Connection J.K. Stephen, M.J. Druitt, Judge Stephen, Florence and James Maybrick

[Franklin]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently visualising possible links between known suspects and their possible involvement in the Ripper murders. Although I'm not a strong believer of the Royal Conspiracy Theory and on the other side the Maybrick-connection, it might be interesting to see how persons in these theories are connected with eachother.

In a nutshell:

Florence Maybrick was sentenced to death by Judge Stephen for killing her husband James Maybrick. Judge Stephen was James Kenneth Stephens father, poet and tutor to Prince Eddy. Next to that, J.K. Stephen is said to have a connection with M.J. Druitt.

My question:

Does anybody have knowledge of where the connection between Stephen and Druitt originates from and what the source(s) is/are of this information?

Your answers will be appreciated.

[How Brown]

Franklin:

I would contact Stan Russo about the connection.

Stan has a lot of expertise in this area.

By the way,thank you for placing the original post.:)

[Magpie]

I had heard it suggested that Maybrick, JK Stephen and Druitt might have ties through the cricketing community, specifically the MCC. Druitt was a member, however it doesn't appear that the other two were.

Druitt did play for a travelling team called the incogniti, and it's possible, although unproven at this point, that he played against LCC (Maybrick's team) at some point. Information about the incogniti and their games is hard to come by.

[Franklin]

Magpie:
Maybrick was a member of the Liverpool Cricket Club (LCC). Druitt was a successful cricket player as well. It's quite possible that the two of them have played eachother, although I do not know if they are connected in any kind of way. The source of my information mentioned above is the Ripper-Diary Documentary.

How:
I just sent a PM to Stan Russo, hoping that he will be able to shed some light in this matter. Cheers for your advise mate.

[Shawn-a]

Franklin, have you ever considered a possible connection between Mary Kelly and Morgan Davies? Davies ran a clinic a couple of blocks from Mitre Square, catering to Welsh clients.

In a nutshell, Mary Kelly knew Morgan Davies who knew John Williams, the Queen's doctor....

The Royal Conspiracy theory is given credibility. Mary did run with the high crowd and the possibility of a special child becomes all the more possible....
Why the discredit for the reports of her having a son with her? Because someone upstairs had a son the same age means she can't have one?
Ever wonder why the Conspiracy theory created a girl named Annie Crook and made her the mother instead of just making it Mary?....

[Franklin]

Shawna,

The links you just posted are rather new to me and I'll be going through some research this week (I'll include them). Cheers for posting!

[Dan Norder]

The Royal Conspiracy theory is given credibility. Mary did run with the high crowd and the possibility of a special child becomes all the more possible....

Huh? You've not shown any reason to believe Mary ran with a high crowd, you just suggested the possibility based upon a string of extremely implausible what ifs and then jumped immediately to saying it wasn't just a what if but that it DID happen. That's cheating.

Why the discredit for the reports of her having a son with her? Because someone upstairs had a son the same age means she can't have one?

Because the report very clearly had the wrong person and wrong room and wrong everything. No other reliable report mentions her having a child, which they most certainly would have if she actually did. But she didn't. So they didn't.

Ever wonder why the Conspiracy theory created a girl named Annie Crook and made her the mother instead of just making it Mary?....

Because the person who thought the whole ridiculous thing up might have descended from Annie Crook and wanted to believe he was important, so he invented this fantasy that he had royal blood AND was the son of a famous painter... not to mention that the Yorkshire Ripper tried to run him down in his car and that angels talked to him or whatever. The guy lived in a fictional universe he created in his head.

[Shawn-a]

This is where we depart:

A pretty, busty Irish lass in London? Forget Paris, the stage, the nice clothes, the West End! She's Irish....Do I need to draw a picture?....

As for being confused with the lady with the kid upstairs, it might help if she had a kid herself....

Inventing or inserting Annie Crook because you're related to her (I admit I forgot about that) doesn't preclude that there were other motives--like not wanting to promote a theory where Mary Kelly gets knocked up by an Englishman and then knocked off by one....

[Donald Souden]

Shawna,

Do I need to draw a picture?....

Since what you have written makes no sense, a picture could only help.

As for being confused with the lady with the kid upstairs, it might help if she had a kid herself....

Do re-read the one newspaper story about this supposed child. The "facts" are so patently at variance with reality as to most assuredly not apply to Mary Jane Kelly.

doesn't preclude that there were other motives--like not wanting to promote a theory where Mary Kelly gets knocked up by an Englishman and then knocked off by one....

True, but it also doesn't preclude most any other motive imaginable, from an Aaron Kosminski in-law framing Aaron to an extra-terrestials' full-body probe of Mary Jane going badly awry.

Don.

[Jeff]

I really can't suggest this enough - I do like connections (I used to watch that science history program of that name from a decade ago, that linked ideas from one device to another). But keep all this in mind.

You do have a limited number of people as suspects, victims, police, witnesses, by-standers, most in an area of roughly 100 square miles. It is highly unlikely that these people could all have existed in the years 1885 to 1895 without criss-crossing each other's paths. If you think of your own experiences in life today, and how many people you have seen (famous, infamous, regular) you will soon realize that Kelly not only could have bumped into Annie Chapman or Liz Stride in walking around their streets in Whitechapel, but she could have bumped into Druitt, George Chapman, Prime Minister Gladstone, Charlie Chaplin's dad, or whoever happened to be in their path.

