicken, that such tests might be possible. Paul revealed that in writing the commentary on the contents
of the Carnac manuscript, he had not been shown the cover of the manuscript. Both Paul and Martin Fido have
indicated scepticism that a noted children’s author such as Hulme Beaman could have been responsible for the
manuscript of this alleged Ripper confession. However, does the professional-looking cover provide a clue that
Hulme Beaman, an accomplished graphic artist, could in fact have been the author of the text of the book as well?
It has long been known that the author and artist was responsible for illustrations for Jekyll and Hyde, so it would
appear that he did have a darker side, even if his main claim to fame is as a children’s author.
Saturday afternoon saw Neil Storey interviewing DNA researcher Dr Jari Louhelainen, senior lecturer in
molecular biology at Liverpool John Moores University, and Russell Edwards about Mr Edwards’ controversial book
Naming Jack the Ripper in which Mr Edwards claims that the Ripper case is solved due to DNA found on a shawl
near the body of Catherine Eddowes (see separate report which follows by Robert Anderson).
Saturday evening was our formal dinner (a delicious meal and compliments must go to the chefs at the White
Hart) followed by a lively auction. A bidding war broke out between Rebecca Hall and Lindsay Siviter (on behalf of a
phone bidder) for Mary Kelly’s supposed fish knife that, the story goes, had belonged to Mary Jane Kelly’s landlord,
Jack McCarthy. Also on offer was a letters box inscribed ‘1888’ that had been purchased by the Whitechapel
Society on television and books from Paul Begg’s collection. Neil Storey superbly and entertainingly controlled the
bids and over £1,200 was raised for the Whitechapel Mission.
After dinner and auction we were off to the nearby Chapel Nightclub for a performance of Frogg Moody’s
Musical ‘Yours Truly Jack the Ripper’. As the name suggests, the venue was a converted chapel and it was the
perfect venue for this production. In the early songs the cast were clearly nervous, but a few numbers in they had
relaxed a little and by the end were clearly having a whale of a time. The musicians and crew were also obviously
enjoying themselves and compliments must go to Frogg for both playing instruments while simultaneously mixing
the sound. Following the performance we retired to the bar where the fun and conversation continued into the
small hours.
Sunday morning and several delegates were looking worse for wear, but conferences do not wait for hangovers.
First up was Neil Storey in conversation with Paul Begg. Not only was it lovely to see and hear Paul this weekend,
but this was also a very informative segment. Paul recounted his early life and career and his other historical
interests. Among the memories that Paul shared was that he was the one who pointed out that Dr Bond attempted
an early form of psychological profiling and that the Jack the Ripper A to Z was his idea (although apparently
co-author Martin Fido claims otherwise). When asked the question if he had a time machine and could interview
anyone from the case he answered that the person would be Chief Inspector Donald Swanson, and outside
the case it would be Jesus Christ. Despite his reputation otherwise, Paul stated that he is not a proponent of
Aaron Kosminski as the Ripper. At the end of his talk, Paul presented the lifetime achievement reward to Mark
Galloway in recognition of Mr Galloway founding in 1995 the Cloak and Dagger Club, which would later become
the Whitechapel Society 1888.
At the end of Paul’s talk, Mr Storey called for a two-minute silence for Remembrance Sunday. Then, after a
short break, Trevor Bond began his talk on ‘“Jack” McCarthy.’ Despite the title of the talk, the focus was on the
whole McCarthy family during the life of John and included audio and video clips of Marie Kendall performing (Mr

McCarthy’s son married and later separated from Miss Kendall). As always with a Trevor Bond talk, there were
amusing moments and interesting related anecdotes including a tale of how bizarre some of the collections in the
National Archives in Kew are. When looking for a picture of Marie Kendall, Trevor had to wade through hundreds
of pictures of statues of birds and cats in amusing poses over the course of three hours. (Jon Rees can verify this
bizarre tale is in fact true, as he accompanied Trevor on that day and he borrowed Jon’s camera having forgotten
his own) and when he returned hours later it was full of pictures of cats and statues of birds. Trevor finally finished
his talk by reenacting a trademark act of Steve McCarthy’s by doing a little jig, turning around and flashing his
Union Flag boxers to the audience - probably a first for a conference!
After a much needed carvery lunch it was the turn of Sarah Wise for her talk on ‘Gaslight People - Tales from
the Victorian Lunatic Asylum’. Sarah had a very difficult slot but provided a very interesting talk, with the focus on
malicious lunatic certification and new and interesting insights on Forbes Winslow - giving us a fresh perspective
on the character of an often maligned man in the case. Unlike so many speakers from outside the community,
Sarah had obviously tailored her talk to us, rather than just using a ‘stock’ talk and it was much appreciated.
Following her talk, Sarah briefly gave information on the campaign against proposed high rise office blocks in
Shoreditch and what action can be taken to prevent the glass monstrosities further blotting the landscape of the
East End.
After Sarah’s talk we were on the move again, this time to Salisbury’s Guildhall, where in the Oak Court James
Maybrick was being put on trial for being Jack the Ripper. Actors took the part of barristers, witnesses and the
judge and the delegates formed the jury. Exhibit ‘A’ was the Diary and the case hinged around it. At the end using
a counter system we were required to vote guilty or not guilty. Maybrick was acquitted on a verdict of 33 to 11
(which prompted Robert Smith, owner of the Diary, to jokingly call out ‘Fix!’). The piece was well written and
well acted in a fantastic location, but we never thought we’d see a Grand Theft Auto game be used as evidence
in the defense of Maybrick.
Following the conclusion of the trial, Jo Edgington said a few thank you’s on behalf of the committee and the
conference was formally closed. A big thank you to Frogg Moody and the other organizers, and the speakers, actors
and everyone else who made the weekend possible.
Russell Edwards and Dr Jari Louhelainen

in Conversation with Neil Storey
By Robert Anderson
It was the best of Conferences; it was the worst of

Conferences.
I was relaxing in my den at Team Syphilis’ World

Headquarters when the message came over the Telex:
would I consider writing a brief recap of “Russell
Edwards: Naming Jack the Ripper – In Conversation
with Neil Storey” as well as any conversations I
might have had over the weekend at Salisbury with
Mr Edwards, Dr Jari Louhelainen as well as Robert
Smith, their literary agent. My immediate reaction
was to say that I would love to but had not attended
said Conference and could not help. Apparently much
of the audience for the talks has been driven to
madness and catatonia and my assistance was begged
for; more importantly Adam Wood had pictures of
me at the Conference threatening delegates with Neil Storey grills Russell Edwards and Dr Jari Louhelainen
an anal speculum. I suddenly remembered the talk Courtesy Katja Nieder
in question and eagerly offered to write up what I

could. So here we go. Please bear in mind that I am not an apologist for Russell Edwards nor Dr Louhelainen;
Kosminski is not “my” suspect. I am just interested in what the vast majority of Ripperologists are concerned
about: the truth of the matter regarding the DNA analysis of the Shawl.
Now to be candid, if I had realized that this Conference was going to be the subject of so much controversy
I would have taken better notes. The reader needs to be aware that I was the first speaker to present, and to
paraphrase Samuel Johnson, knowing that one is to be hung in the morning concentrates the mind wonderfully.
Katja Nieder and I were at Conran’s Irish Bar in Salisbury on Friday night of 8 November seated with Paul Begg,
Russell Edwards and his two friends/bodyguards with our minds on our eminent doom, not DNA sequencing.
I remarked that I was happy to finally be at a Ripper Conference where I was not the only person packing
heat, which served to not break the ice in any fashion whatsoever. One of Russell’s bodyguards, “Daz the Bull”,
explained that they were not really bodyguards, they were friends of Russell’s and that threats had been made
against Russell’s shop in London as well as his person by someone that was in attendance at the Conference.
Daz went on to say that the person in question now said they were only joking and that they agreed that was
probably the case, but better safe than sorry. Apparently someone else had also posted a threat to throw eggs
during the presentation. Edwards was originally going to bring his wife to the Conference, but decided against it
when threats were made. All I can do is to echo what Sarah Wise said to me at dinner: “Are Ripper Conferences
always like this?” It wasn’t meant to be a compliment. This is not the way to encourage dialogue; it’s the way
to create moats and walls and virtually guarantee the truth is not well served. Scholarly skepticism is one thing;
the shouting of a cyber mob an entirely different matter. (I must add here that none of the ire of Edwards’ camp
is directed towards Chris Phillips’ excellent analysis of the nomenclature controversy on Casebook. More about
that later…)
Shy retiring fellow that I am, I asked Edwards as to who was responsible for the “f**k up” regarding 314.1.C
in the book. He was not phased and answered that we had to bear in mind that he and Dr Jari were bound by a
non-disclosure agreement and they could not reveal any part of the Eddowes descendant’s DNA. I noodled on this
for a moment and then asked “Are you telling me the actual mutation isn’t 314.1.C but in fact something else,
and you altered it in the book because it is something that someone would not want an insurance company, an
employer or future spouse to know about?” Daz answered for Edwards, saying that was not it at all. That I needed
to understand that the descendant was fine with the mutation being revealed but that her family and relatives
were not, and there was an air tight agreement not to disclose any of the sequencing or the mutation, although
it was in fact completely harmless and very rare.
Katja and I went back to the White Hart trying to figure how to chop out an hour from what we had already
boiled down to two hours of syphilitic wonderment, and that was the last I thought of the matter until Jari gave
his presentation and Edwards and he had their “Conversation With Neil Storey”. Dr Jari gave a fine presentation
but the great majority of it whizzed over my head. The man is clearly not experienced at speaking to laypeople
on the fine art of DNA analysis and forensics, and that is no reflection on him. I could not help but consider while
he spoke as to how much of this Russell Edwards himself understood – which is not necessarily a reflection on
him either, as that is why he hired an expert! But I am left wondering two months later how much of what is
attributed to Dr Jari in the book are literally quotes from him. In person the man speaks fluent but accented
English; his academic papers are also flawless as far as I can determine. Yet the critical sentence “This DNA
alteration is known as global private mutation (314.1C) and it is not very common in worldwide population, as it
has frequency estimate of 0.000003506, i.e. approximately 1/290,000” is missing a few articles and the reference
to “global private mutation (314.1C)” makes one scratch one’s head as a global private mutation generally refers
to a mutation that is not in the DNA databases because of an error!
And (314.1C) – why the brackets? – is an error in nomenclature in the first place! As Chris Phillips has
demonstrated on Casebook, the correct nomenclature should be 315.1.C. Debs Arif has painstakingly walked me
through the arguments and I would refer the reader interested in specifics to read “A Problem with the Eddowes
Shawl DNA Match” thread on Casebook. The problem we are inescapably led to as seen at freepages.genealogy.
rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wrhurst/mtdna-k/k16048aanalysis.htm is that 315.1.C is not rare at all! “On the SMGF
list, it is second highest with 4,688 or 97.6% of the entries. As with 263G, it appears in 100% of the K Project and
slightly less in MitoSearch K’s.”

Unfortunately it gets worse: “According to the history of this shawl, a maximum of six persons have handled
it in the past twelve months... Based on the DNA work above, we know that at least two of these persons do not
have this specific mutation (314.1C)”
So whatever mutation Dr Jari found, no matter what we decide to call it we now have an unfortunate choice
of words to describe its frequency in the test subjects. “...At least two of these persons do not have this specific
mutation...” ranks up with the Goulston Street Graffito as one of the great puzzles of Ripperology. If he was really
testing for 315.1.C and it is common to (say) 99% of the population the odds are prohibitive that only four of
them would have it. If we put aside the frustrating “at least” for a moment we would have expected to find two
non carriers in a sample of 200, NOT TWO IN SIX. And why would one say something as ambiguous as “at least”?
Conceivably it could mean one or none of the subjects have the mutation! We are also left to wonder what about
the rest of mtDNA sequence as Dr Jari presumably attempted to match all of the markers on the shawl sample
and the donated share from Karen Miller!
There were comments made by Dr Jari during his talk that have many people confused, and it is a pity that an
expert on DNA was not at the Conference that could now clarify his remarks. According to my notes, Dr Jari made
a clear reference to 13 matches being necessary to propose a solution to a forensic cold case and seems to have
said later in his talk that they had found 13 such matches. According to one Ripper researcher I have asked about
this matter Jari’s remarks appear to be talking about “the FBI’s 13 locci nuclear DNA matches that are classed
as a match for legal purposes in court cases.” If so, this is problematic as it is Eddowes’ mtDNA that has been
reportedly recovered from the shawl, not nuclear. Now to add further complications I believe that Dr Louhelainen
stated he has been able to recover nuclear DNA from epithelial cells except as explained to me “a descendant’s
of Kosminski would have gone through recombination with each generation” and therefore unlikely to have
such a 13 marker match! Mark Ripper spoke to Robert Smith (Edwards’ literary agent) after the talk: “Jari had
mentioned that DNA identifications relied on 13 points of similarity during his talk, and I had been reading about
that in another book (‘Math on Trial’) shortly before the conference. When I spoke to Robert Smith, he pointed
out that, whether or not there was a problem with 315.1C (and that question would still have to be cleared up),
it took its place in an array of 13 points of similarity without which no identification could be made. I felt that this
exemplified the importance of seeing all the data before making a judgment about the significance of 315.1C, or
indeed any other feature of the dataset.” Unfortunately not only are we not in a position to make a judgment
about the data we are not even in a position to determine what was actually said during the talk!
I am faced with the regrettable conclusion that neither the book nor his Salisbury presentation really shed
light on what it is that Dr Jari believes he has found. Unfortunately the “Conversation with Neil Storey” did not
advance our understanding either. At that point Edwards was aware there was a walk out during Dr Jari’s talk in
protest over his request that Ricky Cobb not be in the room. Let us just say that it didn’t create a “Summer of
Love” atmosphere and there was another walk out before Neil’s segment.
I have spoken at length with Neil Storey about this part of the Conference, and he is willing to go on the record
that the Whitechapel Society placed no restrictions on what questions he himself was to ask either Edwards
or Dr Jari. There were five questions from the audience that were to be asked, and those were drawn from
questions submitted via email to Sue Parry. The WS1888 for their part is adamant that all the questions that
were submitted to THEM were all asked exactly as they were sent in, and there was no censorship whatsoever.
Obviously tremendous debate has raged on online, and if I may quote a well-regarded Ripperologist who shall
remain nameless: “I resent being forced to choose sides in all this.” I think the vast majority of us would agree.
Neil Storey has said he had a pre-Conference telephone call where he assured Edwards that the interview would
be neither hostile nor a puff piece and I think he admirably fulfilled his remit given he is not an expert on DNA.
The aim of his segment was to get to know Edwards the man as opposed to the author of a controversial book.
If it makes anyone feel any better, I suspect that if a hard-edged DNA question had been submitted via the
WS1888 and asked, the response would have been much along the lines of what Daz had to say to me before the
Conference. Privately and publicly, Edwards and Jari kept reiterating that they were bound by a confidentiality
agreement not to disclose specifics about the descendant’s DNA. Mark Ripper however did submit a last minute
question that read “Was 314.1C really what you meant? Or should it have been, as people on the internet are
saying, 315.1C? If so, how would this affect your conclusions?” I am told by a reliable source that Dr Louhelainen

