Ripperologist 105

RIPPEROLOGIST MAGAZINE
Issue 105, August 2009

QUOTE FOR AUGUST:
“I like doing things that are different,” Matthews explained. “You get an opportunity to go goof off with Adam
Sandler. I’d do anything, any role he wanted me to play. He could call me on the phone tomorrow and say, ‘I
want you to play Jack the Ripper in drag,’ I would jump at the opportunity."
Singer/songwriter Dave Matthews reveals his passion for acting.
Dave Matthews talks monkeys, gangsta rap and playing Jack the Ripper in drag.
John Lamb, INFORUM 19 JULY 2009.
We would like to acknowledge the valuable assistance given by

Features the following people in the production of this issue of
Ripperologist: John Bennett — Thank you!
Editorial
Killer from the Past The views, conclusions and opinions expressed in signed
Adam Wood articles, essays, letters and other items published in
Ripperologist are those of the authors and do not necessarily
‘The Rookery’: reflect the views, conclusions and opinions of Ripperologist or
its editors. The views, conclusions and opinions expressed in
The Lodging Houses of Flowery Dean
unsigned articles, essays, news reports, reviews and other
in the Late Victorian Period items published in Ripperologist are the responsibility of
John Bennett Ripperologist and its editorial team.
We occasionally use material we believe has been placed
Clerical Sphinx in the public domain. It is not always possible to identify and
contact the copyright holder; if you claim ownership of some-
Did the Ripper confess to a priest?
thing we have published we will be pleased to make a prop-
Jonathan Hainsworth er acknowledgement.
The contents of Ripperologist No. 105 August 2009, including
City Beat: the compilation of all materials and the unsigned articles,
City PC 881 Edward Watkins essays, news reports, reviews and other items are copyright ©
2009 Ripperologist. The authors of signed articles, essays, let-
Neil Bell and Robert Clack
ters, news reports, reviews and other items retain the copyright
of their respective contributions. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No
part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, transmitted or otherwise circulated in any form or by
Regulars any means, including digital, electronic, printed, mechani-
cal, photocopying, recording or any other, without the prior
permission in writing of Ripperologist. The unauthorised
Victorian Larder
reproduction or circulation of this publication or any part
A Little of What You Fancy thereof, whether for monetary gain or not, is strictly pro-
Jane Coram hibited and may constitute copyright infringement as defined in
domestic laws and international agreements and give rise to
Press Trawl civil liability and criminal prosecution.
Chris Scott returns with more snippets of news from the 19th century
News and Views

I Beg to Report
Reviews:
Billington: Victorian Executioner, Murders of the Black Museum 1875-1975, Public
Enemies: The True Story of America’s Greatest Crime Wave, The Silver Locomotive
Mystery, Voodoo Histories
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Editorial
Killer from the Past
By Adam Wood
The recent 40th anniversary of the Moon landing took me right back to my very early years,
when the excitement of ‘Man’s small step’ lasted for months. Overnight I stopped being a cow-
boy and instead became an astronaut.
I couldn’t get enough of TV shows like Star Trek and UFO, and the movie listings seemed to be full of features
such as The War of the Worlds and The Day The Earth Stood Still.
The film that really scared me though was The Quatermass Experiment. Whereas man’s bacteria had come to
our aid and eventually killed off the Martians in The War of the Worlds, in The Quatermass Experiment the reverse
initially appeared to be true. The sole survivor of a spaceship’s crew, Victor Carroon, returns extremely ill, seem-
ingly afflicted by some alien disease. Eventually it’s revealed that Carroon has in fact been infected and is slowly
mutating into an alien organism.
Neil Armstrong — boldly going where no man had gone before
Even now, the thought of some deadly, invisible virus is
worrying. Headlines around the world report in an ever-larg-
er font the threat of pandemics such as today’s Swine Flu.
Before that was Bird Flu, which in turn has its origins in the
Hong Kong Flu pandemic which killed over one million peo-
ple in 1968. In 1957 Asian Flu, a mutated strain circulating
in wild ducks which mixed with human flu, killed two mil-
lion. Further back, similar to Swine Flu, was the Spanish Flu
pandemic of 1918, when 50 million people died.
But horrific as these pandemics are, we can console our-
selves that once the disease dies out the risk of infection is
gone.
Or can we?
The New Scientist of 1 September 1999 reported that
Syracuse University, New York, had discovered a prehistoric
virus lying deep within the Greenland icepack. Known as a
tomato mosaic tobamovirus (ToMV), the common plant
pathogen was dated at between 500 and 140,000 years old. It
was still infectious. The team revealed that the discovery
suggested ancient strains of more fatal diseases such as
smallpox and polio could be entombed, waiting to be
released.
Ripperologist 105 August 2009 1

Smithfield Market
More recently, on 12 May of this year, the Evening Standard reported that work on the £16bn London Crossrail
project had been halted after human bones were found on site at Charterhouse Street in Farringdon. The body was
suspected of being the remains of an inmate of a workhouse attached to St Sepulchre’s Church, buried in an ancient
‘plague pit’.
A spokesman for Crossrail confirmed the find was made as a deep exploratory bore hole was dug to test for the
presence of bodies on the site, and that the Museum of London, who took the bones away for testing, suggested they
could be dated at 200-300 years old.
It was subsequently reported in the Islington Tribune of 6 June that a House of Lords select committee had
revealed the area to be ‘medium to high risk’ of being contaminated with anthrax as it was the site of a 14th Century
burial ground for thousands of Black Death victims.
While Bubonic Plague can survive underground in pits, the fear on this occasion was the release of anthrax, which can
lie dormant in spore form for centuries, but if disturbed can spread through the air and is deadly if inhaled by humans. It
commonly infects livestock, especially pigs, and it is through contaminated meat that Smithfield Market — on
Charterhouse Street — became infected in 1520. There were 682 people who died from anthrax and were buried in the
pit.
When the Metropolitan line on the Underground was cut in 1890, the anthrax spore was disturbed and killed dozens
of people.
At the end of June it was announced that the remains had no traces of either anthrax or Bubonic Plague, and that
as London’s plague burial sites were so well documented, future risk of contamination would be avoided.
But it’s frightening to think that Victorian Londoners were not just at risk from Jack the Ripper, but also a deadly
killer from the 16th Century.
What’s waiting for us?

‘The Rookery’:
The Lodging Houses of ‘Flowery Dean’
in the Late Victorian Period
By John Bennett
[Your] presence is not welcomed in the street. You are not a lodger, that is clear. Curious and angry
eyes follow you all the way. Of course your presence there—the apparition of anything respectable—is
an event which creates alarm rather than surprise.
In the square mile of which this street is the centre, it is computed are crowded one hundred and
twenty thousand of our poorest population—men and women who have sunk exhausted in the battle of
life, and who come here to hide their wretchedness and shame, and in too many cases train their little
ones to follow in their steps. The children have neither shoes nor stockings. They are covered with filth,
they are innocent of all the social virtues, and here is their happy hunting ground. They are a people
by themselves1.
The foregoing words, a typical piece of Victorian

A contemporary sketch of Flower and Dean Street reportage, describe one of the East End’s most squalid
showing Nos. 30 to 33 (source unknown).
and notorious thoroughfares: Flower and Dean Street,
also known popularly as ‘Flowery Dean Street’. Along
with Thrawl Street, George Street and Lower and
Upper Keate Streets, this small enclave of poverty was
the dark heart of Spitalfields.
Nearby Dorset Street is often characterised as the
‘worst street’ in the district, but that is somewhat of
a misconception. The bad reputation of Dorset Street
was probably largely earned because of Mary Jane
Kelly’s murder in Miller’s Court, Dorset Street, on 9
November 1888. When the Flowery Dean rookery was
erased, ‘Dosset Street’ was left to carry the mantle of
most dangerous street in the vicinity, with at least 40
years’ worth of murder and crime to the street’s cred-
it. It is also easy to assume that the Ripper murders
inspired the demolition of the worst slums, but such
redevelopment had already begun to take place in the
area several years earlier.
1 ‘The Low Lodging House’ in J Ewing Ritchie, Days and Nights

in London or, Studies in Black and Gray. London: Tinsley Brothers,
1880, pp 138-9.

The Dark Heart of Spitalfields
Before 1883, the Flower and Dean Street area was a cramped, ramshackle collection of decaying properties, over-
populated yet neglected, with numerous courts, yards and alleys offering even more unfit accommodation for those
‘exhausted in the battle of life’. The greatest blot on in the area was the common lodging house or doss-house.
Flower and Dean Street originally had 57 properties, of which two-thirds were officially in use as doss-houses; Lower
and Upper Keate Streets had 24 lodging houses between them; Thrawl Street, then only two-hundred yards long,
alone had 11 lodging houses. Including George Street and the numerous courts such as Wilson’s Place and Keate Court
as well as properties on the periphery (Wentworth Street, Fashion Street and Brick Lane), there were well over one
hundred common lodging houses in a residential area that was half the size of Liverpool Street Railway Station*. The
lodging houses in Flower and Dean Street accommodated over one thousand people2.
From 1852 onward, lodging houses had to be registered and regularly inspected so that the number of rooms,
lodgers, floors in use and essential facilities such as kitchens could be recorded and therefore regulated3.
Needless to say, being an area of such high demand, matched with the obvious money-making potential of a full
house, the limits set on the amount of boarders permitted in any one house were often ignored. For example, the
house at 19 Flower and Dean Street was a typical three-storey property, with a room on each floor and a communal
kitchen in the basement. It was licensed to hold 21 lodgers; however, records show that at one time there were 45
inhabitants4. It should come as no surprise to anybody familiar with the names of local lodging house landlords in
the 1880s that 19 Flower and Dean Street was owned by one William Crossingham.
* For a modern-day equivalent, Liverpool Street Station equates to three football pitches.
2 Census return 1881 and lodging house registers.
3 Common Lodging House Act 1851 & 1853.
4 1881 Census.
The Flower and Dean area in 1888 (John Bennett).

The enactment of the Artisan’s and Labourers‘
Dwellings Improvement Act (commonly known as
the ‘Cross Act’) in 1875 heralded the first major
changes to the Flowery Dean rookery. As well as this
troublesome district, other areas were scheduled
for redevelopment, including parts of George Yard
and Goulston Street. But whereas new properties in
George Yard were built around 1880 after those
sites were cleared, the locality making up Flower
and Dean, George and Thrawl Streets was given an
unintentional reprieve, allowing the vice and
squalor to continue unchecked.
It was not until 1883 that a sizeable area of hous-
ing was demolished and another three years before
work commenced on Charlotte de Rothschild
Dwellings and Lolesworth Buildings. In 1884, Thrawl
Street was extended west to Commercial Street,
Lodging house in George Street (Illustrated Police News, 15 September 1888).
effectively erasing Upper Keate Street and the narrow
Keate Court. Thus, by 1888, the worst part of Spitalfields had been relieved of half of its notorious lodging houses.
Unfortunately, the wholly respectable working-class Jewish residents of these new tenements had little impact on the
reputation of these mean streets as the events surrounding the Whitechapel murders would make abundantly clear.
A map of the district5 gives us a fairly accurate overview of the Flower and Dean Street area as it stood at the
time of the Ripper murders. Apart from the major presence of the new model dwellings, what is immediately strik-
ing is the sheer density of lodging houses (shaded area) that remained in the area. Included among these seemingly
anonymous tenements were the sometime residences of most of the Ripper’s victims, canonical or otherwise: Emma
Smith, Martha Tabram, Mary Ann Nichols, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and, at one time or another, Mary Jane
Kelly and Frances Coles. What follows is a house-by-house peek at the places that between 1888 and 1891 were to
become singularly infamous through their associations with the world’s most notorious murderer and the lives of the
people touched by his deeds.
18 George Street
No. 18 George Street was first registered as a lodging house in 1864 when it was owned by George Wilmott, a
resident of 12 Thrawl Street and, as with many such East End property holders, the owner of several such proper-
ties. Until 1884, during Wilmott’s ownership, it was licensed to accommodate 21 lodgers, with one room on each of
its three floors. The house was then taken over by Frederick Gehringer for two years and in that time, the floors
were subdivided which apparently allowed for more than double the previous amount of tenants. Gehringer was a
well-known figure in the neighbourhood—not only did he run the City of Norwich pub on nearby Wentworth Street,
but he was also the landlord of a tight enclave of slum properties in Little Pearl Street, Spitalfields. In September
5 Created from various sources by the author.

1888, Gehringer informed the police that sus-
pect Jacob Isenschmidt was a regular at his pub
and that he knew him as ‘the mad butcher6.’
From 1886 to 1889, No. 18 George Street was
owned by Daniel Lewis, another prominent local
lodging house keeper. It was during his tenure
that resident Emma Smith became the first of
the Whitechapel murder victims. The horrific
attack on her occurred early on the morning of
3 April 1888 at the hands of a gang near the
junction of Wentworth Street and Osborn
Street. Smith managed to stagger the short dis-
tance to the lodging house, obviously in great
pain. The deputy lodging house keeper was Mary
Russell who, along with another lodger, escort-
ed Emma Smith to the London Hospital7.

Wilmott’s Lodging House, 18 Thrawl Street (Illustrated Police News, 28 February 1891). Rose Mylett, whom some suggest was a
Ripper victim, was also known to have used 18
George Street as well as other lodging houses in Limehouse and Poplar. After Daniel Lewis gave up the property, it
was re-opened by William Gillett who owned it until it closed for good in May 1891 along with other lodging houses
on this portion of the street.
19 George Street
A three-storey building like its neighbour, No. 19 benefitted from having a kitchen in the basement, thus freeing
up the ground floor for more tenants. It was first registered by Patrick Sullivan in 1868, but he did not stay long and
the following year, the lodging house was taken over by John Satchell who remained the owner until it closed down.
Commonly known as ‘Satchell’s’ no doubt due to his long ownership, it was originally licensed for 72 lodgers with
room for 39 people on its second floor alone.
Martha Tabram was living here at the time of her murder on 7 August 1888. However, as far as we know, she was
not at any time Emma Smith’s neighbour, as she did not start staying at No. 19 until three months after Smith’s
death8. This lodging house was also the scene of another possible Ripper attack, albeit one that has been roundly
discredited. Amelia Farmer had taken a man into the house at 7.30am on 21 November 1888, but two hours later,
the man fled the house with a distraught Farmer, nursing a wound to the throat, shouting that she had been attacked
by the Ripper. The fact that the man made remarks on the incident to two passersby9 and that Annie Farmer was
6 Report by Sgt William Thick, 19 September 1888 (MEPO 3/140, ff.26–8).
7 Morning Advertiser, 9 April 1888.
8 Report by Insp. Edmund Reid, 16 August 1888 (MEPO 3/140, ff.44–8).
9 Daily Telegraph, 22 December 1888.

hiding coins in her mouth has led many to believe that she had tried to cheat him out of money, receiving a knife
injury for her troubles.

No. 19 George Street was one of the lodging houses that together with its neighbours closed in May 1891.
16–17 Thrawl Street
This lodging house was a large affair, being effectively two combined properties. It had undergone many changes
in ownership since 1852, but by 1888 it was run by John Cooney who had taken over No. 17 in 1881 and No. 16 two
years later. Cooney was one of two lodging house owners who dominated the area east of Commercial Street in the
same way that William Crossingham and John McCarthy were prominent to the west of that street. Cooney’s lodging
houses had a poor reputation as can be gathered from the following notes made by a researcher for Charles Booth’s
poverty maps:
There are two common lodging houses, thieves, prostitutes, bullies. ‘One of Cooney’s houses’— Cooney has many
common lodgings of doubtful reputation in the neighbourhood. Marie Lloyd the singer is a relation10.
Although there are no records to indicate that 16–17 Thrawl Street was definitely used by any Ripper victims, by a
simple deduction we can theorise the possible residence there of Mary Jane Kelly in the two years before her murder.
Mary Kelly is said to have been a resident of a ‘Cooley’s lodging house’ on Thrawl Street in 1886. She appears to
have been living there when she met Joseph Barnett at Easter, 188711. However, no record has been found of any
lodging house owned by a ‘Cooley’ on Thrawl Street or anywhere else. Because Nos. 16–17 were the only premises
on the street owned by John Cooney, it may be fair to assume that this is the lodging house where Kelly stayed. After
they met, Barnett and Kelly moved to lodgings in George Street and Brick Lane, but it is not known exactly which
premises these were.
Although it is not clear when Nos. 16 and 17 were closed down, the houses were demolished to make way for
Keate House which was built on the site in 1908.
18 Thrawl Street
Outside 18 Thrawl Street (still from the film The London Nobody Knows, 1967). More commonly known as Wilmott’s, this
was a women-only lodging house which had
been owned by George Wilmott between 1863
and 1872. Wilmott was also the owner of the
lodging house opposite Miller’s Court, Dorset
Street, before it was taken over by William
Crossingham in 1880, as well as several lodg-
ing houses on the north side of Thrawl Street.
Despite this brief tenure, the house at No. 18
Thrawl Street retained Wilmott’s name for
10 London School of Economics, Booth Notebooks

B351, p 127. This quote referred to one of Cooney’s
Houses in Princelet Street.
11 Western Mail, 10 November 1888.

many years thereafter. From July 1888 onward, it was owned by Alfred Wood. The lodging house had a kitchen on
the ground floor, three rooms on the first floor, and four rooms on the second floor. It was licensed to accommodate
65 lodgers in total.
Mary Ann Nichols used Wilmott’s from 2nd to 24th August 1888, sharing a bed with Emily Holland in a ‘surprising-
ly clean’ room. After this, she moved to the ‘White House’ on Flower and Dean Street (see below), but returned to
Wilmott’s on the last night of her life, only to be evicted for not having the necessary fourpence for her bed. It is
here where she is believed to have stated confidently (and slightly drunkenly) that she would soon get her doss
money on account of the ‘jolly bonnet’ she was wearing. When Emily Holland met Nichols on Whitechapel Road later
that night, she tried to get her to return with her to 18 Thrawl Street, but Nichols refused.
According to a police report made after her death12, Frances Coles was apparently living at Wilmott’s in July 1889,
but it was not known if she knew suspect James Sadler at this time.
It appears that despite the major redevelopment of Thrawl Street and the neighbouring area, Wilmott’s survived,
sandwiched as it was between Keate House and a new school building (the Etz Chaim Yeshiva or ‘Tree of Life
College’). It was later designated as Nos. 18 and 18A and is very likely the small shop-like building which appears
fleetingly in a Thrawl Street sequence from the film The London Nobody Knows—its appearance appears to match a
contemporary sketch made in 1891. If this is the case,

32 Flower and Dean Street (contemporary sketch).
then the former Wilmott’s lodging house was not demol-
ished until the 1970s.
32 Flower and Dean Street
This large lodging house began as a single property
before being integrated with No. 33 in 1853. From 1871,
the owner was John Satchell who had recently acquired
19 George Street. No. 32 Flower and Dean Street was
licensed to accommodate nearly a hundred lodgers and

when needed was Elizabeth Stride’s house of choice
from 1882 onward. Several witnesses at the inquest on
Liz Stride were based here: the deputy lodging house
keeper Elizabeth Tanner, charwoman Catherine Lane and
barber Charles Preston. Here, Elizabeth Stride had made
some money by offering to clean the deputy’s rooms on
the Saturday prior to her murder. Following the ‘double
event’ a sketch of the rather tatty-looking house was
published in the press, describing it as ‘lodgings for trav-
ellers &c. with every accommodation’.
John Satchell gave up No. 32 in March 1891 at a time
when new development was about to change the north
side of Flower and Dean Street.
12 Report by Sgt Kuhrt, 3 March 1891 (MEPO 3/140, ff.79–80).

Also known as Smith’s or Cooney’s Lodging

House, this property and those next to it
were originally opened by James Smith,
whose involvement in the lodging house busi-
ness around Brick Lane was considerable; his
son Jimmy Smith followed him into the busi-
ness. Jimmy’s daughter Elizabeth married
John Cooney who became an even more
major lodging house owner, with literally
dozens of doss-houses to his name, some of
which were outside the cosy Flower and Dean
Street enclave. John Cooney, James Smith
and Frederick Gehringer acquired consider-
able wealth from their dubious property
dealings13.
From 1881 onward, 55 Flower and Dean
55 Flower and Dean Street (contemporary sketch which
Street was home to John Kelly who met actually depicts No. 57).
Catherine Eddowes there about that time.

This became their regular residence up until Eddowes’ death on 30 September 1888, as Kelly told a reporter:
It is nigh on to seven years since I met Kate, and it was in this very lodging house I first set eyes on her. We got
throwed together a good bit and the result was that we made a regular bargain. We have lived here ever since, as
the people here will tell you, and have never left here except when we’ve gone to the country together hopping.
. . . Well, Kate and me lived on here as best we could. She got a job of charring now and then and I picked up all
the odd jobs I could in the Spitalfields Market. The people here were very kind to us14.
John Cooney took over the lodging house from Smith in May 1884 and it was one of the biggest in the area—
despite only having one room on each of its five floors. It was supposed to hold 160 tenants. A contemporary news-
paper sketch of the house was made following the Eddowes and Stride murders; however, despite being labelled as
such, the sketch does not show No. 55, but No. 57 near the corner with Brick Lane. The deputy in 1888 was Frederick
Wilkinson, who had been there for many years and was still lodging house manager of Cooney’s in early 189115.
In May 1891, Cooney eventually gave up the premises, although probably not out of choice—that year, the north-
ern side of Flower and Dean Street was demolished to make way for Nathaniel Dwellings16, which were opened the
following year. No. 55 was the most easterly house to be torn down, but its neighbour would last considerably longer.
In fact, the impact the Smith family had on the area is most evident in the history of the house next door, No. 56.
13 Fiona Rule, The Worst Street in London. London: Ian Allen, 2007.
14 The Star, 3 October 1888.
15 1891 Census.
16 1891 Census.

This was the infamous lodging house more famil-

iarly known as the ‘White House’, its notoriety due
in some part to its allowing men and women to sleep
together17, which suggests that it was little more
than a brothel. It was first registered in 1861 by
James Smith and stayed in the family for the rest of
its days as a lodging house. Although it was not the
largest of such houses on Flower and Dean Street, it
still had eight rooms spread across its three floors,
allowing for over a hundred lodgers.
Mary Ann Nichols stayed there from 24th to 30th
August 1888. When she met Emily Holland at the
junction of Osborn Street and Whitechapel Road on
the morning of her death, and drunkenly refused to
go back to Wilmott’s, Nichols apparently stated that
she would rather go where men and women were
allowed to sleep together. Considering that she had
already spent time there, it is reasonable to assume
she meant the ‘White House’18.

