Ripperologist 145

No.
145 August 2015
The Full Story

TREVOR BOND and JON REES
with a special report on the Ripper Museum
KATE BRADSHAW explains why Jack is a Feminist Issue
STEPHEN HUNTER advises Jack Be Nimble, Jack Be Quick
MARK RIPPER on Dickens, Claire Tomalin and the Marylebone Workhouse Inquest
FROM THE ARCHIVES: Sir Charles Warren
JAN BONDESON’S MURDER HOUSE CASEBOOK

NINA AND HOWARD BROWN
SPITALFIELDS LIFE | VICTORIAN FICTION
Ripperologist 118 January 2011 1
Quote for the month
“The Bucks Herald got Jack The Ripper sacked –
and it could have contributed towards his madness”
Local newspaper plays to its strengths in an article on local author Wynne Weston-Davies, who claims his great aunt
Elizabeth Weston-Davies was the real Mary Kelly killed by the Ripper - her husband Francis Spurzheim Craig, who worked at the paper as Editor
www.bucksherald.co.uk/news/more-news/the-bucks-herald-got-jack-the-ripper-sacked-
Ripperologist 145
August 2015
EDITORIAL: GORE PEDDLERS? EXECUTIVE EDITOR
by Adam Wood Adam Wood
RIPPER MUSEUM: A SPECIAL REPORT EDITORS

by Trevor Bond and Jon Rees Gareth Williams
Eduardo Zinna
JACK IS A FEMINIST ISSUE
by Kate Bradshaw REVIEWS EDITOR
Paul Begg
JACK BE NIMBLE, JACK BE QUICK
by Stephen Hunter EDITOR-AT-LARGE
Christopher T George
CHARLES DICKENS, CLAIRE TOMALIN AND
THE MARYLEBONE WORKHOUSE INQUEST COLUMNISTS
by Mark Ripper Nina and Howard Brown
David Green
FROM THE ARCHIVES: The Gentle Author
THE POLICE OF THE METROPOLIS
ARTWORK
by Sir Charles Warren
Adam Wood
From Murray’s Magazine, November 1888
FROM THE CASEBOOKS OF A MURDER HOUSE DETECTIVE
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by Jan Bondeson
www.facebook.com/ripperologist
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Edwards, Loretta Lay, Jon Rees and Steve Rattey. Thank you!
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Gore Peddlers?
EDITORIAL by ADAM WOOD
There are very few, if any, incidents in human history as revolting as

the Holocaust. To even consider staging an exhibtion commemorating
this sickening period in our past would take a lot of consideration and
even more sensitivity. Yet this is exactly what the Imperial War Museum
managed when opening the doors to their new, permanent exhibition in
June 2000. I went with my son in 2005 and was extremely moved by a
‘wall of shoes’ - literally a bank of 800 shoes discovered at Auschwitz
stacked into a perspex wall dividing the room. Other items included
everyday objects such as combs, spectacles and keys alongside gas
canisters. Simply done, yet very effective.
Contrast and compare this to a very different style of Holocaust exihibition which was
staged at Copenhagen in 2010, where objects displayed included a model of the entrance
gate to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp made from gold teeth extracted
by Nazis from their victims. The sculpture, titled Rolexgate, was later offered by its
creator, the ‘shock artist’ Marco Evaristti to art dealers on the television programme
Four Rooms, where it unsurprisingly failed to sell.
Cover of the book accompanying the
Imperial War Museum’s Holocaust exhibition
As with anything in life, there is a right and a wrong way of doing things.
I am not for one moment banding the Holocaust with Jack the Ripper, but with Ripperology very much in the spotlight
recently due to the opening of the Jack the Ripper Museum, there is a sense that we are at a pivotal moment in the
discipline. Are we historians or sensationalists?
Reaction to the Museum has seen complaints that the victims of the Whitechapel murderer have been neglected,
while “the violence of their deaths has been turned into a tourist attraction” (Tansy Hoskins, the Guardian, 5 August
2015). Going further, ‘Glosswitch’, in the New Statesman of 31 July 2015 stated “There are enough morbid misogynists,
sorry, Ripperologists out there to keep the whole thing in business. Keep killing, Jack. We’ll never get bored.”
Are we really that bad?
In this issue of Ripperologist we feature a special report on the museum by Trevor Bond and Jon Rees, who have
spoken with several of those involved, including the female demonstrators who, as Kate Bradshaw describes in an
edited version of her recent Conference talk in the following pages, have been described as ‘lezzers’ and ‘crumpet’ by
members of the Ripper community. The misogyny label is not new to Ripperology, as Kate explains, but an equally valid
point is how we are seen in the public eye. Are we unknowingly presenting ourselves as ‘Gore Peddlers’?
Also topical in the Ripper world right now is Wynne Weston-Davies’ book The Real Mary Kelly, which purports to finally
reveal the true identity of the elusive Miller’s Court victim. As part of the media build up to the book’s release, stories
appeared which indicated that Mr Weston-Davies had successfully applied for an exhumation of the body currently lying
in St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cemetery under the name Mary Jane Kelly in an attempt to match DNA against his own.
Whether the suggestion was made by the author or his publishers is unclear, but within minutes of the story appearing
online Ripperologists were debating the merits of the exhumation. Regardless of the fact that it’s far from certain
Ripperologist 145 August 2015 1

Wynne Weston-Davies at the recent Jack the Ripper Conference
Courtesy Rob Clack
that the grave in question holds the remains of Mary Kelly, some posters were excitedly wondering whether the bones
would bear cuts and other marks which might reveal clues as to the knife used upon the body. Thankfully the majority
discussing the news recognised that the disinterment of a body from consecrated ground for such a reason is distasteful
in the extreme.
There is a debate happening on Facebook as I write this Editorial as to what is more important to people interested in
Jack the Ripper, education or entertainment. Obviously there is room for both, and every person interested in the case
enjoys the entertainment side to some degree. But the important thing here, again, is how it is done.
There are books on the case being released almost as fast as they can be read, some factual and responsible, many
others presenting incorrect information while glorifying the killer, many with covers featuring the groan-inducing top-
hatted Ripper accompanied with mandatory splashes of blood. In fact, while the ‘Mary Kelly’ on the cover of Mr Weston-
Davies’ book appears thankfully alive and well, a rarity in itself, on closer inspection a faint blood spatter can be seen as
having been added to her throat. Presumably this is acceptable to a readership which only baulks at a cover displaying
the full horror of the Mary Kelly crime scene photograph, as happened when Andrew Cook released his Jack the Ripper:
Case Closed in 2010. This is under the control of the publishers rather than the author, but by inference the ‘blood and
guts’ artwork is what a potential buyer is expected to be looking for. Are we happy to see covers with cut throats, shining
blades and bloodied sleeves but not an actual photographs of one of the victims?
Likewise, the dozens of Ripper tours have a responsibility to educate their customers by presenting the story of the
murders with accuracy, perhaps more so as they are often the public face of Ripperology. And yes, those joining a tour
will expect to be entertained to some degree, but the balance has to be right.
When the media descends on Whitechapel, let’s give a better impression of ourselves, starting with providing accurate
information. Let’s show that we do indeed care about the victims, probably more than the reporters sent to cover the
story. When visiting a grave, let’s not be pictured sitting upon it, or posing while wearing a Jack the Ripper t-shirt.
Ripperology definitely has an image problem, and we who have more than a passing interest have a responsibility to
improve that. By putting some thought into what we do and how we do it, things just might improve. Then we may be
seen as responsible historians rather than gore peddlers.

The Jack the Ripper Museum
A Special Report
By TREVOR BOND and JON REES
Let’s Start With the Facts

On 22 March 2012, a company named Museum of Jack the Ripper Limited was formed.1 A registered address
was given, in Kent,2 and it was also associated with the website address museumofjacktheripper.com.3 Three
directors were listed – Mr Mark Richard Palmer-Edgecumbe, Miss Linda Riley, and Miss Katie Louise McCrum; the
latter of these also owned 33% of the issued stock in the company, through her company K. L. McCrum Holdings
Limited,4 which was incorporated six days later, on 28 March 2012. The website domain, which was purchased on
the same day as the incorporation of Museum of Jack the Ripper Limited, expired a year later, on 22 March 2013,5
and it appears that no actual website was ever uploaded. Museum of Jack the Ripper Limited also no longer exists,
having been dissolved on 12 August 2014.
Much the same is true of another company, Jack the Ripper Museum Limited,6 which was incorporated a day
after Museum of Jack the Ripper Limited on 23 March 2012, and which shared the same registered address in Kent
as well as the same three directors – namely Palmer-Edgecumbe, Riley, and McCrum. This second company lasted
for a shorter time than the first, having been dissolved on 25 March 2013, or roughly four and a half months before
the end of Museum of Jack the Ripper Limited. Unlike that company, Jack the Ripper Museum Limited never had
an associated website address.
Both these companies were, effectively, followed by Jack the Ripper Museum (London) Limited, although the
genesis of this company is less straightforward. The relevant company registration number, 08728636, initially
referred to a company named 5S Visual Supplies Limited, which was incorporated on 11 October 2013, and was
initially registered with an address in Wrexham, North Wales,7 which was changed on 23 October 2013 to an
address in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire.8 The previous website for 5S Visual Supplies Limited, 5svisualsupplies.
com, which expired in 2014, claims that the company specialised in ‘building sustainable business improvement’
through the sale of specialised office equipment. In practice, they seem to have sold whiteboards and similar
supplies.9
The confusion with regard to 5S Visual Supplies Limited – that is, the company by that name associated with the
registration number given above – comes in the form of another company known as 5S Visual Supplies Limited, also
incorporated on 11 October 2013, but registered under the number 08728664. This 5S Visual Supplies Limited was
also initially registered using the aforementioned Wrexham address, and in fact continues to be so. This version of
5S Visual Supplies Limited remains active, and as Companies House records do not indicate that it has changed its
1 The relevant registration number was 08002862.

2 424 Margate Road, Westwood, Margate, Kent, CT12 6SJ.
3 This and future company information taken from Companies House records.
4 Registration number 08010186.
5 This and future Internet domain information taken from whois.com.
7 4a Gresford Road, Wrexham, LL12 8TN.
8 The Studio, Nicholas Close, Elstree, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, WD6 3EW.
9 web.archive.org. A Google+ profile for the company also suggests that they were involved in online consultancy services; although
the profile cannot be dated, photographs posted there show that it was active by 2013.

name at any point during its life so far, it appears that somehow there were two companies with identical names
both active concurrently for a period of around eighteen months, and also using the same registered address
for the first two weeks of their existence. This is curious but likely inconsequential.10 As there is no evidence to
suggest that this second 5S Visual Supplies Limited has any definite link to any businesses or individuals related
to the current company, Jack the Ripper Museum (London) Limited, henceforth when 5S Visual Supplies Limited
is referred to, the reference is to the company with which Jack the Ripper Museum (London) Limited shares a
registration number, and not to this other company.
On 5 February 2015, The London Gazette published notice of a strike-off action against 5S Visual Supplies
Limited, giving a period of three months during which the directors had the opportunity to demonstrate why
the company should not be removed from the Companies Register.11 As this was not listed under the alternative
wording of a ‘voluntary’ striking off order, the intention would seem to have originated from the authorities and
not from the directors themselves. The action was listed as being pursuant to section 1000 of the 2006 Companies
Act, and therefore would seem to suggest that 5S Visual Supplies Limited was no longer actively trading at this
point.
This deadline, therefore, would presumably have expired on 5 May 2015; however, on 7 May 2015, it was
clearly still in existence when the authorities were notified of the appointment of a new director – Mark Palmer-
Edgecumbe. The following day, the company registered for a change of address; its new official home was to
be Lynton House, 7-12 Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9BQ.12 Six days later, on May 14, 2015, a Change of
Name Certificate was filed. ‘5S Visual Supplies Limited’ was henceforth to be known as ‘Jack the Ripper Museum
(London) Limited’. Curiously, on 15 July 2015, Mark Richard Palmer-Edgecumbe resigned his directorship of the
new company but was immediately reappointed on the same date. Eventually, the London Gazette carried a
notice that ‘cause has been shown why the... company should not be struck off the register’ and that no further
such action would be taken.
There is one more link to explore before we leave 5S Visual Supplies Limited behind. One early director of that
company was Mr Graham Michael Cowan, who resigned on 8 May 2015, the same day as the change of address.
This is likely not coincidental. Mr Cowan is a prolific director of companies, with a search of Companies House
records back in June this year showing that he has held a total of 15,165 directorships, of which 15,006 had at
that point been resigned or dissolved. The vast majority of these seem to have been formed through a network
of companies owned and operated by Cowan and concerned with assisting in company formation, such as Quick
Access Formations Limited13 and Access Company Formations Limited.14 Both the former addresses for 5S Visual
Supplies Limited, in Wrexham and Borehamwood, are heavily linked to Cowan and a number of companies formed
in this way. A common practice is for Cowan to be appointed as a director on the day of incorporation, and also to
purchase a number of shares (often a hundred shares at £1 each) in the newly formed company before resigning
on the same day. A holding company operated by Cowan, QA Nominees Limited15 still held the entirety of the 100
10 If they were indeed two entirely separate entities, then it is possible that either or both of the website and Google+ address may
relate to this second 5S Visual Supplies Limited rather than the first. The only currently active 5S Visual Supplies Limited - that is,
the company associated with the registration number 08728664- does not have an online presence.
11 Dating back to 1665, when it was known as The Oxford Gazette, The London Gazette carries various official notices relating,
largely, to businesses in England and Wales, with it’s equivalent publications for those registered in Scotland and Northern Ireland
being, respectively, The Edinburgh Gazette and The Belfast Gazette. It is considered an official record, and is published by Her
Majesty’s Stationery Office.
12 Lynton House is a large building located close to Euston, Russell Square and King’s Cross stations. It is accessed through an imposing
central doorway flanked by branches of Pret a Manger and Starbucks. Although it is home to a number of businesses, including a
large amount of accounting firms, it is unclear whether Jack the Ripper Museum (London) Limited actually owns or leases any
physical office space within the building, with various websites suggesting that at least some of the 707 businesses registered there
may be using it simply as what is termed a mail forwarding address. Alternatively, it could be that the business is registered under
the address of its accountant, if they are based at Lynton House; this is a common practice, and interestingly there is also an
accounting firm – Spurling Cannon Limited - based at the Margate address mentioned previously.
14 Registration number 03167194. Access Company Formations Limited is also listed as a director and company secretary for Quick
Access Formations Limited, director number 907492847.

shares in Jack the Ripper Museum (London) Limited at the time of the latest accounts, dated 31 October 2014.16
Given the presence of Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe in all three of the aforementioned companies, and the close
resemblances that their names bear to each other, it appears undeniable that he has intended to open a museum
focusing primarily if not entirely on the story of those crimes since at least March, 2012, and in London since
earlier this year. It is down to the reader to decide whether a Jack the Ripper museum in Kent could have
ever been considered a serious proposition, or whether the address of both Museum of Jack the Ripper Limited
and Jack the Ripper Museum Limited represents merely a matter of convenience, and that such a museum in
London was more realistically an intention which can be back-dated as far as 2012. In a statement appearing on
jacktherippermuseum.com and titled ‘A Message from our Founder’, Palmer-Edgecumbe appeared to confirm this
latter scenario when he spoke of his desire to open a Jack the Ripper museum since 2008; this statement has since
been removed but is still available via archiving.17 Shortly after this statement was taken down, all mention of
Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe and of his status as the museum’s founder was also removed from the website.
Born in Teeside, Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe has had a varied and stellar career. A former Diversity officer for
companies including Google and Barclays Bank, in 2012 he was voted amongst the twenty-five most influential
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender business people in the world in an award co-administered by the Guardian.18
Perhaps his most illuminating job thus far, however, in relation to the current issue is that between May 2006
and May 2013, he served as a non-executive director, a period which encompassed the 2008 ‘Jack the Ripper and
the East End’ exhibition at Museum of London’s Docklands site.19 It was during this period that, according to his
aforementioned and since removed statement on jacktherippermuseum.com, Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe claimed
he became interested in opening a Jack the Ripper museum.
On 15 March 2002, a sponsored profile on the Guardian website detailed a number of Palmer-Edgecumbe’s past
employments, including roles with NatWest bank, and a number of other unnamed museums in addition to the
Museum of London, seemingly including institutions in South Africa.20 Palmer-Edgecumbe spoke in the interview
of feeling it is important to be ‘100% myself’, and also how he ‘fell into [working in] diversity purely by accident’
following a period as an investment banker. He also speaks of his pride in having set up the European Diversity
Awards in 2001, a role still listed on his Linkedin profile through the associated organisation Global Diversity List,
of which Palmer-Edgecumbe is listed as Chief Executive Officer. However, as revealed on a blog post on Tales
from the Southbank, Palmer-Edgecumbe’s name has recently been removed from the European Diversity awards
website, as well as from the website of The Inclusive Foundation, of which he was previously listed as a member
of the board of trustees.21 The next European Diversity Awards are due to be held place on 31 September 2015.22
A former television presenter with an interest in interior design, Katie Louise McCrum, through her
aforementioned company K. L. McCrum Holdings Limited, entirely owns a company named London Rooms Design
Limited,23 as of their latest accounts, a company also associated with the website mccruminteriordesign.com.
Her Linkedin profile also lists her as the Managing Director of London Rooms Design, although technically the
directorship is held by K. L. McCrum Holdings Limited. Linda Riley currently serves as Company Secretary to
16 Cowan and his companies have also shared a number of directorships with the Right Honourable Andrew Moray Stuart, heir to the
peerage of Viscount Stuart of Findhorn. Companies with which both Cowan and Moray-Stuart have been involved include but are
not limited to Info Drake Limited (registration number 08064729), Star Park Management No. 2 Limited (08067269) and American
Muscle Limited (07567512). In addition to Jack the Ripper Museum (London) Limited, QA Nominees Limited also hold shares in
a number of other companies operated by Moray Stuart. On 7 May 2012, the Daily Telegraph reported that had been named in
an investigation handed to the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the City of London police into the death of Russian lawyer
Sergei Magnitsky, who died in prison in 2007 after uncovering Russian state involvement in a ‘huge tax rebate fraud’. Mr Moray
Stuart was named due to his sole directorship of a company registered in the British Virgin Islands which was alleged to have been
complicit in laundering 1.4 million US dollars originating from this operation. Although the death of Mr Magnitsky remains the
subject of much confusion and international activity, Mr Moray Stuart has never been charged with any offence. On 26 November
2012, the Guardian also named Moray-Stuart as one of twenty-eight individuals alleged to be ‘sham directors’, collectively
controlling a total of 21,500 companies, often registered in the British Virgin Islands, and alleged that in this way they ‘play a key
role in keeping secret hundreds of thousands of commercial transactions’; however, again, it is important to note that no charges
have ever been filed.
17 web.archive.org.
18 Linkedin.
19 Ibid.
20 guardian.co.uk.
21 talesfromthesouthbank.wordpress.com.
22 europeandiversityawards.com.
London Rooms Design, showing at least that business relationships between those two former directors of Museum
of Jack the Ripper Limited and Jack the Ripper Museum Limited remain to this day.
Prior to this, Linda Riley had been, along with her mother and siblings, a co-owner of Sherlock Holmes Limited,
the company which then ran the Sherlock Holmes Museum in Baker Street, London.24 On 28 February 2013, the
Telegraph reported that Riley’s mother, Grace Aidiniantz, was intending to commence legal proceedings again her
son (Riley’s half-brother) over the misappropriation of company funds.
This story was further discussed in the Daily Mail of 4 March 2013, which claimed that the sums involved
totalled ‘millions of pounds’, and also included the allegation that Linda Riley had withdrawn £175,000 from
a bank account in Mr Aidiniantz’s name. The case was eventually settled out of court. In 2005, Linda Riley co-
founded Square Peg Media,25, which amongst other activities publishes the long-established gay interest magazine
G3 Magazine, which had been founded in 2001 by Sarah Garrett, Riley’s fellow founder of Square Peg Media.26
On a number of occasions, G3 Magazine has carried advertisements for London Rooms Design Limited featuring
photographs of Katie Louise McCrum.
On 14 July 2015, Linda Riley’s name was listed as the registrant for the website jacktherippermuseum.com, the
website of the current museum at 12 Cable Street.27 A related website, jacktherippermuseumwalk.com, which is
no longer active, was registered fifteen days later, on 29 July 2015, and gave an address for correspondence of 12
Cable Street; the registrant on this occasion was given as Fiona Marshall. Although the website was removed after
a short period, Google caches reveal that it was being used to direct traffic to jacktherippermuseum.com. Fiona
Marshall is Operations and Events Director at Square Peg Media. Online registers have now been amended with
privacy notices obscuring the names of Riley and McCrum in relation to these websites.
If there were indeed walking tours planned to be run in conjunction with the museum, it is not clear who was
intended to lead them; however it may be relevant that local Ripper guide John Pope de Locksley claims to have
previously worked at the Sherlock Holmes Museum; if true, this will have brought him into contact with Linda
Riley, and may suggest a potential link.
Square Peg Media were also the sponsor behind the profile of Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe which appeared in the
Guardian in 2002, as referenced above; in that same article, Palmer-Edgecumbe also spoke of how ‘Linda Riley
from Square Peg Media’ initially approached him with a proposal for launching the awards. Linda Riley’s Linkedin
profile continues to list her involvement with the aforementioned European Diversity Awards, although as with
Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe all reference to Riley appears to have been removed from the Awards website. In a
further sponsored article on the Guardian website, on 21 May 2012, Riley, described as ‘Managing Director of
Square Peg Media’ herself discussed the formation of the aforementioned European Diversity Awards.
Interestingly, Linda Riley also previously served as a trustee of the charity, Eaves, a charity focused on
‘supporting vulnerable women’, with an especial focus on the victims of domestic violence and sex trafficking;
previously, a statement on jacktherippermuseum.com stated that a proportion of the museum’s profits would
be donated to Eaves. However on 30 July 2015, a statement was released by the charity via Twitter, stating that
‘thank you all who have alerted us to Jack the Ripper Museum claims that they are donating to us. We have
never been approached or donated to’.28 On this same day, all mention of Eaves was removed from the museum’s
website, along with a link to the charity’s website which had previously been located there, but actually had never
successfully linked through to that site, appearing to have been a dead link for all the time it was present. A day
later, the same Twitter account released an updated statement acknowledging that the museum had removed the
claim, and also appeared to confirm that Riley is no longer part of their organisation, in the following exchange:
‘is Linda Riley co founder of 2012 Jack the Ripper museum a trustee of yours?’, ‘She was. As stated we have no
connection with museum, no donations, no agreement to use name’.29
Finally, on a document submitted at the end of July 2015, Linda Riley is listed alongside Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe
as the ‘client’ concerned in alterations to the signage of the current museum building.

26 squarepegmedia.com.
27 whois.com.
28 twitter.com @eavescharity.
29 Ibid.

Despite recent online speculation about a split between Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe and the directors of the two
former companies (an inference seemingly taken simply from the absence of McCrum and Riley as directors of
the current company), it is therefore clear that Riley at least continues to be closely involved with the museum,
and given that there is also no evidence to suggest that she has severed any business links with McCrum, that
particular angle of speculation can perhaps now be considered closed.
The property in which the museum is located, 12 Cable Street, was bought by Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe on 31
August 2013 for £465,000,30 at which point it was listed as a two bed terraced house. It is currently estimated
to be worth £607,000. In July, 2014, a Change of Use Application was submitted to Tower Hamlets Council for
consideration.31 The subject was the changing of the use of 12, Cable Street, from a retail unit with residential
dwellings above to a museum. Page three of the thirty-five page document stated that ‘the vision of the museum
is to tell the story of the Women of the East End of London’. The statement went on to declare that ‘The history
of the East End is usually told from the perspective of poverty, crime and social unrest. The Museum of Women’s
History will retell the history of the East End through the eyes, voices, experiences and actions of the women that
shaped the East End – and often the whole country’. A ‘vision and goals’ statement reiterated similar sentiments,
and concluded by stating that ‘Globally over 100 women’s museums exist. This will be the first women’s museum
in the UK’.
Elsewhere in the document, it was claimed that a gap existed for such an enterprise in the area due to the
recent relocation of the Women’s Library, which was formerly located in Old Castle Street, close to Aldgate East
station. Section 3.1 went on to state that the museum would represent ‘A key addition to local culture’, and
aimed to ‘sit at the heart of the community..., providing a centre of excellence in the study of women’s history
locally, nationally and internationally. The museum aims to inspire, educate and engage with it’s visitors’. Page
fifteen gave an illustration of the proposed frontage of the museum, clearly giving the displayed name as ‘Museum
of Women’s History’; this same illustration is repeated on the final page; an accompanying document gives an
alternative, black and white, illustration of the frontage featuring more technical details, and on this occasion
the board above the door is left devoid of text.
The initial document goes on to give background on the history of working conditions for women in the area,
the development of worker’s organisations and trade unions and the Suffragette movement, as well as making
specific reference to the ‘Battle of Cable Street’. Further details were given justifying the change of use given
that improvements to the then current upstairs residential unit would struggle to meet the latest rules on
accommodation. The document features a number of images, including female suffragette and black trade union
protestors, female representatives of the local Bangladeshi community, and a woman marching with a sign stating
‘I work as a man and get paid as a woman’. The words ‘Jack the Ripper’ do not appear in the document at any point.
In fact, the closest wording to any sense of criminological element to the museum comes with the aforementioned
vision and goals statement which talks of an intention to ‘celebrate the women of the East End – the famous, the
infamous and the anonymous’. The following paragraph declares that ‘despite the immense contribution of the
women of the East End to the historical, social, political and economic development of the United Kingdom, no
museum exists to showcase their achievements. The Museum of Women’s History would rectify this’.
Later in July, 2015, following the erection of the current signage giving the name of the museum as ‘Jack the
Ripper Museum’, a further retrospective planning application was submitted to Tower Hamlets Council, detailing a
change to the signage which included both the current nameboard above the door, along with the further lettering
‘and the history of women in the East End’ located on a board which is currently blank, located a little above
street level.32 This second application remains open for consultation until 3 September 2015. On 31 July 2015,
Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe gave an interview to the website Londonist, in which he claimed that ‘the full name of
the museum is ‘The Jack the Ripper and the history of women in East London. The frontage is not finished and
is still in the planning stage’; however, it remains a demonstrable fact that this was not the name given in any
illustration forming part of the original planning application, and the fact that the signage giving a slight variation
on this proposed name has only been requested in a retrospective manner cannot help but suggest that this has
been something of an afterthought. This last document is the application referred to above on which Linda Riley
30 All property information from Land Registry and zoopla.com.

31 towerhamlets.gov.uk; application number 903385.
32 towerhamlets.gov.uk; application number 1084421.

is listed alongside Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe as the ‘client’ on whose behalf the plans are being submitted.
Another notable feature of the frontage of the museum are the two blue plaques located to the left and right
of the building, above the board giving the museum’s current name. The first of these dedicated to Elizabeth
Stride, described as ‘victim of Jack the Ripper’ and justified by the fact that her body was taken to the nearby
St George in the East mortuary on the morning of 31 September, 1888, and the other is dedicated to George
Chapman, described as having lived and worked in Cable Street during 1888 and subtitled as ‘the Cable Street
dandy’, a phrase seemingly borrowed from a past Ripperologist article on Chapman by Norma Buddle which is
available at casebook.org. As readers will be aware, Chapman, born Sewerin Klosowski, has passed into history
not only as a Jack the Ripper suspect but as a confirmed murderer in his own right, having poisoned three of his
live-in girlfriends while living in the Southwark area between 1897 and 1902. Although often associated with the
plaques erected to various important persons by English Heritage, the notion of a blue plaque is not a protected
design, however protest groups are currently exploring whether these have contravened planning law given that
they have never been present on any planning application yet submitted.
Although it has so far proved impossible to verify, one recent allegation of further development bears repeating
while discussing the museum in relation to the purchase of property. A vacant space opposite 12 Cable Street has
recently been the site of much activity, with hoardings being erected and the ground cleared of obstructions;
representatives of a protest group claim that they have spoken to the contractors concerned who have stated
that the land, which is owned by Tower Hamlets council, is being leased by Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe, allegedly
at a cost of £25,000 per annum. The same group also claim to have spoken to a project manager at the museum
who has stated that the intention is to use the site to erect a Jack the Ripper themed bar and/or restaurant.
No planning application for the site has yet been submitted, although a Freedom of Information Act request is
currently in the process of being submitted by an interested party, and it will be interesting to see whether this
will serve to confirm or deny this latest rumour.
The museum was initially planned to open on 4 August 2015, although after negative media coverage any talk
of an opening date was removed from the museum’s website. On 31 July 2015, the recently-appointed Mayor of
Tower Hamlets John Biggs believed that the original date still stood, when he gave an interview to the Docklands
and East London Advertiser stating he would be turning down his invitation to the opening as he felt that the
council had been ‘misled’ during the planning permission process. Two separate protest groups – the East London
Suffragettes (who are also linked to a pre-existing campaign to build a dedicated women’s museum in the area)
and Class War (a multi-issue, anti-capitalist protest group which includes the self-titled Women’s Death Brigade)
held protests on 4 August (East London Suffragettes) and August 5 (Class War); the latter have also held a number
of similar events since. The museum finally opened later in the first week of August.
In addition to the protests, a petition lodged on the 38 degrees website calling for Tower Hamlets Council to
revoke planning permission for the museum currently has 6,784 signatures.33
Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe, Katie Louise McCrum, Linda Riley, Graham Michael Cowan, Fiona Marshall, and
Square Peg Media were all approached during the preparation of this article, but as of yet none have replied. Any
responses obtained will be included in a future edition of this magazine.
A Long History
It should be remembered in all this that ‘Ripper tourism’, if we want to use that phrase, has a long history.
The photograph of Dutfield’s Yard, taken in 1900 and discovered by Philip Hutchison and published in The Jack
the Ripper Location Photographs: Dutfield’s Yard and the Whitby Collection in 2009, shows that interest in
visiting and documenting the sites of these notorious murders dates back more than a century. In fact, the
interest dates back even further – at least to 1891, when Canadian journalist Kathleen Blake ‘Kit’ Coleman visited
the sites, and famously wrote of her experiences in visiting Miller’s Court, as discussed at length in a previous
Ripperologist article written by Andy Aliffe in 1999. Ripper walking tours may have increased this century, but
they can be easily dated back at least as far as the 1980s, when historian and author Martin Fido was filmed
taking an albeit staged group of tourists around the East End for Sir Christopher Frayling’s documentary Shadow
of the Ripper, transmitted on the BBC as part of the Timewatch series. Commercial interests have undoubtedly
33 you.38degrees.org.uk, ‘Celebrate Suffragettes not Serial Killers’.

capitalised on the interest in these crimes, but they cannot be said to have created it. Many readers will also
recall contemporary press reports telling of the large crowds that gathered outside the murder sites on the very
mornings of the crimes, in particular in Miller’s Court and as captured in contemporary illustrations. In 2011, the
late Chris Scott also discovered a report from the St Louis Republic, published a day after the murder of Mary Jane
Kelly, which appears to suggest that its author visited the site on that very day. Rushed publications such as The
Curse upon Mitre Square, and Leather Apron, or the Horrors of Whitechapel, both published during 1888 itself,
also show that public appetite for details of the crimes outside of newspaper reports began almost immediately
during the so-called autumn of terror.
In more recent years, Museum of Jack the Ripper Limited was by no means the first business to be registered
with a name showing a primary interest in selling the story. At least two other distinct families of businesses can
be identified as having existed. Firstly, three related businesses registered to Mr R S Edwards,34 better known as
Russell Edwards, author of the 2014 book Naming Jack the Ripper and as the former owner-operator of the Official
Jack the Ripper Store in Toynbee Street, Spitalfields, along with associated walking tours. Secondly, a business
named Jack the Ripper Productions Limited35 is registered in Truro, Cornwall. Little information is available other
than the names of three individuals involved – Sebastian Johan Smits, Alfred Jacobus Gerardus Maria Hendricks,
and Drs [sic] Gerardus Christiaan Ziljstra. Although now dissolved, this was the first of the businesses listed here to
be formed, having been incorporated on 19 February 2002. This is of course in addition to the numerous businesses
running Jack the Ripper walking tours, many of which are not registered with names directly referencing the
crimes, such as Secret Chamber Tours, and larger companies such as Discovery Tours and London Walks who offer
Jack the Ripper walks as parts of a large catalogue.
The website which currently promotes the Jack the Ripper Museum in Cable Street, jacktherippermuseum.com,
previously belonged to Mr Edwards, although this registration was allowed to lapse a year after its initial creation,
on 28 April 2015. As we have seen, on 14 July 2015, the domain was subsequently purchased by Linda Riley in order
to promote the current museum.
Ripper merchandise is a relatively more recent development. Discounting books and films, etc, the phenomenon
probably began in earnest with the rebranding of the Ten Bells pub on Commercial Street as the ‘Jack the Ripper’
in 1975, a decision which caused a great deal of consternation around the centenary of the murders in 1988 (some
of the protestors against the current museum, particularly within the East London Suffragettes, were also present
at those demonstrations). Before returning to its previous moniker, the ‘Jack the Ripper’ sold branded items such
as t-shirts and cigarette lighters behind the bar. After reverting to the Ten Bells, for some years under landlord
Dave Lee the pub continued to sell Ripper-themed items such as t-shirts and baseball caps. This slowed as trade
declined and the pub was allowed to deteriorate.
In recent years, the Internet has allowed the sale of more specialist interest merchandise to grow, and there
are a number of websites today which offer Jack the Ripper branded clothing, action figures, etc. At least one
shop close to Aldgate East station also promises merchandise in addition to selling tickets for one of the walking
tour firms, but this does not seem to extend beyond guidebooks and the occasional t-shirt. However, Russell
Edwards’ The Official Jack the Ripper Store was the first endeavour to actively promote itself as a space for the
sale of a variety of Ripper-related items, within the East End itself. It is interesting that while a great deal of
online debate amongst Ripperologists ensued, much of it highly critical of items such as Jack the Ripper lipgloss,
this store did not attract anywhere near the level of negative media attention which the current museum has (in
fact, an organiser for the East London Suffragettes protest was actually unaware that this shop had ever existed).
There is not a museum in the country which does not also feature a gift shop. However, much of the merchandise
initially offered by the Jack the Ripper Museum was undeniably questionable in taste. Items such as pint glasses
(description from the website: ‘End the day with a pint sized glass of a beverage of your choice. The glass features
the Museum of Jack the Ripper logo on the side so no one will get on your wrong side if you opt for a pint of milk
over a pint of beer’), shot glasses (‘We can neither confirm nor deny that Jack the Ripper did shots. But if he did,
he probably had a neat looking shot glass’) and wine glasses (‘A glass of wine is good for you, so they say. So why
don’t you have that wine in this Museum of Jack the Ripper wine glass? Guaranteed to make you feel as important
34 Jack the Ripper Museum Limited, registration number 09020031; The Jack the Ripper Store Limited, registration number 09019973;
Jack the Ripper Tour and Store Limited’ registration number 09019919.

as you are’) were offered for sale from the website prior to the museum opening, in July, 2015.
With the website in a state of flux during this period, seemingly in response to the media attention, the online
store was eventually taken down. It has not yet been reinstated, and as we will see the merchandise currently
on offer in the store is significantly different in much of its approach, or at least in their descriptions. However,
Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe’s defence of the much derided ‘blood smear’ design in the aforementioned 31 July
2015 Londonist article that ‘the logo does not represent the women but Jack the Ripper himself’, did not go far
in addressing such objections. This design, which features a silhouetted Ripper complete with top hat and cape
standing over a thin smear of blood at his feet, does remain on certain items.
Another outlet for merchandise in recent years has been the Jack the Ripper conferences, although this has
been much more tastefully designed by Andrew Firth, author of Past Traces and Fragments of the East End, with
references to the case commonly contained within in-jokes which would only be immediately apparent to those
with a knowledge of the case. The conferences, in fact, have over the years often represented an opportunity to
showcase the best of the approach of those within the field. In 2007, descendants of Catherine Eddowes attended
the Wolverhampton conference, and praised the then-organisers (in the interests of full disclosure, these included
the Executive Editor of Ripperologist) for the sympathetic approach evident in telling her story. In Bournemouth in
2001, something akin to an exhibition could be said to have taken place, when Eddowes’ alleged shawl (then still
owned by David Melville-Hayes, but more recently and famously purchased by Russell Edwards, and which forms
the basis for his aforementioned book promoting the guilt of Aaron Kosminski) was displayed for delegates to see.
Russell Edwards is an interesting figure with regard to the current situation, as a great deal of online discussion
regarding The Jack the Ripper Museum seemed to centre around an erroneously held belief that, to paraphrase a
number of oft-repeated comments, ‘he must be involved somehow’. It was notable that a certain ferocity of the
objections to the museum of a number of these people seemed to fade somewhat once it became apparent that
this was not the case. Although he declined to be interviewed on the record for this article, Russell Edwards states
that he was aware of speculation regarding his involvement, confirmed that he is most definitely not involved,
and declared that he feels he is unpopular amongst Ripperologists partly due to being seen as an outsider, and
also due to his unwavering belief that he has solved the case. In good spirits, Mr Edwards certainly did not appear
concerned or upset about his portrayal in recent discussions. He is, however, of the opinion that the behaviour
of the owners of the museum in applying for permission on the basis of a museum of women’s history has been
‘sickening’.
Finally, the Ten Bells enters the story again at this point. In a project mooted during the early years of this
century, we glimpse perhaps the closest progenitor of the current museum project. Following its time in the media
spotlight as the ‘Jack the Ripper’, new landlord John Twomey, described by the East London Advertiser on 27
March 2012 as a ‘former sword fenc[ing] champion’, was approached by members of the Cloak and Dagger Club
(now the Whitechapel Society 1888) with a proposal to install a permanent exhibition on the Whitechapel Murders
in an upstairs room. Despite promising discussions, Twomey’s stewardship of the premises eventually took on a
very different slant with regard to the Ripper industry, and tour groups are no longer welcome within or even on
the street outside the building. We will never know whether that situation may have developed differently had
the exhibition come to fruition, or what form said installation may have taken. It is interesting but probably futile
to consider how it may have differed from the current enterprise in Cable Street.
An Unfavourable Response
Whether the owners of the museum expected the flurry of press interest that followed the story breaking is
difficult to see. From their reaction though and the scurry of damage control that would follow, we can imagine
that the furore behind it was not foreseen. The original story was written by Mike Brooke in the East London
Advertiser on 28 July 2015. The focus was on the initial planned Museum of Women’s History and the reaction to
residents when the uncovered hoarding revealed the Jack the Ripper signage. Quoted in the article was protest
organiser Jemima Broadbridge, describing the museum as a “museum of the macabre” adding that she felt “The
sign outside suggested it would be a gruesome attraction”36 (it is important to remember that at this stage the sign
featured skull and crossbones and medical implements). Also long term resident of the area, Jenny Boswell-Jones
questioning the historical and factual accuracy of the venture and whether it would exploit women of the past
36 East London Advertiser, 29 July 2015.

and local filmmaker and bed and breakfast owner Julian Cole, describing the museum as feeling like a “sick joke”.
Within 24 hours all of the major UK press had picked up the story and running their own. It would be the Evening
Standard the following morning which would first publicise the link with Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe, describing
him as a “Former Google diversity chief”. It would also contain the first response on the matter from Palmer-
Edgecumbe describing the change from a women’s museum to Jack the Ripper as being “a more interesting angle”
looking at it from the perspective of the victims. Also in the quote was a phrase that would later be described
as an example of ‘victim blaming’ by campaigners as he said the museum would be “looking at why and how
the women got in that situation in the first place.”37 Also included was the first statement from Tower Hamlets
council, saying “Ultimately the council has no control in planning terms of the nature of the museum... The
council is investigating the extent to which unauthorised works may have been carried out.”
Further articles stating much the same content as these two would appear later that day in publications
including The Mirror, The Independent, ITV News, Huffington Post UK (who would also include some of the early
Twitter backlash in their articles on the museum and it’s merchandise and included the quote from Class War
protest organiser Lisa Mckenzie “women have been reduced to a red smudge”38, The Guardian and The Daily Mail.
That same day the first opinion pieces would arrive, the first getting there seems to be online lifestyle website The
Debrief, with news editor Sophie Wilkinson penning a piece which majorly recounts what other news organisations
had published but also accuses Palmer-Edgecumbe’s statement of ‘victim blaming’ and concludes with “Tourists,
will surely arrive in their droves, forming clumps of cagoules and hefty cameras along the pavement outside this
museum. But though it could be argued that Whitechapel (the place, not the TV series, though you’ve got to
wonder how its popularity had a hand in Mr Palmer-Edgecumbe’s decision-making process) could benefit from
tourism to Cable Street, we’ve already got the Jack The Ripper experience at the London Dungeons. There was
an exhibition of Jack the Ripper at the Museum of London this year, too. Do we really need two museums offering
rubbernecking at the unsolved, bloody deaths of a few women at the behest of one museum dedicated to the east
end’s many and diverse women and their successes?”39
It would not take long for the story to gain worldwide attraction, as later on the 29th the story broke in
publications from the rest of the world including America and the opinion pieces began to roll in. Jezebel described
it as “the finest sex worker murder museum in all of London!”40, Raw Story described Palmer-Edgecumbe as a “con
artist”41, and New Statesman used the story to discuss the deeper issue of male violence.42
On 31 July the East London Advertiser broke the story that the Mayor of Tower Hamlets who had previously
been due to attend the museum’s opening was now boycotting it.43 Mayor John Biggs said in his statement “It has
become clear that the council’s planning department was misled by the applicant.
“The decision to open a ‘Jack the Ripper’ museum instead of one celebrating the history of women in the East
End is extremely disappointing. I have withdrawn from attending the opening of this museum as I feel the focus
has significantly changed. I will be seeking an explanation from the museum owners as to how this shift in the
nature of the museum has come about.”
Around this time, the museum started their damage control campaign. TV news were invited around the
museum and to interview Palmer-Edgecumbe44 and claiming “The full name of the museum is ‘The Jack the Ripper
and the History of Women in East London’. The frontage is not finished and still in the planning stage.”45 The skull
and crossbones, coffin and surgical instruments were removed from the front of the museum and the website
began to undergo several stages of changes, including the merchandise section being taken offline and Palmer-
Edgecumbe’s title changing from “director” to “founder” and then being removed entirely and various drafts
of mission statements, again which were eventually removed but included one where he states he first became
interested in opening a Jack the Ripper exhibit back in 2008 when he was involved with the exhibition at the
37 Evening Standard, 29 July 2015.

38 Huffington Post UK, 29 July 2015.
39 The Debrief, 29 July 2015.
40 Jezebel, 29 July 2015.
41 Raw Story, 29 July 2015.
42 New Statesman, 29 July 2015.
43 East London Advertiser, 31 July 2015.
44 Channel 4 News, 30 July 2015.
45 Londonist, 31 July 2015.
.
Docklands Museum.46 The social media associated with the museum was also taking a massive hit, with hundreds of
Facebook posts and Tweets each day accusing the museum of exploitation and misogyny. Statements were posted
on Facebook, which have since been removed and the Facebook page has since been deactivated. Since the early
flutter of statements and interviews at end of July and beginning of August, the museum and Palmer-Edgecumbe
have been silent.
Even the original architect (Andrew Waugh) spoke out against the museum, calling it “salacious, misogynist
rubbish”. In a statement he said ““The local community was duped, we were duped. They came to us and said
they had no money but that this is a real heartfelt project. It is incredibly important to celebrate women in
politics in the East End. We really ran with it. We did it at a bargain-basement fee, because we thought it was a
great thing to do.”47
Opening Day
Early on the morning of Tuesday 4 August 2015, work remained underway on the interior of the museum in
Cable Street. Furniture was being delivered, and contractors remained busy inside working on the finer details
of the electrics. The same had been true on the previous Sunday, 2 August 2015, when Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe
was also witnessed entering the building, presumably to oversee some of the activity. On speaking to some of
the contractors, they confirmed that there was no longer a definitive opening date for the museum, but stated
that ‘it’s only bits and pieces left, it’s nearly done’, and their hope that ‘it should be ready some time this week
or next’. The owner of the convenience store next door to the museum was circumspect in his response when
questioned about the issue. He confirmed that he had been unaware that it would not be a women’s museum until
the signage was revealed, but finished by stating ‘it’s their property, they can do what they like. Doesn’t make
any difference to me’.
In the event, the museum did not open on that Tuesday, and nor on the next day. Nevertheless, two planned
protests went ahead – on the 4th, led by the East London Suffragettes, and on the 5th by an organisation known
as Class War.
Class War is a large organisation which was also present protesting in the area in October, 2014, over the
installation of so-called ‘poor doors’ in newly built apartment buildings around Aldgate. Their name can still be
seen graffitied onto a wall close to Aldgate East station. Amongst their members can be found ‘the Women’s Death
Brigade’, the feminist wing of Class War. Believing in direct action and civil disobedience, and perhaps closest in
outlook to the better known ‘Occupy’ movement, Class War’s primary concern is not with the idea of a Jack the
Ripper museum as such, but rather that they feel the museum has been allowed purely due to the wealth of its
owner. On that occasion, a sit-down protest in the road stopped traffic for a short while, stickers were pasted onto
the windows of the museum, a window was broken, and the signage at ground level was scratched; however, the
overall feeling was largely peaceful.
Further Class War protests have taken place since, with at least one person threatened
with arrest during a protest in the following week – it is unclear whether the arrest “The police couldn’t
actually took place, with Lisa McKenzie, one of the organisers from Class War, simply catch Jack the Ripper
posting a photograph of the incident on Twitter stating that the police were ‘trying’ to
arrest one of the protestors. The nature of their alleged offence, if any, is also similarly
in 1888, and today
vague. Although members of the East London Suffragettes protest have at times attended they’re here to protect
the subsequent Class War protests, the two groups are distinct and so far as we have his memory!”
been able to ascertain, there do not appear to be any individuals who would consider
themselves members of both groups simultaneously. Class War protestor,
21 August 2015
In contrast, the East London Suffragettes protest, with around eighty attendees and
a great deal of media attention, featured a core group of protestors taking turns to
address the crowd, largely, on the single issue of the museum itself (although banners from organisations as
diverse as the Green Party, the Communist Party, and Dagenham and Redbridge Trades Council, suggested there
was also an element of opportunism with some in attendance, given the likely media coverage). Many of this core
46 The Guardian, 7 August 2015.

