Complete History of Jack the Ripper

by Philip Sudgen

  24 Bermant, Point of Arrival, pp. 118–20.

  25 Colin Wilson & Donald Seaman, The Serial Killers (London, 1990), pp. 63–4.

  19 Found in the Thames

  1 Introduction by Colin Wilson to Alexander Kelly, Jack the Ripper: A Bibliography and Review of the Literature, p. 14.

  2 Cullen, Autumn of Terror, pp. 238–9.

  3 Howells & Skinner, The Ripper Legacy, pp. 91, 108–10.

  4 Rumbelow, Complete Jack the Ripper (Penguin edition, 1988), Addendum, pp. 293–5.

  5 The quotations are from The Referee, 13 July 1902 and 5 April 1903; see also, Ibid., 16 February 1902 and 29 March 1903; Sims, Mysteries of Modern London (London, 1906), pp. 72–3; Sims, My Life (London, 1917), pp. 141–2.

  6 Griffiths, Mysteries of Police and Crime (London, 1899), I, pp. 28–9.

  7 Farson, Jack the Ripper, p. 16.

  8 Farson, Jack the Ripper, pp. 16, 111, 117–8; The New Statesman, Vol. LVIII, No. 1495, 7 November 1959, p. 628; Cullen, Autumn of Terror, pp. 218–9; Odell, Jack the Ripper in Fact and Fiction, revised edition, 1966, p. 186.

  9 Macnaghten, Days of My Years, pp. viii-ix.

  10 See, especially, Rumbelow, Complete Jack the Ripper, pp. 129–31; Howells & Skinner, Ripper Legacy, pp. 62, 123–6; Begg, Jack the Ripper, pp. 167–72; Begg, Fido & Skinner, Jack the Ripper A to Z, pp. 175–81.

  11 Philip Loftus, reviewing Farson’s book, The Guardian, 7 October 1972.

  12 ‘Memorandum on articles which appeared in the Sun re JACK THE RIPPER on 13 Feb. 1894 and subsequent dates’ by ‘my Father Sir M. M.’, copied by Christabel Aberconway, pp. 5–6, 6A, 6B. Document in private ownership.

  13 Report of Melville Macnaghten, 23 February 1894, MEPO 3/141, ff. 179–80.

  14 Cullen, Autumn of Terror, pp. 223–30, 239–40; Farson, Jack the Ripper, pp. 112–6, 134, 140–1, 142–3; Irving Rosenwater, ‘Jack the Ripper – Sort of a Cricket Person?’, The Cricketer, Vol. 54, No. 1, January 1973, pp. 6–7, 22; Howells & Skinner, Ripper Legacy, pp. 119–21, 155–6; Begg, Jack the Ripper, pp. 173–6; Begg, Fido & Skinner, Jack the Ripper A to Z, pp. 71–5.

  15 This paragraph rests principally upon The Acton, Chiswick, and Turnham Green Gazette, 5 January 1889, which prints summaries of the depositions of William Druitt, Henry Winslade and PC George Moulson, made on 2 January at the inquest into Druitt’s death.

  16 Macnaghten, Days of My Years, p. 62.

  17 Macnaghten, Ibid., p. 54.

  18 ‘Secret of Scotland Yard: The End of “Jack the Ripper”’, Daily Mail, 2 June 1913.

  19 Macnaghten, Days of My Years, pp. 61–2.

  20 Francis Camps, foreword to Farson, Jack the Ripper, pp. 11–12; see also p. 131.

  21 No independent accusation of Druitt, official or unofficial, is known to exist. A careful study of the wording of Griffiths’ account demonstrates clearly that it rested upon the draft version of Macnaghten’s report. Sims saw neither version of the report. But he knew Griffiths’ book and, more to the point, Macnaghten himself, referring to him in his autobiography as ‘my friend of many long years’ (My Life, 1917, p. 175). There are several personal letters from Sims to Macnaghten in the British Museum (Additional MS. 57, 485, ff. 166–70). We have no reason to believe that the very late but much published references to the killer’s suicide by Sir John Moylan and Sir Basil Thomson were anything more than confused derivatives, directly or indirectly, of Macnaghten (Moylan, Scotland Yard and the Metropolitan Police, p. 191; Thomson, The Story of Scotland Yard, London, 1935, p. 178).