indicated he would address Mark Ripper’s question but Edwards declined. While at first glance this appears
damning I would suggest to the reader that there may be legal issues between Edwards and the publisher we are
not aware of that prevented a ready answer.
Two of the pre-submitted questions from the audience did tangentially touch on the controversy. One asked
when a formal paper was going to be published on the subject of the vacuuming collection technique. Dr Jari
said that it is a new method for harvesting ancient DNA samples, requiring more work and more tests and that
he would prefer to write a final report than put out something in the interim. I think it would be productive for
us all to keep in mind that for Dr Jari the end game is not in finding out who the Ripper was – it is getting police
departments around the world to adopt his method as a way of reopening forensic “cold cases”. This matters far
more to him than our little nest of vipers. I personally have trouble envisioning him performing career seppuku
for Russell Edwards. I would call the reader to his rather impressive credentials: www.ljmu.ac.uk/PBS/116512.
htm. He also mentioned during the ‘Conversation...’ that he had not yet been paid by Edwards. (I believe Dr
Louhelainen volunteered his personal services but lab work does not come cheap it would appear. Edwards at some
point said he had spent over £700,000 to date).
In response to another question over the media storm, Dr Jari responded that he first saw the book fifteen
minutes before his first interview regarding the DNA. His Dean was less than thrilled with the controversy as a
lawsuit was threatened against both the Dean and the Vice Chancellor of LJMU over a confidentiality agreement
signed for a 2011 documentary. Whether this has anything to do with the gentlemen’s current reticence on matters
is an interesting line of speculation. Personally I do think legal agreements and threats do lie at the heart of much
of this fiasco.
Finally Mr Storey asked his own question: Would they allow their DNA samples to be tested against those of
another suspect? Dr Louhelainen immediately shot back “Of course” while Edwards’ response was “Why bother
since we already have our man?” But pressed further by Neil he relented and said that if a proper female descendant
could be found to provide samples he would consider it but did not want to waste time on frivolous suspects.
Jari repeatedly said more work needed to be done and the results peer reviewed. Nothing remotely like “case
closed” came from his mouth. Robert Smith told me in the book room that the publisher regretted the parts about
the science in the book and that it was something to revisit for the paperback. I might add that despite all the
moaning and groaning over the controversy Mr Smith was selling copies at a rapid clip afterwards. No evidence of
a boycott there!
So that, my friends, is how things ended up. Very

few people spoke to Edwards and Dr Louhelainen that
day, despite my efforts to introduce them to people.
Some have stated that they felt intimidated by his
“bodyguards” – that’s Daz in the picture on my right. I
can’t and won’t pass judgment on such feelings as they
are highly subjective. But this was not Ripperology’s
finest moment, with no lack of sins on both sides in my
humble opinion. The truth, such as it might be, was not
well served in the end.
*****
I wish to thank Debs Arif, Neil Storey, Mark Ripper,

Ed Stow, Sue Parry, Jackie Murphy, How Brown, Dr
Mark Hughes and Katja Nieder for their help during the
preparation of this report. I should add all opinions and
conclusions expressed here are my own, especially in
‘Daz the Bull’, Robert Anderson and Katja Nieder the event of error!

Dear Rip
Your Letters and Comments
Dear Rip,
Sarah Lewis
I have been researching my family tree during
which I came across Chris Scott’s article in the August
2013 issue of your magazine.
Sarah Jane Lewis was my great-grandmother on my

mother’s side. I can help with a piece of information
wrongly concluded in that article.
At the time of the murder of Mary Kelly, Sarah was

said to be pregnant and that was considered to be
John, who is in a census for 1891 aged 2. Because he
is not in the 1901 census, aged 12, it was concluded
he must have died.
However, that is not the case. Just before my

mother died, she supplied my brother with ancestry
information including the fact that her mother (my
grandmother and Sarah Lewis’ daughter) had five
sisters and two brothers who grew to adulthood. At
first I only knew of one of the brothers, William, but
we discovered that John grew up to marry and have
children and grandchildren, and died in 1978. He is
buried in Barkingside cemetery.
He must therefore have been living elsewhere at

the time of the 1901 census.
Sarah Lewis Joy Harrison

Copyright the Church family
Dear Joy,
Thank you very much for contacting us with this nice piece of additional information. It may be a small snippet,
but we firmly believe that building up the background of those involved in the Whitechapel murders, no matter how
peripheral, is important. We’ve no doubt that the late Chris Scott would have been delighted to have been proved wrong
on this occasion!
Rip
GOT SOMETHING TO SAY?
We love to hear your thoughts and comments!

Get in touch at contact@ripperologist.biz

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.
JACK LONDON, PHOTOGRAPHER

Jack London took photographs alongside his work as a
writer throughout his life, creating a distinguished body
of photography that stands upon its own merits beside
his literary achievements. In 1903, the first edition of
his account of life in the East End, The People of the
Abyss, was illustrated with over a hundred photographs
complementing the text and a new edition published by
Tangerine Press & L-13 reinstates these original images,
which were omitted in later reprints, permitting a full
appreciation of London’s work as he intended it for the
first time in over a century.

Top: Before Whitechapel Workhouse in Vallance Road Bottom: Casual ward of Whitechapel Workhouse

Frying Pan Alley, Spitalfields

“Only to be seen were the policemen, flashing their dark lanterns into doorways and alleys”
“Tottery old men and women were searching in the garbage thrown in the mud”

Working men’s homes, Wentworth Street

Top: London Hospital. Whitechapel Bottom: In Bethnal Green

A small doss house

“In the shadow of Christ Church, Spitalfields, I saw a sight …”
AT ITCHY PARK WITH JACK LONDON

The churchyard of Christ Church, Spitalfields, was once known as “Itchy Park,” a nickname that may derive
from the long-term presence of the homeless sleeping there and the lice that afflicted them. In 1902, at the age
of twenty-six, the American novelist Jack London came to Itchy Park as part of seven weeks he spent wandering
around the East End that Summer, talking to people and learning as much as he could of their lives. The result was
a masterpiece, “The People of the Abyss,” in which London used his talent as a novelist to draw his readers into
sympathy with those he described, creating a humane portrayal of a world that had previously been the preserve
of social campaigners.
The shadow of Christ Church falls across Spitalfields Garden, and in the shadow of Christ’s Church, at three
o’clock in the afternoon, I saw a sight which I never wish to see again. There are no flowers in this garden, which
is smaller than my own rose garden at home. Grass only grows here, and it is surrounded by sharp-spiked iron
iron fencing, as are all the parks of London town, so that homeless men and women may not come in at night and
sleep upon it.
As we entered the garden, an old

woman between fifty and sixty, passed
us, striding with sturdy intention if
somewhat rickety action, with two
bulky bundles, covered with sacking,
slung fore and aft upon her. She was a
woman tramp, a houseless soul, too
independent to drag her falling carcass
through the workhouse door. Like the
snail, she carries her home with her. In
two sacking-covered bundles were her
household goods, her wardrobe, linen,
and dear feminine possessions.
“...I never wish to see again”

Homeless people in Itchy Park, Spitalfields
We went up the narrow gravelled walk. On the benches on either side arrayed a mass of miserable and distorted
humanity, the sight of which would have impelled Doré to more diabolical flights of fancy than he ever succeeded
in achieving. It was a welter of rags and filth, of all manner of loathsome skin diseases, open sores, bruises,
grossness, indecency, leering monstrosities and bestial faces. A chill, raw wind was blowing, and these creatures
huddled there in their rags, sleeping for the most part of trying to sleep.
Here were a dozen women, ranging in age from twenty to seventy. Next a babe, possibly of nine months, lying
asleep, flat on the hard bench, with neither pillow nor covering, nor with anyone looking after it. Next half-a-
dozen men, sleeping bolt upright or leaning against one another in their sleep.In one place a family group, a child
asleep in its mother’s arms, and the husband (or male mate) clumsily mending a dilapidated shoe. On another
bench, a woman trimming the frayed strips of her rags with a knife, and another woman, with a thread and
needle, sewing up rents. Adjoining, a man holding a sleeping woman in his arms. Further on, a man, his clothes
caked with gutter mud, asleep, with his head in the lap of a woman, not more than twenty-five years old, and
also asleep.
It was this sleep that puzzled me. Why were nine out of ten of them asleep or trying to sleep? But it was not
till afterwards that I learned. It is a law of the powers that be that the homeless shall not sleep by night. On
the pavement, by the portico of Christ’s Church, where the stone pillars rise towards the sky in a stately row,
were whole rows of men asleep or drowsing, and all too deep sunk in a torpor to rouse or be made curious by our
intrusion.
On 25 August 1902, Jack London wrote, “I was out all night with the homeless ones, walking the streets in the
bitter rain, and, drenched to the skin, wondering when dawn would come. I returned to my rooms on Sunday

Sleeping in the churchyard of Christ Church, Spitalfields, 1902
night after seventy-two hours continuous work and only a short night’s
sleep… and my nerves are blunted with what I have seen.” In later
years, after the success of his great novels Call of the Wild and White
Fang, he recalled of People of the Abyss, “No other book of mine took
so much of my young heart and tears as that study of the economic
degradation of the poor.”
More than a century later, London would be disappointed to return

and discover people still sleeping in “Itchy Park” – nowadays they
are almost exclusively male and are a mixture of homeless people,
addicts and alcoholics, economic migrants and those sleeping it off
after a heavy night in a club.
Yet change is imminent, as there is controversy in Spitalfields over

the future of “Itchy Park.” Only the section next to Commercial Street
is open today, to the East are the former Christ Church youth club
building and the playground of Christ Church School in Brick Lane.
While the school, which is short of space, wishes to build a nursery
upon the site of the youth club, there is another body of opinion that
would like to see the park enlarged to include the youth club site as
a public green space for all.
Meanwhile the sleepers of “Itchy Park” continue their slumber,

office workers come to eat their lunch in the shade and tourists sit
under the trees to rest their feet, and somehow everybody co-exists
Sleeping in the churchyard of Christ Church,
amicably enough. Spitalfields, 2011
To buy a copy of the new version of People of the Abyss, visit www.
eatmytangerine.com/jack_london_people_of_the_abyss.html

Victorian Fiction
The Case of
Euphemia Raphash
By M P Shiel
Edited with an Introduction by Eduardo Zinna
Introduction
When Matthew Phipps Shiell (with two l’s), a protean and
prolific British author, felt the need for a nom de plume, he
selected ‘M P Shiel’ (with one l only). In anybody else’s case,
this choice would have indicated a lack of imagination. In
the case of Shiel, a writer of vast inventiveness and vivid
creativity, it could only be considered as another of his
eccentricities, peculiarities and unconventionalities.
Like Alexander Pushkin and both Alexandre Dumas, père and fils,
Shiel was of mixed African and European ancestry. He was born in the
West Indian island of Monserrat on 21 July 1865, the ninth child and
first son of Matthew Dowdy Shiell, a trader, tailor, ship owner, store
keeper and Methodist lay-preacher, and Priscilla Ann Blake. Although
his filiation has remained uncertain, Matthew Dowdy Shiell is thought
to have been the illegitimate child of an Irish Customs Officer and a
black woman. His wife Priscilla was also a light-skinned mulatto.
The young Matthew was educated in Devonshire, England and at
Harrison College on Barbados. He left for Britain in 1885 to pursue
further studies. In London he attended a school of interpretation at
Matthew Phipps Shiell King’s College and studied medicine at St Bart’s, but never graduated.
For a while he supported himself by working as an interpreter and
translator and as a school-teacher. Later he started writing short stories for The Strand and other magazines and
eventually made literature his life-long profession. In 1895 he published his first book,
a collection of short stories entitled Prince Zaleski which chronicled the exploits of its
title character, a detective in the mould of Edgar Allan Poe’s Auguste Dupin. A year later
a collection of horror stories also influenced by Poe followed: Shapes in the Fire, which
included Xélucha, Tulsah and Vaila – later revised as The House of Sounds – which H P
Lovecraft considered as Shiel’s ‘undoubted masterpiece’. Also published in 1896 was
Shiel’s first novel, The Rajah’s Sapphire, written in collaboration with William Thomas
Stead.
Despite his ancestry, or perhaps on account of it, Shiel entertained Nietzchean theories
of the übermensch and racial superiority and penned several works featuring stalwart
Anglo - Saxon heroes and alien hordes. In July 1898, he published The Yellow Danger, a
novel describing – not quite unprophetically – a Chinese attempt to rule the world. Yet its
evil protagonist, Dr Yen How, is not moved by the desire to create the largest economy
on earth or possess untold riches, but by his unlikely passion for a Fulham nursemaid.
His massive armies are defeated in a gigantic sea-battle by the forces commanded by

the Englishman John Hardy. The Yellow Danger met with great success and went through numerous editions
during Shiel’s lifetime. The villainous Dr Yen How was reincarnated to even greater popularity in the 1930s as Sax
Rohmer’s Dr Fu Manchu.
The work by which Shiel is best remembered
today, The Purple Cloud, appeared at the
very end of the Victorian era, in 1901. It
has been variously described as a dystopian,
post-apocalyptic novel, a landmark text of
early British science fiction, the first and best
treatment of the last-man-on-earth theme,
and – in The Cambridge Guide to Literature
in English – as ‘an allegorical fantasy which
visits world-wide catastrophe upon the
earth to test the faith of a modern Job.’ Its
protagonist, Adam Jeffson, is the only man to
return alive from an expedition to the North
Pole. His crew and, it turns out, the rest of
humanity, have been poisoned by a cloud of
cyanogenic gas, the ‘purple cloud’ of the title. During the next seventeen years, Jeffson lives alone. He passes the
time descending into half-madness, deciding that humanity has only got what it deserved, building a colossal gold
palace, setting fire to cities – including London, Paris and San Francisco - for his own amusement, and jotting down
his thoughts in a notebook, which becomes the source of the novel. Eventually he finds a young woman hiding in
a cellar in Constantinople and together they set forth to give birth to a new human race.
Shiel was known for his idiosyncratic, luxuriant prose style. August Derleth praised his ‘refulgently fanciful
imagination and magical command of the English language’ while the New York Post described him as ‘A genius
drunk with the hottest juices of our language.’ Sam Moskowitz said of him: ‘His mad literary rhythms, seemingly
improvised, like a jazz artist’s at a jam session, were a bubbling fountain at which new techniques of phrasing
could be drunk.’ More soberly, E F Bleiler wrote that ‘[Shiel’s] stories are a welter of stylistic sound effects, not
to everyone’s taste.’ Shiel’ s admirers have included E M Benson, Dashiell Hammett, L P Hartley, H P Lovecraft,
Arthur Machen, J D Priestley, Bertrand Russell, Dorothy L Sayers, Hugh Walpole, H G Wells and Rebecca West.
During his long life – he lived to be 81 - Shiel wrote science fiction stories, horror tales, historical romances,
detective novels and religious tracts, and spanned the literary world from the Decadents of the 1890s to the
Lovecraft circle of the 1930s. His work appeared everywhere from The Strand to Weird Tales. In his old age, he
settled in a cottage in Sussex and became increasingly preoccupied with religious themes. He spent a great part
of his last years on a New Testament study entitled Jesus, which he described as ‘a truer translation of Luke’ from
the original Greek. Shiel died on 17 February 1947 at a hospital in Chichester, five months after completing Jesus.
The manuscript, however, was never published and much of it has been lost.
Our Victorian Fiction offering for this issue, The Case of Euphemia Raphash, is neither a supernatural nor a
detective story, though it has elements of detection and the pursuit of criminals, but could best be described as a
thriller. It first appeared in the Christmas issue of Chapman’s Magazine of Fiction in 1895. Apart from modernizing
the spelling of some words and providing a full source for the epigraph, I have left the story unchanged from its
original publication.
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The Case of Euphemia Raphash
By M P Shiel
Man’s goings is of the Lord; how can a man then understand his own way?
Proverbs 20:24
‘Oh, Mr Parker, he is coming at last, sir!’