47 Independent, 7 August 2015

group arrived dressed as either Bryant and May match factory workers, or suffragettes; it was a tactic that clearly
worked, as in large part it has been images from this protest which have been used to illustrate the majority of
media stories since.
It is perhaps most appropriate to allow a selection of speakers from this protest to sum up the feelings on the
day themselves:
“The stories that we tell about the past, what we remember, has an effect on the way that we feel in the
present. I think it is grotesque, it is insulting and it is not representative of women’s struggles – this so called
museum. It’s particularly insulting that it has been set up here in East London, East London which of course has
seen some of the most inspiring women’s struggles in history from the Match Women’s strike which saw the birth
of modern Trade Unionism...who marched out of work and changed the face of women’s history. That was won
by immigrant, young women from this borough. This was also the borough that saw the birth of the working class
London suffragette movement...these were women who were written off and managed to galvanise men and
women from this borough to fight together for political rights....this has always been a borough where women and
poor people have been told we are written off and we can’t change things, we can’t write our own history, and
time and time again the people of East London – and particularly the women of East London, have proved them
wrong”. Catherine Connolly, East London Suffragettes protest, 4 August 2015
“This museum could have been a fantastic local educational resource, imagine...for the schools of this area
to bring their children to a museum to learn about the achievements of people like them. How gutted do I feel
now. Instead we have a museum which is glorifying horrific violence and celebrating the impunity of the person
who carried that out...sometimes it feels not much has changed. Women still suffer violence...76 women already
killed this year by men; we know there are high levels of domestic violence and we also know...there is a poor
conviction rate for rape and sexual assault. This story here some people think ‘Oh its in the past’ but actually a
lot of things that were happening to women in this area during the Victorian era are still happening to women and
women on the streets today”. Roz Connolly, East London Suffragettes protest, 4 August 2015
“Greetings everyone. I’m honoured to be here...but really unhappy for the reason we are here. I’m here to
protest violence against women but also violence against history. I spend a lot of time teaching about the social
history of people fighting for their rights, not exploiting other people in the way they tell their history”. David
Rosenberg, East London Suffragettes protest, 4 August 2015
“I’d like to call on Tower Hamlets Council and the Mayor to reconsider the permission given to this museum.
As we all know, permission was given for a very different kind of museum, and yet when the scaffolding came
down last week we saw anything but. As we stand here today it looks quite salacious - we’ve got red lettering,
a silhouette of the ripper, I see the skull and crossbones has been painted out...and we’ve also got an invitation
on the outside to come and see gory photos of the autopsies viewed in basement if you so wish...personally I felt
quite uncomfortable looking at that as a woman. There’s a woman I met in the Artful Dodger just down the road
named Jane, and she’s got four kids and they walk past this building every day on their way to school, and she
knows that her eleven year old daughter will be asking her ‘What this about Mummy?’, and she’ll have to explain
about these terrible crimes and how the person responsible for them seems to have been given a prominent place
in history”. Jemima Broadbridge, East London Suffragettes protest, 4 August 2015
A few weeks later, we met with Jemima Broadbridge, Digital Media and Information Officer for Camden Council,
and one of the organisers of the East London Suffragettes protest, in the Brown Bear public house on Leman Street
on a sweltering Saturday afternoon, a couple of weeks after the museum finally opened, fresh from our own
visit to the museum. An intelligent and well-spoken woman who has previously lived in Spitalfields and retains a
number of connections to the area, she spoke openly about the background to the protest, her objections to the
museum, and the possible future direction of the group’s actions, as well as the differentiation between the ELS
and the Class War protests.
A sparsely attended but heavily policed Class War protest followed, which we observed together, and was largely
peaceful except for the detonation of a single smoke-bomb outside the museum, an action which did not seem to
originate from any of the core protestors, and indeed was roundly criticised by the organisers in attendance. On
speaking to officers policing the demonstration, their large presence was in response to intelligence which had
suggested a demonstration of up to 200 people (the eventual number was closer to twenty-five, which organisers
explained to us had been limited by the protest being held at an earlier hour than those previously). What is

notable about this is that a photographer present was overheard telling a number of those in attendance of how
he knew that the owners of the museum had paid the police to be there as an intimidatory tactic. This seemingly
baseless rumour was eagerly taken up by some amongst the crowd, and should perhaps stand as a lesson about
how easily insinuation can become ‘fact’ when feelings are running high.
What was certainly considered intimidatory by many in attendance was the behaviour of two private security
guards hired by the museum, who had in fact been in place throughout that day. As well as questions being raised
about the legality of their failure to display Security Industry Association (SIA) accreditation, the situation was
not helped by the ill-advised decision of one of the staff to wear a t-shirt featuring the slogans ‘Fighting is right’,
‘Are you ready?’, and, on the back, ‘You have the right to remain conscious’. Despite the assertion by members of
Class War that the behaviour of these personnel itself constituted an offence, no arrests were made on that day.
A Protestor Speaks to Ripperologist: Jemima Broadbridge
Before this museum, what was your prior knowledge of the Jack the Ripper case?
‘My knowledge was confined to having seen some documentaries about Patricia Cornwell’s theories about
Sickert possibly being the Ripper and watching From Hell with Johnny Depp...I studied History of Art for my MA
so have read up on Sickert and know a fair bit about his life, and the Camden Town paintings and murders. I’m
aware of the recent DNA-led research and a documentary screened on TV a couple of years ago which speculated
that a Polish immigrant passing transiently through Whitechapel during that 3 month period was responsible for
the killing.’
Are there any aspects of the history of that time that you feel are relevant today and worthy of study?
‘Clearly the absence of a Welfare State to provide support for single or young mothers to help them bring up
their children meant that they had to largely fend for themselves, often turning to prostitution to generate an
income. Working class women led a very hard life back then, without support from the state. There has been
prostitution in this area right up until very recently...I would go as far as 2007 as I lived in Spitalfields for seven
years, right next to Vallance Road where the bulk of it took place. I remember the 1990s in Shoreditch when you
would expect to see prostitutes every evening lining Commercial Street, near Spitalfields Market, down Calvin
Street, Grey Eagle Street, Bethnal Green Road, Hanbury Street and Vallance Road.
All I can say that there is much more to the history of the East End than the history of misogyny. After all,

the Ripper, whoever he was, was just another serial killer, who just happened to be operating in the East End in
1888 at the same time as other serial killers, such as the Torso murderer. His importance has been blown out of
proportion to all other murders and murderers of that period. I think it’s important to put things in perspective
here. After all, we have the luxury of perspective and time on our side and we can actively choose which stories
we wish to tell and hear about the East End. For some reason, many walking tours have chosen to focus on the
Ripper, but some - like my friend Alan Gilbey’s Back Passages tours have deliberately chosen to deviate from this
predictable path and highlight the plight of the match girls at the Bow Match Factory, the Dagenham factory
workers, the Jewish synagogues, Charles Dickens’ forays into the East End, Springheeled Jack, the Romans and the
city wall, the life of Arnold Wesker, the Bangladeshi settlements round Brick Lane and their struggle to establish
social housing for their community, the Huguenot silk weavers, the attempt to demolish the market and the fight
against the Corporation of London’s role in this struggle, the fate of the Georgian houses in Spitalfields...etc.
There are so many other stories to be told about the area. Not all of them are positive, happy stories either - but
they are at least as relevant and important, I would argue.’
When did you find out about the museum?

‘My friends who live on Cable Street told me [about the signage being revealed], my friend Julian drafted the
press release...I gave it to the Guardian, the Press Association and the South West News Agency, and it just kind
of went a bit crazy.
On the face of it it looked like it was going to be a tourist attraction designed to make money’, she continued.
‘I don’t think anyone would say we don’t want tourism in Tower Hamlets, because it’s one of the poorest wards
in the country and one of the poorest boroughs in London. I just felt that if [the owners] had been straight and
open and had said “I want to open a tourist attraction and bring tourism into the borough, I think some people
would have been more supportive. Obviously there would be spin-offs with the local business like restaurants...
but it’s just the disingenuous nature of it. I think he seemed to know that he wouldn’t get planning permission
that easily...if he’d been straight from the start, and therefore the clever way of doing things is to make it look
like something else to get it through.
It’s quite hard to prove motive, and at first I thought well maybe he did genuinely just decide halfway through
that he was going to do something different...but then there was the mission statement on the website saying
that since 2008 I have held this desire to start a Jack the Ripper museum, and then we found out that he was
involved with the exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands, and his partner being an artist who paints Ripper
style images...so then it all started to smell a bit fishy, and it didn’t really take a genius to work out what was
going on. He’s obviously quite a shrewd businessman.
[There are indeed canvas prints of artistic, somewhat abstract, vivid depictions of ‘Ripper style’ figures on sale
in the museum’s gift shop, under the name of Juan Lito, but so far we have been unable to confirm that there is
anything more than a professional relationship between artist and owner.]
The fact that he thought he could hoodwink the locals pissed a lot of people off. Whenever anyone tries to do
that in the East End, it usually creates a storm. My experience of campaigning around here is that if you try to
lie to people, they will fight back’.
Does the location of the museum have any impact on your reaction to it?
‘Absolutely, yes. I feel very strongly that because the Ripper museum is situated on the very crossroads where
the famous Battle of Cable Street took place, this amounts to an attempt to rewrite the history of Cable Street
itself and the surrounding area by rebranding it as ‘Ripperville’ or ‘The Ripper experience’, redolent of The
London Dungeon that used to be on Tooley Street and ‘The London Bridge Experience’ which is there now. By doing
so, the Ripper Museum’s owner has attempted to overwrite the more important social history of this area, which
tells of how local East Enders fought off Moseley’s fascist Blackshirts, in 1936. Because American and Japanese
tourists shepherded to the area from Tower Gateway will be none the wiser. It seems a shame that this is the only
history they will be told about this area and Cable Street in particular.’
Do you have any thoughts on the Council’s response?

‘We’re aware that the law isn’t really on our side. If he’s been given planning permission for a museum, then

as far as the law is concerned he can do whatever he wants with that. Clearly, the law is an ass. The definition
of what makes a museum is very general, very loose...(Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe) must have discovered that you
can drive a coach and horses through that definition. The only thing they can really pull him up on is the signage,
for example – is it what it was said to be in the original planning application, and the opening hours which are
different so that has been queried.
There is a transparency committee currently reviewing a lot of decisions made under the previous administration
in Tower Hamlets. They could be asked to look at whether this decision has been made in a fit and proper manner.
There’s every chance it was, but that’s the next step if we don’t get any satisfaction going down the traditional
protest route. The law as it stands is not really on our side...it would only be public pressure and press interest,
and outrage from local people (that would be likely to cause the committee to act) if the locals feel that they
have been denied their right to a proper consultation on the process, that they have been denied their democratic
right’.
Given their backgrounds in promoting diversity and working for charities, were you surprised to find out
about some of the people involved in this museum?
‘Obviously Palmer -Edgecumbe went on the record to say that “no one cares more about women’s rights than I
do”, and that set the hares running. Women don’t like being patronised. It was a very arrogant thing to say. I think
the business side of [this] has been quite cleverly done, but the PR side has not been’.
[Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe] is also a member of the City of London Glassmaker’s Guild, so maybe if he has
commissioned someone from the Guild to make something for the museum. [Although this is impossible to prove
at this stage, it is interesting in the context of this comment to note the presence of a large stained glass window
in the basement ‘mortuary’ section of the museum.] If you are ambitious in the Corporation of London, [it
helps] to have a business near the Square Mile or in the Square Mile, so it’s quite possible that he has set up this
business to promote his interests within the Corporation’. (Jemima also claimed that Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe is
a Freemason, but again this has been impossible to verify).
One of the aims stated at the initial protest was to get a genuine women’s history museum in the area.
Does that intention predate this museum arriving?
‘Yes. Sarah Jackson and Sarah Hughes know Catherine Connolly who I arranged the protest with. I found out
about them through an article in Independent. I’m really proud to support that. We’re looking at doing a speed
history event in the next two to three weeks, and ask people for donations, because we don’t want to be seen to
be making money like the Ripper museum! It would need matched funding from the council or the Arts Council
etc, and the only problem is that with the situation at the moment, and the housing situation the Council haven’t
got any money themselves. But we shouldn’t just give up hope. That’s the long term goal, and it’s a more positive
thing to aim for. If you can’t shut this one down, we can at least aim for something better.’
Can you give us an idea of the difference between your group and Class War?
‘Quite a lot of people on our protest, while they are in sympathy with Class War don’t actually agree with
the way they go about things. One thing that’s very good about Class War is that they have a lot of working class
members, and it’s very difficult to get the press to report the voices of genuine, local, working class people. I
lined up interviews with locals with the Evening Standard and the East London Advertiser, but they didn’t report
them. I’m anxious that we don’t want this to seem like a very middle class protest. Class War see the police as the
protectors of property and the rich. Class War have got a whole feminist wing, and the Women’s Death Brigade,
and we have a lot of support for that. But the general Class War aim is anti capitalism and anti property, and
fighting the police. A lot of our members aren’t as comfortable with that’.
Whose idea was it to dress up for the first protest, and can you explain the choices involved?
‘It was my idea to have a visual parade or protest, partly because it’s more interesting for telly to film and
the press to photograph, but also because it’s more fun for people attending to get into the spirit of why we
were protesting. By dressing up as Match girls from Bow or as Suffragettes who also worked in the area, we were
attempting to remind people that there are other, equally valid, and more positive stories to tell about the
working class women of the East End, that don’t frame women as victims. We also wanted to celebrate their lives

and achievements in a visual way, because we felt robbed of the opportunity that the new museum was supposed
to provide.’
Do you have one particular question you would like to ask Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe if you had the
opportunity?
‘Yes, I would like to ask him how he thought he would honestly get away with it! No seriously, joking aside, I’d
like to ask him whether his plan to establish a business so near to the city is part of a game plan to promote his
vaunting ambitions for high office within the Corporation of London?’
If the museum closed tomorrow, would that be the end of the matter for you?
‘Well, clearly that would be a satisfying end to the matter for a while, but realistically speaking it would be a
pyrrhic, short-term victory because we’d have to take further steps to ensure that nothing else like this is foisted
on the East End as part of the spreading gentrification in this part of the borough. We would need to speak to the
Council about working on strengthening the ‘masterplan’ for the area, in particular looking at tightening up the
conservation for the nearby Wilton’s Music Hall, which this Museum falls into. I only discovered last week that the
museum falls into this conservation area, which makes it even more poignant and aggravating that local people
were denied their right to debate the plans before permission was granted by the Council.
It’s the collective responsibility of the local community to raise grievances if they feel strongly about a project
like this one. The tragedy in this instance is that they have been denied a chance to engage actively in the
planning process and to register their objections before permission was granted’.
A Member of Staff Speaks

A poignant counterpoint to the protests was expressed by a member of staff working in the shop after the Class
War protest following our interview with Jemima had disbanded. Leaving the shop, and visibly upset by having
been locked inside during the event after initially trying to engage the protestors, the man stated simply that ‘I
think they have got concerns yes. But I can’t do anything about that. I’m not the owner, he’s not in there but I
am. A lot of them seem to hate him because he’s rich. I tried to speak to one of them but they wouldn’t listen,
they just kept saying about how the museum is only here to make money. All these shops are here to make money,
what’s the difference? I get that they’re angry but why are they angry at me? I’m certainly not rich. I’m just trying
to do my job’.
You may well feel he is missing the point, but it should not be forgotten that there are human beings on both
sides of this issue.
A Look Inside
Ground Floor – Ticket Desk and Gift Shop

A small ticket desk and gift shop area with various pieces of museum merchandise. There are two large cabinets
containing glassware and chinaware, all displaying the museum logo. On display are several Ripper books and
DVDs (including Richard Whittington Egan’s Definitive Casebook, Russell Edwards’ Naming Jack the Ripper and the
recent DVD and book box set of Jack the Ripper Conspiracies and a reprinted book by ‘Melvyn’ Harris). There is
one copy of March, Women, March by Lucinda Hawksley very prominently displayed, almost as a token gesture.
Below this there are various small pieces of merchandise such as keyrings, coasters and stationary all displaying
the museum logo (some keyrings and coasters display the logo without the blood streak – suggesting that perhaps
the museum is removing this from their merchandise after the negative response). A giftshop would not be
complete without the chance to help advertise the attraction by paying for the privilege to wear their logo across
your chest (always a good marketing model), so naturally there are several designs of t-shirts to choose from,
displaying the museum logo or the now overdone “KEEP CALM” design, with a choice between “KEEP CALM I AM
A RIPPEROLOGIST” or “KEEP CALM I’VE BEEN TO THE JACK THE RIPPER MUSEUM LONDON” all in various colours.
From the clothing section you can also buy your very own top hat to recreate the famous silhouette of “Gentleman
Jack”. Finally, there is a wide selection of Jack the Ripper themed artwork for sale, all by the same artist (it

has been alleged that the artist in question is Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe’s partner but we have not been able to
independently verify this). Despite it’s tacky logo, the quality of the merchandise itself is well made and of high
standard. Some have compared it to the selection that was on offer at the former Jack the Ripper Store and called
it “Vistaprint merchandise”, but this seems to be of much higher quality and better thought out. Staff are friendly
and chatty and will let you store your bags, but the outside security staff are quite intimidating.
Basement – Mortuary
The stairs down to the basement have displays on the East End and poverty. The door to the mortuary display
has a warning sign on it. Inside is part tiled, part white-walled and has a strong smell of disinfectant and bleach
(this could be from the toilets on the same level or part of the display). There are mock mortuary drawers on the
wall and a red leather medical bed in the centre of the room, though this is closer to something you’d find visiting
a physiotherapist than in a Victorian mortuary. On the opposite wall as you enter is a backlit stained glass window
and dotted around the walls are lights with candle style polished metal backing, circled by framed displays of
victim photographs and brief biographical information. As a running theme with the rest of the museum it could
have been much worse, but loses some of its taste and respectability as the front sign screams out “Visit the
Morgue” proclaiming that you will see photos of dead people.
1st Floor – Mitre Square

As you approach you hear an audio recording and a strong smell of straw. The recording plays on a loop various
incidents such as pub doors opening and closing with singing inside, the clatter of a horse and cart, footsteps
and a woman screaming followed by masculine grunts and small feminine moans with cutting noises. The display
itself is of a brick-lined square scattered with piles of hay and sackcloth bags. In the corner opposite the door is
a mannequin of Catherine Eddowes with PC Watkins standing over her. There are no wounds on display and her
skirts are down. On the opposite side of the room in chalk on the brickwork is the Goulston Street Graffito and
(bizarrely) a graffitied Masonic symbol.
2nd Floor – Jack the Ripper’s Sitting Room

A well presented display of a middle class Victorian sitting room, if you had to furnish it with Jack the Ripper
stereotypes. Obviously inspired by the sitting room at the Sherlock Holmes museum, anything and everything that
could even be loosely related to the killer are on display - medical texts and surgical instruments, to sketches by
Sickert and Masonic ornaments.
3rd Floor – Police Station

The next floor is the incident room at “Whitechapel” Police Station. Littered around the room are various
display cases, wall displays and desks containing facsimile Ripper letters and police reports. Seated at the desk
is a mannequin representing Abberline. Curiously the calendar at his desk displays August 22nd, yet the papers
are all from October. Also on the desk is a photo of Lizzie Williams (wife of Dr John Williams) labelled Mary Jane
Kelly and the alleged photograph of Elizabeth Stride in life, since debunked by Daniel Olsson. In the far corner
in a display case are Edward Watkins’ possessions which recently went up for auction, including a police whistle
which, it has been pointed out, Watkins would not have possessed in 1888.
4th Floor – Victim’s Bedroom

Presented as a bedroom in a Common Lodging House, but obviously inspired by Mary Kelly’s room at 13 Miller’s
Court. This room is sparsely decorated, but much larger than it would have been. On the walls are the alleged
photos of the victims in life – we know for a fact one is of Lizzie Williams and the others are of real people too,
none of whom had anything to so with the Whitechapel murders. Imagine visiting this museum and recognising one
as being your grandmother or great grandmother and finding out the world has been told they were prostitutes!
Final Thoughts
Leaving aside any issues about the way in which the museum was founded, our primary reaction on visiting to

examine it was that we are not really sure who the museum is set up to attract. One thing should be acknowledged
first is that the building has been very sympathetically remodelled and the fixtures and fittings etc are indeed
impressively done. Clearly, the owners have employed someone with a keen eye for design. However, it may
simply be that the property is too small for anything approaching a true definition of a museum, and that the
project, in terms of content, is suffering from a sense of over-ambition. Once the current influx of visitors due
to novelty factor and press attention has died down, we wonder how long it will last. We certainly can’t imagine
too many repeat visitors, as while a great deal of effort has gone into what exhibits there are, they are very
few in number. The majority of the exhibits are also large and no doubt expensive, and many of them could also
be considered ‘site specific’, in that the rooms on which they are located have been painstakingly designed to
match their content. It is difficult therefore to imagine that the content can be significantly changed in order to
offer returning customers a new experience. There simply isn’t room, especially if there remains an intention to
supplement the current content with exhibits focusing on the history and achievements of East End women.
Apart perhaps from viewing Edward Watkins’ items, those with a knowledge of the case will likely leave
frustrated that the museum offers nothing that isn’t found in the early pages of the first chapter of many books
on their shelves. The casually interested visitor will, we feel, leave confused - where was Whitechapel Police
Station? Was Miller’s Court a lodging house? Has the Masonic angle been disproved? What were the dates of the
murders and the various letters (in the ‘police station’ room, a calendar on Inspector Abberline’s desk shows a
date of August 22, on a desk also showing copies of the Dear Boss and Lusk letters, and details of all the murders
up to an including Mary Kelly)? Why are people saying there are no photos of victims in life other than Annie
Chapman when they have been shown what purported to be such? Further research inspired by a visit could, in
those circumstances, prove very frustrating, and may even lead the visitor to question whether they have paid to
visit a museum that pays little regard to facts. For a £12 standard entry charge, that is disappointing.
Does the world need a Jack the Ripper museum? It is an interesting and divisive debate. Had the museum’s
owners gone about things differently, it is possible that the debate could be held in a less politicised atmosphere.
But even if we accept the premise that such a museum could be beneficial, this feels like a missed opportunity.
We all know how complex this case is, and we’re certainly not suggesting that a museum aimed at the general
public should examine the minutiae of all the issues in the manner of a 500-page plus specialist book. However,
given the stated aim of museums to ‘inform, educate and inspire’, there must surely be a middle ground with
some regard for clarity and historical accuracy. This is what the Museum of London do so well, amongst others.
Perhaps unfortunately, the museum in its current state is more akin to a 15 page pamphlet, and a badly researched
one at that.
Acknowledgements
A number of people have been invaluable in the preparation of this article, and we are extremely grateful to
all of them. Special thanks should go to Neil Bell, John Bennett, Laura Bennett, Jemima Broadbridge, Russell
Edwards, Philip Hutchinson and Mark Ripper. Also to Paul Begg, Adam Wood and all the team at Ripperologist for
their encouragement, advice, and above all patience!
TREVOR BOND (left) is a writer and researcher, born in South London to an East End family. In the past
he has written for Casebook Examiner, and contributed to the commemorative London Job 2010 and
London Job 2011 books. He spoke at the 2010, 2012 and 2014 Jack the Ripper conferences, including
on John McCarthy in Salisbury last November. He is also engaged in co-authoring The A–Z of Victorian
Crime, to be published in 2016 by Amberley. In real life, he works as an Intensive Care Nurse.
JON REES (right) is from Swansea, Wales and has been interested in the case for over ten years. He holds
an MSc in Forensic Psychology and Criminology and at the 2013 Jack the Ripper Conference spoke on
the psychology of eyewitness testimony. He is a moderator for jtrforums.com, a frequent contributor
to www.spookyisles.com. Outside Ripperology he works in IT, is involved in Scouting, amateur dramatics
and is a town crier.

Jack is a
Feminist Issue
By KATE BRADSHAW
Jack the Ripper and Feminism, they don’t seem to be natural allies do they? Recent events
would seem to suggest that, in fact, the only relationship between the two is a hostile one. I don’t
believe that this is the case however. I believe that there is a very real distinction between true
study of the Ripper case and the sort of exploitative business endeavours which usually incur the
wrath of feminist groups. And it’s a wrath I sympathise with.
Look at the preponderance of Ripper Merchandise and what you will see is a glamorised character, a folk myth
in a top hat often pictured with 1950s pinup girl glamourous victims. The history of the Ripper in the media seems
to back this idea up. Jack the Myth, Jack the nursery rhyme villain, Jack the subject of a musical which promised
“scenes of fun, terror, song and dance”. To mythologise the Ripper in such a way is, in my opinion, an affront to
the women he killed, but it remains the public face of Jack. The question remains, is there something inherently
misogynistic about having an interest in Jack the Ripper?
I call myself a feminist historian although in truth I didn’t take a feminist degree, I am not Kate Bradshaw BA
Fem and I am not employed as a feminist teacher. I use this term because I have a special interest in the history
of women.
So, what is feminist history? There are lots of disciplines in history, you
may for example be a military historian focusing on battles and military
leaders or a Marxist historian focusing on the role of class and class struggle
in shaping society. Although I have a very broad interest in history I have
certainly developed an interest in finding out the hidden stories of the part
played by women in key historical events. As there are many overlapping
feminist movements and ideologies that have developed over the years it is
difficult to come to a single definition.
For the sake of this article, I would like to clarify what my reading of what
historical feminism is in this context: ‘Feminist History is the study of history
from a female perspective and is a movement to promote women’s place in
History, by ensuring equality of representation’.
So, does History now become ‘Herstory’, as one commenter on a Jack the
Ripper webpage asked me? No. Although a clever play on words, History as a
pure discipline is not gender specific; it is the historian who specialises. That
being said, you may ask why so much written history tends to concentrate on
men in a way that would have you believing women were a modern invention.
This is simply because history has tended to focus on the lives of the rich and
of the exploits of Kings and Leaders. Think back to the women of the past
who we remember: Elizabeth I perhaps, Cleopatra, even our own dear Queen Queen Victoria
Victoria, and what we are really seeing are women who took on roles meant
for men. Scratch the surface, however, and history is teeming with women whose stories have been forgotten by
the multitude. As a teacher of History, a woman and a feminist I try to ensure that the role women played in the
topics we studied is remembered.

So, where did feminism come from, and how does it fit within history if so much of
what is studied focuses on men? You may be forgiven for thinking that feminism sprang
up in the 1960s with burning bras and the ‘Feminine Mystique’, but its history begins
well before that.
The term ‘Feminisme’ was coined by Charles Fourier, a Utopian Socialist and French
philosopher in 1837 and entered in to the OED in 1852. This was not the first time,
however, that what can be recognised as a feminist movement had been seen. Women
made up a significant part of the Leveler movement during the 17th century, which
wanted to see the equaling of society for all. In 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A
Vindication of the Rights of Woman, one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy.
In the early 19th century, female Chartists had campaigned for the extension of the
franchise to women, long before the Suffragists and Suffragettes.
This means that by the time the Whitechapel murders began, there was a well-
established feminist movement. The consideration of how feminist history and Jack
the Ripper are linked has to be considered the same way that all events of historical
significance are, by asking some key questions: What was the situation at the time of
the events? Did people at the time see a link? Has that link lasted through time? Do we
still think the link is important now and are the issues raised by that link still important
for us today?
Charles Fourier
With that in mind, the place to begin our consideration of Jack as a feminist issue
has to be with contemporary attitudes, firstly to women in general, and then specifically to the case.
The ideal Victorian woman was pure, modest and chaste. She didn’t even discuss undergarments, let alone the
totally taboo subject of sex. Even when riding a horse a woman was not allowed to ride as a man lest the action
awaken in her sexual desire or tear the hymen - in effect taking away her ability to prove she was a virgin upon
marriage. Women were expected to have just one sexual partner in their husband, while men, on the other hand,
were expected to sew their wild oats sometimes through the practice of ‘slumming’ in places like the East End.
Victorian literature is filled with stories of ‘fallen’ women who, in many cases, had only acted in a manner that
was acceptable for a man. This was beautifully exemplified in Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy when
Tess, in response to her new husband’s admission that he had engaged in a sexual relationship with a women,
confesses that through rape at the hands of her employer she was not actually a virgin. Her husband breaks off the
relationship and leaves Tess, leading to events that will bring about her downfall. It is probably the most unjust
aspect of the double standard that the very ideal of womanhood which turned wives into chaste angels in the
home turned other women into society's most hated and reviled.
In the late Victorian period feminists had a number of causes to fight. The world had been changing for women,
as laws on marriage and education meant that many had a growing sense of independence. For many feminists
however there was one cause which remained the most important one if women were to stand any chance of
gaining equal status with men, and that was the downfall of the Double Standard. When we talk about the double
standard, we mean social attitudes which afforded men greater freedoms, particularly in terms of sex and sexual
conduct than women. Feminists had been very busy towards the latter part of the 19th century trying to create a
more equal playing field, particularly for women who were judged to have ‘fallen’. Feminists attacked prostitution
and pornography as manifestations of male lust and fought against the state regulation of prostitution. They were
also active in opposing and calling for the repeal of the ‘Contagious Diseases Acts’ of the 1860s. These laws allowed
women to be stopped and searched in garrison or naval towns for venereal disease, an act that was seen by many
as humiliating and described by some as being ‘like a rape’. Many at the time were shocked to see middle class
women speaking out so openly on a subject which was considered completely taboo by polite society. Members of
parliament were so shocked by this new opposition that one remarked to the leader of the feminist repeal group,
Josephine Butler, that they had no idea how to tackle it. Many feminist groups saw prostitution as being the end
result of the constraints placed on women’s social and economic activities. Prostitutes were viewed as survivors,
and always described as ‘Mothers and Sisters’ before anything else. It was in this atmosphere that the exposé by
William Stead, Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon, published in 1885, had brought the attention of the nation to
the plight of child prostitutes and thrown a spotlight on the true extent of the sex trade. Feminists such as Butler

saw this as being proof that the world needed to look again at what
was driving so many poor women into selling themselves or even their
daughters. This piece of investigative journalism, however, prompted
a movement against non-marital, non-reproductive sexuality. Far from
improving the situation of women forced in to prostitution, most of the
press chose to turn against the very people who had, for a short time,
been the object of their pity and concern.
By the time the press began to link the murderous attacks on women
in the East End there was a general feeling that such women had given
up the right to have the world pity them. Even radical papers such as
The Star described prostitutes as ‘Unsexed’, ‘Dehumanized’ ‘Creatures’
who had ‘Violated their womanhood for the price of a night’s lodging’.
Canon Barnett, one of the founder members of Toynbee Hall and a
reformer, was to comment that the lives of the women being targeted
were actually more disgusting than their murders. The overwhelming
attitude of the press was that the victims had been responsible for
their deaths by virtue of their way of life, an attitude which persists
amongst some today. The Daily Telegraph commented that the
victims were ‘all married and had lived apart from their husbands in
consequence of intemperate habits’. The writer went on to say ‘these
drunken, vicious, miserable wretches, whom it was almost a charity
to relieve of the penalty of existence, were not very particular about
how they earned a living’. To feminists this attack on the victims was
too much to bear and many voiced their outrage in letters to the press.
Josephine Butler
Attitudes seemed to have softened somewhat over the course of the
Autumn of Terror, and by the time press reports were published of the funeral cortege of Mary Kelly as it passed
through the streets from the mortuary in Shoreditch where her mutilated remains had lain to its final destination
at the Roman Catholic Cemetery in Leytonstone, public opinion seems to have become more sympathetic. The
crowds which lined the streets were visibly moved by the horrific death she had endured, and large groups of
women came out to support a sister. What is interesting is how the vocal outpourings of these women still focused
on the victim’s crime and not that of her killer. The most common phrase heard was ‘God forgive her’. Now, I
know that Mary was a sinner and that, in line with the teachings of her faith, she had died without receiving
extreme unction, but it is hard to imagine what, seeing this pitiful procession, people could imagine Mary needed
to be forgiven for. The answer of course lies in the Double Standard which, despite the work of feminists over the
previous few years, was still very much a feature of Victorian society.
Many feminists were affronted by the attitudes of the press towards the victims of the ‘Whitechapel Fiend’ and
expressed this by writing to editors about their disgust. There is also plenty of evidence of women commenting
in the press on their ideas surrounding the motivation of the killer and the nature of the case. Feminists saw the
opportunity to relate it to one of their long standing campaigns about violence against women. A campaign had
been waged in the press to highlight the common practice of wife beating. Many male journalists and editors wrote
pieces that sympathised with women, and pointed out that in many cases following a successful prosecution, while
the man was being fed and watered at her Majesty’s pleasure his wife and children were often left destitute.
The tone in provincial newspapers was less sympathetic, however, and often written in a way as to be amusing
to the reader, with women portrayed as old fashioned scolds and nags. Many feminists wrote to the press to
highlight the link between the Ripper case and their campaign. Florence Fenwick Miller, writing to the Daily News,
identified the killings as not just murder but as ‘women killings’, and pointed out that they were part of a culture
of cruelty to women which was treated leniently by judges. This chimed with the opinions of Dr Kate Mitchell,
who wrote about the case of James Henderson who had been taken to trial for severely beating a prostitute only
to be let off with a fine. In the publicity surrounding the murders, feminists hoped to find a cause on which to
hitch their banner. As Feminist historian Judith Walkowitz has observed, media coverage of the murders was to
‘take up the themes and narratives of female reformers but were to package them in a way that was palatable
to a male audience’.

Women responded to the murders in different ways, usually according to their social status. Queen Victoria
herself was said to have taken an interest in the case long before official records suggests, and many women of
the upper classes gathered together in groups to discuss the latest salacious accounts in the press.
On a more practical level, the writer and social reformer Frances Power Cobbe suggested that female detectives
be employed to try and catch the killer, an idea which was met with horror. Others, including the reformer
Josephine Butler who related the case to her earlier campaigns, became concerned that the reactionary idea of
closing brothels would lead, in fact, to homelessness for many women and actually throw further victims into the
path of the killer. In both the East and West Ends women began to organize into groups to allow greater protection
whilst on the streets. Many began to arm themselves against attacks. It is interesting to note that the discrepancy
some feel in the weapon that killed Elizabeth Stride has been explained by some as being because the killer used
her own knife.
Many believe that this heightened awareness amongst women was to contribute to the fact that there were no
killings during October, and that when the killer did strike again he chose a victim with a room for them to go to.
Many feminists related the case to their belief that it was men’s lustful natures that were to blame for women’s
suffering, and said that the Ripper was simply an extreme version of ‘The Evil that Men do’.
As with many of the issues highlighted by the Ripper case, the interest was to wane as the headlines diminished.
My dissertation focused on the work of the charities in the East End and aimed to assess if the murders had an
impact on charitable giving. What I found was that whilst the murders remained in the headlines, charitable
giving increased as did support for the work of groups such as the Salvation Army. Once coverage of the murders
diminished, however, so too did the interest. Feminists soon had other issues to focus on as the campaign for
women’s suffrage really took off with the formation of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. For
many, there was a belief that the issues raised by the murders would be solved once women had the vote.
That is not to say however that women lost interest in the case. In 1891 the Irish-born Canadian journalist
Kathleen ‘Kit’ Coleman visited Whitechapel as part of one of her trips to London as a travel writer. Coleman
had become a writer after the break down of her marriage to Edward J Watkins and had worked for the Toronto
Daily Mail, writing a column called ‘Woman’s Kingdom’ which made her the first woman to be in charge of her
own section of a Canadian newspaper. Coleman rebelled against her editors’ assumptions that women were only
interested in subjects such as housekeeping and fashion, and insisted on writing about other things she believed
would interest them such as politics, business, religion and science. Her
columns also covered topics such as social reform and women’s issues,
examining controversies like domestic violence and the poor working
conditions women endured.
Notwithstanding her own pioneering work as a journalist in an
overwhelmingly male profession, as well as her activist writing on many
women’s rights topics, Coleman did not publicly endorse feminism and
women’s suffrage until 1910. This can be taken as meaning that her
interest in the case did not arise from a feminist point of view, but I would
argue that a real understanding of the movement was not to become
commonplace until around that time when many such female pioneers
recognised that they were striving for a common cause.
As part of her trip to London, Kit ventured out in to the East End and
visited the room where Mary Jane Kelly had died. There, she spoke with its
current occupant, a women called Lottie who, Coleman noted, presented
the evidence that violence against women was alive and well three years
after the murders as she found it difficult to talk having been kicked in the
face by her husband. Coleman related that the bloodstained room bore
witness to the horrific death of its most famous inhabitant. In keeping with
the practices of journalists of the time, it is likely that Coleman offered
Lottie some remuneration for telling her everything she knew about the
case, and Lottie was not to disappoint. She claimed, for example, to have
known Mary, and even stated that she had been told by Kelly that she Kathleen 'Kit' Coleman

was avoiding going on to the streets because she had dreamt that a man would kill her. She also stated that she
had heard Mary singing ‘Only the violet plucked from my mother’s grave’ on the night of her death. There was
a market for this story, and having built up such a following amongst the women of Canada, Coleman clearly
expected them to take an interest.
It is worth remembering at this point that the Whitechapel Murders were still an active story, as Kit’s visit came
just a few months after the murder of Frances Coles in February of the same year. Should we accuse Coleman
then of being misogynistic in her interest in the case? No. Her interest clearly mirrored her belief that discussing
such issues would in fact help women, be it through exposing the conditions many were forced to live with or by
encouraging women to seek interests outside those prescribed by society.
Another example that women retained an interest in the case was demonstrated by the discovery of the
Dutfield’s Yard photograph in 2007 by Philip Hutchinson. The photograph, which is the only one to show a clear
view of the murder scene of Elizabeth Stride, caused great excitement when it was published in Philip’s book The
Jack the Ripper Location Photographs. Philip had acquired the picture when he bought a photo album from eBay.
He has since done excellent work in trying to identify the photographer, although this has proved to be almost
as difficult as identifying the Ripper himself. What we do know is that the photographer was a woman. Alongside
the sort of pictures you would expect to find in a well-to-do lady’s tour of Europe was one photograph that
purported to be of Dutfield’s Yard. I find it fascinating to think that the photographer most likely travelled to the
spot purposely to take the photograph. Philip has dated the picture to roughly 1903, 15 years after the canonical
victims' murders. What is clear is that the murders remained a source of fascination for women, and so you could
argue that women made up some of the earliest Ripperologists.
The Ripper case may have gradually vanished from the newspapers but the issues it had highlighted did not.
The 20th century witnessed the biggest changes in society ever seen, and many of these changes were to relate
to women. From gaining the vote in 1918 to gaining reproductive rights in the 1960s, the century saw many of the
concerns of 19th century Feminists being met, to be replaced by new concerns and campaigns. The first couple
of decades of the 20th century also saw improved access to education and a greater representation of women in
the arts.
As the century progressed devastating wars were to allow women access to opportunities previously held as
sacred to men. The part played, for example, by women in breaking the Enigma code, the brave work of female
Special Operation Executive operatives and the sterling work of the Women’s Land Army were to advance women
in a way that may have taken decades without the intervention of war.
There were still some issues which were to endure, however, one of
which was our old friend, the Double Standard. Where soldiers on leave
were free to make the most of their time by seeking the comfort of women,
women were still being demonised for wanting to allow their loved ones
that, possibly last, request. Visits to brothels and street prostitutes were
high and so were cases of sexually transmitted diseases. The armed forces
ran campaigns warning of the dangers of VD and there is anecdotal evidence
to suggest that the race to produce penicillin in high quantities was in part
down to the volume of men presenting with the clap.
The 1940s even had its own series of Ripper murders when Gordon
Frederick Cummins, The ‘Blackout Ripper’, murdered between four and six
women in 1941 and ‘42. Feminists were largely focused on supporting the
war effort at this time and there seems to have been little comment in the
press.
Communities still frowned upon women who became pregnant out of
wedlock. If a man was to die leaving behind a pregnant girlfriend or even
a fiancé, they were not afforded the same status of wives, meaning many
were forced into poverty. I was to discover on the death of a much-loved
great aunt that the reason my grandfather had always been a bit reluctant
to visit her was because she had given birth to the child of her sweetheart,
a pilot who was shot down and killed. The child had been given up for
adoption and never spoken of again.
Although this middle part of the 20th century may not offer us much in the
way of Ripper-specific commentary on the case by women, it does show that
their interest in crime was certainly evident. Ask people who the greatest
crime writer of the 20th century was and I am sure most people would say
Agatha Christie. She is not alone in this genre, however, and contemporaries
such as Dorothy L Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham as well as more
recent writer such as P D James, Ruth Rendell and Lynda La Plante show that
women have an aptitude for crime writing. In the field of True Crime the
recently-departed Anne Rule was one of the foremost authors in that genre,
which begs the question why there are not more books written on the Ripper
by female authors. I would like to come back to that point in a moment.
Moving forward, it would be foolish to start debating whether links between
feminism and the Ripper had lasted through time without recognising that
feminism itself was to change somewhat. Clearly by the 1960s campaigns such
as the fight for the vote has been solved, and as we have seen, women’s access
to education and careers had improved, so the focus was to change. This
‘Second Wave’ of feminism was concerned with fighting to end discrimination
based on gender, allow access to contraception and abortion, and putting an
end to what was seen as institutionalised sexism in the media. Thus it was
that by the 1970s feminism was a hot topic again in the press, as it had been
Agatha Christie
in the 1880s. It was in this atmosphere that Britain was to be plunged into a
new Autumn of Terror, only this time it was to last six years and extend beyond the prostitute community.
Peter Sutcliffe, later to be given the name the Yorkshire Ripper, attacked women on the streets of Yorkshire and
Manchester during the 1970s and early ‘80s. The response to his crimes by feminists was very similar to that of
1888. This time, however, Reclaim the Night marches attempted to redress the standard response of ‘get women
off the streets’ with ‘make the streets safe for women’. A colleague of mine who was working in Sheffield at the
time told me about a conversation she had had with a policeman. He had advised her not to be out alone after
dark in case she encountered the murderer. Her response was to ask why it was she who was being advised to be
off the streets when the killer wasn’t a woman. Surely it should be men being told to keep off the streets until
the killer was caught? The old theme of victim-blaming was still alive and well.
It is interesting to note that the tone of articles about the killer and his victims at first seemed to follow the
same pattern of the press of 1888, choosing to focus on what journalists saw as the misdemeanours of the victims
rather than the social conditions which were forcing them on to the streets. This was to change drastically
upon the murder of Jayne Macdonald, the Yorkshire Ripper’s first acknowledged non-prostitute victim. Following
on from events in Yorkshire various groups joined together in a national campaign to put across the message
that ‘violence against women was commonplace and condoned by current attitudes, bolstered by the law.’ The
parallels here to letters written by feminists to the press in 1888 are striking. The late 1970s and early ‘80s had
seen a number of high profile cases of serial attacks on women, such as the Cambridge Rapist. In the same period
the relaxation of censorship laws had seen an increase in sexually violent films which seemed, to many in the
feminist community, to signal that once again violence against women was an acceptable part of society.
It was around the same time, coincidentally, that preparations for marking the centenary of the Jack the Ripper
murders were to begin. One of the earliest events was the renaming of the Ten Bells. In April of 1975 the pub was
relaunched as the ‘Jack the Ripper’, complete with Ripper-based merchandise such as beer mats and pint classes
bearing the classic image of the top-hatted killer and even a drink called the ‘Ripper Tipple’. As any enthusiast of
the case at the time will attest, if this was intended to bring in increased revenue to the pub, it certainly wasn’t
spent on refurbishing the toilets. Interestingly, there seems to have been little opposition to the name change at
the time; we certainly didn’t see protests outside the pub like the most recent Ripper venture attracted.
It seems clear that the increasing publicity surrounding the Yorkshire Ripper case was to bring a renewed
attention to the Whitechapel murders and with it a new consideration of the case by feminists. This in turn seems
to have brought about a sense that to be interested in the case was to approve of such ventures.