  22 Quoted by Cullen, Autumn of Terror, p. 77.

  23 Rumbelow, Complete Jack the Ripper, pp. 149–50, 154; Howells & Skinner, Ripper Legacy, p. 150.

  24 Those who seek the full ramifications of the Australian connection will find them in Farson, Jack the Ripper, pp. 109, 117–21; Knight, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution, pp. 129–33; Harris, Jack the Ripper: The Bloody Truth, pp. 76–80; Howells & Skinner, Ripper Legacy, pp. 128–38; Begg, Fido & Skinner, Jack the Ripper A to Z, pp. 77–9.

  25 Mr Knowles was then in his eighties and must now be dead. Attempts to identify and trace him have not been successful. See, Farson, Jack the Ripper, pp. 118–9, 146; Howells & Skinner, Ripper Legacy, p. 130.

  26 The Globe report is reprinted in Melvin Harris, The Ripper File (London, 1989), pp. 112–3. For the fullest discussion of Deeming’s links with the Ripper case, see Wilson & Odell, Jack the Ripper: Summing up and Verdict, pp. 240–8. See also, Barry O. Jones, ‘Frederick (Bailey) Deeming,’ in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. VIII, 1891–1939, pp. 268–9.

  27 Camps, foreword to Farson, Jack the Ripper, p. 12.

  28 The only crumb of comfort I can offer Druittists is the presence of Druitts on the Mile End Old Town Vestry and Board of Guardians in 1890. It is unlikely that they had any connection with Montague’s family from Wimborne but detailed genealogical research might clarify the point.

  29 Bournemouth Guardian, 4, 11 and 18 August, 1 and 8 September 1888; Rosenwater, ‘Jack the Ripper – Sort of a Cricket Person?’, pp. 7, 22. We cannot be certain of Montague’s presence at Salisbury because the press report of the match does not specify which Druitt took part. It may have been William, Montague’s brother, who also sometimes played for Bournemouth, or even Mr A. Druitt, who played for Canford with Montague ten days later.

  30 PMG 31 March 1903.

  20 Caged in an Asylum

  1 Anderson’s public utterances on the identity of Jack the Ripper will be found in: Criminals and Crime (London, 1907), pp. 3–4; ‘The Lighter Side of My Official Life. VI. At Scotland Yard,’ Blackwood’s Magazine, Vol. CLXXXVII, No. MCXXXIII, March 1910, pp. 357–8; The Lighter Side of My Official Life (London, 1910), pp. 137–9; H. L. Adam, The Police Encyclopaedia (London, ND), Vol. I, pp. xi–xii.

  2 Macnaghten, ‘Memorandum on articles which appeared in the Sun re JACK THE RIPPER on 13 Feb 1894 and subsequent dates’, p. 6B; report of Melville Macnaghten, 23 February 1894, MEPO 3/141, f. 180.

  3 Charles Nevin, ‘Whitechapel Murders: Sensational New Evidence’ (p. 1) and ‘Has this man revealed the real Jack the Ripper?’ (p. 19), DT 19 October 1987; Begg, Jack the Ripper, pp. 189, 195–6.

  4 Fido, Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper (London, 1987), pp. 215–6, 228–9; revised edition (1989) pp. 225–6.

  5 Mile End Old Town Workhouse, Admission & Discharge Books, 1890–1, GLRO, StBG/ME/114/4–5; Mile End Old Town Workhouse, Religious Creed Register, 1890–2, GLRO, Microfilm X/20/355; Orders for Reception of Lunatics into Asylums, 1889–91, GLRO, StBG/ME/107/8, No. 1558.

  6 Mile End Old Town Board of Guardians, Orders for Reception of Lunatics into Asylums, 1889–91, GLRO, StBG/ME/107/8, No. 1558; Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, Male Admissions Register, 1888–1906, GLRO, H12/CH/B2/2; Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, Discharge Register, 1891–6, GLRO, H12/CH/B6/2; Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, Male Patient Casebook, 1890–91, GLRO, H12/CH/B13/39, No. 11, 190; Leavesden Asylum, Orders for Admission of Patients, No. 7367, GLRO.