‘Good heavens! you mean the Doctor?’
‘The Doctor, sir - saw him with my own eyes ‘he is on foot - must have passed through the north park
gates, and is at this moment coming up the drive!’
I ran to the lawn; saw him slowly coming in the old frock-coat of thin stuff, his eyes studying the ground.
‘Ah, Parker’ - he glanced up and held out a limp hand -‘that you? Well, I hope?’
‘I am well enough, thank you, Doctor.’
‘And why the accented I? My sister, Parker?’
I was simply astounded.
‘You have not then heard?’
‘Heard? I have heard nothing.’
‘Merciful heavens! In what land have you then wandered?’
‘Parker, in a land far away.’
I said nothing more, nor he. For the first time in his life he felt fear - fear to ask the question which I
felt fear to answer.
We passed into the gloomy half-ruined pile, an ancient place, the home of a race most ancient. In the
little room we called ‘study’; he seated himself on the divan, and with perfect composure said:
‘Now, Parker - my sister.’
‘Miss Euphemia, Doctor, is no more.’
His face was stone; but he sallowed. After a time I distinctly heard him mutter:
‘I thought as much - so it happened once before.’
What? I was all wonder; but only added:
‘Three weeks ago, Doctor.’
‘Of what?’
‘She was - -’
‘Go on.’
‘Doctor, she was - -’
‘Say it, man - she was murdered.’
‘She was murdered, Doctor.’
I see him now; spare and small, mighty in forehead, which at the top was thinly covered with a cropped
iron-grey scrub: thick, tight lips; sallow, shaven face; and those eyes, grey, so unquiet, never for an instant
of life ceasing the internal inquisition in which they wandered fro and to, down, and up, and round.
A name high in the view of the world was his - as an apostle of science, as hierophant among the arch-
priests of learning. During the fifteen years I had acted as his secretary, we had produced nine books, each
monumental in its way. His activities in the domain of thought were, in fact, immeasurable - though I will
not say that they were continuous; or, at least, not continuous so far as I was concerned; for the doctor
would ever and anon leave me, perhaps in the midst of some work, and without warning snatch himself
wholly for long weeks from Raphash Towers; nor could I then determine whether sarcophagi of old Egyptian

dynasties had lured him overseas, or excavations at Mycenae, or the enticements of Khorsabad and Balbec.
I knew only that he had quietly and mysteriously disappeared; that he as quietly returned in due course to
his labours; and that his taciturnity was so inveterate as to seem brutish.
An old housekeeper and myself, beside the Doctor and Miss Euphemia, were the only inmates of the
old mansion. We occupied an insignificant portion of the ground floor of one of the immense wings. Never
visitor broke our solitude, except a gentleman whose calls always corresponded with the Doctor’s absences.
The lengthy tête-à-têtes of this personage with Miss Euphemia led me to suspect an old flame, to which the
Doctor had had known objections.
Miss Euphemia was a lady of forty-five years, taller than her brother, but remarkably like him. She, too,
had become learned by dint of reading the Doctor’s books. For the life of me I cannot now say how it was,
for they hardly ever exchanged a word, but I had gradually arrived at the conviction that each of these two
lives was as necessary to the other as the air it breathed.
Yet for three weeks the newspapers had been discussing her singular disappearance, and he, of all
others, knew not one word of the matter! He looked at me through half-closed lids, and said, with that
utter dryness of tone which was his:
‘Tell me the circumstances.’
I answered: ‘I was away in London on business connected with your Shropshire seat, and can only repeat
the depositions of old Mrs Grant. Miss Raphash had, strange to say, been persuaded to attend the funeral
of a lady, known to her in youth, at Ringlethorpe; and, staying afterwards with the mourning friends, did
not return till midnight. She wore, it seems, some old family jewels. By one, however, the house was in
darkness; and it was an hour later that a scream shrilled through the night. Mrs Grant was able to light
a candle, and had opened her door, when she dimly saw a man rushing towards her with some singular
weapon in his hand which flashed vividly in the half-dark - a small, wiry man, she thinks. She had but
time to slam her door, when he dashed himself frantically against it, whereupon she fancies she heard the
angry remonstrance of another voice. Here, however, her evidence is vague; hours later when she woke to
consciousness, she rushed to her mistress’ room, and found it empty.’
‘Of the jewels?’
‘Of Miss Raphash herself.’
‘And the jewels?’
‘They lay on the dressing-table where they had been placed, untouched.’
‘Clearly the murderer was not a burglar.’
‘Clearly he was. He, or they, took other things, valuables from your room and mine to the amount of
four hundred pounds.’
‘But some of these have been traced?’
‘Not one. Some have been found - none “traced”.’
‘Where found?’
‘In a clump of bushes immediately beneath the balcony of the south wing.’
‘They were singular burglars. And my sister’s body was found - -’
‘Nowhere.’
‘It was buried in the park.’
‘Quite certainly not. The park has been subjected to too minute a scrutiny for that.’
‘It was burned.’
‘Not in the house and again not in the grounds. It was for some ghastly reason conveyed away.’
‘It is not now in the house, for instance?’
‘No - if the most recondite search in the darkest recesses of the mansion is of any value.’
‘There were bloodstains?’

‘A few on the bed.’
‘No clue?’
‘One. It would seem that the assassin, or one of them, before gaining entrance, drew off his boots, and
on running away left them, for some undreamable reason, behind him.’
‘It is very simple. He went in a pair of yours or mine.’
‘No. Had his foot, as measured by his boot, been one-third as small, it could never have been urged
into a boot of yours or mine.’
‘And yet Mrs Grant says he was a small man; it is peculiar he should have so immense a foot.’
‘It is clear then that there were more than one.’
‘Yet I incline to the one-man theory; for through some failure of courage or memory, one might leave
the jewels, but hardly two. Mrs Grant, distracted, may have mistaken his stature; and in the course of my
anthropological experience, I have even come across that very discrepancy between man and foot - an
occasional survival of simian traits in human beings.’
‘There is another point,’ I said, ‘the boots were found to be odd.’
‘But that is a clue!’ he said. ‘I have the man in my grasp. Have you now told me everything?’
‘Except that a gentleman had called to see Miss Raphash that afternoon.’
‘Ah - what sort of man?’
‘Tall, black-dressed, middle-aged, with side-whiskers. I have seen him here when you have been away.
Mrs Grant says that Miss Raphash spoke to him with some show of anger, though no words could be made
out.’
‘Ah!’ said the Doctor, and resumed a restless walk.
‘It is not impossible,’ he continued after a while, ‘that deeps, black to the eye of a policeman, may
lighten to the eye of a thinker. Let us go over the house.’
Science had taught the
Doctor to labour without
the stimulus of expectancy.
On this hopeless search
we spent several hours in
the mouldy vastnesses of
the house; in the solemn
silence of old Tudor wings
which perhaps no foot
had set a-barking with
echoes for centuries; deep
down in the nitre-crusted
vaults. We came at length
to an old room on the
second floor of the south
wing overlooking a patch
of garden, rank now with
shrubs. The chamber was very damp and gloomy; its tapestries of Arras had mouldered to grey shreds. The
Doctor had partly used it as a depository: here were stacked bones of mammoths, embrya in flasks, fossils,
spongiadae, implements of stone, iron, and bronze. Along one side was a vast oaken chest, carved, black
with centuries of age. It, as well as a secret recess behind a panel in the wall, contained piles of bones
methodically labelled.
The lock of the door was of peculiar construction, and the Doctor had the key always about him. I could
not therefore but smile, when on entering, I said to him:

‘Here, at least, our search is fantastic.’
He glanced at me, and passed in doggedly. Through the grime of the window light hardly entered. Here
a piece of old armour, there a cinerary urn of Etruria showed in the gloom its grey freckles of fungus; a
dank dust was over all.
‘Someone has been here,’ said the Doctor.
‘Doctor!’
‘The catch of the window seems awry: notice the dust on the floor; does it not look -’
‘But if it is impossible, it is impossible, and there an end,’ I answered.
He opened the window. Below was the stone balcony of the first floor of the wing; and from it to a point
near the window a tin rain-spout ran up. It was among the bushes of the garden beneath the balcony that
the stolen valuables had been found.
‘He climbed up, you see, by the spout,’ said the Doctor. ‘The feat seems superhuman: but there is the
spout, and here is the turned window-catch. We must confront phenomena as we find them.’
‘But at least, Doctor, he did not climb up with a dead body in his arms?’
‘No; you are right.’
‘And he did not enter by the door.’
‘No.’
‘Then our search here is absurd.’
‘Doubtless. You might look behind the panelling.’
I looked and saw only the dust-grown bones of old monsters.
‘She is not in here, now?’ he said, and tapped the oaken chest with his knuckles.
I smiled.
‘No, Doctor, she is not in there. The man does not live who could force the century-old secret
of that riveted lid.’
‘Come then, Parker. Come - we shall find her.’
We went out, and he locked the old silences and solitudes within the room once more. Men of great
minds undertake tasks which, from their very vastness, seem nothing less than silly to men of smaller
gauge. The region of the impossible, indeed, is the true sphere-of-action of genius. But, on the other hand,
the crowd may be excused if, observing this, they become sometimes incredulous, resentful, and even
cachinnatory.
And, I confess, it was not without resentment that I listened to Doctor Raphash as he said to me:
‘Let us find him, Parker - the murderer of my sister - the secreter of her body. This is a task we must
not leave to the crude intellects of the recognized authorities. Let us hunt him down - and, after that, we
shall resume our consideration of the science of Comparative Mythology.’
But his method, at least, was singular. To acquire personal intimacy with the whole criminal class of
London is an undertaking, if possible, at all events far from light. Yet this was his notion. In a few months
we had learned a new language, become acclimatized denizens of a new world - the language and the
world of the East of London. Our dress was the dress of the ‘navvy’; our habits those of the ne’er-do-well.
And now most wondrously were revealed to me ineffable deeps in Doctor Raphash’s character. The
intensity of this hatred of an unknown man to me seemed hellish. ‘Let us hunt him down.’ His life became
the incarnation of that sentence. It was the man of science turned beast of prey, but retaining the perfect
scientific calm; an intensity bordering on lunacy shrouding itself behind the serenity of ocean-depths; the
avenging angel without the flashing eye and flaming sword.
Days and nights we spent in public houses, gambling-hells, cells of pawnbrokers, with roughs at slum-
corners, stormy crowds at music-hall doors. We were boon companions of men who related to one another

without secrecy or shame-blush their achievements in every species of crime. In the morning we parted; to
compare late at night notes of the day’s haps. Then far into the morning hours I would hear the slow soft
tread of that divine patience to and fro in his room near mine. This, and a heightened glare in his eyes,
were all the indication of the mania fretting at his heart.
One day I heard something.
In a gin-palace two women, dissolute of face, stood at the bar.
‘And how about your old man, then?’ I heard.
‘Oh, he must fish for hisself, he must. I took his boots, the last thing I’ve got, to the pawn this morning,
and they wouldn’t take them.’
‘Ain’t they no good, then?’
‘They’re sound enough, but they’re odd.’
‘Go on!’
‘S’ help me. I nearly tore his eyes out over them same boots. I buys my lord a seven-and-eleven pair in
the summer and sends him hop-picking in them; two months ago he turns up with his own boot on the right
foot and somebody else’s on the other.’
‘And what accounts did he give of hisself?’
‘There’s where the provoking part of it comes in. Every time I asks him about it, it’s ‘Drop it, mate’,
and ‘Drop it, I tell you, mate.’ He was on the job, you may bet, got into some scrape, and now dursn’t say
nothink about it.’
I need not mention the steps by which, in half- an-hour, I had become the bosom friend of these two
women. The time, place, and circumstances of the boots profoundly impressed me, and when I parted
from them I felt assured that the name and address I had obtained were those of the man we sought. When
Doctor Raphash returned, haggard and pallid, to our little garret that night, I pressed his hand.
‘You have news for me, Parker.’
‘I have heard something that may have some bearing on the case.’ I told him the incident.
‘Undoubtedly - it has some bearing. Let us go.’
‘You look tired tonight, tomorrow perhaps - -’
‘Not at all! Tonight, man - now - now - is the time to find what we seek’ - and he stamped on the floor.
I glanced, startled, at him. The action seemed like a sign of the break-up of that supernal serenity which
characterized him.
We passed out, I taking the precaution to bring with me a Colt’s revolver. When, by the way of endless
labyrinths, we reached the address the Doctor at last spoke:
‘There is no light, you see; he is, probably, still out. Suppose you wait till he comes; then speak, take
him under the lamp there, see the boots, and ask him to drink with you. I, waiting at yonder corner, will
then join you.’
Flakes of snow drifted downwards. I walked sentinel-wise; the Doctor crouched still at his post. From
a Swedish chapel I heard the strokes of twelve, and at the same moment a working-man approached me.
‘Cold tonight, mate,’ I said, carelessly.
‘Ah, that it is,’ he answered.
His teeth chattered - his face wore a blue hue. Turned-up coat-collar, and buried hands, and forward
pose, spoke of his shivering agonies.
‘You look frozen. Come and have a drink along with me.’
‘I could do with one, mate. I haven’t tasted grub this day.’
‘What - broke?’
‘Dead broke!’

‘Come along then - the ‘Brown Bear’.’
He followed me. Under the lamp I stopped.
‘Do you like the ‘Brown Bear’? If not - -’
The light fell upon him. A sense of contempt
and disappointment overcame me at the sight
of his weak face, sheepish blue eyes. But there,
at any rate, were the counterparts of the odd
boots I had handed over to the authorities.
The Doctor had slowly approached us, and
was in the middle of the road when Hardy,
glancing, saw him.
The change in the man’s face was sudden and
wonderful.
His eyes glared; he tottered, livid, against a
railing; then, suddenly taking to his heels, fled, as for dear life, down a turning.
The Doctor followed, and then I. And now powers of physique, as unexpected as previously depths of
soul in my old friend, stood visible to me. He distanced me. His feet grew winged. Hardy, indeed, had an
advantage in his knowledge of the intricate grimy courts down which he dodged. Sometimes for a moment
he disappeared. But the Doctor slowly gained upon him, ‘hunting him down’. The streets were all but
deserted.
Suddenly Hardy dashed into a cul-de-sâc. The house at the end was empty, every window broken. If the
fugitive, then, could gain an entrance his escape by the back was safe. I judged that this was the house
for which he had all along been making. On reaching it, Hardy dashed down the area steps to a basement
below the street-level.
‘Shoot!’ cried the Doctor, looking back. ‘Shoot with the revolver - shoot!’
This I was far from willing to do, but it was already too late; for Hardy had disappeared. A minute
afterwards we, too, had rushed down the steps, and through a gate-like door passed into a low, wide,
damp cellar of which the ground was a soft, powdery earth covering our ankles. There was no other visible
means of egress, and I was looking about for Hardy, when the gate-door banged suddenly behind us, and a
bar clanged down into a staple in the outer wall.
So that we were prisoners. That the man had entered the cellar was certain, and also that he had found
some means of leaving it other than the door. But here our knowledge ended. The darkness was Erebus
itself; whole clouds rose with every step and choked us; and the intensity of damp cold, after our run,
hardly made speech possible. I groped round the walls, fired my revolver; but the flash revealed nothing
but a portion of unhewn wall and low ceiling; I shouted at the door; but the neighbouring houses were
ruins - an echo answered me.
Towards the early morning I received, I confess, a thrilling shock of horror from Doctor Raphash. That
he was not himself, that he suffered far more than I, became apparent. Once or twice only had he spoken
through the night, sitting crouched in the dust of a corner, his knees bent up, his head buried in his arms.
By palpation I knew him in this position.
Once I said in alarm:
‘Doctor, do not sleep! This cold.’
The doctor laughed aloud.
‘No, no,’ he said bitterly; ‘I won’t sleep; small fear of that - tonight.’
I walked for warmth to and fro, treading warily on the dust. A deep groan drew me to him: my cold
fingers touched his forehead with the sensation of contact with a heated plate.