The lodging house was also home to Margaret
Franklin, a widow who had been sitting on the steps
of a nearby shop with two friends when they were

56 Flower and Dean Street, the ‘White House’
(from G R Sims, Living London, 1901). passed by Alice MacKenzie, who was known to
them19. This happened just before midnight on 16

July 1889 and was the last recorded sighting of MacKenzie before her body was discovered in Castle Alley an hour
later.
No. 56 survived the building of Nathaniel Dwellings and continued to be used as a lodging house for many years
afterwards. It appeared in the background of the frequently seen photograph of Spitalfields prostitutes sitting on
the street published in 1901 in G R Sims’ Living London. In keeping with many such places, it later acquired the name
‘Smith’s Chambers’20 and was advertised as such on the corner with Brick Lane. ‘Smith’s Chambers’ also included
No. 5 Flower and Dean Street (opposite) which was essentially part of the large doss-house at 19 Brick Lane. No. 56
Flower and Dean Street was demolished in 1975 when photographer Paul Trevor happened to be in the vicinity, cap-
turing the very moment when the wrecking ball struck.
17 The Times, 4 September 1888.
18 Paul Begg, Martin Fido, and Keith Skinner, The Jack the Ripper A–Z. London: Headline, 1996.
19 Inquest report, The Times, 19 July 1889.
20 Ordnance Survey Map, edition of 1938.

Demolition of 56 Flower and Dean Street in 1975 (photograph by Paul Trevor).
Conclusion
And so ends this virtual tour of the ‘Flowery Dean’ rookery and its notorious lodging houses. The importance of
such places to the poorest classes of the East End cannot be underestimated. It was always a case of ‘supply and
demand’, giving such property owners as Wilmott, Cooney, Smith and Satchell a ‘license to print money’. But these
were not the only big names in this small district—major lodging house owners such as the Wilson and Davis families
were also important in their day until the slum clearance schemes of the early 1880s removed much of their influ-
ence. Possibly the most significant unsung lodging house owner of this period was George Wildermuth, a German
whose properties centered on Wentworth Street, Angel Alley and George Yard. He owned a line of houses on the
north and south sides of Wentworth Street until a large group of dwellings at the junction with Angel Alley were
demolished in 1893 to make way for purpose-built premises which could hold over eight hundred lodgers21. This huge
doss-house was so well populated that it warranted its own enumeration district in the census.
What was striking about this relatively small district was not just the concentration of ubiquitous lodging house
keepers, but the concentration of Ripper victims, assumed or otherwise. It is interesting to note that Elizabeth Stride
and Catherine Eddowes were living at opposite ends of the same street on the night they were killed within an hour
of each other. There should be nothing sinister read into this, although in Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution,
Stephen Knight noted the closeness of the victims’ lodgings in order to promote his theory that they all knew each
other22. Knight’s idea was encapsulated in the phrase he coined, ‘all roads lead to Dorset Street’, suggesting a strong
connection with that particular thoroughfare. However, as one can plainly appreciate, Dorset Street was hardly the
21 1901 Census.
22 Stephen Knight, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution. London: Harrap, 1976.

Map highlighting lodging houses relevant to the Whitechapel murders victims.
epicentre of their lives. The abundant amenities on offer in the ‘Flowery Dean’ neighbourhood played a far more
dominant role and perhaps for these struggling ‘unfortunates’ it offered a fractured, often dangerous, yet dense
‘community’ of sorts. It is little wonder they gravitated towards it.
Note on Sources
All statistics and owner details relating to Common Lodging Houses are taken from the Register of Common
Lodging Houses within the jurisdiction of the Commissioners of the Police of the Metropolis (London Metropolitan
Archives, several volumes).
22 Stephen Knight, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution. London: Harrap, 1976.
John Bennett was born in North London of East End stock and was first intrigued by the Whitechapel
Murders as a small (maybe peculiar) boy. This interest later developed into a fascination for the area of
London made famous by Jack the Ripper and others.
Despite clinging to this strange hobby for the best part of 35 years, it is only since 2006 that John has
made any attempts to busy himself in the field. He has contributed articles and photographs to
Ripperologist, Ripper Notes and the journal of the Whitechapel Society 1888. He was also co-compiler
of Casebook’s Photo Archive and is a major contributor to its Ripper:Wiki project. He has also appeared
on several episodes of Rippercast. The notorious spoof documentary Ripperland, shown at the 2008 con-
ference, was entirely his fault. His first book, E1 — A Journey through Whitechapel and Spitalfields was
published in May 2009.
He currently lives in Middlesex where he works as a substitute teacher (which he tolerates) and Ripper
Tour Guide (which he enjoys). Needless to say, he doesn’t look like this any more.

Clerical Sphinx
Did the Ripper confess to a priest?
By Jonathan Hainsworth
It is my contention that the suicided barrister, Montague John Druitt, confessed that he was
‘Jack the Ripper’ to a clergyman, who then passed this story on to a Vicar. Bizarrely, this con-
fession carried with it instructions to publish the awful truth, though intertwined with fiction-
al details to protect the family, on the tenth anniversary of the final murder. Furthermore, I
contend that Melville Macnaghten, the Deputy Head of C.I.D. when he investigated this Ripper
suspect, in 1891, agreed to collaborate with the family’s plan of hiding their Mad Montie in a
misleadingly false identity ― at least for public consumption. In fact, the agreeable yet sly
Macnaghten expanded upon what the Vicar called ‘substantial truth in fictitious form’ (for
example that the suspect was ‘at one time a surgeon’) by shepherding the ‘Demented Drowned
Doctor’ mythos via literary cronies. A Victorian sleight-of-hand so successful it deflects people
to this very day from seeing that Druitt is one of the likeliest suspects to have been the mur-
derer.
WHITECHAPEL MURDERS
DID “JACK THE RIPPER” MAKE A CONFESSION
We have received … from a clergyman of the Church of England, now a North Country Vicar, an interesting com-
munication with reference to the great criminal mystery of our times … the Vicar enclosed a narrative … This he
described as ‘substantial truth in fictitious form’. ‘Proof for obvious reasons impossible―under seal of confession’ …
(emphases added)
The Western Mail

Great Britain
19th January 1899
In the year previous to this strange article (found only in 2008 by prolific researcher Chris Scott) appeared Major
Arthur Griffiths’ extraordinary, and yet somewhat contrived ‘scoop’. This book, Mysteries of Police and Crime is the
first assertion that Scotland Yard had allegedly narrowed their hunt to three prime suspects: a Russian transient, an
institutionalised Polish Jew, and, most promisingly, an insane, English Physician1.
1 Major Arthur Griffiths, Mysteries of Police and Crime, London: Cassell 1898

Whatever the veracity of Griffiths’ coup, it certainly did
represent a tectonic shift in Scotland Yard’s public claims
about the Ripper mystery and its success, or lack there-
of, in catching this fiend. Instead of the clueless constab-
ulary thwarted by an elusive, omnipotent criminal from
1898 to 1891, Griffiths’ unimpeachable senior police
sources (C.I.D. chief Dr. Robert Anderson and his deputy,
Melville Macnaghten) were claiming to have very nearly
caught the killer ― as early as 1888?
The Western Mail, initially thought the Vicar must be
hopelessly mistaken about the cessation of the murders
so early, until they consulted Griffiths and discovered
that this element of his story was confirmed by this writer
― who was no less than an officer of state in charge of
prisons with senior police contacts.
We thought at first the Vicar was at fault in believing

that ten years had passed yet since the last murder of
the series, for there were other somewhat similar crimes
in 1889. But, on referring again to Major Griffiths’ book
we find he states that the last ’Jack the Ripper’ murder
was that in Miller’s Court on November 9, 1888―a confir-
mation of the Vicar’s sources of information. The lack of success in apprehending the Whitechapel Murderer was
lampooned in many newspapers and magazines. This sketch from
Punch typifies the general attitude.
(emphases added)
Western Mail, 1899
In the Edwardian era this much narrower timeframe for the Ripper’s reign, the 1888 ‘autumn of terror’, would
become the new paradigm. The inconvenient truth that the killer ‘haunted’ Scotland Yard’s frustrated detectives for
another two years ― as the humiliating hunt for the sailor Tom Sadler over the alleged Ripper murder of Frances
Coles in 1891 proves ― would fall away2.
Our correspondent the Vicar now writes:-
I received information in professional confidence, with directions to publish the facts after ten years, and then
with alterations as might defeat identification.
The murderer was a man of good position and otherwise unblemished character, who suffered from epilep-
tic mania, and is long since deceased.
I must ask you not to give my name, as it might lead to identification.
(emphases added)
Western Mail, 1899
2 Evans, Stewart & Rumbelow, Don, Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates, Chapter XIV: “The End of the Whitechapel Murders”,
Sutton Publishing 2006

The newspaper also wonders if the Vicar is writing about a suspect already mentioned by the Major whose book
has also appeared on the tenth anniversary of the Kelly murder.
Certainly Major Arthur Griffiths … suggests that the police believe the assassin to have been a doctor, border-
ing on insanity, whose body was found floating in the Thames soon after the last crime of the series … this man was
one of three known homicidal lunatics … that conjectural explanation does not appear to count for much by itself.
(emphases added)
Western Mail, 1899
The dotty-sounding Vicar, candidly admitted that his unsolicited article, “The Whitechurch [sic] Murders: Solution
of a London Mystery” was a deliberate mixture of fact and fiction. This was, he said, to ‘defeat identification’ of
the murderer ― and perhaps himself too.
The murderer died, the Vicar states, very shortly after committing the last murder. The Vicar obtained his
information from a brother clergyman, to whom a confession was made ― by whom the Vicar would not give even
the most guarded hint. The only other item which a lengthy chat with the Vicar could elicit was that the murder-
er was a man who at one time used to be engaged in rescue work among the depraved women of the East
End―eventually his victims; and the assassin was at one time a surgeon.
(emphases added)
Western Mail, 1899
The stretch of the river Thames, where Druitt’s body was pulled from the water
A Western Mail reporter had been sent to pry from this ‘clerical sphinx’ which parts
of his account were true, and which false, but he wouldn’t budge. The newspaper, as
noted above, did speculate that it sounded like this deranged, part-time medico, and
social do-gooder might be the ‘Drowned Doctor’ Super-suspect, but that since Griffiths
had written that there two other good police suspects then perhaps this was somebody
else entirely ―which is hardly rigorous logic.
The Ripper-Vicar story also appeared in Reynolds Weekly on January 22nd, 1899, and
six days later in the Illustrated Police News ― in very truncated form with the ‘surgeon’
detail omitted ― and again unfavourably compared with the Griffiths’ account. The
implication being according to this press arm of the police, is that if this Vicar’s claim
has any merit, and the ‘Drowned Doctor’ is the same suspect being discussed, then
Scotland Yard detectives were efficiently investigating this ‘Jack the Confessor’ — or the
Vicar’s story can be written off as eccentric nonsense.
The overarching point is that the Griffiths’ tome, coming out first, in 1898, and reeking Druitt in 1876 from a group photograph taken
whilst he was at Winchester College.
of establishment approval, pretty much deflated media interest in the Vicar and his frus- Photograph courtesy of Winchester College.
trating shell game.

Yet, this idea of cloaking ‘substantial truth’ about a genuine suspect in ‘fictitious form’ is at the very core of the
tension in the sources between the historical Montie Druitt, in the primary ones and the ‘Drowned Doctor’ mythos,
cocooning this same suspect, which rapidly evolved in the early secondary ones.
Therefore, the Western Mail never knew that in comparing the Vicar’s un-named suspect, candidly cloaked in fic-
tional details, with another, Major Griffiths’ ‘Drowned Doctor’, that the latter figure also was shielded by mislead-
ing details. Montie Druitt was not a middle-aged doctor but a youngish, cricket-playing barrister (and also an
Anglican). In effect, semi-fictional material was being compared with semi-fictional material whilst Druitt’s true
identity lay hidden and undisturbed.
Conventional wisdom says that this happy outcome for both the Yard’s enhanced reputation, and the Druitt fam-
ily’s privacy, was all due to Macnaghten’s poor memory and lack of a notebook or, worse, the charming bumbler did
not know what he did not know.
This may be exactly what happened. I am postulating, however, a cunning fix rather than an unlikely coincidence
involving Montie Druitt, the ‘Drowned Doctor’, and the Vicar’s deceased, part-time surgeon (it seems not to have
occurred to the frustrated reporter that this detail he so excruciatingly extracted was just another of the cleric’s
factoids?)
It must be admitted up front that there is nothing in the source that makes it definitely Druitt as the man to
whom the Vicar is alluding. Not even that the suspect has died by his own hand, let alone drowned himself in the
Thames ― though it is discreetly implied by his having confessed to a clergyman after the most terrible murder and
then, well, conveniently expired before there could be an arrest, charges laid and a trial. After all, why not say what
the suspect died from? Old age, or illness ― it would not have to be that specific. Instead it is just the generic and
suggestive word ‘died’ left hanging there.
The historical timeline on ‘Montie the Ripper’, which begins with the 1891 ‘West of England M.P.’ story and ends
with Macnaghten’s 1914 memoirs ― specifically the chapter “Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper” ― is arguably not
disturbed by the Vicar’s story but rather supported by it. For this may be a glimpse into the inception of the myth
of the ‘Drowned Doctor’ which, far from mutating ad hoc, was a deliberate smokescreen to hide Druitt by both his

family and the police ― or at least by Macnaghten.
It may also explain why Macnaghten was briefing Griffiths at all; to get
in ahead of the Vicar’s impending revelation3. Though, if the stories
are not connected, Macnaghten may simply have been helping out
a crony who was writing a book about infamous crimes.
It may just be all a coincidental, though this becomes quite
a list of them.
The M.P. in question, Henry Farquharson (only identified
in early 2008 by writer-researcher Andrew Spallek) claimed
in private to stumbling upon the suicided Ripper, in early
1891, practically in his own backyard. It is the first, and for
a very long time the last, reference to the (un-named)
Druitt being correctly identified as a ‘son of a surgeon’, and
not a doctor himself, until the late 1950s with Dan Farson on
television (with Druitt still discreetly un-named, by yet
another English gentleman), and only fully revealed to the pub-
lic by the opportunistic American journalist Tom Cullen in the
mid 1960s4.
From the scraps we have on Druitt and the Vicar’s Ripper we can
make the following comparisons. Henry Richard Farquharson
These Anglican clergymen, it is fair to assume, are referring elliptically about

a fellow member of the respectable bourgeoisie ― rather than say a foreign Jew ― and that he was ‘one of us’: an
English gentlemen.
This man had a ‘good position’, which sounds like a barrister or a school master, and was ― and this is quite
Pythonesque ― ‘otherwise of unblemished character’. Apart, that is, from being a bloodthirsty serial killer. This
matches the meagre primary sources about Druitt’s suicide: ‘a barrister of bright talent’. It also echoes a passing
remark by Macnaghten in his 1914 memoirs in which he describes the Ripper as a ‘Simon Pure’ figure; a Victorian
Christian who wears a hypocritical mask of piety to conceal a dissolute private life.
What about the ‘blemish’ of being sacked from his school job for ‘serious trouble’?
That Druitt was actually sacked from the Valentine school, and that this potential setback ― even disgrace ― was
a possible motive for his subsequent suicide (despite being a successful advocate), has never been satisfactorily
established. The dismissal of Druitt, for unspecified reasons, is mentioned by only a single source and no other.
Moreover, it is an incompetent source that does not even mention the deceased’s name5.
Whereas, taken in their totality, the primary sources about Druitt’s death suggest that if he was sacked at all, it
may have happened after he vanished ― because he was unaccountably missing from his place of work (his cricket
club simultaneously dumped him for the same reason). This may have been acutely embarrassing to the school and
thus this element of the story was discreetly dropped in other accounts. Even if he was sacked whilst alive it may
have been because his legal work took him away from his school duties too much and perhaps Valentine had had
3 Macnaghten, Melville, Days of My Years, Chapter IV: “Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper”, London: Edward Arnold 1914 and Spallek,
Andrew, “The West of England M.P. – Identified”, Ripperologist 88 2008
4 Cullen, Tom, Autumn of Terror, The Bodley Head 1965
5 Ibid.

enough. Druitt disagreed, refused to resign and was fired. That is a professional impasse, not a ‘blemish’ on your
character.
The ‘Drowned Doctor’ myth claims that Montie Druitt killed himself on the night of Mary Kelly’s vile destruction,
or the next morning. By contrast, the Vicar story matches the primary sources on Druitt, who killed himself three
weeks after that murder. That is certainly enough time to make a confession and then, with impeccable timing, pass
away. It is certainly closer to the historical Druitt than the accounts of M.P. Henry Farquharson, or Major Griffiths,
or the famous writer and ‘criminologist’ George Sims, or Macnaghten, who all have the Ripper hurling himself into
the Thames without barely pausing for breath6.
There is nothing in the primary sources to connect Druitt, who was from Dorset and lived in the suburb of
Blackheath, with the impoverished location of the crimes. Once more the Vicar’s story agrees; that this man visited
the East End originally for charitable purposes (or is it another piece of disinformation from the cleric?) The impli-
cation is that the suspect neither resided nor worked there (for a salary). Muscular Christian charity was being organ-
ized in the 1880s by another cleric, Samuel Barnett, of Toynbee Hall, and this involved graduates from Oxford
University committing their spare time to helping the blighted poor of the East End7.
Montie Druitt, Ripper or not, was certainly an Oxonian.
The 1891 M.P. story talked about the ‘surgeon’s son’ suspect suffering from ‘homicidal mania’. Macnaghten writes
in his twin 1894 Reports about Druitt having ‘sexual mania’, and in his memoirs he describes ― for the only time ―
his preferred suspect with not only a mental illness but a ‘diseased body’ too. The latter, especially, seems to tally
with the Vicar’s (medically redundant) claim that the man suffered from an ‘epileptic mania’.
Yet why are the ‘manias’ slightly different at all? A possible reason is that Montie was not diagnosed as a homi-
cidal lunatic by any physician whilst alive, and probably not after he was dead either. It is all private conjecture by
the family ― made up of doctors and lawyers ― who looked up various ailments to try to make sense of what their
relative had become, and could not reach a tidy consensus.
A strong thread running through all the early secondary sources on Druitt as the Ripper is that people who
encounter the story come away converted to its plausibility. It became Farquharson’s ‘doctrine’ and people he con-
fided in were ‘convinced’. In the Macnaghten Report, filed version, the Druitt family ‘believed’ their own member
was a multiple murderer.
In the other version of the Macnaghten Report, the one disseminated to his cronies Griffiths and Sims, the police
chief is quite certain ‘if my conjections [sic] be correct’8. The Vicar’s certainty parallels the Druitt family, the M.P.
and the police chief. The story may come across as dotty but the Vicar himself does not.
But the Vicar was not to be persuaded, and all that our reporter could learn was that the rev. gentleman appears
to know with certainty the identity of the most terrible figure in the criminal annals of our times, and that the
Vicar does not intend to let anyone else into the secret.
(emphasis added)
Western Mail, 1899
6 “Acton, Chiswick & Turnham Green Gazette”, United Kingdom, Jan 5th 1889 Casebook – Jack the Ripper, Press Reports: “Dagonet and
Jack the Ripper”
7 Cullen, Op. Cit.
8 Ibid.

The Vicar’s omniscient reticence strongly parallels Macnaghten’s comments upon his retirement in 1913; that he
had a very clear idea of ‘this remarkable man’s’ identity and the circumstances surrounding ‘this fascinating indi-
vidual’s’ demise, but would not elaborate9. Furthermore, Macnaghten speaks frankly to the press about not reveal-
ing any secrets about this suspect, and that he would not write any memoirs including them either.
This is extraordinary considering that Macnaghten had already disseminated the ‘Drowned Doctor’ profile, behind
the scenes, for fifteen years, and then, the following year, devoted an entire chapter to the Ripper mystery in his
own book! This is exactly the same tease as the Vicar. It is as if Macnaghten has based his now-you-see-it, now-you-
don’t media strategy on the cleric. Perhaps the retiring police chief knew he was not being a hypocrite; that he had
never revealed anything traceable about the un-named Druitt as it was all a foggy mixture of both fact and fiction.
Finally, there is the verbal claim by the Vicar to the reporter that the suspect was ‘at one time a surgeon’. Perhaps
he really was a doctor, and this would mean that it was not Druitt after all.
Yet, I am theorising that the Vicar was deploying yet another fictional overlay onto the real suspect. I argue this
because in the actual document he sent to the newspaper he describes the suspect as having a ‘good position’. A
surgeon is much grander than that. Also, how can a person sometimes be a surgeon and sometimes not?
True, this sometime-surgeon might be retired. Perhaps the Vicar was talking elliptically about an old man, not
Druitt at all, who had really once been a doctor. Perhaps the reason this story of depraved, multiple murders is clus-
tered with clerics is that this deluded individual had switched from medicine to become a clergyman himself? He
confessed to being the fiend but this was a delusion, a symptom of his mental illness. Or, perhaps this was the Ripper,
but still not Druitt?
It is just that this off-sounding line, ‘at one time a surgeon’, is first-cousin to Macnaghten’s equally ambiguous
‘said to be a doctor’ description of M.J. Druitt in the filed version of his internal Report10.
For if the Vicar’s story is nothing to do with Montie Druitt ― and it may well not ― it is quite a remarkable coin-
cidence that there was another English gentleman known by his peers to at least think he was ‘Jack’. That this other
suspect also died soon after the Kelly murder, and then, also on the tenth anniversary of the 1888 murders, be
clothed in misleading details ― just as Montie would be by Macnaghten, Griffiths and Sims. And that one of those
fictitious disguises is also that he may, or may not have been, a medical man ― just like ‘Dr D’.
I also find it suggestive that the Griffiths account came out in 1898, but the Vicar’s story actually appears the fol-
lowing year ― exactly a decade after Montie
Druitt was buried at Wimborne in West Dorset. Druitt’s grave
Amongst the family and friends attending his

funeral was his cousin, Charles Druitt, a Vicar.
This Druitt cleric was never ensconced in a
northern parish but then that detail may be a
polite fiction as well, demanded by the cleric
as a condition of being interviewed by, it
should be noted, a western newspaper. Does
this not seem to make more sense that the
hapless reporter was not sent all the way ‘up
9 “Fate of Jack the Ripper”, Macnaghten quoted in

The Washington Post, USA June 4th 1914
10 Evans & Rumbelow, Op. Cit.