  7 Aaron’s family may have been refugees of the Russian pogroms of 1881–2. His sister Betsy married Woolf Abrahams, a tailor, and they are recorded at 3 Sion Square in the 1891 census. Betsy (aged 34) and Woolf (30) had both been born in Russia, but their eldest child (9) had been born in London.

  The records of Leavesden Hospital, recently transferred to the Greater London Record Office, have not yet been catalogued. I have searched the following: Orders for Admission of Patients, No. 7367; Admission & Discharge Book, 1919–20; Male Patients’ Medical Register, 1870–1917; Male Patients’ Medical Journal, 1918–21; Male Patients’ Case Register, Vol. 12A, p. 29; file on Kosminski from ‘case files 1919’. See also Mile End Old Town Board of Guardians, Orders for Admission of Imbeciles into Asylums, 1886–1903, GLRO, StBG/ME/112/4, No. 441; registers of deaths, St Catherine’s House.

  8 The contention sometimes made by modern writers that there was a sighting of Kate Eddowes with a man near Mitre Square by a City policeman, but that th
e documentation has not survived, is untenable. Both Chief Inspector Swanson of the Metropolitan Police and Inspector McWilliam of the City prepared confidential summary reports on this murder for the Home Office and it is inconceivable that had there been such a sighting they would not have mentioned it. The wording of McWilliam’s report, moreover, explicitly precludes the possibility of a ‘lost’ sighting by a City constable: ‘The police are at a great disadvantage in this case in consequence of the want of identity, no one having seen the deceased from the time she was discharged from Bishopsgate Station until her body was found at 1.45 a.m., except three gentlemen [Lawende, Levy and Harris] who were leaving the Imperial Club in Duke Street at 1.35 a.m. . . . No other person can be found who saw either of them [Kate or her killer].’ (Report of Inspector McWilliam, 27 October 1888, HO 144/221/A49301C/8b).

  9 Macnaghten, Days of My Years, preface, p. ix.

  10 Friedland, Trials of Israel Lipski, pp. 91–4, 144.

  11 For documentation, see ch. 12, n. 24.

  12 DT 18 February 1891; PMG 7 May 1895.

  13 Some writers have claimed that when Kosminski was admitted to Mile End Old Town Workhouse in July 1890 he had been insane for two years. This is incorrect and is based upon an erroneous interpretation of an entry in the workhouse admission and discharge book.

  14 Quoted by Richardson, From the City to Fleet Street, p. 217.

  15 Anderson, Lighter Side of My Official Life, pp. 136–7.

  16 Reports of Chief Inspector Swanson and Sir Charles Warren, 6 November 1888, HO 144/221/A49301C/8c; minute of Dr Anderson, 23 October 1888, HO 144/221/A49301C/8a.

  17 PMG 24 and 31 March 1903. In order to escape the implications of this evidence supporters of the Kosminski theory have argued that Anderson and Swanson somehow managed to withhold their knowledge of the Polish Jew from Abberline. Not only does this view defy common sense but it is unsupported by anything so vulgar as fact. The lack of explicit references to Kosminski in Abberline’s interviews is not evidence that he did not know about him. He refuted the Druitt and Cream theories only in response to specific questions. He was not asked about Kosminski and did not volunteer information on any past suspect.

  18 Smith, From Constable to Commissioner, pp. 159–62.

  19 For Arnold, Eastern Post and City Chronicle, 3 February 1893; for Reid, Morning Advertiser, 30 March and 6 April 1903, and PMG 2 April 1903; for the reference in Littlechild, 23 September 1913, to Sims, I am indebted to Mr Stewart P. Evans of Bury St Edmunds, letter of Stewart Evans, 12 August 1993, to author.

  20 PMG 7 May 1895 says that Swanson believed the Ripper murders to have been committed by ‘a man who is now dead’. Given Swanson’s belief that Kosminski died soon after being committed to Colney Hatch this could be a reference to Kosminski. It suggests that Swanson held to the theory twelve years before it was mentioned by Anderson.