‘You are suffering greatly,’ I said.
‘Leave me alone, Parker! Go from me!’
An hour, and I knew that he was stalking
swiftly up and down the whole length of the
cellar; swiftly! filling it with a continuous
convolute reek of the brown incense of the
dust. Long I stood, noting his faint sounds
as he came near, losing them, following in
fancy his cloudy progress, determining that
now he was here, now there, now yonder. His
disjointed mutterings guided me. He seemed
oblivious of my presence.
When the air had finally become
unbreatheable, I moved to go to him. My head
came into contact with something, which on seizing I found to be a rope pendant from the ceiling. Unable
to guess its purpose, I succeeded after many efforts in climbing it. My head struck the ceiling. Groping
round with my hand, I encountered what seemed like the inner panels of a trapdoor. The means of Hardy’s
escape flashed upon me. I pushed with my knuckles, and a thin stream of light entered. In another minute
I was free on the other side - it was already day.
A strange, pallid face looked up at me, rolling wild eyes. I drew him up, and together we passed out to
the street.
Here he suddenly seized my hand.
‘Parker!’ - his breath came in gasps - ‘be a leech in your tenacity - as you love me, man! Hunt him down!
Goodbye.... Madman! do not follow! Good - bye...’
And before I could surge from the depths of maze and stupor into which the hissed words had plunged
me, he had rushed furiously down the street, and vanished into a passing cab.
After Dr Raphash’s mysterious desertion of our quest when success seemed near, I simply returned to the
Towers, and waited. I now, in fact, considered my duty done when I had described to the police the fellow
with the odd boots, who at this time was in hiding.
It was a month later that I observed one evening, as I walked about the grounds, that a man, hearing my
approaching footsteps, had ducked his head from my sight in a clump of bushes - the very bushes, by the
way, in which the stolen articles had been discovered.
I was accompanied by a large mastiff. Coming closer to the spot, I said aloud:
‘Do not run, simply rise, and hold your hands over your head. I happen to be armed - and you see the
dog.’
The crack of a pistol would have much less surprised me than the hangdog air with which he rose before
me. I recognized at once the insipid face of Hardy.
‘No offence, master,’ he said, touching his hat, trembling like an aspen.
‘Ah, we have met before, Hardy.’
He scrutinized my face, but shook his head.
‘You know me better ’n I know you, sir.’
‘Well, Charles, you must come with me,’ I said. I led him by the arm into a room of the house, instructing
Mrs Grant at the entrance to send for a couple of the rather distant local police. I then closed the door, and
proceeded to examine my prisoner. The creature wept!
‘Now, Hardy,’ I said, ‘dry your tears, and tell me how came you in those bushes tonight.’
‘I was looking for the rings and things. It was hunger drove me - they’ve been hunting me like an animal

for the last month, and I give myself up.’
‘What rings?’
‘The rings I dropped in those bushes. I thought that, anyway, one of them might by chance be left there
still.’
‘You admit the burglary, then?’
‘Yes, master, I admit it. It was my first, and it will be my last. I haven’t had a moment’s peace since. I
even put up a rope in an old cellar to hang myself, only I’m a coward
‘And you admit the murder?’
‘Murder, master?’ he cried with scared face - ‘murder! Why, it wasn’t me who did the murder, it was one
of the other two, and didn’t I nearly drop dead with fright when I see it done?’
‘There were, then, two others?’
‘Yes, sir, a working man such as myself, and an old gent.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘I and a mate of mine, sir, came down hop-picking. He was a wild chap, and hops was too slow for him;
so he says to me as how some of these country houses was mere child’s play, with plenty to be got, and
not much danger, besides. He was one of those chaps it’s no use saying ‘no’ to, so one night here we stood
behind the old shed on the other side, waiting till the old lady was well asleep, when all of a sudden, as if
he’d sprung from the ground, this old gent stood between us. I started running; he looked like a spirit to
me; but Jim, who was more bolder like than me, he stands his ground; soon he whistles to me, and when
I come up, he sez, “Ere’ s a lark, Charlie,” sez he, “the old chap’ s on the job hisself!” “Partnership’s a
leaky ship, Jim,” sez I; but he only sez, “Oh, bother, live and let live.” Well, pretty soon I and Jim take
our boots off, and we all get inside. No sooner inside, than the old man takes the lead, showing the way,
telling us what to do, and me and Jim does everything he tells us, quite nat’ral like. He knew every crick of
the place; and first he takes us into a room, and sez he, quite wild like, “Plunder now! raven and harry! to
your souls’ content!” And then he reaches down a case from a shelf, and takes out a strange, shiny knife,
locks the case again - I believe he had keys to every lock in the place - and rushes out of the room into the
one opposite. “Queer chap, that,” sez Jim, looking queer hisself, “makes me feel shivery all over” , and
before I could tell him I felt sure the man was a devil or a ghost, we hear a struggle in the opposite room
- a gasping for breath - and then a long shriek which I ain’t ever going to forget while I live. Immediately
after, out he flies with blazing eyes, and dashes hisself against the other old woman’s door yonder. Jim,
sweating cold, plucks up courage to reason with him a bit, and at last he runs back to the murdered lady,
and dashes out again with her in his arms, light as a feather, a gash showing right across her chest, her grey
hair trailing on the ground. And now he comes up to us, and quite lofty like sez he, “Marshal yourselves
before me - march! march! and I will lead you where trophies and treasures lie thick - heaped for yer
‘arvesting!” His words is branded into my brain. And then he makes us walk before him right across the
building into the other wing and up two flights of stairs, till we come to a dusty room with a lot of bones
of dead people - and there, oh great God! hide me! there - there - there he is! He will kill me, as he killed
my mate - he will kill you, too - -’
He started wildly about, rushed behind my chair, and crouched down there. The man’s shriek of panic
horror thrilled me through, and as the ponderous door swung slowly wide on its hinges, and Dr Raphash
calmly entered the room, I clung paralysed to my seat.
‘Well, Parker,’ he said in the old callous dry voice, ‘here I am again, you see. But who have we... the
murderer caught at last, surely!’ and triumph lighted his eyes as they rested on Hardy, who, pale and
panting, now leaned against the tapestries.
‘Yes, the murderer!’ gasped Hardy, ‘but that’s not me! Oh, there’s plenty of proofs if it comes to that!
That long coat is the very one you wore - have you washed out the blood - splash on the sleeve yet?’
Dr Raphash sat, barely smiling, examining the face of Hardy. Presently he looked at his arm.

‘It is a remarkable thing,’ he said, speaking to himself: ‘I have noticed a stain here on my sleeve; it
cannot be blood; Parker, see, it looks not like blood, man - eh?’
But, as for me, a red mist hung thick before my eyes; I could see nothing.
‘It is blood,’ continued Hardy, gaining courage from the Doctor’s calm - ‘you know it is, or perhaps you
were too mad that night to know anything. Who but a madman would have carried the lady’s body all the
distance to that old chest; and there, didn’t you chase Jim round and round the room and stab him like a
dog, because you said one body wasn’t enough to fill the chest? And if I hadn’t slipped down to the balcony
by a spout, wouldn’t you have killed me, too; and didn’t you look out of the window and tell me to prepare
myself because you was coming, and didn’t I have to jump from the balcony to the ground, rolling over,
and dropping all the things I had; and didn’t I just have time to draw on two of the boots when you came
down and started after me?’
I was looking at Dr Raphash; during this categorical charge, no sound had issued from his lips; gradually a
yellow pallor as of death had overspread his features, and the muscles of his face became tense and fixed;
his head drooped forward, and his arms and legs stretched stiffly from his body; the cold stony glare in his
eyes lent to his face a look of rhadamanthine sternness awful to see.
I ran and seized the clammy fingers in mine; but he did not recognize me. So he remained for several
minutes, no sound breaking the silence of the room.
Then, still rigid in all his limbs, he raised his head, and let it drop heavily over the back of the chair; and,
with the action, there burst from his blanched lips - higher and higher, peal on peal, in horrid articulation,
in shrillest staccato - a carillon of maniac laughter. When this had passed, his whole face slowly settled
into the vacant smile of idiocy.
With creeping flesh, I seized Hardy by the arm, rushed - faint - from the room, and locked the door upon
the ruin within.
In this way Dr Arnot Raphash hunted down the murderer of his sister; and so, with him, fell the Jewish
House of Raphash in the county of Kent.
Some days later I received a letter, of which the following are a few extracts:
When I tell you that I am the proprietor of the private asylum from which this letter is dated, and a cousin
of Dr Raphash, you will at once conjecture that his (to you) unaccountable absences from home always
corresponded with his voluntary sojourns in my establishment. He well knew the warning symptoms - head
pains, a high temperature, etc. - and he usually had two or three days grace before the definite onset of
the malady. Sometimes, again, the attack was more sudden, especially when preceded by any excitement;
thus, when he reached my establishment a month ago he was already mad, and I at once guessed some
previous violent agitation... His first paroxysm occurred at the age of thirty, when he destroyed a just-
married wife by locking her in a room filled by him with a poisonous gas. In the sane state he had no
recollection of his insane acts, which were distinguished by their cunning and a strongly marked homicidal
mania, directed chiefly against those for whom he most cared. He never knew of his wife’s fate, for he
was at once placed under my care, and on returning home found her buried... When he was leaving me,
‘cured’ , after the death of his sister, I deemed it prudent to say nothing to him of the tragedy, preferring
that the journey to the Towers should intervene before the shock of the news fell on his newly restored
powers; hence his ignorance of the matter... You have probably seen me on my visits to Miss Raphash when
the Doctor was away from home; their object was to give that minute report of her brother which alone
could satisfy her. On the very day of the tragedy I had a somewhat angry dispute with her respecting the
expediency of putting her brother into irons, she deprecating, I insisting. Unfortunately, I allowed her to
influence me, and her death was the result... It is now beyond all doubt that the Doctor escaped from my
establishment on that night, though how he contrived to pass out of the house and grounds and into them
again without detection is yet unexplained; but to his cunning, as I have hinted, there were positively no
bounds... I need only add that I shall soon have - I may almost say the pleasure - of announcing to you the
death of Dr Raphash. He may still, indeed, linger for a few weeks; but the end, in any case, cannot be
distant.

Reviews
JA
CK ER
THE RIPP
Capturing Jack the Ripper: In the Boots of a Bobby in Victorian England

Neil R A Bell
Stroud, Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing, 2014
www.amberley-books.com
hardback, eBook; 255pp; illus; notes; index .
ISBN: 978144562162
£20
For over a century, the identity of Jack the Ripper has been the greatest real life mystery of crime
and a plethora of theories presented in hundreds of books and articles have attempted to put a name
and a face to this most elusive of criminals. But Jack the Ripper isn’t a cold case, it’s not a mystery we
are ever likely to solve (although hope, as Alexander Pope said, ‘springs eternal’): it is history and to
understand it we have to understand time and place. There are lots of books that help us do that, and
also a growing number of books that look at very specialist subjects. Strangely enough, what we haven’t seen is a book
that looks at policing 1888. Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates by Rumbelow and Evans tackled the subject with
broad brush strokes, but I’ve wanted a book that dropped me in the wooden-soled boots of a Victorian Bobby; I wanted
to be a Dixon patrolling my own bit of Dock Green.
That’s what Neil Bell has delivered. I didn’t think so at first, as he whisked me from the Metropolitan Police Act of
1829 to Alfred the Great, but the opening chapter is a useful history of how policing evolved. Subsequent chapters take
you through every stage of a policeman’s life from recruitment through training, to where a policeman was allowed to
call home, the rules and regulations that pretty much governed everything they did, through to becoming a detective.
Being a policeman offered 25 years of regular employment, which was not something to be sneered at, and a pension
if you survived the rigours of the job, didn’t slip up and get fired, and wasn’t a victim of the violence on the streets.
The book is in two parts, the second half starting just before the sizeable and good section of illustrations, on which
comment must be made. Rarely has a book included such an excellent collection of photos. Many, if not most, will be
completely new to most readers, even those well versed in the subject. There are photographs of George Hutt, James
Byfield and James Harvey, for example, as well as various group shots of both City and Met policemen. I have seen
some of these photos before, but Bell has managed to identify a lot of the policemen who were nameless faces from
their collar numbers. Great stuff. Other photographs include one of Dr Frederick Gordon Brown and another is of Albert
Cadosch - some time ago the subject of an excellent article by Colin Macdonald in Ripperologist.
The book discusses each of the victims from Emma Smith to Mary Kelly and gives a final chapter to the post-canonical
victims. The crimes are described from the police perspective, lots of detail about the policemen, such as Louis Robinson,
‘former coachman with the mail order business of Messers Copestsake, Hughes, Crompton & Co’, adding colour to the
narrative.