As the 1970s progressed, further links between the stories of the two Rippers were to appear, with the ‘Wearside
Jack’ letters - which seemed to directly style themselves on the infamous Dear Boss letters - and the apparent
inability of the police to catch the killer. It is understandable therefore that the renewed attention to the killings
of 1888 was to jar with many who saw it as at best insensitive.
In the lead up to the autumn of 1988, a slew of new Ripper-based books were published. Some of the works
were accused of preferring to titillate readers with stories of blood and gore, which many felt devalued the
victims and capitalised on their deaths. As if to confirm this, a computer game was released, complete with
graphic depictions of mutilated women. Interestingly, the game had actually been released by a group of women,
although this doesn’t take away from or in any way differentiate this from any other venture.
Feminist writers began to respond to what they saw as the exploitation of poor women for entertainment.
Groups such as Women Against Violence Against Women mobilised in an outright attack on the Jack the Ripper
pub, petitioning, successfully, to the brewery to have the old name returned. The group focused on the fact that
violence against women could be packaged up and sold as a tourist attraction. Jane Caputi’s work The Age of the
Sex Crime prompted Deborah Cameron to write in the Guardian that the publicity surrounding the case was to
allow men to act out their brutal sexual fantasies. Out of this concern came the group Action against the Ripper
Centenary. This group believed that the sanitation of the Ripper murders meant that the very real danger women
faced in being attacked on the streets, a very recent fact, was being downplayed. I have even seen some people
comment on Ripper boards that the killer somehow did these women a favour because if it wasn’t for their deaths
they would have melted into obscurity. This possibly says more about today’s celebrity obsessed culture than it
does about attitudes to women.
AARC had four main aims;
* To draw public attention to the continuity between
the acts of Jack the Ripper and the male sexual
violence still going on now.
* To protest against all events or entertainments which
trivialise or glamourise sexual murder.
* To stop the media sensationalising and glorifying
violent crimes against women.
* To commemorate the women murdered by Jack the
Ripper, and all other women killed or damaged by
male sexual violence.
The last point especially is one that all true students
of the case can relate to, and to me this is why the
relationship between feminist history and Jack the Ripper
does not need to be one that is automatically hostile. In
most cases, I have found the frustration of feminists seems
to come from the media’s handling of Ripper stories. Take,
for example, the response to the release of photographs
of Nichols, Chapman and Stride in 1988; some saw this
as an opportunity to focus the interest generated by the
centenary back on to the victims and their stories rather
than on the killer as some sort of Vaudevillian baddie in
a top hat. The press didn’t see it this way, however, and
published the pictures alongside headlines such as ‘New
light on the Ripper?’ The pictures may have humanised the
victims by showing their reality rather than the Barbara
Courtesy John Bennett Windsor style chirpy cockney streetwalker; we saw them
for what they were, middle-aged women who had seen
hard lives. The centenary passed and the media storm surrounding its marking slowly died away, and with it the
high-profile campaigns of feminists.

Since the centenary, the relationship between feminists and Jack the Ripper was more remote. For the most
part, the subject had become the focus of university dissertations and occasional articles in feminist journals by
writers such as Judith Walkowitz. More recently, Kate Englehart writing in The New Republic was to comment on
that most public of Ripper enterprises, the Ripper walking tour, in a most critical fashion. We all know that the
Jack the Ripper tour in its many guises has been a feature of the East End for a number of years. It is undoubtedly
the case that the number of tours has increased in recent years, which has resulted in them becoming more
recognisable and in turn they have attracted the attention of feminist groups. Criticism has been hurled at
the tours for showing mortuary pictures and for going into detail about mutilations, with some seeing this as a
continuation of the exploitation of the victims. I have even read that tour guides have been recorded as making
disparaging comments about the looks of the victims. The sad fact is that while there are some excellent tour
guides, there are some who choose to focus not on what the murders can tell us about Victorian society and the
people who lived in it, but on the gory, crowd pleasing details.
Kate Englehart went on to assert that Ripperology was inherently misogynistic and that the field gave little
importance or focus to the lives of the victims, choosing instead to 'pontificate at length about who Jack was and
why he killed.’ This is one area where I differ in my views to some Feminist writers. Englehart is not alone in her
views: A P Wolf also described all Ripper studies as pornographic, which led some to make the assumption that he
was a woman and a feminist.
This raises the interesting fact that contrary to what some may think, you do not have to be a woman to be a
feminist. Spend time really researching the case and the work done on it, and you will of course find that this is
not the truth. The key works by Rumbelow, Fido, Begg, Skinner et al, as well as Chris Scott’s book on Mary Kelly,
Neal Shelden’s excellent work researching the lives of the victims and John Bennett’s Ripperologist articles on
the centenary of the killings and recent book on the forgotten victims prove that true Ripperology is very much
concerned with lives of these women and the conditions in which they lived.
One of Englehart’s other assertions, however, does seem to stand up to greater scrutiny. She made the point
that the majority of Ripperologists are men and cited articles in Ripperologist as proof of this. Consider your
own bookshelves, which I am sure are groaning under the weight of Ripper-based books and you will see that the
vast majority have been written by men. Consider Ripper conferences stretching back to the late 1990s and you
will see that the number of men speaking far outweighs the number of women. I was intrigued as to why this
was, when my experience was that there certainly were women who, like myself, had a genuine interest in the
case. The issue has been considered on websites such as casebook.org and JTRForums.com with some interesting
responses. Some said that they believed a lot of it had to do with the old story that constraints placed on women
due to families etc didn’t allow them the time or freedoms to attend meetings or spend long hours researching.
Some said that they felt that Ripperology was something of a boys’ club and that as a woman it was harder to get
your voice heard. What I found really interesting was the number who said that they had been put off by the very
reputation for misogyny that is expounded by the likes of Kate Englehart. Melanie Clegg, writer, blogger and one
of the small number of female speakers at Ripper conferences, was attacked online for her interest in the case
and accused of being misogynistic in her interests. Now those of you who have met Melanie will know that this
was not likely to scare her into silence and her response to this charge echoes my own feeling. She said ‘I don’t
believe that, done properly, Ripperology is intrinsically "unfeminist" or women hating or misogynistic or using
murder victims as some sort of bizarre historical snuff porn’. The key words here are ‘done properly’.
This leads me neatly to the second of the two key changes that have happened recently to bring the issue of
Jack and Feminism back together, the opening of the Jack the Ripper museum in Cable Street.
The big question is why did this latest Ripper venture provoke such a reaction? The London Dungeon’s section
on the Ripper prompted similar protests in 1988, with many being critical of its model of a murdered woman, so
it was unlikely that this latest venture was to go by uncommented on.
But why was the reaction so strong? The answer of course lies in the fact that the museum had originally been
proposed as a museum of women’s history, focusing on events such as the Suffragettes and the Match Girls Strikes
which had links to the local area. Many welcomed the introduction of a museum which might go some way to
filling the gap in representation of women in history mentioned earlier. Of course, we all know that this was not to
be the case. Over time, the focus changed from being the women of east London, with a reference to the victims
of the Ripper and the Ripper himself. Before it had opened the press, the architects commissioned to undertake

the renovations and many feminists groups denounced it as a shrine to misogyny. I think we can all see why such a
change in the purpose of the museum would be like a red rag to a bull for many feminists and this, in my opinion,
explains why so many took to the streets to protest.
Here I would like to differentiate between feminist groups who protest legally outside the museum and those
who have chosen to smash windows. These so-called ‘radical feminists’ come from the same group who targeted
John Lewis during anti-capitalist marches. I have never been a smashing-windows type, although I have attended
a number of other protests about issues I feel passionately about and so I do feel that the peaceful protests
were justified. Perhaps this new museum could, if done properly, prove to be an ally. Surely, I thought, given the
original remit of the museum there would be a focus on the women of the East End, a promotion perhaps of the
victims from being a story to being the story. Sadly, this does not appear to have been the case. The museum
has even exhibited pictures of the victims which the most rudimentary research would have shown were false.
The other exhibits make a cursory mention of policing in London and speculate as to what Jack the Ripper’s
lodgings may have looked like. The Museums Association has gone so far as to state that the title ‘Museum’ is, in
fact, inaccurate and the collection at Cable Street should be viewed as a tourist attraction. The Museum seems
to confirm to the world at large that Ripperology clings to the old idea of mythologizing the killer and confirms
the idea that violence against women is acceptable and in fact marketable. The writer Philip Jenkins said that
feminists were able to use the case of Jack the Ripper to indict the whole structure of government and the media
in a patriarchal society, and in this instance some could argue they were right.
What is interesting is the response that the protests themselves received. The press largely sided with the
protesters, trotting out the usual charges that interest in the case was for weirdos, and in particular men.
Within the Ripper community there was a typically divided response. To me, there was a very clear difference
between people who have a long-standing reputation in the field and newer members of Jack the Ripper sites
on, for example, Facebook. For the most part, news of the opening of the museum was received sceptically and
sometimes with hostility amongst the former group, with many seeming to feel that this latest move would further
damage the reputation of Ripperology as an historical discipline.
The latter, however, seemed to revel in playing right into the hands of the radical feminists. Descriptions of
the protestors as ‘lezzers’ or ‘crumpet’ may seem to the people who made them to be ‘banter’ – how I hate that
word - but were in truth idiotic and totally out of place with the feelings of the field as a whole. In my opinion,
Ripperology will never shake off its misogynistic image while people who publish books on the subject or work for
Ripper-related businesses continue to use such language. With more people joining pages on Facebook and signing
up to websites we must be careful to be seen to condemn anything which lowers the tone of any discussion to that
of a teenage boys’ changing room.
So, is Jack a feminist issue? Well yes, clearly it is. Does this mean that an interest in the case is inherently
misogynistic and anti-feminist? No. I think what leads people to believe that is a misunderstanding of what
true Ripperology is and the contributions it can make to an understanding of the position of women in the late
Victorian period.
The truth is, however, that while money continues to be made in the exploitation of the more gruesome aspects
of the case and the focus of the media remains on the ‘who done it’ story, this will always lead feminists to argue
that the really important story, that of the women, their lives, their struggles and their place in society is lost.
*****
This is an edited version of Kate's lecture at the recent Jack the Ripper conference.
KATE BRADSHAW completed her Degree in History with a dissertation on the impact of the Whitechapel
Murders on charities in the East End, Her interest moved from the classic ‘whodunit’ to the wider issues
including the plight of the people of the East End, in particular the women who were often forced into
casual prostitution. Kate currently makes a living as a secondary school teacher in East Yorkshire. The Jack
the Ripper case had a positive impact on her life when she met her husband to be, Nathen Amin, at the 2010
Conference.

Jack Be Nimble,
Jack Be Quick
A Casual Inquiry into the Theory, Practice
- and Identity - of the Ripper
By STEPHEN HUNTER
Who was Jack the Ripper?

I don’t know.
Nobody knows. Two of the best known theories, which claim to be based on forensic science involving DNA (Russell
Edwards and Patricia Cornwell), are baseless. They disappear into nothingness under the gentlest of scrutiny. That
leaves hundreds of prose essays and books, based on sources, primary or secondary, as forced through a process of
applied deduction.
Here’s another one, and perhaps it’s just as much an epistemological con job of cherry picked facts arranged along a
bias axis as any of them. It represents even less an effort than Edwards’s or Cornwell’s. I have made no new discoveries,
I have done no interviews, I have only traveled to Whitechapel for a week where I took a Jack the Ripper tour and found
it as banal as any tourist attraction. I’ve had too much beer in the Ten Bells, stood in the vestry at St Botolph’s, the
prostitute’s church, I’ve been to all the murder sites – well, I didn’t make it to Polly’s, because it was too far away from
the hotel and I am no longer young. It didn’t seem worth it on the last day, as the other four were but dreary pieces of
unmarked real estate in a decaying section of London that looked far more like Islamabad than any British city. Polly’s
promised but more of same.
In the end, my theory does little but look at and reorganize some classic Jack materials and it is perhaps illuminated
here and there by new insights into methods and means. I think it’s a great theory and I will say in its defense it not only
identifies a suspect (albeit a well-known one) but it eliminates the other suspects. Additionally, it doesn’t turn on some
penny-dreadful Freudian reading of someone’s psychology. He hated his mum, his da whipped him, he was a sex-deviate
from seeing his older sis doing it with the blacksmith in the barn. None of that. I have no idea and not nearly enough
imagination to conjure a “motive.” My theory is based entirely on suppositions that follow from what was observable
about the crimes themselves. It’s all drawn from evidence, not bogus insights into the unconscious. In the end, I believe,
it proves – at least in the circumstantial sense – that only one man could have and did do the five Whitechapel killings.
First principles. Simplicity. Of each particular thing ask, what is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this
man that we seek? Thus: What is the First Thing about Jack? What made Jack Jack? What was the essence of Jack?
It wasn’t that he killed five prostitutes or even five women. That had been done before and after and no sordid
citation is necessary. It wasn’t that London, in 1888 the world’s greatest newspaper town with over 50 dailies, boasted
a literate, sensation-hungry population of over 5 million and thus a pool of hungry readers eager for titillation and
stimulation, whose maw the press barons fed every morning and night. It wasn’t that someone, though probably not
Jack, came up with one of the best brand names in history in “Jack the Ripper,” an onomatopoeic identifier that
penetrated straight to the subconscious like a dart and there struck and stuck forever. (That was Jack’s best career
move.) It wasn’t the sheer barbarism of what was done to four of the five bodies, bringing to the most civilized city on
earth the lurid imagery seen before only on battlefields and torture chambers. It wasn’t that in the end, he disappeared,
leaving writers high and low, geniuses and charlatans and screwballs and hacks, to write their own endings, however
apposite or inapposite to the set-up.
It was none of those things, in exactly the same way it was all of them, forming a perfect storm of media, macabre
material, folkloric fear, an assault on the modern and a confirmation of the bestial. But all that was consequence.

The fulcrum upon which all of this consequence tipped is often overlooked. It was Marcus Aurelius’ and Hannibal
Lector’s first principle. It was the simple fact that Jack killed quickly and efficiently and silently, a matter, really,
of seconds. He never missed his stroke. He never faltered. And afterwards – clearly a part of the same attribute of
efficiency - he vanished without a trace of a trace. Though his murders took place hard by population concentrations (on
residential streets, in the courtyard of a club just after the full blaze of quorum, in a residential square patrolled from
two directions every few minutes by Bobbies), he got away clean each time. He was as silent as the night, as a cat, as
a ninja, as the orang in Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue.
Of the five canonical murders we shall closely

consider only the first four, which were remarkably
similar. The last, of Mary Jane Kelly, on the night of
9 November 1888, took place uncharacteristically
indoors. It is a carnival of deviations from the Jack
norm. The woman lay abed, on her left side, asleep.
The location was her rented room at Miller’s Court, off
Dorset Street (“London’s worst street”), a few blocks
from the Ten Bells. She had retired early not having
done business, perhaps buzzed from cheap gin (she
sang before she fell asleep, a sign of inebriation.) He
cut her throat on the exposed right side, and she bled
out in minutes while he held her down. Many believe
that the cut had to be delivered by a left hand, not a
right, because he would have used his right to crush
her head into the pillow, mooring her for his labor.
To account for the discrepancy, some believe he was
Commercial Street, with the Ten Bells on the right and the Britannia on the left
therefore ambidextrous, having taken four with his marking the entrance to Dorset Street
right hand and Mary Jane with an equally adroit left.
That true ambidexters are quite rare in reality does not seem to faze them.
The other four were all street jobs. The women were so vulnerable to his predation because their profession consisted
of leading strange men into the blackness of interior Whitechapel, a maze of alleys and passageways, meandering
medieval cow paths now bricked over, and barely lit public squares, locating a secure but hardly private spot, accepting
first the thruppence, then a few minutes of vertical rutting. Against a willful, stronger being, a demon from the looks
of the carnage, they had no human chance. All were dispatched by deep, strong cuts to the left side of the neck,
severing the entwined carotid artery and jugular veins, as performed by a strong right hand. The assumption of death
methodology was exsanguination, under the power of the throbbing heart which would continue its mechanical obligation
until the brain, issuing its last command, ordered it to shut down. Consciousness would have long since evaporated, in
the 8 seconds it takes for the brain to empty itself of life-giving, sentience-giving blood. The weapon is thought to be
a butcher knife, common to every English kitchen. They died perhaps more quickly than Mary Jane, and in all cases he
then did the ghastly things post-mortem that made him so famous. The single exception is Liz Stride, on Berner Street
in the courtyard of the International Working Men’s Educational Society – sometimes called the Anarchist’s Club - where
it is thought that he was interrupted by a Mr Diemschutz, a cheap jewelry peddler, on his pony cart, who arrived at the
gateway to the yard after Jack had dispatched the woman but before he began his fun. Somehow, lurking in shadows,
Jack got away that night, too.
The Killings
The question to be answered is alarmingly explicit. It is about methods. Initially, it was believed by most that he
approached from the rear, like a commando eliminating a sentry in a movie. With a swift left hand, he reached around
to muffle the mouth, stifling any cries, at the same time tipping the chin back to open the throat to cutting. With his
right hand, the knife held in fist edge-backwards toward flesh, he snaked around the right ear, the face and back to the
left ear and then, arm fully encircling and fully extended, pressed the cutting edge against and into the throat, and
drew it hard about, severing the artery and vein that were entwined there. As he continued his stroke, his angle to the
flesh became difficult and thus the cut became more tenuous.

However, it was noted that in all four cases certain anomalies occurred, so that any discussion of the four women
and their victimization must account for them. The first of these is that there was no spatter. Generally, when an
artery is nicked or slashed, the pressure from the heart’s pumping action forces the flood from the puncture under
some propulsion. Thus a pattern of droplets is visible at the crime scene – a later forensic specialty would become the
interpretation of these spatter patterns. The laws of hydraulics mean that the smaller the puncture, the further the
spatter will be projected. In none of Jack’s four street kills was there any spatter. Why? Second, there was no blood on
the front of the victims, that is, upon their dresses, across their bosom. Instead, the blood coagulated under or to the
side of the head, behind and beneath the throat wound. Third – admittedly an inference but surely a sound one – no
blood adhered to Jack, as in all cases he exited the scene and re-entered the civilization he had abandoned and although
it was late at night, Bobbies still patrolled, drunks still cavorted, men still hunted for flesh and women still sold it, all
under a vivid glow from the still-open beer shops and pubs. Yet he was never identified by scarlet splotch so we must
assume that he avoided the scarlet splotch.
A solution was soon offered to the lack-of-spatter and the blood-behind-but-not-in-front difficulties and it has since
become the consensus. Instead of cutting from behind while they were at full verticality and so gravity came into play
as the heart pumped, producing copious amounts, he faced them in the dark and under the guise of offering coin, found
a second when they were distracted, and then his left hand lashed out, clamped them about the throat and forced them
to the ground. Secured there, pinned and choked, they were helpless as he bent over them and cut with his right hand
deep into the left-side neck and its treasure of veins and arteries. The blood, in obedience to gravity, would then flow
downwards and backwards coming to gather beneath or to the side of the head. It would not mark their chests or his
jacket. Under these circumstances, the blood produced would theoretically be appropriate to the blood discovered.
Still, generally, that situation seems quite awkward. He’s holding,

he’s cutting, she’s squirming and kicking and writhing, perhaps
beating at his pinioning arm, in any event raising a ruckus. Does
nobody hear, does nobody notice? It’s also hard to believe that he
would have brought off this complex physical operation perfectly four
times running. It’s also hard to believe her dress wouldn’t have been
much smeared by dirt, abraded by stone and under it, so too would
her flesh. Only one – Annie Chapman, his problem victim – exhibits
bruising indicative of some kind of albeit brief struggle.
Contemporary sketch of Annie Chapman before and after death
But more damaging to this claim is that all four were cut completely
around the neck, from ear to ear. It’s not that such effort was unnecessary, since the first deep cut of vein and artery
was sufficient (how would he know?) but the angles of his arms to her body make the transaction extremely awkward.
Starting on the left, how does he get his knife all the way around her neck to her far ear? The ground itself offers an
impenetrable wall through which he cannot maneuver for better angle. He would have to rotate her or move himself
awkwardly to her far right, because the last third of her throat would be in the lee of her head, and he’d find it difficult
not merely to cut from that angle but to even reach. That does not say such a cutting was impossible but it certainly
makes it seem unlikely and unnatural and unnecessary. Not much notice has been paid to this fact, but it is certainly
inconvenient to the on-the-ground fellows.
To explain the lack of spatter, the adherents of this approach suggest the women were already dead by strangulation,
thus the heart had stopped beating and nothing propelled the blood into the air. But that opens as many questions as it
closes: why would he waste time cutting their throats when they were obviously already dead? It cost time and effort in
his fragile public circumstances. Why would the few bruises randomly found on two of the four necks not be coherently
organized in the pattern of clenching, choking fingers? Why were no bones broken in the neck? Why would the results be
so ambiguous to trained medical examiners? It seems another reason for the lack of spatter and the lack of blood down
the front must be found.
There’s another limitation to either of these solutions to the how-did-he-cut-them? quandary, not so much for Jack
but for anybody trying to understand Jack. It’s that neither of them allow much in the way of inference. They imply
only the power of the strong over the weak, the tall over the short, the willful over the distracted. Nothing else may
be learned from them. No gender may be read into them – a tall, strong woman, a strapping teenage boy, an elderly
but determined gentleman, all could equally be suspect–and no other attributes are indicated. We can arrive at no
conclusions, much less a next step.

In my rethinking of the four deaths, I put the killer directly in front of, and facing the victim. They have arrived at
the sex place, in pitch dark - a back yard, a courtyard, a deserted street, an empty square - and now she expects her
pay, after some no doubt polite but banal palaver on the walk in. Instead, she gets the blade. It is held in his right hand,
but it is not thrust, as none of the women were stabbed when they were alive; nor is it carefully placed for sawing, as
the straightness of the cut in three of the four examples suggests that no sawing was done. Instead it arrives at the end
of a full-power swing. His arm has flashed out in a crescent and the belly of the blade arrives at speed at the end of a
power arc, like the tip of a whip. All muscles of the arm and the right side of the chest propel it, as does most probably,
affiliated hip movement, along the lines of a baseball hitter “stepping into it,” which drives the edge to maximum
speed. The target is the one inch of neck between the jaw bone and the collar bone. The knife must be held rigidly and
furthermore at or very near a 90 degree angle to the flesh, so that all energy is spent on the penetration of the edge
and none on vibration or rebound. The Japanese katana is designed for this type of kill, and, not knowing it, Jack is
emulating the killing superiority of that famous weapon.
Driven at such speed, the blade easily cuts epidermis, subcutaneous muscle and tissue, and the carotid highway of
blood. That is, it cuts it completely, so the “puncture” is not a nick or a gash or even a rip, it is the diameter of the
whole artery itself. That diminishes or at least does not radically increase its pressure, again by the rules of hydraulics.
Ergo: no spatter. Instead of spraying or spurting or hose-piping, the thick, oxygenated blood wells, gurgles, even burbles
from the interruption, and, following gravity, it runs into the opened cavity itself, but also outside to some degree, down
the body, principally (as she is inclining rearward in recoil to the blow) down her back.
Still, the heart would pump for 30 seconds to two minutes, and so much blood being driven outward might not spatter
but it surely would not limit itself to her back; it could not be controlled nor predicted. So obviously another mechanism
must be in play.
And that is that Jack’s cut was so well placed and so efficient that it not merely sheared the carotid but the jugular
as well as the two are entwined about each other in a sheathing of muscle in the neck. One is artery, one is vein; they
course between heart and brain, but in different directions, and it is the jugular that is far more important here. It is
the one that moves deoxygenated blood to the heart from the brain.
When it is cut completely, the blood from the brain simply empties from the upper segment into the body cavity,
draining consciousness from the victim. However, in the lower of the two segments, still linked to heart, still under
power of the palpitating spasms of the vein, the remaining blood continues its journey. As it moves, it sucks or draws in
air behind its path from and through the violently administered new portal. The action is similar to that of the plunger
on a syringe as it is raised to draw in liquid medicine for injection. The air, in no small quantities for it increases as the
blood recedes, reaches the heart in four seconds.
This is called an air embolism. It is a catastrophic event. Lodging at the nexus of the four chambers it stops the heart
more surely than a .45 bullet dispatched into the same spot. That is what kills–instantaneously upon arrival–all four
street victims. That is what stops the heart, stops the pumping, stops the spatter and limits the blood loss merely to
smallish amounts that drain when the victim is laid out on the ground.
Jack, meanwhile, oblivious to the heart mechanics that have already concluded his drama, is still cutting. Encountering
no planet to halt his progress to the back side of the body, he rotates quickly around her, to catch her, for her raw fall to
earth might strike something and make it break or bounce loudly. As he rotates, he draws the knife through her neck. It
is not graceful but it is effective and he believes it necessary. Doing so to a woman flat on the ground would have been
impossible, without turning her or in other ways disturbing the body and thus spreading the blood puddles. Additionally,
cutting an entire circle, particularly that troublesome last third under her far ear, is quite natural in that it flows, it
continues an act, it completes the ritual of throat-cutting.
As for his poor victim, her brain suddenly deprived of oxygen, she loses consciousness in four to six seconds but her
heart has already stopped beating because of the impediment at its nexus; by that time, he is fully around her and as
her knees go, he already grips her intimately, and now he eases her to the ground onto her back, so what blood does
flow, flows backwards and downwards. She probably has no idea what’s happened to her, for in the dark, and not paying
any attention to anything but her mind’s eye where she sees the thruppence and the glass of gin it will subsequently
buy, she does not see the flash of the blade but merely feels its sudden impact, like a punch that knocks her backwards,
then sees lights go off, and then utter dizziness invades her sensibilities and then it’s over. Her conscious brain has never
noticed that she has been slain.

All the anomalies have been accommodated: No blood has been driven to spatter, none has fallen to the front, none
has gotten to him as his arms and hands are well clear of the ruptured zone.
He gets on with it. But what happens next is of little concern to her or to us: the point is that she has died exactly
as he needed her to do so, without fuss or noise, without scream or turbulence, and without a lot of blood spilled, with
little of it on him. He has accomplished the first part of the double task that makes Jack Jack.
The Cut
Let us examine this blow. What does it tell us about Jack, other than the obvious, that he was a murderer and very
lucky. But unlike the other possible blows evoked, this one arrives freighted with information and, moreover, it leads
somewhere, explicitly.
The first thing it tells us is that Jack had extraordinary eyesight; he saw where others – most others – would not have.
He saw in darkness with far more efficiency than a normal fellow. He was able to pin his eyesight exactly on the small
part of her anatomy between jawbone and collar bone beneath the ear for only in riveting it with such intent gaze could
he guide his hand to it. As any coach tells any boy, “You’ve got to keep your eye on the ball,” for the coach knows, and
Jack knows, that in the visual cue is the access to the brain’s inner program that solves angles of deflection, adjusts for
movement of target, and encourages such good habits as keeping the head down and following through. Moreover, such
vision is really not a skill that can be learned. It is strictly bio-mechanical. One has it – fighter pilots, .300 hitters, great
shooters, for example – or one doesn’t, and one can’t learn it or pick it up from a mentor. As we shall see, his unusual
vision paid other benefits as well.
Second he has great hand-speed and strength. They are not the same as a fast man may be weak or a strong man
slow. But a gifted man has them both, and he was so gifted he was able to power his hand to extraordinary swiftness as
it traced its arc through the Whitechapel night. His strength is manifested in the firmness by which he holds the blade;
when he makes contact with the flesh, it is so clamped it does not deviate from the necessary 90 degree katana cutting
angle, the vibrations of its travel through the neck do not loosen it, it does not wobble or yaw, thereby losing velocity
and power. It is held so firm that it achieves the maximum efficiency, penetrating as far as its strength can drive it and
thereby not nicking or even ripping the carotid and jugular but sundering them totally.
It should also be noted here that vision and hand-strength (as well as suppleness) feature in an attribute of Jack’s not
usually explained. That is his penchant for removing interior parts of his victims while mutilating them in his post-murder
frenzy. His motive for such action remains, shall we say, obscure; nevertheless, it was clearly on his agenda. Many have
found the missing parts an indication of surgical or at least medical knowledge. But regardless of the impossibility to
understand whether he did or did not know enough with or without a medical education to remove those parts, it is
incontrovertible that extremely good eyesight and unusually strong, dexterous hands were absolutely necessary to bring
such desecrations off, particularly in the short time frame during which he worked on the bodies. These bits cannot
have been easy to see in dark circumstances and manipulating them to achieve their removal demanded strength. His
powerful eyes and his strong hands were the key. Again, it’s a case of none-but-the-extraordinary need apply.
And since the subject of Jack’s organ-snatching has come up, it’s a nice spot to address that subject in a larger
context. As I stated before it is impossible, in my view, to infer from the evidence whether or not Jack was surgically
or medically trained; as well, one cannot conclude that he was a butcher, a veterinarian, a Jewish kosher slaughterer,
a samurai or a Waziri tribal assassin. One can conclude, in fact, nothing. However, one must still conclude that it is
indisputable that any education in anatomy was certainly helpful to Jack. Surgeon or not, butcher or not, whatever or
not, if he knew the reality of cutting into the body and encountering and overcoming the shock of exposure to blood
and the slippery, slithery innards of all mammals, that would go a long way in his chosen profession of murdering, then
mutilating, prostitutes. It may have even been what lured him into the game in the first place, and thus acquaintanceship
with these intimacies in any form, no matter how vague or incidental, cannot be discounted.
Back to the blow. Implied by the previous attributes, it is finally clear that Jack possesses unusually high hand-eye
co-ordination. He is able to perform complex, even refined, physical movements at speed upon demand. His system – the
strength, the accuracy, the sureness – are overall governed by a kind of physical genius by which what he envisions he
can perform without much mental effort.

And the final implication here and the facilitator for what has happened before is that Jack is confident. This is not
an experiment, it is a destiny. He knows his powers and what must be done to get maximum use of them. He is able
to focus on a tiny, poorly (if at all) illuminated, essentially a 1” by 2” rectangle that represents neck and is guarded
above by jawbone and below by collar bone, launch a sweeping blow at full strength and strike dead center, four times
running. A vulgar comparison would be to a golf swing. It looks so easy, it is so hard. To do such requires great physical
skill, but also experience. Clearly he has performed such a strike before, perhaps in moments of urgency, exhaustion,
high drama, desperate straits.
The Escapes
Five times he murdered, always in the heart of the city. Though it was late at night, he was never far from
concentrations of population. Polly Nichols was sent over on a public street, with Bobbies converging on the spot within
minutes; sleeping civilians were but feet from him on either side of the street. Annie Chapman was done in the backyard
of an apartment house at 29 Hanbury Street, really up against that building. On either side loomed other apartment
buildings and in all three buildings people slept, dreamed, dozed and masturbated, some few of them with windows
open. Only one witness, an Albert Cadoche, heard someone say “No,” on the other side of the fence at 29 Hanbury and
then heard a loud thump against the fence. But no one else heard or suspected a thing until, within an hour or so, enough
sun had risen so that an early awakener could see the body. The yard in question was seemingly sealed off by stout
five-foot five-inch fences, requiring him to escape
down a hallway to Hanbury Street, itself not far
from well-lit Brick Lane. Liz Stride got hers inside
the gateway to Dutfield’s Yard, just off Berner
Street. The yard abutted and had an entrance for
the Berner Street (“Anarchist’s”) club, which was
at the time occupied by left-over acolytes from
the evening’s revolutionary meeting. Moreover, on
the other side of the gateway, dwellings housed
sleeping workers. Later that same evening, he
obliterated Kate Eddowes in Mitre Square, a
few hundred feet off Aldgate Road, close by the
Whitechapel (Aldgate) Road-Commercial Street
intersection, literally in the front yard of one
and near to other occupied dwellings, close to a
warehouse with an alert night watchman and in a
zone well patrolled by and about to be penetrated
Louis Diemschutz discovers the body of ELisabeth Stride in Dutfield’s Yard
from two directions by Bobbies. Finally, his last
and most grotesque crime took place in Mary Jane Kelly’s rented room which lay in the heart of Miller’s Court, just down
from the Ten Bells and off Dorset Street, and was accessible only by a narrow walkway between buildings which opened
to a sort of crevice in the slum architecture. The crevice fronted 13 apartments on two levels, all of them occupied.
Was he lucky? Certainly; his near misses with Bobbys and bystanders, like Louis Diemschutz, the pony-cartman who
entered the open gate to Dutfield’s while Jack was beginning his work on Liz Stride, testify to luck, while also advancing
the truism that fortune favors the bold. Was he brilliant? There seems to be little evidence of that, for the sites weren’t
particularly well chosen and if anything they represent not cunning but his confidence that he could improvise his way
out of anything. There’s no evidence, further, that he planned or reconnoitered them; his locations seem random,
presented to him not by logic but by the whimsy of the game he was hunting. He can have done no research or scouting
as to the locations and patterns of the Bobbys, for he came so close to falling into their net so many times. But he had
one thing few killers have, as we have already seen it in play in the killings themselves–that is an uncanny strength,
vision and balance.
At the site of the first murder, that of Polly Nichols on the night of August 31, maps show that not far from the street
side location of the crime on Buck’s Row, a bridge crossed the wide furrow that contained the East London Railway
tracks which had just emerged from their tunnel and ran into the Whitechapel Station on Whitechapel High Street, a
block to the east. It would have to be at least 25 or 30 feet from Buck’s Row to the track beds, too far for a free jump

without risk of shattering ankles. Moreover, as photos show, usually high, perhaps six or seven foot brick walls guard
access to those track beds, forbidding passage to nearly all. Still, it was but seconds from the murder site. A man of
power could have climbed over the wall by hoisting himself on sheer arm and chest strength high enough to get a leg up
for leverage and by that method, pulling himself over. The leap from the wall atop the bridge would have been suicidal
but while no illustrations of the bridge seem to exist, it was the fashion of Victorian bricklayers to embellish. Thus one
can presume certain elements of decor – anything from generic bas-relief of heroic or inspirational nature to geometric
shapes as simple as rectangles within rectangles or perhaps even an array of round shapes like crop circles – to have
been inscribed on the exterior of the bridge walls. Though such cuts would not allow any normal man enough purchase
to secure himself, an extraordinary one, gifted with great balance as well as incredible hand strength, could have eased
his way down via the edges of the bas relief or blooming flower until he hung fully extended from the lower part of the
bridge. The drop then is halved, from 30 feet to 15 feet. Down he goes, breaking his fall with a roll. Then he escapes
by moving quickly along the track beds toward the west, and finds another fence or wall over which to disappear or
dips into the deserted (because no trains were running) tunnel and thence reaches a station and hides in the loo until
the morning crowds. Because the walls make the track bed all but invisible to the Bobbies who arrive in minutes when
the body is discovered, they search only on ground level; it never occurs to them (or anybody) that he has descended
beneath ground level.
The death of Annie Chapman at 29 Hanbury Street in the next month

provides similar opportunities. The passageway through that building was
a known rutting spot for prostitutes, and she presumably took him down
it for the act. He talked her – or brutalized her, explaining the lack of
neatness at this murder site alone – into continuing through it, which
deposited them into the back yard. There, he finished her and had his
butcher’s fun against the building.
His exit has always been problematic. The yard was on all sides fenced
by stout, 5-foot 5-inch barriers. Getting over them would have been
awkward if not impossible for any save the most gifted man. But for Jack
as I see him, a gymnastic vault of some sort, a support of upper body
by strong arms and shoulders and a pendulum swing of paralleled legs
gets him over in seconds; after the more challenging ordeal at Buck’s
Row it might have even seemed easy. He perhaps travels from yard to
yard in this fashion, sticking close to the buildings so as to be invisible
from any upper-story watchers, just a flash to any at ground-level. That
certainly would have been preferable to an exit back out the 29 Hanbury
passageway to Hanbury Street, for he has no idea who is out there and it’s
on a well-known Bobby patrol route. Additionally, late night sensualists
may be using it to cross from Whitechapel High Street to Brick Lane for
a commercial hook-up, as both were known avenues of temptation. Why
would he risk encountering someone that way, giving a witness a good
description, perhaps even being apprehended by an alert copper?
But the most compelling evidence of Jack’s legerdemain as an escapist

Entrance to back yard of 29 Hanbury Street comes next, on 30 September, the night of the famous double event. This
was the killing (of Elizabeth Stride) interrupted by Mr Diemschutz and his
pony, opening the gate to Dutfield’s Yard off Berner Street at the inopportune moment after Jack has slain but before
he has started to mutilate. Jack almost certainly cottoned to the upcoming interruption when he heard the clip-clop of
the pony arriving to the gate as it turned off Berner Street. On that signal, unless he was a fool, he retreated back into
the dark yard, finding a place in the shadows to crouch. Meanwhile Mr Diemschutz noticed something lying at the edge
of the building just inside the gate. Climbing down from his cart and then striking a match, he saw that it was a body,
screamed when he saw the blood in the light of a match, then hastened past it, and entered the club, where a batch of
kibitzing leftovers from the night’s meeting still remained, to raise an alarm.

Consider Jack’s dilemma. He has seen Diemschutz go for help and knows it will soon be there. Alas, his only portal
of escape would seem to be that same gate. He would have to race to it, slither by the pony cart which partially blocks
the passageway, praying that he does not agitate or cause a ruckus on the part of the horse. He is worried that men
will pour out of the club. Even if they don’t, and having made it to the gate, he will find himself on Berner Street and
from his angle in the yard has no idea who or what awaits him there. Perhaps Bobbies swarm in his direction from a
nearby station, or the workers are streaming out of the Berner Street Club or lights have gone on and people peer out
of windows on Berner across from the club. In any event, it seems a risky passage.
And another factor must be added, that of time. For we know that not 45 minutes later, having successfully escaped
from Dutfield’s, Jack has found, killed and wretchedly mutilated Catherine Eddowes at Mitre Square 1,750 paces (I’ve
counted them) away. So whatever he did, he did swiftly and surely and without second thought.
Was there some kind of tunnel exit? No investigation ever suggested, much less found one. However, there was,
or so it seems to me, another way out–for Jack at least. The one reasonably contemporary photo of Dutfield’s in the
configuration which Jack found it that night–it was taken in 1900 and is displayed like a trophy in Philip Hutchinson’s
The Jack the Ripper Location Photographs - shows in reality what many maps describe schematically. That is, directly
back from the gate to Dutfield’s Yard, there’s a two-story bungalow containing the Hindley and Co. cabinet factory with
stairway up to a second story entrance which is fronted by a kind of balcony or porch. The roof is low to the porch and
appears to be covered in arched pottery stones, giving much traction. Does no one except me not see how easy it would
have been for a climber of Jack’s natural aptitude, with his strength, balance and superior night vision, to climb those
stairs, go to railing and from railing by his strength hoist himself to roof, and via balance and vision navigate the roof as
a kind of stroll to escape? I certainly couldn’t do it, and I doubt anyone reading these pages could either, but the Jack
I believe defined by his attributes as I have identified them, could do so easily, quickly and decisively, thus making the
meeting with unfortunate Mrs. Eddowes with time to spare.
Of the last two murders, neither offers such obvious candidates for orang-escape as do the first three. However, the
two – at Mitre Square and, 9 November 1888, then at Miller’s Court – do have in common narrow passages into and out.
I do not do so, but one making this argument less responsibly but more wittily could argue that, particularly at Mitre
Square, where the coppers were just seconds away, Super Jack could have crab-walked up the narrow passageway–hands
braced against one wall, boots against the other, advancing skyward a step at a time–and sustained himself in such a
position and in such darkness that he avoided a copper who passed underneath. It’s a little too Batman-like to seem
feasible, but it is not impossible by any law of physics or strength. Any Hollywood stuntman of the ‘30s could have done
so.
At Miller’s Court, entry into the nest of rooms and apartments was also gained by a narrow brick passageway that ran
in from Dorset Street but it had a low roof above it and so I do not contemplate any Batman-gymnastics there. However,
the passageway which allows him entrance on the way out offers the same tactical disadvantages of several others: he
has no idea who or what awaits at its end, when he reaches Dorset Street that rainy Friday morning. Coppers, pilgrims,
a squad of angry unfortunates, a Jewish chicken merchant headed toward Goulston Street poultry market, sharp-eyed
workers aimed toward the foundries and mills? All are possible, all, with a good visual ID, could spell doom. Yes, fortune
favors the bold but it does not favor the stupid and so he possibly avoided the problem altogether.
Descriptions of Miller’s Court as well as maps describe a place best seen as all crammed up with stuff. A lot of small
rooms crowd into very little area with the “court” a minimal opening in the structure to give frontage and access to the
nest of dwellings. No details survive, but given that, and given the height of only two stories, it does not seem impossible
at all that my Jack, wisely shunning the passageway to Dorset Street, might easily find a sequence of handholds – sills,
railings, gutter pipes, shutter hinges – by which he boosted himself to roof level and crossed to another building on
another street. From that vantage point, he could easily see if witnesses abounded and if so wait until they had left the
area and picked a time to descend unseen.
Does this begin to seem silly? Jack as gymnastic super-hero, climbing and creeping his way out of tight spots on the
fly while Bobbies search for him only on ground level. I suppose it does. But at least it goes coherently to one and only
one conclusion. That is, whatever he was and whatever he was not, this man we seek was an expression of power, grace,
co-ordination, vision, balance and most of all, confidence. In other words: he was an athlete.