  21 See ch. 13.

  22 The Parliamentary Debates, Official Report, 5th Series, Vol. XVI (1910), 2359.

  23 Ibid., 2322–2323.

  24 Anderson, 6 February 1893, to Home Office, HO 144/221/A49301C/34; Anderson, Lighter Side of My Official Life, p. 135.

  21 The Mad Russian

  1 Draft report of Melville Macnaghten, February 1894, p. 6B; official report, 23 February 1894, MEPO 3/141, f. 180.

  2 Oxfordshire Assize, Lent 1863, PRO, indictments, ASSI 5/183/12, No. 37, and crown minute book, ASSI 2/39; Oxford Times and Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 7 March 1863.

  3 Cambridge Chronicle, 6 and 13 February 1864; Cambridge Independent Press, 6 February 1864.

  4 Registers of persons charged with indictable offences at Assizes and Quarter Sessions, PRO, HO 27/140; Exeter and Plymouth Gazette and Western Times, 6 January 1865.

  5 The records are held at the Gloucestershire Record Office. See: depositions, Gloucestershire Quarter Sessions, Epiphany Sessions, 1866, Q/SD2 1866; court minute book, Q/Sm 1/7; register of prisoners, Gloucester Gaol, 1865–71, Q/Gc 6/5.

  6 Kent Assize, Summer 1866, PRO, indictments, ASSI 35/306, Part 2, Nos. 11, 15–16, and agenda book, ASSI 31/37, pp. 55–6; Maidstone Telegraph, 28 July and 4 August 1866.

  7 Chatham Prison register, 1871–81, PRO, PCOM 2/4, p. 34; quarterly returns of prisoners, Chatham, December 1872 and June 1873, PRO, HO 8/194 and 196; licenses for release of convicts, No. 25779, 30 April 1873, PRO, PCOM 3/342.

  8 Testimony of Supt. Oswald, 5 January 1874, County Hall, Aylesbury, Bucks. Advertiser, 10 January 1874. Oswald is called Oswell in some reports.

  9 For Ostrog’s trial and conviction, Aylesbury, 1874, see: register of persons charged with indictable offences, PRO, HO 27/167, f. 30; ‘after-trial’ calendar of prisoners, Bucks. Quarter Sessions, January 1874, PRO, HO 140/25; Bucks. Herald and Bucks. Advertiser, 10 January 1874.

  10 Pentonville Prison register, 1873–5, PRO, PCOM 2/75, No. 2364; Millbank Prison register, 1873–5, PRO, PCOM 2/55, No. 225; quarterly returns of prisoners, Portland, September 1874-March 1876, PRO, HO 8/201–7; governor’s journals, Portland Prison, 1872–6, PRO, PCOM 2/364–5.

  11 The Police Gazette, 1 October 1883.

  12 T 10 August 1887; GL, Old Bailey Sessions Papers, Vol. 106, 1886–7, pp. 509–10; after-trial calendar of prisoners, Central Criminal Court, September 1887, PRO, HO 140/98; register of pauper admissions to county asylums, 1887, PRO, MH 94/85; criminal lunacy warrant book, 1884–7, PRO, HO 145/5, f. 556; Surrey County Lunatic Asylum, male patients admission book 1880–88, and criminal lunatics book 1885–1950, Springfield Hospital, London.

  13 The telegram is postmarked 2 October 1888 and endorsed: ‘Answered by Comr.’ It will be found at CLRO, Police Box 3.17, No. 197.

  14 Report of Inspector McWilliam, 27 October 1888, HO 144/221/A49301C/8b.

  15 Dew, I Caught Crippen, p. 156.

  16 Warren, 9 October 1888, to Fraser, PRO, MEPO 1/48; report of Chief Inspector Swanson, 6 November 1888, HO 144/221/A49301C/8c.

  17 John Beddoe, ‘On the Stature and Bulk of Man in the British Isles,’ Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of London, Vol. 3, 1870, pp. 384–573; DT 9 October 1888.

  18 See above, chaps. 5 and 12.

  22 ‘You’ve got Jack the Ripper at last!’

  1 Under Sec. State, Home Office, 29 October 1888, to Warren, HO 144/221/A49301C/8a; report of Inspector Abberline, 1 November 1888, MEPO 3/140, f. 204; Anderson draft, 5 November 1888, MEPO 3/140, f. 207; Warren, 6 November 1888, to Under Sec. State, HO 144/221/A49301C/8d.