The book is fully sourced, the notes often more interesting than the text, as is frequently the case, and there is an
index. The only thing wrong with this book is that you come to the end of it. I want more of the tit-bits of detail, of
new information, of facts I didn’t know, but there’s nothing there. It’ll be a while before we see a book such as this
again. After the foregoing it is perhaps unnecessary to say that anyone who professes to be a Ripperologist must have
this book on their shelf.
Jack the Ripper

Geoff Barker
Sywell: Igloo Books, 2014
www.igloobooks.com
hardcover; 176pp; illus;.
ISBN: 978178343993
£12.99
I’m not fond of the gratuitous graphic of dripping blood on every other page, but otherwise this is a
handsome coffee table-type book with a padded cover and printed on art paper. It also includes a map,
facsimiles of the ‘Jack the Ripper’ letter and a police report, and a list of the main suspects. The text
is very brief, however, so it’s really for people with a limited interest or a short attention span. Also, don’t be put off by
the cover price, as you should be able to pick up a copy for a few pounds in discount stores like The Works.
The book is fairly comprehensive, beginning with a look at Victorian London, then looking at the murders and the
policemen who investigated the crimes, before it moves on to examine what a serial killer is. This introduces a look at
assorted suspects, both likely and unlikely.
It is amply illustrated throughout. Interestingly, I was told years ago that the picture in this book captioned ‘Charles
Booth’ is actually a young Robert Anderson. I can’t say that I have seen many photos of Booth as a young man, but I’m
not sure he had such a full beard as the gent in the photo. On page 48, what is captioned as an artist’s impression of the
murder of Elizabeth Stride is in fact an attempt on the life of an entirely different woman, One-Armed Liz. But these
are small niggles.
For what it is, this is a nicely produced book from Igloo.
Chasing Jack the Ripper

Patricia Cornwell
Seattle, Washington: Thomas and Mercer, 2014
Kindle Single;
47pp;
99p
Let me say straight off that I have worked with Patricia Cornwell and I like her. I’ve found her
generous, frank and honest, and I am convinced that she sincerely believes Walter Sickert was Jack the
Ripper. If I had thought otherwise, I would never have continued working with her.
John Grieve, a very well respected former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police,
suggested Walter Sickert to Patricia and coming from such a source it must have seemed a solid-gold
tip-off. Looking at some of Sickert’s paintings, Patricia saw something in them that convinced her they were painted
by a very disturbed personality. I’ve seen this happen before. There was something in the so-called Maybrick diary that
convinced Paul Feldman it was genuine. Clearly Patricia established a personal connection with the idea of Sickert’s
guilt as she writes of strange phenomena, unexplained electronic glitches, haunted happenings, research material
vanishing and reappearing. It all sounds very weird to me, very Amityville.
Perhaps one of the most important things she says concerns remarks made about Ripperologists. In the winter of
2002, as she headed for London on a book tour promoting Portrait of a Killer, FBI friends told her ’the Ripperologists
are lying in wait for you’. In reply she likened Ripperologists to Klingons lining up to fire on the USS Enterprise. It didn’t
endear her to Ripperologists, though it was arguably her FBI friends who acted irresponsibly. But Patricia acknowledges
that she was guilty of assumptions and prejudices - just as the Ripperologists were about her - and admits she didn’t
handle things very well. Also, she says the errors she made were ‘minor’, and that she fell into the trap of being ‘a bit
too adamant’ and that she probably came across as ‘too sure of herself’.
It’s an olive branch.

Patricia still believes that most and perhaps all of the Ripper correspondence was penned by Walter Sickert. She’s
almost alone in that belief, but not quite alone, and she believes that forensic analysis has identified letters from Sickert
and letters purporting to be from the Riper as coming from the same small batch of paper.
She also explains why she didn’t make contact with Joseph Sickert and Jean Overton Fuller, and how on reflection she
agreed to visit them with Keith Skinner. Interestingly - and perhaps hugely significantly - research has revealed that a
leading literary agency was instructed, probably by members of Sickert’s family, to pay royalties to Joseph when a book
by Walter was reissued. There’s also a drawing by Walter Sickert done in 1926 called ‘Boy Jos’. Could it be Joseph? Could
Joseph Sickert really have been Walter’s son? Could Walter Sickert have been the source of at least the fundamentals
of Joseph’s story?
Of course the big doubt hanging over any suggestion that Walter Sickert committed the murders is the claim made by
Matthew Sturgis in his excellent biography of Sickert that Walter was in France when the murders were committed. This,
it seems, isn’t true. Dated sketches show that he was in London on 4 and 5 August, so it is reasonable to assume that he
was there when Tabram was killed on the 6th. Another sketch is dated 30 September, the night of the double event, so
Walter wasn’t in France when all murders were committed.
I think the prejudice against Patricia and her book is probably too great for either to receive a fair hearing, but for
those who can get past their ill-feeling I think there are some interesting things coming to light which deserve to be
looked at rather more closely than they have been.
125 Success Facts:

Jack the Ripper – Everything You Need To Know About Jack the Ripper
Aaron Robbins
Emereo Publishing 2014
Softcover/Kindle ebook
169pp
Softcover £25.24
Kindle ebook £13.10
Using the Amazon ‘Search Inside The Book’ feature it is clear that the material in this ‘book’ was
lifted from Wikipedia, then somehow badly garbled. Since Wikipedia articles are meant to be shared,
lifting stuff from its pages isn’t an infringement of Intellectual Property laws or copyright, but I cannot
find anywhere on the Amazon page for this book that says the content is culled from Wikipedia, and the material is
copyrighted by Aaron Robbins, so the indication is that this is an original book. Is that fraud? I don’t know, but £25 is a
sizeable chunk of money for material that’s otherwise available for free.
I suppose a case could be made that the compiler has sourced the material, collated and ordered it, and made
it conveniently available in a handy book, but in this case not even that has been done. I mentioned above that the
material had been garbled. This is the first paragraph of the first page:
Carroll’s biographers and Ripperologists have asserted that this hypothesis has whatever real important
defects. Ken Whiteway, A Guide to the Literature of Jack the Ripper, Canadian Law Library Review Vo1.29
(2004) p.219. One of the most vocal reviewers was Karoline Leach, whoever in a talk about Wallace’s
hypothesis gave 3 principal argumentations versus it: Stan Russo, The Jack the Ripper suspects: individuals
quoted by examiners and theoreticans, McFarland Co., 2004, ISBN 0-7864-1775-7, P-33.
As always, the warning to anyone buying books from unknown authors or unknown publishers on Amazon or elsewhere
is caveat emptor, but garbage like this really gives e-publishing a bad name. If you feel like complaining, go ahead.
One last thing: the product description amused me and is a tip-off that this garbage is garbage; ‘In easy to read
chapters, with extensive references and links to get you to know all there is to know about Jack the Ripper’s Early life,
Career and Personal life right away.’ Oh, that it did!

Jack The Ripper: A Killer Slips Not
Kevin Carmichael
Victoria, BC, Canada: FriesenPress, 2014
www.friesens.com
hardcover/eBook; 88pp;
ISBN: 978146024614
hardback £16.99/Kindle eBook £2.05
In his introduction Kevin Carmichael says that he believes Jack the Ripper to have been Dr George
Bagster Phillips. This must be ranked among the most ludicrous suggestions one can imagine, but maybe
it’s possible that the author’s researches has uncovered evidence against him. Sadly it hasn’t. Ultra
old fashioned in manner and dress, brusque but very well liked, Philips was the H Division surgeon and
he examined the bodies of four victims in situ and in the mortuary, and he ascribed surgical skill to the Ripper. There is
absolutely nothing about Philips to suggest that he was a murderer and Carmichael presents none either.
FriesenPress is a self-publishing company which charges from as little as just under $2,000 to over $9,000 and provides
‘proffessional editing services’. Carmichael’s is by no means the most badly written book about Jack the Ripper I have
seen, but when paragraph after paragraph begins with ‘and’ and some paragraphs are so badly constructed that they
don’t make sense (‘And then, just shortly thereafter that, they had just then continued out on their way again, having
hugged and kissed and carried on in the shadows some more,’), one must wonder if this ms ever saw an editor. If it did
it must have been a blind one.
Don’t waste your money or your time.
Autumn of Terror Jack the Ripper - a Graphic Tale

Frogg Moody, Perry Harris
Stroud, Gloucestershire: History Press, 2015
www.historypress.co.uk
softcover; 96pp;
ISBN: 978075095453
£9.99
There really isn’t much one can say. This is a graphic novel that follows Inspector Abberline’s
investigation of the Ripper murders and with time reaching a conclusion.
The tale is nicely told, the graphics are good, and members of the Whitechapel Society will recognise
a couple of names here and there. If graphic novels are your cup of tea, you’ll love this.
Television Documentary:
Jack the Ripper: The Missing Evidence
Channel 5, Monday 17 November 2014
Director: Sam Bergen Evans
Executive Producers: Dan Chambers and John Vandervelde
Series Producer: David McNab
Contributors: Christer Holmgren, Dr Gareth Norris, ex-Superintendent Andy Griffith, and James Scobie QC
This was part of a Channel 5 documentary series ‘The Missing Evidence’, other programmes in the series looked at
the mysteries surrounding Marilyn Monroe, the Loch Ness Monster, the Twin Towers, Bigfoot and so on. One didn’t have
high hopes for it.
Except it was made by Blink Productions, a company distinguished for having made some very classy commercials,
so it promised to have decent production values and to be visually interesting. It didn’t disappoint. Unfortunately, the
theory it presented, whilst certainly one of the more interesting to have emerged in recent years, has garnered few
adherents.
It was about 3:40-3:45 on the morning of 31 August when Robert Paul turned into Buck’s Row on his way to work. It
was cold and very dark, and he knew the area was frequented by gangs, so he walked quickly. Gradually the figure of a
man standing in the middle of the narrow street emerged out of the gloom. Paul tried to avoid the man, but the latter
reached out, put his hand on Paul’s shoulder and indicated a bundle in a gateway on the other side of the road. The man
said it was the body of a woman and he asked Paul to join him in taking a closer look.

The woman was on her back, her clothes were raised almost to her stomach, but no injuries were visible, nor could
any blood be seen in the darkness. Paul felt the woman’s wrist and hands, which were cold, and he bent down to see
if he could hear her breathing. There was nothing, but as he tried to pull her skirt down to provide some decency he
touched her breast and thought he detected a slight movement. He though the woman had been ‘outraged’ and was
possibly dead. Paul looked to see if a policeman was about, but neither saw nor heard one. He and the man decided to
continue their journey to work and tell the first policeman they encountered about what they had found.
That policeman was PC Jonas Mizen and here the story gets confused. Mizen would state that he was approached by
a man who told him that he was wanted by a policeman in Buck’s Row. The man vehemently denied having said this,
pointing out that he hadn’t seen any policeman there. He testified instead that he had told Mizen there was a woman
in Buck’s Row. Mizen, who was busy waking people up, a service beat policemen provided in those days, completed his
immediate task and went to Buck’s Row, where he found PC John Neil with the body. Neil had come upon the body after
the man and Paul had left scene. In the light of Neil’s lantern it could be seen that the woman’s throat had been cut and
that blood was still oozing from the wound.
The woman was Mary Ann Nichols and the man was Charles Allen Lechmere. He told the police that his name was
Cross and that he lived at 22 Doveton Street. Why the man, who used the name Lechmere on every official document
we know about, told the police his name was Cross isn’t known. It wasn’t a lie. Lechmere was his birth name and Cross
the surname of his adoptive father, who had been a policeman.
It is possible that Mary Ann Nichols had been recently killed because according to PC Neil blood was oozing from the
gash in her throat and Robert Paul wasn’t sure but he thought he felt the flutter of a heartbeat. Her murderer may have
left the crime scene only minutes before Lechmere/Cross appeared on the scene. Or was he still there?
Could Lechmere/Cross have been the murderer ‘hiding in plain sight’?
This is an interesting theory, particularly if the Jack the Ripper murders

were committed by different people as some theorists argue, but one can’t
help but think that the police back in 1888 would have thought the same thing
and thoroughly questioned Lechmere, satisfying themselves of his innocence.
Jack the Ripper: The Missing Evidence made a case for all the Ripper crimes
being committed by the same person and featured Christer Holmgren, an
articulate advocate of the case against Lechmere, and three experts who were
favourable to Lechmere/Cross’s possible guilt. They were profiler Dr Gareth
Norris, Ex-Superintendent Andy Griffith, and defence barrister James Scobie
QC.
Christer Holmgren
Dr Gareth Norris, Senior Lecturer in Law and Criminology at Aberystwyth
University, found Lechmere interesting from a psychological point of view. A couple of weeks before the murder of
Nichols, Lechmere had moved out of the home he had shared with his mother, which for some reason suggested to Dr
Norris that something had changed in his life. He had a reason to be near all the murder scenes (which was true but
required quite a stretch), he knew the streets well, and he found one of the bodies. Dr Andy Griffiths, a former Detective
Superintendent with the Sussex Police, read the inquest reports and concluded that ‘you couldn’t prosecute anyone else
without eliminating him first, because he has been very close to the body close to the point of death and possibly caused
the death.’ And James Scobie QC thought the accumulation of coincidences in the case gave you ‘the most probative
powerful material the courts use against individual suspects... he’s got a prima facie case to answer.’
These positive conclusions from the experts were dampened just a little when the production company and its
advisors were accused of misleading the experts by providing inadequate and slanted information and by asking leading
questions off camera. These accusations were levelled by Trevor Marriott, and were apparently based on remarks made
by barrister James Scobie, to whom Marriott spoke on the telephone on 19 November 2014. Marriott did not take notes
and was unable to record the conversation, but within half an hour had posted the gist on Casebook: Jack the Ripper
(forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?p=319043&highlight=Scobie#post319043).
It appeared that Mr Scobie had not been provided with all the evidence, only a bullet pointed list of the salient
points, and Marriott also said that leading questions had been asked off camera. Elsewhere, Marriott wrote that Mr
Scobie was ‘misled into giving the opinion you [Edward Stow, who assisted the production company] and Blink wanted
to hear’, adding that Stow ‘had a hand in preparing limited loaded information to which he [Scobie] was asked to form

an opinion on.’ These were very serious accusations to level
at the production company.
However, they appear to be groundless, the reality being

that Mr Scobie was neither asked nor expected to evaluate all
the evidence, he was simply asked if there was a prima facie
case to answer if given criteria existed (the bullet-pointed
list). This is acceptable practice, assuming the criteria was
as given, and Marriott appears to have no evidence to the
contrary. As for being asked leading questions off camera,
this was a misrepresentation of what is the common practice
when an interviewer is not seen or heard on the programme.
In such circumstances the interviewee is asked to incorporate
the question into his answer. No leading questions were asked.
Marriott was accused of being lamentably ignorant of the basic facts about Lechmere - he didn’t know how or why
Lechmere was identified with Charles Cross, he didn’t know when or where Lechmere/Cross had given his address as
22 Doveton Street, and he claimed that nowhere in PC Neil’s testimony did he mention the time, for example, so it is
curious that he took it upon himself to criticise this documentary. Christer Holmgren concluded that Marriott wanted to
claim the kudos of having ‘dismantled the Lechmere case…’ This may have been the case, or it is possible that Marriott
had a grievance against the company. It seems that the production company had approached Marriott for his thoughts on
the Ripper case, but had concluded he had nothing of interest to contribute. Marriott had responded by sending several
mildly aggressive emails to the company.
So, the statements of James Scobie and the other experts on the programme stand intact.
It’s possible that Lechmere was found with the body of Nichols only minutes after the murder had been committed,
which is a fairly good foundation for building a case against him, and the documentary certainly pulled out all the stops
to make the case, but ultimately it failed to convince.
DVD: Jack the Ripper: A 21st Century Investigation

Presented by Trevor Marriott
www.trevormarriott.co.uk
Retired Murder Squad Detective and leading Ripper expert
Recorded live at Venue Cymru, Llandudno on 3 October 2013
£10
Trevor Marriott has been taking his Jack the Ripper lecture around Britain’s smaller theatres for some
years and this DVD was filmed at the Venue Cymru in Llandudno on 3 October 2013. It’s changed a bit
since I saw it live. And if you haven’t had a chance to see his show, this DVD may be the only way you
will, as this year he’s on tour revealing the truth behind myths and mysteries, it being his belief that the
public has been misled by ‘what has previously been presented in books and television documentaries.’
There is a rather tacky filmed introduction and you’ll stand a better chance of finding the Holy Grail than you will of
finding someone with a more boring voice than whoever it is that introduces Marriott. Dull, flat and monotonous, the
voice introduces Marriott with all the enthusiasm of someone announcing that their mother has just died. Marriott then
walks on from the wings and stands to the left of a large screen. He’s friendly, likeable, and his presentation is easy and
relaxed.
The bedrock of the lecture is Marriott’s claim that previous books and television documentaries had got it wrong and
that his investigation had got it right. He then describes each of the murders and anyone who has read his posts to the
message boards will be familiar with his ideas: Eddowes was not wearing an apron; the piece of apron found in Goulston
Street could not have been used to wipe hands or a knife: the apron piece was not dropped by the murderer but by
Eddowes, who had used as a sanitary device; JUWES was a misspelling of JURORS, and so on. None of it is convincing.
Marriott is on firmer ground when he demonstrates the impossibility of the murderer having extracted the uterus and
kidney, this claim apparently supported by three medical experts. Unfortunately, Marriott doesn’t name his experts or
cite their qualifications, and most importantly he doesn’t quote them, but their opinion, if correctly given by Marriott,
are of some interest.