The Usual Suspects
Generally there are between four and seven “classic suspects” as Jack the Ripper. They usually include Aaron
Kosminski, Michael Ostrog, George Chapman (also known as Severin Klosowski), Nathan Kaminski, Walter Sickert and
Montague John Druitt. Note, of course, the predominance of immigrants of Polish-Jewish ancestry; clearly, Britons
wanted Jack to be an “other,” and “outsider,” not one of their own fair boys. This bias comes into play frequently in the
whole Jack affair. The German-born Sickert is the English artist included by Patricia Cornwell’s insistence. It should be
obvious but must be stated nevertheless that all save one fails to demonstrate the attributes that I have just delineated.
There are other problems with those candidates as well. I leave to anyone with curiosity to turn to specifics in any of
the hundreds of sources (Casebook: Jack the Ripper is a superb starting spot.) But let me lay out a perhaps larger and
less obvious one not mentioned at Casebook. That is that each “theory” justifying each candidate is not really a theory
at all. It is instead a new kind of rhetorical gambit which I call an “aggregation of confluence.” This technique does not
point exactly at one man and explain how his attributes made it possible for him to commit these crimes and at the
same time exclude all others. Instead, it examines the external circumstances of the suspect’s life and labor to search
out facts that prove that he was there then–he was in Whitechapel, or at least London, on each of the nights in the fall
of 1888 when the five women were slain. Then, usually, it examines his past for “similar” incidents or tendencies or it
examines his future for the same, patches on a little penny-ante Freudian jabber and thus, ipso facto, the Ripper. Would
that it were so easy.
Yes, they may well have been there, but that only proves opportunity and neglects to mention that in the immediate
London area, there were at least 5 million other souls, 900,000 of them in the East End, 76,000 in Whitechapel, with
the same opportunity. As for mental illness, it is neither here nor there. Any man’s life, examined closely enough, yields
the occasional theme or practice of irrationality such as odd agitations, peculiarities of dress or habit, feuds in family,
church or workplace, tendencies toward melancholy, perhaps even explosions of ill-tempered (but never close to fatal)
violence. From there, confirmation bias takes over and the declaration of guilt is issued. The only criterion appears to be
proximity; no attempt is made to identify the attributes the killer must have had and locate them in the suspect pool.
In two widely publicized cases, forensic manipulations are involved. The thriller writer Patricia Cornwell submits in
Portrait of a Killer that the DNA found on a stamp on a confessional letter sent the London Police was that of the artist
Walter Sickert. It helps her case, she thinks, that Sickert was a moody, violent man and he was known to be particularly
agitated by Jack. He even painted a picture called Jack the Ripper’s Bedroom, which hangs in a Manchester museum and
sees Jack’s figure disassembled into a shimmering series of broken reflections, which she interprets as a representation
of a broken, perhaps even shattered, personality. But many artists, probably including Cornwell and me, have broken
personalities and we are not serial killers and mutilators, we’re just rather annoying people. Moreover, in the end, even
accepting the less rigorous mitochondrial DNA–as opposed to nuclear DNA - testing which she used and only identifies
groups, not individuals, she merely places him in the group of people who write crazy letters to the police. Since all
gaudy crimes attract hundreds of confessional letters, why should this one be considered any more credible than any of
the others? Surely there are thousands more crazy letter writers than serial murderers.
The second case is that of Russell Edwards whose recent book Naming Jack the Ripper claimed that DNA findings
identified popular suspect Aaron Kosminski, a Jewish hairdresser in Whitechapel, as the murderer. Again, passing on a
discussion of the technical issues of the mitochondrial DNA testing and its much lower reliability than nuclear DNA, let’s
briefly examine the nuts and bolts of this claim.
It seems specious on its face. Edwards believes that he is in possession of a shawl which Jack carried with him the
night he killed Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square. He makes little of the fact that if so, because it was the night of the
double event, Jack would have had this shawl with him during the murder of Elizabeth Stride. He would have had to
have it with him over the course of his escape from Dutfield’s Yard which may have involved climbing and leaping and
jumping. He would have had to have it with him on his 1,750 step walk to Mitre Square, where he met, then murdered,
then mutilated Mrs Eddowes. And... after all the trouble to take it along, he forgot it! He left it at the scene of the
second murder and thus it has both Jack’s (ie, Kosminski’s) and Eddowes’s (merely and not peer-reviewed) mitochondrial
DNA upon it, linking them in the crime.
It gets better. The shawl, as a clue, is taken to the morgue and there it is given as a gift or souvenir to a policeman,
whose family owned it until Edwards bought it at auction. Rather hard to believe, because by that time the Jack murders

gripped the London and the world imagination so it seems quite unlikely these fellows would have let a clue disappear
like that. And it gets even more ridiculous when one realizes that the crime was committed not in London but in the City
of London, an administrative oddity of the great city which puts an entirely different municipal government in charge
of a patch in the middle of a much bigger municipal government. Thus the shawl, if it exists (it is not recorded in the
otherwise well-kept and highly professional City of London files of the crime) fell under the administrative purview of
the smaller entity. But the policeman who claimed he received it was from the larger, surrounding entity, namely the
London Metropolitan Police. Not only that, he was from an outlying district who had no clear business being in any
proximity to the Ripper investigation. The policeman was, in other words, a complete stranger to the men he received
the shawl from, not a colleague and constant morgue hanger-on whose friendship with the technicians might carry
some weight. And finally and of course, there’s no documentation for any of this; it’s simply family lore, handed down
generation by generation over 100 odd years. And of course there was no chain of custody to the shawl recorded, and
no quarantine protocols were enforced, so it could have been touched, vomited or sneezed upon, spit on, used to wipe
up baby’s poos, or anything that cloth is used for in a household. For over a century!
Monty
Montague John Druitt was born 15 August 1857 in Wimborne, Dorset, to a stable, upper
middle-class family. His father was a doctor as would both a brother and a cousin become,
suggesting a household well-fortified in medical reality, not a requisite for Jack suspicion, but
not without some weight either. He was well educated, as befits the station of his people, at
Winchester and New College, Oxford, from which he graduated with a third class degree in
the classics. His time at both establishments was marked by intense involvement in debating
societies, where he generally chose denouncing liberals and liberalism as his primary focus.
That, of course, is another neither-here-nor-there phenomenon although – thin, I know–one
might presume from it a certain emotional intensity of an awkward nature. It could also be
argued – now it’s getting really thin – his conservative politics point to nativism and anti-
immigration bias and from that it’s an easy leap to an anti-Semitism which evinced itself the
night of the double event when Jack may have left what may have been an unfinished anti-
Montague Druitt Semitic graffito in a doorway.
Anyhow, a photo of the younger Druitt shows a handsome man with cleft chin, strong nose, steady eyes, tight mouth
and his hair, abundant, parted after the Victorian fashion, down the middle. He wore no facial hair then. It’s the face of
a soldier, a barrister, a politician: calm, unflinching, eyes fixed on duty ahead. It’s the face of the British Empire in the
high Victorian age; nothing in it indicates that he was Jack the Ripper.
He comes to us in that identity via a memorandum from Inspector Melville Macnaghten, chief constable of Scotland
Yard, which, in 1894, declared, “From private information I have little doubt that his own family suspected this man
of being the Whitechapel murderer; it was alleged that he was sexually insane.” He repeated the claim in another file.
None of this is breaking news and will come as a disappointment to someone invested in dramatic discovery. Druitt’s
guilt or innocence has been argued aggressively for a number of decades, and anyone with an even rudimentary
knowledge of the case will recognize his name. In Pick-Jack polls of Ripperologists over the years, he comes in as high
as No. 3 and as low as No. 9. Though that in itself is of no consequence, it shows how well and thoroughly he’s been
examined. Three books (Autumn of Terror by Tom Cullen, Ripper Suspect: The Secret Lives of Montague Druitt by D J
Leighton and Jack the Ripper by Daniel Farson) have been written advocating his guilt and a fourth is due to be published
in October by J J Hainsworth, an Australian, who picked up his trail in that country, to which many of Druitt’s relatives
emigrated after his possible involvement became known. Perhaps the Aussie will come up with something that has thus
far evaded me: actual evidence.
Druitt’s public life and career as an adult was difficult, haunted by failure, loss, severe interior doubt and, killing
aside, what was surely bad behavior by Victorian standards. He decided to practice law but also had a passionate
pedagogical inclination, and he taught at Mr George Valentine’s School, in Blackheath, London, a distinguished public
institution. He never married. As a solicitor, opinions on his success vary. As a teacher, all commentators understand but
variously interpret the fact that he was fired from his part-time teaching post at Valentine’s. Though a reason has never
been established, some suspect that homosexuality was involved, even child molestation. It is also true that he lost

both of his parents within a few years immediately previous to 1888 – his father died, his mother was sent to an asylum
- and that insanity and a proclivity to suicide ran in the family. His mother died in the asylum and previous relatives had
committed suicide; moreover relatives in later years committed suicide.
All these facts are open to interpretation and depending on one’s advocacy, they may be used to either bolster or
attack the case.
What is not open to controversy is that he was a life-long athlete, and that alone among the classic suspects he had
the physical tools to accomplish the five murders that none of the others came close to possessing. His most public sport
was cricket, where opinions vary as to his skills. He was clearly somewhere between average and better than average,
his bowling being the strongest part of his game.
“Druitt was granted a spot in the Winchester First Eleven (cricket),” says Casebook, “and was a member of the
Kingston Park and Dorset Country Cricket Club. He was noted to have had formidable strength in his arms and wrists,
despite his gaunt appearance in surviving photographs. Druitt also became quite talented at Fives, winning the Doubles
and Single Five titles at Winchester and Oxford.”
His efforts include championships for both Winchester and New College and a post-collegiate career, membership on
traveling teams, in cricket clubs well-wired into the English aristocracy and as well a hobby or third job as a “ringer,”
that is a bowler for hire who railroaded to villages on the outskirts of London and played in their ardent local leagues.
Many still find puzzling the fact that it can be proven (by newspaper records) that twice he proceeded by trains the
day after Jack killings in the fall of 1888 and participated in such matches. To some, this is evidence that he could not be
Jack. As it turns out, as many have determined, the physics of the travel – meaning the times of the murders juxtaposed
to the times of the train journeys – works out, if barely. As a matter of factuality, yes, he could have committed the
crimes and still traveled to and played in the matches.
However the real objection to this possibility is usually psychological. How, many wonder, could a man go from
unleashing the most revolting slaughter upon the poor unfortunates and then blithely catch a train, travel and spend the
afternoon bowling for dollars. And at Druitt’s level of athletic sophistication, there could be nothing casual about his
sports duty; he would have demanded of himself total immersion in the sport, total concentration of the mind and total
engagement of his imagination. His paying clients would have accepted no less. How is such a thing possible?
Again, athletic ignorance seems to be at play here, and judgements are being issued by men who’ve never bowled,
batted, caught, jumped, dodged, tackled or sprinted a second in their lives. My argument – I have minor athletic
credentials, including a long-ago state championship - is that not only is such a thing possible, it is probable, even
mandatory. My theory of Druitt’s illness is that he was what might be called a “remorseful psychotic.” Most of the time
he knew his impulses were evil, he hated himself for harboring them, he took pleasure in denying them for as long as
possible; however, pressure and longing built, will evaporated, fantasy rehearsal became his predominant mindset and
at a certain point, he could no longer deny them and he committed them in an almost masturbatory frenzy, increasingly
barbaric at each outing. The crime scenes certainly support that theory.
Spent as if having ejaculated (though, for the record, he – or rather Jack - left no trace of having done so), he felt
crushing remorse. This theme will come into play later, but one can see how his sports offered him an escape from his
pain and self-hatred. The match was so all-encompassing a universe that it drove out of his mind images of the red death
he had visited upon the unfortunate the night before. One might go so far as to suggest that the date to play was his
triggering mechanism, not the moon phase, the weather, the temperature, the kabala, the demands of Masonic ritual,
or the Satanist’s pentagram. Knowing he had a match, knowing that he would naturally slip into the forgetful, healing
bliss that intense sport brings with it, he gave vent to his feelings on the night before.
But cricket is not the vessel that contains the real relationship between his murderer’s life and his athletic life.
Instead, and I am amazed that no one else has picked up on this, it was his immersion in the game of Fives, or Eton Fives
that most prepared him for his killings.
At this arcane sport he was indeed truly distinguished, one of his country’s best. Fives is a wall-ball sport, in which
either singly or in two-man teams, players used gloved hands to smack a cork and rubber ball (in size between a golf
ball and a baseball) off a three-wall containment and score points by hitting shots their opponents cannot return. The
floor isn’t just flat as in all other hand - and racket-ball sports, however; at a certain point it is broken down the middle

by a two-inch ledge meant to trip and spill the unwary and, oddly to my experience, it also features a blockage on
the left side, a sort of cement abutment extending outwards from the left-side court wall about 10 inches and rising
to about five feet in height, which complicates the angle calculation that lies at the heart of winning strategy, as well
as promising the forgetful a brutal comeuppance. The bruise factor in high-level play must be astonishing. (If I had to
guess, I’d say the abutment is a relic of the first court, at Eton, which cannot have been a court at all but just a niche
in the wall which the boys put to ingenious athletic use.) The rules are necessarily rigid, and I won’t go into them,
because I have no idea what they are. My ignorance of them, however, doesn’t preclude the observation that the basic
shot in Eton Fives, one which Druitt must have mastered and brought off many thousands of times, is almost identical
to, and depends upon the same obligations and principles, as the killing stroke he utilized on the Whitechapel streets
four times.
The problem to be solved is intercepting a small target with a precise swing, bringing hand to target with full strength
and full speed. In one, the hand wears a glove; in the other it grips the knife. In one the target is a moving ball, in
the other it is a briefly stationary couple of inches of neck, shielded in tough bone. Whichever, the perpetrator needs
superb hand-eye co-ordination, superb vision, superb body management, superb confidence. He must read the flight of
the target, move to position himself appropriately, manage his feet to the most efficient launch position, set his hips,
load his arm and deliver. Then he must keep his head down, his eyes on the target, transfer his weight from one hip to
the other as he rotates toward his interception, thus uncoiling a deeper throb of power, guiding the arm in flight while
making subtle grip alterations for spin or to keep the knife at right angles to the neck, remaining firm at contact and,
another necessity, following through, keeping his head down, and his concentration absolute.
But let us not forget the anomaly of Mary Jane Kelly. Recall that many have argued that he killed her with his left
hand, pinning her head to the mattress with his right. That feels most logical given his position vis a vis hers. To justify,
these acolytes argue for ambidextrousness as the facilitating factor. But is true ambidextrousness really necessary? Jack
is not required to pitch both ends of a double-header with separate arms or play a piano concerto for one hand both
lefty and righty. His threshold of off-hand usage is merely to administer a deep, straight, powerful cut to a sleeping
woman’s exposed neck.
The key here again must be Eton Fives. It is an ambidextrous sport, and it requires considerable usage and development
of the weak hand to excel, as Monty surely had achieved. It is not a racquet sport, like racquetball or squash but a glove
sport, like American handball. Thus there is no backhand, as speeds are too fast and the area too limited for the turn
and dip and re-grip and footwork reset of a tennis or racquetball backhand, to say nothing of the fact that no co-equal
obverse striking face is available for a return shot from the weak side. The players wear gloves on both hands and when
compelled to do so, they will intercept and counterstrike the ball with the weak hand, in order to offer a defensive shot
to prolong the point until a winner is possible. Monty must have done this thousands of times.
That means that over time his weak hand became less weak until it was finally not so weak at all. While it almost
never achieved the fluency of his right, it was driven by well-developed musculature and guided by deep muscle
memory. He had certainly achieved a fair dexterity. More important, he became used to using it as a solution to certain
tactical problems. Thus in diverting to his left hand to cut Mary Jane, he was doing nothing particularly new to himself;
it must have felt quite natural, so natural that he didn’t even note that he was doing it.
Excelling at such a sophisticated sport takes a rare gift. Clearly it was given to Druitt. Clearly–it seems to me–he used
it not in search of glory but damnation.
Witnesses and Death

Though it is not widely known, eight witnesses saw four of the five victims with men a short time before their
murders. It was rainy, it was dark, they had no reason to stare and note, they themselves were probably abuzz with
gin or stout, they were trying to get laid or had just gotten laid, they were worried about the excuse to be given to
their better halves, whatever... but still the descriptions are almost remarkably similar. Taken together, the accounts of
Elizabeth Darrell, J Best, John Gardner, William Marshall, Matthew Packer, Constable William Smith, James Brown, Israel
Schwartz, Joseph Lawende and George Hutchinson come up with a composite. They agree that each victim was in the
company of a broad-shouldered man in his mid-30s around five feet five inches, with a bowler or some kind of headgear,
a heavy or full-length coat and a mustache. That could be three million men in London, particularly when you consider
that the average height of a British male in 1888 was about five foot five. But it could also be, quite easily, Monty Druitt,

Stretch of the Thames at Chiswick where Montague Druitt’s body was discovered
Photograph Adam Wood
whose height was never described as unusually tall or short and who would thus be around the unremarkable average.
Add his late mustache and broad shoulders and athletic mien and the composite, though far from certain, certainly does
not exclude him.
There is more, of course. I have been coy about it, but those familiar with the case are fully aware that a short time
after the last of the canonical Jack deaths – Mary Jane Kelly’s deconstruction on 9 November – he killed himself by
drowning himself in the Thames. And all know that after the Mary Kelly atrocity, there were no more murders that bore
the Jack signature.
It’s easy to make too much of this, but at the same time, it certainly fits with the idea of the remorseful psychotic.
In my theory, having, in Mary’s case, gone beyond the threshold of the barbaric into the realm of the truly insane, he
swore to himself he would never do the deed again. But as before, the pressure to do so grew and grew in him, until,
a month later – he was last seen alive 3 December 1888 – he knew it was a case of killing another or himself. He chose
himself, packed stones in his pocket and walked into the river. The body was not found until 31 December 1888, much
decomposed.
It’s true that most people who commit suicide aren’t murderers. It’s also true that some of them are. Anti-Druittists
point out that there was enough woe in his life to manage to set off a fervor for self-destruction; for example, it was on
30 November that he was dismissed from Valentine’s school. That may have been “the reason,” but it might also have
been the famous straw whose breakage finally brought down the camel. As well his commission of the murders may

have de-stabilized him so fiercely that his teaching grew erratic and worrisome. The firing may have been a symptom,
not a cause. Clearly his mental state was in his mind in his last days. He left a note to his brother, found in his room at
Valentine’s. “Since Friday, I felt that I was going to be like mother, and the best thing for me was to die.”
Friday, of course, was the day of his firing. But the day of Mary Jane Kelly’s death was also Friday.
The Case
Any explanation of the four street deaths must include justification for three anomalies: the lack of blood spatter,
the lack of blood on the chests of the victims and the lack of blood on Jack, as inferred by his escape through crowded
streets. Additionally, it must demonstrate speed and silence and a reasonable explanation as to the delivery of the cuts,
particularly to the last third of the neck on the victim’s right hand side.
The only anatomical explanation is that while standing and facing each victim, Jack drove his blade with extreme
force and coordination horizontally through the neck, totally sundering both carotid and jugular. In severing, rather
than piercing, the carotid, the pressurized blood from the heart did not spurt and spatter because it was not subject
to passing through an orifice of smaller diameter. By sundering the jugular, the blood in the lower segment of the vein,
connected directly to the heart, drew in air as it retreated downwards and in four seconds or less, produced a fatal air
embolism. That explains why the deaths were so swift and silent. Meanwhile, the killer rotated around the victim’s body
to his left, drawing the knife around while at the same time supporting her as she sagged backwards. Upon completion,
he laid her down on her back.
Only Montague John Druitt had the athletic ability to make that stroke four times running, using techniques and
bolstered by the extreme confidence acquired on the courts of Eton Fives of which he might be easily considered
England’s greatest player.
Then there is the matter of the use of his left arm in the murder of Mary Jane Kelly. Fives, being an ambidextrous
game, would certainly have taught him supple, strong and precise deployment of that limb, and given the low threshold
of precision necessary to make the cut, the game certainly equipped him, alone among the suspects, to use his weak
hand to murderous ends.
All five murders represented bold and athletic escapes. No copper ever laid eyes on Jack knowing he was Jack, no
whistle was ever blown in response to his presence. All escapes involved climbing, balance, great vision, physical vigor
and great strength. No other suspect comes close to possessing those attributes but Druitt.
The witnesses all put a man of Druitt’s body type, age, middle-class wardrobe proclivities and facial hair in the
presence of four of the five women in the minutes before their deaths.
He was known to be under great mental pressure, both from his awareness of his legacy of insanity and from some
grotesque reversal at Valentine’s School. It may also be that he knew the clapping had to stop soon. He was an athlete,
growing older. That can be a terrible pain to bear and it can fill one with rage.
The case is entirely circumstantial – but it is remorseless. Men have hung for far less.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Lenne P Miller, Gary Goldberg, David Fowler, MD, and David Green.
STEPHEN HUNTER has written twenty novels and three nonfiction works. He is the retired chief film critic for the
Washington Post, where he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland. His latest
book, I, Ripper, was published in May this year by Simon & Schuster.

Charles Dickens,
Claire Tomalin and the
Marylebone Workhouse Inquest
By MARK RIPPER
Claire Tomalin’s biography of Charles Dickens, entitled Charles Dickens: A Life, arrived on the
shelves to a fanfare, just in time for the celebration of the bicentenary of her subject’s birth.1
From among a healthy number of positive reviews, Deborah Friedell’s more critical assessment stood out.
Friedell, writing for the London Review of Books in January 2012, felt that Tomalin’s fluent and intelligent style
threatened to lull the book’s readers into believing what she, Friedell, felt ‘almost certainly didn’t happen’ – this
regarding the suggestion that Dickens may have collapsed and died at Peckham, at the home of his lover Nelly
Ternan, before being spirited back to his own home at Gad’s Hill. There were other criticisms: Tomalin had,
for example, repeated the fallacy, built on a hoax perpetrated by A D Harvey in 2002, that Dostoevsky had met
Dickens in London in 1862; and, controversially, she alleged that Dickens slept with prostitutes (based on a reading
of one of Dickens's letters in which he referred to the 'conveniences' at Margate - 'and I know where they live,' he
went on).2
These observations prompted a little flurry of correspondence between Tomalin and Friedell, some of which
(at least) was carried out in the columns of the London Review of Books. Tomalin wrote to say that she was
prepared to take up ‘only three points’ contained in Friedell’s review, although by doing so she implied that her
dissatisfaction was, in fact, of rather broader dimensions. With regard to one of Friedell’s comments, Tomalin
objected that ‘nowhere in the book do I suggest that Dickens died anywhere but at Gad’s Hill. Are there no fact-
checkers at the LRB?’3
Friedell responded by citing her sources, and stating that ‘the LRB does indeed have fact-checkers’.4 Tomalin
wrote again, providing further clarification of her most recent, and her less recent, descriptions of the death of
Charles Dickens, before the correspondence appeared to fizzle out.
The mention of fact-checking, meanwhile, served to invoke, at least in the mind of this reader, the familiar
spectre of Dickens’s overwhelming myth, and the role of his biographers in perpetuating this, or otherwise filtering
out and exposing the truth, whatever it might be. We have all, I suppose, inherited the popular image of Dickens
as the man-about-London-town, ceaselessly peering into the rookeries and slums, the uncommercial traveller, the
observer of all human life, the defender of the common people against the forces of fate and the establishment.
Dickens’s prevailing myth inevitably affects our own perceptions of his life, his times, his city, and his society, and
the daunting work of his biographer is, I argue, to balance the historical facts of his life against the significance
of his ineradicable cultural legacy. Tomalin’s book was hardly a myth-loving hagiography, but Friedell, in her LRB
review, seems to have suspected it of being something worse – a sort of ideological stitch-up, predicated on the
initial belief that Dickens was ‘the consummate Victorian – that is, a hypocrite’.5
1 Tomalin, C., Charles Dickens: A Life (London: Penguin Books, 2011). Editions referred to: Kindle edition (2011, per first edition);
revised paperback edition (2012). Paperback edition hereafter cited as Tomalin, CD:AL.
2 Friedell, D., ‘His Friends Were Appalled’ in London Review of Books, Vol. 34, No. 1, 5 January 2012, retrieved from www.lrb.co.uk/
v34/n01/deborah-friedell/his-friends-were-appalled, 11 April 2012. Hereafter cited as Friedell, ‘HFWA’.
3 Tomalin, C., letter to London Review of Books, Vol. 34, No. 2, 26 January 2012, retrieved from www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n01/deborah-
friedell/his-friends-were-appalled, 11 April 2012.
4 Friedell, D., response to Claire Tomalin’s letter to London Review of Books, Vol. 34, No. 2, 26 January 2012, retrieved from www.
lrb.co.uk/v34/n01/deborah-friedell/his-friends-were-appalled, 11 April 2012.
5 Friedell, ‘HFWA’.

With all this in mind, it is worth examining the set-piece with which Tomalin’s book opens. Here, Dickens is
situated in Marylebone Workhouse, a juror at the inquest into the death of a baby. The episode shows, Tomalin
says, Dickens ‘at his best as a man’, and her depiction of events relies chiefly on three cited sources: a newspaper
account of Eliza Burgess’s criminal trial carried in The Times on 10 March 1840; John Forster’s description of the
inquest, in which Forster depends on a letter which Dickens sent him on (probably) 15 January 1840; and Dickens’s
own recollections, published as ‘Some Recollections of Mortality’, initially in All the Year Round in May 1863, and
later collected with other articles from the same publication in The Uncommercial Traveller.6 In addition, she also
makes demonstrable use of one source which she omits to cite, this being a report of the inquest published by
The Times on 15 January 1840. In this essay, I intend to examine the facts of the case, as far as we can establish
them, and to consider the extent to which Dickens’s own account of the affair can be relied upon; by extension,
this leads to a consideration of the extent to which Tomalin’s assertion that the whole thing shows Dickens ‘at his
best as a man’ can be justified.
The scene unfurls like this: it is Tuesday, 14 January
1840, and Dickens is hurried from his home at Devonshire
Terrace, where work on The Old Curiosity Shop is underway,
to the Marylebone Workhouse. There, an unmarried servant
in her mid-twenties, Eliza Burgess, appears to the gaze of
the assembled jury – her child, apparently delivered alone
and then concealed by her, on 5 January 1840, in the house
of her employers, is the deceased party. The baby itself
is in the workhouse mortuary, scarred from post mortem
examinations, and sewn up like a stuffed toy. Ms Burgess is in
a state of obvious distress. She cannot say that the baby was
ever alive – it may have been stillborn. The same question
defeats even the best-qualified medical witness to give
evidence to the inquest – a Mr Boyd, the institution’s house
surgeon. Infanticide is not ruled out. Dickens, with the subtle
encouragement of the coroner, Thomas Wakley, elects to
stand up for Eliza Burgess, as he senses the approbation of his
conservative fellow-jurors rising against her. This he does so
successfully that the jury returns a verdict of ‘Found dead’, Charles Dickens' house on Devonshire Terrace
with no murder charge attaching to the relieved mother. When, following a criminal investigation, Eliza is sent
(on the warrant of the magistrate, John Rawlinson) to the Old Bailey on the lesser charge of concealing a birth,
Dickens arranges legal representation for her. She receives a light-ish sentence, with, implicit in it, the chance of
redemption post-release, and, Dickens says, in retrospect, that this decision was proved to be the proper one by
‘her [subsequent] history and conduct’.7 Moving on a little in Tomalin’s book, she further observes that Dickens had
ensured that Eliza received ‘a fair trial, and succeeded not only in that but in helping her back to a respectable
job and a decent future’.8 Little wonder that Tomalin saw in this episode an honourable and admirable version of
Dickens, ‘determined in argument, generous in giving help, following through the case, motivated purely by his
profound sense that it was wrong that she’ – Eliza – ‘should be victimized further’.9 This is a heroic – one might say
mythic – representation of the episode; but does it correspond with the facts available to us?
Tomalin describes Eliza Burgess as an ‘orphan’, relying on Dickens’s recollections from ‘Some Recollections
of Mortality’ – but these, since they were committed to the page more than twenty years after the event, are (I
suggest) to be treated with a little caution.10 None of the contemporary newspapers indicates whether or not Eliza
was an orphan. Tomalin also tells us that Eliza was ‘twenty-four or five years old’ at the time of the inquest (14
6 Tomalin, CD:AL, xliii; 418.

7 Dickens, C., ‘Some Recollections of Mortality’ (public domain). Hereafter cited as Dickens, ‘SROM’.
8 Tomalin, CD:AL, 202.
9 Tomalin, CD:AL, xliii.
10 Tomalin, CD:AL, xl.

January 1840); The Times’s report of 10 March 1840 which she cites in her notes says that Eliza was twenty-five.11
By contrast, the report of the inquest carried in The Times on 15 January 1840 states that Eliza was twenty-four.12
In my view, taking into account the fact that Eliza is very difficult to identify in the civil and ecclesiastical records
of the time, and that age was for many people, particularly of the lower classes, a fairly fluid concept, it is not
necessarily safe to suppose that these dates truly represent a verifiable birthdate in the range of 16 January 1815
– 10 March 1815: they are not reliable termini post and ante quem. The uncertainty which Tomalin introduces into
the question of Eliza’s age is one reason to believe that, apart from the sources she cites in her biography, she
also examined The Times’s report of the inquest, without mentioning it in her notes. In her ‘Cast List’, Tomalin,
or, more likely, her editor or indexer, gives Eliza’s date of birth as ‘1816’, which is broadly inconsistent with her
explicit source.13
Working on the basis of Eliza’s status as an orphan – for which we have only Dickens’s retrospective authority –
Tomalin goes on to speculate that it ‘is likely that she grew up in a workhouse, quite possibly this one [Marylebone]’.14
It is impossible to verify the exact truth of this speculation, but examination of the Newgate Prison Registers
shows that Eliza was born – or at least believed she was born – in Hammersmith.15 If so, she would have been an
unlikely resident of the workhouse in the parish of St Marylebone. There are also other grounds to suppose that
Eliza’s horizons may have been a little broader than Tomalin supposes. We will consider these shortly; in the
meantime, let us consider Tomalin’s description of Eliza as a ‘maid of all work’. In this, she again follows Dickens’s
1863 recollections (he calls her a ‘servant-of-all-work’); but The Times’s report on which Tomalin explicitly relies
says nothing more than that Eliza was in the service of a Mrs Mary Symmons.16 The Times’s report of the inquest
describes Eliza as a ‘housemaid’; The Morning Post, reporting the inquest on 15 January and Eliza’s trial on 10
March, referred to Eliza, slightly more specifically, as a cook in the household of Mrs Symonds (in the former case)
or Simmons (in the latter).17 The truth is impossible to divine, and the question of whether Dickens’s later account
tips the scales in favour of ‘servant’, rather than ‘cook’, must remain open.
The question of the exact spelling of the surname of Eliza’s employer takes us into another area in which
contemporary custom exhibited a good deal of fluidity. Tomalin opts for ‘Mrs Mary Symmons’, following the
spelling of the 10 March report in The Times.18 The same newspaper’s earlier report uses the spelling ‘Simmonds’.19
Other sources, as we have seen, offer further variations. I would suggest that the appearance in the 1841 Postal
Directory of ‘Mrs Simmons’, living at 65 Edgware Road, and of ‘Mary Simmons’, aged 60, living at the same address
at the time of the 1841 Census, fix the spelling with as much precision as is probably available to us. One may,
too, wish to treat Tomalin’s unsourced suggestion that Eliza was ‘the only servant’ working in the house with some
caution. In the records of the 1841 Census, there does indeed appear to be only one servant – a Letitia Jessop –
resident at the house in Edgware Road, and no other is mentioned by the newspapers reporting Eliza’s case, but
this is not necessarily a reliable guide to the situation as it truly stood in January 1840.
Tomalin’s description of the delivery of the child is also problematic: ‘she went into labour in the kitchen of her
employers’ house … When the front doorbell rang, she hurried upstairs to let in two lady visitors, and by the time
she got back to the kitchen the baby – a boy – had been born under her skirts and appeared to be dead’.20 This
version of events does not seem to be supported by the newspapers. The Times, reporting on the inquest into the
child’s death, voiced Eliza’s account through the medium of Dr Boyd: the doorbell having rung, ‘she hastened to
let them [the lady visitors] in, and in the act of rising to do so the child was born, and on her return she found it
dead’.21 It seems that the child remained unattended in the kitchen while Eliza answered the door, and the report
of The Morning Post (15 January) appears to corroborate this: ‘On returning to the kitchen she found the child
11 Tomalin, CD:AL, xl; The Times, 10 March 1840.

12 The Times, 15 January 1840.
13 Tomalin, CD:AL, xxvii.
15 The National Archives (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO) PCOM 2/206. Hereafter cited as TNA:PRO PCOM 2/206.
16 Tomalin, CD:AL, xl; Dickens, ‘SROM’; The Times, 10 March 1840.
17 The Times, 15 January 1840; The Morning Post, 15 January 1840; The Morning Chronicle, 10 March 1840.
18 The Times, 10 March 1840.
21 The Times, 15 January 1840

dead on the floor, where she had left it’.22 The Morning Chronicle, reporting the trial in its edition of 10 March,
also follows this line: ‘The prisoner said, that when the bell rung [sic] she left the child unattended, and when
she returned it was dead’.23 Tomalin says that ‘it is not clear whether the birth took place on the stairs’, but it
certainly seems, from the available sources, as if it did not, and that it was in fact born in the kitchen.
Following the birth of the child, Tomalin reasonably supposes that Eliza ‘must have cut the umbilical cord and
cleaned up as best she could’. Then ‘she found a box, or a pot, in which she placed the dead newborn child and
hid him under the dresser’.24 This derives partly from Dickens, who, in 1863, recalled that ‘the mother had put
it [the baby] in her box … almost as soon as it was born, and it had presently been found there’.25 In fact, the
contemporary sources make it clear that the receptacle in which the child’s body was placed was an iron pot – or
an ‘iron boiler’, as the Morning Post called it in their report of 15 January; the same newspaper mentions that
the body was wrapped in an ‘old towel’.26 The Times described the vessel as ‘a pot’ (on 10 March) and ‘a pot
or species of kettle’ (on 15 January).27 I suggest that there is no good reason to prefer Dickens’s ‘box’ over the
contemporary reports – this must be an example of Dickens’s memory failing him. Tomalin’s equivocation over
the issue feels misplaced. Here was a moment in which she would have been better advised to abandon Dickens’s
description in favour of those of the impartial sources. The matter is essentially trivial, and does nothing to
reinforce Dickens’s myth, but if we feel that the work of the biographer of Dickens is to examine her subject
critically in order to ensure that the myth is prevented from growing beyond its natural proportions, then this was
an missed opportunity to show those critical faculties in action.
Dickens again provides the source for Tomalin’s next assertion, this being that Eliza’s mistress ‘sent her up
to scrub the front-door steps in the cold after her guests left’.28 In his recollections, Dickens wrote that Eliza
‘had cleaned the cold wet door-steps immediately afterwards’, and characterised Mrs Simmons as a demanding
employer.29 The contemporary sources contain no similar claim with regard to the doorsteps; perhaps, then, this
is a detail of the evidence which did not make any of the papers, but which Dickens remembered over decades;
or perhaps it is a misremembering, or an embellishment added over the same period. It has the further effect of
demonising Mrs Simmons in a way which, it may be argued, is unfair.
Tomalin states that it was while Eliza was scrubbing the steps that Mrs Simmons noticed ‘how ill and thin she
looked’.30 In fact, this would seem to be a simplification of the case. Mrs Simmons already had her suspicions about
her employee, and, as The Times, reporting the trial on 10 March, noted, she had asked Eliza on ‘the morning
after New Year’s Day’ why she ‘appeared more than unusually large in her person’ [sic]. Eliza put her giveaway
shape down to ‘a complaint she had’.31 In the hours following the clandestine birth on 5 January, however, Mrs
Simmons recognised that Eliza was now looking much thinner, and ill, and she took up the subject again. She
either ‘begged’ Eliza to tell her the truth – according to The Times of 10 March – or – according to the same
newspaper on 15 January – ‘threatened’ to call a doctor to examine Eliza.32 Eliza tried to laugh off the accusation
(according to The Morning Chronicle), but Mrs Simmons persisted, and Eliza decided to confess, pointing out the
pot in which the baby’s body was concealed.33 According to the newspaper reports, Mrs Simmons then called for
a coach to take Eliza and the deceased baby to the Marylebone Workhouse infirmary.
22 The Morning Post, 15 January 1840.

23 The Morning Chronicle, 10 March 1840.
25 Dickens, ‘SROM’.
26 The Morning Post, 15 January 1840.
27 The Times, 10 March 1840; 15 January 1840.
32 The Times, 10 March 1840; 15 January 1840.

The difference between ‘begged’ and ‘threatened’ is quite a substantial one. Tomalin prefers ‘threatened’
– ‘threatened with a medical examination’ – although her explicit source (The Times’s later report) uses the
word ‘begged’.34 This again suggests that she referred to the report on the inquest, published in the Times on
15 January, but did not cite it in her notes. Looked at another way, Mrs Simmons comes across as, perhaps,
a more caring employer than either Tomalin or Dickens would suggest. Tomalin describes Mrs Simmons as ‘an
unsympathetic witness’, and repeats Dickens’s own recollection of his cross-examination of Mrs Simmons at the
conclusion of her appearance before the inquest, but there is nothing in the newspaper sources to show that this is
what happened. An alternative scenario is available: Mrs Simmons may have asked Eliza about her appearance on
2 January simply because she was worried about her health; Eliza, fearing unemployment, denied being pregnant.
On the following Sunday, Mrs Simmons noticed that Eliza was thinner, and looking unwell. She implored her to tell
the truth, even saying that she was sufficiently concerned to call a doctor to attend Eliza, and Eliza, realising that
she had nowhere left to turn, explained what had happened. Without further ado, Mrs Simmons took possession
of the pot containing the baby’s corpse, and sent its mother to the infirmary where she could be treated. This
reading seems to make ‘begged’ a perfectly plausible alternative to ‘threatened’. One last curiosity pertaining to
this episode should be mentioned. Tomalin writes that Mrs Simmons ‘taxed her [Eliza] with having given birth’.35
The Times, on 15 January, used the very same phrase, word for word, whereas Tomalin’s explicit source – The
Times’s later report – says that Mrs Simmons ‘told her [Eliza] that it was suspected she had had a child’: this is
further evidence of Tomalin’s uncited use of The Times’s earlier report, describing the inquest.36
Now to Mr Boyd, the doctor whom – I argue – Dickens described, very much in retrospect,
as ‘timid’ and ‘muddle-headed’, who got ‘confused and contradictory, and wouldn’t say
this, and couldn’t answer for that’.37 This was Dr Robert Boyd, who was appointed as a
Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1831, who graduated as a Doctor
of Medicine from Edinburgh University in 1831, who was made a Licentiate of the Royal
College of Physicians in 1836, who was the resident physician at the Marylebone Workhouse
in 1840, and who later became Superintendent of the Somerset County Lunatic Asylum
in Wells and proprietor and manager of the Southall Park private asylum, in which latter
institution he died in 1883, consumed by flames, trying to save his patients from a great
fire. He was a Fellow of the Zoological Society; an amateur antiquarian with an interest
in Roman artefacts; a contributor of sixteen articles to the Journal of Mental Science;
and a writer for The Lancet, The Medical Gazette, The Edinburgh Medical Journal,
The Royal Medical and Chirurgical Transactions, The Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society, and The Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal. He became President
of the Medico-Psychological Association (now the Royal College of Psychiatrists); he was
popular, ‘noted for his kindness’, ‘reserved and taciturn in nature’, and, in his speech, Dr Robert Boyd
‘steady, weighing his words carefully’.38 He seems like a poor candidate to be the timid
and muddle-headed doctor. Tomalin, perhaps wisely, does not repeat Dickens’s explicit character assassination.
Boyd was, if not the only doctor to have appeared at the inquest, then at least the only one mentioned in any
contemporary newspaper reports of the hearing itself. At the trial, however, Henry Edwards, a doctor living at
67 Edgware Road, described being called to see the deceased baby on the morning of its discovery. The actions
he took are slightly difficult to pin down. In his opinion, the baby been born alive, but had died shortly after
birth owing to a combination of the ‘hurry and alarm’ of its mother, and the absence of medical care at the self-
delivery; in the report of The Morning Chronicle (10 March), Edwards testifies to examining ‘the right cavity of
the chest’, but whether this was an invasive procedure performed at a post mortem or an external procedure
(perhaps performed by percussion) which he carried out when he first saw the child is not known.39 The question
for us to ask is whether Edwards appeared at the inquest – and, if so, whether he could have been the timid and
muddle-headed doctor.
34 Tomalin, CD:AL, xl; The Times, 10 March 1840.

36 The Times, 15 January 1840; 10 March 1840,
38 Hervey, N., ‘Boyd, Robert (1808–1883)’ in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) retrieved
from www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3114, 12 April 2012.
39 The Times, 10 March 1840; The Morning Chronicle, 10 March 1840.

It is clear that Edwards was called to attend the deceased child before it had been sent on to the workhouse,
and only because he lived in the immediate vicinity, rather than because he possessed any particular expertise.
Regardless of this, he was the first person with medical training to be able to make an assessment of the child’s
condition, and, as necessary, its likely cause, time and place of death. These were – and are – the fundamental
questions to which inquests are expected to find the answers, and they make Edwards a valuable witness to at
least part of the case. There is – ostensibly to the advantage of Dickens and Tomalin – some evidence to show that
Edwards may not have been the most reliable doctor in London. His behaviour in the 1835 case of Christopher
Banbury seems difficult to explain: Banbury was suspected of trying to poison his wife, and Edwards analysed
some white powder which he had found adhering to a cooking pot; discovering that it was arsenic, he found
Banbury and advised him to separate from his wife ‘rather than let the thing come before the public’, and it is not
easy to defend this rather casual attitude to what looked very much like attempted murder.40 However, despite
this indirect evidence of a strain of incompetence in Edwards, the decisive proof of the identity of the target of
Dickens’s unflattering retrospective assessment seems to me to be that the timid and muddle-headed doctor was
‘the doctor who had made the examinations, and the usual tests as to whether the child was born alive’. The tests
and post mortem examinations were reported to the inquest by the highly qualified and, latterly, highly influential
Robert Boyd; Edwards may have observed the post mortem, but there is nothing to suggest that he ever described
its results to the inquest jury.
Boyd’s alleged incompetence is emphasised in ‘Some Recollections of Mortality’ by the simple device of having
him miss, or fail to attest to, the crucial evidence in the case – here, Tomalin, perhaps incorrectly, follows Dickens
rather closely. Having been urged silently on by the coroner throughout the hearing, Dickens takes Wakley to
one side after the verdict is delivered, and Wakley, according to Dickens, discloses that it was ‘impossible that
the child could, under the most favourable circumstances, have drawn many breaths, in the very doubtful case
of its having ever breathed at all; this, owing to the discovery of some foreign matter in the windpipe, quite
irreconcilable with many moments of life’.41 Nothing in the newspaper sources indicates that Boyd, despite an
invasive post mortem, found any such ‘foreign matter’ in the baby’s windpipe. In fact, according to The Times
of 15 January, Boyd had discovered ‘a small portion of air in the lungs’, but felt that this was insufficient to ‘say
positively if the child was born alive or not’. Dickens’s heart-to-heart with Wakley fails to ring true. In practice,
Wakley need only have asked Boyd, ‘Did you discover any physical impediment which prevented the child taking
a breath after its birth?’ This was well within his remit as coroner; in fact, the day before the hearing into the
death of Eliza Burgess’s baby, Wakley, conducting another inquest, had cross-questioned one Mr Chesterton, the
governor of Coldbath Fields Prison, about the conditions and discipline to which his prisoners were subjected.
It seems fair to say that he was accustomed to playing an active, inquisitorial role at inquests, and it hardly
seems likely that he would fail to say anything in Eliza Burgess’s case, where, if we are to believe Dickens, a
serious miscarriage of justice was only narrowly and fortuitously avoided.42 It is entirely plausible to argue that
the evidence given by Boyd, to the effect that air had reached the lungs, suggests that the very question of the
baby’s airways was indeed raised at the inquest, and that Boyd had found no blockage in the trachea. In its turn,
if the baby’s airways were clear, this would indicate that the supposed conversation between Wakley and Dickens
has very little factual basis. Wakley died on 16 May 1862, exactly a year before ‘Some Recollections of Mortality’
appeared in All the Year Round, so he was in no position to correct Dickens’s recollection of the episode.
When the verdict of the inquest jury was brought back, Tomalin writes, Eliza ‘falls on her knees to thank the
jurors’, before fainting and being carried off to – probably – the workhouse infirmary, where she continued to
recover from her ordeal.43 (Feeling better, she was admitted to Newgate Prison on 10 February 1840 to await
trial on the charge of unlawfully concealing a birth.44) Here, again, Tomalin follows Dickens’s 1863 depiction of
the inquest – there is nothing in the newspapers to corroborate this otherwise moving scene of suffering and
compassion.
40 Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 7.2, 5 April 2015), September 1835, trial of Christopher Bunbury
(t18350921-1973).
43 Tomalin, CD:AL, xli.
44 TNA:PRO PCOM 2/206.

Now Dickens comes into his own. He ensures, he says, that ‘some extra care’ is taken of Eliza while she is
remanded to await her trial; and he retains counsel on her behalf, to ensure that she is properly represented.45
Her ‘excellent’ barrister, as Tomalin characterises him, is one Richard Doane, a man now much-forgotten, but
once a frequent turn at the Old Bailey without, perhaps, ever managing to appear in a really significant case.46
There remains, of course, no proof of any such humanitarian involvement on Dickens’s part – Doane may have
picked up the case while hanging around the courts in a quiet moment (as barristers sometimes did), and he
certainly hung around to represent William Brown, a housebreaker, whose trial directly followed Eliza’s. As far as
anyone knows, Brown was not the recipient of literary patronage in the way that Eliza was. We ought to be open
to the idea that Dickens did not retain Doane at all.
To relate the events of Eliza’s trial, Tomalin depends entirely on The Times, and its edition of 10 March.
Doane, she says, was ‘able to produce a crucial witness to her [Eliza’s] character’. This was a ‘Mr Clarkson, a
tradesman in Great Russell Street’.47 Inspection of the 1841 Post Office Directory, and the census returns of the
same year, shows that Mr Clarkson was, or should have been, Matthew Bloxam, his name having been misheard by
The Times’s journalist. The Morning Post and The Morning Chronicle, reporting on the trial in their own editions
of 10 March, managed a sound-alike approximation – ‘Bloxham’.48 Eliza Burgess had worked for the Bloxams for
some time before taking up her appointment with Mrs Simmons; Matthew’s wife remained greatly interested in
Eliza’s fate.49 The Bloxams may have employed her as a nurse to their children, to whom Eliza, according to The
Morning Chronicle, ‘always behaved with great kindness’; if so, a glance at the Bloxams’ children’s baptismal
records shows that, far from being trapped in the Parish of St Marylebone – an orphan, first at the Workhouse,
then in service to a local family, as Tomalin tentatively hinted – Eliza may well have moved with the Bloxams
from Newgate Street (a stone’s throw from the venue of her trial), to Rodney Street, off the Pentonville Road,
and perhaps then to Great Russell Street.50 There is no necessary indication here of a restrictive, institutional
background.
Matthew Bloxam apparently prevailed on the court to allow Eliza Burgess to be released into his custody – he
hoped to have her admitted to a Magdalen Asylum, a home for ‘fallen women’ run on strict religious lines. In the
circumstances, the jury found Eliza guilty of concealing the birth of her child, and recommended her to mercy;
the judge, a sometimes eccentric Serjeant-at-Law named William Arabin, respited judgement, presumably to
allow Bloxam’s suggestion – a quasi-custodial alternative to prison – to be considered. Meanwhile, Tomalin writes,
‘she was free’ – more precisely, Eliza was released on licence (on 11 March, according to the Newgate Registers)
pending sentencing, and very much in the charitable care of the Bloxams in the meantime.51
‘Nothing more is heard of her’, continues Tomalin, seemingly forgetting that Eliza’s sentence had not yet
been passed.52 In fact, according to the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, Eliza was sentenced to three months’
imprisonment on or after 6 April 1840: this suggests that Matthew Bloxam’s plan to admit Eliza to a Magdalen
Asylum had been rejected.53 It should be pointed out that, in the County of Middlesex Criminal Registers, Eliza
is said to have received a fine of one shilling in lieu of a custodial sentence; but this must be a clerical error.54
Schedule 14 of the Offences against the Person Act (1828) demanded that a prison sentence be imposed in cases
of concealment, and none of the twenty-two women found guilty at the Old Bailey of concealing a birth in the
five years either side of Eliza’s trial escaped incarceration. In one example, a prison sentence of two days was
imposed, which showed that the law could sometimes be merciful; but in no case was a fine used as an alternative
to custody. In Eliza’s case, it must have been decided that the Magdalen Asylum, for all its prison-like properties,
was not an alternative to which the 1828 Act would allow judges to have recourse when dealing with concealed
births.
46 Tomalin, CD:AL, xli.
47 Tomalin, CD:AL, xlii.
48 The Morning Post, 15 January 1840; The Morning Chronicle, 10 March 1840.
51 Tomalin, CD:AL, xlii; TNA:PRO PCOM 2/206.
52 Tomalin, CD:AL, xlii.
53 Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org>, version 7.2, 5 April 2015), April 1840 (t18400406).
54 The National Archives (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO) HO 26/46.