North’ on an expensive fool’s errand, but simply around the corner to a nearby vicarage?
The judicious Druitt researcher, Andrew Spallek, noticed a tantalizing detail about the Vicar’s story. It is the mis-
take, presumably by the newspaper, in referring to the title of the cleric’s article: ‘The Whitechurch Murders’,
instead of Whitechapel. That is quite a proof-reading error as the squalid suburb was so infamous for these murders.
On the other hand, ‘Whitechurch’ was the location of Reverend Charles Druitt’s vicarage11. Was this the newspaper
trying to needle the Vicar to confirm the factual parts of his story ― or face being outed? If it was a bit of tabloid
intimidation then it failed, and the ‘clerical sphinx’ kept his secret to himself. Or, was it a mistake by Vicar Charles,
a Freudian slip as he composed a document that would uncomfortably commit him, a priest, to admitted subterfuge?
Or, of no significance at all?
Yet, the publication of Charles Druitt’s name would have been enough for the family’s circle to know that he must
be talking about his tragic cousin. Unless, of course, you change the location of the Vicar, avoid a direct mention of
suicide, and add that the dead man was a surgeon. Thus a reader, who knew the family, should not connect this cler-
ic’s riddles with the late Montie Druitt.
The last mention in the media of the (always un-named) Vicar is by the famous poet-playwright and Liberal jour-
nalist, George Sims, in 1899, in his first of many pompous salvos about the ‘Demented Drowned Doctor’. Sims writes
quite wrongly that it is the Vicar himself who received the confession from the dying suspect ― which was impossi-
ble, harrumphs Sims, since ‘Jack’ killed himself on the night of the Kelly murder. Apart from being inaccurate about
the Vicar’s claims it is also just as incorrect about Druitt’s death too12.
11 Private correspondence with Mr Spallek.
12 Dagonet, The Referee, Jan 22nd 1899
A typical English vicarage

Which bring us to Melville Macnaghten.
The late John Updike once wrote of Ronald Reagan, whom
he held in a sort of nail-biting awe, that the 40th President
was like God; ‘you never knew what he knew, everything or
nothing’13. I feel the same way about Macnaghten, whose
twinkle-eyed, enigmatic smile hovers serenely over the entire
Ripper mystery.
For example, Macnaghten, in his memoir’s preface, refers
to his media alleged ‘disappointment’ over not being in time
to take on the Ripper, conjoined with lamenting not making
it onto the Eton’s elite cricket team. Did he know that
Montague John Druitt was a champion at this sport, or is it
just another coincidence? Is he winking at us, or completely
oblivious?
If Macnaghten knew ‘nothing’ then he may have latched
onto the Druitt story from his fellow Etonian (and fellow
‘Ripperphile’) Farquharson, like a dog with a bone. He want-
ed to solve the mystery so badly that he was mesmerized by
some hysterical family gossip, triggered by grief and a men-
tal instability which ran through the family. Any detective
skills he may have possessed deserted him ― trumped by
Macnaghten’s boyish enthusiasm. Putting together his
Reports with his memoirs we are left with a painfully igno-
rant Macnaghten who honestly thinks that M. J. Druitt was a
middle-aged doctor who lived with family at Blackheath,
and who killed himself on the night of Kelly’s murder.
Perhaps this fictionalised profile came from foot-in-mouth
Farquharson, who deliberately misled his nosy old school
chum because he was scrambling to avoid a libel suit. 1908 caricature of Sir Melville Macnaghten
Whatever, it hardly gives us much confidence in

Macnaghten’s potentially loose and ineffectual investigative methods. After all, how can any researcher be taken
seriously who admits to relying on memory alone?
On the other hand, assuming the former Updike option that the police chief knew ‘everything’, I am proposing
a new Macnaghten; not at all a forgetful amateur or a pushy wannabe too late to investigate the fiend. Macnaghten,
as his memoirs imply, was at the very epicentre of solving the Ripper mystery; of ‘laying’ this omnipotent spectre to
rest. His and orchestrating the ‘Drowned Doctor’ mythos ― which enhanced the Yard’s image as super-efficient. His
Days of My Years makes the striking admission that the suicided suspect only came to police attention ‘some years
after’ the murders which perfectly fits the 1888 primary sources on Druitt, and the M.P.’ s revelation of 1891.
13 The New Yorker, Adam Gopnik, “John Updike: Postscript”, June 7th 2009

Macnaghten also points out that the novel The Lodger is wrong (and thus so is Sims) in suggesting that the fiend was
ever ‘detained’ in an asylum, and this fits Druitt too (tantalizingly, but of course inconclusively, he does not dismiss
‘the Avenger’ for being portrayed as a young man).
In 1913, Macnaghten also made the bombshell claim to the press that he had destroyed documentary evidence
of (the unidentified) Druitt’s guilt14. What could this material have been regarding which he was so confident there
was only a single copy in existence, anywhere? Was it the Vicar’s private record of the Ripper’s confession, as relat-
ed by the brother clergyman to whom Druitt told all before his penitential suicide?
This new Macnaghten I am arguing for, the one I think actually grins back at us from the sources we have, was
one fully aware of the details of Montie Druitt’s life and death ― and forgot nothing. His ‘mistakes’ about Druitt
being a doctor, middle-aged, and the timing of his suicide are deliberate false trails. They may also have been an hon-
ourable attempt to remain true to his word as a Victorian gentleman regarding his original sources. In other words,
to gain entrée to the Druitts’ terrible secret, which had leaked to their loose-lipped M.P., Macnaghten may have
agreed never to reveal the complete truth about this suspect either in an official document or a public memoir.
Therefore, in the official version of his Report in 1894, Macnaghten craftily establishes the family’s fictional over-
lay without taking responsibility for it (‘said to be a doctor’), as it may be used by the Home Secretary in the
Commons, and yet also records for file their ‘belief’ in Druitt’s guilt. For Griffiths in 1898, Macnaghten significantly
rewrote the suspects section of his Report to launch a propaganda offensive to head off the Vicar’s Ripper time-
bomb, which soon after ensnared his credulous pal Sims as well ― who was yet another ‘Ripper tragic’.
In the version seen by the Major, it is Macnaghten who is now certain about the suspect’s guilt whilst protecting
the Druitts and Montie behind a mythical shield: the Ripper was a middle-aged physician who disappeared right after
the Kelly murder. I believe that Macnaghten also advised the Major to change ‘family into ‘friends’, perhaps to avoid
a libel suit or just out of gentlemanly discretion, and Griffiths, a fellow gentleman, complied’.
The erroneous detail, that Druitt suicided on the night of the final murder, is there to forever detach the Vicar
story from the one being put out by Griffiths and Sims. That way the Yard’s reputation is also shielded from the
charge of incompetence as the ‘Drowned Doctor’ had no time to confess anything to anybody as he was a ‘raving,
shrieking fiend’ who immediately destroyed himself15.
Another example of how Macnaghten recasts the Ripper story to suit his various agendas is the way he moved the
witnesses around on the night of the ‘Double Event’ — in the version of his Report he composed for Griffiths.
Macnaghten inverted eyewitness Joseph Lawende, a Jew, who sighted a young, fairish ‘sailor’ with the fourth vic-
tim, to be instead a fictional Gentile beat cop seeing a Jewish ‘suspect’ ― because the description matched Druitt
too closely and this needed some creative deflection. Having moved the police witness to the fourth victim,
Macnaghten had a trio of Jews disturbing the Ripper with the third victim. What really happened that night was
messy, involving less than heroic pedestrians — and perhaps an ineffectual beat cop who missed that a woman, Liz
Stride, was in danger. Macnaghten’s allegedly poor memory neatly cleans it all up.
Therefore, far from there being some kind of conspiracy of foreign Jews to close ranks with the fiend, these hon-
est working men had very nearly saved this Gentile prostitute by a matter of minutes. This is why Macnaghten, in
his memoirs, makes the Goulston Street Graffiti definitely by the murderer; ‘Jack’ is blaming not all Jews but just
14 Cullen, Op. Cit
15 Lloyds Weekly, “My Criminal Museum: Who was Jack the Ripper?” By George Sims, Sept 22nd 1907

the ones who disturbed him that night ― and therefore
they must take the ‘blame’ for his having to find anoth-
er victim to eviscerate. The street Jews are almost
heroes and certainly the enemy of evil – so testifies the
Ripper himself in chalk.
Thus, Macnaghten has dramatically differentiated his
version of who saw what, from that of the account of his
despised former boss, Sir Robert Anderson, and his mem-
oirs of 1910. The latter had argued that the Ripper was
a Jew, protected by Jews, and saved by a treacherous
Jewish witness. Transcending his expected class preju-
dice, by contrast, Macnaghten believed that the killer
was a Gentile, a Christian, and a Gentleman.
Anticipating that somebody might bother to expose his
‘inaccuracies’, Macnaghten already had his ― rather
implausible ― excuse planted in his memoir’s preface: an
apology for any mistakes as he never kept a notebook.
For Sims and his wide readership, the myth was
expanded to include more fictional details about the
‘Drowned Doctor’, ones lifted straight from Robert Louis Stevenson: an unemployed physician yet affluent, an asy-
lum veteran, with concerned chums but no family, and no patients either: a Blackheath Henry Jekyll. Macnaghten
even flattered the writer’s peculiar vanity by confirming that he was the fiend’s double (in fact, Sims looked noth-
ing like Druitt and Macnaghten knew it). Macnaghten, the over-grown ‘honourable schoolboy’, had recreated the
Ripper ― via the credulous, star-struck, and to put it bluntly, lazy Sims ― as the Whitechapel Edward Hyde, whilst
retaining the core truth: one of us, like it or lump it.
The ‘smoking gun’ of Macnaghten’s deliberate mythmaking is that the affable police chief ruthlessly deceived
Griffiths and Sims into believing that Druitt’s guilt was the monolithic opinion of Scotland Yard and the Home Office.
Macnaghten knew this to be totally untrue; that neither version of his Report ever went near the Home Office ― and,
in fact, the filed version does not even claim that Druitt was a major suspect. Yet Macnaghten allowed his friend
Sims to keep publicly and quite falsely pontificating about the ‘Commissioner’s Report to the Home Office’ being
both ‘conclusive’ and ‘final’16.
In his candid and cagey memoirs of 1914, Macnaghten remained true to his promise to the Druitt family by not
mentioning either the Thames detail (which was true) or the doctor detail (which was not) and to set the record
straight for posterity that Scotland Yard had never heard of the suicided ‘Simon Pure’ who was almost certainly ‘Jack
the Ripper’ (and discarded any pretence about being responsible for a ‘final’ and conclusive’ Home Office Report’)17.
The biggest, most perplexing sub-mystery to the Vicar’s story is why the churchy associates of this deceased man
are committed to sort-of publicly revealing the truth ten years after his demise. A clergyman, at great risk one imag-
ines to his career, revealing a holy-sanctioned confession to the press, who, in turn, will never locate the true fiend
16 Dagonet, 1903
17 Macnaghten, Op. Cit

because he is openly utilising deceit ― is quite bizarre. This weird game of simultaneously revealing and concealing
failed; the newspaper did not publish the Vicar’s account ― to our great loss.
I am just speculating, but the impetus to reveal the truth a decade hence may have been the last wish of the
killer himself, or else why did they feel any obligation at all? Montie Druitt’s request, made under the ‘seal of con-
fession’, was that the awful truth about his moral and physiological degeneration be revealed at some future time.
Once he confessed (perhaps, as Spallek has provisionally suggested, to John Henry Lonsdale a cleric who hovers at
the periphery of the Druitt story) the clock was ticking for Montie to either be arrested, or institutionalised like his
mother, or to kill himself.
Montie Druitt guiltily weighed himself down with rocks perhaps in the hope that his body would never be found,
out of shame for committing yet another mortal sin after having confessed to a priest. Subsequently, when his corpse
surfaced, literally, family members decided that they would not comply with Montie’s wish ― but would not com-
pletely discard it either so long as their good name could be protected. The Ripper had stopped himself permanent-
ly, having confessed to a priest no less, and had sought some kind of posthumous redemption. This would be condi-
tionally ― and unsuccessfully ― honoured ten years to the month after he was laid to rest: ‘The Whitechurch Murders
— Solution of a London Mystery’.
Backing this up is a consistent theme underpinning George Sims’ Ripper profile, one which the writer never realised
perfectly matched the Vicar story he disparaged. It is that the Ripper he portrays with such melodramatic flourish is
an anguished, conflicted, solitary figure, one unable to control his terrible urges due to an incurable illness.
Though the Vicar’s story was quickly forgotten, the writings of Macnaghten, Griffiths and Sims, nevertheless, did
communicate this ‘substantial truth in fictitious form’ to the late Victorian and Edwardian public at large; of an
Anglican gentleman as a repulsive yet repentant killer. Perhaps Macnaghten was right that here was not just a mon-
ster but rather a ‘remarkable man’ torn between good and evil, sanity and madness, civilization and barbarism. A
murderer who could only bring a final armistice to this civil war within his tormented mind by self-murder.
Jonathan J Hainsworth is the Senior History teacher at Eynesbury Senior College in Adelaide, the capital
of South Australia. It is a high school catering only to the last three years of a students' education with
a focus on academic achievement in a pre-University environment.
He has been interested in the Ripper case ever since he saw the documentary "Secret History: the
Whitechapel Murders" in 2006.
He teaches a course about the Ripper to students which shows how primary and secondary sources can
reveal much useful, and tantalizing, data about the prime police suspects (Druitt, Kosminski, &
Tumblety). Though we can never be conclusive about the Ripper's identity the students learn about the
merits of critical analysis, of argument and counter-argument. Teenagers adore this topic and Jonathan
has lectured on this successful unit of work at teacher conferences — and never fails to get a laugh when
he shows the picture of the massive moustache from which dangles Dr Tumblety.

City Beat:
City PC 881 Edward Watkins
By Neil Bell and Robert Clack
I did not touch the body
At 9.45pm, on 29 September 1888, City of London Police Officer 8811, Edward Watkins, marched out of
Bishopsgate Police Station and, by 10pm, he found himself patrolling his beat. The beat started at Duke Street to
Heneage Lane, went through a portion of Bury Street, then onto Creechurch Lane and into Leadenhall Street. It con-
tinued along Leadenhall Street, passing the Aldgate Pump on the way, until it reached Mitre Street. Then right into
Mitre Square, around the square and back to Mitre Street. On then to King Street, along King Street, into St James
Place. It wound around St James Place, and back to Duke Street. And from there PC Watkins would commence anoth-
er circuit.
Watkins estimated his beat to take around 12-14 minutes to walk. At 1.30am he entered Mitre Square. His lamp,
which was fixed upon his belt, was on and he had the shutter open thus exposing a dim flicker of light. As he walked
around the Square he noted all was as it should be. Just 14 minutes later he re-entered, glancing up and down Mitre
Street as he did so. Almost immediately, he turned right as he passed Mr Taylor’s picture frame shop. Taking only a
few steps into what was the gloomiest corner in Mitre Square, PC Watkins noted a woman’s body lying upon the pave-
ment. He stated that “the woman was on her back with her feet towards the square. Her clothes were thrown up.
I saw her throat was cut and the stomach ripped open. She was lying in a pool of blood. I did not touch the body”.
The woman was Catherine Eddowes. She had only just been released from the custody of Bishopsgate Police Station
less than an hour before and was actually in the cells when Watkins left to start his patrols. Now Watkins had found
her horrifically mutilated in the dark corner and it was obvious to this experienced police constable that Jack the
Ripper had struck again.
Watkins’ Application
Edward Watkins was born in St Pancras in June of 18442 to John Watkins, a butler born in Windsor, Berkshire, and
Elizabeth, a laundress from Barnstable in Devon3. Upon his application form to join the City of London police force
he stated his previous occupation was as a carpenter. However, what may be surprising to some is the fact that
Watkins initially became a police officer in the Metropolitan Force, joining on the 31st October 1870. He served only
seven months before leaving on the 15th May 1871. It would seem that he left the Metropolitan force with good serv-
1 Watkins was to also hold the collar number 944 later in his career.
2 Date deduced from Watkins’ application form to the City Police dated 25 May 1871.
3 1871 Census

ice as it was noted by City Police Sergeant J Marshall that he had ‘no report against him’ in a City Police report dated
22nd May 1871, stamped 25th May 1871. His application to the City Police was signed on 25th May 1871, meaning
that 10 days after leaving the Metropolitan Police, Edward Watkins was now a police constable in the City of London
Police force4.
It was declared by Watkins himself, in that 1871 City Police application form, that he was living at 2 Bramley
Street, Holmer Road, Notting Hill. This was not far from his parents who were living at 3 Bramley Street. It may have
been an indication of which division he was in whilst serving in the Metropolitan force, possibly T Division of
Kensington. Watkins was, at the time he joined the City force, 5 foot 9 inches in height. He had grey eyes, brown
hair and was of a dark complexion. On the application he said he was married. As a point of information, Chief
Inspector I5 Dadd witnessed Watkins’s application.
The 1871 census has a Watkins family living at 2 Bramley Street, which is not surprising as Watkins clearly states
that address in his application form. However, what is strange is the fact that the head of the household for that
address is an Elizabeth Watkins6. Edward Watkins also stated upon his application form that he had two children.
Living with Elizabeth at Bramley Street were two little girls called Emily & Sophia. Though we cannot be certain, it
4 Watkins was issued with the Warrant Number 4420.
5 The initial could just as equally be a ‘J’.
6 1871 Census

Left: The cover of Watkins’ application form to join
the City of London Police Force.
Below: Page 1 from the application form, giving

Watkins’ description.
All photographs of Watkins' service records cour-

tesy of Robert Clack

is possible that Watkins and Elizabeth were man and wife and, judging from the census, Watkins had left the mari-
tal home. The 1871 census also has Watkins at an address of 2 Great Charlotte Street, Southwark. The actual owner
of that property was a Mr Edwin P Griggs, a proprietor of a coffee house, which also operated out of the same prem-
ises. Again, just speculation, but it is logical to think that Edward and Elizabeth had split recently, with Elizabeth
staying at the family home and Edward moving on his own to Southwark.
Early Career
Watkins was certified fit for service on the 20th July 1871. His rate of pay was 21 shillings a week and he was
noted as a Police Constable 3rd class. A year later, on the 25th July 1872, he had progressed to 2nd class and with
that came a pay rise to 24 shillings. Watkins was seemingly making good his advance through the pay structure, a
sign that his superiors thought well of him. In the aftermath of the Eddowes’ murder, Watkins was described as being
a highly reliable police constable. The Star of 1st October 1888 reported that “His inspector thinks highly of him”.
However this image of Watkins must be questioned because on the 25th August 1872, barely a month after advanc-
ing to 2nd class, Edward Watkins was disciplined two shillings and six pence. The reason for this fine was the fact
that Watkins was caught having sexual intercourse with a woman whilst on his beat.
We do not know who the woman was, however she may have been a prostitute. That said, it must be stressed
that we are not party to the full facts. It was not uncommon for police officers on the beat to take part in such
actions with prostitutes. Favours were exchanged, blind eyes turned and even some corrupted officers resorted to
pimping as a little side trade. As stated, it would be unfair to say with certainty that Watkins committed these acts
but we must be aware that such situations did take place. The fact that Watkins was merely fined 2/6 for this event
and not demoted back to 3rd class also indicates that the Acting Commissioner thought little of the offence, cer-
tainly not enough to dismiss him.
Sometime during 1872 the rate of pay for a 2nd class police constable in the City of London Force was raised to
28 shillings. However, Watkins ran his luck a tad too much and Commissioner Sir James Fraser demoted him to 3rd
7 Sir James Fraser (1814-1892). Commissioner of the City of London Police 1863 to 1890, though he was off duty due to ill health dur-
ing the time of the murders. Henry Smith was Acting Commissioner during the final two years of Fraser’s reign. The Jack the Ripper
Sourcebook, Stewart Evans and Keith Skinner, Robinson Books (2000), p. 742.
Watkins’ Service Record

Class7, at a rate of 24 shillings. The reason
for this demotion was that Watkins was
found drinking in a public house on New
Year’s Day 1873. That was in the January
and February fared little better for him.
Watkins was yet again fined, this time five
shillings, for not noticing a key that had
been left in the lock of one of the doors
upon his beat. All these misdemeanours,
right at the beginning of his career in the
City of London force, might have been too
much for many officers. However, it seems
as if Watkins turned himself around
because early in 1874, on 2nd February to
be precise, he had once again climbed to
Police Constable 2nd class and its higher
weekly pay rate of 28 shillings.
Throughout 1875 Watkins remained at
2nd class, but on the 8th June 1876 he
finally made it to 1st class with its top rate
Watkins’ Service Record
of pay for a constable of 31 shillings. Sadly,
this promotion was to last less than a month because on 1st July 1876 Watkins was yet again caught drinking in a
public house whilst still on duty. He was swiftly demoted back to 2nd class on 8th August 1876, though it was stipu-
lated it would be for a period of three months backdated from 1st July 1876. Indeed, three months later, on the 5th
October 1876, Watkins was advanced again to the standard of 1st class constable and awarded a pay of 31 shillings
and six pence. As mentioned, Watkins’ early career in the City of London Police force was peppered with discipli-
nary problems. However, from 1876 till 1888 there is no record of a demotion, fine or reprimand in his service file.
This is an indicator that Watkins behaviour had improved. He was now a 1st class constable and whilst he never
advanced any higher in the rankings, the fact he maintained that grade for the remainder of his policing career cer-
tainly points to a man who had seen the light and became ‘highly thought of’ by his commanding officers.
Discovering Kate
By 1881, 37-year-old Watkins had moved with Augusta to 6 Eldon Street, St Leonards, Shoreditch. He had three
daughters by now. Emily, 14 years old, was a confectioner, whilst eleven-year-old Sophy and nine-year-old Ann were
both at school8. Also living with the Watkins family was Edward’s 80-year-old father, John, who was by now a wid-
ower.
Watkins had, by 1888, kept out of trouble at work for twelve years. His discovery of Catherine Eddowes’s body
meant that his witness evidence was vital and his appearance at her inquest was one of the most important testi-
monies heard. The following is taken from the Catherine Eddowes inquest testimony of PC Edward Watkins and the
Kearley & Tonge nightwatchman George Morris. It has been amalgamated together to give us an insight into the
8 1881 Census

sequence of events once Watkins had found
Eddowes’s body.
Edward Watkins, No. 881 of the City
Police, said: I was on duty at Mitre Square on
Saturday night. I have been in the force sev-
enteen years. I went on duty at 9.45 upon my
regular beat. That extends from Duke Street,
Aldgate, through Heneage Lane, a portion of
Bury Street, through Cree Lane, into
Leadenhall Street, along eastward into Mitre
Street, then into Mitre Square, round the
square again into Mitre Street, then into King
Street to St. James’s Place, round the place,
then into Duke Street, where I started from.
That beat takes twelve or fourteen minutes.
I had been patrolling the beat continually
from ten o’clock at night until one o’clock on
Sunday morning.
Coroner Langham9: Had anything excited

your attention during those hours?
Watkins: No.
Coroner Langham: Or any person?
Watkins: No. I passed through Mitre Square

at 1.30 on the Sunday morning. I had my
lantern alight and on — fixed to my belt.
Creechurch Lane in the 1960’s
According to my usual practice, I looked at
the different passages and corners.
Coroner Langham: At half-past one did anything excite your attention?
Watkins: No.
Coroner Langham: Did you see anyone about?
Watkins: No.
Coroner Langham: Could any people have been about that portion of the square without your seeing them?
Watkins: No. I next came into Mitre Square at 1.44, when I discovered the body lying on the right as I entered the
square. The woman was on her back, with her feet towards the square. Her clothes were thrown up. I saw her
throat was cut and the stomach ripped open. She was lying in a pool of blood. I did not touch the body. I ran across
the road to Messers Kearley & Tonge, the door was ajar, I pushed it open.
9 Coroner Samuel Frederick Langham was the Coroner for the City of London.