It’s when he turns to the suspects that the depth of his ignorance starts to show. He begins with Thomas Cutbush
and the Macnaghten Memorandum, which he says has been proven to be ‘unreliable, unsafe and inaccurate’, and he
thinks the Aberconway version of the memorandum was written after the Scotland Yard version, which is contrary to
the majority opinion. Needless to say, Ostrog, Kosminski and Druitt get short shrift, although Marriott glosses over the
fact that Macnaghten received information which convinced him of Druitt’s guilt and that we do not know what that
information was and therefore can’t say whether it was good, bad or indifferent.
According to Marriott, John Pizer became a suspect after a leather apron was found in the yard where Annie Chapman
was murdered. Tumblety was a quack doctor living in London and selling elixirs of life, and he thinks that a certain Jack
the Ripper author, a former policeman who ought to know better, tried to make it appear that Tumblety was not in police
custody when Mary Kelly was murdered.
Marriott says that he wrote to Queen Elizabeth about Prince Albert Victor and she was ‘kind enough’ to instruct the
royal archives to release documents which showed the Prince’s whereabouts at the times if the murders. However, the
information he cited has been known about since the 1970s and published a great many times. A cynic might be forgiven
for thinking that Marriott wanted to inflate his own importance by claiming to have been granted privileged access to
documents by the Her Majesty.
Marriott ends with a brief account of his favoured suspect, Feigenbaum, and concludes by saying that he thinks all
the murders were committed by different people and that he didn’t think a single Jack existed. This was a damp squib
of an ending to a lecture that was as much a biased paean to himself as it was the story of the murders.
As said, Marriott is a likeable presenter, he’s relaxed on stage, he even manages to get some audience interaction
going. If he stopped trying to show how clever he is and just told the story of Jack the Ripper, he’d have a far better
show, particularly if he invested a little more effort in acquainting himself with the facts. I am intrigued by his expert’s
claim that the killer could not have removed the organs from his victims. Marriott needs to provide better substantiation
for that.
Medicine and Duty:

The First World War Diary of Dr Harold Dearden
Harold Dearden
Illminster, Somerset: Richard Dennis Publications, 2014
www.richarddennispublications.com
Originally published: London: Heinemann, 1938
softcover; 128pp; ilus.
ISBN: 978-0-9572095-1-0
£15.00
It was 9 November 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, that Dr Harold Dearden, Medical Officer
with the 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards, was told a story about Jack the Ripper. A companion in the
trenches said it was the second time his birthday had been ruined. The previous occasion had been when
he was ten years old and his party had been disturbed by the arrival of a violent patient at the private lunatic asylum
his father ran on the outskirts of London. The patient was the son of one of his father’s oldest friends, but by the time
Dearden’s companion was old enough to ask questions, his father was dead. ‘But the last murder was on the night of
November 8th, remember. Looks queer, doesn’t it?’
It probably doesn’t look queer at all, just an everyday coincidence, especially as nobody seems to have said the
patient was Jack the Ripper or even suspected by anyone of being Jack the Ripper. It was just the speculation of
Dearden’s comrade in the trenches. If it was even that; it lacks so much detail that one wonders if Dearden made it up.
Frankly, though, it doesn’t seem likely. Dearden was an accomplished writer and playwright who was more than
capable of making up such a story, but the more you learn about Harold Dearden the less likely it is that he did. A
respected doctor,and a psychiatrist who worked for MI5 (section B1E) during WWII, he does not come across as a fabulist
or sensationalist.
Harold Dearden’s wartime diaries were first published in 1928, but a lot of names and places were omitted. For this
edition, having had access to the original diaries, the publisher has been able to reinstate the omitted material and he
has added photographs and maps and footnotes to explain who the people were. First-hand accounts like this by a doctor
are uncommon, which makes this a valuable narrative in itself, but it’s the everyday matter-of-factness that makes

this diary both fascinating and sometimes chilling. No polish, little colour, not even much self-perception, just simple
daily doings set against a horror story: ‘I saw one Bosche with both legs blown off pulling himself along the road on his
chest and elbows...’ It was an appalling sight, not something to be seen every day, but Dearden doesn’t linger over it.
He doesn’t read like a man who would give much time to sensationalising a story told to him in the trenches. I’d wager
that story was told as is, and is all the more interesting for that.
However, his war diary is frustratingly incomplete, there is nothing in the original for the period from August 1916
to March 1917, slap bang in the middle of which is when he was told the Ripper anecdote. Nevertheless, the diary puts
the anecdote in some sort of context.
CRIME
Whitechapel’s Sherlock Holmes:

The Casebook of Fred Wensley OBE, KPM - Victorian Crime Buster
Dick Kirby
Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2014
www.pen-and-sword.co.uk
hardcover; 254pp; illus; biblio; index;.
ISBN: 178383179
Hardcover £25.00
Kindle eBook £11.70
By the 1950s the days when every little boy wanted to be a detective were coming to a close.
Probably Robert Fabian - ‘Fabian of the Yard’ - was the last real life superstar copper, portrayed on
television in the early 50s by Bruce Seaton, although a few detectives have come to prominence
because of their association with headline-making crimes, like Jack Slipper’s pursuit of the Great Rrain Robbers or
Leonard ’Nipper’ Read who nicked the Kray Twins. It’s doubtful if many people could name any of the Yard’s detectives
of today, or even the Commissioner for that matter.
But if there was ever a superstar copper it was Frederick Porter Wensley, undoubtedly the greatest detective of his
age. He joined the Metropolitan Police in 1888 and rose through the ranks to become Chief Constable of the CID, the
first ‘ordinary copper’ to reach such an elevated position.
His early career was spent in Whitechapel, where Local Inspector Reid (he of Ripper Street fame) blocked his every
attempt to become a detective, something he was more than qualified to be). Eventually Reid was overruled and his own
career shortly afterwards came to an end. According to Kirby, Reid’s conduct report wasn’t particularly good.
In his sanitized autobiography, Wensley wrote of his first months in Whitechapel as part of the police hunting Jack the
Ripper, but he wasn’t involved in anything noteworthy in connection with that case. He refers to the murder of Frances
Coles and to the murder of PC Ernest Thompson by Barnett Abrahams, and in 1909 he arrested Harold Hall for the murder
of Kitty Ronan in a room in Miller’s Court.
He was also involved in smashing the gangs that proliferated in the area, the Bessarabian and Odessa gangs, the
expropriators in the Siege of Sidney Street, and the Vendetta Gang led by Arthur Harding. Curiously it was with Harding
that I began to wonder if Dick Kirby had fallen into the biographer’s trap of so admiring his subject that he toned down
his failings. For example, Raphael Samuel and his East End Underworld (to all intent and purposes Arthur Harding’s
memoirs) are highly regarded as a key resource to the seamy side of the East End, but Kirby refers to the book as
‘spectacularly biased and inaccurate’.

Kirby admits that Wensley’s career was dogged by controversy, the case of Steinie Morrison in 1911 being one of
them. Morrison was believed to have murdered Leon Beron on Clapham Common and it is claimed that Wensley allowed
witnesses to have unfair observation of him. Morrison paid the highest penalty. If Wensley was prepared to fit up
Morrison, if he did fit him up, were there others?
He used a similar tactic in the case of Frederick Bywaters and Edith Thompson who were accused of murdering
Thompson’s husband. Bywaters was unquestionably guilty, but Thompson’s involvement, always denied by Bywaters,
was much less certain. Initially she had denied knowing who had killed her husband, but Wensley allowed her to see
Thompson in police custody and as Wensley had apparently hoped, she collapsed and exclaimed, “Oh, why did he do
it.” Thompson went to the gallows.
Wensley was very lucky to have straddled the period when the Metropolitan police shook off Victorian ideas of
policing and entered the modern era where science and technology was used to catch criminals - fingerprints, motor
cars, photography, forensics, telephones. Wensley embraced these, his greatest creation, of course, being the Flying
Squad.
Overall, Dick Kirby has done an excellent job and I hope he keeps on writing biographies of the policemen who kept
order during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their stories deserve to be told.
John George Haigh, the Acid-Bath Murderer:

A Portrait of a Serial Killer and His Victims
Jonathan Oates
hardcover; 214pp; illus; notes; biblio; index.
ISBN: 978178346214
£19.99
The very last issue of the News of the World quoted the opening sentence of George Orwell’s essay
‘Decline of the English Murder’ in which the author of 1984 described a working man settling into his
armchair after Sunday lunch, a cup of tea within reach, his pipe drawing nicely, and the News of the
World carrying a detailed account of the latest murder trial, the shadow of the noose adding to the drama being played
out in the courtroom.
Most murders are stupid, sordid affairs, committed in an outburst of temper or in a disturbed emotional state, but
a few are singled out for some reason and impress themselves on the mind of succeeding generations: John Christie,
Neville Heath, and John George Haigh are three of the most notorious post-war cases.
Jonsthan Oates published his account of John Christie of 10 Rillington Place in 2012 and now turns his attention to
John George Haigh, chillingly recalled as the ‘Acid Bath Murderer’. Haigh misunderstood the meaning of habeus corpus
(‘you may have the body’) to mean that it was necessary to have a body to prove murder. He therefore acquired a vat
and a quantity of acid and he attempted to destroy the bodies of his victims as completely as if they had never existed.
When he realised his mistake he feigned insanity, claiming to have suffered visions suited to a Hieronymus Bosch vision
of Hell, and to have drunk the blood of his victims.
His trial caused a sensation in the austere post-war year of 1949 and thick, black newspaper headlines called Haigh
a vampire. But Haigh looked normal, photographs showed a handsome man, almost with movie star looks. He looked
solidly middle class, a businessman wealthy enough to enjoy the good things in life, but in reality he was a petty conman
who became a cold-blooded killer the press finally dubbed ‘the acid bath murderer’.
Jonathan Oates’ book seems meticulously researched and is fully sourced, telling the story of Haigh’s life from his
childhood in Yorkshire, his repressive Plymouth Brethren parents, and his schooling at Wakefield Grammar where he
gained a reputation as a bully. He followed this with a couple of prison sentences and a move to London where he
developed a taste for the good life that was well beyond his means.
Oates’ book is an attempt to get inside the mind of this complex character. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether
he succeeds or not, but he certainly manages to presents some fresh insights into the well-trodden ground.

VICT
ORIANA
Amusing the Victorians:

Leisure, Pleasure and Play in Victorian Britain
Pamela Horn
Originally Published: Amberley Books,1999
softcover; 408pp; sources; extensive biblio;.
ISBN: 978144564364
£9.99
The first report of a ball-kicking game comes from the 13th century when it is mentioned in an
account of a player running onto the exposed dagger of an opponent. The game almost certainly bore
no resemblance to modern football and it wasn’t until the 1840s that the rules started to be codified,
the Football League being formed in 1888. In 1891 John Brodie invented the football net!
Between 1837 and 1901 there was a huge increase in leisure pursuits. A lot of people still lived a desperate hand-to-
mouth existence, but a growing number of people had both a little money to spare and the time to indulge in activities
outside work. Apart from time to both play and watch team sports like football and cricket, people could visit libraries,
museums and art galleries, and such uplifting entertainments were matched by drinking and the music hall.
Pamela Horn, who died in 2012, was for twenty years a lecturer on economic and social history at Oxford Brookes
University and she was an authority on country house living both below and above stairs, writing several books on the
subject. Amusing the Victorians was originally published by Amberley in 1999, but has been republished as a companion
volume to Great Victorian Inventions (reviewed last issue).
Horn begins by describing the growth of leisure, moves on first to amusements at home such as gardening, then looks
at pubs and beer shops, dances, fairs and markets, travelling at home and abroad, sports, music hall, theatres, other
public entertainments, books, art, architecture, and so on.
Sadly there are no illustrations and no index. The latter would have been a boon but this is nevertheless a very
entertaining book.
Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth

Lee Jackson
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014
www.yalebooks.co.uk
www.victorianlondon.org
hardcover; 293pppp; illus; notes; biblio; index.
ISBN: 978030019205
£20
The clip-clop of horses passing along the street pulling assorted carriages is, along with the flickering
yellow light of gas lamps, one of the eternal images of Victorian London, but those horses produced
major problems - not only because of their dung, tons and tons of it, but also because it smelt badly.
A blazing fire in the grates of homes and offices may have looked welcoming, especially on a cold
day, but their smuts were constantly in the air and contributed to pea-souper fogs in which one literally couldn’t see
one’s hand in front of one’s face.

The explosion in London’s population in the 19th century created massive problems, as the population grew, so did
the amount of waste it produced. Cleanliness soon became almost impossible and the poor had no chance. Bodies,
clothes and homes were infested with vermin of all kinds.
Lee Jackson, who has made some valuable contemporary books about London available as ebooks, has divided his
topic into thematic chapters such as ‘The Golden Dustman’, ‘Inglorious Mud’, ‘The Public Convenience’, and so on.
His chapter ‘Vile Bodies’ has nothing to do with Evelyn Waugh’s ‘bright young things’, but is about corpses - thousands
of them. There was nowhere to put them. 20-foot shafts were dug in churchyards and coffins were piled atop one
another. Those buried no more than a couple of feet below the surface had a way of working their way to the surface
and a stroll through a churchyard could bring one face to face with a putrefying corpse.
Household rubbish went uncollected, cesspools brimmed with ‘night soil’, the air was choked with smoke, the streets
were covered in horse dung, and graveyards teemed with rotting corpses… 19th century London was not a great place
to live!
Other books have looked at insanitary London (1999’s The Great Stink of London by Stephen Halliday springs to mind),
and there have been several books about the cholera pandemics that killed thousands in East London in 1834. But Lee
Jackson’s exceptional study of the daily battle against filth is a very well-written and scholarly study which should be
essential reading.
Of course, Queen Victoria reigned a few decades short of a century and many of London’s sanitary problems had
been resolved by the mid-1880s and don’t reflect the world of Jack the Ripper. But many still existed: the pestilential
rookeries remained, boys were still pushed up chimneys, and the graveyard problem wasn’t entirely solved.
The Secret World of the Victorian Lodging House

Joseph O’Neill
hardcover; 171pp; illus; biblio; index;.
ISBN: 9781781593936
£19.99
All the victims of Jack the Ripper had lived or did live in a common lodging house and yet these
establishments have received very little attention from Ripperologists. In fact, as Joseph O’Neill
points out, the common lodging house, or ‘doss’ as it was called, hasn’t received much attention from
anybody, academic or otherwise.
Who were the people who owned these places? In many cases they were wealthy people who lived far away from
the properties they owned and had them managed by agents, but what about Jack McCarthy and William Crossingham,
owners of many properties and lords of their little empires. How many puddings were their fingers in?
The common lodging house has practicaly vanished from our streets. The nearest equivalent that we had are small
hotels and bed and breakfast establishments. But the streets of Victorian and Edwarian London were full of them, catering
for every sort of person: crminals, drifters, beggars, immigrants, prostitutes, tramping artisans, street entertainers,
navvies, and families fallen on hard times. By the end of the 19th century common lodging houses in poor areas such as
the East End were a growing concern, both because of their appalling and insanitary conditions as well as being seen as
hotbeds of crime and immorality.
O’Neill’s slim book is a primer for the general reader who would like to get a handle on the doss house that was so
central to so many lives in Victorian and Edwardian England, and it is full of small details such as the building next to
the Britannia in Dorset Street being a brothel run by two spinsters who made under-age girls available to their clients.
Warmly recommended.