Could Dickens have sustained his interest in Eliza? He suggests as much in ‘Some Recollections of Mortality’,
saying that Eliza’s ‘history and conduct’ after her release from prison proved her lenient sentence to have
been justified.55 Tomalin goes a little further, arguing that Dickens had ‘succeeded … in helping her back to a
respectable job and a decent future’. There is no evidence to confirm this long-term interest on Dickens’s part,
but we might perhaps take him at his own word (although one wonders whether the breakneck pace of Dickens’s
life may, by the time of Eliza’s release, already have diverted his attention elsewhere). Tomalin also claims that
Dickens made it possible for Eliza to have ‘a fair trial’, but – even colloquially – the simple retention of a barrister
was not the distinction between a ‘fair trial’ and an ‘unfair trial’ then, and it is not the distinction now.56 Eliza
may have been tried fairly or unfairly – with the likelihood being that she would have been tried fairly – whether
she had had legal representation or not, and Dickens can have done nothing whatever to affect the ‘fairness’ of
the legal process.
The effect on Dickens of his exertions at the initial inquest was, apparently, to throw him into mental and
physical disarray, if only temporarily. On 15 January 1840, he wrote to Forster, saying:
…last night I had a most violent attack of sickness and indigestion which not only prevented me from
sleeping, but even from lying down. Accordingly Kate and I sat up through the dreary watches.57
In ‘Some Recollections of Mortality’, however, Dickens described seeing Eliza’s face ‘in my sleep that night’ – a
slight inconsistency to which Tomalin draws attention in her notes.58
Of course, over twenty-three years, memories shift and
alter. Dickens’s dramatic account of the inquest, as reproduced
in ‘Some Recollections of Mortality’, seems at variance with
much of the contemporary newspaper evidence. What is less
clear is whether Dickens consciously distorted the truth. His
narrative of the inquest is full of familiar character-types –
some, such as the Beadle, consciously evoke his catalogue
of fictional works, and rely to at least some extent on their
audience’s ability to make intertextual links – it feels as if it
stops short of conventional biography, and is a hybrid of true
recollections and fictional techniques. Did ‘Some Recollections
of Mortality’ assume in its experienced readership not
just knowledge of, but a feeling of affection for, both the
Dickensian oeuvre and the public image of its creator? Did
it rely, deliberately, on the author’s growing myth, and on
the self-aggrandising idea that he personified the virtues to
which Tomalin, in her assessment of Dickens’s conduct in
Eliza Burgess’s case, draws our attention: determination, Charles Dickens
generosity, tenacity, and compassion? If so, it may be that
Tomalin’s use of Dickens’s description of the inquest is, in fact, slightly misplaced. It may be that the inquest did
not, as Tomalin states, show Dickens ‘at his best as a man’, but rather that Dickens’s recollections of the inquest,
recorded for posterity much later on, show him at his best as a self-publicist. As a judge of his own behaviour – in
this matter, at least – Dickens was, perhaps, too partial to be relied on without caution.
56 Tomalin, CD:AL, 202.
57 Forster, J., Life of Charles Dickens (public domain).
58 Dickens, ‘SROM’; Tomalin, CD:AL, 418.
MARK RIPPER is the co-author of The A-Z of Victorian Crime (with Neil Bell, Trevor Bond and Kate
Clarke; Amberley Publishing; forthcoming [2016]).
From the Archives
The Police of The Metropolis
By Sir Charles Warren
From Murray's Magazine, November 1888
Composed by Howard Brown and Paul Colwell
Introduction:
The Straw and the Camel's Back
In November of 1888, an article was published in a London monthly
entitled Murray's Magazine, (a periodical which was founded by
John Murray, 1745-1793, a former Edinburgh Royal Marines officer
turned publisher) that was the proverbial straw which broke the
camel's back regarding the tumultuous relationship and inevitable
split between Sir Charles Warren, Commissioner of Police and Henry
Matthews, Secretary of State.
While the story behind this article is well known (that Warren
resigned after being criticized by Home Secretary Matthews
following the publication of this piece), some may not be aware
that Sir Charles had previously (before the Whitechapel Murders)
offered to resign his position. The rocky relationship between
the two men came to a close on 8 November. Eventually, James
Monro took over the helm as Commissioner later that month. Some
may question whether Matthews' criticism was the sole reason for
Warren's resignation. No doubt Sir Charles and the forces he led had
been beleaguered in the latter part of 1888, receiving criticism from
the press and the public alike. Warren had also been the recipient of
some less than cordial remarks from Members of Parliament. There
is always that possibility that his resignation was partly inspired
by the incessant criticism. Sir Charles, unknown to the man and
woman in the street, had only six weeks prior to his resignation had
Sir Charles Warren
these words dictated one week after the Chapman murder:
I am convinced that the Whitechapel Murder case is one which can be successfully grappled with if
systematically taken in hand. I go so far as to say that I could myself in a few days unravel the mystery
provided I could spare the time and give individual attention to it. (15 September 1888)
Who knows what might have been had Warren stayed at the helm. The article in Murray's Magazine guaranteed
that no one would ever know.
The Police of The Metropolis

November 1888
London has for many years past been subject to the sinister influence of a mob stirred up into spasmodic action
by restless demagogues. Their operations have exercised undue influence on the Government of the day, and year
by year the Metropolis of our Empire has become more and more prone to dangerous panics, which, if permitted

to increase in intensity, must certainly lead to disastrous consequences.
If the citizens could only keep their heads cool and support the police in the legitimate execution of their duty
there is nothing to be dreaded from the most powerful combination of the mob, but all peace and order will be
imperilled if the citizens continue intermittently to join with the mob in embarrassing those who are responsible
for the security of the Metropolis.
There are over 12,000 police in London, deducting those employed at Dockyards, & it is probable that these
might be readily reduced to 10,000 if the inhabitants would do their duty as citizens and uphold the law. They
have, however, from long custom extending over more than a hundred years, acquired an unreasoning habit of
cavilling and finding fault on every occasion without making any due enquiry, and very frequently on incorrect
information, and they are actually doing their best to hand their security and property to the mercy of those who
wish to share the latter with them.
Formerly, and even as late as 1848, many citizens of good position may have had good reasons to sympathize
with the general object of the Chartists and other reformers while condemning their mode of procedure. But
now that reform after reform has put the Government into the hands of the people, further changes may be left
with confidence in their hands, and it is curious to see both influential persons still fostering insurrection, which
must, if successful, end in their ruin, and the people endeavouring to hinder the action of the laws which they
themselves have put into operation.
It is to be deplored that successive Governments have not had the courage to make a stand against the more
noisy section of the people representing a small minority, and have given way before tumultuous proceedings
which have exercised a terrorism over peaceful and law-abiding citizens, and it is still more to be regretted that
ex-Ministers, while in opposition, have not hesitated to embarrass those in power by smiling on the insurgent
mob. If we search history during the present century, we shall find that down to the year 1886 the mob or rabble
exercised a decided influence over the destinies of London. In the spring of that year it over leaped all bounds,
and London was subject to a three days' reign of abject terror, pitiful and ridiculous, which only terminated
because the mob was so completely astonished and taken aback at its own success, that it was not prepared to
continue its depredations.
Since then the mob has realised its power, and has made preparation for further aggression, while corresponding
arrangements have been made by the Executive to preserve the peace. London in the meantime has become more
hysterical and liable to panic, and the barometer of public feeling and opinion, so far as the daily journals put
them forth, has oscillated violently from period to period, and there seems no inclination for it to settle down to
"set fair".
Each interval of panic is succeeded by one of self-complacency and congratulation, and these oscillations can,
to a great extent, be gauged by the estimate in which the Metropolitan Police are held. If they praised up and
petted, we may be sure that the public scent danger in the air, and that a panic is imminent; while if, on the other
hand, they are abused and vilified, we may take it for granted that the public feel quite secure. This alternate
blaming and praising has a most detrimental effect upon the efficiency and discipliner of the police force, and is
probably equivalent to the loss of the services of a large percentage of police constables.
After the revulsion consequent on the riots of February 1886, we find that there was nothing bad enough
to say about the police for some months; but during the autumn, rumours of approaching disorder caused the
police to be spoken of as models of propriety, until the difficulties surrounding the Lord Mayor's procession were
surmounted, when the police became again subject to attack, until the spring of 1887, when the disturbances
of the Socialists alarmed the minds of many. Then there were severe misgivings as to the possibility of keeping
order during the Jubilee, and the constable, to his astonishment, found himself to be considered decidedly a
good fellow. But no sooner had the admirable conduct of the police contributed largely to the wonderful success
of the Jubilee proceedings, than the public turned round upon them with unexampled fury, and attacked them
in the most unworthy manner. So violent was this attack and slander, that it actually re-acted forcibly upon the
mob, grown quiet since the previous spring, and they, thinking the police would now have no spirit to resist them,
commenced proceedings which, but for vigorous measures, might have resulted in the ruin of London.
Before it was quite too late, however, a portion of the public saw the danger a-head, and rapidly rallied to the
support of the police, and the clearing of Trafalgar Square was successfully accomplished without loss of life or
destruction of property.

Thus almost for the first time during this century the mob failed in its ascendency over London and in coercing
the Government, but it would be puerile to ignore the fact that there will be again efforts made to remove the
destinies of the Metropolis out of the hands of the people into those of the mob.
Gradually peace has been restored, and with security prevailing during the summer of 1888, signs were not
wanting that another attack on the police was at hand. But this time it was to be of a more insidious character,
being directed not so much against the individual police constable, as against the police administration, and if
successful, it would effectually cripple the power of the Executive to keep peace and order on the approaching
Lord Mayor's Day. Fortunately, however, a note of alarm has been sounded in time, and citizens are again beginning
to rally round the side of law and order.
It should, however, be fully realized that this violently fickle conduct of the public is very dangerous to the
preservation of peace. It is straining the administration of the police, it is endangering the discipline of the force,
it is encouraging the mob to disorder and rapine, and it very much increases the police rate.
It may readily be conjectured for what purpose these desperate efforts have recently been made to vilify the
police administration, and to circulate exaggerated and incorrect statements concerning its internal arrangements.
The object of this article is to put a few leading facts before the public, which may possibly clear away many of
the misconceptions with which the subject of police has been dexterously surrounded; and it can be understood,
from examples now given, that there may be a vast number of other points on which most inaccurate statements
have been made, but on which, for police purposes, it may be better to say little or nothing, as it is probable that
one of the objects of the slanders at present being scattered is to draw some reply which will reveal the internal
working of the police administration in a manner which may be useful to those who are acting contrary to law.
The whole safety and security of London depends, in a great measure, upon the efficiency of the uniform police
constable acting with the support of the citizen, the constable being kept up to the mark, and yet prevented going
beyond the law by the Commissioner of Police and the Police Magistrates and Judges. And it cannot be too strongly
impressed upon the mind, at a time when the detective efficiency of the police is being called into question,
that it has been held as a police maxim that "the primary object of an efficient police is the prevention of crime,
the next that of detection and punishment of offenders if crime is committed. To these ends all the efforts of
the police must be directed. The protection of life and property, the preservation of public tranquillity, and the
absence of crime, will alone prove whether those efforts have been successful, and whether the objects for which
the police were appointed have been attained."
The police statistics can compare most favourably with any other city in Europe, and crimes of a heavy nature,
such as murder and burglary, are very rare.
The office of constable or peace officer dates back to the Saxon period.
Two constables or peace officers were originally chosen in every Hundred, and they were permitted to exercise
their offices by deputy. Their actual powers of arrest in cases of felony are very slightly greater than those of
any other citizen: the principal difference being that while any person can arrest anyone whom he reasonably
suspects of having committed a felony, the peace officer can arrest on the same grounds, whether a felony has in
fact been committed or not.
The word 'police' has not until quite recent years necessarily included the police force, but only the legislative
arrangement under which the magistrates were enabled to prevent crimes and misdemeanours. The term, 'police'
was introduced from the Continent and appears to have been first used in 1787, when paid constables were
appointed in Ireland.
The police system was very slowly developed in England and was first introduced in London in 1792, when seven
police offices were established, with twenty-one stipendiary justices. In each of these offices six paid constables
were appointed, and with the eight at Bow Street and sixty-seven patrols, gave a force of 117. The parochial
constables numbered 883, so that the entire force amounted to 1,000.
In addition were 2,044 beadles, watchmen, and patrols, and thus the entire civil force of the Metropolis made
an aggregate of 3144 men, the population at that time being estimated at 1,250,000 persons.
Notwithstanding this improved system of police, it was ascertained, even after it had been in operation for
several years, that the loss in London by petty thefts alone amounted to £710,000, and that the aggregate value
of the depredations committed on public and private property yearly amounted to £2,100,000, and this failure

of police was attributed in a great measure to the disintegrated state of the Police force in the Metropolis,
occasioned, under the parish system, by a number of jurisdictions, clashing one with another, and preventing the
full operations of a system by which the energy and vigilance of the police office might be properly utilized. (In
1887, with a population of 5,476,000, the loss was £97,000.)
By degrees the system of paid constables acting under the Magistrates developed more and more, until the
necessity arose for a centralization of the administration of the whole force of constables in connection with the
Executive, as distinct from the judicial duties of the Stipendiary Magistrates, and it was determined to appoint a
ninth office of police with two Justices of the Peace, who were to direct and control the whole force of constables.
This is probably the most important step ever taken in the interest of Justice, the judicial functions remaining
with the eight offices of police in London, while the administrative functions were placed under the Westminster
or Scotland Yard Office of Police, specially appointed for the purpose. There can be little doubt that the great
confidence which is reposed in the London Magistracy and in the Metropolitan Police is due to this separation.
The constable (not the Commissioner, let it be observed) has under the Police and other Acts enormous powers
which are willingly accorded to him, because there is every confidence that if he were to abuse them he would
be punished by the magistrate. The report of the Constabulary Force Commission, 1839, specially refers to this
subject, and they quote the following striking remarks of a Manchester Stipendiary Magistrate:
I think that all decisions of magistrates in cases where policemen have been concerned, are much more
satisfactory, and will be far better received than they would be, if that force were supposed to be
under their control.
One of the first and most important steps in the improvement of the Metropolitan Police consisted
of the separation of these functions, and it will be seen from the evidence of the most experienced
professional magistrates, delivered before the recent Committee of the House of Commons, and of
the unanimous opinion of the Committee, that the completion of the separation is essential to the
completion of the improvement.
The Scotland Yard Office of Police was established by Sir Robert Peel in the year 1829, which, acting under
the immediate authority of the Secretary of State, should direct and control the whole system of Metropolitan
Police; two Justices of the Peace being appointed under the Sign Manual to execute the duties of Justices of the
Peace at the said office, and within the limits of the Metropolitan Police district for the preservation of peace,
the prevention of crime, the detection and removal of offenders, and for carrying into execution the purposes of
the Metropolitan Police Act. The Justices, however, cannot act any Court of General or Quarter Sessions, or in any
matter out of Sessions, except those above mentioned.
In 1839 an Act was passed for further improving the Metropolitan Police, and in it the two Justices of the Peace
of Scotland Yard were first termed Commissioners of Police.
In 1856, an Act was passed appointing but one Commissioner of Police in lieu of the two Justices or
Commissioners, to be styled 'The Commissioner Of Police Of The Metropolis," and stating that the duties and
powers of the Commissioners of Police were to be performed by the sole Commissioner, and all enactments having
reference to the Commissioners of Police were to be applicable to the said Commissioner of Police. At the same
time two Assistant-Commissioners of Police were established, who, under the superintendence and control of the
Commissioner, should perform such acts and duties in execution of the Act relating to the police as may from time
to time be directed by orders and regulations made by the Commissioner with the approbation of the Secretary
of State.
The Commissioner of Police, as a Justice of the Peace, is also given statutory power to furnish the Police
Magistrates with a report on matters with reference to the Act for regulating their Courts, and to the Police of the
Metropolis, and such report is to be considered by the Magistrates.
In 1884 an Act was passed establishing an additional or third Assistant-Commissioner, subject to the same
regulations as the first two. This additional Assistant-Commissioner was appointed to enable the Commissioner to
control the Criminal Investigative Branch.
It may be interesting to mention in a few words some of the principal statutory duties which devolve on the
Commissioner in addition to his primary duties of preserving the peace, preventing crime, and detecting and
committing offenders.

The Commissioner has special power under the Metropolitan Streets Act, 1867, both as regards the general
limits extending to six miles from Charing Cross, as regards special limits, within which, with the approval of the
Secretary of State, he is empowered to declare any street which is within the general limits.
Within those special limits he can make regulations as to routes to be observed by vehicles, and persons riding
or driving, and taking up and setting down of passengers of stage carriages. The loading of coal and casks, and
carriage of timber and heavy goods can be prohibited during certain hours.
When the general limit the duties are manifold. He can prohibit scavenging and driving of cattle between 10
am and 7 pm; direct dogs to be muzzled and stray dogs, after they have been in his possession three days, to
be sold; to license shoeblacks and messengers and fix their stations. No picture or placards (except newspapers)
can be carried through the streets, or distributed without his permission, as to costermongers there are special
regulations.
He makes regulations for preventing obstructions in the streets during public processions and rejoicings or
illuminations, and for keeping order near places of public resort. He regulates the routes and conduct of persons
driving carts and carriages, cattle and animals, during the hours of divine service, on special holidays, or in any
case where the streets or thoroughfares may be thronged.
He has also the power to make regulations for maintaining order and securing safety of the public on the River
Thames during regattas, boat-races, & etc.
He authorizes the inspection of premises or steam-ships, to which the provisions of the Smoke Nuisance Act
apply.
He grants licenses for cabs and omnibuses, and has custody of the property left in public carriages, and
determines the ownership and the awards to drivers and conductors.
He has power to order watch-boxes to be put on highways.
He is the local authority; and may place restrictions on all dogs not being under control of any person, should
a mad dog be found within his jurisdiction.
He can authorize a Superintendent to enter a house, when there are good grounds for believing it to be used
as a common gaming house or as a betting house. He has power to direct summonses to owners or occupiers of
ground upon which fairs are held without legal authority.
He is the local authority for exemption orders as to houses on special occasions under the Licensing Act, 1871.
The enforcement of regulations of local authorities under the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act, is carried out
by the Police Force under the Commissioner's direction.
He controls the execution of the Common Lodging House Act; grants certificates to pedlars and chimney sweeps;
appoints the standings for hackney carriages.
Many of the subjects above enumerated do not pertain to police duties, and have probably been placed upon
the police because no other department was considered able to execute them better. But now that a Local
Government for London has been established and an effort will be made to place the police directly under the
County Council, it is questionable whether it might not be desirable to make an experiment as a preliminary
measure and give over to the Council such duties as are under the Smoke Act, the inspection of common lodging
houses, the appointment of hackney carriage standings, the licensing of public carriages, the Lost Property Office,
the duties connected with hawkers, pedlars, shoeblacks, and messengers.
The Commissioner issues the warrants for the Police Rate, and directs the overseers to pay the amount into the
Bank of England to the account of the Receiver.
No police application for summons can be applied for to a magistrate without the Commissioner's approval.
The Police Fund is not intended to bear the cost of prosecutions and consequently they are not instituted by
the Commissioner except indirectly. In certain matters the Commissioner applies to the Public Prosecutor; in
other matters private persons are bound over to prosecute. In the case of disorderly houses, the parish vestry
prosecutes.
The Commissioner is invested with special powers in regard to crime. He keeps the London Register of convicted
criminals, and carries out the law regarding those who have been convicted within seven years of the expiration
of their sentence. He has also the administration of the Extradition Acts.

In order to carry out these multifarious duties with an efficient police force, the three Assistant-Commissioners
have handed over to them distinct duties, viz:
(a.) The administration and discipline of the whole Police Force.
(b.) Civil business and matters connected with lands, buildings, stores and provisions.
(c.) Criminal investigation
In 1874, a Legal Adviser to the Commissioner of great professional experience and legal knowledge was
appointed; he continued in office until 1887; since his death the post has not been filled up and the greater
portion of his work devolves directly upon the Commissioner.
On account of the jealousy of a section of the public shown to the Metropolitan Police from its establishment
in 1829, no attempt was made to form any Detective or Criminal Investigation Branch until 1842, when a few of
the uniform branch were detached for this purpose. These were gradually increased in numbers and it became
the practice, though no fixed rule was in force to recruit their ranks from the uniform police by placing them in
plain clothes for a period of probation. This system continued up to 1878, when owing to a want of supervision
over some of the detectives, a Commission was appointed to report on the subject, resulting in the appointment
of a Director of Criminal Investigation. It was clearly intended that he should be subordinate to the Commissioner
of Police, and everyone who knows anything of police duties must be aware that it was quite impracticable for
police work to be done efficiently under two heads, the one independent of the other.
It is however stated in the Police Code published by the late Director that the whole detective establishment
was under his absolute control. However this might have been in practice, it was not so under the law, the
Commissioner of Police alone being responsible for the Criminal Administration. A variety of difficulties, which
were successfully put right, occurred, and it was considered in the police that the change had not improved the
detective service, and that on the other hand the uniform police had become less successful in preventing and
detecting crime. Such an anomalous condition of affairs could not long continue, and in 1884 the appointment by
Act of Parliament, to act under the control and supervision of the Commissioner, and he was given charge of the
Criminal Investigations. No change was made in the method of enrolling members for the detective service, but
some few candidates have been admitted direct and a great number examined and rejected. Of those admitted,
few if any have been found qualified to remain in the detective service. It seems therefore that although the
Criminal Investigation Branch is open to receive any qualified person direct as a general rule no persons for some
years past have presented themselves sufficiently qualified to remain. And there are indications of the advantages
of a previous police training in the uniform branch, in the fact that the most successful private detectives at
present in the country are those who have formerly been in and originally trained in the uniform branch.
It will be seen on reference to the Parliamentary reports that a portion of the detective force is employed in the
Commissioner's Office as a Central Office Staff, while a portion forms part of each division acting directly under
the Superintendent who takes his directions from the Assistant-Commissioner for Criminal matters in precisely
the same manner as he takes them from the two other Civil Commissioners for Administrative and Civil business.
The great aim of the present system is to keep up the most cordial relations between the uniform branch and
detective service consistent with efficiency in both branches.
The genius of the English race does not lend itself to elaborate detective operations similar to those said to be
practised on the Continent. The free institutions of this country are happily quite against any natural training of
the youthful mind towards real detective work. When there is nothing to fear for an honest man there is nothing
to conceal and mutual suspicion is not engendered. Englishmen learn to trust each other until the 'word of an
Englishman' is used as the sealing of a faithful bargain among Oriental and savage tribes very far afield.
The system in vogue on the Continent has led to a different form of thought; there is a general system of
Government espionage which stamps the mind of the people with mutual distrust and which is reflected in the
schools and institutions. Young people grow up to distrust and watch each other and there is a natural detective
system thus established. Moreover, the powers of the police are immensely in excess of anything which obtains
in this country. Here the constable in cases of felony has scarcely more power than any other citizen - across the
Channel the police are masters of the situation the public gave way before them and the press does not venture
to discuss their operations, to embarrass and hinder their enquiries, or to publish their results; though on the
other hand there is a distinct and serious loss to the community, police included from the absence of a free press.

On the other hand, Englishmen possess pre-eminently qualities which are essential to good detective work,
such as dogged pertinacity in watching, thoroughness of purpose, an absence of imagination and downright
sterling honesty. These qualities go far to counteract the wants before enumerated.
Probably also the Englishman is yet more wanting in originality than his Continental neighbour, but this is a
quality which is very sparingly bestowed on human beings though it can be cultivated if a germ exists. On the
whole it may be expected that for all ordinary services the Englishman among his country-men is as likely to make
as good a detective as a Frenchman among the French. But for abnormal services as for those among bodies of
foreigners living together in London probably some special measures should be adopted.
The proof, however, of the London detective's value can only be tested by the results and as the results are
due to both uniform and plain clothes police, it is fair to credit to each a due portion of the success attained.
One hundred years ago, under a disjointed parish police service, London is said to have been more disorderly and
worse policed than any city in Europe. It has now, under a centralised police force, taken the first place among
European cities in regard to order and absence of crime and this with a very moderate number of police officers.
During the past year principal officers of police from the most important cities of the world have come to London
to study our police organization and to endeavour to ascertain how we are enabled to detect crime. Heavy crimes
have been diminishing in the Metropolis year by year so that even within the official lives of many police officers
a marked improvement has taken place.
In 1797 the estimated number of persons supposed to support themselves by pursuits either criminally illegal
or immoral amounted to 115,000 in a population of 1,250,000 or nearly ten per cent. It is difficult to realize what
would be the condition of London at the present day were there now be such a percentage.
With regard to murder, the detection of the criminal has been made so generally sure that this crime seldom
occurs unless under abnormal circumstances. And it is this very fact which leads the public to suppose that the
power of detection is declining. It will probably be allowed in the abstract that with a perfect system of detection
no cases of murder are likely to occur except of such a character that they could not be detected without a
considerable enquiry; and therefore the statistics would show a preponderance of undetected murders, although
the proportion per 1000 would be at a minimum.
One of the modern difficulties the police have to contend with is the return to London of the hardened criminal
class after short terms of imprisonment; in former days these persons remained away for years, but now they are
constantly returning.
It is merely a mathematical calculation what is the increased percentage of criminals who are now swarming
in parts of London owing to short sentences and it may be readily surmised to how great an extent they endanger
the peace of the community and increase the expenses of the police.
If London had the power of refusing to admit within the Metropolitan Police District all persons who had been
convicted two or even three times of heavy crimes, such as burglary and house breaking, it is pretty certain that
the number of police could be greatly reduced and houses would be seldom broken into.
It has been a rule in the Metropolitan Police to give very little information to the public as to the Criminal
Investigation branch and in consequence many remarkable accounts have been given to the world which have
not been contradicted. And so long as the stories did no harm little importance was attached to them. Recently,
however, stories have been circulated having a mischievous tendency as likely to encourage thieves and criminals,
and it may serve a good purpose to contradict them. In joining the detective force there is no hard and fast
rule as to height, physique, age, & etc., as in the uniform branch; any eligible candidate can be selected by the
Commissioner and it is not necessary for him to serve previously as a uniform constable. Any suitable person can
be taken on. It is assumed by the public that because they may think they know the appearance of a constable
in plain clothes that therefore they know all the detectives in the neighbourhood. A remark made a short time
ago by the Commissioner to one who complained that all the detectives were known is applicable; "You know
all you know, but you do not know those you do not know." The public do not know the detectives as a body and
frequently erroneously assume that they are not present when they are beside them.
The detective staff is, however, a mere small percentage of the uniform branch and whatever the public
may think it must be openly and unequivocally stated that the peace and good order of the Metropolis and the
prevention of crime depends upon the uniform branch and that the first and most essential point in a force of

14,000 men is administration and discipline. All other matters are subsidiary and it has already been pointed out
that one hundred years ago the police of the Metropolis utterly failed, not because they could not detect crime,
but because they were an undisciplined rabble attached to the various parishes and constantly at variance with
each other.
It might be possible for a small force of constables in a small town to keep order and prevent crime without
discipline, but with a large force of 14,000 men, all would be chaos and confusion without it. With a large force,
the higher the discipline the fewer constables are required, and a very small alteration in discipline may make
from 5 to10 per cent difference in the value of the services of the men. In other words, with 14,000, a moderate
increase or decrease in the discipline may occasion an increase or decrease of 1,000 men. It must not be supposed
that because administration and discipline are put in the foreground--other most important matters, such as
detective work, are ignored; but it cannot be too strongly enforced on the attention of constables and citizens
that they, under the law, are the true detectives, and nothing should be said or done that will tend to relieve
them of this responsibility.
The value of the detective branch itself is but a drop in the ocean for all the myriads of common-place offences
which might readily into serious crime if not looked after by the uniform police and by citizens.
In carrying out his administrative duties the "Commissioner, subject to the approbation of one of the Secretaries
of State, passes such orders and regulations as he shall deem expedient relative to the general government
of the men to be appointed members of the Police Force; the places of their residences, the classification,
rank, and particular service of the several members; their distribution and inspections; the description of arms,
accoutrements and other necessaries to be furnished to them; and which of them shall be provided with horses
for the performance of their duties; and all other such orders and regulations relative to the said Police Force, as
the said Commissioner shall from time to time deem expedient for preventing neglect or abuse, and for rendering
such force efficient in the discharge of all its duties."
During the past two years the Police Orders in connection with administration promulgated in 1873, have been
consolidated with those published from time to time during the succeeding fifteen years and have now been
issued to the Police Force for use and trial previous to final correction. This has tended immensely to assist Police
administration, as now the whole of the orders on such subjects can be found in sequence without difficulty, while
previously there was not an officer in the force who could say accurately what the orders on any particular subject
were. This has been a matter of very great labour as the varying duties of the force throughout the Metropolis
require the closest attention to the necessities of a variety of cases.
The system to be adopted in enrolling candidates has a most vital effect on the Police Force and during the last
two years a variety of minor improvements have been effected.
One of the most glaring defects was that of having an enormous list of candidates on the books waiting for
several months by which system the best often got employment elsewhere before their turn came round and the
Police Force lost their services. The endeavour has been to have a very small list of the most eligible candidates
who should be kept waiting at most but a few weeks. With this in view a considerable amount of weeding out has
been adopted. There is now a preliminary medical examination outside London to enable candidates to at once
ascertain whether they are likely to pass the examination of the Chief Surgeon. The Chief Surgeon's examination
has been made more strict so that a more enduring class of men are passed through. The standard height has been
raised from 5 ft 8½ in to 5 ft 9 and the age reduced to 27. An educational test has also been established. There
is, however, no hard and fast rule in cases where the exigencies of the police service require a man with some
special qualifications.
After the passing of the candidate, he proceeds to the Candidates Section House which has recently been
established where he remains from fourteen to eighteen days learning his police duties and drill; he also receives
a complete course of lectures in rendering first aid to the sick and injured.
Formerly the candidate was located in lodgings about the town and his course consisted almost entirely of drill
only. A book of instructions for candidates in police duties has been printed with a copy of which he is furnished;
and he is required to pass an examination in this before he can be enrolled as a police-constable. On being sworn
in, he is posted to a division where he learns his duties by attendance at a police court and in other ways for
fourteen days, before he accompanies an experienced constable for duty on a beat. The training of these young

constables in this manner has often led to the assertion that the police officers are now working in the streets in
couples.
It is necessary that the constable, after he is once appointed, should keep up sufficient knowledge of drill to
enable him to march in file from one street to another or to form up quickly in times of procession and fete days
in order to line the streets.
This drill occupies one hour per week (on pay days) during the summer months or other warm weather and is
knocked off in very hot or very cold or wet weather, or when there is special business. The result is that in the
September quarter, which is the quarter in which there is most drill, there were eight drill days on the average,
with an average of 3,500 men attending. This is the equivalent to two hours drill per man per quarter. And taking
into consideration the lesser amount of drill during the other quarters, the average is about six hours drill per
annum.
During the years 1886 and 1887 the drill was almost entirely given up. This fact will probably give some idea
of the incorrect statements recently circulated concerning the excessive drill to which the members of the
Metropolitan Police are subjected. When constables and sergeants are promoted they are required to be able
to give words of command to the men they march about and if not able to pass in drill are put through a course
of from ten to fourteen days. The drill-book has been revised during 1886 and only details of the most simple
description have been inserted in it, such as are absolutely necessary for police duties and only extending to
squad drill. Police are not drilled in companies as in former days.
It is quite untrue that there has been any attempt to make soldiers of the police, but there are certain
attributes and qualifications which have been aimed at which pertain also to the soldier, sailor, postman, railway
guard, or, if fact, to any citizen who joins an organized service.
It is also quite incorrect that a large number of reserve or discharged soldiers have been recently added to
the Police Force. The Commissioner has for some years been restricted to the number of five hundred army
reserve men at one time and the reduction of limit to twenty seven years of age has diminished the number of
discharged soldiers joining during the last two years though exceptions are made in the case of a discharged non-
commissioned officer with very good testimonials and character.
The great object of the superior officers has been to keep well in view the fact that the constables are citizens
acting among and assisted by their fellow-townsmen, and there are probably no persons in this country who have
a better knowledge of their position, duties, and obligations as citizens than officers who have served in the army.
There can be very little doubt that the outcry against the police as a military force, so far as it is not instigated
for special political or sinister purposes, is due to the Englishman who poses as a censor of public bodies, possessing,
as a rule, but one idea at a time. And he imagines that all his fellow countrymen must be endowed exactly as
himself. Consequently when he finds how admirably the police performed their duties during last year - in camp
and court - during fetes and tumults, he jumps to the conclusion that this is their only qualification, and that they
can do nothing else.
This is really an unfair and unreasonable proceeding, but yet it will be found to pervade the minds of most of
our fellow-countrymen; and as a significant commentary on this fact it may be mentioned that among the several
hundred letters received from correspondents of all classes lately about the Whitechapel murders, the bulk of
them make only four proposals, thus showing their poverty of originality.
It has been said that the police operations in Trafalgar Square were but military operations; it should be pointed
out, however, that while the tactics were highly commended, the strategy was admired not only by experts at the
clubs, but by the Social Democrats themselves; and there is a most interesting letter on the subject by Mr. Morris
in one of the democratic newspapers. It must be conceded that strategy is a qualification pre-eminently required
for strategic reasons much could be said to show that the Police Force is not wanting in those qualities which so
directly lead the detection of crime.
On the 12th of December 1873, the Home Secretary, Mr Lowe, when commenting on a similar attack on the
police at the Fishmonger's Hall, said, "The agitation, therefore, is not so much against the police as against the
ratepayers, for it is only by maintaining the confidence of the people of the Metropolis that you can manage with
so small a force."
In conclusion, it may be observed that it is quite impractical within the limits of a short article to do more

than show in a few important instances that the hostile criticism levelled at police administration is based upon
absolutely incorrect premises; probably enough has been said to assure the reader that no attempt has been made
to drill and train the police as a military force, that more attention is being paid to the detective duties than
the service has ever had bestowed upon it before and that the question as to the necessity for an increase to the
Police Force is a matter resting entirely in the hands of the citizens of London. If the people of London choose to
create panics and false alarms, they must prepare themselves for some extra safeguards than the present number
of police; but if they will keep cool and recognize the fact that the police are doing their duty in an admirable and
exemplary manner, so far as is in the power of flesh and blood, among all the temptations to which the citizens
subject them, they will come forward and assist the police as many Vigilance Societies are doing at the present
time, in repressing crime; they will cease to praise or blame at times when it is not applicable; and they will find
that in succeeding years, the want of an extra number of police officers will steadily diminish.
CHARLES WARREN
SIR HOWARD VINCENT’S

POLICE CODE
1889
NEIL R A BELL and ADAM WOOD
FOREWORD BY
DEPUTY ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER NEIL BASU
Chairman of the Metropolitan and City Police Orphans Fund
A republishing of the famous guide for Metropolitan Police of the Victorian era, with
an extensive introduction by Neil Bell and Adam Wood.
First published in 1881, the Police Code was written by Howard Vincent, Director of
the CID and was an invaluable resource to Metropolitan Police officers. The version
reprinted is for 1889, in use by officers at the time of the Whitechapel murders.
Originally, a share of proceeds from sales were donated to the Metropolitan and City
Police Orphanage, and we are proud to continue this tradition by donating an equal
share of profits from every book sold to the Metropolitan and City Police Orphans
Fund.
AVAILABLE NOW FROM MANGO BOOKS

www.mangobooks.co.uk
* 262 pages - Hardback, cloth covers - 8 colour plates - £15.00 + P&P
From the Casebooks of
a Murder House Detective
The Borough High Street Mystery, 1875
and
The Murderous ‘Gentleman Jim’, 1892
By JAN BONDESON
The Borough High Street Mystery, 1875

In 1875, the premises at No. 151 Borough High Street, Southwark, was
the Turner Steam Bread and Biscuit Manufactory, a small bakery employing
several workmen. The housekeeper at the bakery was the 55-year-old Miss
Jane Caroline Soper, a middle-aged spinster, who had been working for Mr
Turner many years. Early in the morning of Sunday, 12 September 1875, a
man knocked on the side door to the bakery, in King Street. He said that he
had been sent from the Terminus Hotel, to get some fresh bread. Although
she did not recognize the man, Miss Soper, who was alone on the premises,
went to get some bread, since she knew that this hotel was one regularly
supplied with bread from Mr Turner’s firm. But instead of paying for the
bread, the man struck Miss Soper hard on the temple, knocking her out cold.
Without stealing anything, he then calmly left the bakery. When the bakers
came to work, they found Miss Soper unconscious in the entrance hall, and
she was removed to hospital.
There had been no witnesses to the assault on Miss Soper, and although
various people had been observed loitering outside the bakery, there was
nothing to connect them with the crime. The police initially made few
exertions to investigate the crime, particularly since, on 22 September, an
optimistic young doctor predicted that Miss Soper would recover completely.
The skull was not broken, and she was recovering favourably. She was
unable to describe the man who had attacked her, except that he had been
wearing dark clothes and that some of her blood must have spurted over his
attire. On 30 September, the doctor found his patient ‘somewhat worse’,
however, and on 5 October she died unexpectedly, without any of her ‘dying A postcard showing the Borough High Street.
depositions’ being recorded. More than three weeks after the attack on
Jane Soper, the Metropolitan Police belatedly began a murder investigation.
The experienced Scotland Yard detectives Chief Inspector Nathaniel Druscovich and Inspector John Meiklejohn took
charge of the murder investigation. Five hundred large and a thousand small posters were pasted up all over London,
and in the large provincial cities as well, giving details of the Borough High Street murder, and announcing a £100 reward
for the capture of the murderer. It was considered noteworthy that a pair of false whiskers had been found in the murder
room. Suspicion soon fell on Christopher Chandler, a former workman at the bakery, since he had been observed near
the premises on 10 September, and since nine months earlier, he had been wearing a false beard and moustache. But
when tracked down in New Brompton, Chandler denied all involvement in the murder, and the evidence against him did
not appear strong. Nor did much of value emerge from the coroner’s inquest on Jane Soper, except that a certain Mrs
Dyer had seen a man in King Street who might have been the murderer. Chief Inspector Druscovich presumed that the
murderer had been a thief planning to rob the bakery, but he had lost his nerve after knocking down Miss Soper, and ran
off empty-handed.

On 2 November 1875, when the murder investigation seemed to be going nowhere, a lad named William Knell
contacted the police, with the information that a certain Charles Houghton had told him that his own brother-in-law had
murdered Jane Soper. The brother-in-law was identified as Sheridan Fletcher Morley, a baker living at Blackman’s Court,
Bermondsey. He was known as a rough character, violent and drunken in his ways, but without previous convictions for
serious crime. When the police tracked down his wife in Blackman’s Court, she told them that Sheridan had deserted
her the morning of the murder, and that she had not seen him since!
Chief Inspector Druscovich was convinced that Morley was the guilty man, and also that Houghton was an accomplice
who helped to shelter him from the police. To track Morley down, he rented a room over a beer-shop, just opposite
Houghton’s home, and ordered four police constables to keep it under surveillance around the clock. In the end, this
unconventional strategy paid off, and both Morley and Houghton were arrested. Brought before the Southwark Police
Court on 1 February 1876, they stoutly denied any involvement in the murder of Jane Soper. Houghton said that his
chaffing about his brother-in-law had committed the murder had just been a joke. Although Morley was a baker, there
was nothing to connect him with Mr Turner’s bakery, or with Jane Soper herself. The witness Mrs Dyer could not recognize
him as the man she had observed knocking at the door in King Street. Due to the lack of evidence against Morley and
Houghton, the magistrate Mr Partridge discharged both prisoners. Chief Inspector Druscovich, who remained convinced
that Morley was the guilty man, asked for the witness Knell, who had been so helpful to the police, to receive a reward
of £2, and this was granted. Druscovich also asked for the brave constables who had been ordered “to keep observation
for upwards of 70 days continuous, they were in a very low neighbourhood in a beer shop, frequently mixing with the
customers” to be rewarded for their zeal, but they received nothing.
To assess the strength of the case against Morley and Houghton, it is

important also to examine the characters of their main accusers, Chief
Inspector Nathaniel Druscovich and Inspector John Meiklejohn. At the time
they were investigating the murder of Jane Soper, these two were bent
coppers, on the payroll of the swindlers William Kurr and Harry Benson. The
two detectives, and some of their Scotland Yard colleagues as well, pocketed
considerable sums of money, as they repeatedly perverted the course of
justice to protect Kurr and Benson. But in the end, the crooked detectives
got their well-merited come-uppance. Druscovich and Meiklejohn were both
convicted of taking bribes in 1877, sentenced to two years imprisonment,
and dismissed from the police force in disgrace.
Now, had Morley in some way got into the way of Kurr or Benson, and
had they instructed their bent coppers to frame him for the murder of
Jane Soper? This seems unlikely, since Kurr and Benson were relatively
sophisticated criminals, and Morley a mere street hoodlum. Or did Druscovich
and Meiklejohn deliberately set out to fabricate a ‘solution’ to the murder,
to forward their own careers and cover up the taking of bribes? It is true
that the case against Morley was pitifully weak, but what if he had lost his
composure when questioned by the police, or if Houghton could have been
convinced to give evidence against him, or if Mrs Dyer could have been
‘helped’ to pick him out as the murder? The former bakery at No. 151 Borough High Street,
site of the unsolved murder of Jane Soper in 1875.
The murder house
at No. 151 Borough
High Street is still standing, a rare survivor in these parts. It is
today a small shop, at the corner with King [now Newcomen]
Street. The side entrance through which Miss Soper admitted her
murderer still remains, although it has been secured with a metal
gate, 140 years after the murderer bolted.
The side door to the shop at No.151 Borough High Street has been firmly secured,
140 years after the murderer bolted.

The Murderous ‘Gentleman Jim’, 1892
James Banbury was born in Camden Town in 1868. At an early age, he was apprenticed to a carpenter, but since he
turned out to be a quite vicious and unmanageable young lad, his family sent him off to some relatives in Australia.
Here, he robbed and nearly killed an old woman, and was sentenced to eleven months’ solitary confinement. James
Banbury emerged from the Antipodian prison as angry and mean-spirited as before. His family managed to provide him
with a job as a clerk in a tramway company, but he embezzled a large sum of money and took to the bush. He lived rough
for many months, hunting kangaroos and other animals, and working as a cowboy when he felt like it. After getting word
that his father had died, he made haste back to England in September 1891, to make sure that he was not cheated out
of his inheritance.
James Banbury made it all the way back to Camden Town and collected several hundred
pounds. In high spirits, he made plans to really enjoy his sojourn in the Metropolis. He
discarded his shabby Australian attire and bought some quality suits of clothes instead.
Describing himself as ‘a gentleman horse-gambler’, he was fond of attending race
meetings. He gambled hard, initially with good success. His flashy clothes and boastful
affluence meant that he ‘fitted in’ very well with the raffish throng gambling on the
horses. ‘Gentleman Jim’, as he soon became known, also acquired a mistress, the 18-year-
old Emma Oakley, and he moved into her lodgings at No. 81 Grosvenor Park, Walworth.
Emma was a pretty young floozie who had tired of working as a domestic servant. Instead
she was ‘kept’ by a string of well-to–do lovers. She led a jolly life with the short, stocky,
dapperly dressed ‘Gentleman Jim’ for several months.
But James Banbury’s initial spell of good luck deserted him, and
he gradually lost his money. When he was unable to pay the bills,
Emma evicted him from No. 81 Grosvenor Park, and he had to find
alternative lodgings at No. 6 Brewer Street, Pimlico [the house
still stands]. He had been genuinely fond of Emma, and drank hard
to forget about his failing fortunes. On 6 July 1892, ‘Gentleman
Jim’ came lurching out of a public house at two in the afternoon,
drunk as a lord after a lavish luncheon. He hailed a hansom cab,
finding that the driver, Henry Richard Briggs, was actually an old
The Grosvenor Park murder house.
acquaintance of his, and a fellow racing enthusiast. Bragging that Like the other two on this page, this image is
he had won £30 at Alexandra Park a few days ago, Banbury ordered from the Illustrated Police News, July 9 1892
him to drive to Walworth. They stopped at a pub on the way, to

have a couple of glasses of gin each. At another pub in Walworth
Road, the thirsty ‘Gentleman Jim’ emptied another glass of gin
before wandering off, telling Briggs to wait for him. After twenty
minutes, he returned, puffing at a large cigar. He ordered Briggs
to take him to Charing Cross.
The pretty young Emma Oakley.
When they arrived at Charing Cross, they went off to another
public house to have some more gin. Suddenly and unexpectedly, Banbury said ‘Get down
and have a drink as I am going to leave you. I have shot a girl’. Laughing, the equally drunk
Briggs chaffed ‘You have not got the pluck. You could not shoot for nuts!’ But the cabbie
became apprehensive when ‘Gentleman Jim’ pulled out a revolver, obviously a relic of
his bushranging days in Australia, and said ‘It is quite true. I loved her, and made up my
mind no one else should have her!’ Fearful that the weapon would go off by mistake when
handled by the drunken gambler, Briggs snatched it away from him when he looked away.
Much worse for wear from drink, Banbury was unable to reclaim his revolver by force;
instead he cravenly begged for it to be returned to him, and even offered £50 for it. Again,
Briggs thought he was just joking. But as they went back through the station, ‘Gentleman
Jim’ struck him a hard blow on the neck. The sturdy cabbie returned the blow and frog-
marched his inebriated opponent back to the cab. But when they went past Waterloo The sinister ‘Gentleman Jim’.
Place, Banbury suddenly jumped out of the cab and disappeared into the crowd, without
paying his fare.
All the major players in the Walworth Shooting Drama, and another sketch of the murder house,
from the Penny Illustrated Paper, 9 July 1892
The cabman Briggs had thought that ‘Gentleman Jim’ had just been chaffing when he talked about shooting a girl in
Walworth. But the next day, having recovered from his hangover, he read in the newspaper about the murder of young
Emma Oakley. At the Carter Street police station, he gave a full account of his dealings with the sinister ‘Gentleman
Jim’, handing over the loaded revolver to convince them he was telling the truth. Detective Sergeant Leonard and Police
Sergeant Brogden knew all about the murder of young Emma Oatley, gunned down in her lodgings at No. 81 Grosvenor
Park by an unknown assailant. They managed to track down Banbury’s Brewer Street lodgings. He was not there, but
another lodger told them that the evening before, ‘Gentleman Jim’ had been even more drunk than usual. He had talked
about shooting a girl, but again the witness had not believed him. A few hours later, when Banbury returned home, the
two policemen kicked open the door to his room and took him into custody.
At the coroner’s inquest on young Emma

Oatley, the first witness was her father, the
coachman Henry Oatley. Although he had
known that she had not been in service for
several years, he had not made inquiries
what kind of life she was leading, since
he thought her old enough to look after
herself. The cabman Briggs told all about
his expedition to Walworth with ‘Gentleman
Jim’, and Detective Sergeant Leonard
described the arrest of Banbury at his Brewer
Street lodgings. The coroner’s jury returned
a verdict of wilful murder against James
Banbury. They added that it was their opinion
that the father of the deceased was deserving
of severe censure for his most unmanly
conduct towards his child, and that Detective
A postcard showing part of Grosvenor Park; take a sharp right turn and you will see the murder house! Sergeant Leonard should be commended for
his prompt arrest of the prisoner.