The Aldgate Pump — July 1887 Ripperologist 105 August 2009 31
Morris: The door was knocked or pushed. I
was about 2 yards from the door. I turned
around and opened the door wide and saw
Constable Watkins. He said “For Gods sake
mate, come to my assistance”. I said “Stop
till I get my lamp”.
Whilst Morris looked for his lamp, Watkins

noted the time as 1.45am by his own watch.
Inquest testimony continues:
Morris: I immediately went outside. I said

“What’s the matter?”. “Oh dear” he said
(Watkins) “there’s another woman cut to
pieces”. I said “Where is she?”. He said “In
the corner”. I went over to the corner and
shewed my light on the body.
Morris then blew upon his whistle and immediately left the square to look for help via Mitre Street, heading
towards Aldgate. Watkins stayed with the body, conducting a brief inspection as best he could under the poor light-
ing conditions. He noted that her clothing was filthy and, upon her chemise, he also noted bloody fingermarks.
PC Edward Watkins remained with Eddowes until Morris returned with City Police constables James Harvey (964)
and Frederick Holland (814). Holland immediately went to call Dr George Sequeira at nearby 34 Jewry Street,
Aldgate. Inspector Collard arrived about two o’clock, swiftly followed by City of London Police Surgeon Dr Gordon
Brown.
Watkins also added the following during the inquest:-
Coroner Langham: When you first saw the body did you hear any footsteps as if anybody were running away?
Watkins: No. The door of the warehouse to which I went was ajar, because the watchman was working about. It
was no unusual thing for the door to be ajar at that hour of the morning.
By Mr. Crawford10: I was continually patrolling my beat from ten o’clock up to half-past one. I noticed nothing
unusual up till 1.44, when I saw the body.
By the Coroner: I did not sound an alarm. We do not carry whistles.
By a Juror: My beat is not a double but a single beat. No other policeman comes into Mitre-street.
The following is an extract from the Star of 1st October 1888 and gives an indication of how highly regarded
Watkins seemingly was.
THE SECOND TRAGEDY.
Ghastly Mutilation — A Sickening Sight
Interviews with Doctors and the Policeman who found the Body.
Mitre Square, the scene of the second tragedy, is off Mitre Street. It is approachable by three thoroughfares —
by narrow entrances from St. James’s Place, Duke Street, and by Mitre Street, and in the daytime is the scene of
10 City Solicitor who appeared on behalf of the Police.

much commercial activity. There are two dwelling-houses in the square, one of which is occupied by a day police-
man. He was in bed at the time. It was in this square, and in the darkest corner of it, that the second outrage was
perpetrated. And it must have been done quickly, as it was done surely, for a policeman passes through the square
every quarter of an hour. Police-constable Watkins, the man in question, was on duty there, and no more conscien-
tious officer is in the force. His inspector speaks of him in the highest terms. He was on duty on the same beat last
night, and a Star man went carefully over the same ground covered by him on the preceding night. “I was working
left-handed last night,” said the police officer. “Sometimes I go into Mitre Square through the Church Passage, but
last night I entered from Mitre Street. It was just half-past one when I turned out of Aldgate and passed round the
next corner into the square. At that time there was nothing unusual to be seen.” I looked carefully in all the cor-
ners, as I always do…11
On 14th October 1889, Watkins committed his final misdemeanour as a Police Constable. He was caught drinking
malt liquor and was “reprimanded and pointedly cautioned”. A year later his was given a 15 percent pay increase to
36 shillings and three pence. By 1891 the Watkins family was at 22 Hamilton Buildings, Shoreditch. Emily, now 24
years of age, was grandly titled an ‘Ornamental Confectioner’. Another child, a 19-year-old boot trimmer named
Julia, now appears at the same address. Sophy and Ann meanwhile have disappeared. This could be explained by the
1911 cenus that states the Watkins had six live-born children, of which four survived. Sadly. it may be that Sophy
and Ann had passed away at some stage prior to 1911. Edward’s father disappears off this 1891 census so it’s possi-
ble he had passed away also.
Watkins’ resignation letter
Resignation
After discovering Eddowes, Edward Watkins had

served another eight years in the force when on 25th
May 1896, and after serving in uniform for the stan-
dard 25 years, he handed in his letter of resignation.
Three days later, on 28th May 1896, City Police ser-
geant 16 George Hills noted Watkins as being 52
years and 11 months old, 5 foot 9 ¾ inches in
height12, with grey eyes, a fresh complexion and no
visible marks. His pension was set at 56 pounds, 14
shillings and 1 pence per annum and his overall con-
duct was marked by the then City of London Police
Commissioner Major Henry Smith13 as ‘Good’. By the
time of the 1901 census, 57-year-old Watkins was
listed as a retired police constable living at Rush
11 Star, 1 Oct 1888.
12 Like most of the City PCs we have covered in this series,

Watkins had left the force taller than he was when he joined.
Yet again, falsely calibrated equipment or the fact he may have
been measured with his boots on are the most likely causes for
this discrepancy.
13 Major Henry Smith KCB (1835-1921)

Green, Beacontree Heath Road, Romford, Essex. A house keeper, Jessie A Fowler was living with him but there is no
mention of his wife, Augusta. Jessie’s age is slightly younger than Augusta’s, however the two women share the same
surname/maiden name. Therefore, it is possible that Jessie was Augusta’s younger relation. It is just as possible they
were either one in the same person erroneously noted, or that Augusta was not present at the time of the census,
whereas the relative (Jessie) was. One thing is for certain, Augusta was later noted as living with Edward in the 1911
census. The 1901 census does not list any children living with the Watkins family in Romford.
Mrs Piddington
The 1911 census has Edward and Augusta together but this time in a four roomed house at 1 Low Shoe Lane,
Collier Row, Romford. Edward is listed as a ‘Police Pensioner’ and Augusta as ‘House Keeper’. What is odd about this
census is that Edward is noted as ‘Married’ whereas Augusta is cleared stated as ‘single’. It is possible this was yet
another error, but Augusta had also reverted to her maiden name of Fowler by this stage. This is a possible indica-
tion that the couple had separated by 1911, though this is pure speculation. Whilst Watkins was living in Low Shoe
Lane, Romford, the City of London Police force received a poorly punctuated letter from a Mrs Piddington of 26
Marine Parade, Dover. It read:-
26 Marine Parade, Dover

Sir,
I am writing to ask if you could get me or put me in the way of getting the address of a Mr Watkins in the year
of about 1877. he was a constable in the City police living in a street or court leading out of Leadenhall Street. I
think he is still alive I thought the pension office might give me the address of himself or his wife which they much
would like to get or you perhaps would kindly put me in the way I have their photographs I don’t think he held a
higher rank but not sure.
Thanking you & hopefully

Yours truely
Mrs Piddington
The letter was received by the City force on 2nd November 1911 and an acknowledgment letter was issued the
same day. The City Police must have written to Watkins at his Romford address because he sent a reply letter to
them the following day14, stating:-
Nov 3 1 Low Shoe lane 1911

Collier Row Romford
Dear Sir,
I thank you for forwarding the address of Mrs Piddington an old friend who we had lost sight of for some
years I remain your
Respectfully
Edward Watkins
14 Watkins letter was just as poorly punctuated as Mrs Piddington’s.

Left: The letter from Mrs Piddington.
Below: Watkins’ reply.
Photographs courtesy of Robert Clack

This course of correspondence made us wonder who Mrs Piddington was, and why was she trying to obtain Watkins’
address? Research indicates that Mary Ann Elizabeth Piddington was born in Chatham, Kent, sometime around 1866.
By 1911 she was the wife of naval pensioner and music teacher, William Thomas Piddington15. William and Mary
Piddington married in 1901 and had settled, with their eight-year-old daughter Marjorie, in Deal, Kent. Piddington
had left the Marines twelve years before the outbreak of the First World War but was nonetheless called up as a
naval pensioner16. The Piddingtons were, by this time17 living at No 26 Marine Parade, Dover. In the January of 1915
William Piddington had to endure an operation at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London and unfortunately, succumbed
to death a few days later on 5th February. His funeral was held at St James’ Church, Dover18.
Whilst very interesting, we still could not see the connection between Mrs Piddington and PC Edward Watkins,
however further research brought forth a tantalising lead. The funeral of William Thomas Piddigton was officiated
by the Rev T B Watkins. In fact, the Rev Watkins was to officiate over the wedding of William and Mary Piddington’s
daughter Marjorie to Robert Baxter that same year in the very same church.
T B Watkins
Thomas Benjamin Watkins was born in Peckham, Surrey, sometime around 185719. By 1881, a 24-year-old Thomas
Benjamin was living with his aunts Ann and Elizabeth at 58 Frant Road, Frant, Sussex. He was listed as a Curate at
Christ Church, Tunbridge Wells. Research possibly has a T B Watkins at Christ Church, Herne Bay20 in 189421. By 1911,
the time Mrs Piddington was attempting to contact PC Edward Watkins, Thomas Benjamin was living at St James’s
Rectory in Dover22. He shared the home with his wife, Rosa Maria, grown up daughters Rose Louisa, Violet Sylvia and
15-year-old Mary Theodora. He also had a son, 21-year-old Wilfred Egbert. The family had three servants: cook Alice
Davis, parlour maid Matilda Gilham and housemaid Mabel Charlton. We must stress that to date we cannot establish
a genealogical link between Edward and Thomas Benjamin. However, we do have the two men connected via Mrs
Piddington and her letter, and that itself is a curious matter. Also, the mention of ‘photographs’ in Mrs Piddington’s
letter is tantalising and gives us hope that a photo of Edward or his family exists. We certainly hope that such a find
will come to light soon.
Reliable?
To date we are unaware of when Edward Watkins passed away. We do know, however, that his descendants and
relatives, some based in Canada, are currently researching him. Books and contemporary news reports portray
Watkins as a reliable Officer. The Star of 1st October 1888 stated that:-
Constable Watkins, the man in question, was on duty there, and no more conscientious officer is in the force.
15 William Thomas Piddington (1861–1915) was born in Woolwich, Kent. The 1881 census lists him as a musician in the Royal Marine Light
Infantry, based at the Royal Marine Barracks, Chatham, Kent
16 Former Naval servicemen were recalled due to the fact many of their younger comrades were being lost during the war.
17 And by 1911, as the letter requesting Watkins’ address would testify.
18 The Dover War Memorial Project — www.doverwarmemorialproject.org.uk
19 1911 Census.
20 Herne Bay was the retirement town for one of the main police officers involved in the Whitechapel Murder Case, Chief Detective
Inspector Edmund Reid. Reid died there in December 1917. For further reading on Edmund Reid the writers suggest The Man Who Hunted
Jack the Ripper by Nick Connell and Stewart P Evans.
21 www.Kent.lovesguide.com
22 1911 Census.

However, as we have seen, his service record paints a dif-
ferent view. Caught drinking on duty, missing a key left in a
lock and, most shockingly of all, caught having sexual inter-
course whilst actually being on duty all contradict the impres-
sion built up over the 120 odd years stating Watkins was a reli-
able police constable. Does this mean that Watkins’s state-
ments should be cast into doubt and his character besmirched?
Of course not. His record for the twelve years prior to his dis-
covery of Eddowes is clean23. It shows that Watkins had indeed
become a ‘Good’ constable as his Commissioner Henry Smith
stated. It should be remembered that Watkins was a family
man. He was married with two small children by the time he
joined the force and the 1911 census clearly shows he became
a father on another four occasions, suffering the pain of losing
two of his children by then. Maybe our expectations of the
ever-reliable Watkins were too high. However, we must be
wary of re-setting them too low. He was, after all, human. As
were Catherine Eddowes and all the victims, families and
police constables involved in the case. As an indicator of his
humanity, and how horrified Watkins was upon finding
Eddowes, we leave the last simple words to with him:-
Watkins’ discovers the body of Catherine Eddowes.

A more dreadful sight I never saw; it quite knocked me over24.
(Contemporary newspaper sketch)
23 In fact, Watkins’ record was clean since 1876 till 1889, with the final misdemeanor being drinking malt liquor whilst on duty. This was
obviously deemed a minor offence by the powers that be and Watkins was only reprimanded and ‘pointedly cautioned’.
24 The Echo, 1 October 1888.
Neil Bell has been interested in the Whitechapel murders for the last 26 years and had articles published in
Ripperologist, most notably with Jake Luukanen, and Ripperologist’s book compilation, Ripperology.
He was a speaker at the 2007 conference in Wolverhampton and has appeared as a guest on Rippercast, the
Podcast on the Jack the Ripper Murders.
Robert Clack is from Surrey, England. He has been studying the Whitechapel Murders for over 20 years. He is
the author of 'Death in the Lodging House' a look at the murder of Mary Ann Austin in 1901. He is the co-author
of the book The London of Jack the Ripper: Then and Now.

Victorian Larder
A Little of What You Fancy
Part One.
By Jane Coram
‘A little of what you fancy does you good’ — according to Marie Lloyd; although from what
we know of Marie, she had rather more than a little and it didn’t do her much good at all.
To most Londoners back in the Late Victorian Period, beverages of one sort or another formed an important part
of the diet — not just to quench the thirst, but for much needed nutrition and to drown their sometimes many sor-
rows.
Drinkables tended to be more of a luxury than eatables — with the exception of coffee, which was cheap and
plentiful, being sold on almost every street corner and in a multitude of coffee-shops throughout London. Mainly,
though, drinks were for those with a ‘penny to spare’ rather than ‘a penny to dine upon’1.
Coffee-stalls could be found on almost every street corner, especially by the fruit and food markets where there
was always a very brisk trade during market hours. Larger markets like Covent Garden would easily be able to sus-
tain three or four coffee-stalls, and there was a very good living to be made for a vendor who had a prime pitch.
Surprisingly, there were no coffee-stalls in Smithfield meat market, for the simple reason that the drovers, after a
very long walk trailing behind a herd of smelly cows, were usually so tired and cold that they prefered sitting down
to their coffee in a warm shop, rather than leaning against one another to stay upright at a coffee stall.
The best pitch in London was supposedly the corner of Duke Street, Oxford Street (not to be confused with the
Duke Street in the City).The proprietor of that stall
A Jewish coffee-shop claimed to have taken 30 shillings in a morning, which
was about 40% higher than an entire week’s wages for
the average manual worker in the area. Their over-
heads were minimal, so it really was a very lucrative
trade.
The best district for the night trade was the City
and the approaches to the bridges. There were more
men and women walking along Cheapside, Aldgate
High Street, Bishopsgate and Fleet Street, than any-
where else in London at night, and for the most part
1 London Labour and the London Poor; 1851, 1861-2; Henry

Mayhew

a cup of coffee and a bun was an integral part of the evening’s entertainment. The rest of the evening’s activities
were generally not quite as salubrious, but a cup of coffee probably helped to keep their stamina up. The best trade
for these stall keepers was between midnight and two in the morning, by which time all the ladies with their gen-
tlemen were mostly tucked up in bed, whether it be their own or someone else’s.
Selling coffee was not the sole function of the coffee-stall, anyway. In the winter it was a haven from the cold
and inclement weather, a cosy retreat from the rain and wind, and in many instances the only warmth some of the
poorer inhabitants of London would get. The coffee-stalls were generally lit by candle-lamps, and were always
shielded from the elements by a tarpaulin canopy and a wind break, which was simply a clothes horse (airer) cov-
ered with blankets and drawn half round the stall. It did make a cosy little oasis in the winter months, which would
have been very welcome for those poor souls forced to walk the streets for most of the night. Along Aldgate, par-
ticularly, the stalls would cater almost solely for prostitutes and their clients. Social commentator Henry Mayhew
made this rather poignant observation:
It is, I may add, piteous enough to see a few young and good-looking girls, some without the indelible mark of
habitual depravity on their countenances, clustering together for warmth round a coffee-stall, to which a penny
expenditure, or the charity of the proprietor, has admitted them2.
An Advertisement for Camp Coffee

The coffee-stall holders, even the honest ones, always
resorted to adding chicory to the ground coffee to make
it go further, and even the chicory was adulterated with
turnips, carrots and a multitude of other substances to try
and eke out the coffee as far as humanly possible, with-
out it actually becoming something else entirely.
The coffee was made a dark colour by adding some-
thing called ‘finings,’ which consisted of burnt sugar
(which was also used for browning soups) and burnt
crusts. Nothing like a large helping of carcinogens to
quench the thirst. The more adventurous could poison
themselves with tea and cocoa, which were usually all
sold on the coffee-stalls. Of course the customers would
need something to soak up all the chicory, turnips, and
burnt toast and there was always a plentiful supply of
bread and butter or currant cake on sale, and even ham
sandwiches and boiled eggs. The price was 1d. per mug, or
½d. per half-mug, for coffee, tea, or cocoa; and ½d. a
slice the bread and butter or cake, which was really pretty
reasonable. The ham sandwiches were 2d. (or 1d.) each,
the boiled eggs 1d. so for 3d you could have a real blow
out.
2 London Labour and the London Poor; 1851, 1861-2; Henry

Mayhew

In 1876 Camp Coffee became a popular brand of chicory based ‘coffee’. Originating from Bonnie Scotland, it soon
became a favourite in households all over mainland Britain, being very easy to make and good value.
Although coffee was the best value of the drinkables sold on the streets, the most widely drunk beverages were
lemonade, ginger-beer and ginger-ale.
Ginger-beer makers had a surprisingly quick turn over in their merchandise, and probably a surprisingly quick
turn over in their customers as well. At a penny a bottle it was affordable to most, and in the summer months par-
ticularly the vendors always did a roaring trade — so roaring in fact that even the 24 hours it took to make a batch
was too long a time and emergency measures were taken to speed things up by adding twice the amount of yeast.
The ingredients for making ginger-beer were cheap and fairly grim:
9 gallons of water (usually spring water from one of the pumps); 3lb. of ginger, lemon-acid, essence of cloves;
yeast; and 3lb. of raw sugar.
The basic method for making the ginger-beer was to boil the ginger in the water and then adding the rest of the
ingredients, the yeast being the last ingredient introduced. It was then left for 24 hours, and was ready for bottling.
The main problem with making the ginger-beer was that it needed a large amount of water boiled, and most of
the poor didn’t have a pot to their name, and certainly not a pot large enough to accommodate that amount of
water. The ginger-beer sellers, with considerable ingenuity, found a neat solution — the laundry copper. Once mum
had finished washing the dirty linen, out came the shirts and in went the ginger-beer, although hopefully they
changed the water first.
A ginger-beer seller — using a traditional ginger-beer pump.
Ginger-beer making and selling was a very lucrative busi-
ness, and the smaller street traders had fierce competition
from the larger wholesale manufacturers, who had vast vats
and steam power to produce their goods. One of the largest
manufacturers for the street-trade was near Ratcliffe
Highway, and another in the Commercial Road. Although
much cleaner and more sanitary than boiling up the ginger-
beer along with grandma’s smalls, the ginger-beer produced
in the big factories was often contaminated with lead from
the vats.
Quite a few of the street-sellers obtained their stock of
ginger-beer directly from the manufacturers, because they
could have it on credit and pay for it once it was sold.
Because the trade was so lucrative, there were many illicit
traders on the streets selling ‘Playhouse ginger-beer’ which was
the cheaper version of the beverage. These ‘Jiggers’ used the
left over molasses from breweries to make the mixture fer-
ment instead of yeast and quite a few of them added a little
oil of vitriol to the mixture to make it alcoholic. This was a
good way for Granny to get merry and retain her respectabil-
ity by blaming her giddiness on too much sun.
The market for ginger-beer and other soft drinks was usu-
ally in the large parks in London, where families would go on

a Sunday afternoon for a day out. This was not confined to the well-to-do,
but many working class families would take a trip out to Victoria Park for
the day, to go to the boating lake there.
Apart from the very hot days in the parks, the best time and place for
the sale of ginger-beer was near the closed pubs on a Sunday morning. After
a good Saturday night on the beer the best remedy for a hangover was ginger-
beer. One can’t help but wonder whether that accounts for the ginger-beer
bottles found in Mary Kelly’s room — although if it was laced with vitriol, it
might have been a cheap way for her to get drunk.
From the mid 1800s onwards ginger-beer ‘fountains’ became quite common
on the streets, almost entirely owned by the large manufacturers. The contrap-
tion had two pumps with brass handles and the drink served in glasses which were
reasonably clean; something of a novelty for the Victorian ginger-beer drinker, that
was used to dirty earthenware bottles that had to be returned to the vendor to get
their halfpenny deposit back. The advantage of the fountain was that the mixture
didn’t have to be fermented as air was pumped into the liquid directly.
“The harder you pumps,” said one man who had worked a fountain, “the frothier
it comes; and though it seems to fill a big glass — and the glass ain’t so big for hold-
ing as it looks — let it settle, and there’s only a quarter of a pint3.”
There was another kind of ginger-beer, which was called ‘a small acid tiff’ which
was sold out of barrels at street stalls at ½d. a glass. The ingredients sound more
like the requisites for a floor cleaner rather than a drink: tartaric or other acid,
alkali (soda), lump sugar, and yeast. As quite a few people seemed to have drunk
it, it must have tasted reasonably palatable, and it probably gave their digestive
system a thorough scouring for good measure.
In addition to the street-sale of ginger-beer there were, of course, plenty of
other summer drinks. Lemonade was by far the favourite, although the ingre-
dients still looked as if they would give Persil a run for its money. Not only
that, but you had a choice of exotic varieties to choose from. Such delights
as ‘Nectar’ and ‘Persian Sherbet’ were variations on the basic lemonade.
According to contemporary sources, the young lads favoured these varieties
simply because they liked the name. ‘Raspberry’ was another favourite,
coloured with cochineal (beetle blood), with a few crusted raspberries
thrown in for good measure. One unfortunate side-effect was that the
cochineal often made the liquid turn brown, which might have put a few
people off.
The basic lemonade ingredients naturally had a good dollop of acid
Traditional stone ginger-
beer bottles. in, usually tartaric. Added to this was carbonate of soda for the froth,
3 London Labour and the London Poor; 1851, 1861-2; Henry Mayhew