Patron Saint of Prostitutes:
Josephine Butler and a Victorian Scandal
Helen Mathers
Stroud: Gloucestershire: History Press, 2014
www.thehistorypress.co.uk
ISBN: 978-0-7524-9209-4
256pp; illus; notes; biblio; index.
hardcover £16.9
ebook (Kindle) £10.19
In 1864 Parliament passed the Contagious Diseases Acts, amended in 1866 and 1869. Venereal disease
was rife in the armed forces and it was believed to have deleterious effects on the British troops. The
decision was made to try and reduce the number of prostitutes in army towns and ports by granting the
police powers to arrest any woman thought to be a prostitute and subject them to compulsory invasive
examinations. If a woman was found to be infected she would be confined in a Lock Hospital - a special hospital for the
treatment of venereal disease - until cured (a minimum of three months to a year or more). If a woman refused to be
examined she could be imprisoned.
To be suspected of being a prostitute and surgically examined, or to be suspected of being a prostitute and imprisoned,
led to many respectable women losing their jobs, sometimes to divorce, and in one case to suicide.
Josephine Butler was a deeply religious young woman who was so outraged when she heard about the Acts that
she began to vigorously campaign against them, referring to the examination of women as ‘surgical rape’. Amazingly
some people could not see the great wrong of the Acts and Butler was vilified and even physically assaulted, but she
persevered in her campaign and the Acts were finally repealed in 1886.
Spurred on by the series of articles titled ‘The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon’ in the Pall Mall Gazette from 1885,
Josephine Butler campaigned against child prostitution in London, managing to have the age of consent raised from 13
to 16 that same year, and investigated the trafficking of young women from Britain to Europe.
Helen Mathers has written an excellent biography of this remarkable woman which also gives an insight into
prostitution in the mid-to-late 19th century.
Oscar Wilde’s Scandalous Summer:

The 1894 Worthing Holiday and the Aftermath
Antony Edmonds
hardcover; 224pp; illus; notes; index.
ISBN: 978144563618
Hardcover £20 Kindle eBook £6.70
The stories about child abuse by people like Jimmy Savile and the Liberal politician Cyril Smith and
the current investigations of historical sex abuse cases, including the alleged murder of one boy by an
MP, brings the sex life of Oscar Wilde into a far sharper focus than Anthony Edmonds had in mind when
he began this book. Wilde’s biographers have tended to discount the young men Wilde had sex with,
dismissing them as male prostitutes greatly experienced in depravity.
But they weren’t all like that. Alphonse Conway, for whom Wilde had a genuine affection, was an innocent sixteen
year old when he was ‘pleasured’ by Wilde on a holiday in the small seaside town of Worthing in the summer of 1894.
Wilde spent eight weeks in Worthing in that year with his wife Constance and his sons. He wrote The Importance of
Being Earnest whilst there. Also present was the young and feckless Lord Alfred Douglas, with whom Wilde was in love.
Just six months later Wilde would be in court, questioned over his relationships with men and boys, and would be ruined.
Anthony Edmonds tells the story of those eight weeks in Worthing, a microcosm of WIlde’s turbulant life in the three
years between meeting Douglas in 1892 and his imprisonment in 1895. With over fifty illustrations, this book tells a
fascinating story.

HI
ST R IES
O RY
’S M YSTE
Secrets of the Knights Templar:

The Hidden History of the World’s Most Powerful Order
S J Hodge
London: Quercus, 2014
www.quercusbooks.co.uk
originally published in hardback by Quercus, 2013
softcover; 202pp; colour illus; index.
ISBN: 978178206273
Paperback £9.99/ Kindle ebook £4.74
The book jacket declares that ‘the Knights Templar is one of the most mysterious and powerful
religious orders in history’ and that just about sums it up, but power and mystery is a breeding ground
for myths and legends and the Templars have attracted those like a magnet attracts iron filings.
They were called the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, and their original purpose was
to protect pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land, the journey from the port of Jaffa leaving travellers falling prey to
marauding gangs who robbed and murdered. In 1120 a French knight named Hugues de Payens created a monastic
order of knights who took vows of chastity and poverty and who protected the travellers. They were provided with a
headquarters in the captured Al-Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount, believed by some to have been built upon the ruins of
the Temple of Solomon - hence the Knights Templar. The Order, distinguished by their white mantle with a red cross,
depended on financial donations and soon became a popular charity, acquiring exceptional wealth. They were greatly
feared because they were highly skilled fighters, but ironically most of the knights were non-combatant managers
handling a huge financial infrastructure that stretched across the Christian world.
In 1244 Jerusalem fell to the Turks and the purpose of the Knights Templar largely ceased to exist. Their downfall was
slow and mixed with scandal as they were accused of heretical practices, largely by Philip IV of France, who was heavily
in debt to them. Many Templars were burned alive on the order of Philip, including the Grand Master Jacques de Molay.
In fact it was exactly 700 years ago this year (2014) that Molay was strapped to a stake on a small island in the Seine
and slowly burned to death (on 18 March to be precise). Nobody really believed the accusations thrown at the Templars,
not the Pope and not even Philip IV, who afterwards spent a lot of time acquiring the Templars vast wealth. Curiously
the Pope died an agonising death a short while after the burning and Philip IV, known as ‘The Fair’ because of his good
looks, but as one of history’s more unpleasant men also known by other epithets, would pop his clogs on 29 November
that same year. This led to a myth that Molay had cursed both men.
The Templars have been associated with what seems like all the ‘best’ mysteries of the last few decades and S J
Hodge devotes the final chapter of her book to a brief examination of the myths associated with the Templars. These
include the accusations that they worshipped Mary Magdelaine or worshipped a head - the head was variously said to
have been the embalmed head of Jesus or John the Baptist or even Templar founder Hugh de Paynes. Some said it was
the head of a cat, and some linked it to a pagan deity called Baphomet (which is a tenuous link to Jack the Ripper, but
we won’t go down that route!). They are connected with the Holy Grail and the Shroud of Turin, are alleged to have
sailed a fleet to the New World and buried their treasure in the Money Pit on Oak Island, Nova Scotia. And, of course,
they are wrapped up with the Freemasons and all the Holy Blood, Holy Grail mythology used by Dan Brown for his best-
selling The Da Vinci Code.
The Templars are a popular subject for fiction writers, but books about their real history are a bit thin on the ground
and in my experience not often an easy read, but S J Hodge has done a good job providing a highly accessible text. If
you want to know about the Knights Templar, this is a book for you.

The Princes in the Tower:
Did Richard III Murder His Nephews, Edward V & Richard of York?
Josephine Wilkinson
Stroud, Gloucestershire : Amberley Publishing, 2014
softcover/ Kindle eBook; 190pp;
ISBN: 978144564228
Softcover £9.99 / Kindle eBook £6.39
What was the fate of the two young nephews of Richard III?
When King Edward IV died on 9 April 1483 he was succeeded by his 12-year-old son, Edward V, but
because of his youth his uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had been named Lord Protector. On his
way to his coronation Edward was met by Richard and escorted to the royal apartments in the Tower
of London, where he was soon joined by his brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, and placed under what was
essentially house arrest. The lads were seen sporadically, but the sightings became less frequent and soon ceased
altogether. Their parents’ marriage was in the meantime declared invalid, the boys were declared illegitimate, and
their uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, succeeded to the throne as Richard III. The fate of the young princes, and what
part Richard III played in it, has become the subject of much speculation ever since.
The traditional story told by Sir Thomas More and popularised by William Shakespeare is that the murder of the boys
was ordered by Richard III and carried out by James Tyrell, Master of the Horse, and Miles Forest and John Dighton,
who smothered the boys in their sleep with their pillows. There were supposedly buried beneath a stairway and in 1647
the bones of two children were found by workmen rebuilding a stairway in the Tower. Believed to be the bodies of the
princes, they were placed in an urn in Westminster Abbey. In 1933 they were exhumed, and whilst they were declared
to be the right age to be the princes, the skeletons, which were incomplete and had been interred with the bones of
animals, could not be identified by sex nor could it be determined when they had died.
Josephine Wilkinson is the author of Richard III, The Young King to Be (Amberley 2009), the first volume in an
exhaustive biography of Richard III, and the second volume would have covered the period of the princes, but the story
of their fate was so vast that she felt it impossible to do it justice, so she decided to devote a book to it. And what is
her view on the fate of the princes?
Well, it would be churlish to tell. Wilkinson conceeds that there is little reason to doubt that Richard III is the prime
suspect, but she dutifully examines the evidence, gives the confession of Sir James Tyrell the third degree, considers
other suspects, and reviews assorted rumours and theories At the end of it all Richard III’s guilt is a little less certain.
But the book ends rather abruptly and unsatisfactorily, with Wilkinson asking what the fate of the princes could have
been if they were not murdered and pointing in what she considers to be the best direction for further research. She
really should have pursued her thinking, but maybe there is an another book planned.
Overall, good reading.
In Search of Alfred the Great:

The King, the Grave, the Legend
Edoardo Albert, Katie Tucker
hardcover; 256pp; colour illus, notes; biblio; index.
ISBN: 978144563894
£20 softcover / £4.91 ebook
Alfred the Great was born in 849. England at that time was divided into several small kingdoms and
in 871 Alfred became king of Wessex in southern England. The Vikings threatened his kingdom and at
one point looked destined to lose Wessex to them, but he rallied, defeated them, and began to acquire
sovereignty over the other small kingdoms.
Alfred always reminds me of how the past is such an easy thing to lose. In 893 a Welsh monk named Asser wrote
Alfred’s biography. It was based on first hand knowledge of Alfred, who Asser knew well. Only one copy of Asser’s Life of
Alfred is known to have survived the dissolution of the monasteries, a time when lots of ancient manuscripts preserved
in monastic libraries were destroyed. Fortunately, a copy of Asser’s Life came into the hands of a great manuscript

collector, Sir Robert Cotton, but a fire on 23 October 1731 destroyed or damaged about a quarter of his collection.
Asser’s biography was burned to ashes, utterly destroyed. Fortunately substantial portions had been copied and it was
possible to reconstruct the original, otherwise the only monarch to be given the appellation ‘the Great’ might be as
shadowy and vague as most of the predecessors.
Alfred the Great died on 26 October 899 and he was buried in a tomb of porphyry marble in the Old Minster at
Winchester, but he was moved to the New Minster and then in 1110 to Hyde Abbey. With the dissolution of the monasteries
and the destruction of Hyde Abbey his grave was lost.
It may have been discovered in 1788 by convicts preparing the land for the construction of a new prison. They came
across lots of bones and other things, including lead-lined coffins which they plundered, selling the lead and scattering
the bones.
In the 1990s excavations at Hyde Abbey found some bones, but with one exception they had not been identified as
human. There were two boxes of bones and after much hard work and analysis by Kate Tucker, co-author of this book,
several were subjected to radiocarbon dating. All but one bone, a male pelvis, were dated to the 13th-15th centuries.
The male pelvis, however, dated to 895-1017. This meant that whereas all the other bones were of people buried after
Hyde Abbey was built, this pelvis was from somebody who had died before the abbey was build, buried elsewhere and
re-buried in the abbey. Research had also established that the bone had been found where Alfred was supposed to have
been interred. Was this the surving remains of King Alfred?
DNA could be taken from the bone, but there was nothing to compare it with. Hopes were raised when Alfred’s
granddaughters were found in Germany, but they didn’t produce any DNA. However, there is a possibility that DNA can
be extracted from Alfred’s father, Aethelwulf, possibly in 2015.
If it’s a DNA match, this could not only confirm that the bone is Alfred, it could tell us a great deal more about Alfred
and his forebears.
This book isn’t all about the possible discovery of Alfred’s remains - that story is covered by Kate Tucker in a relatively
short appendix - but is a most enjoyable and highly recommended retelling of the story of Alfred the Great for the
general reader.
(Note: it is hoped that further excavations at Hyde Abbey in 2015 could uncover more remains and personally I find
that very exciting, but the proposed dig is being opposed by a local group who believe it will destroy the Abbey Garden.)
SH ES
ERL
OCK HOLM
Sherlock Chronicles
Steve Tribe
Foreword by Mark Gatiss
London: BBC Books, 2014
www.eburypublishing.co.uk
hardcover/eBook;
320pp; illus;.
ISBN: 978184990762
Hardcover £25
Kindle eBook £8.54
When Sherlock was first broadcast I didn’t watch it. An updating to modern London of Holmes and
Watson simply wasn’t appealing. But on Christmas Day about three years ago my daughter wanted me to watch the DVD

of the first series. I’m a big Holmes fan, but she’s the really big Holmes fan in my family, so if she liked it I was happy to
give it a whirl. And, of course, like almost everyone else I thought it was great too.
This superbly illustrated book features over 500 images of concept artwork, photographs, and costume and set
designs, and takes a comprehensive behind-the-scenes look at the making of the hit BBC television series. Interviews
with the cast and crew tell the story of Sherlock from the ground up, from the original idea conceived on a train taking
Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffatt from Cardiff to London, through story and script development to casting, sets, costumes,
props, music and more.
Moriarty
Anthony Horowitz
London: Orion, 2014
www.orionbooks.co.uk
hardcover;
310pp;
ISBN: 978140910947
£19.99
Moriarty, Holmes’ arch-enemy, only makes one appearance in the canon. He pursues Holmes to Europe
in The Adventure of the Final Problem and the two men confront one another at the Reichenbach Falls,
both plunging over the falls to their deaths.
Horowitz picks up the story a few days later. When any criminal leader dies or goes to prison, even
if he is the greatest criminal mastermind the world has ever known, there is always somebody willing to step into the
vacuum. That’s why Pinkerton detective Frederick Chase has arrived in London from New York. With the assistance
of Inspector Athelney Jones, he embarks on a journey through London’s darkest corners to locate a villain who is
determined to engulf London in a tide of crime.
An excellent novel that gets the tone just right.
The Strange Case of Caroline Maxwell

Amanda Harvey Purse
FeedARead, 2014
www.feedaread.com
softcover; 494pp;
ISBN: 978178510093
£12.92
This story is set in the Edwardian era and features struggling journalist Amelia Christie who finds
herself given a case involving Jack the Ripper. Her benefactor, if that’s what somebody who puts your
life in danger can rightly be called, is none other than Sherlock Holmes.
The story is an entertaining semi-Holmes pastiche, although possibly a little more care could have
been taken with the writing, and I don’t know but I doubt that someone struggling to be a journalist
would have been working for The Times. Amelia would have cut her journalistic teeth on a provincial newspaper before
reaching the heights of a national, particularly the journal of record. But these are little niggles. Amanda Harvey Purse
knows her Ripper, so if you enjoy Ripper fiction, especially when it’s in the hands of someone who knows what she’s
talking about, this could be the book for you.
And just as an aside, the Conan Doyle Estate have copyrighted the characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and
they are not supposed to be used without permission from the Estate (and I assume the payment of appropriate fees). I
don’t know how many authors of Holmes pastiches actually bother to get the necessary permission, but it’s nice to see
that Amanda Harvey Purse has done so.