At the trial of James Banbury, the same individuals gave evidence.
Furthermore, the landlady at No. 81 Grosvenor Park, Mrs Emma Foster,
identified Banbury as the man she had seen running away from the
premises after shooting Emma Oatley. The drunken ‘Gentleman Jim’ had
confessed the murder to three different people, but none of them had
believed him. Since it was clear to all that Banbury had murdered young
Emma, the best the defence could do was to try playing the ‘insanity
card’: his grandfather had been a little insane, it was claimed, and his
great-aunt had died in a lunatic asylum in Australia. But the Holloway
medical officer, who had observed Banbury there, gave the opinion that
the prisoner was of sound mind. The jury retired for nearly two hours,
before returning to deliver a verdict of Guilty, with a recommendation
to mercy on account of the prisoner’s age. But before the verdict was
entered, there was farce when the Foreman pointed out that two of the
jurymen were so deaf that they had been unable to hear the evidence.
After the two men had readily admitted that this as the case, the jury
was discharged. The case was reheard before another jury, with the
same verdict. James Banbury was sentenced to death and executed at
Wandsworth Prison on 11 October 1892.
While searching for the Grosvenor Park murder house, it soon became
clear that the houses had been renumbered at some stage, perhaps after
the murder. The present-day No. 81 does not at all match the drawing of
the murder house in the Illustrated Police News. Since the readers of this
A postcard depicting ‘No. 1 South Villas, Grosvenor Park’, today
particular newspaper were often fond of gawping at murder houses, its No. 47 Grosvenor Park, situated next door to the murder house at
illustrations were very accurate. And indeed, a search of the Post Office No. 49, and built in a very similar style.
directories revealed that they houses had been renumbered a few years
after the murder. The old No. 81 became No. 49, and the present-day No.
49 Grosvenor Park exactly matches the sketch of the murder house in the
Illustrated Police News. It remains virtually unchanged since the days of
‘Gentleman Jim’ and poor Emma Oatley, and apart from some yellowed
newspaper clippings and James Banbury’s revolver, which was deposited
in the Black Museum, it is the sole reminder of a once notorious crime
that has become almost completely forgotten.
*****
Both stories are extracts from Jan Bondeson’s book

Murder Houses of South London (Troubador Publishing, Leicester 2015).
See our review in this issue.
The murder house at what is today No. 49 Grosvenor Park.
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.
A Fatal Affinity:
Marked for a Victim
Chapter Three:
The Views of Colonel Mansfield
By NINA and HOWARD BROWN
126 years ago this month, the noted ‘thought reader’ Stuart Cumberland’s Whitechapel
murders-influenced fiction novel, A Fatal Affinity, was serialized in issues of the South Australian
Weekly Chronicle (Adelaide). Cumberland’s book was just one of several Ripper-related works
which appeared contemporaneously to the East End murders. In the last issue of Ripperologist we
published Chapter Two; here, we give Chapter Three: The Views of Colonel Mansfield.
*****
Chapter III
The Views of Colonel Mansfield
The newcomer, Colonel Mansfield, was a very distinguished man. He had held high posts in the Indian diplomatic
service including that of the chief of the Thuggee & Dacoity Department; and of the ways and customs of the native
races he probably knew more than any living Englishman.
He was a great linguist, speaking most European and Eastern languages, including the patois of the hill tribes of
Northern India fluently. The natives trusted him and he had great influence over them, and it was solely owing to his
tact that many a diplomatic difficulty was smoothed over and to his influence that certain serious acts of rebellion were
averted.
Colonel Mansfield had dipped deeply into the sacred writings of the Hindoos and was greatly learned in what is termed
the Occultism of the East. Since his retirement from active service he had devoted himself to special investigation
into these Indian mysteries which to the European are as of yore a sealed book. He had penetrated into the mountain
fastnesses of Tibet, the snowy solitudes of the Himalayas, and the untrodden jungles of Burma in search of knowledge.
He had commenced with aged Brahmins, learned pundits, holy fakirs, and mysterious hermits, who, living as they did in
immediate contact with the active forces of Nature, possessed secrets unknown to ordinary man.
It was rumored in official circles that whilst in Tibet he had been initiated in the sacred circle of adepts and certain
zealous missionaries averred that he had sold himself to the devil. But whether Colonel Mansfield had become a
Theosophist or had allowed his soul to become the possession of his Satanic Majesty or not, it was an indisputable fact
that he was not like ordinary men.
In appearance he was grave and dignified, tall and sparely built, with not an ounce of superfluous fat. His age was five
and fifty, but in his physical activity and brightness of eye looked fully ten years younger. His face was bronzed by the
warmth of the Eastern sun and hardened by exposure and down his right cheek was a deep seam made by the sword of
a wild Rajput during the Mutiny, when he served with marked distinction. His eyes were a pale unfathomable blue, far
searching and discerning ; they were kindly looking although cold and a student of character would at once have decided
that he was a man of his word - a man to be trusted.
Upon his arrival in the smoking room he was warmly welcomed by those around him. He returned their salutations
with courtesy, but politely declined to take a seat and join in the conversation.
“Of this particular subject I know nothing.” he said. “I have but this day returned from the East and where i have
been newspapers have not reached me. You will pardon me, therefore, if I ask you to excuse me from discussing the
matter.” and as if anxious to avoid further questioning, he retired into an adjoining room.

“What an off-hand fellow that Mansfield is”, said someone when that gentleman had disappeared.
“Yes, altogether unsociable,” remarked another.
“But what can you expect of a man who has been living for years in the wilderness with only his shadow for company?”,
added a third.
“A touch of madness somewhere, eh, doctor?” put in a ferret faced barrister, significantly touching his forehead.
The doctor vouchsafed no reply.
“Mad or not.” said a dried up Indian official standing by, “he is a remarkable able man and knows more of the natives
than the whole staff of the Indian Foreign Office put together. And if he has as they say, sold himself to the devil, he
has undoubtedly made a good bargain with his Satanic Majesty so far as this world is concerned, whatever may become
of his soul in the next.”
“If you knew Colonel Mansfield as well as I do,” remarked Dr. Harvey, with considerable warmth, “you would know
him to be one of the kindest-hearted fellows going and a truer friend never existed.”
No one appeared to question this direct testimony to the absent man’s character, and Dr Harvey shortly afterwards
left the room.
In the hall he met Colonel Mansfield.
“What are you doing this evening?”, he said. “Will you dine with me?”
“Thanks, no; I do not dine as you dine, I am almost a Hindoo in the matter of eating and the flesh pots of Egypt have
no attraction for me.”
“Will you come home with me for an hour? I am still living in the old place in Harley-street. I am most anxious to have
a quiet talk with you.”
“With pleasure,” said Mansfield, when they were seated in the doctor’s study, “what can I do for you?”
“I want to speak with you about these horrible murders. You have heard about them, of course?”
“No!”
“Not heard of them? Why I thought there was not a civilized country in the world where particulars of them had not
published. “replied Harvey in considerable astonishment.
“That may be, “said his friend, “but I have not been in civilized countries. I have only this morning arrived from
Constantinople. I have been traveling in Asiatic Turkey for the past twelve months and have been cut off from home
news altogether.”
“Then you are ignorant of the death of General Ulverstone’s daughter. She was foully murdered a week ago ; she
made the ninth victim, and as in the other cases no clue to the murderer has been discovered.”
“No, have not heard about it. It is true I saw some headlines on the newspaper contents bill at the station concerning
what was called ‘the latest murder’, but as yet I have not read the papers. But what do you mean by ‘as in the other
cases’?”
Harvey then gave him particulars of the mysterious tragedies which had so completely baffled the vigilance of the
London detective force.
“It is, as you say,” gravely remarked Mansfield when his companion had finished. “a very strange affair.”
“Have you in all your travels ever heard of anything similar?”
“I have,” was the grave rejoinder.
“Indeed!” said Harvey in considerable surprise. “It has been asserted that in the annals of crime nothing similar is
known.”
“I was not referring to anything that had taken place in England: and much of what happens in the East finds no record
in the West.”
“And you think that an explanation of these murders may be found in something that has happened out in India?”
said Harvey eagerly.
“It is not impossible,” replied Mansfield, “although I fail to see how the present murders can have any connection
with what I am referring to. No, no,” he muttered to himself after a pause, “it cannot be their work. You say”, he added,
looking intently at his companion, “that the victims bore a strong physical resemblance to each other.”

“Yes, a most remarkable likeness.”
“And the death wound in each case was precisely the same?”
“Precisely.”
“And the wound in each case was poisoned? Have you any idea of the nature of the poison?”
“None whatever. It is a vegetable poison, unknown to our pharmacopoeia.”
Colonel Mansfield reflected a moment; then he asked another question-
“Was death in your opinion instantaneous in each case?”
“Quite so, and the evidence goes to show that not so much as a sound escaped from the lips of the murdered women.”
“Do you think they could have been chloroformed before being murdered?”
“No, there was no trace of chloroform.”
“How do you account, then, for the absolute silence of the victims?”
“I cannot account for it; it is a matter that has puzzled me much.”
“Do you think they were mesmerized?”
“I cannot say. But had they been mesmerized they would, I presume, have been unconscious of the hand that struck
the blow, whereas, judging from the expression of their eyes, they were conscious of the fate that approached them.”
“What was that expression?” asked Mansfield, with more eagerness than he had hitherto shown.
“One of intense horror.”
“So!”
It was but an exclamation, but it was fraught with meaning.
“Does this say anything to you?”, asked Harvey eagerly.
“It says a good deal ; but in India it would say a good deal more.”
“In India - why in India?”
“Because it is only in India - if I am right in my deductions - that an adequate motive could be found for such
apparently wanton murders. If I could have seen the corpse of the unfortunate young lady I could at once have told
whether my present suspicions as to the motive of the crime were correct.”
“I have a photograph of her taken after death ; would that tell you anything?” Harvey produced a photo from his
pocket and handed it to Mansfield.
The latter started slightly as he looked at it.
“My suspicions are confirmed, “he said slowly. “But how can this be?” he added to himself; “why should they seek
their victims here?” It is very strange - very strange.”
Then looking up at his companion he said, “Miss Ulverstone appears to have been very like my god-daughter, Evelyn
Hardcastle - that is, as I remember her ; or is it my fancy?”
“Not at all; they were wonderfully alike - in voice, in appearance, and in disposition. In fact, it was exceedingly
difficult to tell one from the other and even I at first was frequently puzzled to decide offhand which was my fiancee.
See, here is Evelyn, “and he opened a locket dangling from his watch chain; “the likeness is very remarkable, isn’t it?”
“It is remarkable; and it may be fatal.” was the solemn reply.
“Fatal, Mansfield! Good God, what do you mean?” asked the young man greatly alarmed.
“Do not alarm yourself. I may be wrong in my conjecture, and -”
“I see what you mean, “replied Harvey hoarsely; “you think she- my darling- may be the next victim. You believe so!
You cannot deny it, “and in the intensity of his emotion he gripped his companion tightly by the arm.
“I will not deceive you,” replied Mansfield sympathetically. “She - if my theory be correct - may be in danger. Soomer
or later the hand that has taken the lives of the others will possibly make the attempt on her life. But -” and his eyes
lit up with a strange light - “this time they will be baffled of their prey. I will save her,” he added to himself, “if it costs
me my life.”
To be continued in the next issue of Ripperologist

I Beg To Report
2015 Jack the Ripper Conference Report
By STEVE RATTEY
Friday: The Unofficial Day

I’m on a train heading for Nottingham with its supposed links with Robin Hood. Birthplace of Richard Beckinsale,
Samantha Morton and where the band London Grammar formed. Queen Victoria was in the year of her Diamond
Jubilee in 1897 when Nottingham was granted its City Charter, but it had to wait one hundred and eighteen years
to host the Jack the Ripper Conference of 2015.
My last act at a Ripper conference was walking away from the restaurant on the Saturday night of the 2013
event, as I had commitments to covering Remembrance Sunday for the local Radio Station in Bishop’s Stortford and
for the same obligation I was entirely wiped out of Salisbury 2014. Missing those days was a huge disappointment,
so with that in mind I was really looking forward to Nottingham. It’s the speakers, the socialising, staying in a
place that I had never stayed in before, the Saturday evening banquet, the fantastic conference packs and of
course the t-shirts. Must get that ‘Stride Coffee House’ one.
The trouble is when you’re looking forward to something so much your expectations can soar to thirty six
thousand feet, rendering it impossible for the event to match them. If that notion was in the back of my mind it
would have been wrong. I anticipated Nottingham 2015 to be superb and it was way better than that.
I checked into the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Woolaton Street late afternoon and quickly threw luggage onto the
bed and sped to the Stage public house as Adam Wood had sent me a message to say he would be in there for a
limited time. Adam was with Neil Bell and a host of others who greeted me with a big cheer and a pint of the finest
Timmy Taylor’s. That was a quick pint and then onto the evening.
Neil Storey. He was the sole speaker for the Friday night, and what a grand manner to start. Introduced by
Colin Cobb as the dapper dandy of Ripperology, this man could read you back your till receipt from Waitrose and
convert it to something interesting. With a talk entitled ‘The Victorian Hangman’ he told us of some vivid tales of
executions past. He disclosed how William Corder, murderer of Maria Marten in the Red Barn, had met his demise
in the hands of John Foxton the hangman at Bury St Edmunds. Afterwards Foxton would have been allowed to sell
sections of the rope, resulting in talk of the quantity peddled stretching the length of the High Street and back.
Money for old rope.
Continuing, Neil recounted how Foxton’s former assistant William Calcraft had carried out such executions as
Frederick and Marie Manning at Horsemongers Row Prison before an outraged Charles Dickens, who would later
report on the wickedness and levity of the mob throughout the execution. William Marwood of Horncastle was also
spoken of. He developed the ‘long drop’ practice of hanging which was considered more humane than the previous
‘short drop’, and Matwood employed a table of weight over drop. Hanging had gone digital.
Before concluding Neil gave us such jewels as Al Murray the Pub Landlord being a descendant of William
Makepeace Thackeray, the hangmen pushed levers not pulled, and how executioners often described those
condemned as not dying but disappearing into a puff of smoke. Most lyrical. A brilliant talk. Now to the bar.

Saturday: The First Official Day
Conference MCs John and Laura Bennett
got the event underway by officially
welcoming everyone to Nottingham. Initially
in Spanish, which was fun. How fantastic
was it that they mentioned those who could
not attend, such as Bill Fishman and Ted
Ball. Screaming Ted Ball, as Jeremy Beadle
dubbed him, would most undoubtedly have
been in attendance.
On to Psychologist Professor David

Canter and with this little batch after his
name - PhD, AcSS, FAPA, FBPsS(Hon), FRSM,
Laura and John Bennett Cpsychol - he’s got to be worth a listen. He
Courtesy Rob Clack commenced by enlightening us of his phone
app IDU. Available for iOS and Android phones it’s an app that takes a photograph and stores it in a central location
which is accessible by only the mobile owner and the police. We all know that eyewitnesses can be fallible, so this
is a progression in catching baddies. Development was funded by David so it’s not a commercial project. What a
great idea! So now you can ‘keep em peeled’ in your pocket.
He then continued with his talk “Why are we here? What keeps the fascination with Jack the Ripper”? In this
he spoke of matters unresolved being a large consideration and went on to explain contributory factors. Such
difficulties as psychological distortion from a witness perspective. How the mind can filter information, employ
emotional reasoning and jump to conclusions. Without getting too involved in that I’ll make a cognitive leap into
the Zeigarnik Effect. If you want more information get Forensic Psychology for Dummies by, let me think... David
Canter.
In 1927 Bluma Zeigarnik published her report on The Zeigarnik Effect. Now I can’t give you all I know on the
subject in just really a couple on sentences. It’s about individuals who distort and enhance their own knowledge
of a subject. Oh, sorry, it’s not. It’s about people that remember the interrupted or incomplete matters instead
of those uninterrupted and complete. It’s part of Gestalt psychology which attempts to comprehend the laws of
our ability to acquire and preserve significant perceptions in a seemingly chaotic humanity.
Now before this gets heavy I’ll finish this part by saying David went on to talk about ‘Confirmation Bias’.
Sometimes called ‘Myside Bias’, it’s a mental process whereby an individual can be in pursuit of information that
will favour and confirm their own belief instead of really researching all boundaries. How many times do we find
this relating to certain suspects? I also want to mention how he thought the amateur can play their part as often
they can explore an angle that sometimes the professionals miss. I will conclude with saying that I loved his line
‘Jack the Ripper is recent but not too recent’. We’re pleased about that.
I did later say to David that I felt the imagery had also assisted the longevity of the subject, and he said he had
never really thought about that angle but I guess as a professional psychologist he wouldn’t have to.
AJ Griffiths-Jones next. What a lovely lady from Shropshire. I had spoken to her before her talk when she signed
my copy of her book Prisoner 4374 which was also the subject of her address to the conference. Now I won’t go
into too much detail as I think the book will say it all and if you don’t have a copy please do get one. It’s about Dr
Thomas Neill Cream, a Jack the Ripper suspect and is written in an autobiographical form. What a great idea and
I’m already half way through my copy in just a few days. The speaker had clearly spent a massive amount of time
and effort on this man. It was interesting how it had taken such a long time to write due to interruptions and you
could tell that for AJ it was a really mission of love.
I love the fact that one of the reasons Cream was a suspect was due to the moment that executioner James
Billington at Newgate pushed the lever Cream said “I am Jack the aaahhh”. Well perhaps not the ‘aaahhh’ bit, but
no-one present reported it but it came from Billington’s family some ten fifteen years later.

For my own part, I wanted to ask the location of Morpeth Place, where Elen Donsworth was poisoned. I’ve never
found it on any map.
Lunch time.
I will at this point mention that Saturday’s talks took place in the Galleries of Justice Museum in the court house
which was in action as recently as 1986. The speakers in session sat in the Judge’s chair. What a storming idea! We
had a two hour break that not only gave everyone the chance to enjoy the buffet lunch but also to wander around
the city for a short while. With others I found the site of Narrow Marsh, once Nottingham’s Whitechapelish area.
How great to see Mei Trow again,

travelling from the Isle of Wight to deliver
his talk “Will The Real Inspector Abberline?”
In fear of making this review too long,

dear reader, I shall only really mention
that Mei’s talk was to his usual first-rate
standard and he really has delivery. In brief
he spoke about how Abberline has been
portrayed over the years. David Wicke’s
Jack the Ripper with Michael Caine and the
Hughes brothers’ From Hell with Johnny
Depp. An alcoholic, an opium addict, when
in reality he was a thoroughly hard-working
and esteemed copper. Something I like
about Mei is that often starts an address
with ‘you all know more than me’ which is
very humble of him considering he knows so
much. Later Mark Galloway, Tony Power and
Mei Trow I found him in the local Oxfam shop delving
Courtesy Rob Clack through the True Crime section. Such fun.
Fast forward to Professor Glenn Wilson.
Now here’s a man like David Canter from the morning who, having worked on some very famous crimes, has
a reputation that goes a long way before him. His talk entitled ‘Jack the Ripper: A Question Of Sanity’ was to
address the question was a murderer psychopathic or psychotic, and there is a distinction. The former enmeshes
hallucinations, delusions and a loss of contact with reality. The latter, a personality disorder involving a relentless
sociopath with no emotional literature. Devoid of empathy with, or remorse for, the victim. One of the points
police have to establish is that the person they wish to charge understands that they were doing was morally
wrong. If they don’t, the person could be deemed unfit to plea.
Without going into his talk too much for, I most certainly am not qualified to do so, I’d like to just point some of
the other interesting points Glenn raised. Of convicted serial killers throughout history, only two to four per cent
have been deemed legally insane. There are cases whereby a murderer might claim they acted out of provocation
or depression and he cited Ruth Ellis as a case. It was interesting that with the Jack the Ripper murders there
were six points of signature to say they were carried out by the same hand. I wanted to ask him more about that,
but sadly as soon as he had answered his last question he was away faster than some of the delegates could get
to the bar the night before. Interestingly enough, when Glenn was asked ‘can someone be born a psychopath’ he
responded ‘yes’. Food for thought!
Bring on the evening’s events.
The Saturday night banquets are always wonderful at JTR conferences, and this was no exception. Great
dinner, and someone named Gary didn’t show up on our table but the staff kindly served him so his dinner was
shared out. Good old Gary.

Following the meal Lindsay Siviter gave a cracking talk on “Unlocking the Secret of Archives: Behind the Scenes
at Scotland Yard’s Crime Museum”. Dedicating her talk to Shaw Taylor, she gave us the history of the Museum and
had some three hundred slides to add visuals. Many surprises including sound recordings of Dennis Nilson in his flat
which was eerie to say the least. The sounds of a serial killer washing up and swearing at his dog. I had helped
Lindsay by processing this recording so I was pleased when she thanked me. I’ve heard it multitudes of times and
it still gives me the creeps.
Please get out your tickets and credit cards for the raffle and auction.
Neil Storey compered the raffle and auction. I won a prize in the raffle and Neil paid me a great compliment
when I went up to collect it which I felt was a prize in itself. Mark Galloway sitting next to me won the DVD
Lizzie Borden with Christina Ricci which I had not heard of and that forced me to spend a fiver on Amazon there
and then. The auction really was enjoyable with a few battles of nerves and ‘can I justify spending this much
money’. In the mix of raffle and auction was a Leonard Matters won by Tony Power as well as two signed Richard
Whittington Egan’s Jack the Ripper: The Definitive Casebook. I was happy with my Bradshaw’s Handbook of 1863.
Sunday: The Second Official Day.

John and Laura introduced Kate Bradshaw
with her talk ‘Jack is a Feminist Issue’.
What an important subject which really
does open fierce debates that just bleed
double standards with some. Not just in
the 1888, but as much now as Kate pointed
out. For some feminism comes from the
Sixties but the fact that the term entered
the Oxford English Dictionary in 1847 rules
that out. Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of
Mary Shelley, was definitely around before
The Doors first hit a stage. I thought Kate
handled what is a highly controversial topic
with a voice of reason which is how it should
be. Maybe the feminists who see anyone
associated with Jack the Ripper as glorifying
female violence should come and speak to
Kate Bradshaw all of us. Likewise maybe we should invite
Courtesy Rob Clack
them in. I so loved the term that Kate used
when she said studies into the subject ‘must be done properly’. Great talk.
Before introducing Martin Fido, John Bennett alongside Laura carried out a very blatant plug on his book E1 as
he only had a few copies left and quite rightly it worked as they all went. As Mr Punch said, ‘that’s the way to do
it’. John also did a great impersonation (he does those well) of Martin which was hilarious.
Onto Martin with his talk ‘Aaron Kosminski: Where it all Began’, revisiting his investigations of many years ago
involving Kosminski, David Cohen and Kaminsky. This man really has delivery and is such a pioneer in the field and
I think is possibly the most esteemed man in Ripperology. As well as suspects, he spoke of Dan Farson and many
others from the past. I have to say I love his stance on Joseph Gorman Sickert and the Royal conspiracy theory.
It’s splendid. He said for decades he worked so hard to establish the truth behind the murders of 1888 it was hard
not to feel revulsion to have someone distort it so for personal gain.
One of the features I have adored about recent conferences has been the element of surprise extras. Wynne
Weston-Davies, the man who made the front page of the Telegraph a few weeks ago claiming he was a descendant
of Mary Kelly. Initial thought: this man is going to be strange, and do you know what – he’s wasn’t. Very pleasant
man who signed for me the book I refused the day before to buy which I will now read. Obviously a very clever
man with his Radio 4, voice he never came across as someone who wishes to fool the world. Good talk, making
sense but not too convincing for me, but then I need to read the book. Books like minds have to be opened to
understand.
A break for coffee or tea.
Dear Reader, I mentioned earlier on that following the

talk by AJ Griffiths-Jones, four of us explored the area
once known as Narrow Marsh and in doing so had a man
approach asking directions to the convention. A very
affable chap who had the appearance of someone from a
Sixties band. Well actually he was a bit young for that but
he had the image. David Andersen. A guy who has studied
the subject for not just a few years but decades. He was
to stand up and execute his talk ‘Montague Druitt: The
Last Days’.
His talk was not so much a ‘who done it’, but why was
Druitt a suspect. His driving force was more along the
David Andersen lines of there may have been evidence to prove that there
Courtesy Rob Clack
was once evidence. Great premise.
David came over as one of those guys that I wish I had known for a long time, as he was clearly knowledgeable
and easy to talk to.
The Panel. As a finale the remarkable machine behind Nottingham 2015 had arranged a panel of speakers to
respond to questions from delegates. David Andersen, Wynne Weston-Davies, Kate Bradshaw, Neil Storey (also
compere), Martin Fido, Lindsay Siviter and Robert Anderson.
Terrific questions. ‘What documents would you like to see?’ Responses: Sir Robert Anderson’s diary, Druitt’s
suicide note, Abberline’s photograph, Valentine’s diary from the school in Blackheath.
‘How did the members of the panel become interested?’ The film Time After Time had two votes, David
Wickes’s Jack the Ripper had two votes. Forlornly the film From Hell was ‘nul points’, never mind. Dan Farson on
the radio was Martin’s choice, and Wynne responded with the divorce petition of Francis Craig.
‘What offers the most in present day research?’ Excellent answers in Internet research, more investigation into
suspects, information on the health of sex workers at the time, descendants of those involved being investigated.
Nice one from Martin – the address of the refuge of the Jewish poor.
There were other questions. Mine was read out as I asked ‘How do the panel feel about the statement that the
five murders could all have been at separate hands?’ They all thought that apart from Stride all were, of course
which I go along with. Really that was not the response I was looking for but more along the lines of ‘how would
you qualify your answer’, so I guess it was an unfair question and would have needed David Canter and Glenn
Wilson on the panel also.
Following that, John and Laura - who should be thanked for their contributions - closed the event and called
upon all others involved to line up at the front of the room for a display of appreciation. Totally, totally deserved.
It would be monstrous not to mention those in that row. Organisers Colin and Ricky Cobb, Jo Edgington, Andrew
Firth, who also created the conference packs, Rebecca Hall, also of merchandising, raffle organiser Liza Hopkinson,
Neil Storey as compere who also wrote articles for the packs with Neil Bell who was not present. Neil also was
responsible for police documents and research. They all received well deserved applause at a high decibel rate.
It was a great weekend and even as I write this I can’t believe it’s over. Looking back on it I have one regret.
At York 2012 Mark Galloway and I sat with Martin Fido until a ridiculous hour having a few drinks and discussing
classical music. Martin had to leave Sunday evening so we could not repeat that, although he promised to do so
some time soon.
The entire weekend was amazing, and I really hope this is not the end of such conferences. All involved carried
out such a polished job with so many extras... How about this? In the packs could be found a Metropolitan Police
Witness Statement pad and a pencil. Quality touch and on the subject of quality, I think in describing the event
the spelling of the word should be changed to give emphasis. Nottingham 2015 was qwa-holity, and I did get my
t-shirt.

I Beg To Report
NEWS ROUNDUP
FROM AROUND THE RIPPER WORLD
GRANNY RIPPER. It what must be one of

the more unusual instances of a murderer
emulating the exploits of a serial killer,
a 68-year-old Russian woman named
Tamara Samsonova has been arrested in
St Petersburg suspected of murdering
then dismembering at least eleven victims
over a 20-year period. A neighbour, Marina
Krivenko, who knew Samsonova for 15
years, claimed that the ‘Granny Ripper’
was obssessed with notorious killer Andrei
Chikatilo, the Rostov Ripper, who sexually
assaulted, murdered and mutilated more
than 50 women and children between
1978 and 1990. Samsonova’s final victim,
79-year-old Valentina Ulanova, was
supposedly killed after an argument over
‘Granny Ripper’ Tamara Samsonova
dirty cups and her decapitated body was
found by police in a nearby pond. Russian police are examining her diary written in Russian, English and German,
which includes confessions of ten murders, including one which reads: ‘I killed my tenant Volodya, cut him to
pieces in the bathroom with a knife, put the pieces of his body in plastic
bags and threw them away in the different parts of Frunzensky district.’
CCTV footage at the block of flats where Samsonova lived showed the
pensioner carrying bags believed to contain Ulanova’s body parts. Her
modus operandi is believed to have been to poison her victim first, and
once they entered a comatose state to dismember them. Police officials
have yet to rule out cannibalism. In court, Samsonova told the judge:
‘I was getting ready for this court action for dozens of years. It was all
done deliberately. This is no way to live. With this last murder I closed
the chapter.’ When told by the judge that she would be held in custody,
the smiling serial killer clapped her hands.
EXCLUSIVE: Granny Ripper who killed and ‘ate’ 11 victims was ‘obsessed’
by Russian ‘vampire’ maniac who raped and mutilated at least 52 women
in 12 year reign of terror
Will Stewart, Daily Mail, 12 August 2015
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3194171/Russian-Granny-Ripper-killed-
ate-10-victims-inspired-serial-killer-vampire-raped-mutilated-52-women-
12-year-reign-terror.html
CCTV footage shows the self-confessed cannibal carrying the pot down
some stairs and out of a doorway
Andy Wells, Yahoo News, 27 August 2015
uk.news.yahoo.com/pictured-granny-ripper-tamara-samsonova-142006601.
Her idol, Andrei Chikalito html#EcW7hCe

POLICE VANISH WITH ONE SWOOP OF DRACULA’S CAPE. Blamed for not
catching the killer, branded incompetent and lampooned in Punch...
as if things couldn’t get much worse for the Metropolitan and City
of London police forces investigating the Ripper murders, it now
transpires that they were cut from the seminal novel Dracula with one
swoop of the pen by its author. According to his great-grandnephew,
Bram Stoker redrafted the novel to write out a police presence after
the failure to bring the Whitechapel murderer to justice. Dacre
Stoker, who wrote a sequel to Dracula titled Dracula: The Undead,
said the notes discovered by Bram Stoker’s great-grandson Noel Dobbs
in his attic in 2012 showed that a Detective Cotford was originally
going to be chasing the vampire, but the author supposedly became
annoyed at the real-life Scotland Yard’s inability to catch the Ripper
and replaced them with vampire hunter Van Helsing in a rewritten
version. Perhaps Sir Charles Warren and his boys would have been
happy with the outcome: to have failed to catch two semi-mythical
killers would have been too much.
Why Bram Stoker sacked police from Dracula
Yorkshire Post, 12 July 2015
www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/why-bram-stoker-sacked-police-from-
dracula-1-7354810
Bram Stoker: apparently no fan of the Metropolitan Police
FOUR-MILLION-DOLLAR SHAWL. Up until early 2014, the so-called Catherine Eddowes shawl was treated as an
oddity of the Ripper world, an object claimed to have been related to the case but with little or no provenance.
Two scientific tests, one hardback book and a new paperback version later and the 7ft-length of material has been
stated to hold the key evidence to solving the mystery of the Ripper’s identity. Russell Edwards purchased the
shawl at auction for a figure believed to be £10,000 and subsequently paid for DNA testing to be undertaken which
he believes proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the killer was Aaron Kosminski. Seemingly happy that he has
now solved the case, Mr Edwards seems content to sell the vital evidence and move on to new projects. Thus
means that the shawl can be yours - for a cool $4.5million (£2.9m), with a nice little profit for Russell Edwards. The
object will be auctioned by a California-based online auction house that specialises in selling historical artifacts.
Moments in Times are currently offering several extremely rare items including an original manuscript page from
Darwin’s Origin of Species and Babe Ruth’s first contract with the New York Yankees. Moments in Time guarantee
full authentification on their objects, which include the autographs of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and
Edgar Allan Poe. If you want to own this unique Ripper artefact - or burn it - visit www.momentsintime.com.
Bloodied shawl worn by one of Jack the Ripper’s victims said to prove identity of serial killer
goes to auction for £2.9 MILLION
Paul Thompson, Daily Mail, 9 July 2015
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3155348/Jack-Ripper-shawl-goes-auction-2-9million.html
WRITE FOR RIPPEROLOGIST!
We welcome contributions on Jack the Ripper, the East End and the Victorian era.
Send your articles, letters and comments to contact@ripperologist.biz

Victorian Fiction
Long Odds
By H Rider Haggard
Edited with an Introduction by Eduardo Zinna
Introduction
Several weeks ago, a middle-aged American with an expensively built, widely displayed and deeply insincere
smile made a substantial contribution to the waning distrust of dentists and the waxing dislike of hunters. Walter
J Palmer, a cosmetic dentist from Bloomington, Minnesota, paid $50,000 to a Zimbabwe professional guide to kill
a lion with a bow and arrows – not a homemade bow, but a technological wonder whose range enables its users to
operate from a safe distance. The guide used a dead animal to lure a lion away from its usual, protected habitat
and Palmer shot an arrow into its body. Although he boasts of having hunted all his life, Palmer failed to kill the
lion but only wounded it, no doubt painfully. Palmer and the guide tracked the wounded animal for forty hours
until they found it on 1st July and finished it with a rifle. As they proceeded to skin it and cut off its head as
trophies for Palmer, they realised – or so they claimed – that the lion was wearing a GPS tracking collar. They tried
unsuccessfully to destroy the collar and eventually left the mutilated carcass where it lay.
But the head Palmer might have been planning to hang at his dentist’s office belonged to no ordinary lion. Cecil
– for such was its name - was a beloved 13-year-old lion easily recognizable by its black-fringed mane. Its home
was Hwange National Park, where it lived peacefully with its pride and had become a major tourist attraction.
Its movements had been followed since 2008 by scientists from Oxford University as part of a scientific project.
Furthermore, Palmer – who has been in the same kind of trouble before – apparently lacked the appropriate
hunting permits. The guide who lured Cecil away from Hwange and the owner of the farm where it was killed face
charges for illegal hunting before Zimbabwean courts. Palmer is back home in Minnesota.
Cecil’s killing was universally condemned. Everybody from David Cameron to Robert Mugabe, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Ricky Gervais, Mia Farrow and the United Nations came out against it. Palmer’s office was besieged
by enraged citizens who clamoured for his extradition to Zimbabwe and the dentist himself went into hiding for
several weeks. Even now his practice has only reopened minus him and plus a security guard. Within days of the
story breaking, a number of airlines, including Delta, American, United and Air Canada, stopped transporting
hunting trophies. On 1 August, Zimbabwe temporarily banned big game hunting in the areas surrounding Hwange.
The outcry may mean that big game hunting, the manly preserve of Hemingway, Teddy Roosevelt and John Huston,
will not be acceptable much longer. The world has changed drastically in recent decades and will undoubtedly
continue to change in the future.
There was a time, of course, when we were all hunters-gatherers competing for food with other predators. As
we moved towards the pastoral and agricultural stages, we left behind the pursuit of wild animals as a means of
subsistence considered as belonging to an inferior phase of human progress. Hunting as a recreation, however,
continued to evolve and eventually became the favourite sport of those who possess most leisure and wealth.
The Assyrians, the Persians and the Greeks hunted; so did the Romans, the Gauls and the Franks, and virtually
every nation throughout the world. Yet, although hunting as a sport has been widely practiced for many centuries,
reservations were often expressed in its regard.
In Big Game Shooting, a treatise published in 1894, Clive Phillipps-Wolley addressed such reservations:
‘If in these days of ultra-civilisation an apology is needed…let it be that their sport does no man any harm; that
it exercises all those masculine virtues which set the race where it is among the nations of the earth, and which
but for such sport would rust from disuse; that if the hunter of big game takes life, he often enough stakes his own
against the life he takes; and if he be one of the right sort, he never wastes his game.’

That said, he added:
‘…kindly natured men hate to hear of the infliction of needless pain, and waste of innocent animal life; good
sportsmen recoil in disgust from a record of butchery misnamed sport, for, according to the very first article of
their creed, it is the difficulty of the chase which gives value to the trophies. If there were no difficulties, no
dangers, no hardships, then the sport would have no flavour and its prizes no value.’
Phillipps-Wolley’s sentiments, taken as a whole, belong far more to the Victorian era than to ours; but it
is worth noting that, even in a book devoted to big game hunting, he felt the need to set down some basic
injunctions shared, in his words, by kindly natured men and good sportsmen. It is obvious that he would not be
impressed with the dentist from Minnesota, who hunted by car and killed from afar.
*****
Legend has it that a 29-year-old lawyer did not think too highly
of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and bet his brother five
shillings that he could write something better. Within the space of
five weeks, H Rider Haggard wrote King Solomon’s Mines, about a
group of adventurers searching for mythical treasure in Africa under
the leadership of the explorer, big game hunter and guide Allan
Quatermain. The novel was published in September 1885 and became
a bestseller overnight.
But before his triumph with King Solomon’s Mines
Henry Rider Haggard had not amounted to much. He was
born on 22 June 1856 at Bradenham, Norfolk, the sixth
son and eighth child of Sir William Meybohm Haggard,
a barrister, and Ella Doveton. Unlike his older brothers,
who attended public schools, he was educated at Ipswich
Grammar School. In 1875, after he had failed his army
entrance examination and chosen not to show up for the
British Foreign Office entrance examination, his father
sent him to take up a position as secretary to Sir Henry
Bulwer, Lieutenant-Governor of Natal. One year later he
was transferred to the staff of Sir Theophilus Shepstone,
Special Commissioner for the Transvaal. In 1877 he took
part in the British annexation of the Transvaal and
became a stalwart supporter of the imperial venture.
In 1878 he became Registrar of the High Court in the
Transvaal.
Henry returned to England in 1879 and married a Norfolk heiress, Mariana Margitson, with whom
he returned to Africa where they lived until 1882. Back in Britain, he read law and was called to the
bar in 1885, but showed no interest in practising his profession. He devoted the rest of his life to two
pursuits: farming and literature. He became an authority in English agriculture and did extremely
well as the author of adventure novels.
Rider Haggard followed the runaway success of King Solomon’s Mines with Allan Quatermain and
She, both published in 1887. The first chronicles the further exploits of Quatermain, who once again
journeys through Africa in search of mysterious cities and fabulous treasure. The somewhat similar
plot of She takes two Englishmen to the mountain abode of an immortal queen, Ayesha, She-Who-
Must-Be-Obeyed. Although Quatermain dies at the end of Allan Quatermain and Ayesha dies at the
end of She, both reappeared in sequels. Indeed, Quatermain’s continuous popularity led to twelve
more sequels.
During his sojourn in South Africa, Rider Haggard acquired a fascination with Zulu culture reflected
in the appearance of heroic Zulu characters in many of his novels, including King Solomon’s Mines,
Allan Quatermain and Nada the Lily (1892). Besides his African romances, he wrote Eric Brighteyes

(1891), a recasting of the Icelandic sagas, Montezuma’s Daughter (1893), a sympathetic account of the Aztecs’
defeat by Cortes’s invading troops and The Heart of the World (1896), in which an Englishman finds a secret city
in the interior of Mexico. The total number of his works of fiction was 34.
At the same time as he pursued his career as a successful author, Rider Haggard served in various government
commissions. He was knighted in 1912 for his public service and in 1919 he was made a Knight Commander of the
Order of the British Empire for his work during the war. He died on 14 May 1925. His last work, Allan and the Ice-
Gods, appeared in 1927.
The present Victorian Fiction offering consists of Long Odds, a tale featuring Allan Quatermain which first
appeared in 1887 as part of the collection Allan’s Wife. Those who are familiar with Quatermain only from film
adaptations will be surprised to see that a character who was played by the likes of Stewart Granger, Richard
Chamberlain and Sean Connery is described here as a small, wiry and unprepossessing man with a short beard and
grey hair that sticks up in scrubbing-brush fashion. He is a hunter, but he does not hunt for pleasure; hunting is his
profession and his only means to make a living. He does confront lions, but not as a sportsman or a trophy-hunter,
but as a man defending his property and his life.
Long Odds
By H Rider Haggard
The story which is narrated in the following pages came to me from the lips of my old friend Allan
Quatermain, or Hunter Quatermain, as we used to call him in South Africa. He told it to me one evening
when I was stopping with him at the place he bought in Yorkshire. Shortly after that, the death of his only
son so unsettled him that he immediately left England, accompanied by two companions, his old fellow
voyagers, Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good, and has now utterly vanished into the dark heart of Africa.
He is persuaded that a white people, of which he has heard rumours all his life, exists somewhere on the
highlands in the vast, still unexplored interior, and his great ambition is to find them before he dies. This
is the wild quest upon which he and his companions have departed, and from which I shrewdly suspect
they never will return. One letter only have I received from the old gentleman, dated from a mission
station high up the Tana, a river on the east coast, about three hundred miles north of Zanzibar. In it he
says that they have gone through many hardships and adventures, but are alive and well, and have found
traces which go far towards making him hope that the results of their wild quest may be a ‘magnificent and
unexampled discovery.’ I greatly fear, however, that all he has discovered is death; for this letter came a
long while ago, and nobody has heard a single word of the party since. They have totally vanished.
It was on the last evening of my stay at his house that he told the ensuing story to me and Captain Good,
who was dining with him. He had eaten his dinner and drunk two or three glasses of old port, just to help
Good and myself to the end of the second bottle. It was an unusual thing for him to do, for he was a most
abstemious man, having conceived, as he used to say, a great horror of drink from observing its effects
upon the class of colonists -hunters, transport riders and others - amongst whom he had passed so many
years of his life. Consequently the good wine took more effect on him than it would have done on most
men, sending a little flush into his wrinkled cheeks, and making him talk more freely than usual.
Dear old man! I can see him now, as he went limping up and down the vestibule, with his grey hair
sticking up in scrubbing-brush fashion, his shrivelled yellow face, and his large dark eyes, that were as keen
as any hawk’s, and yet soft as a buck’s. The whole room was hung with trophies of his numerous hunting
expeditions, and he had some story about every one of them, if only he could be got to tell it. Generally
he would not, for he was not very fond of narrating his own adventures, but tonight the port wine made
him more communicative.
‘Ah, you brute!’ he said, stopping beneath an unusually large skull of a lion, which was fixed just over
the mantelpiece, beneath a long row of guns, its jaws distended to their utmost width. ‘Ah, you brute! you
have given me a lot of trouble for the last dozen years, and will, I suppose to my dying day.’