Above: A sarsparilla wagon
Left: A lemonade stall
Below: A day out at Clapham

Common

loaf-sugar, and they even added a little essence of lemon as an afterthought. This mixture was kept in the form of
a powder, in a jar, and spring-water was drawn from a stone jar. As with the ginger-beer, sometimes vitriol was
added, just to give it a kick.
The lemonade was sometimes bottled and sold by street-sellers or from the many ‘sherbert fountains’ around.
Chemists often sold lemonade powders for people to make their own, and these are still on sale today in sweet shops
around the world.
Ginger-beer and lemonade was all well and good in hot weather, but what about the winter months? Apart from
the coffee-stalls, there was another delicacy on sale — hot elder wine. It was no large concern and was barely a sub-
sistence level for the vendors, but it was better than the workhouse.
Throughout the four winter months, elderberry wine was a favourite not just for its flavour but for its efficacy
against all sorts of winter ailments, of which there were assortment to choose from, especially for the poor.
Some of the street-sellers made the wine themselves; the majority, however, bought it in from the British wine
makers. There seems to have been a consistency in the method of production as with other beverages — the laun-
dry copper again earning its keep by doubling up as a brewing vat. The method was quite a strange one, though,
because after boiling the elder berries in water, a slice of toast was spread thickly with yeast and left to stand for
two days, and put into the elderberry mixture with a few cloves and some ginger to flavour it.
The best elder wine was apparently made by Jews, who had a secret which made their wine better than any
other — although the secret might well have been nothing but superior skill in making it. They did however, add a
small quantity of raspberry-vinegar to their wine to give it a sharp, pleasant twang. Pepper was another addition to
give it that extra kick.
The wine was sold from a very attractive machine, made of copper or brass on a pedestal, and was served in
glasses for a halfpenny and penny a glass.
A sherbert seller
Along with each glass of hot elder wine was given a small
piece of toasted bread to steep into the wine and give it
flavour. The purchasers of elder wine were generally the
poorer working classes and street boys, who could never
hope to drink any other kind of wine. Supposedly the wine
was not alcoholic anyway, although it’s almost certain that
good old vitriol crept in occasionally when no-one was look-
ing.
And as if they didn’t already have enough to choose
from there was, in addition to coffee, lemonade, ginger-
beer and hot elder wine, peppermint water — and yes, you
guessed it — there was a sting in this soft drink’s tail.
Apart from the ordinary innocuous peppermint water,
there was ‘strong peppermint water’, which had smuggled
spirit mixed in with it. The mint, of course, was a cunning
disguise. Most of the peppermint water was on sale around
the markets, like Billingsgate. The excuse for drinking it was
because it was excellent for the stomach — it probably didn’t
help the liver much though.
And from the ridiculous to the sublime — there were actu-

ally drinks on the market that were, if not good for the health
exactly, could be classed as wholesome.
During the summer months milk was sold in Smithfield,
Billingsgate, and the other markets, and on Sundays in
Battersea, Clapham Common, Camberwell Green, Hampstead
Heath, and similar places. Tuberculosis no extra charge. The
milk vendors usually wore a smock frock, and had the cans and
yoke used by the regular milk sellers, the stereotypical ‘yokel’.
The milk was skimmed and the cream sold separately or as
butter, and even then it was watered down some more. Half a
pint of milk, including the free water, would sell for a halfpenny.
Rice milk was also on sale and was exactly what it claimed
to be — water in which rice had been boiled, with a little sweet-
ener and spice added. The purchasers were almost exclusively
the very poor and a quarter of the sales were to children, who
might not be able to afford a proper meal. At a penny a cup, it
was a cheap meal substitute, although it’s unlikely to have
caused an obesity problem.
No article about beverages would be complete without the
mention of the good old British standby — tea. Tea was not sold
in anything like the same quantity as coffee by the street-ven-
dors, although most coffee-stalls did sell it. It was, however,
the most widely drunk beverage in coffee shops.
Tea was first introduced to the British in the 1660s, but was
only drunk by the nobles and highest of the land at that time, Cocoa was sold commercially for home consumption as
well as in coffee-houses and stalls.
and then only the Chinese variety. It soon drifted down through
the ranks to the middle classes and even the working class, although it was still quite expensive.
Tea importation rose from 40,000 pounds in 1699 to an annual average of 240,000 pounds by 1708. At that time
the trade in tea was controlled by the Chinese trading companies and the John Company which held the monopoly
thanks to their sometimes dubious business practices and their bigger cannons. The smaller British East India
Company couldn’t hold its own against the far more powerful John Company, and eventually the two were merged
to form the New East India Company. The latter traded in other commodities, but found tea very lucrative. It was
initially promoted as a medicinal beverage or tonic, which was probably a fair advertisement.
The idea of bringing back tea in large quantities was actually born of necessity, as the ships carried fabrics man-
ufactured in Britain to India and China and had empty holds to fill for the return journey. Tea probably seemed as
good a filler as anything else. The only problem was that no-one in Britain knew they wanted to drink tea, so the
East India Company had to educate them in the value of this wonderful health-giving drink that would change their
lives for ever, as well as solving the company’s own little problem.
The campaign was obviously successful, as the trade grew steadily, throughout the 18th and early 19th century.
The increase of cane-sugar helped matters greatly, because now the British could have not only tea, but sweet tea,
which seemed to go down very well. A great deal of the tea was grown in the Assam region of India, on plantations
owned by men like Charles Bruce, who literally cleared the land to develop into plantations which grew both Indian
and Chinese varieties of leaves. In 1835, the first Indian tea company was founded — The Assam Tea Company.

The first twelve chests of tea were shipped to London in 1838, and the British tradition of tea-drinking began in
earnest. Production of tea expanded in India, and Darjeeling tea production became established to cater for the
huge demand.
Even though tea was a very popular drink in Britain by the first quarter or the 19th century, it took a long while
to get into the tin mugs of the poor. At one point, tea was so expensive and treasured that elaborate and ornate tea
caddies were kept under lock and key, to stop the servants nicking the odd teaspoonful.
The ritual of ‘Afternoon tea’ was the creation of one Anna, Duchess of Bedford, who thought it might be quite
novel to have her friends around for an afternoon of civilized conversation, a few delicate sandwiches and some tea,
at her home in Belvoir Castle. Of course, all of her friends, not to be outdone by the Duchess, decided to have their
own bigger and better afternoon teas, and fairly soon it became a nationwide epidemic.
Afternoon tea took two forms — High or Low. High tea was served in aristocratic homes of the wealthy, and con-
sisted of dainty cakes and titbits, that could be nibbled delicately, in between sophisticated conversation and gos-
sip. Low tea, or Meat tea, was the main meal of the day for the middle or lower classes, and consisted of a full meal
of meat, veg and pudding — in fact, the main meal of the day.
As already mentioned, tea was the main drink served in coffee houses, but as coffee arrived in England some
years before tea, the ‘coffee house’ name stuck. Originally they were exclusively for men, when they were called
‘Penny Universities,’ because for a penny any man could get himself a pot of tea, a copy of a newspaper, and could
put the world to rights with his contemporaries in between mouthfuls.
The idea of the English tea-garden came from the Dutch, who often took their tea outdoors. These gardens had
everything one could need for a romantic afternoon with a lover — entertainment, scented flowers, and beautiful
surroundings. It was in just such a tea-garden that Lord Nelson met Emma, later Lady Hamilton. More important, it
was somewhere that women could go, on their own or with friends, without being seen as loose or immoral. It was

A mid-19th century tea garden
also in these tea-gardens that the custom of ‘tipping’ may have startedstarted. It has been suggested that it was a
way on ensuring that you got good, fast service. Small, locked wooden boxes were placed on the tables, and the
word ‘tips’ is an acronym for ‘To Insure Prompt Service.’
It’s quite obvious, from the first part of this article dealing with soft drinks and beverages, that the Victorians
had little chance of dying of thirst. Next month, we’ll be looking at their penchant for the somewhat less salubrious
drinkables.
There is a well known London boast that "No one drinks water." This is literally true. The rich, with meat and
vegetables, drink the best ale and stout; and wines, brandies and cordials, with dessert. No beggar so poor but that
he can afford to spend threepence for his pint of "af-nat," or stout.
W. O'Daniel, Ins and Outs of London, 1859

Traditional ginger-beer
Ingredients
* 1 tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger

* 1 unwaxed lemon, thickly sliced
* 250g golden caster sugar
* 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
* 3/4 tsp dried fast-action yeast
1. Put the ginger, lemon, sugar, cream of tartar and 750ml

cold water into a large pan over a medium heat. Slowly bring
to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Reduce the heat and
simmer for 5 minutes. Add 1.5 litres cold water and sprinkle
over the yeast. Cover with a lid and set aside in a cool place
overnight.
Tip
You'll need 2 x 1.5-litre plastic bottles. Never use glass bottles

as the pressure builds up and they will explode!
2. The next day, sterilize the bottles by cleaning them in hot soapy water. Rinse and set aside.
3. Strain the ginger-beer through a nylon sieve and divide between the bottles — leave a 5cm gap at the top to allow
for the build-up of gases. Screw on the lids tightly and leave in a cool place. Check every few hours, unscrewing the
cap a little as the pressure builds up, to allow the gases to escape.
4. The ginger-beer is ready to drink when fizzy, which will be within 12-36 hours, depending on how hot the weather
is. Chill, then serve with plenty of ice and drink within 3 days (don't drink if it smells old and yeasty).
Traditional Lemonade
Ingredients
* 2 quarts water
* 3 lemons
* 1 orange
* 1 ounce citric acid
* 2 pounds sugar
1. Place water, citric acid and sugar in a saucepan and bring to the boil.
2. Add rind of the lemons and orange and simmer for five minutes.
3. Add the juice of the lemons and orange.
4. Bring back to the boil, strain and bottle immediately in sterile bottles. This produces a syrup that can be diluted
with water (carbonated or not, hot or cold) to produce a very pleasant lemon drink.

Spiced Lemonade
Ingredients
* 1 lemon
* 2 cups water
* 1 cup sugar
* pinch of allspice
* 4 cloves
* 1 cinnamon stick
* 1 tablespoon chopped crystallized ginger
* 1 pinch grated nutmeg
* 1 cup fresh lemon juice;(8 lemons)
* 1 cup soda; chilled (or sparkling mineral water)
1. Remove rind in pieces from lemon with swivel bladed

vegetable peeler; avoid any bitter white pith.
2. Combine water, sugar, lemon rind, allspice, cloves,

cinnamon stick, crystallized ginger and nutmeg in
small saucepan. Bring to simmer; simmer covered 20 mins.
3. Strain into pitcher and chill; discard solids. To serve, stir in lemon juice and soda or sparkling mineral water. Serve
over crushed ice. Makes 4 servings.
Sources
Gaslight and Daylight, George Augustus Sala, 1859 — Chapter 1 — The Key of the Street
http://www.stashtea.com/facts.htm#Tea_England
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea
Street Life in London, J.Thomson and Adolphe Smith, 1877
London’s Light Refreshments, George R. Sims
Jane Coram is Ripperologist’s Art Director. At the moment she is on a diet and writing articles about
food and drink are torture for her, but she has bravely soldiered on. She is, however, dreading the
one on Victorian sweets and confectionery.

CHRIS SCOTT’s
Press Trawl
The Aberdeen Journal was first published as weekly title on 29 December 1747 by James
Chalmers. In August 1876 it became a daily newspaper, and was renamed The Aberdeen Press
and Journal in November 1922 when its parent firm joined forces with rival publisher the Free
Press. It is Scotland's oldest daily newspaper.
17 September 1888
The expected fifth murder in Whitechapel has not come off, but fear deferred, like hope itself, may make the
heart grow sick. The police are still catching at straws. Last night the detective authorities were thrown into a state
of almost smiling satisfaction in consequence of a presumed clue to the missing assassin having been placed in their
hands; but, alas! it cannot be a very strong one, as the police have given themselves a week to run it down. The fact
that no further assassination has taken place almost encourages some people to believe that, after all, the murder-
er may be one of the suspects now in custody.
19 September 1888
THE WHITECHAPEL MURDER

SUPPOSED IMPORTANT ARREST
An important charge was made at the Thames Police Court yesterday, which the police believe may throw some
light upon the recent tragedies in Whitechapel. Charles Ludwig, 40, a decently dressed German, of 1 The Minories,
was charged with being drunk and threatening to stab Alex. Fineberg, of Leman Street, Whitechapel. The prosecu-
tor said at three o’clock that morning he was standing at a coffee stall in Whitechapel, when the accused came up
drunk, and in consequence was refused to be served. He then said to the prosecutor, “What are you looking at?” and
the pulled out a knife and tried to stab witness. Ludwig followed him round the stall, and made several attempts to
stab him. A constable came up, and he was given into custody. Constable 221H said the prisoner was in a very excited
condition, and witness had previously received information that the prisoner was wanted in the City for attempting to
cut a woman’s throat with a razor. On the way to the station he dropped a long bladed knife, and on him were found
a razor and a long bladed pair of scissors. Inspector Pimley, H Division, asked the Magistrate to remand the prisoner,
as they had not had sufficient time to make the necessary inquires concerning him. A City constable, John Johnstone,
stated that early in the morning he was on duty in The Minories when he heard screams of “Murder” proceeding from
a dark court in which there were no lights. The court led to some railway arches and was well known as a danger-
ous locality. On going into the court he found the prisoner with a prostitute. The former appeared to be under the
influence of drink. Witness asked what he was doing there, when he replied “Nothing.” The woman, who appeared

Leman Street, date unknown.
to be in a very frightened and agitated condition, said, “Oh, policeman, do take me out of this.” The woman was so
frightened that she could then make no further statement. He sent the man off and walked with the woman to the
end of his beat, when she said, “He frightened me very much when he pulled a big knife out.” Witness said, “Why
didn’t you tell me that at the time,” and she replied, “I was too much frightened.” He then went and looked for the
prisoner, but could not find him, and therefore warned several other constables of the occurrence. Witness had been
out all the morning trying to find the woman, but up to the present time without success. He should know her again,
he believed. The prisoner worked in the neighbourhood. The Magistrate thereupon remanded the prisoner. The arrest
has caused intense excitement in the neighbourhood. The prisoner professes not to be able to speak English. He has
been in this country about three months. He accounts for his time for about three weeks, but nothing is said of his
doings before that time.
It is stated that the real name of the man Charles Ludwig is Wetzel, that he came to this country from Hamburg
about 15 months ago, and is a hairdresser by trade. He bears an indifferent character, being described as cowardly
and quarrelsome, and given to drink. The woman who complained that Wetzel threatened to murder her has not yet
been found, but there should be little difficulty in tracing her, as she has only one arm.
A representative of the Press Association had an interview yesterday with Alexander Fineberg, of 51 Leman Street,
who states that he was assaulted by the man Ludwig or Wetzel, now in custody, and into whose antecedents the
police are now inquiring. Fineberg, who is a youth about 18 years old, stated that he was standing at a coffee stall
at the corner of Commercial Road about 3.45 yesterday morning when he noticed a man go by in company with a
woman. His attention was directed to this by the fact that he was respectably dressed, and in company with a poorly
dressed woman. The man and woman were going in the direction of The Minories. The man, who was about five feet
six high, and wore a high silk hat, returned to the coffee stall a quarter of an hour after, and an altercation ensued

because he would not pay a halfpenny for a cup of coffee. He then pulled out a long bladed knife and chased
Fineberg, who described his assailant as being about 40 years of age, and walking with a stiff leg. He had brown grey
beard.
The Press Association’s representative visited the City News Rooms, Ludgate Circus, yesterday, and made inquiries
of the proprietor, Mr Walker, as to the circumstances under which the wearing apparel was left there by a strange
man on the morning of the 8th inst. Mr Walker attached no importance to the incident at the time, nor does he now
believe that the discovery will be proved to have the slightest connection with the crimes now under investigation.
ANOTHER CLUE
The detectives engaged in investigating the last murder in Whitechapel have been directing their inquiries with-
in the past few days to a circumstance which occurred on the day of the murder at the City News Rooms, Ludgate
Circus. A man was seen in the lavatory there changing his clothes, and he left behind him a pair of trousers, socks,
and shirt. The clothes were afterwards thrown away and removed by the dust cart. The strange man is described as
about thirty years of age, of respectable appearance, and wearing a dark moustache. The detectives have visited Mr
Walker, proprietor of the rooms, several times on the matter, and are trying to trace the clothes, as they hope to
obtain a clue to the identity of the man for whom they are in search.
The Press Association states that late last night the police received further important evidence tending to throw
light on the crime, but its nature was not allowed to transpire.
20 September 1888

EXTRAORDINARY MEDICAL EVIDENCE
The adjourned inquest on the body of Annie Chapman, who was murdered in Hanbury Street, Whitechapel, on
the morning of the 8th inst., was resumed yesterday afternoon by Mr Wynne Baxter, who was accompanied by Mr
Collier, deputy coroner.
Eliza Cooper stated that she knew deceased, and last saw her alive on the Wednesday preceding the tragedy.
Deceased was then wearing three rings on her left hand. They were brass rings. Deceased used to associate with two
men known as Stanley and “Harry the Hawker,” but she also brought men casually to the house where she lodged.
Witness could not say if any of these men were now missing.
Dr Phillips, divisional surgeon, was recalled, and informed by the coroner that all the details of the post mortem
examinations should be placed on the depositions. Dr Phillips expressed regret that the Coroner should have come
to this decision. He stated that there were three scratches under the jaw and bruises on the face. He thought that
the face was bruised at the same time that the incision on the throat was made. Dr Phillips then said he believed
that to make public the further results would thwart the ends of justice. The Coroner said justice had already had
a long time to avenge itself. The jury had to decide the cause of death, and were bound to take all possible evi-
dence. The Coroner having ordered the Court to be cleared of females and boys, Dr Phillips gave additional evidence
in detail, indicating that several vital portions of the body had been cut out, and said his idea was that the object
of mutilation was to obtain possession of the womb. The weapon used must have been from five to six inches long.
It must also have been very sharp, and the mode in which the abdominal wall was removed indicated a certain
amount of anatomical skill. There were also other indications that the murderer had made certain calculations con-

sequent upon the possession of anatomical knowledge. He could not have performed all the injuries, even without
the struggle being made, under a quarter of an hour. If he had done it in a deliberate way such as would fall to the
duty of a surgeon, it would probably have taken him the best part of one hour.
Edward Stanley, bricklayers’ labourer, stated that he was known as “The Pensioner.” He knew the deceased, and
sometimes visited her. He denied that he stayed with her, as stated by the keeper of a lodging house, and said that
he voluntarily went to Commercial Street Police Station, and offered to give evidence. Some other witnesses having
been examined, a discussion took place as to whether a reward should be offered, and several of the jury expressed
themselves strongly to the effect that the Government ought to come forward in that direction. The inquiry was then
adjourned for a week.
A letter from the Home Secretary was read at a meeting of the Vigilance Committee in Whitechapel yesterday,
replying to a communication on the question of offering a reward for the discovery of the murderers. The Secretary
of State says that the practice of offering rewards for the discovery of crime had been abandoned some years ago,
as it proved to be more harmful than otherwise, and the present circumstances did not justify any departure from
the rule.
The backyard of 29 Hanbury Street

27 September 1888

CORONER’S SUMMING UP AND VERDICT
STARTLING DISCLOSURES
My Wynne Baxter yesterday afternoon resumed the

inquest at Whitechapel on the body of Annie Chapman,
who was murdered on the 8th inst. in the backyard of 29
Hanbury Street. The Coroner at once proceeded to sum up
the evidence. He recalled the important facts of the case,
which have been already fully detailed. It was in a
Spitalfields lodging house that the deceased received the
older bruises found on her temple and in front of her chest
in a trumpery quarrel a week before her death. It was in
one of these lodging houses that she was seen a few hours
before her mangled remains were discovered. She was
found dead about six o’clock. All was done with reckless
daring. The murder seemed, like the Buck’s Row case, to
have been carried out without any cry. Sixteen people
were in the house. The brute who committed the offence
did not even take the trouble to cover up his ghastly work,
but left the body exposed to view. Probably, as daylight
broke, he hurried away in fear. The Coroner then proceeded
to observe:
There are two things missing. Her rings had been

wrenched from her fingers and have not been found, and

the uterus has been taken away. The body has not been dissected, but the injuries have been made by someone who
had considerable anatomical knowledge and skill. There are no meaningless cuts. The organ has been taken away
by one who knew where to find it, what difficulties he would have to contend against, and how he should use his
knife so as to abstract the organ without injury to it. No unskilled person could have known where to find it or have
recognised it when it was found. For instance, no mere slaughterer of animals could have carried out these opera-
tions. It must have been someone accustomed to the post mortem room. The conclusion that the desire was to pos-
sess the missing organ seems overwhelming. If the object were robbery, the injuries to the viscera were meaning-
less, for death had previously resulted from loss of blood at the neck. The difficulty in believing that the purpose
of the murderer was the possession of the uterus is natural. It is abhorrent to our feelings to conclude that a life
should be taken for so slight an object; but, when rightly considered, the reasons for most murders are altogeth-
er out of proportion to the guilt. It has been suggested that the criminal is a lunatic with morbid feelings. This may
or may not be the case; but the object of the murderer appears to be palpably shown by the facts, and it is not
necessary to assume lunacy, for it is clear that there is a market for the missing organ. To show you this I must men-
tion a fact which at the same time proves the assistance which publicity and the newspaper press afford in the
detection of crime. Within a few hours of the issue of the morning papers containing the report of the medical evi-
dence given at last sitting of the Court, I received a communication from an officer of one of our great medical
schools that they had information which might or might not have a distinct bearing upon our inquiry. I attended at
the first opportunity, and was informed by the sub curator of the pathological museum that some months ago an
American had called on him, and asked him to procure a number of specimens of the organ that was missing in the
deceased. He stated his willingness to give £20 for each specimen, and aid his object was to issue an actual speci-
men with each copy of a publication on which he was then engaged. He was told that his request was impossible to
be complied with, but he still urged his request. He wished them preserved, not in spirits of wine, the usual medi-
um, but in glycerine, in order to preserve them in a flaccid condition, and he wished them sent to America direct.
It is known that this request was repeated to another institution of similar character. Now, is it not possible that
the knowledge of this demand incited some abandoned wretch to possess himself of a specimen? Our criminal annals
prove that every crime is possible. I at once communicated my information to Scotland Yard. I do not know what
use has been made of it, but I believe that publicity may further elucidate this fact; and, therefore, I have not
withheld from you the information. By means of the press some further information may be forthcoming from
America if not from here. I have endeavoured to suggest to you the object with which this crime was committed
and the class of person who committed it. The greatest deterrent from crime is the conviction that detection and
punishment will follow with rapidity and certainly, and it may be that the impunity with which Mary Ann Smith (sic)
and Anne Tabram (sic) were murdered suggested the possibility of such horrid crimes as those which you and anoth-
er jury have recently been considering. It is therefore a great misfortune that nearly three weeks have elapsed
without the chief actor in this awful tragedy having been discovered. It seemed as if there were no clue to the
character of the criminal or the cause of his crime. His object is now clearly divulged. His anatomical knowledge
carries him out of the category of common criminals, for that knowledge could only have been obtained by assist-
ing at post mortems, or be frequenting the post mortem room. Thus the class in which a search must be made,
although a large one, is limited. Moreover, it must be a man who was from home, if not all night, at least during
the early hours of 8th September. His hands were undoubtedly bloodstained, for he did not stop to use the tap in
the yard as the pan of clean water under it shows. If the theory of lunacy be correct (which I very much doubt) the
class is still further limited, while if Mrs Long’s memory does not fail, and the assumption be correct that the man
who was talking to the deceased at half past five was the culprit, he is even more clearly defined. He was a for-

eigner, of dark complexion, over 40 years of age, a little taller than the deceased, of shabby genteel appearance,
with a brown deerstalker hat on his head, and a dark coat on his back. We are confronted with a murder of no ordi-
nary character, committed not for jealousy, revenge, or robbery, but from a motive less adequate than the many
which still disgrace our civilisation, mar our progress, and blot the pages of our Christianity.
The jury immediately returned a verdict of wilful murder against some person or persons unknown.
The Press Association’s reporter had an interview with Dr Phillips, the divisional police surgeon for Whitechapel,
who has been making inquiries into the murder near Gateshead. Dr Phillips attended the inquest at Whitechapel for
the purpose of answering any further questions which might be put to him with a view to elucidating the mystery,
but he arrived while the coroner was summing up, and thus had no opportunity. When told by the reporter of the
startling statement in the coroner’s summing up, he said he considered it a very important communication, and the
public would now see his reason for not wishing in the first place to give a description of the injuries. He attached
great importance to the applications which had been made to the pathological museums, and to the advisability of
following this information up as a probable clue. With reference to the murder and mutilation near Gateshead, he
stated that it was evidently not done by the same hand as the Whitechapel murder, that at Gateshead being simply
a clumsy piece of butchery. A telegram from the district states that the same opinion is entertained there, the idea
being that the mutilation of the body was suggested to the murderer by reading accounts of the murders in the East
End of London.
2 October 1888
THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS
REWARDS OFFERED AND REFUSED
INQUEST ON ELIZABETH STRIDE
The public indignation at the inability of the police by their existing methods to bring to justice the murderers
of the six unfortunate women who have been so foully done to death in the East End of London during the past two
months took a practical shape yesterday. The barrier of reticence which has been set up on all occasions when the
representatives of the newspaper press have been brought into contact with the police authorities for the purpose
of obtaining information for the use of the public has been suddenly withdrawn, and instead of the customary stereo-
typed negatives and disclaimers of the Elizabeth Stride’s inquest
officials, there has ensued a marked
disposition to afford all necessary facil-
ities for the publication of details, and
an increased courtesy towards the
members of the press concerned.
Another direction in which the officials
have become alive to a sense of their
public responsibility has been by the
spontaneous offers of substantial
rewards by public bodies and private
individuals towards the detection of
the criminal or criminals guilty of these
desperate crimes. Following upon the
refusal of the Home Secretary to place