  2 PMG 24 and 31 March 1903.

  3 Maud Marsh inquest, coroner’s papers, CLRO, INQ/S/1902/274; Central Criminal Court files, including depositions taken at Southwark Police Court 1902–03, PRO, CRIM 1/84 and CRIM 4/1215; Home Office file, including Judge Grantham’s trial notes, PRO, HO 144/680/101992; H. L. Adam (ed.), Trial of George Chapman (Edinburgh & London, 1930); registers of births, marriages & deaths, St Catherine’s House. I have restricted precise documentation to points especially relevant to the Ripper case but unless credited otherwise my information on Chapman is derived from the above sources.

  4 Deposition of Ethel Radin, 14 January 1903, Southwark Police Court, ff. 314–6, PRO, CRIM 1/84. The Post Office London Directory lists Radin at 70 West India Dock Road only in 1888.

  5 My reconstruction of Chapman’s early years rests principally upon the depositions of Wolff Levisohn, Stanislaus Baderski and Mrs Rauch, 7 January 1903, Southwark Police Court, ff. 273–6, 280, 286–95, PRO, CRIM 1/84; testimony of the same witnesses, 16 March 1903, Central Criminal Court, in Adam, Trial of Chapman, pp. 62–5; registers of births, marriages & deaths, St Catherine’s House; Post Office London Directory; 1891 census, PRO, RG 12/280. To judge from a letter of Neal Shelden (Ripperana, No. 6, October 1993, pp. 17–8) he has been conducting parallel investigations to my own into Chapman’s movements. I am relieved to learn that our conclusions largely coincide.

  6 I have searched those at the PRO for the period March-July 1891 inclusive, BT 27/66–8.

  7 Deposition of Annie Helsdown, 14 January 19
03, Southwark Police Court, f. 322, PRO, CRIM 1/84; testimony of Annie Helsdown, 18 March 1903, Central Criminal Court, Judge Grantham’s notes of evidence, ff. 64–5, PRO, HO 144/680/101992/6.

  8 Deposition of Elizabeth Painter, 28 January 1903, Southwark Police Court, ff. 447–8, 449, 457, PRO, CRIM 1/84; testimony of Elizabeth Painter, 18 March 1903, Central Criminal Court, Grantham’s notes of evidence, f. 76, HO 144/680/101992/6.

  9 Deposition of Louisa Morris, 18 November 1902, CLRO, INQ/S/1902/274, depositions, p. 25.

  10 Echo, 20 September 1888; DN 9 October 1888; Begg, Fido & Skinner, Jack the Ripper A to Z, pp. 95, 259.

  11 A. F. Neil, Forty Years of Man-Hunting (London, 1932), pp. 26–7.

  12 See n. 2.

  13 Adam, Trial of Chapman, p. 52.

  14 Neil, Forty Years of Man-Hunting, pp. 17, 25–6. Neil’s reference to the eyewitness who gave the ‘only living description’ of Jack the Ripper is inspired by vague memories of George Hutchinson.

  15 Deposition of Harriet Greenaway, 14 January 1903, Southwark Police Court, ff. 326–7, PRO, CRIM 1/84; Adam, Trial of Chapman, p. 51; petition of Chapman, 25 March 1903, to Home Sec., PRO, HO 144/680/101992/10.

  16 The Daily Mail, 20 March 1903.

  17 H. Montgomery Hyde, Carson (London, 1953), p. 182.

  18 Adam, Trial of Chapman, p. 83.

  19 Adam, Trial of Chapman, p. 78.

  20 Thomas de Quincey, ‘On Murder, Considered as one of the Fine Arts,’ p. 65, De Quincey’s Works, Vol IV (Edinburgh, 1862).

  21 Deposition of Louisa Morris, 18 November 1902, CLRO, INQ/S/1902/274, depositions, p. 24; deposition of Louisa Morris, 28 November 1902, Southwark Police Court, ff. 58–9, PRO, CRIM 1/84; Adam, Trial of Chapman, p. 85.

  22 Adam, Trial of Chapman, p. 64.

  23 See, William G. Eckert, ‘The Ripper Project,’ American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1989), p. 169.