‘Tell us the yarn, Quatermain,’ said Good. ‘You have often promised to tell me, and you never have.’
‘You had better not ask me to,’ he answered, ‘for it is a longish one.’
‘All right,’ I said, ‘the evening is young, and there is some more port.’
Thus adjured, he filled his pipe from a jar of coarse-cut Boer tobacco that was always standing on the
mantelpiece, and still walking up and down the room, began—
‘It was, I think, in the March of ‘69 that I was up in Sikukuni’s country. It was just after old Sequati’s
time, and Sikukuni had got into power-I forget how. Anyway, I was there. I had heard that the Bapedi people
had brought down an enormous quantity of ivory from the interior, and so I started with a waggon-load of
goods, and came straight away from Middelburg to try and trade some of it. It was a risky thing to go into
the country so early, on account of the fever; but I knew that there were one or two others after that lot
of ivory, so I determined to have a try for it, and take my chance of fever. I had become so tough from
continual knocking about that I did not set it down at much.
‘Well, I got on all right for a while. It is a wonderfully beautiful piece of bush veldt, with great ranges
of mountains running through it, and round granite koppies starting up here and there, looking out like
sentinels over the rolling waste of bush. But it is very hot-hot as a stew-pan - and when I was there that
March, which, of course, is autumn in this part of Africa, the whole place reeked of fever. Every morning,
as I trekked along down by the Oliphant River, I used to creep from the waggon at dawn and look out. But
there was no river to be seen-only a long line of billows of what looked like the finest cotton wool tossed
up lightly with a pitchfork. It was the fever mist. Out from among the scrub, too, came little spirals of
vapour, as though there were hundreds of tiny fires alight in it-reek rising from thousands of tons of rotting
vegetation. It was a beautiful place, but the beauty was the beauty of death; and all those lines and blots
of vapour wrote one great word across the surface of the country, and that word was “fever”.
‘It was a dreadful year of illness that. I came, I remember, to one little kraal of Knobnoses, and went
up to it to see if I could get some “maas”, or curdled butter-milk, and a few mealies. As I drew near I was
struck with the silence of the place. No children began to chatter, and no dogs barked. Nor could I see any
native sheep or cattle. The place, though it had evidently been inhabited of late, was as still as the bush
round it, and some guinea-fowl got up out of the prickly pear bushes right at the kraal gate. I remember
that I hesitated a little before going in, there was such an air of desolation about the spot. Nature never
looks desolate when man has not yet laid his hand upon her breast; she is only lonely. But when man has
been, and has passed away, then she looks desolate.
‘Well, I passed into the kraal, and went up to the principal hut. In front of the hut was something with
an old sheepskin kaross thrown over it. I stooped down and drew off the rug, and then shrank back amazed,
for under it was the body of a young woman recently dead. For a moment I thought of turning back, but
my curiosity overcame me; so going past the dead woman, I went down on my hands and knees and crept
into the hut. It was so dark that I could not see anything, though I could smell a great deal, so I lit a match.
It was a “tandstickor” match, and burnt slowly and dimly, and as the light gradually increased I made out
what I took to be a family of people, men, women, and children, fast asleep. Presently it burnt up brightly,
and I saw that they too, five of them altogether, were quite dead. One was a baby. I dropped the match
in a hurry, and was making my way from the hut as quick as I could go, when I caught sight of two bright
eyes staring out of a corner. Thinking it was a wild cat, or some such animal, I redoubled my haste, when
suddenly a voice near the eyes began first to mutter, and then to send up a succession of awful yells.
‘Hastily I lit another match, and perceived that the eyes belonged to an old woman, wrapped up in a
greasy leather garment. Taking her by the arm, I dragged her out, for she could not, or would not, come
by herself, and the stench was overpowering me. Such a sight as she was - a bag of bones, covered over
with black, shrivelled parchment. The only white thing about her was her wool, and she seemed to be
pretty well dead except for her eyes and her voice. She thought that I was a devil come to take her, and
that is why she yelled so. Well, I got her down to the waggon, and gave her a “tot” of Cape smoke, and
then, as soon as it was ready, poured about a pint of beef-tea down her throat, made from the flesh of a

blue wildebeest I had killed the day before, and after that she brightened up wonderfully. She could talk
Zulu - indeed, it turned out that she had run away from Zululand in Chaka’s time - and she told me that
all the people whom I had seen had died of fever. When they had died the other inhabitants of the kraal
had taken the cattle and gone away, leaving the poor old woman, who was helpless from age and infirmity,
to perish of starvation or disease, as the case might be. She had been sitting there for three days among
the bodies when I found her. I took her on to the next kraal, and gave the headman a blanket to look after
her, promising him another if I found her well when I came back. I remember that he was much astonished
at my parting with two blankets for the sake of such a worthless old creature. “Why did I not leave her in
the bush?” he asked. Those people carry the doctrine of the survival of the fittest to its extreme, you see.
‘It was the night after I had got rid of the old woman that I made my first acquaintance with my friend
yonder, and he nodded towards the skull that seemed to be grinning down at us in the shadow of the wide
mantelshelf. I had trekked from dawn till eleven o’clock-a long trek-but I wanted to get on, and had turned
the oxen out to graze, sending the voorlooper to look after them, my intention being to inspan again about
six o’clock, and trek with the moon till ten. Then I got into the waggon and had a good sleep till half-past
two or so in the afternoon, when I rose and cooked some meat, and had my dinner, washing it down with
a pannikin of black coffee - for it was difficult to get preserved milk in those days. Just as I had finished,
and the driver, a man called Tom, was washing up the things, in comes the young scoundrel of a voorlooper
driving one ox before him.
‘“Where are the other oxen?” I asked.
‘“Koos!” he said, “Koos! the other oxen have gone away. I turned my back for a minute, and when I
looked round again they were all gone except Kaptein, here, who was rubbing his back against a tree.”
‘“You mean that you have been asleep, and let them stray, you villain. I will rub your back against a
stick,” I answered, feeling very angry, for it was not a pleasant prospect to be stuck up in that fever trap
for a week or so while we were hunting for the oxen. “Off you go, and you too, Tom, and mind you don’t
come back till you have found them. They have trekked back along the Middelburg Road, and are a dozen
miles off by now, I’ll be bound. Now, no words; go both of you.”
‘Tom, the driver, swore, and caught the lad a hearty kick, which he richly deserved, and then, having
tied old Kaptein up to the disselboom with a reim, they took their assegais and sticks, and started. I would
have gone too, only I knew that somebody must look after the waggon, and I did not like to leave either
of the boys with it at night. I was in a very bad temper, indeed, although I was pretty well used to these
sort of occurrences, and soothed myself by taking a rifle and going to kill something. For a couple of hours
I poked about without seeing anything that I could get a shot at, but at last, just as I was again within
seventy yards of the waggon, I put up an old Impala ram from behind a mimosa thorn. He ran straight for
the waggon, and it was not till he was passing within a few feet of it that I could get a decent shot at him.
Then I pulled, and caught him half-way down the spine. Over he went, dead as a door-nail, and a pretty
shot it was, though I ought not to say it. This little incident put me into rather a better humour, especially
as the buck had rolled right against the after part of the waggon, so I had only to gut him, fix a reim round
his legs, and haul him up. By the time I had done this the sun was down, and the full moon was up, and a
beautiful moon it was. And then there came that wonderful hush which sometimes falls over the African
bush in the early hours of the night. No beast was moving, and no bird called. Not a breath of air stirred the
quiet trees, and the shadows did not even quiver, they only grew. It was very oppressive and very lonely,
for there was not a sign of the cattle or the boys. I was quite thankful for the society of old Kaptein, who
was lying down contentedly against the disselboom, chewing the cud with a good conscience.
‘Presently, however, Kaptein began to get restless. First he snorted, then he got up and snorted again. I
could not make it out, so like a fool I got down off the waggon-box to have a look round, thinking it might
be the lost oxen coming.
‘Next instant I regretted it, for all of a sudden I heard a roar and saw something yellow flash past me
and light on poor Kaptein. Then came a bellow of agony from the ox, and a crunch as the lion put his teeth

through the poor brute’s neck, and I began to understand what had happened. My rifle was in the waggon,
and my first thought being to get hold of it, I turned and made a bolt for the box. I got my foot up on the
wheel and flung my body forward on to the waggon, and there I stopped as if I were frozen, and no wonder,
for as I was about to spring up I heard the lion behind me, and next second I felt the brute, ay, as plainly
as I can feel this table. I felt him, I say, sniffing at my left leg that was hanging down.
‘My word! I did feel queer; I don’t think that I ever felt so queer before. I dared not move for the life
of me, and the odd thing was that I seemed to lose power over my leg, which developed an insane sort of
inclination to kick out of its own mere motion-just as hysterical people want to laugh when they ought to
be particularly solemn. Well, the lion sniffed and sniffed, beginning at my ankle and slowly nosing away up
to my thigh. I thought that he was going to get hold then, but he did not. He only growled softly, and went
back to the ox. Shifting my head a little I got a full view of him. He was about the biggest lion I ever saw,
and I have seen a great many, and he had a most tremendous black mane. What his teeth were like you can
see - look there, pretty big ones, ain’t they? Altogether he was a magnificent animal, and as I lay sprawling
on the fore-tongue of the waggon, it occurred to me that he would look uncommonly well in a cage. He
stood there by the carcass of poor Kaptein, and deliberately disembowelled him as neatly as a butcher
could have done. All this while I dared not move, for he kept lifting his head and keeping an eye on me as
he licked his bloody chops. When he had cleaned Kaptein out he opened his mouth and roared, and I am
not exaggerating when I say that the sound shook the waggon. Instantly there came back an answering roar.
‘“Heavens!” I thought, “there is his mate.”
‘Hardly was the thought out of my head when I caught sight in the moonlight of the lioness bounding
along through the long grass, and after her a couple of cubs about the size of mastiffs. She stopped within
a few feet of my head, and stood, waved her tail, and fixed me with her glowing yellow eyes; but just as I
thought that it was all over she turned and began to feed on Kaptein, and so did the cubs. There were the
four of them within eight feet of me, growling and quarrelling, rending and tearing, and crunching poor
Kaptein’s bones; and there I lay shaking with terror, and the cold perspiration pouring out of me, feeling
like another Daniel come to judgment in a new sense of the phrase. Presently the cubs had eaten their fill,
and began to get restless. One went round to the back of the waggon and pulled at the Impala buck that
hung there, and the other came round my way and commenced the sniffing game at my leg. Indeed, he
did more than that, for, my trouser being hitched up a little, he began to lick the bare skin with his rough
tongue. The more he licked the more he liked it, to judge from his increased vigour and the loud purring
noise he made. Then I knew that the end had come, for in another second his file-like tongue would have
rasped through the skin of my leg-which was luckily pretty tough-and have drawn the blood, and then there
would be no chance for me. So I just lay there and thought of my sins, and prayed to the Almighty, and
reflected that after all life was a very enjoyable thing.
‘Then of a sudden I heard a crashing of bushes and the shouting and whistling of men, and there were
the two boys coming back with the cattle, which they had found trekking along all together. The lions lifted
their heads and listened, then bounded off without a sound-and I fainted.
‘The lions came back no more that night, and by the next morning my nerves had got pretty straight
again; but I was full of wrath when I thought of all that I had gone through at the hands, or rather noses,
of those four brutes, and of the fate of my after-ox Kaptein. He was a splendid ox, and I was very fond
of him. So wroth was I that like a fool I determined to attack the whole family of them. It was worthy
of a greenhorn out on his first hunting trip; but I did it nevertheless. Accordingly after breakfast, having
rubbed some oil upon my leg, which was very sore from the cub’s tongue, I took the driver, Tom, who
did not half like the business, and having armed myself with an ordinary double No. 12 smoothbore, the
first breechloader I ever had, I started. I took the smoothbore because it shot a bullet very well; and my
experience has been that a round ball from a smoothbore is quite as effective against a lion as an express
bullet. The lion is soft, and not a difficult animal to finish if you hit him anywhere in the body. A buck takes
far more killing.
‘Well, I started, and the first thing I set to work to do was to try to discover whereabouts the brutes

lay up for the day. About three hundred yards from the waggon was the crest of a rise covered with single
mimosa trees, dotted about in a park-like fashion, and beyond this lay a stretch of open plain running down
to a dry pan, or water-hole, which covered about an acre of ground, and was densely clothed with reeds,
now in the sere and yellow leaf. From the further edge of this pan the ground sloped up again to a great
cleft, or nullah, which had been cut out by the action of the water, and was pretty thickly sprinkled with
bush, amongst which grew some large trees, I forget of what sort.
‘It at once struck me that the dry pan would be a likely place to find my friends in, as there is nothing
a lion is fonder of than lying up in reeds, through which he can see things without being seen himself.
Accordingly thither I went and prospected. Before I had got half-way round the pan I found the remains of
a blue wildebeest that had evidently been killed within the last three or four days and partially devoured
by lions; and from other indications about I was soon assured that if the family were not in the pan that day
they spent a good deal of their spare time there. But if there, the question was how to get them out; for it
was clearly impossible to think of going in after them unless one was quite determined to commit suicide.
Now there was a strong wind blowing from the direction of the waggon, across the reedy pan towards the
bush-clad kloof or donga, and this first gave me the idea of firing the reeds, which, as I think I told you,
were pretty dry. Accordingly Tom took some matches and began starting little fires to the left, and I did
the same to the right. But the reeds were still green at the bottom, and we should never have got them
well alight had it not been for the wind, which grew stronger and stronger as the sun climbed higher, and
forced the fire into them. At last, after half-an-hour’s trouble, the flames got a hold, and began to spread
out like a fan, whereupon I went round to the further side of the pan to wait for the lions, standing well
out in the open, as we stood at the copse to-day where you shot the woodcock. It was a rather risky thing
to do, but I used to be so sure of my shooting in those days that I did not so much mind the risk. Scarcely
had I got round when I heard the reeds parting before the onward rush of some animal. “Now for it,” said
I. On it came. I could see that it was yellow, and prepared for action, when instead of a lion out bounded a
beautiful reitbok which had been lying in the shelter of the pan. It must, by the way, have been a reitbok
of a peculiarly confiding nature to lay itself down with the lion, like the lamb of prophesy, but I suppose
the reeds were thick, and that it kept a long way off.
‘Well, I let the reitbok go, and it went like the wind, and kept my eyes fixed upon the reeds. The fire
was burning like a furnace now; the flames crackling and roaring as they bit into the reeds, sending spouts
of fire twenty feet and more into the air, and making the hot air dance above in a way that was perfectly
dazzling. But the reeds were still half green, and created an enormous quantity of smoke, which came
rolling towards me like a curtain, lying very low on account of the wind. Presently, above the crackling of
the fire, I heard a startled roar, then another and another. So the lions were at home.
‘I was beginning to get excited now, for, as you fellows know, there is nothing in experience to warm up
your nerves like a lion at close quarters, unless it is a wounded buffalo; and I became still more so when
I made out through the smoke that the lions were all moving about on the extreme edge of the reeds.
Occasionally they would pop their heads out like rabbits from a burrow, and then, catching sight of me
standing about fifty yards away, draw them back again. I knew that it must be getting pretty warm behind
them, and that they could not keep the game up for long; and I was not mistaken, for suddenly all four of
them broke cover together, the old black-maned lion leading by a few yards. I never saw a more splendid
sight in all my hunting experience than those four lions bounding across the veldt, overshadowed by the
dense pall of smoke and backed by the fiery furnace of the burning reeds.
‘I reckoned that they would pass, on their way to the bushy kloof, within about five and twenty yards
of me, so, taking a long breath, I got my gun well on to the lion’s shoulder -the black-maned one - so as to
allow for an inch or two of motion, and catch him through the heart. I was on, dead on, and my finger was
just beginning to tighten on the trigger, when suddenly I went blind-a bit of reed-ash had drifted into my
right eye. I danced and rubbed, and succeeded in clearing it more or less just in time to see the tail of the
last lion vanishing round the bushes up the kloof.
‘If ever a man was mad I was that man. It was too bad; and such a shot in the open! However, I was not

going to be beaten, so I just turned and marched for the kloof. Tom, the driver, begged and implored me
not to go, but though as a general rule I never pretend to be very brave (which I am not), I was determined
that I would either kill those lions or they should kill me. So I told Tom that he need not come unless he
liked, but I was going; and being a plucky fellow, a Swazi by birth, he shrugged his shoulders, muttered that
I was mad or bewitched, and followed doggedly in my tracks.
‘We soon reached the kloof, which was about three hundred yards in length and but sparsely wooded,
and then the real fun began. There might be a lion behind every bush-there certainly were four lions
somewhere; the delicate question was, where. I peeped and poked and looked in every possible direction,
with my heart in my mouth, and was at last rewarded by catching a glimpse of something yellow moving
behind a bush. At the same moment, from another bush opposite me out burst one of the cubs and galloped
back towards the burnt pan. I whipped round and let drive a snap shot that tipped him head over heels,
breaking his back within two inches of the root of the tail, and there he lay helpless but glaring. Tom
afterwards killed him with his assegai. I opened the breech of the gun and hurriedly pulled out the old case,
which, to judge from what ensued, must, I suppose, have burst and left a portion of its fabric sticking to
the barrel. At any rate, when I tried to, get in the new cartridge it would only enter half-way; and-would
you believe it?-this was the moment that the lioness, attracted no doubt by the outcry of her cub, chose
to put in an appearance. There she stood, twenty paces or so from me, lashing her tail and looking just as
wicked as it is possible to conceive. Slowly I stepped backwards, trying to push in the new case, and as I did
so she moved on in little runs, dropping down after each run. The danger was imminent, and the case would
not go in. At the moment I oddly enough thought of the cartridge maker, whose name I will not mention,
and earnestly hoped that if the lion got me some condign punishment would overtake him. It would not go
in, so I tried to pull it out. It would not come out either, and my gun was useless if I could not shut it to use
the other barrel. I might as well have had no gun.
‘Meanwhile I was walking backward, keeping my eye on the lioness, who was creeping forward on her
belly without a sound, but lashing her tail and keeping her eye on me; and in it I saw that she was coming
in a few seconds more. I dashed my wrist and the palm of my hand against the brass rim of the cartridge
till the blood poured from them - look, there are the scars of it to this day!’
Here Quatermain held up his right hand to the light and showed us four or five white cicatrices just
where the wrist is set into the hand.
‘But it was not of the slightest use,’ he went on, ‘the cartridge would not move. I only hope that no other
man will ever be put in such an awful position. The lioness gathered herself together, and I gave myself up
for lost, when suddenly Tom shouted out from somewhere in my rear—
‘“You are walking on to the wounded cub; turn to the right.”
‘I had the sense, dazed as I was, to take the hint, and slewing round at right angles, but still keeping my
eyes on the lioness, I continued my backward walk.
‘To my intense relief, with a low growl she straightened herself, turned, and bounded further up the
kloof.
‘“Come on, Macumazahn,” said Tom, ‘let’s get back to the waggon.’
‘“All right, Tom,” I answered. “I will when I have killed those three other lions,” for by this time I was
bent on shooting them as I never remember being bent on anything before or since. “You can go if you like,
or you can get up a tree.”
‘He considered the position a little, and then he very wisely got up a tree. I wish that I had done the
same.
‘Meanwhile I had found my knife, which had an extractor in it, and succeeded after some difficulty in
pulling out the cartridge which had so nearly been the cause of my death, and removing the obstruction
in the barrel. It was very little thicker than a postage-stamp; certainly not thicker than a piece of writing
paper. This done, I loaded the gun, bound a handkerchief round my wrist and hand to staunch the flowing
of the blood, and started on again.

‘I had noticed that the lioness went into a thick green bush, or rather cluster of bushes, growing near
the water, about fifty yards higher up, for there was a little stream running down the kloof, and I walked
towards this bush. When I got there, however, I could see nothing, so I took up a big stone and threw it
into the bushes. I believe that it hit the other cub, for out it came with a rush, giving me a broadside shot,
of which I promptly availed myself, knocking it over dead. Out, too, came the lioness like a flash of light,
but quick as she went I managed to put the other bullet into her ribs, so that she rolled right over three
times like a shot rabbit. I instantly got two more cartridges into the gun, and as I did so the lioness rose
again and came crawling towards me on her fore-paws, roaring and groaning, and with such an expression
of diabolical fury on her countenance as I have not often seen. I shot her again through the chest, and she
fell over on to her side quite dead.
‘That was the first and last time that I ever killed a brace of lions right and left, and, what is more, I
never heard of anybody else doing it. Naturally I was considerably pleased with myself, and having again
loaded up, I went on to look for the black-maned beauty who had killed Kaptein. Slowly, and with the
greatest care, I proceeded up the kloof, searching every bush and tuft of grass as I went. It was wonderfully
exciting, work, for I never was sure from one moment to another but that he would be on me. I took
comfort, however, from the reflection that a lion rarely attacks a man - rarely, I say; sometimes he does,
as you will see - unless he is cornered or wounded. I must have been nearly an hour hunting after that lion.
Once I thought I saw something move in a clump of tambouki grass, but I could not be sure, and when I trod
out the grass I could not find him.
‘At last I worked up to the head of the kloof, which made a cul-de-sac. It was formed of a wall of rock
about fifty feet high. Down this rock trickled a little waterfall, and in front of it, some seventy feet from
its face, rose a great piled-up mass of boulders, in the crevices and on the top of which grew ferns, grasses,
and stunted bushes. This mass was about twenty-five feet high. The sides of the kloof here were also very
steep. Well, I came to the top of the nullah and looked all round. No signs of the lion. Evidently I had either
overlooked him further down or he had escaped right away. It was very vexatious; but still three lions were
not a bad bag for one gun before dinner, and I was fain to be content. Accordingly I departed back again,
making my way round the isolated pillar of boulders, beginning to feel, as I did so, that I was pretty well
done up with excitement and fatigue, and should be more so before I had skinned those three lions. When
I had got, as nearly as I could judge, about eighteen yards past the pillar or mass of boulders, I turned to
have another look round. I have a pretty sharp eye, but I could see nothing at all.
‘Then, on a sudden, I saw something sufficiently alarming. On the top of the mass of boulders, opposite
to me, standing out clear against the rock beyond, was the huge black-maned lion. He had been crouching
there, and now arose as though by magic. There he stood lashing his tail, just like a living reproduction of
the animal on the gateway of Northumberland House that I have seen in a picture. But he did not stand
long. Before I could fire - before I could do more than get the gun to my shoulder - he sprang straight up
and out from the rock, and driven by the impetus of that one mighty bound came hurtling through the air
towards me.
‘Heavens! how grand he looked, and how awful! High into the air he flew, describing a great arch. Just
as he touched the highest point of his spring I fired. I did not dare to wait, for I saw that he would clear
the whole space and land right upon me. Without a sight, almost without aim, I fired, as one would fire a
snap shot at a snipe. The bullet told, for I distinctly heard its thud above the rushing sound caused by the
passage of the lion through the air. Next second I was swept to the ground (luckily I fell into a low, creeper-
clad bush, which broke the shock), and the lion was on the top of me, and the next those great white teeth
of his had met in my thigh - I heard them grate against the bone. I yelled out in agony, for I did not feel in
the least benumbed and happy, like Dr. Livingstone - whom, by the way, I knew very well - and gave myself
up for dead. But suddenly, at that moment, the lion’s grip on my thigh loosened, and he stood over me,
swaying to and fro, his huge mouth, from which the blood was gushing, wide opened. Then he roared, and
the sound shook the rocks.
‘To and fro he swung, and then the great head dropped on me, knocking all the breath from my body,

and he was dead. My bullet had
entered in the centre of his chest
and passed out on the right side
of the spine about half way down
the back.
‘The pain of my wound kept
me from fainting, and as soon as I
got my breath I managed to drag
myself from under him. Thank
heavens, his great teeth had not
crushed my thigh-bone; but I was
losing a great deal of blood, and
had it not been for the timely
arrival of Tom, with whose aid I
loosed the handkerchief from my
wrist and tied it round my leg,
twisting it tight with a stick, I
think that I should have bled to
death.
‘Well, it was a just reward
for my folly in trying to tackle a
family of lions single-handed. The
odds were too long. I have been
lame ever since, and shall be to
my dying day; in the month of
March the wound always troubles
me a great deal, and every three
years it breaks out raw.
‘I need scarcely add that I
never traded the lot of ivory at
Sikukuni’s. Another man got it - a
German - and made five hundred
pounds out of it after paying
expenses. I spent the next month on the broad of my back, and was a cripple for six months after that.
And now I’ve told you the yarn, so I will have a drop of Hollands and go to bed. Good night to you all, good
night!’
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Reviews
THE REAL MARY KELLY
Thanks to the kind folks at Blink Publishing we have ten copies of Wynne
Weston-Davies’ book on the true identity of Mary Kelly and her possible
killer.
In conjunction with ‘Rippercast: Your Podcast on Jack the Ripper and the
Whitechapel Murders’ we recently ran a compeition where our readers
could win one of these copies.
The question was: “Wynne Weston-Davies claims that the woman

murdered in 13 Miller’s Court on 9th November 1888 was born Elizabeth
Weston Davies. But what name was inscribed on her coffin plate when she
was buried?”
The correct answer was, of course, MARIE JEANETTE KELLY, and not Mary
Jane Kelly.
We had a tremendous response, with over 125 correct answers! Thank you
to everyone who entered.
The winners, whose names have been chosen at random, are as follows:
Karl Coppack Fred Abbate
Rob McCullough Paul Kenny
Carole Hughes Stefani Koorey
John Linsenmeyer Deborah Richardson
Lesley Grundy Thomas Olson
Congratulations! Your book will be sent to you very soon!
WANT US TO REVIEW YOUR BOOK?
Ripperologist magazine has a circulation list of over 900 readers,

each with an interest in Jack the Ripper, Victorian crime and London’s East End.
If you are an author or publisher of a forthcoming book and would like to reach our readers,
please get in touch at contact@ripperologist.biz

JA
CK ER
THE RIPP
The Real Mary Kelly

Wynne Weston-Davies
London: Blink Books, 2015
www.blinkpublishing.co.uk
ISBN: 978-1-9-910536-09-4
hardcover/ebook
272pp, illus, biblio, notes, index
hardcover £16.99 / Kindle £5.09
It is small solace, but in death the victims of Jack the Ripper achieved a kind of immortality. Whilst
their contemporaries lived and died and left nothing outside the bureaucratic record to show that they
ever existed, the Ripper’s victims are remembered, their names are known to people around the world,
and their lives have been researched and reconstructed. Except in the case of the last of Jack the
Ripper’s canonical victims, Mary Jane Kelly. We know nothing about her prior to her arrival in London
some four years before she met her death and all we know about her life after she came to London is what she told the
man with whom she lived, Joseph Barnett, and whilst a legion of able researchers have tried to confirm those details,
none has succeeded. Mary Kelly has remained frustratingly elusive.
The Real Mary Kelly might just have changed all that.
Elizabeth Weston Davies was Welsh, she had the surname Davies (Kelly claimed to have married a young collier named
Davies), she had a brother nicknamed Johnto, she was a prostitute, she may have worked for a French-born madame,
and she disappeared from her usual haunts in north London at about the same time as Mary Jane Kelly arrived in the
East End. She doesn’t fit everything Kelly told Barnett - there’s no connection with Limerick, Johnto wasn’t in the 2nd
Battalion Scots Guards, there’s no young husband killed in a mining accident, and no sojourn in Cardiff with a prostitute
cousin - but at first glance she seems to tick a lot of the necessary boxes.
The daughter of Edward and Anne Davies, Elizabeth Weston Davies lived in a small Welsh hamlet called Aberangell.
She became lady’s maid to Mary Cornelia Edwards, the Marchioness of Londonderry, a very privileged position that
was probably superior to all the other staff, but Elizabeth’s world changed on 6 November 1884 when the Marquis of
Londonderry died at his family estate of Plas Machynlleth and the Marchioness announced her intention to retire there.
Elizabeth faced the prospect of staying in semi-rural Wales or leaving the employ of the Marchioness and returning
to London. She chose the latter and in London she met the French born Ellen Sophia McLeod, who ran a string of
brothels in North London and who induced Elizabeth to become a prostitute, possibly operating from a townhouse at 28
Collingham Place in Kensington. Elizabeth also met an oddball but competent journalist and provincial newspaper editor
named Francis Spurzheim Craig, who wooed her and married her on 24 December 1884, the couple spending their brief
marriage together in a small house in grim little street with the rather pleasant name of Lemon’s Terrace in Stepney
Green, not a stone’s throw from Whitechapel. Within a few months Elizabeth deserted her husband and later someone
who knew the couple attributed the breakdown of the relationship to Elizabeth’s drinking. Elizabeth went to live at the
Monmouth Hotel and Coffee House, 161 Drummond Street, today the location of numerous Indian restaurants, of which
I believe 161 is one, but in 1885 the police knew it to be a brothel. During June, July and August 1885 Elizabeth was also
seen with men in premises run by Mrs McLeod in Campbell Street, 9 Marcellus Road and 40 Orpingley Road, Holloway;
at a coffee house at 26 Caledonian Road, and a private hotel and coffee house at 53 Tonbridge Street, also a known
brothel. Then Elizabeth Weston Davies disappeared. And Mary Jane Kelly appeared in the East End.
So, what is the evidence that Elizabeth Weston Davies is Mary Jane Kelly? In truth, there isn’t any. My initial criticism
of the book was that it is very light on sources. I was also concerned that the timings were impossibly tight. The Marquis

of Londonderry died at Plas Machynlleth on 6 November 1884, and Elizabeth Weston Davies married Francis Craig on 24
December 1884. This means that Elizabeth had roughly two months in which to abandon the bereaved Marchioness, go
to London, meet a French madame, be persuaded to sacrifice her morals and privileged position in the servant hierarchy
to become a prostitute, and to meet, be wooed by and marry Francis Craig. It’s a tight fit, but if that’s the story the
sources tell then it is the story we have to accept, but the reality is that pretty much all of it is theoretical.
It isn’t known that Elizabeth Weston Davies was lady’s maid to the Marchioness of Londonderry. Her mother had been
and her mother tried to secure good positions for her daughters, but there is nothing to show that Elizabeth actually
worked for the Marchioness. That she went to London following the death of the Marquess is also wholly theoretical.
Even if Elizabeth did work for the Marchioness, there is absolutely no evidence that she left her employ immediately
after the death of the Marquess, which in turn throws out her arrival in London being the same as when Mary Kelly said
she had arrived in London.
Unless Elizabeth’s husband, Francis Craig, was a complete fantasist, which he might well have been, there can be
little doubt that Elizabeth Weston Davies was a prostitute and his divorce petition identifies several brothels where she
took clients, naming the owner of at least one of these as a Mrs McLeod. The book identifies this as the French-born Ellen
Sophia McLeod (nee Maundrell), but again there is no evidence to support this. Furthermore, none of the brothels - or
mostly coffee-houses where rooms could be rented by the hour - where Elizabeth was seen taking men was remotely
near Kensington. They were closer to those available in the East End.
Most of the book is like this; scratch at the surface and the arguments lack evidential support. As for the idea that
Francis Craig was Jack the Ripper, it is dependent on Elizabeth Davies being Kelly and isn’t really worth considering until
that detail is a lot stronger than it is right now.
This is not to say that Elizabeth and Mary are not one and the same. Elizabeth was a prostitute with a drink problem,
she was educated and, if she was indeed lady’s maid to the Marchioness of Londonderry, she would have possessed
some refinements. The same was said of Mary Kelly. Elizabeth did disappear from her North London haunts at about the
same time as Mary Kelly arrived in the East End. And, of course, Elizabeth Davies was Welsh and was named Davies and
apparently had a brother named Johnto.
Review by Paul Begg
Naming Jack the Ripper

Russell Edwards
London: Pan Books, 2015
First published in hardcover London:Sidgwick and Jackson, 2014
http://www.panmacmillan.com
www.thejacktheripperexperience.co.uk
www.robertsmithliteraryagency.com
ISBN: 9781447264224
softcover
314pp, illus., appendices, index
paperback £7.99
(as far as I know the Kindle edition is of the hardback)
Naming Jack the Ripper hit the headlines last year with the claim that blood and semen stains
scientifically detected on a length of patterned silk material had yielded mitrocondrial DNA which matched that of
descendants of victim Catherine Eddowes and leading Ripper suspect Aaron Kosminski. Most significantly the DNA thought
to be Eddowes’ was said to be an extremely rare mutation that fitted so few people that the blood on the material had
to have come from Catherine Eddowes. However, within weeks of the book’s publication it was shown beyond doubt that
the DNA was extremely common and this meant that whilst it matched Eddowes’ descendant, it also matched the mtDNA
of countless other people, so the theory came crashing down. There was and is no suggestion that Russell Edwards,
who authored the book, or Dr Louhelainen, who extracted the DNA, were other than victims of a genuine mistake, but
neither responded to what was a damning revelation. Instead they maintained a stoic silence that spoke volumes to most
observers, and since that time the whole story has been dismissed as a dead duck.
However, the forthcoming paperback was an interesting question-mark. Would it be exactly the same as the hardback
or would Edwards and Louhelainen come out with all guns blazing, an authorial Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid firing
off new tests and new evidence and robustly defending their position. The paperback, now with us, took neither option,

but handed it over to be edited by somebody from Orwell’s Ministry of
Truth. Every reference to the supposed rarity of Eddowes’ mtDNA has been A Statement by
deleted, even the reference in a direct quote by Dr Louhelainen has been Russell Edwards and Dr Jari Louhelainen
excised and replaced with a completely new text. Whether or not this is
wrong is up to you to decide. It isn’t uncommon for hardback errors to The DNA on the shawl matches the
be corrected in a paperback and this is often done without comment. On DNA of the direct descendants of Aaron
the other hand, the rarity of the mtDNA was a very persuasive element Kosminski and of the victim, Catherine
in the book’s overall thesis and it being revealed as a mistake received Eddowes. The evidence is soundly based on
international publicity, so it is questionable whether the authors should Dr Jari Louhelainen’s discovery of multiple
have faced up to the problem rather than pretending it never existed. locations of Kosminski’s and Eddowes’s DNA
on the shawl. The coexistence of both mtDNA
The position which now appears to have been adopted by Edwards and
profiles on the same piece of evidence just
Louhelainen is that the mtDNA that matches the descendants has been
by chance is inconceivable.
found on the material, and they imply that finding the mtDNA of Eddowes
or Kosminski on the material on its own may not have amounted to anything In the hardback edition of Russell
greatly significant, to have found mtDNA matching the descendants of BOTH Edwards’s book, an example ‘marker’ was
Eddowes and Kosminski on the material would be very significant indeed. used to highlight how rarely Eddowes’s DNA
This is the conclusion given in a new and short appendix by Dr Louhelainen. occurs in the population, solely as an added
It is basically an explanation of the process by which DNA was extracted extra to the match achieved between the
from a blood and semen stains, which he concludes by saying that the victim’s DNA on the shawl and the DNA of
chances of finding the DNA of a victim and a suspect on the same piece of her direct female descendant. There is a
material is so small that it amounts to conclusive proof that Kosminski was possibility that the independent software
Jack the Ripper. chosen to calculate that frequency had a
fault. The removal of the passage in the
This sounds plausible - but to me (and I, like most people, don’t
paperback edition does not however diminish
understand DNA at all) it is only plausible if the mtDNA matches that of
in any way the validity of the DNA matches
Eddowes’ and Kosminski’s descendants. If it also matches the DNA of half
found by Dr Louhelainen.
the population then it doesn’t impress me at all.
Review by Paul Begg
POLICE
Sir Howard Vincent’s Police Code 1889

Sir Howard Vincent
Preface by James Monro
Foreword by Neil Basu
Introduction by Neil R A Bell and Adam Wood
London: Mango Books, 2015
www.mangobooks.co.uk
ISBN: 9780993180606
hardcover
210pp, illus., appendices, index.
£15
Harry Benson and William Kurr were conmen. They were very good conmen. But the most remarkable
thing about them was their luck. Whenever the police were about to arrest them they slipped through
the net. It was almost as if they knew the police were coming. Which, of course, they did. As they eventually admitted,

they had several of the most senior men in Scotland Yard’s new, controversial, and very small detective department in
their pay. Corruption - be it accepting bribes in cash or kind, or overstepping the bounds of one’s duties - in the police
was probably very high, from the highest ranks down, and then, as now, it was in the best interests of the police and
their political masters to hide it whenever they could, but sometimes it was just too big to contain and in the case of
Benson and Kurr it was a scandal of earthquake proportions. A commission was established to investigate the Yard’s
detectives and a cynical view of things is that neither the police nor the politicians wanted either the department or
its remaining personnel investigated too deeply, so when a young man presented the commission with a report of his
study of the Paris detective system it got passed to the Home Secretary, R A Cross, and in 1878 the report’s author
was appointed director of the newly named Criminal Investigation Department and was charged with spearheading a
reorganisation that would restore public confidence.
That young man’s name was Charles Edward Howard Vincent (1849–1908) and over the next six years, before he
launched a political career, he introduced a small raft or reforms and innovations, among his less well known achievements
was taking on the editorship of the Police Gazette. It wasn’t doing too well at the time, but Vincent turned it into a used
and valued resource. Vincent also realised that ignorance of the law and their legal duties was responsible for most of
the mistakes policemen made and for which they were criticised, and that they would benefit from a manual that simply
explained their obligations and duties in specific circumstances. The result was A Police Code and Manual of Criminal
Law, which very quickly became the textbook for police forces throughout the Empire for well over a century.
As Vincent’s biographer described it, The Police Code was:
‘Alphabetically arranged. the subject-matter was rendered intelligible to the unprofessional readers police officials,
and others for whom the book had been specially intended. Vincent, as his habit was, left no stone unturned in
his effort to push this really opportune and practical publication. Incidentally, the book proved, what had become
sufficiently obvious, that the organisation of the Criminal Investigation Department had been rendered both energetic
and systematic, as might have been expected from the Director’s personal character, and that he insisted upon his
subordinates exercising qualities which in himself he was always anxious to perfect- minute attention to details and
tact in dealing with men. Very soon the Code became a valuable property. Before the end of 1881 we find Messrs Cassell
announcing a third and revised edition. To a new and abridged edition, published towards the end of 1882, Mr Justice
Hawkins (the late Lord Brampton) had consented to write a preface, in which the most experienced of practitioners in
Criminal Law gave some sound and outspoken advice to the police. The book in this popular form had a distinct vogue.
A young gentleman who had been dining in he best of company at a well-known club had got into difficulties with a
constable in the West End. Taking refuge on a lamp-post, he read from a copy of the book certain passages from Sir
Henry’s advice as to the manner in which the police shall discharge this duty.’
There were many editions of the book, each enjoying a large print run, and every year The Police Code brought in
anything from £80 to £100, which was a handsome sum back then and was welcomed by the Metropolitan and City of
London Police Orphanage Fund to which it was donated. This very handsome reproduction of the 1889 edition of The
Police Code follows the original in that proceeds from the sale will be donated to the Metropolitan and City Police
Orphans Fund, a short foreword having been contributed by the Fund’s chairman, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil
Basu. The book also has an introduction by Neil Bell and Adam Wood and a short history of the Orphanage.
For me this is an important book. Time and again I see people treating ‘Jack the Ripper’ as if it was an on-going police
investigation which requires little more than a dollop of common sense to get to grips with. That isn’t the case. It is
neither a police investigation, nor can one get to grips with the subject by applying a little common sense. ‘Jack the
Ripper’ is history and even the late Victorian period is a very different place to the present. On the surface the people
living in the world of Sherlock Holmes are awfully familiar, but they actually lived and worked and, most importantly,
they thought differently to us. It is therefore important for the Ripperologist to get into the shoes of those people, and
no shoes are more important to step into than the size elevens of the beat copper. The Police Code helps you to do that,
providing a way into the policeman’s head, to understand the responsibilities he had and to see the world through his
eyes. I first read The Police Code years ago when researching the history of the CID. It’s an invaluable research tool and
this reproduction of the 1889 edition, the closest there is to the year of the murders, should be on the shelf of everyone
interested in the Ripper or interested in the policing of the time, especially if they are writing or planning to write a
book, fact or fiction, set in the late years of Victoria’s reign.
Review by Paul Begg

Special Branch: A History 1883-2006
Ray Wilson and Ian Adams
London: Biteback Publishing, 2015
www.bitebackpublishing.com
ISBN: 9781849549103
hardcover/ebook
411pp, biblio, index
Hardcover £25 / Kindle £12.40
When the Metropolitan Police was established in 1829 it was not at all popular. Crime was out of
control, but most people were prepared to accept this rather than have what they feared would be
a political police spying on them and reporting back to the government. So great was the animosity
towards the police that one step taken to assuage public feeling was that policemen had to wear their
uniform at all times so that they could be instantly recognised for what they were. The idea of plain clothes policemen
was therefore anathema and the idea of plain clothes bobbies hiding in cupboards so that they could overhear a political
speech would probably have caused riots in the streets. Less than a century later a policeman did exactly that - the year
was 1905, the policeman was Detective Constable Herbert Fitch, and he hid in a cupboard in a pub to hear a speech
given by a man he described at ‘a smooth-haired, oval faced, narrow-eyed, typical Jew’. The speaker was Lenin and
it may reflect a self-inflated view of his importance, but Fitch believed that the information he gathered delayed the
Russian Revolution by twelve years!
Constable Fitch was a member of the Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch, in some ways the very thing to which
people at the beginning of the 19th century were vehemently opposed, but times had gradually changed as ordinary
people began to flex their muscles, and challenge the old order. Some, like Fenians and anarchists, chose to do so
through acts of violence, planting bombs in public places and generally seeking to achieve their ends through terrorism.
Two organisations came into existence to combat these political extremists, the Special Irish Branch, known as ‘Section
B’ and created to do what could be done to prevent Fenian bomb outrages, and the Secret Department, ‘Section D’ or
sometimes called the ‘Home Office. Crime Department. Special Branch’. Section D was funded from Imperial funds, not
Scotland Yard funds, and was answerable directly to the Home Secretary, not the Commissioner. In charge was former
Assistant Commissioner James Monro and under him were Chief Inspector Littlechild and three Inspectors named Pope,
Melville and Burke. According to Edward Henry, one of the great Met commissioners, Section D existed to maintain
surveillance of anarchists and other threats. Most people believe, and the authors of this book claim, that Special Branch
grew out of the Special Irish Branch. I’ve always held that Special Branch grew out of Monro’s Secret Department. Maybe
it grew out of both.
The Branch became an autonomous unit. It selected its own men, its own promotion system, and was often perceived
by other officers in the force as self-inflated and sometimes elitist.
But it had to combat all manner of fanatics, from Fenians and Anarchist through Bolsheviks and appropriators, and,
worst of all, women, who were gradually beginning to reject the idea that their place was in the home. Then came
pre-First World War German agents who, thanks to the wild imaginings of writers like William Le Queux, even normally
level-headed men believed were flooding the country. These were soon followed by another wave of German agents in
the Second World War, Cold War plots and spies, things like the Profumo Affair in the 1960s, and afterwards the IRA.
And through it all the Special Branch had to protect important people, like heads of state. All good stuff, though of late
the reputation of the Branch is getting tarnished as we learn more about its activities in the 70s and 80s, investigating
left-wingers and trades unionists, as well as MPs such as Jeremy Corbyn and London Mayor Ken Livingstone. The Branch
was also criticised for collecting information with the intention of using it to smear the relatives of murdered teenager
Stephen Lawrence, and today the Branch’s activities back in the 1980s is under scrutiny following claims that the
powers-that-be used the Branch to cover-up allegations of paedophilia against prominent people. It has even been
alleged that Leon Brittan, when Home Secretary, used the Special Branch as his personal ‘Gestapo’ (Daily Mirror, 24
January 2015). Civil liberties groups such as Statewatch (www.statewatch.org) say that the size of the Special Branch
more than doubled in the past 25 years and at the time of its amalgamation with the Anti-Terrorist Branch to form the
Counter Terrorism Command was far bigger than at the height of the Cold War or the IRA’s bombing campaign. Not all
of this is covered in Special Branch: A History, which is hardly surprising as the criticisms of the Branch are by and large
allegations, but a lot of it is.

Books about Special Branch are few and far from up-to-date. Bernard Porter’s The Origins of the Vigilant State dates
from 1988 and Rupert Allison’s rather disappointing The Branch hails from 1983, so a new history is sorely needed. The
trouble is, I’m not sure this is it. The Branch has a long history and it was involved in a lot of things, so telling its story
from 1883 to 2006 is inevitably going to be superficial, and that’s what this book delivers - a history of the Branch in
bite-sized chunks. So one shouldn’t criticise this book for being what it never set out to be and never could be. But if
you want greater depth, clearly this isn’t the book for you.
Author Ian Adams, who sadly died in the middle of writing this book, and his co-author Ray Wilson, both served in
Special Branch, and both attained senior ranks. When events were within their ken, they have an inside knowledge, but
otherwise they rely heavily on published sources like Porter and Allison, so I have a feeling that some of the content
might be out of date. However, with bite-sized chunks this probably doesn’t matter.
Whatever its deficiencies may have been, down the decades Special Branch did much to protect us from those who
wish us harm, and its officers have often put their lives on the line. This book is packed with stories covering a long and
fascinating history. I enjoyed it greatly.
Review by Paul Begg
CRIME
Mr Atherstone Leaves The Stage:

The Battersea Murder Mystery
Richard Whittington-Egan
Stroud, Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing, 2015
www.amberley-books.com
ISBN: 9781445645445
softcover
204pp, illus., appendices, biblio, index
£9.99
There isn’t much to say about this book. It’s by Richard Whittington-Egan. Buy it.
There is an art to true crime writing. The best true crime writers are true stylists. They rise above the
rest of us and find their own, highly distinctive voice. Richard Whittington-Egan is one of them. At times
he writes like a man who always has Roget’s Thesaurus open on his desk, but when he holds in the urge to use words
that have most people reaching for their dictionaries, there are few who can match him for sheer clarity of writing and
narrative storytelling.
The story of Thomas Weldon Atherstone is a true classic and as it possibly isn’t as well-known as it should be one can’t
risk saying too much in case it spoils Mr Whittington-Egan’s book. The ground floor flat in a mansion block by Battersea
Park belonged to a young lady named Elizabeth Earle, who was away from home. Atherstone, a popular actor, was fond
of Ms Earle and one summer evening in 1910 he managed to gain entry to her flat. He concealed himself and settled
down to wait...
For what? Aye, there’s the rub, we don’t know. It is assumed that he thought he had a rival for the affections of Miss
Earle, but that was most probably a figment of his jealous imagination. Neverteless, he was later found at the foot of
an iron stairway running down the back of the mansion flats. He had been shot.
So who killed the actor? And why?