Government funds at the disposal of the police for this purpose, there was much dissatisfaction expressed, and the
feeling which this refusal provoked, though not finding public expression at the time, has been stimulated by the
more recent crimes to outward manifestation. A meeting of the Vigilance Committee which has for some time been
formed in Whitechapel, was held yesterday in Mile End, and a resolution passed calling upon the Home Office to issue a
substantial Government reward for the capture and conviction of the murderer, and a letter embodying this was at once
sent to the Home Secretary. One of the murders of Sunday morning took place within the precincts of the City of London,
and this fact led one of the Common Councilmen yesterday to give notice that at the next meeting he would move that
a reward of £250 should be offered by the Corporation for the detection of the Mitre Square murderer, but the necessi-
ty for this step was removed when later in the day the Lord Mayor, Mr Poydore de Keyser, after consulting with Colonel
Sir James Fraser, K.C.B., Chief Commissioner of Police of the City of London, announced that a reward of £500 would be
given by the Corporation for the detection of the miscreant. The proprietors of the Financial News, a monetary organ,
also came forward on behalf of several readers of that journal with a cheque for £300, which was forwarded by their
request to the Home Secretary, who was asked to offer that sum for the same purpose in the name of the Government.
The proprietors of the Evening Post which is also chiefly devoted to the interests of the financial world, has commenced
a subscription list with a sum of 50 guineas, and has invited other contributions towards a reward fund.
The excitement which was created in parts of London on Sunday by the news of the atrocious crimes of Berner
Street and Mitre Square was doubly intensified yesterday morning when the daily newspapers carried the startling
news into every household, and yesterday there was but the one subject of conversation everywhere. Thousands of
people visited the localities of the crimes, but there was nothing then to see. The police had removed all traces of
The discovery of Elizabeth Stride’s body by Louis Diemshutz

the murder from the yard in Berner Street where the
unfortunate Elizabeth Stride — for such was the name
of the woman — was found with a terrible gash in her
throat, while at Mitre Square there was nothing that
could recall the horrible spectacle which met the eyes
of Constable Watkins at a quarter to two o’clock on
Sunday morning. The remains of the disembowelled
victim had been removed to the City Mortuary, and the
pavement cleansed. In connection with the latter
place, however, a startling discovery was made during
yesterday afternoon. Sergeant Dudman had his atten-
tion drawn to 36 Mitre Street, a house a short distance
from the spot where the murdered woman was found,
and there he found what appeared to be bloodstains
upon the doorway and underneath the window as if a
person had wiped his fingers on the window ledge and
drawn a bloodstained knife down part of the doorway.
Mr Hurtie, who lives on the premises, said he had only
just before noticed the stains, and then quite by acci-
dent. Almost immediately afterwards, the same police
officer had his attention drawn to similar marks on the
plate glass window of Mr Wm. Smith at the corner of
Mitre Square, but Mr Smith scouted the idea that they
could have anything to do with the murders as the win-
dows were covered at night by shutters. The discovery,
notwithstanding, caused increased excitement for a

time in the locality. The only other trace left by the murderer was a portion of an apron picked up in Goldston (sic)
Street, which corresponded with a piece left on the body of the victim, and this seemed to show that the murder-
er had escaped in the direction of Whitechapel.
Mr Wynne Baxter opened the inquest on the body of the woman Elizabeth Stride, at the Vestry Hall, Cable Street,
yesterday morning.
William West, of 2 William Street, said he was at the International Working Men’s Club on Saturday night. He gave
a description of the premises, and stated that the wooden gates were not closed until late at night. As a rule, wit-
ness worked at the printing office during the evening, and went into the club afterwards, where he remained until
20 minutes past 12. He went into the yard and noticed that the gates were open. He did not notice any body lying
there, but it might have been there without his observing it. There was no lamp in the yard. He then went into the
club again and called for his brother Louis Selso and they left together by the front door. On only one occasion about
two months ago had he noticed a man and woman in the yard, and they walked away when he went towards them.
Maurice Eagle, 4 New Road, Commercial Road, stated that he left the club about 11.30, and returned about 12.40.
He went in through the yard, as the front door was closed, but did not notice anything in the yard. He was certain
he should have noticed and man and woman if they had been there. He was in the habit of going through the yard
occasionally, but had never noticed any men and women there. He remained in the club about 20 minutes. A man
named Gigleman came upstairs and said there was a dead woman lying in the yard. He went down, struck a match,
and saw the woman lying in a pool of blood on the ground near the gateway. He did not touch the body and went
down towards Commercial Road for the police. He found two constables, and informed them of the murder, and they
returned with him to the yard, where a number of people had assembled. One of the policemen sent him to the sta-
tion for the inspector. He could not say if the woman’s clothes were disturbed. He thought people in the club would
have a heard a cry of murder.
Lewis Diemschitz, steward of the International Working Men’s Educational Club, was the next witness. He stated
that he left the club about 11.30 on Saturday morning and returned home at exactly one o’clock on Sunday morn-
ing. He had a costermonger’s barrow and pony and drove into the yard. Both gates were wide open. It was very dark.
His pony shied, and he looked down to the ground and saw something lying there but could not see what it was. He
jumped down and struck a match, but the night being windy he could only see it was some person lying there. He
went into the club, and in the front room he found several members, and
told them a woman was lying in the yard. He got a candle and went out
at once and discovered a quantity of blood around the body. He did not
touch the body, but at once went for the police. He passed several streets
without seeing a policeman, and returned without one. A man named
Isaacs was with him, and they were both shouting for the Police. Another
man returned with them into the yard and took hold of the woman’s
head. Witness then first saw the wound in the throat. The doctor arrived
about ten minutes after the constables. The police searched everywhere
and took the names and addresses of those present. The deceased’s
clothes were in order. She was lying on her side with her face towards the
wall. The doctor put his hand on her bosom, and said she was still quite
warm. Witness estimated that about two quarts of blood were round the
body. He had never seen men and women in the yard.
The inquiry was adjourned until two o’clock today.

All the news that’s fit to print...
I Beg to Report
MAGGIE BIRD. It was with shock and sadness that

we learned that Maggie Bird died suddenly on 17 July.
Maggie, keeper of the Metropolitan Police’s archives in
Charlton, had been ill for some time over the past cou-
ple of years, but in recent months appeared to have
fully recovered.
Apart from being the nicest, friendliest person you
could meet, Maggie was a frequent speaker on her pet
subject, Jill the Ripper, and in February of this year
had spoken on that very topic at the Whitechapel
Society. She had previously spoken on the history of
female police officers at the UK Jack the Ripper
Conference held in Bournemouth in 2001. A full obitu-
ary will appear in the next issue of Ripperologist.
TIME AFTER TIME. What can we say? Another Jack the Ripper musical. This one is called Time After Time and is
based on the novel and movie of the same name where British author H G Wells followed Jack the Ripper to 20th-
century San Francisco in his time machine. Its book and lyrics are by Stephen Cole and its music by Jeffrey Saver. It
will have its world premiere during the 2009-10 season of the performing arts programmes of Point Park University
at the Pittsburgh Playhouse, home to the Conservatory season, featuring undergraduate productions. Time After
Time will be on stage from 25 February to 14 March 2010.
Some more information: ‘Love and murder intersect in the science fiction musical Time After Time. John Leslie
Stevenson, also known as the serial killer Jack the Ripper, has escaped authorities using a time machine invented by
his friend H G Wells. In an attempt to return Stevenson to his proper time, Wells follows him into the future, only
to fall in love with the murderer’s next victim. Will Wells be able to save her? Or will he fail to rein in the 19th-cen-
tury terror he has released upon New York City?’ Yes, you’re right, it may be New York now, but was San Francisco
in the movie. At any rate, if any of you lives in the area and goes to see the play, let us know what you think.
Kenneth Jones
Time After Time Musical and Confluence of Dreaming Will Premiere in Pittsburgh
Playbill, 15 June 2009
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/130234-
Time_After_Time_Musical_and_Confluence_of_Dreaming_Will_Premiere_in_Pittsburgh

HEAL YOURSELF WITH JACK THE RIPPER. In our tireless search for Ripper titbits to entertain and educate our
readers, we came across an article by Marcus T Anthony entitled The Amazing Power of Synchronicity in the website
Isnare Free Articles Directory (http://www.isnare.com/?aid=379587&ca=Self+Help). As Mr Anthony helpfully tells us,
synchronicities are meaningful coincidences in whose study and analysis Swiss psychologist Carl Jung was particular-
ly interested. It seems Mr Anthony was quite disturbed for what he describes as an amazing synchronicity that took
place some time ago. He dreamt of the police looking for Jack the Ripper while the elusive wrongdoer lurked some-
where just out of reach, as is his wont. Mr Anthony woke up somewhat shaken by the dream, which apparently fit
in with some of the self-analysis he’d been doing on himself in connection with his issues with women. ‘Was there
a part of me that contained the rapacious rage of Jack the Ripper?’ he asked himself, we hope rhetorically. As he
drove to the school where he taught, he noticed a sticker on the back of a car in front of his own car which read
‘Jack’s Back!’ On the surface, it was an advertisement for a brand of whisky, but Mr Anthony was quick to spot it as
yet another meaningful coincidence. That was not the end of it. During his first class, Mr Anthony asked a student
to read aloud his homework: the opening sentence of a mystery story. The student had got carried away and instead
of a sentence had written an entire story about a woman who had been brutally raped and murdered. When the
police cornered the murderer, he turned and faced them ‘like a wild animal’. The student went on: ‘The policeman
fired, and the man fell to the ground screaming. As he fell silent and death overtook him, a dark and horrible shad-
ow rose out of the dead man’s body. It was the spirit of Jack the Ripper!’ Wow! Mr Anthony was a tad worried: those
synchronous events had all happened within the space of two to three hours. ‘That synchronicity,’ he writes, ‘invit-
ed me to face something within myself, the part that had been deeply hurt by certain female figures from my child-
hood. It was related to sexual energy and what it means to be male. The universe spoke. It had something unpleas-
ant to tell me, but I put aside my ego, my fear of my own shadow side. I listened and took the necessary action I
was being “asked” to take.’ We hope whatever Mr Anthony was asked to do worked out for him. If you go for that
sort of thing, you may read the whole article at the website indicated. But whatever it tells you to do, don’t do it
at home.
Marcus T Anthony
The Amazing Power of Synchronicity
Isnare Free Articles Directory
http://www.isnare.com/?aid=379587&ca=Self+Help Hanging on in there. . . Did they make it or didn’t they?
The Italian Job. (1969)
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS. ‘At the end of The

Italian Job, do Michael Caine and his gang survive?
What was Jack the Ripper’s real identity? Was
Britain’s involvement in Iraq an absolute debacle, and
if so, who was responsible? Wherefore do the wicked
prosper? Which of those is the odd one out? Actually,
that was a trick question: none of them is. The ques-
tion about Iraq shares a quality with the others. It will
never be answered definitively and to universal satis-
faction—including by the new inquiry cack-handedly
announced by Gordon Brown. But that limitation does
not mean, as some carpers argue, that it is [a] mis-
take to hold it at all.’
Bagehot
The last judgment. What the new inquiry into the
Iraq war can and can’t achieve
The Economist, London, UK, 25 June 2009
http://www.economist.com/world/britain/dis-
playstory.cfm?story_id=13899671

YOU’VE GOT TO PICK A POCKET OR TWO. ‘I understand the disgust felt by so many over the MPs’ expenses scan-
dal, but also feel that this is rather like putting Jack the Ripper on trial for picking pockets — trivial when compared
to their real offences and maybe a useful smoke-screen to obscure them.’
Graham Chadwick Horwich in a letter to the Bolton News supporting the Green Party’s plans to fight all seats in
Bolton Council elections in 2010.
Finally . . . a party we can vote for
The Bolton News, Bolton, UK, 1 July 2009
http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/yoursay/yourview/4467712.Finally_______a_party_we_can_vote_for/
A SHROPSHIRE LASS. Psychic Academy is a new television

series starring Tony Stockwell, described as one of Britain’s
best-loved psychics, as he looks for an apprentice to whom he
can pass on his unique skills. During the show, a number of con-
testants travel throughout Britain taking part in tough psychic
tests, among them retracing the footsteps of Jack the Ripper,
investigating the mysterious death of a young boy and spending
the night in haunted pubs. One contestant will be selected to
become Mr Stockwell’s apprentice. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?
Claire Hickman, a 35-year-old radio presenter and mother
of two from Telford, Shropshire, is among the contestants. Ms
Hickman, who has received messages from the spirit world
since she was a child, is sensitive to the psychic echoes left in
old places, experiences premonitions and has been visited by
the dead in her dreams. She works alongside other mediums
for a company called Fright Nights, who often visit haunted
Claire Hickman
places. When she was 13, Ms Hickman had her first premoni-
tion: she dreamed about the Lockerbie disaster the night before it happened. Subsequently she also predicted the
Indian earthquake, the Bali bombings and the Italian earthquake. ‘I no longer have fear of death,’ she says. ‘I fear
not living my life…’
One of the psychic tests was conducted in the East End of London, Jack the Ripper territory. ‘Two nights before,’
says Ms Hickman, ‘I had a dream about Jack the Ripper, that I was watching him kill all these women.’ The contest-
ants were blindfolded, driven to a location and asked where they thought they were and what they were doing there.
‘I think we are here to go on the trail of Jack the Ripper,’ replied Ms Hickman. ‘I didn’t know anything about him at
all,’ she continued. ‘But we were asked to walk through an archway in Whitechapel and back to the time of Jack
the Ripper in 1888. I got very claustrophobic and my kidneys started to get very painful. Tony read out a letter and
it was the first letter from Jack the Ripper to the vigilante committee, when he sent it with half a kidney from a
victim and had eaten the other half. I thought ‘Great, it will be interesting to see if I go round the corner and I am
disembowelled!’
The contestants were at the scene of what some believe was the Ripper’s first murder: the killing of Martha
Tabram at the George Yard Buildings. They were asked to guess the exact spot where the crime occurred and told
to act out the victim’s stabbing. ‘I enacted the stabbing,’ said Ms Hickman, ‘and Tony counted the number of knife

blows. He counted 39 — it was the exact number. And it was the exact spot.’
Ms Hickman has underlined that first and foremost she is a mum and not a witch. She is aware that there are
many charlatans practicing mediumship who take advantage of people when they are at their most vulnerable. ‘I’m
not going to get my crystals out and have angels hear my chakra,’ she says. ‘I’m very down to earth and believe that
80 per cent of times there is a rational explanation for happenings. But if messages can be passed to me, I’ve got
to believe in that other 20 per cent. For whatever reason I can do this, and I don’t know why.’
Psychic Academy airs Thursdays at 9pm on Bio, the Biography Channel. It will run for six weeks from the broad-
casting of its first episode on 2 July.
http://www.psychicacademy.co.uk/
http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/
Mum with prediction power

Ben Bentley meets a mother with psychic skills
Shropshire Star, Telford, Shropshire and Mid-Wales, UK, 2 July 2009
http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/07/02/mum-with-prediction-power/
‘Now if I can just find Whitechapel . . .’

A FOGGY DAY IN LONDON TOWN. ‘As far as movies go, San Francisco is the
second-most famous foggy city in the cinema. London comes first. Where
would Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson be without fog? Or Jack the Ripper? Or
Mr Hyde?’
Mick LaSalle
S.F.’s signature weather, fog great for movies
San Francisco Chronicle, CA, USA, 10 July , 2009
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/10/MVA818
JU0J.DTL
NIGHT OF THE NECROBUS. London is home to many tourist attractions

ranging from historic buildings, great museums and world class restaurants to
curry houses, Prêt A Manger eateries and corner caffs. Somewhere in
between are Madame Tussaud’s, the London Dungeon and the Ghost Bus
Tours. The Necrobus — actually a Routemaster double-decker bus painted
black and staffed by an unhinged conductor-cum-tour-guide and a crew of
seemingly deranged characters — all professional actors — sets off from
Northumberland Avenue and takes in, among others, Whitehall, Smithfield, the Tower of London, Crossbones and
Southwark: a treasure trove of haunted houses, murder scenes, unmarked burial grounds, places of execution and
‘many skeletons in the capital’s cupboard’.
No Whitechapel and no Spitalfields, though, but the Ripper is not completely forgotten. A poster using the name
garryaw left a glowing account of his ride in the Necrobus at the website London 4, Tourist Attractions In London.
‘I have to give a girl on the tour bus a special mention for providing the evening with the biggest laugh of the night,’
garryaw wrote. ‘The Necrobus was driving along Whitehall when the Conductor mentioned the name of the infamous
Jack the Ripper, when the girl excitedly asked “Where does Jack the Ripper live?” The Conductor rather dryly
explained to her that Jack the Ripper died a long time ago and that he was doing his evil deeds in 1888 and that he

was never actually caught, as well as the fact that no one knew who he was, let along knowing where he lived.’
The Necrobus departs from Northumberland Avenue, off Trafalgar Square, at 19.30 and 21.00, every Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The tour lasts approximately one hour and 15 minutes and costs
£18 for adults and £12 for under 16s and concessions. For more information on schedules and booking check their
website at http://www.theghostbustours.com. Tell them Ripperologist sent you.
A Scary Ride On The Ghost Bus Tour, Yikes!

Posted by garryaw in London 4, Tourist Attractions In London, 10 July 2009
http://londoniscool.com/a-scary-ride-on-the-ghost-bus-tour-yikes
Review: The Ghost Bus Tours

http://londonist.com/2009/06/review_the_ghost_bus_tours.php
Ghost Bus Tours — Scary Sightseeing

http://www.daysoutguide.co.uk/ghost-bus-tours-scary-sightseeing
BONNIE AND CLYDE REDUX. Some day they’ll go down together/And they’ll bury them side by side/To few it’ll
be grief, to the law a relief/But it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde. Thus wrote bank robber, folk hero and amateur
poet Bonnie Parker in The Story of Suicide: The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde. Her words were prophetic. On 23 May
1934, Bonnie and her companion and fellow bandit, Clyde Barrow, were shot to death by law enforcement officers
in an ambush near Sailes, Bienville Parish, Louisiana. From the early 1930s until their deaths, Bonnie, Clyde and sev-
eral of their associates embarked in a crime spree across the Midwest. On 20 May 1933, the US Commissioner at
Dallas, Texas issued a warrant charging them with the interstate transportation of an automobile stolen in Illinois.
With this authority the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI, joined the hunt which would end one year later in
a bullet-riddled car.
Seventy-five years after their death, Bonnie and Clyde are still remembered, both from their own black-and-
white, faded photographs and the far more glamorous image of Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty portraying them
in film. A result of the FBI’s involvement in their pursuit is the release of two sets of files on the Bureau’s website.

The first is a three-page “Interesting Case” memoran-
dum from 1934 and revised in 1984. It provided a sum-
mary of Bonnie and Clyde’s background and crimes
and their pursuit by law enforcement agencies, and
was meant to be used as background for interested
journalists, researchers and FBI employees. The sec-
ond release is of a recently discovered Dallas Field
Office investigative file, first made public in 2008 and
consisting of 947 pages in four sections including mem-
oranda, internal documents, photographs and news
clippings.
These releases do not concern only researchers
interested in Bonnie and Clyde and the history of
American crime. What the discovery of forgotten files
after so many years means is that there may indeed be
other yellowing files waiting to be uncovered in dusty
archives throughout the world. Some of the missing
files on Jack the Ripper, perhaps?
http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/bonclyd.htm
MISS PIGGY, KERMIT AND — JACK? ‘When the objec-

tive is exactly the same as those that have been
rejected by the courts, the result is going to be the
Bonnie Parker same. It’s not our objective to have Jack the Ripper
move onto Sesame Street. It’s simply to see these
human beings who happen to be designated sex offenders be treated decently.’
Civil liberties lawyer Terence Kindlon on a draft law designed to restrict the number of sex offenders who can
be housed in a hotel or motel in the town of Colonie, NY.
Tim O’Brien
Town seeks limited room for sex offenders
Colonie considers law that restricts number living in hotels, motels
Albany Times Union, Albany, NY, USA, 12 July 2009
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=819029
NEW RIPPER SHORT FILM. Ted Ball, Ripper expert, bookseller extraordinaire and friend of Ripperologist’s, has
alerted us to a short film shown at the French Institute in South Kensington during the month of July as part of a
programme of five Marbella International Film Festival shorts. Bloodline by Rupert Bryan (2008, 12 minutes) is set
in present day London and is ‘a thrilling investigation into the notorious killer “Jack The Ripper” filmed in some of
London’s most unusual and hidden locations’. We’ll keep an eye out for this one.