The Conan Doyle Notes:
The Secret of Jack the Ripper
Diane Gilbert Madsen
London: MX Publishing, 2014
www.mxpublishing.co.uk
www.dianegilbertmadsen.com
hardcover/paperback/Kindle eBook; 346pp;
ISBN: 978178092619
Hardcover £17.99, Softcover £11.99, Kindle eBook £6.02
In the Holmes story Silver Blaze, a key character is ‘the dog that did not bark in the night’, Holmes
concluding that it didn’t bark because it knew the intruder. Diane Gilbert Madsen wonders the same
about Conan Doyle: why did he never pit the great detective against Jack the Ripper? Others have
wondered the same and the two have clashed a number of times, but Diane Madsen suggests that Conan Doyle, like the
dog, was silent because he knew who Jack the Ripper was.
As the author explains at the end of the book, although this is a work of fiction she has based it as far as possible on
fact. The story, though, is set in the present day and is the third outing for Daphne December McGill - you call her that
at your peril, she’ll tolerate DD McGill – a one-time teacher of 17th century English literature and now an insurance
investigator. In this adventure she is investigating a fraud case and a murderous assault on a friend, trying to deal with
a stalker of her own, and, of course Arthur Conan Doyle’s notes identifying Jack the Ripper.
It all combines to make a good story, but, of course, it’s highly unlikely that Doyle would have pitted Holmes against
the Ripper and it is also unlikely that he ever had so much as an inkling about the Ripper’s identity. But fiction is fiction
and fact is fact and never the twain should meet.
The Death of Sherlock Holmes

Trevor Marriott
Trevor Marriott, 2014
www.trevormarriott.co.uk
Kindle eBook;
237pp;
£3.94
This is Marriott’s second novel to feature Emma Holmes, the daughter of Sherlock Holmes, although
this is the first in which she is a main character. Sherlock Holmes having a daughter is far from being an
original idea, but then again I can’t think of anything that would be original as far as Sherlock Holmes
is concerned, the pastiches and fan fiction having plumbed every permutation imaginable.
The basic premise of what Marriott perhaps sees as a continuing series is that a youthful Holmes had married and had
a daughter, but his wife was killed when an attempt on Holmes’ life went wrong. Fearing for the life of baby Emma,
Holmes sends her to a Scottish convent where she grows up believing both her parents are dead. Then one March night
in 1894 Holmes really is killed, breathing his last in a dark side street, murdered by members of a Chinese gang. Emma
learns the truth about her father and joins with Dr Watson to track down her father’s killers. It’s a well-used plot line,
but a serviceable one and Marriott spins the story along. Like his first work of fiction, Prey Time, this novel is readable
if uninspired.
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FICTION
The Beat Goes On:

The Complete Rebus Stories
Ian Rankin
www.ianrankin.net
London: Orion, 2014
www.orionbooks.co.uk
hardback, Kindle eBook
450pp;
ISBN: 978140915155
hardcover £19.99 Kindle eBook £6.65
This is pure self-indulgence. Nothing to do with Jack the Ripper. Nothing to do with Victorian history
or Victorian London or Victorian crime. Nothing to do with history at all. Just a tough, modern day cop,
superbly-crafted and set against a grittily real Edinburgh background. The dialogue is authentic and there is an almost
palpable edginess to the stories. Meet John Rebus.
Here are all the Rebus short stories collected together for the first time in a single volume. There are even some new
stories and almost certainly some others you won’t have encountered before.
All reviews in this issue by Paul Begg
*****
A Controversial 2015
The best book of 2014 was, of course, mine. But you don’t need me to tell you that. Aside from The Forgotten
Victims, 2014 hasn’t sparkled with great Ripper books, but all joking aside the good ones have been exceptional.
Tom Wescott’s The Bank Holiday Murders stretched credulity here and there, but provoked fresh thinking about many
aspects of the case. As a swift kick up the backside of Ripperology, there’s nothing to touch it. Neil R A Bell’s Capturing
Jack the Ripper was a more traditional Ripper book, but one that tried to put the reader into the uncomfortable boots
of the policeman patrolling a beat in 1888. It was packed with new information, especially tit-bits about individual
coppers, and it had what is probably the best and biggest photo section I have seen in a long while. It will be a while
before we see the likes of these again.
We’ve also seen some interesting related titles such as the biography of Wensley
and O’Neill’s short look at lodging houses reviewed in the current Ripperologist, and
the Lechmere television documentary was interesting if ultimately unpersuasive. I look
forward to the book that’s supposed to be coming out and which may lay out the case
in greater depth.
But what lies ahead? How is 2015 shaping up? Well, the first six months are going to
be controversial. It’ll all kick off at the end of March with Jonathan Hainsworth’s Jack
the Ripper: Case Solved, 1891. Jonathan believes the murderer was Montague Druitt,
but he portrays Sir Melville Macnaghten as an arch-manipulator, a Moriarty of Scotland
Yard pulling strings like a master puppeteer in an effort to mislead his contemporaries
and history, all to protect Druitt’s family. Jonathan has passionately argued his case
on the message boards but doesn’t appear to have convinced too many people. Maybe

seeing the whole theory laid out and explained in a book will make it clearer and more understandable. The book
promises new information and new photographs and overall I am looking forward to it.
April has a double-whammy, Bruce Robinson’s long-time-a-coming The Name of Jack the Ripper and Patricia
Cornwell’s Jack the Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert. If you’ve never heard of Bruce Robinson, he’s an actor
and writer probably best known for writing and directing the semi-autobiographical cult classic Withnail and I. Most
recently he wrote and directed The Rum Diary which starred his friend Johnny Depp. But it was back in 1968, when he
played Benvolio in Franco Zefferelli’s Romeo and Juliet, that he met a callow youth named Keith Skinner (who played
Balthazar) and they remained friends. Keith undertook a lot of research for Robinson’s book, the full title of which is
The Name of the Ripper: One Man’s Obsessive Quest to Discover the Identity of History’s Most Notorious Murderer,
but I don’t know much about it. With Keith on board the research will be solid, but it is rumoured to have Maybrickian
connections so we’ll have to wait and see.
Patricia Cornwell’s Jack the Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter

Sickert is a revised edition of her 2002 Portrait of a Killer: Jack
the Ripper: Case Closed and the busy Keith Skinner was employed
as a researcher on this book too. Patricia came in for a lot of
criticism, much of it personal, and insults continue, such as
frequent references to her as ‘Cornball’. Such is the animosity that
her book probably doesn’t stand a chance, and as we’ve recently
seen Ripperologists publicly damning a book whilst proudly saying
they haven’t read it, the belief I once held that Ripperology had
matured over the past fourteen years has crumbled. Anyway,
Patricia has taken the criticism on board, there’s no sign of ‘case
closed’, for example, and she acknowledges that she made a lot of
mistakes, but she remains personally and passionately convinced
that Sickert was the Ripper and that he wrote much of the Ripper
correspondence. There are some gems to be found, so the book will
repay careful reading.
Which brings us to June and the paperback of Naming Jack the

Ripper by Russell Edwards. The hardback claimed that a shawl
allegedly found at the Eddowes murder scene had on it the DNA
of both Eddowes and Aaron Kosminski. There was no evidence that
the shawl actually was found at the scene, but the DNA evidence
had been produced by a respected scientist in one of the country’s best labs, so if it really was there then some pretty
serious revisionist thinking was going to be necessary. A lot seems to have depended on Eddowes’ DNA belonging to a
rare mutation, and some level-headed and responsible Ripperologists discovered that it wasn’t a rare mutation at all
and the theory seemingly collapsed. Russell Edwards and Dr Jari Louhelainen did not respond and the obvious inference
was drawn from their silence.
But to be frank, to a layman like myself it seems incomprehensible that Dr Jari Louhelainen, one of the world’s top
authorities and whose research interests include ‘mutation analysis and DNA sequencing’, could have made what is said
to be a fundamental error. I also wonder if the DNA match rests on that sole piece of data, or was it just one of many
independent DNA markers and has to be seen in the context of other information? If there is more to the DNA than what
is known as 314.1C, will it be revealed in the paperback? I hope so.
And finally…
No date has been given for the publication of Adam Wood’s much awaited biography of Donald Sutherland Swanson,
but I am led to believe that it will be in 2015 and in time for the conference in Nottingham. This isn’t a Ripper book
pretending to be a biography of Swanson, but is a biography proper and Adam has done a lot of research and been
provided with some excellent material by Swanson’s family.
2015 certainly looks like it is going to be interesting.
Paul Begg

OVER 200 JACK THE RIPPER AND ASSOCIATED TITLES ON LAYBOOKS.COM INCLUDING:
DEW (WALTER): SHELDEN (NEAL):

The Hunt for Jack the Ripper (reprinted). Jack the Ripper and His Victims : Research Into the Victims of the
Paper wraps. As New. £40. Scarce. Infamous Victorian Murderer.
softcover. As new. £40. Scarce.
EVANS/SKINNER:
The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook. SHELDEN (NEAL):
hb/dw. Signed. As New. £70. Catherine Eddowes : Jack the Ripper Victim.
paper wraps. Signed. £50. Scarce.
JONES/LLOYD:
The Ripper File. SIMS (GEORGE R):
hb/dw + 2 BBC TV 1973 Barlow & Watt Investigation JtR Videos. My Life: Sixty Years’ Recollections of Bohemian London.
Rare. £125. h/b. £150. Scarce.
KELLY (ALEXANDER) & WILSON (COLIN): SMITHKEY III (JOHN):

Jack the Ripper a Bibliography and Review of the Literature. Jack the Ripper: The Inquest of the Final Victim Mary Kelly.
h/b. Rare 1984 Edn. As New. £50. softcover. Signed + Stewart P Evans label. As New. £40. Scarce.
McLAUGHLIN (ROBERT): STEWART (WILLIAM):

The First Jack the Ripper Victim Photographs. Jack the Ripper: A New Theory.
Limited Edition. Numbered (73). Signed Robert + Whittington-Egan hb/dw. extremely rare in dw. which has pieces missing. £1600 (or
label. As New. £225. Rare. offers).
MORLEY (C J): SUGDEN (PHILIP):

Jack the Ripper: The Suspects. The Complete History of Jack the Ripper.
softcover. Signed. As New. £70. Scarce. hb/dw. As New. £65.
OSWALD (H R): TUCKER/SOUDEN:

Memoirs of a London Coroner. Ripped From the Headlines.
h/b. £275. Scarce. softcover. As New. £25.
RUSSO (STAN): WHITTINGTON-EGAN (MOLLY):

The Jack the Ripper Suspects. Doctor Forbes Winslow: Defender of the Insane.
h/b. As New. £40. hb/dw. Signed. £70.
RYDER (STEPHEN P): WHITTINGTON-EGAN (RICHARD):

Public Reactions to Jack the Ripper. The identity of Jack the Ripper.
softcover. Signed label. As New. £45. Scarce. paper wraps. Limited Edition. Numbered (77). signed label. As New.
£60. Rare.
SHELDEN (NEAL):
Annie Chapman Jack the Ripper Victim. WHITTINGTON-EGAN (RICHARD):
paper wraps. £40. Scarce. A Casebook on Jack the Ripper.
h/b marked covers, good only. Signed £150 (other copies available).
SHELDEN (NEAL STUBBINGS):
The Victims of Jack the Ripper. WOLFF (CAMILLE):
p/back. Signed Shelden/Norder (publisher). As New. £45. Who Was Jack the Ripper? A Collection of Present-Day Theories and
Observations. hb/dw. 1st Signed Ltd. Edn. Numbered (57). £300.
Scarce.

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141 December 2014

LINDA STRATMANN on the history

ADAM WOOD on Sherlock Holmes

JOE CHETCUTI reports on the

JAN BONDESON on True Crime

OBITUARY OF PROFESSOR WILLIAM J FISHMAN

NINA AND HOWARD BROWN

See I Beg to Report

CRUEL DEEDS AND DREADFUL CALAMITIES REVIEWS EDITOR

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE CASE OF THE POLISH JEW EDITOR-AT-LARGE

HOW THINGS GOT DONE: COLUMNISTS

I recently joined the Wonderful World of Twitter

Ripperologist 141 December 2014 1

His Christmas Day entry is testament to a night the

Ripperologist 141 December 2014 2

Ripperologist 141 December 2014 3

Ripperologist 141 December 2014 4

I don’t own the photo - it came from a bunch of CDVs

Some time later, Jennie contacted me again and told me

It's solidly 1860s - most likely 1860-1865 because of the

1 Lincolnshire Chronicle, 11 March 1870 p. 6

Ripperologist 141 December 2014 6

2 Pall Mall Gazette, 23 November 1886 p. 2

Ripperologist 141 December 2014 7

Frederick Deeming in the Illustrated Police News, 14 May 1892

5 Illustrated Police News, 18 April 1868 p. 2

Ripperologist 141 December 2014 8

Ripperologist 141 December 2014 9

Ripperologist 141 December 2014 10

Ripperologist 141 December 2014 11

Ripperologist 141 December 2014 12

I am not in the last degree either a sharp or an observant man myself. I

1 North-Eastern Daily Gazette, 1 March 1894.

Sherlock Holmes, Detective

By Sir Robert Anderson KCB

Story interest and logic

Some Exaggeration and Absurdity

Sherlock Holmes and Scotland Yard

Ripperologist 141 December 2014 15

Sir Conan Doyle’s Real Aim

Sherlock Holmes and the Police

Scotland Yard’s Real Problem

Ripperologist 141 December 2014 16

9 Criminals and Crime by Sir Robert Anderson, 1907.

Ripperologist 141 December 2014 17

“We have not done so,” replied Mr Anderson coolly.

The Ripper Insane and Locked in an Asylum

10 The Lighter Side of My Official Life by Sir Robert Anderson, 1910.

Ripperologist 141 December 2014 18

The Ripper a Polish Jew

14 The Otago Witness, 18 December 1904.

Ripperologist 141 December 2014 19

Ripperologist 141 December 2014 20

Nearn noticed that a copy of Parnell’s statement was

1 Reynold’s Newspaper, 3 May 1891.

Ripperologist 141 December 2014 22

Reynold’s Newspaper, 10 May 1891

The Standard, 8 May 1891

We are, Sir, your obedient servants,