Well, the simple answer is that nobody knows. Nobody has even been able to offer a persuasive argument. And neither
has Whittington-Egan. It is, plain and simple, an engrossing mystery. And very well told.
Review by Paul Begg
Lizzie Borden on Trial: Murder, Ethnicity, and Gender

Joseph A Conforti
www.josephaconforti.com
Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas
www.kansaspress.ku.edu
ISBN: 9780700620715
hardcover
241pp, bibliographical essay, index
$27.95
On the morning of 4 August 1892 somebody took a hatchet and furiously battered the skull of Abby
Borden in a bedroom of her home in gilded age boomtown Fall River, a textile mill city in Massachusetts,
and in the downstairs living room did the same thing to her husband, a respected businessman named
Andrew Borden. These extraordinarily vicious attacks shocked Fall River and as news of them spread
across the country they became a cause célèbre that intensified when suspicion fell on Andrew Borden’s spinster
daughter, Lizzie. Even the provincial press in Britain was reporting the story within 24-hours.
The evidence was stacked against Lizzie Borden, but it has remained doubtful to a lot of people that she would or
could have committed such an outrageous and extremely brutal and violent crime. The same doubts probably led to
Lizzie’s acquittal, but the stain of guilt never left her and today the ‘did she/didn’t she’ question is as vibrant as ever,
with countless books examining the Borden case from every angle and back again.
I’m afraid that Conforti got up my nose right from his foreword. He hails from Fall River and he says that most people
have heard of the place because of the murders. Lizzie Borden ‘stigmatised’ Fall River and for that reason he shunned
‘the blood-soaked crime’, never having read a book about the case until beginning work on this volume. This reads very
nose-in-the-air elitist, and it gets worse when he states that none of the existing literature about the murders ‘was a
work of academic history’. Maybe it wasn’t, but would an academic who had never read a book on the subject be able
to bring anything new to the table? Conforti also says he decided to write his own book about Lizzie Borden because he
realised that the case was more than just a murder mystery, it revealed much about Victorian society in Fall River and
beyond. Now, it occurs to me that this is pretty obvious, the thought having surely occurred to many of the authors and
readers of books about the Borden case, so Conforti comes across as just a tad naive, imagining that he’d got a new
angle on the case. But maybe I read all this wrongly.
Setting aside the foregoing, The Trial of Lizzie Borden is not a bad book at all. Conforti isn’t greatly interested in the
did she/didn’t she question. He admits right from the start that in his view she was guilty. What interests Conforti - the
whole raison detre for this slim volume - are the reasons why she was acquitted, why people simply couldn’t believe that
the privileged Miss Borden killed her parents. She was unmarried, monied, and religious. She was of a class and a sex
that for many seemed to deny the possibility that she could have killed her parents so gruesomely. The focus of the book
is on the court case and how the evidence was perceived, but that might have been obvious given that it is a volume in
the series Landmark Law Cases and American Society.
Review by Paul Begg
The Thieves of Threadneedle Street:

The Victorian Fraudsters Who Broke The Bank of England
Nicholas Booth
Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2015
www.thehistorypress.co.uk
ISBN: 9780752493404
352pp, illus, biblio, index
Hardcover £20 / 11.04 Kindle
One day in 1872 Inspector Shore of Scotland Yard was in a tailor’s shop in the Strand with William
Pinkerton, who with his brother ran the famous American detective agency. They were about to leave
when two men entered. Pinkerton turned his head away so as not to be recognised, watched the two

men in a mirror, and when they had gone he dragged Shore off in pursuit. On asking who they were, Shore was told their
names were Joseph Chapman and Austin Bidwell.
Austin Biron Bidwell was a charismatic man, a man possessed of incredible charm, a man you simply couldn’t help
liking and trusting. He was also a man who put these gifts to very good use as a con artist. Today he is almost forgotten.
It seems that whilst we remember many Victorian and Edwardian murderers, notorious criminals who didn’t leave
corpses in their wake are largely forgotten. Austin Bidwell, for example, doesn’t even merit an entry on Wikipedia. But
27-year-old Bidwell’s scam on the Bank of England was only exposed because of the accidental omission of the date on
a forged document. Had it not been, Bidwell would have walked away with £1,000,000 in cash and the Bank wouldn’t
have noticed.
Bidwell was one of the most elusive criminals in history. He would strike - forgeries, swindling and defrauding of
banks - and move on, but through his network of informers Pinkerton learned that a major scam was going to go down in
London, so he crossed the Atlantic and chanced to be in a tailor’s shop with Shore when Bidwell walked in.
The story of Bidwell’s gang hasn’t been told for years. The journalist and author George Dilnot, perhaps best
remembered for his books about Scotland Yard and its detectives, was the editor of The Bank of England Forgery in
1929, and Austin Bidwell wrote a rather curious account of his life, but most of the accounts, including those mentioned
above, are inaccurate. Nicholas Booth has had access to a large number of hitherto unopened files, particularly those
held by the Bank of England, and has written a superb account that promises to be the final word on this fascinating case.
Bidwell got away with a lot of money, albeit not as much as he’d hoped to get, and travelled to Havana. From the
West Indies his pretty young English wife wrote a letter to her mother. She had never liked Bidwell and when she read in
a newspaper that Bidwell had escaped with a woman fitting her daughter’s description, she went straight to the police.
Bidwell was returned to London where he stood trial at the Old Bailey. The Lord Chief Justice later described it as “the
most remarkable trial that ever occurred in the annals of England”. Bidwell was sent down for life, but was given his
liberty in the 1890s, his death in 1899 in Butte, Montana, making headlines around the world.
Austin Bidwell’s brother, George, a member of the gang that also included William Noyes and George Macdonald, was
released from prison because it was feared that he would become incurably insane if kept in detention. He was returned
to America and there he was one day in early 1888 recognised by the police, who contacted Scotland Yard in the belief
that he’d escaped.
The Thieves of Threadneedle Street is a great read.
Review by Paul Begg
The Who’s Who Of British Crime:

In the Twentieth Century
Jim Morris
Stroud, Gloucestershire, Amberley Publishing, 2015
www.amberley-books.com
ISBN: 978-1445639246
softcover
index
Softcover £14.99 / Kindle Edition £7.60
In the world of law enforcement there are few things worse than a bent copper and there was a time
when the Metropolitan Police and corruption were almost synonymous. Then along came Sir Robert
Mark, possibly the best commissioner the Met’s had in the past half century, at least as far as cleaning
up the force is concerned. Known for famously saying, ‘A good police force is one that catches more criminals than it
employs’, Mark focused on the CID and said the whole lot would be back in uniform if his cleanup was hampered. 450
officers suddenly decided to retire or otherwise found pressing things to do that necessitated their resignation.
The Who’s Who of British Crime In The Twentieth Century isn’t just a book about criminals. It includes the coppers,
of whom Mark is one, as well as forensic scientists, judges, and even a number of victims of crime. This is a selective
who’s who of criminals and the men who caught and passed sentence on them, with some victims like Suzi Lamplugh as
well. It’s inevitable, however, with only 300 pages to play with, instead of the 300 volumes I suspect a comprehensive
who’s who would require, this book is pretty selective, so prepare to be disappointed if the someone you want to know
about isn’t mentioned or doesn’t receive the in-depth coverage you might expect. For example, Ronnie and Reggie, the

despicable twins, get only two pages. Mind you, Leonard ‘Nipper’ Read, who headed the investigation to bring them
down, doesn’t get any pages, a victim of the author’s selectivity.
There’s not a lot one can say about this book. It’s does what it does and does it well. It’s a great book to dip in and
out of. My only complaint is that for an unillustrated paperback it’s on the pricey side.
Review by Paul Begg
Die in Paris: The True Story of France’s Most Notorious Serial Killer
Marilyn Z Tomlins
www.marilynztomlins.com
Raven Crest Books, 2013
www.ravencrestbooks.com
ebook
429pp
£3.99
Thick, acrid smoke was billowing from the chimney of a nearby house at 21 Rue Le Sueur. The smell
was appalling and you could taste the nastiness. The curious thing, though, was that nobody lived in
the house. It was empty. So, as much as one didn’t want to telephone the police in Nazi occupied Paris,
eventually one had to do so. The police arrive and almost straight away call firemen to force an entry,
which is when a terrible discovery is made.
I don’t review books that weren’t very recently published, and that’s a rule to which there are no exceptions. Never.
Except I got caught up reading this book from the very beginning and as it was published in 2010, with a revised edition
in 2013, two years when for different reasons books were very, very low down my list of priorities, it seemed unfair not
to give it at least brief attention.
The empty house was owned by Dr Marcel Petiot and in a basement the police discovered a furnace fire burning a
body, the cause of the objectionable smell of the thick smoke, and other body parts lay in the furnace room. Elsewhere
more bodies were disappearing in quicklime. Throughout the house were the discarded suitcases that had once belonged
to the dismembered and decomposing bodies, their contents spilling out over the filthy floors. It was obvious that many
murders had been committed, but initial inquiries needed great tact. Was the house used by the Gestapo to get rid of
the bodies of people who had done goodness knows what? Was Dr Petiot a Nazi collaborator, or was he a murderer. It
turned out to be the latter, Petiot, under the guise of helping people, many of them Jews, to flee Paris, brought them
to 21 Rue Le Sueur, where they were murdered and robbed.
Marilyn Z Tomlins writes very well and skilfully builds the tension, even though, if you know the story of the loathsome
Petiot, keeps you turning the pages. Well worth reading and warmly recommended.
Review by Paul Begg
Murder Houses of London Murder Houses of South London Murder Houses of Greater London
Jan Bondeson Jan Bondeson Jan Bondeson
Amberley Publishing Matador publishing Matador publishing
www.amberley-books.com Paperback: 400 pages Paperback: 400 pages
Paperback: 496 pages Illus Illus
Illus; index £9.98 £12.99
£9.98
In June 2014 I was one of a large group of people being led around north London by murder house
aficionado Robert Clack, visiting several scenes of bloodshed including Jeffreys Street, Rillington Place,
Hildrop Crescent and Agar Grove, formerly St Pauls Road. On arrival at Ivor Street, formerly Priory
Street where Mary Pearcey brutally murdered Phoebe Hogg and her baby in 1890. Some confusion
followed as those assembled realised the houses had been renumbered, and it was unclear exactly
which property was the murder house.
Step forward Jan Bondeson, whose hardback Murder Houses of London had just been published. A
read through the entry for Ivor Street, a comparison of the contemporary newspaper sketch and all was
resolved.

The ability to visit a multitude of murder houses still standing was made easy thanks to Murder Houses
of London, which has just been released in paperback. The book is also a cracking read through dozens
upon dozens of historical murder cases in its own right, heavily illustrated with both contemporary
sketches and present-day photographs.
We’ve been pleased to publish a long-running series in Ripperologist featuring extracts from Jan’s
murder house casebook, and now delighted that he has published two new volumes, this time covering
Greater London and South London, the latter revealing that the London Institute of Technology and
Research on Borough High Street is the new tenant of the building which was once the Crown, once
run by Severin Klosowski and the only one of the pubs associated with the poisoner to have any of its
structure intact.
The hundred or so cases covered include the brutal murders of Eliza Grimwood, Amelia Jeffs and
the wonderfully-nicknamed ‘Cock-eyed Maisie’. Both new volumes are extensively illustrated and, of
course, Bondeson’s skill with the pen make them a joy to read.
On the downside, neither of the new volumes has an index - slightly frustrating if you are looking for
a particular murder case, but not enough to spoil your enjoyment of either book.
When I was asked by Amberley to provide a cover quote for Murder Houses of London, the first in
the series, I wrote “A gripping tour of London’s bloodiest buildings, the particulars of which have been
meticulously researched and entertainingly presented.”
With the addition of these two new volumes, Jan Bondeson has expanded his portfolio like some grim
property magnate, and it is hoped that he will continue the series, perhaps visiting crime scenes outside
the capital... Murder Houses of Liverpool, anyone?
Needless to say, all three books are must-haves on the bookshelves of anyone with an interest in crime. Recommended.
Review by Adam Wood
HI
ST IES
O RY ER
’S MYST
The Audacious Crimes of Colonel Blood:

The Spy Who Stole the Crown Jewels and Became the King’s Secret Agent
Robert Hutchinson
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2015
www.orionbooks.co.uk
ISBN: 9780297870180
hardcover
341pp, illus., notes, biblio, index
£20
It is testimony to the duplicity attributed to Colonel Thomas Blood that the man had been buried for
only a few weeks or less when the body was exhumed in order to satisfy or subdue a widespread rumour
that Blood had faked his death to avoid his creditors and that the corpse of another had been buried
in his place. Unfortunately the body in the coffin had already begun to decay, so badly in fact that the rotting corpse
defied identification.
Blood is famous for his almost successful attempt to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London, but he was a
minor and utterly untrustworthy adventurer whose life was a series of remarkable ups and downs.

Thomas Blood was born in Ireland to a respectable and prosperous presbyterian family. He travelled to England,
where he had been educated, to fight on the Royalist side in the Civil War of 1642, but he switched sides and joined
the Parliamentary forces under Oliver Cromwell, who rewarded him handsomely with grants of land. For a while Blood’s
fortune rode high, but in 1660, when Cromwell fell and King Charles II succeeded to the throne, Blood was deprived
of his lands. He attempted to incite insurrection in Ireland, but his plans failed and he fled to the Dutch Republic and
was again implicated in an attempted rising against the King. In 1671 Blood made his notorious attempt to steal the
Crown Jewels, but he was apprehended as he made his escape. In due course he was brought before King Charles, who
reputedly asked what Blood would do if his life was spared. Blood replied, “I would endeavour to deserve it, Sire!”
The Restoration was a dangerous time. An incautious overheard remark could get you arrested. The country was
falling apart. There was a rich underworld filled with countless malcontents and fanatics of all descriptions, ranging
from former Parliamentarians like Blood, through assorted nonconformist groups, to Catholics. There were plots and
counter-plots, madcap schemes and serious conspiracies, and in many of these Thomas Blood was involved. When he
was caught trying to flee with the Crown Jewels, it looked like Blood, a perpetual thorn in the side, was on his way to
the gallows. But astonishingly King Charles pardoned Blood and gave him an income, but the King’s reasons for such
extraordinary magnanimity are unknown, but clearly there was a reason and Hutchinson has it that Blood was highly
valued by Sir Joseph Williamson and Sir Henry Arlington, Charles’ two spymasters who controlled a network of spies and
informers and intelligencers. How effective as a spy Blood actually was is open to debate as he was widely distrusted,
so much so that as we have seen many people refused to believe he was really dead.
Whilst Blood’s life isn’t easy to chronicle, there being so little beyond a broad outline that is certainly known,
Hutchinson brings Blood’s world to life, providing a rollicking read that’s all based on rich and meticulous research.
However, whilst Hutchinson clearly wants us to think of Blood as a loveable rogue and “an incorrigible adventurer”,
and as tempting as it is to think of him in those terms, it’s never possible to entirely escape the conclusion that whilst
Blood had the gift of the gab and possessed a charm that may have saved his life, he was otherwise a pretty nasty and
self-serving villain.
Review by Paul Begg
King Arthur
Nick Higham
Stroud, Gloucestershire, The History Press, 2015
ISBN: 978-0750959216
softcover
128pp., notes, further reading, web links
paperback £6.99 Kindle £4.99
If you were looking for an author to write a very brief overview of the complexities surrounding King
Arthur, you could hardly do better than Nick Higham. Back in 2008 he wrote King Arthur: Myth-Making
and History, which didn’t completely write Arthur off as not having a historical reality, although I recall
feeling that he’d like to have done so. It’s an understandable position, but not one to which I particularly
adhere. Anyway, the book was an outstanding and scholarly contribution to existing Arthurian literature,
particularly valuable for setting all the sources in their proper time and place and political or ecclesiastical context.
Arthur, if he existed, flourished in the first or second century following the departure of the Romans from Britain,
traditionally dated to 410. What happened when they left and when it was realised they weren’t coming back, Britain
plunged into the darkest years of the so-called Dark Ages. Both British and English sources allege that power was seized
by a man called Vortigern, who ruled with what was called the Council of Britons. The trouble came when the Council
followed the usual Roman practice of hiring foreign mercenaries to defend vulnerable coastal areas. According to
tradition, these mercenaries were led by two brothers, Hengest and Horsa, and they were settled in Kent, but one side
or the other - and naturally it is different depending on which side’s account you read - had treachery in their heart.
The mercenaries rebelled, Vortigern’s regime collapsed, and Hengest and Horsa spread over a wide area unchallenged,
leaving death and destruction in their wake. But the Britons eventually rallied under the banner of a Romano-Briton
named Ambrosius Aurelianus and there was a series of battles, victory swinging one way, then the other, until an event
happened at an unidentified place called Mount Badon. We have only one source for this event, an ecclesiastic named
Gildas, and he doesn’t say who led the Britons at this battle or siege. In fact, from Gildas one would assume that
Britons were led to victory by Ambrosius. But tradition otherwise unanimously ascribes it to Arthur. The problem is that

despite occasional disparate references to Arthur’s prowess in battle, later generations knew of him as a great hero but
otherwise seem to have known next to nothing factual about him. This in turn enabled bards and storytellers to put
Arthur at the centre of an array of stories, mostly mythical, some perhaps true but relating to other people. The story as
we have it today is a complete mess, the real Arthur, if he existed, almost unidentifiable beneath the myths and legends.
Arthur is in many ways Britain’s national hero, but also Britain’s greatest historical mystery. The problem is that books
about Arthur divide into the scholarly and the ‘popular’. The latter can be inaccurate and usually arguing that Arthur
lived at this or that place in such and such a time. On the other hand, the scholarly make tough reading for someone
not overly familiar with the story and the sources. Nick Higham’s book is therefore a perfect introduction to the story
of Arthur. He’s a scholar - an Emeritus Professor heading Manchester University’s History Department - and he can write
clearly and concisely and entertainingly.
Review by Paul Begg
A Man Most Driven:

Captain John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Founding of America
Peter Firstbrook
www.peterfirstbrook.com
London: Oneworld Publications
www.oneworld-publications.com
ISBN: 978-1-78074-710-1
first published in hardcover London: Oneworld Publications, 2014
softcover
418pp, illus, appendices. notes, index
Softcover £9.99 / Kindle £9.48
Before the Pilgrim Fathers there was the English-speaking settlement at Jamestown and before that
there were three colonies settled by Sir Walter Raleigh, the last of which vanished and left an enduring
mystery, but over them all Captain John Smith dominates.
Smith (c.1580-1631), forever synonymous with the Jamestown colony despite having lived an otherwise adventurous
life since deserting his family’s Lincolnshire farm, is a famously complicated character dismissed by many historians as
a vainglorious braggart and liar. But such an assessment is often laid at the door of people who, like Smith, eschewed
false modesty when writing of their part in historic events, and Firstbrook asks if it is really fair.
The big question about John Smith is the veracity of his story about how Pocahontas, the 10-year-old daughter of a
powerful Indian chief named Wahunsonacock, threw herself upon Smith’s prostrate form as he was about to be executed
by having his brains bashed out and pleaded with her father for his life. Perhaps the most famous episode of Smith’s life,
it does not bear the hallmarks of truth and, indeed, is absent from all but the last of the three written accounts Smith
left of that time. Historians apparently disbelieve Smith. Interestingly, Firstbrook examines the facts and demures,
leaning instead to the theory (I think first proposed by J A Leo Lemay in The American Dream of Captain John Smith,
1992) that Smith misunderstood that it was a ritual death, the first stage in Smith’s adoption by the tribe. This seems a
reasonable explanation.
Firstbrook doesn’t limit his biography to Smith’s North American adventures, but embraces his time as a mercenary
soldier fighting against the Spanish for the French and later the Dutch. He fought for the Austrian Hapsburgs in Hungary
for Radu Şerban in Wallachia (part of modern Romania), and after killing and beheading three Turks in duels he was
knighted by Transylvanian king Sigismund Bathory (of the same family as the infamous Elizabeth Bathory). Smith was
afterwards captured and sold into slavery, eventually escaping and making it back to England.
This is the first biography of John Smith in quite a while and Firstbrook clearly seems to have done his research - a
lot of it too - and produced a very readable book.
Review by Paul Begg
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M N
YS IO
TER
IES OF RELIG
After the New Testament: 100-300 C.E.:

A Reader in Early Christianity
Bart D. Ehrman
New York: Oxford University Press (USA), 2015
www.oup.com/us/he
ISBN: 9780195398922
softcover
£35
There is no more influential figure in the history of the Christian world than Jesus, yet his life beyond
what we are told in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) is barely known. The life of Jesus
is therefore the ultimate historical mystery. The one good thing is there’s no doubt about what he taught and what his
followers believed about him.
Yeah, right.
In fact the variety of beliefs in the years following Jesus’s crucifixion is astonishing. There were a lot of Christian
groups believing in and practising different things, some quite bizarre to the eyes of today’s readers, and we have a
great many books and other documents concerning these beliefs. They aren’t all collected together and rectifying this
is the purpose of this new second edition of Bart D Ehrman’s After The New Testament.
I have many of Ehrman’s books and in my opinion there is no better writer on Christian history. As a young man he
was an Evangelical Christian who believed that the Bible didn’t contain any mistakes. Then he began to notice mistakes
or differences between various manuscripts; the number of differences between the 5,700 copies of the Books of the
New Testament written in Greek contain… well, nobody knows, but it is in the tens of thousands. So, Ehrman isn’t now
a believer, which is a good thing because it enables him to walk that tightrope between being a biased believer and
an objective historian rather than someone predisposed to preserve what the texts say. As James A Gray Distinguished
Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (the heart of
the Bible Belt), he can - and does - write highly academic stuff (and for most people After the New Testament probably
falls into that category), but he can also write for the general reader, even making the boring bits understandable.
So, this book is a collection of early Christian texts, some have been deemed heretical, some have been rejected as
forgeries. These are the excluded, the damned, and known as the apocrypha, some of which could be genuine - insofar
as any of the Gospels are ‘genuine’. If the history of the early Christians rings your bell, this is a must have book.
Review by Paul Begg
The Wife of Jesus: Ancient Texts and Modern Scandals

Anthony Le Donne
London: Oneworld Publications, 2015
www.oneworld-publications.com
ISBN: 978-1-78074-569-5
First Published in hardcover London: Oneworld Publications, 2015
softcover/ebook
210pp, illus, notes, biblio, references index, index
Softcover £9.99 / Kindle £9.49
An utterly different book, but a great read, is The Wife of Jesus. The idea that Jesus Christ was
married is an old one, but the popularity of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail gave it a huge boost
in public awareness, and, of course, Dan Brown’s use of the theme in his bestselling conspiracy novel

The Da Vinci Code took the idea off the scale. However, a more serious face was given to the idea in 2012 when it was
announced at the International Congress of Coptic Studies in Rome that a fragment of papyrus had been found which
contained the words “Jesus said to them, ‘my wife...’”.
Following the demolition of Holy Blood the idea that Jesus was married had gone into decline, but this fragment,
given the name The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, revived it. Sadly, the fragment has been generally dismissed as a forgery, but
one semi-positive consequence of the brouhaha it caused is that the role of Mary Magdalene underwent reassessment,
some people arguing that she was a prominent disciple and an early Christian leader, not a repentant prostitute.
But was she Jesus’s wife? There is no particular reason why Jesus couldn’t have been married. The disciples were
or had been married, Jesus’s brothers had wives, and even Paul reserved the right to marry, and there were women
among the disciples, although they are played down in the Gospels, so much so that we know the names of just two,
Mary Magdalene and Salome. This excellent book explores the whole case, the arguments for and against, in a highly
readable way.
Review by Paul Begg
M AG
N A C A R TA
“Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain? Brave Hungarian peasant girl who forced King John to
sign the pledge at Runnymede and close the boozers at half past ten!” - Tony Hancock, The Twelve Angry Men
On 15 June eight hundred years ago King John (boo, hiss) attached his seal to the Great Charter of the Liberties and
this year a ton of books were published to celebrate the anniversary of this important event. It has nothing to do with
Jack the Ripper, of course, but Magna Carta was the first time that people were assured of recourse in law - ’To no man
will we sell, or deny, or delay, right or justice’ - and when we talk about baddies, many people might consider Jack the
Ripper up there at the top of the list, but some of our kings make his villainies look like the work of an amateur, and
none more so than King John (boo hiss). I’d hoped to have these books reviewed in the last issue of Ripperologist, the
nearest issue to the 800th anniversary, but illness makes the best laid plans go awry, and did so in this case. Here, then,
is a brief summary of some of the best Magna Carta books received at the palatial Ripperologist Towers.
Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legend

Edited by Claire Breay and Julian Harrison
London: The British Library, 2015
ISBN: 9780712357647
softcover
277pp, illus., biblio, text of Magna Carta, index
£25
This book accompanies an exhibition at The British Library which ran from 13 March until 1st of
September. It’s finished now, but this book is absolutely fantastic. Tons of illustrations, many in colour,
and a series of chapters looking at many aspects of Magna Carta, beginning with the crisis that propelled
King John on a course of action that led to Runymede and ending with a look at the importance of Magna Carta today.
The importance of this book for me was that I, like most people, know about John setting his seal to the Charta at
Runymead, I am all but completely ignorant of how Magna Carta became a part of the constitutions of countries the
world over. I wish there was space to say a lot more, but this beautifully illustrated book is awesome - and I don’t say
that very often.
Review by Paul Begg

Magna Carta (Third Edition)
J C Holt
Third edition material: George Garnett and John Hudson
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015
First published London: Cambridge University Press, 1965
www,cambridge.org
ISBN: 9781107471573
softcover
462pp, illus., references, index
£21.99
Professor Sir James Clarke Holt, who died in 2014, Professor of Medieval History at the University of
Cambridge from 1978-1988, made his name with this book, which was first published in 1965. It is almost
certainly the most authoritative analysis of the Great Charta and its great strength is that it sets the
events of 1215 in the context of the law, politics and administration of England in the 12th and 13th centuries. This third
edition, the text bright and clear, has a lengthy new introduction by Garnett and Hudson, one-time pupils of Professor
Holt, which looks at what has emerged since the second edition was published in 1992.
Holt concentrates on the one issue that has proved the most elusive for generations of scholars: the document in its
exact chronological context. In chapter after chapter, he proceeds to nail it down to the precise circumstances in which
it was produced. In the 12th and 13th centuries government was maturing, which in itself presaged the need for a set of
rules, and a speciﬁc crisis in King John’s reign provoked the creation of the Charter. In other words, the time was right.
As for Holt’s view of King John, he is perhaps a little charitable in painting him as a king trapped in a difficult position.
He needed men and money to fight a war to regain lands he’d lost in France and he used his knowledge of the legal
system to exploit his position as king to extract money from the coffers of his barons. In Holt’s view, he was skilfully
manipulative rather than evil. Holt also analyses the after effects of the events at Runnymede. The Great Charta was,
of course, ultimately a failure and caused even more fighting, but in the long term it must be seen as a success as it
embodied many things which later generations used.
I first encountered Professor Holt many years ago when I read the first edition of his classic Robin Hood. A fabulous
book, well-written and entertaining, my expectations for Magna Carta, which I hadn’t read before, were high and well
met. The book is clearly written and scrupulously documented. Not for everybody, of course, but if you are interested in
how Magna Carta became so central to the laws of many nations, this is one of the books you need to read.
Review by Paul Begg
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Ripper Fiction
with DAVID GREEN
There was Mary.

She didn’t look like much of a person at all, the way she was carved up. It was so awful, if I did any
kind of job telling you about it here, you might get so revolted you’d quit reading my book. Besides, I’d
feel guilty for putting such pictures into your head. My aim is to inform you and entertain you with the
tale of my adventures...
from Savage by Richard Laymon (1993)
*****
I’m Jack
Mark Blacklock
Granta (2015)
ISBN-13:978 1 78378 0853
Paperback 235pp
£12.99
“I’m Jack. I see you are still having no luck catching me.”
In 1978-79, at the height of the manhunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, an unemployed labourer called
John Humble sent hoax letters and a tape to the police claiming to be the murderer. The letters,
signed ‘Jack the Ripper’, bore a Sunderland postmark; the sneering audio message was spoken in a
strong Wearside accent. Humble’s actions catastrophically derailed the police investigation as teams of
officers poured into the colliery villages and council estates of North East England. Meanwhile, softly-
spoken Yorkshireman Peter Sutcliffe remained free to murder at least three more women.
Humble was only caught in 2005 when DNA evidence linking him to one of the hoax letters was discovered during a cold case
review. He was charged with perverting the course of justice and sentenced to eight years.
Mark Blacklock has now written a remarkable novel about Humble. It’s a sort of mock autobiography consisting of fabricated
letters written by Humble from his prison cell in Leeds to Superintendent George Oldfield, the man who led the Ripper enquiry.
Blacklock catches Humble’s voice perfectly - the Makem dialect, the sloppy punctuation and grammar, the Dear Boss colloquialisms
filched from Jones and Lloyd’s The Ripper File, the obsessive whining tone of an out of work boozer with a grudge against the
police.
Humble yaks on about life in prison, about being on the dole in 1970s Sunderland, about how he came to record the hoax
message on a budget C60 cassette tape from Boots. He was just bored, he says. It was only a prank. He was fed up with all the
Ripper coverage in the papers. But beneath all this self-serving rant you detect a sick gloating lust for notoriety.
Of course, you can’t really trust anything Humble says. His letters are riddled with lies and evasions, conceits and self-
delusions. Blacklock interleaves Humble’s account with verbatim transcripts of official documents - newspaper reports, police
interviews, graphology analyses, hate mail, housing association letters, and prisoner befriending correspondence. Some of these
documents are real, others have been made up by Blacklock, and the reader is never quite sure which is which. But this mixing
of the real and the imagined, the fake and the half-true, seems entirely fitting in a novel that sets out to explore the fantasist
world of Britain’s most infamous deceiver.
In a sense, Humble is also a victim - a victim of poverty and pit closures and the decline of heavy industry on the Tyne. Perhaps
Humble wasn’t so much a fiend as a loser, whose warped idea of fun was to be Peter Sutcliffe for a day. He became a recluse,

hiding from family and friends in case anyone recognised his voice from the hoax tape. And for the next thirty years he lived a
curious double life, pretending he wasn’t the man who’d pretended to be a serial killer. Blacklock has now assumed the voice
of Humble, and you’ll struggle to find a better British ‘crime’ novel this year.
Prisoner 4374
A J Griffiths-Jones
Austin Macauley (2015)
ISBN-978 1785540493
Paperback 113pp
£8.99
The boundary between biography and fiction is also blurred in Amanda Griffiths-Jones’s intriguing
account of the life of serial murderer Thomas Neill Cream.
Prisoner 4374 is presented as historical biography, yet it is written in an autobiographical style

as if narrated by Cream himself, who confides his innermost thoughts and feelings as events unfold.
Some readers will warm to this approach; others may find it a questionable, even dishonest, strategy.
The author is understandably proud of her debut book, and she deserves credit for unearthing new information about Cream’s
personal life and criminal career. But Cream is an immensely complicated, monstrous figure, and I feel she struggles to provide
a convincing, authentic portrait of her subject.
She captures Cream’s arrogance and grim, callous sense of humour, and there are several magnificent passages chronicling
Cream’s mental and physical deterioration brought about (partly) by the ravages of syphilis. But the narrative is marred by too
many wearisome interjections of the ‘Dear reader, be prepared for the hair to rise on your neck’ variety. Unfortunately hairs
never do rise because Cream’s life story is recounted without suspense or dramatic tension. Cream, for all his fuming about
whores and filthy sluts, comes across at times like a stock vaudeville player, flicking his cape and twirling his moustache.
The book’s main weakness is that Cream is never placed in any historical or cultural context. You never really understand
how Cream managed to commit multiple murders on two continents over three decades and yet seems to have moved with
relative impunity across borders despite being a convicted killer. His blackmail and extortion schemes only really make sense
when examined in the light of Victorian notions of respectability and reputation, but these larger ideas simply aren’t addressed.
Cream was incarcerated at the Illinois State Penitentiary in Joliet from 1881 to 1891. Griffiths-Jones has gained access to
Cream’s prison files, and she claims these documents establish incontrovertibly and for the first time where Cream was in 1888.
This may be a slight overstatement because the dates of Cream’s incarceration have been known for decades. Yet this new
information does appear to put the matter wholly beyond dispute.
The prison files also reveal many interesting hitherto unknown facts about Cream’s life in Joliet and about the behind-the-
scenes legal manoeuvres by friends and associates to secure his early discharge. The chapters dealing with Cream’s life in
Boone County Jail and Joliet Penitentiary are easily the best sections in the book.
A little later, the astonishing claim is made that Cream murdered a fellow passenger aboard the SS Teutonic sailing from New
York to Liverpool in October 1891. Apparently, he spiked her drink and her death was put down to bad oysters from the buffet.
I don’t know what evidence there is for this since the author fails to cite her sources.
Even more amazing, though, are the author’s discoveries regarding someone who may or may not be Jack the Ripper. In
essence, she claims that the Ripper (or ‘R’ as she refers to him) was a doctor at St Thomas’s Hospital and later a correspondent
of Cream’s. The two of them were chums and ‘notorious pals’, merrily discussing murder together, with ‘R’ actually suggesting
to Cream a scheme to eradicate prostitutes from the streets of Lambeth. “We shared a common enough animosity toward
women… he would applaud my motives and maybe even offer to lend a hand.” What do we make of this? For me, the book’s
lack of scholarly rigour makes it difficult to treat these claims seriously. But if the author can substantiate her assertions - and
I believe a second book is in the offing - then we’re talking about a major breakthrough. We will have to wait and see.
I’m sure Amanda Griffiths-Jones will go on to produce better books than this one. She’s a good writer, and her research into
Cream’s life at Joliet is important and valuable. I only wish she had presented us with a verifiable documentary record instead
of dressing up her research as faux autobiography.

Tatterdemalion
Robert Crawford
Create Space Independent Publishing Platform (2015)
ISBN-13-978-1495300608
Paperback 446pp
$15.50
In 1887 Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show came to London as part of the American exhibition for
Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. There were galloping horses, squaws and real-life Indian warriors,
rodeos and blazing guns, and star of the show, dashing frontiersman Colonel William F Cody in his
beige buckskin outfit with thigh length black boots.
Now, in Robert Crawford’s debut novel Tatterdemalion, it’s 1888 and Buffalo Bill is back in London
at the request of Chief Inspector Fred Abberline. His mission: to track down Jack the Ripper… With him are feisty sharpshooter
Annie Oakley, dour Chief Sitting Bull, and the story’s narrator, a young New York cinematographer called Scott Carson whose job
it will be to film the murder scenes. The posse takes lodgings in a former bordello on Fashion Street, and within days they’re
hot on the heels of the Ripper, who has just struck twice in one night…
Tatterdemalion combines the suspense of a Victorian murder mystery with the sweep and panache of an American Wild West
adventure story. The result is a gloriously entertaining, highly-readable yarn with a freshness and zest that is usually lacking
from Ripper fiction. Part of the novel’s fun comes from playing off these larger-than-life characters against each other and
placing them in incongruous or ironic situations: thus, we see Sitting Bull and Fred Abberline sharing a pipe, Mary Kelly queasily
chopping up vegetables in the kitchen, and Annie Oakley showing her mettle in a Mexican stand off in Buck’s Row. It’s been a
long time since Ripper fiction was this exhilarating.
It’s smart, inventive, and engagingly written, and with a serious purpose - along the way it examines the myths of the Ripper
legend and the myths of the American frontier. It rattles along like a big four-horse wagon crossing the prairie, and I was sad
when the journey came to an end.
*****
Proper Red Stuff: Ripper Fiction Before 1900

In this series we take a look at forgotten writers from the 1880s and 1890s who tackled the Jack the Ripper theme in their
novels and short fiction.
1: G. Read Murphy: The Blakely Tragedy (1891)

I’m surprised no-one has ever accused Australian author G. Read Murphy of being Jack the Ripper.
Born in Melbourne in 1856, George Read Murphy was a coroner and police magistrate. He came to
London in 1886 to recuperate after a serious coach accident. He found lodgings in the Royal Avenue,
Chelsea, and devoted much of his time to devising an electrically controlled dirigible torpedo. While
still in London, he published his novel The Blakely Tragedy, a thinly-veiled portrait of Jack the Ripper,
which aired some of his own views on prostitution as a social and moral evil.
In 1892 he returned to Australia to resume his legal career. He married in 1904 and died of
pneumonia at a private hospital in Sydney in 1925.
Murphy was a man of wide intellectual interests. He authored several books on political theory
and penal policy, as well as a curious science fiction fantasy, Beyond the Ice, about a technologically-advanced civilization
discovered at the North Pole.
The Blakely Tragedy was published by Sutton, Drowley & Co in 1891. It received scant notice, and was savaged by the few
critics who bothered to review it. The Glasgow Herald called it ‘disgusting’.
It tells the story of Harold Blakely, the son of an eminent barrister, who goes up to Cambridge and marries a pretty girl called
Maud Desailley. The couple enjoy holidays in the Mediterranean, and soon there is a daughter. Life is good.
But tragedy looms! Blakely develops a sore throat and a chest rash, and his hair starts falling out. A doctor confirms he has
‘befouled his blood with the filth from the gutter’ (clearly a reference to syphilis, though never named as such). And worse
still, Blakely has passed on the disease to his wife, who dies giving birth to a stillborn child. A nurse brings him the dead baby

on a folded cloth - ‘a ‘tiny blotched mass of corruption’.
It is a turning point: he determines to rid the world of ‘the unfortunate women who live for evil’. He starts going out into
the slums of the East End with a razor and knife. His first victim is a housemaid - he gets her drunk in Whitechapel, then cuts
her throat and chucks her body into the Thames. “I had done well,” he later muses, “but I should have left her to be found,
as I did the others…”
The novel contains extended rants on prostitution, viewing it as a ‘cancer’ that needs eradicating so that ‘men may be
pure and women happy’. The language is of ‘purifying’ and ‘cleansing’, and Blakely is portrayed as an avenger on a ‘mission
protected by the All-powerful’. This talk of degenerate and diseased human beings finds echoes in Murphy’s own Christian and
eugenic beliefs.
As a work of fiction, The Blakely Tragedy is of little importance beyond its elaborate and bitter depiction of the murder of
prostitutes in the aftermath of the Ripper crimes. It fails to sizzle, you might say - rather like his patented dirigible torpedo
which contained a design flaw and never went into manufacture.
References: There is an article on Murphy by Anne Beggs Sunter in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. For details of
his work on torpedoes, see ‘Nineteenth Century Torpedoes and their Inventors’ by Edwyn Gray (Naval Institute Press, 2004,
pp 194-6). For a contemporary review of his novel, see The Glasgow Herald, 13 August 1891. There is a copy of The Blakely
Tragedy in the British Library (shelf mark 012634.f.24).
IN THE NEXT ISSUE we review Elyssa Warkentin’s new scholarly edition of Marie Belloc Lowndes’ 1913 novel
The Lodger. And there will be an interview with editor Maxim Jakubowski on the eve of the publication
of The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper Stories, the most eagerly-awaited volume in this year’s Ripper
fiction calendar.
DAVID GREEN lives in Hampshire, England, where he works as a freelance book indexer. He is currently
writing (very slowly) a book about the murder of schoolboy Percy Searle in Hampshire in 1888.
Sherlock Holmes and the Ripper Murders (play)

Sherlock Holmes and the Ripper Murders, written by the late television writer Brian Clemens, is currently touring UK
theatres by Talking Scarlet. I attended the opening night at Swansea Grand Theatre to see the latest adventure pitting The
Great Detective against Jack the Ripper, about half way through the play’s tour.
The set was sparse, yet effective - boxes provided different levels, a simple table and chairs served as 221b Baker Street
and interspersed cut cloths at the back with projections on them set the scene for different locations.
As is common for Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper stories, the Royal/Masonic Conspiracy was prominent with Sir
William Gull, John Netley and Sir Robert Anderson as the antagonists and frequent name checks and references to Walter
Sickert and his part in the story.
As the play began I received a strange feeling of deja vu. Dialogue and situations were very familiar. About a quarter of the
way through the first scene I realised why - the play is in fact a stage adaptation of an audio play by Big Finish Productions
which I had previously listened to. Unfortunately, while the audio play is extremely atmospheric, it loses a major part of this
during the transfer from audio to stage. Despite this, it is still an entertaining way to spend an evening.
Sherlock Holmes himself was well portrayed (sporting a beard - the first time I have ever seen this) by Samuel Clemens (the
son of the play’s author) and was witty and insightful, deeply moral and able to care, even becoming passionate towards the
end when confronting the criminals on their actions. Yet this Holmes is perhaps more open minded towards (even to the degree
of believing in) the spiritual and supernatural than other incarnations. A subplot featuring him being haunted by past loves
(hinted to be Irene Adler) also featured heavily and a main character serves as a romantic interest (more on this later) which
felt entirely unnecessary. This Holmes was also a mason, a public drug user and an outspoken socialist - all of which seemed to
me to counter the Holmes of the books.

Watson (played by George Telfer) seemed underused (especially in the first act) and mostly serves as comic relief - though
thankfully not in a bumbling Nigel Bruce-esque way, but more with the clever wit of modern Watsons.
The other main character needing a mention is Kate Mead (played by Lara Lemon), a well known psychic medium who brings
Holmes ominous warnings of the Ripper crimes and acts as a psychic consultant for the detective, both for the dark demons
of the murders and his own past. She serves as the Robert Lees character, but unfortunately the sole purpose of making the
character a woman seems to be so she can act as a romantic interest for Holmes.
Is the play historically accurate? Not really. Among other jarring inaccuracies for those versed in the history of the case, the
following particularly stand out: the name Jack the Ripper seems publicly known and in common use prior to the Double Event,
the From Hell letter is sent prior to Eddowes murder (whose kidney it actually contains is not mentioned), and the Camden
Town Murders and subsequent paintings by Sickert occurred prior to Autumn of 1888.
The direction by Patric Kearns is top notch on the physical side on the most part (the exception being the scenes in
Whitechapel where the unfortunates all seem to be “good time girls” and the acting over the top), but the effects less
effective. Each time a knife is shown on stage the character freezes while holding it and a red light effect and slashing sound
effect is used - probably to make the audience jump - yet it just looks hammy. Several animations on the projections just felt
unnecessary and cheesy too. The final criticism is the casting. Ages are all over the place - the most notable being Mary Kelly
being twice the age of Catherine Eddowes (and played by the same actress as Mrs Hudson, but in a different wig).
Overall, Sherlock Holmes and the Ripper Murders is an enjoyable evening out for the general public, but contains many
myths and historical inaccuracies that will probably cause a good number of raised eyebrows among Ripperologists.
Sherlock Holmes and the Ripper murders is touring the UK until November.
Review by Jon Rees

Courtesy Trevor Bond

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145 August 2015

The Full Story

JAN BONDESON’S MURDER HOUSE CASEBOOK

RIPPER MUSEUM: A SPECIAL REPORT EDITORS

VICTORIAN FICTION: LONG ODDS To contribute an article, please email

There are very few, if any, incidents in human history as revolting as

Are we really that bad?

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Let’s Start With the Facts

1 The relevant registration number was 08002862.

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24 Registration number 02748636.

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30 All property information from Land Registry and zoopla.com.

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33 you.38degrees.org.uk, ‘Celebrate Suffragettes not Serial Killers’.

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36 East London Advertiser, 29 July 2015.

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37 Evening Standard, 29 July 2015.

46 The Guardian, 7 August 2015.

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A Protestor Speaks to Ripperologist: Jemima Broadbridge

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When did you find out about the museum?

Do you have any thoughts on the Council’s response?

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A Member of Staff Speaks

Ground Floor – Ticket Desk and Gift Shop

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1st Floor – Mitre Square

2nd Floor – Jack the Ripper’s Sitting Room

3rd Floor – Police Station

4th Floor – Victim’s Bedroom

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Who was Jack the Ripper?

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Of the five canonical murders we shall closely

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Still, generally, that situation seems quite awkward. He’s holding,

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The death of Annie Chapman at 29 Hanbury Street in the next month

But the most compelling evidence of Jack’s legerdemain as an escapist

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