PROFESSOR RIPPER. ‘I wanted your comment on the announcement that Tech also has hired Sarah Palin, Mark
Sanford and Jack the Ripper.’
Reported introductory words of journalist Ken Herman in conversation with Texas Tech Chancellor Kent Hance,
who has hired as a visiting professor of political science controversial former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who
resigned from his position in 2007.
Mistakes were made —but not this time, Hance says

Austin American-Statesman, 13 July 2009
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/2009/07/13/0713herman_edit.html
THE RIPPER’S LEGACY. Some people never learn. A few issues of Ripperologist back our
reviewers found little to praise in A Study in Red — The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper,
a thriller by Brian L Porter. In our July issue we recalled the poor impression the thriller
left in our dedicated book readers. Has our tepid reaction to his oeuvre deterred Mr Porter?
Not at all. He has just published a sequel to Study called Legacy of the Ripper, issued by
Double Dragon Publishing in both paperback and e-book editions. In a PRLog (Press Release)
dated 13 July, the publishers exhort prospective readers to ‘prepare to be thrilled and
chilled again’ as Legacy ‘brings the soul of Jack the Ripper back to life and into the pres-
ent day … ten years after the events that chronicled the terrible consequences of reading
the journal of the infamous Whitechapel Murderer of 1888.’ Some more information from
the press release: ‘Jack Thomas Reid, nephew of Robert Cavendish who first appeared in A
Study in Red — The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper languishes in the secure Ravenswood
Psychiatric Hospital, sentenced to confinement “at Her Majesty’s Pleasure” for a series of
apparent “Jack the Ripper” copycat killings in the picturesque English coastal resort of
Brighton. Jack’s defence at his trial, that he is a descendant of Jack the Ripper and that
the crimes were conducted by an unknown “mystery man” and that Jack was drugged and made to appear as the
killer was regarded as so preposterous and unbelievable that his sentence was never in doubt. When one of the
policemen who conducted the original investigation into the murders begins to doubt the truth of the case against
Reid, Sergeant Carl Wright and Ripperologist Alice Nickels begin an investigation into his story. What they find is told
through the voice of Doctor Ruth Truman, Jack’s psychiatrist at Ravenswood, and through a series of events that take
place as far afield as the beautiful island of Malta and in Warsaw, Poland. Slowly but surely and with the help of
Wright’s boss Inspector Mike Holland, the link between the events that shocked and terrorised Whitechapel over a
century ago, and their link with the case of Jack Thomas Reid and the “Legacy of Jack the Ripper” is revealed.’ Now
you know everything you might ever want to know about Legacy. Your move.
‘Legacy of the Ripper’’ by Brian L Porter Released in Paperback and E-book editions
PRLog.Org (press release) - TX, USA
http://www.prlog.org/10281215-legacy-of-the-ripper-by-brian-porter-released-in-paperback-and-ebook-
editions.html

SPORTING JACK. From 9 to 12 July 2009 the town of Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, held its Four Jacks race,
a mountain bike race organized by Tony Horn and the Whistler Off Road Cycling Association (WORCA). One hundred
and twenty men and women riders were required to use the same bike and set of tires and tubes through the four-
day, four-stage, 60-kilometre race. Sylvie Allen was the top woman rider and Matt Ryan the top man rider. Why is it
called the Four Jacks race? The four stages of the race, held in four successive days, are known as Jack Tripper, the
Jack of Hearts; Jack Daniels, the Jack of Clubs; Jack Nicholson, the Jack of Diamonds; and Jack the Ripper, the Jack
of Spades. You could see this one coming, couldn’t you? Jack the Ripper, the last and most challenging stage, con-
sisted of an 8.5-kilometre course including no-flow zone trails such as Shit Happens, Anal Intruder, White Knuckles,
Big Kahuna, Section 102 and Trial and Error. Big Kahuna? That’s a funny name for a trail.
Andrew Mitchell
Ryan, Allen top Four Jacks.
Four stage race puts mountain bike skills to the test
Pique newsmagazine, Whistler, BC, Canada, 15 July 2009
http://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/pique/index.php?cat=C_Sport&content=Four+jacks+1629
Megan Grittani-Livingston
Local Jacks, Jills conquer four tough stages
Whistler Question, Whistler, BC, Canada, 15 July 2009.
http://www.whistlerquestion.com/article/20090715/WHISTLER02/307159773/1030/whistler/local-jacks-jills-con-
quer-four-tough-stages
THE RIPPER GOES WEST. Steve Leshin presents a new twist on Jack the Ripper in his
recently published novel, Vengeance of the Ripper. What if the Ripper had escaped from
London after his murders? In Vengeance, the Ripper shows up in Los Angeles. In the span
of a few nights, three prostitutes are murdered. During this period, legendary lawman
Wyatt Earp and his wife Josephine lived in L.A., where he did some police work. So Wyatt
and his good friend Bat Masterson, another western legend, find themselves involved with
the Ripper and must race against time to stop him from claiming another victim -
Josephine. So far Vengeance sounds all right. You’ll know more about it when we do.
Steve Leshin Announces Release of His New Book ‘Vengeance of the Ripper’ on
Amazon.com.
Manchester, CT, USA, 21 July 2009
http://www.pr.com/press-release/166135
WANTED: DICK TURPIN. ‘There are a lot of Dick Turpins,’ says Turpin biographer James
Sharpe. There is the handsome, gallant highwayman who was polite to ladies, robbed from the rich to give to the
poor and rode Black Bess to York. There is the murderer and petty criminal who was sentenced to death for horse-
stealing and hanged from the ‘Three-Legged Mare’, the York gallows, on 7 April 1739. We know everything about the
first one, whose exploits were the subject of countless novels (starting with William Harrison Ainsworth’s Rookwood
in 1834). We know next to nothing about the second one. We know exactly how the first one looked, having seen his
features portrayed in innumerable book and magazine illustrations and incarnated on the big and the small screen
by the likes of John Ford’s brother Francis, Tom Mix, Victor McLaglen and Richard O’Sullivan. Until now, we didn’t
know how the second one looked — although he was the only real one of the two.

More than 270 years after Dick Turpin’s execution, North Yorkshire
Police has used 18th-century newspaper descriptions and modern tech-
nology to create an E-fit of the infamous highwayman. It shows a man
with broad cheeks, a narrow chin and heavy small-pox scarring in his
face. ‘The results are not pretty,’ said Katherine Prior, a researcher for
York Castle Museum, which requested the E-fit for an exhibition of the
cells where Turpin spent his last night alive in 1739. ‘Richard Turpin is
one of the most infamous highwaymen in the world but interestingly
very little information on what he actually looks like survives. There are
no drawings or paintings of Turpin created during his lifetime. All we
have to go on are the descriptions from newspapers which were issued
to aid his capture. We have worked with North Yorkshire Police to cre-
ate an E-fit of Mr Turpin, just like they would do from a description of a
criminal today.’ North Yorkshire Police E-fit specialist Ian Greaves said:
‘It is nice to think that North Yorkshire Police are able to assist in put-
ting a true picture together of the infamous highwayman, who spent his
last days in the city of York.’
The Museum has used the E-fit to create a poster claiming that Turpin
is wanted for murder, burglary, highway robbery and horse-stealing. One
article used as a basis for the E-fit was published on 21 June 1737 and
offered a reward of £200 for Turpin’s capture. It read: ‘Richard Turpin
was born at Thacksted, in the county of Essex, is about 30 years of age, by trade a butcher, about 5ft 9ins high, of
a brown complexion, very much marked with the small pox, his cheek bones broad, his face slimmer towards the
bottom, his visage short, pretty upright and broad about the shoulders.’
The York Castle Museum shows how people used to live by displaying thousands of household objects and by recre-
ating rooms, shops, streets — and even prison cells. Its past as a prison is explored with a look at conditions in 18th
-century gaols and its most famous prisoner, Dick Turpin, who spent the last six months of his life in the Debtors’
Prison, which was built in 1701-5. The other half of the museum was originally the Female Prison, built in 1780-83.
York Castle Museum

http://www.yorkcastlemuseum.org.uk/Page/YorkCastle
Museum.aspx
York Castle Prison

http://www.yorkcastleprison.org.uk/home.html
Face Of Dick Turpin Captured In Police E-fit

Sky News, London, UK, 17July 2009
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Face-Of-
Dick-Turpin-Notorious-Highwayman-Recreated-As-A-Police-
E - f i t - F o r - M u s e u m - I n - Yo r k / A r t i c l e / 2 0 0 9 0 7 3
15339868?lpos=UK_News_News_Your_Way_Region_
6&lid=NewsYourWay_ARTICLE_15339868_Face_Of_Dick_
Turpin%2C_Notorious_Highwayman%2C_Recreated_As_A
_Police_E-fit_For_Museum_In_York

GEORGE AND GILBERT, GILBERT AND GEORGE. Modernist artists and self-titled ‘living sculptures’ Gilbert and
George have no friends, no kitchen, and dress only in deliberately awkward tweed suits they design themselves.
Gilbert (Proesch) was born in the Dolomites, Italy, in 1943 and George (Passmore) was born in Devon in 1942. They
have lived and worked for over forty years in Fournier Street, Spitalfields, in the East End of London, which they see
as a microcosm. George told the Daily Telegraph on 28 May 2002: ‘Nothing happens in the world that doesn’t hap-
pen in the East End’. Gilbert and George’s career began with performance pieces such as their 1969 Singing
Sculpture, in which they wore face paint, stood on a table and sang along to Flanagan and Allen’s Underneath the
Arches, sometimes for a whole day. Together they have participated in many group and solo exhibitions including a
large retrospective at Tate Modern in 2007 and exhibitions in London, Beijing, Shanghai, Amsterdam, Paris and
Hanover.
Their latest work, 153 images they call the Jack Freak Pictures, is the largest group of pictures they have ever
made. The 39 that currently fill both branches of the White Cube gallery in London, at Mason’s Yard and Hoxton
Square, are only a portion of the whole. Other shows are open in Berlin and Paris and more will open soon in Brussels,
Naples and Athens.
Many of the Jack Freak Pictures include flags, maps, street-signs, graffiti and old medals given to obscure peo-
ple for long forgotten achievements such as singing, attendance or pantomime. According to Michael Bracewell,
these pictures are ‘among the most iconic, philosophically astute and visually violent works that Gilbert & George
have ever created’. The dominant pictorial elements are the Union Jack and the artists themselves in a variety of
guises. ‘The “Jack Freak Pictures”,’ says critic Martin Gayford, ‘are simultaneously dark and lurid, with a sinister,
shadowy London backdrop. In many pictures, the red, white and blue of the Union Jack flag is collaged into the set-
ting or onto G&G themselves, their suits and even their faces. That’s the Jack of the title (Jack the Ripper, who oper-
ated in G&G’s neighbourhood of London may be somewhere in the mix too).’

Jack Freak Pictures is at White Cube’s Mason Yard and Hoxton Square galleries in London Tuesday to Saturday, 10am
to 6pm, through 22 August. For more information, go to http://www.whitecube.com.
Stuart Jeffries
Gilbert and George: the odd couple
Guardian, London, UK, 24 June 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/jun/24/gilbert-george-white-cube
Jonathan Jones
Gilbert and George
Guardian, London, UK, 9 July 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/jul/09/gilbert-and-george-review
Gilbert & George, the Terrible Two, Freak Out in London Shows
Martin Gayford
Bloomberg, USA, 20 July 2009
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=azXFBqLXkGRE
MALKOVICH’S EURO SERIAL KILLER TOUR. Veteran American actor John Malkovich will tour Europe in a theatrical
and musical production as serial killer Jack Unterweger, a handsome, smooth-talking Austrian who killed a series of
prostitutes in Europe and the United States. Between 1990 and 1993 Unterweger murdered at least 11 prostitutes in
Vienna, Prague and Los Angeles. He strangled them using a ligature made from his victims’ bra straps. On 28 June
1994, a court in Graz, Austria, convicted him of nine murders. The next morning he was found in his cell hanging
from a noose he’d made using a thin metal wire and the John Malkovitch in the role ofJack Unterweger
drawstring of his jogging pants. Ironically, he showed the
same innovative spirit in killing himself that he had shown
in murdering his victims.
Malkovich announced his tour with the Unterweger pro-
duction on 9 July, while receiving an award at the Karlovy
Vary film festival in the Czech Republic. The Infernal
Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer, which features a mix
of opera and monologues, had premiered in Vienna at the
beginning of July. Malkovich appears onstage with two
sopranos. In mid-July he appeared in the show at the
Peralada festival in Spain (Footage of the production is
available at You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=CE5hU4_rkZc). His next appearances will be in London,
Paris, Bilbao and Madrid.
Ten years ago, Malkovich began a project to make a film
about Unterweger. He had been drawn to the subject
because of the similarities between Unterweger and Jack
Henry Abbott, an American convicted murderer. Abbott
became a literary sensation with his 1981 book In the Belly
of the Beast, which consisted of letters written from prison
to Norman Mailer. The support of Mailer and other literary
figures led to Abbott’s early release. Six weeks later, he
bludgeoned a man to death. Similarly, Unterweger, who was

serving a life sentence for the murder of an 18-year-old pros-
titute in 1976, became an author in prison, publishing short
stories, poems, plays, and an autobiography that was adapt-
ed into a motion picture. Austrian intellectuals, including
Nobel prize-winners Elfriede Jelinek and Günter Grass, made
petitions to pardon him. He was released from prison on 23
May 1990 and went on to murder six prostitutes in Europe
and three in Los Angeles during the next few years.
Malkovich is no stranger to playing bad guys. He portrayed
a would-be presidential assassin opposite Clint Eastwood in
the Wolfgang Peterson 1993 movie In the Line of Fire. The
actor is also known for his involvement in off-beat projects
such as the flick Being John Malkovich (1999), directed by
Spike Jonze, and the Coen brothers’ 2008 ensemble movie
farce Burn After Reading, in which he starred alongside Brad
Pitt and George Clooney.
Commenting on his versatility, Malkovich remarked, ‘I do
not feel there is a sensibility I cannot understand. If somebody was writing a fantastic version of Catherine the Great,
could I play her? Yes. Why not … I never feel ever that I can’t enter any character.’ Now, there’s an intriguing prospect!
The Vienna Strangler

John Leake
Guardian, London, UK, 10 November 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/ 2007/nov/10/features.weekend
John Malkovich brings serial killer Jack Unterweger back to life on Vienna stage
Kate Connolly
Guardian, London, UK, 30 June 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/ 2009/jun/30/malkovich-jack-unterweger-vienna-austria
Malkovich to take serial killer opera around Europe

Yahoo News, USA, 10 July 2009
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20090709/ten-entertainment-us-europe-theatre-film-1dc2b55_1.html
Jack Unterweger

The Jeremy Beadle Prize 2009
The winner of the Jeremy Beadle Prize for 2008 was Timothy
Riordan's The Nine Lives of Dr Tumblety, which featured the first
known photograph of Tumblety. Our panel of judges said:
The photograph of Tumblety was fantastic, ...but of equal if

less obvious value was Riordan’s analysis of Tumblety’s biogra-
phies, which set them in context and drew meaning from them.
This added just a little more flesh to the skeleton of Tumblety and
set him more firmly in his time and place. It was a good, solid
piece of historical writing.
This year's competition is already underway! Every article featured in Ripperologist between issues
100 and 109 (December 2009) will have a chance to win the coveted title, not to mention £100 cash.
And entry is free!
Send your submissions to contact@ripperologist.biz
Loretta Lay Books

Over 200 Jack the Ripper and associated titles on the website
Baron/Shone Sickert Paintings, hbdw £75
Barry (John Brooks) The Michaelmas Girls, hb/dw £25
Beadle (William) Jack the Ripper: Anatomy of a Myth, new, hb/dw, signed £12
Beadle (William) Jack the Ripper Unmasked, new, hb/dw, signed £15
Cook (Andrew) Jack the Ripper, new, hb/dw, signed £18
Eddleston (John J.) Jack the Ripper An Encyclopedia, h/b £50
Edwards (Ivor J.) Jack the Ripper's Black Magic Rituals, softcover, 1st edn. signed £20
Evans/Rumbelow Jack the Ripper Scotland Yard Investigates, new, hb/dw, signed labels £20
MAIL ORDER ONLY Fox (Richard) The History of the Whitechapel Murders, softcover, Facsimile edn. £20
24 Grampian Gardens, Griffiths (Major Arthur) Mysteries of Police and Crime (Special Edn.) 3 vols. h/b £85
London NW2 1JG Hinton (Bob) From Hell.... new ,p/back, signed, label £15
Tel 020 8455 3069 Hudson (Sam'l E.) Compiled by: "Leather Apron" or the Horrors of Whitechapel London, 1888, Facsimile edn. £20
www.laybooks.com Jones (Christopher) The Maybrick A to Z, new, softcover, signed £15
Logan (Guy B.H.) Masters of Crime (includes the 'Ripper' murders) h/b £125
lorettalay@hotmail.com
Muusmann (Carl) Hvem Var Jack the Ripper? p/back, insc. by Adam Wood to Wilf Gregg £60
Odell (Robin) Jack the Ripper in Fact & Fiction, hb/dw, inscribed by Robin Odell to Wilf Gregg £70
Palmer (Scott) Jack the Ripper. A Reference Guide h/b £25
Raper (Michell) Who Was Jack the Ripper? limited edn. booklet, numbered 94/100 £75
Russo (Stan) The Jack the Ripper Suspects, hb £30
Smithkey III (John) Jack the Ripper. The Inquest of the Final Victim Mary Kelly, softcover £30
Wolff (Camille) Compiled by: Who Was Jack the Ripper? hb/dw, reprint, with 16 signatures some labels £130

Reviews
Billington: Victorian Executioner

Alison Bruce
Stroud,Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2009
www.thehistorypress.co.uk
Hardcover, 224pp, illus; appendices, biblio, index.
978-0-7509-4774-9
£18.99
The corridor was gloomy and the dim yellow light from a few flickering gas jets bare-
ly pushed back the shadows as the small procession began its short walk towards day-
light. First went the chief warder, then the chaplain in his surplice, then Thomas Neill
Cream, pinioned, hatless and collarless, his face ashen, his eyes rolling from side to side,
but managing to hold himself erect and walk with a firm step. On either side warders
held his arms. He was followed by James Billington, occasionally fiddling with the white
cap in his right-hand pocket, the governor, the deputy-sheriff, and several more guards.
A voice from somewhere could be heard intoning ‘I am the resurrection and the life…’.
The prison bells tolled and Cream took his place beside the dangling noose on the gallows and quickly saw what
would be his last sight of the world as Billington drew the white cap over his head. ‘In the midst of life we are in
death…’ intoned the same voice in the background as Billington quickly strapped Cream’s legs together at the ankles.
Thomas Neill Cream breathed his last moments on earth and said, ‘I am Jack…’, but James Billington had sprung the
trap and Cream was sent into eternity, his sentence unfinished.
Nobody except James Billington heard these words and he was forever insistent that they had been spoken, but
if Cream’s intention by claiming to have been Jack the Ripper had been to gain a reprieve, no matter how brief,
while the claim was investigated, surely he would have spoken louder and others would have heard. On the other
hand, had the words been a private, soul cleansing admission by Cream to his Maker, and had Billington overheard
them by chance, the words lost to everyone else amid the prayers and the noise of the trap and afterwards by the
cheers of the crowds outside the prison when the black flag was raised to signify Cream’s passage from life, then
perhaps the admission carries more weight.
Cream’s candidacy as Jack the Ripper fortunately doesn’t depend on Billington’s word; there is the inconvenient
detail that he was safely locked up behind bars on the other side of the Atlantic in 1888. That doesn’t mean that
Cream never said those words, of course, and the short chapter about Cream and Billington’s claim gives Alison
Bruce’s readable biography of Billington an interest for Ripperologists.
Bruce does not linger over the question of Cream’s candidacy, but accepts that he could not have been Jack the
Ripper and that Billington lied, arguing that the execution of Cream was in many respects the high-spot of his career
and one to which he could give an additional lustre with the Ripper story. The possibility that Cream did say those
words is not discussed, which is a slight pity because the idea of a lie tends to colour Billington’s character a bit.

Almost all biographies of hangmen focus in part
on why the man concerned chose — and in the case
of James Billington, was long determined to be — an
executioner, and Alison Bruce’s comparatively short
biography of the Billington family (James was fol-
lowed into the profession by three of his sons, who
conducted 235 executions in Britain from 1884 to
1905) is no different. But otherwise Billington, one-
time pub entertainer and afterwards a barber, takes
second stage to the cast of characters, famous, infa-
mous and forgotten, who ultimately paid for their
sins at the end of Billington’s rope.
A bonus is a short chapter devoted to an interview
with Nigel Preston, the great-great-grandson of
The trial of Thomas Neill Cream James Billington, who recalls some family anecdotes
that Bruce has endeavoured to fit in with the known
facts of the Billington’s lives.
Murders of the Black Museum 1875-1975

Gordon Honeycombe
London: John Blake, 2009
Hardcover, 394 pages, illus; appendices; biblio.
Originally published as The Murders of the Black Museum 1879-1970. London: Random
Century, 1982
ISBN: 978-1-84454-715-9
£17.99
Apparently it was an Inspector Neame who conceived the idea of a crime museum at
Scotland Yard and it is known that a museum was in existence by 1874. When, why and
how it came by its name is another matter. According to the Scotland Yard website the
name was bestowed upon it in 1877 by a journalist working for The Observer newspaper.
If so then it caught on very quickly because in 1878, at the time of the Princess Alice
disaster in the Thames, we find references in several newspapers to ‘a black museum’
formed at the Town Hall, Woolwich, consisting of clothing and personal effects taken from those who died in that
appalling accident. So perhaps ‘black museum’ had a popular street currency for any repository of the awful.
The Black Museum, which having fallien prey to the absurdities of political correctness must now be called the
Crime Museum, enjoys a certain mystique because it is regarded as a teaching museum and is closed to the general
public.
This mystique was reflected in the 1950s with popular — and actually really very good — radio programmes like
The Black Museum (hosted by Orson Welles) and Whitehall 1212. It was also featured in the not very good. but nev-
ertheless entertaining, movie The Horrors of the Black Museum. There was also a video some years ago called New
Scotland Yard’s Black Museum and more recently the Metropolitan Police Corporate Video Team produced a DVD

called The Metropolitan Police Crime Museum.
As for books, Jonathan Goodman and former curator Bill Waddell wrote a very good book called The Black
Museum: Scotland Yard’s Chamber of Crime and Gordon Honeycombe concentrated on the murders represented in
the museum called, unsurprisingly, Murders of the Black Museum.
It’s that book which Blake have reissued. The original took the crimes up to 1970, whilst this reissue comes up
to up to 1975, which still makes the shut-off date thirty-five years ago, so the book misses out an awful lot of the
developments in crime that the museum represents.
Nevertheless, the book, which is essentially a vehicle for examining some of the most celebrated murders and
murderers in Scotland Yard’s history, provides useful brief accounts of the likes of the Charlie Peace, the Seddons,
Crippen, Haigh and Heath, Christie, Craig and Bentley and Ruth Ellis.
Public Enemies
Johnny Depp, Marion Cotillard, Christian Bale. Directed by Michael Mann
139 minutes,
Public Enemies: The True Story of America’s Greatest Crime Wave

Brian Burrough
London: Allen Lane, 2004 (hardcover)
London: Penguin, 2009 (softcover)
I guess Billie and Dillie doesn’t have the same ring about it as Bonnie and Clyde,
but Public Enemies is Bonnie Clyde without Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.
Instead we have Marion Cotillard and Johnny Depp as Billie Frechette and John
Dillinger. Different people doing pretty much the same thing at roughly the same
time, Bonnie and Clyde meeting their fate on a desolate Louisiana road on 23 May,
1934, almost two months to the day before John Dillinger was gunned down in
Chicago.
Bryan Burrough's excellent book, Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime
Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-43, tells the story of the bank robbers of the
Great Depression: John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, Bonnie and
Clyde, Machine Gun Kelly, and the Barker-Karpis gang.
The movie concentrates on John Dillinger, played by Johnny Depp. Dillinger, who was born in 1903, became a
bank robber following a nine-year sentence, most of it spent in the Indiana State Penitentiary, for robbing a grocery
store when drunk.
A series of daring robberies, dramatic shootouts, and spectacular escapes followed, which coupled with a cer-
tain gentlemanly flair, helped to create a Robin Hood-like image with the public — the banks were extremely unpop-
ular during the Depression years; there was widespread unemployment, people starved, the banks foreclosed on
mortgages, whole families were forced onto the streets. Nearly 40 percent of all farmers lost their farms and oth-
ers were pushed into bankruptcy by a catastrophic drought that turned once prosperous farms into a dustbowl.
The likes of Dillinger and Clyde Barrow, who stepped outside the constraints which held most people in check,
looked like heroes raising two metaphorical fingers to the system, something which we’d all like to do, and whilst
it was inevitable that the authorities would eventually cut their criminal careers very short, probably in a fatal

shootout, their brief flirtation with money and the
luxuries it bought seemed good when for most the
uncertain future promised breadlines and soup
kitchens and probably death from malnutrition in
some alleyway.
Public Enemies is an excellent book, reissued to
coincide with the movie, and is very highly recom-
mended. The movie is probably the best of several
Dillinger movies that have been made over the
years, going back to Lawrence Tierney in Dillinger
in 1945. Ralph Meeker, Warren Oates, Mark Harmon
and Martin Sheen, among numerous others, have
played Dillinger in movies and on TV and to some
extent Johnny Depp seemed an odd choice for the
part, perhaps too good looking to properly convey
Dillinger’s reputed charm and style (Dillinger not
being a particularly handsome man). Depp is nev-
ertheless excellent in the role and very restrained.
Brit Stephen Graham has come a long way since
Johnny Depp as Dillinger his Heartbeat and Corrie days to almost steal the
show as the appalling loose cannon Baby Face
Nelson. Graham will be soon be popping up on TV as none other than Al Capone in Boardwalk Empire, all about
Atlantic City.
We thought the Torch Singer was excellent too. She sounded so good she could have been Diana Krall. Turned out
she was Diana Krall.
The movie takes some liberties with the historical facts — it opens with G-Man Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale)
shooting Pretty Boy Floyd, yet Floyd was shot on 22 August 1934, after Dillinger met his end on the pavement near the
Biograph Theatre on 22 July 1934. Likewise, Homer Van Meter was shot on 23 August 1934, and Baby Face Nelson was killed
on 27 November 1934, both yet both pre-decease Dillinger in the movie.
The point, though, is that Dillinger’s death effectively marked the end of the Public Enemy era — in reality it
carried on for a few months as Pretty Boy and Baby Face and others were gunned down or put away forever, and it
arguably came to an official end with the capture of Alvin Karpis (played by a scene stealing Giovanni Ribisi in the
movie) — but by having Dillinger as the last of the gang, director and co-author Michael Mann was able to make the
point that the era was ending
In the movie’s favour — well, actually, there is a great deal to be said in favour of the movie — a lot of it was
actually shot where the real events took place — at Little Bohemia lodge and outside the Biograph in Chicago, for
example, and this lends the movie a lot of authenticity.
Dillinger died on the pavement, shot three times in the back by the Feds, and apparently died without uttering
a word (except in the movie, where he utters quite a few). And in the movie he dies without ambiguity, but like
Jesse James, Billy the Kid, and Butch Cassidy before him, and Elvis famously after him, there have been persistent
rumours that it was not Dillinger who died that day. Nobody has reported Dillinger working in McDonalds, but the

stories come close. We won’t go into the stories that
it wasn’t Dillinger who was shot outside the Biograph
or the story that Pretty Boy Floyd was executed on
the orders of Melvin Purvis, rather than taken into
custody and tried.
Okay, we will mention it. Briefly, and only
because it would seem to fit in with another title
reviewed here, Voodoo Histories.
Basically, crime writer Jay Robert Nash claimed
in Dillinger: Dead or Alive? (1970) that he'd seen let-
ters dating from the late 1950s and early 1960s from
someone who said he was Dillinger. He also noted
various discrepancies in official documents — in the
autopsy report his age is given as 32, whereas
Dillinger was 31, the corpse’s eyes were stated as
being brown, whereas Dillinger’s were blue, and so
The spot where John Dillinger was shot dead
Photograph Don Souden on. The idea advanced by Nash is that the man who
was shot and killed was a petty criminal from Wisconsin named Jimmy Lawrence, who bore a passing resemblance
to Dillinger. If the FBI had gunned down the wrong man, argues the theory, then J. Edgar Hoover, whose job was on
the line at the time, would have pulled up his skirts and moved heaven and earth to hide the fact.
On the other hand, the body was positively identified and the fingerprints matched Dillinger’s, and a 2006 doc-
umentary on the Discovery Channel ‘The Dillinger Conspiracy’, examined the evidence and concluded that Dillinger
was killed by the FBI.
Arguably, the oddest thing about Dillinger’s death is that the FBI agents didn’t try to arrest him. It’s alleged that
Dillinger was shot after going for a gun — which is what the movie depicts — but it is claimed that the gun that was
long exhibited by the FBI as the one Dillinger was reaching for was not manufactures until six years after Dillinger’s
death. Oddly enough, London’s Times commented on the FBI’s action: ‘To dispose of him in the way chosen was clear-
ly necessary. More important lives than his have already been sacrificed in the attempt to bring him to book, and
there was no justification for adding to the losses for the sake of taking him alive.’ (July 24, 1934)
Dillinger was highly dangerous and the FBI could not have known that he was unarmed, and from past experi-
ence they knew he would have no qualms about innocent passers by getting killed (although that was more in Baby
Face Nelson’s line). On the other hand, it was said as a joke that Dillinger was wanted dead or dead and maybe it
wasn’t really a joke at all. What the FBI could not afford was another shoot out and another escape, especially from
the crowded Chicago streets.
But if Dillinger was gunned down in cold blood then perhaps the stories about Pretty Boy Floyd are true too. The
circumstances surrounding Floyd’s death — he’s shot with a rifle while fleeing Melvin Purvis at the start of the movie
— are even more murky, there being three accounts, the most controversial being that Floyd was shot and disarmed,
then questioned for ten minutes before Purvis ordered one of his men to shoot the robber.
Some of the general criticism levelled at the movie is undoubtedly justified — Depp's Dillinger isn't a complex
character, and Bale's Melvin Purvis is so uncharismatic as to be barely noticeable, yet many criminals are empty ves-
sels and the point is made in the movie that Dillinger thinks little about tomorrow and not at all about the next day.

It's this lack of thought about the consequences of their actions that enables such people to raise those two fingers,
whilst the rest of us sit in the soup kitchen afraid of prison.
As for Bale as the nondescript Melvin Purvis, in reality the squeaky-voiced G-Man was hopelessly out of his depth
and heading a fledgling team of G-Men who, as the film makes clear, had little idea of what they were dealing with.
Purvis is warned by a more experienced policeman that his plan at Little Bohemia was not the way to do it. Purvis
went ahead anyway, with disastrous consequences.
Much of the movie's cinematography is stunning and the period recreation is great, but he uses unsteady-cam a
lot and on the one hand the realism this conveys is countered by the feeling that it's about time for a trip to
Specsavers.
The book is better, but catch the movie if you can.
The Silver Locomotive Mystery

Edward Marston
London: Alison and Busby, 2009
http://www.allisonandbusby.com/
http://www.edwardmarston.com/
hardcover, 313 pages
ISBN: 978-0-7490-8397-7
£19.99
Ripperologist has been a bit remiss in not having brought your attention to the
Inspector Colbeck mysteries before this. The Silver Locomotive Mystery is the sixth in the
series, which began back in 2004 with The Railway Detective. But this series, which is set
in the 1850s, is proving extremely popular, with more than 50,000 copies having been sold
in the UK alone. Were it not for the production costs attendant with any period drama
and the parlous state of British television, one would almost anticipate a TV series!
Rather like M.C. Beaton’s froth and frolic series of Agatha Raisin mysteries in which
the title of the first, The Quiche of Death, initially caught the eye, the Inspector Colbeck
mysteries are a little—quite, probably quite a lot—on the lightweight side, having little of the period atmosphere to
be found in Peter Lovesey’s Sergeant Cribb series. ‘Will there be any more’? we once asked Lovesey. ‘No,’ came the
depressing reply. But watch this space! Lightweight or not, the Colbeck mysteries are engagingly written, reasonably
well plotted, and make one of the best reads for the garden, beach, aeroplane or in bed.
Marston’s Inspector Colbeck series has run pretty much in parallel with Andrew Martin’s ‘Jim Stringer Steam
Detective’ series, which is set in the years preceding the First World War. Martin is perhaps the better writer—
Marston seems to sacrifice quality for quantity. He is extremely prolific, with several series on the go as well as occa-
sional non-fiction such as his Prison: Five Hundred Years of Life Behind Bars that was published by the National
Archives in January of this year.
In this latest adventure a silver coffee pot shaped like a locomotive is stolen, the silversmith murdered in the
Station Hotel in Cardiff, and the owner of the coffee pot is very distressed—not by the murder, but by the theft.
Inspector Colbeck, assisted as ever by the suffering Sgt Leeming, is asked to investigate. Complications soon devel-
op with the arrival of a famous theatre company and the uncovering of illicit high society liaisons!

Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in
Shaping Modern History
David Aaronovitch
London: Jonothan Cape, 2009
www.rbooks.co.uk
Hardcover, 358, illus., notes, biblio, index.
ISBN: 978-0-224-07470-4
£17.99
Cell phones don’t work at altitude.
So how did those people aboard the aircraft that crashed into the World
Trade Centre and the Pentagon manage to make those calls to family,
friends and colleagues?
The answer, of course, is that they didn’t. They couldn’t have.
So who faked those calls? The only answer, the only people with the
clout to do something like that, is that the U.S. government — the whole
horrendous ‘terrorist’ attack was in fact sanctioned and carried out on
behalf of the Bush administration because it wanted an excuse to invade
the Middle East.
It sounds incredible. Unbelievable. Totally insane. But it — or something
like it — is believed by an awful lot of people in the US and Europe, and by
millions of people in the Muslim world, and no matter how how incredible,
unbelievable and insane it sounds, and no matter how rational and sensible and sane you try to be, how do you
explain those damned cell phones…
Well, the reality is that you don’t have to explain them. Cell phones do work at altitude. Those calls could have
been made.
So often, as David Aaronovitch says at the beginning of his entertaining and enlightening book, conspiracy theo-
ries are supported by small and plausible ‘facts’ which we more often than not lack the knowledge to refute, such
as the claim that cell phones don’t work at altitude. And that, coupled with the fact that conspiracies and cover-
ups do exist — such as the Gulf of Tonkin “attack” of 1964 (the claim that North Vietnamese vessels engaged the USS
Maddox) used by President Johnson to get the Southeast Asia Resolution through Congress and give Johnson the
authority to involve the United States in what became the Vietnam war – and it is easy to see why conspiracy theo-
ries grab a hold of one.
One purpose of journalist Aaronovitch’s book is to provide the reader with the material to refute those facts, so
that the next time some sane, rational, down-to-earth person in the pub tells you that cell phones don’t work at
altitude, you can say, ‘Oh really, well according to surveys carried out by…’ and kill the conversation flatter than a
fly whacked with a rolled up newspaper.
Aaronovitch deals mainly with serious conspiracy theories, such as the faked Protocols of the Elders of Zion,
which have actually influenced the course of history, but he has some fairly robust fun with the Holy Blood, Holy
Grail theories. which were in part the inspiration for Dan Brown’s phenomenally successful The Da Vinci Code.

Hopefully we needn’t go into what that theory is all about, but it was established ages ago that the Priory of Sion,
one of the principal supports for the theory never existed.
It was a hoax, the documents supporting its existence were fakes planted in various record repositories, and most
disappointingly, there are no albino monks. This is accepted; even Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince say in their book
The Sion Revelation (2006) that the critics ‘do undoubtedly have the weight of evidence on their side’. But, as
Aaronovitch goes on to explain, Picknett and Prince argue that the hoax is really far too intricate to have been the
work of a bunch of French con men, and that a hoax that complex could only be carried out by an organisation with
the resources to do it — an organisation like the Priory of Sion, which sought to preserve its secret existence by dis-
suading those who wished to investigate it by proving that it didn’t exist!
The trouble is that even though one laughs at the outrageous argumentative gymnastics of this absurd idea, a
niggling doubt does creep in. We mean, if you are a secret organisation and people are beginning to suspect that you
really do exist, proving that you don’t exist is really pretty clever. It makes sense, it could be true….
Conspirators can always rely on the cracks in their plans being Polyfillad by the good old common sense brigade.
No matter what evidence might slip out that 7/11 was a government conspiracy, the government can always rely on
the common sense brigade to point out with utter reasonableness that the whole idea of a government conspiracy
is completely insane. And salt the story with the idea that cell phones don’t work at altitude, and some bozo will
sooner or later point out that they do and the conspiracists will look even stupider.
There’s none so blind as those who will not see…
The trouble with conspiracy theories, they can draw you in; it isn’t so much that conspiracists are knowingly dup-
ing you — although some might be — but that they are sincerely, honestly, duping themselves.
Voodoo Histories doesn’t mention Jack the Ripper, but, of course, Rippero;ogy has several cherished conspiracy
theories of its own, not the least the idea that the murders were carried out at the behest of or on behalf of the
Royal Family, and the examination of these theories in light of reading Voodoo Histories (or, indeed, Robert Alan
Goldberg’s Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America, which we reviewed in Ripperologist back
in 2001) it is often possible to see the conspiracist mindset at work.
Conspiracy theories are a powerful narcotic because they throw a light into the darkness, make the unknown
knowable, and make the world a safer place. This may sound as ridiculous as a conspiracy theory itself, but for many
people it is more comforting to believe a mountainously awful idea such as one’s own government being responsible
for 7/11 than it is to accept that something of that magnitude could happen because one’s nation’s defences are so
weak that we are all vulnerable to attack at any time and in any place.

A Ripperologist’s
Bookshelf
Welcome to “A Ripperologist’s Bookshelf”, a new feature of Ripperologist mag-

azine. Because repeated surveys have shown that the joy of reading is shared by
most of the members of our community, we thought it would be fun to share our
thoughts on some of our favourite (and not so favoured) books. This month
Stewart P. Evans shares his bookshelf with us — both Ripper books and those books
that have meant something to him in his life.
In the hot seat this month … Stewart P. Evans
What is your favourite non-fiction book of all time?
The Complete History of Jack the Ripper by Phil Sugden.
What is your favourite fiction book of all time?
The Complete Ghost Stories of M.R. James.
Who is your favourite author?
John Dickson Carr.
Do you remember your first Jack the Ripper book?

(non-anthology)
Well there are two, as they came out at the same time, Autumn of
Terror by Tom Cullen and Jack the Ripper in Fact and Fiction by
Robin Odell.

What is your favourite Jack the Ripper book?
Sugden.
What was the last book you read?
Trafalgar, The Biography of a Battle by Roy Adkins.
What book in your collection do you consider a ‘prize gem’ for

whatever reason?
The Fall River Tragedy, by Edwin Porter (1893 book on Lizzie Borden case), I
managed to get it for only £30!
Have you ever given up on a book before reading it completely?
I have given up reading books completely on several occasions.
Was there a book from childhood or your teens that really changed
your life?
If my interest in the Ripper was consolidated and ensured by them, then Cullen and
Odell.
Best Wishes,
Stewart
Got something to say?

Got comments on a feature in this issue?
Or found new information?
Please send your comments

to contact@ripperologist.biz

Dear Rip. . .
Ripperologist 100
Dear Rip,
Very belatedly I am writing to thank you for e-mailing Part 2 of Ripperologist 100, which contained my article
about George Peabody. If you ever receive any feedback from readers I would be interested to hear about it, par-
ticularly if anyone comes up with evidence (most likely to be in the form of a birth certificate for one of the older
Nichols children) showing whether or not Polly Nichols and her family had lived at Peabody Trust’s Blackfriars Road
Estate before moving to the Stamford Street Estate.
For some unknown reason, when the complete magazine reached me I felt impelled to look at one article in par-
ticular — the one about Wynne Baxter, the coroner. I was astounded to see a photograph of 2 Suffolk Lane, and an
acknowledgment at the end of the article to Helen Wenham of Stafford Young Jones for assistance given. That is the
firm of solicitors where I worked before I joined Peabody, and I have known Helen for over 20 years. Until I read the
article I had no idea that a previous partner in the firm had had such a distinguished career as a coroner. It made
fascinating reading.
Christine Wagg
Legal Assistant, Peabody Trust
16 July 2009
Dear Christine,
Many thanks for your letter. We shall be very interested ourselves to hear from any reader that might locate evi-
dence of Polly's residence at Peabody's on Blackfriars Road.
I'm astounded that you worked at Stafford Young Jones, the present-day descendant of Wynne-Baxter and Keeble,
and know Helen Wenham, who was so forthcoming with her advice and help during the research of my article on
Baxter. It really is a small world!
Best wishes
Adam Wood

IS THIS THE MAN WHO INTERVIEWED FRANCIS TUMBLETY?
Back in May 2007, Ripperologist featured R J Palmer's article entitled ‘Tumblety Talks’.
It was here that we read about a New York World journalist who, in January 1889, sat down
with the notorious "Dr." Tumblety and engaged in a candid discussion about the Whitechapel
murders. The newsman was a determined young man who was in the process of establishing
quite a reputation for himself in New York City. But who exactly was this man? As of yet, his
name has not been revealed to modern day researchers. But according to a handful of
Americans who study the life of the Littlechild Suspect, Ripper researchers need not look any
further than the photo shown above if they wish to find the newsman who conducted the
interview with Tumblety. This Winter, we'll reveal more about this fascinating 19th century
journalist. He was much more than just a news writer.

A crowd from 1887 view the 2009 version of Aldgate Pump.
Present-day photography and Photoshop work by Adam Wood

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RIPPEROLOGIST MAGAZINE

Issue 105, August 2009

Singer/songwriter Dave Matthews reveals his passion for acting.

We would like to acknowledge the valuable assistance given by

News and Views

Editorial Team Consultants Advertising

Ripperologist 105 August 2009 1

Ripperologist 105 August 2009 2

The foregoing words, a typical piece of Victorian

1 ‘The Low Lodging House’ in J Ewing Ritchie, Days and Nights

Ripperologist 105 August 2009 3

2 Census return 1881 and lodging house registers.

3 Common Lodging House Act 1851 & 1853.

The Flower and Dean area in 1888 (John Bennett).

5 Created from various sources by the author.

Ripperologist 105 August 2009 5

pect Jacob Isenschmidt was a regular at his pub

and that he knew him as ‘the mad butcher6.’

From 1886 to 1889, No. 18 George Street was

owned by Daniel Lewis, another prominent local

lodging house keeper. It was during his tenure

that resident Emma Smith became the first of

the Whitechapel murder victims. The horrific

attack on her occurred early on the morning of

3 April 1888 at the hands of a gang near the

junction of Wentworth Street and Osborn

Street. Smith managed to stagger the short dis-

tance to the lodging house, obviously in great

pain. The deputy lodging house keeper was Mary

Russell who, along with another lodger, escort-

ed Emma Smith to the London Hospital7.

Ripper victim, was also known to have used 18

on this portion of the street.

room for 39 people on its second floor alone.

6 Report by Sgt William Thick, 19 September 1888 (MEPO 3/140, ff.26–8).

7 Morning Advertiser, 9 April 1888.

8 Report by Insp. Edmund Reid, 16 August 1888 (MEPO 3/140, ff.44–8).

9 Daily Telegraph, 22 December 1888.

Ripperologist 105 August 2009 6

injury for her troubles.

16–17 Thrawl Street

10 London School of Economics, Booth Notebooks

11 Western Mail, 10 November 1888.

Ripperologist 105 August 2009 7

contemporary sketch made in 1891. If this is the case,

ished until the 1970s.

32 Flower and Dean Street

This large lodging house began as a single property

before being integrated with No. 33 in 1853. From 1871,

the owner was John Satchell who had recently acquired

19 George Street. No. 32 Flower and Dean Street was

licensed to accommodate nearly a hundred lodgers and

from 1882 onward. Several witnesses at the inquest on

Liz Stride were based here: the deputy lodging house

keeper Elizabeth Tanner, charwoman Catherine Lane and

barber Charles Preston. Here, Elizabeth Stride had made

some money by offering to clean the deputy’s rooms on

the Saturday prior to her murder. Following the ‘double

event’ a sketch of the rather tatty-looking house was

published in the press, describing it as ‘lodgings for trav-

ellers &c. with every accommodation’.

John Satchell gave up No. 32 in March 1891 at a time

when new development was about to change the north

side of Flower and Dean Street.