The trick is to link them with people that they actually were doing something with on a regular basis, and gradually extend it to a small circle of people. Then the six degrees actually has real meaning to us.

Best wishes to you all on this hunt.

Jeff

[Shawn-a]

[FONT=Georgia]Do re-read the one newspaper story about this supposed child. The "facts" are so patently at variance with reality as to most assuredly not apply to Mary Jane Kelly.
I've read the ones from the 10th of November.
All we know is that the newspapers reported a boyfriend and a companion as saying she had a son. There are no quotations so you can believe whatever you want about what was really said and if it was true. And you can say they were errors, errors the newpapers never corrected.

[Chris G.]

Hi all

If I may say so, I think this is a vacuous project. The making of "connections" is the sort of thing that the case suffers from, and I don't see much value in it. Oh, I know, Oscar Wilde lived on Tite Street, as did such and such a suspect, and Sir Melville Macnaghten, so they must have all been connected. Please. . . .

Shawna wrote: "In a nutshell, Mary Kelly knew Morgan Davies who knew John Williams, the Queen's doctor...." Who says Mary Kelly knew Dr. Morgan Davies? Sir John Williams knew a Dr. Davies, but was it the same Dr. Davies that D'Onston "outed" as a possible suspect? I don't think that's been proven. Dr. John Williams was a doctor to the Royals but was he the Queen's doctor, as you say?

Magpie wrote: "I had heard it suggested that Maybrick, JK Stephen and Druitt might have ties through the cricketing community, specifically the MCC." Druitt was a young man who played cricket in the southern counties. Maybrick was a middle-aged member of the Liverpool Cricket Club 200 miles away. I am not sure I necessarily see a connection.

Chris

[Mike Covell]

The following all have links to Hull

Robert D'Onston Stephenson----Born Here
Frederick Bailey Deeming--------Visited and in jail here
Lewis Carroll--------------------Our light hearted friends parents and
grandparents lived in the old town area
William Sadler------------------- was a regtsitered user of Hull Steamers
Queen Victoria------------------Stayed in the City and visited
Albert Edward, Prince of Wales---Stayed in the City and visited
Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence---Stayed in the City and visted
Walter Sickert-------------------Had numerous paintings displayed here

Connections within the connections
Stephensons Father and Carrolls Father were both Water Bailiffs
Queen Victoria, Albert Edward, Albert Victor and Deeming all stayed at the Royal Station Hotel (but so did Laurel and Hardy)

I am sure there even further links to be found in the case,
Stephenson married at the same church as Abberline
As already mentioned the name Dr Davies keeps cropping up!

Mike

[Chris G.]

Hi Mike

I am sure that a similar list of Ripper connections could be made for most major towns in Britain considering that there is now such a long list of Ripper suspects and most of the towns would have some type of Royal connection. I could come up with a longer list for Liverpool, given that the Merseyside port was one of the major points for transatlantic travel. My list would include of course Maybrick, Tumblety, as well as Deeming, James Kelly, and Gladstone, plus other supects, major and minor, who no doubt stayed in and/or traveled through Liverpool.

Chris

[Mike Covell]

Hi Chris I actually found a newspaper report from 1888 in the Hull Daily Mail, regarding one of the top members of Liverpool's clergy speaking out against the Whitecapel Murders.

I will scan and forward it onto you at some point.

Mike

[Chris G.]

Hi Chris I actually found a newspaper report from 1888 in the Hull Daily Mail, regarding one of the top members of Liverpool's clergy speaking out against the Whitecapel Murders.

I will scan and forward it onto you at some point.

Mike

I would appreciate that, Mike. Many thanks in advance. Actually when you think about it, that's the type of thing the real James Maybrick might be expected to know about, but the Diary is mute on the topic. :rolleyes:

Chris

[Mike Covell]

I also found a very short article stating

Whitechapel Police had arrested someone from the Tyne but had let him go as he has a has a cast iron alibi

I will forward both to you when hotmail is working again!!

[Mike Covell]

The Bishop Of Liverpool, Hull Daily Mail, Friday Oct 5th 1888.

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac287/HowieNina/liverpool.jpg

[Mike Covell]

The Tyne Suspect, Hull Daily Mail, Tuesday Oct 16th 1888.

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac287/HowieNina/tyne.jpg

[Shawn-a]

Shawna wrote: "In a nutshell, Mary Kelly knew Morgan Davies who knew John Williams, the Queen's doctor...." Who says Mary Kelly knew Dr. Morgan Davies?
I'm not the one who still believes Mary Kelly to be Welsh, at least having moved there. How you could say she's Welsh and didn't know a Welsh doctor catering to Welsh clients a couple of blocks from her lodging is beyond me.
Maybe you've changed your mind too. I wrote that a year ago. Now I agree with those who think Mary Kelly was from Liverpool.

John Williams was the doctor to the Queen's children and I see no reason to dismiss him as Mary Kelly's gentleman friend, even if she's NOT from Wales. We are trying to find this gentleman, aren't we?
I think we could define "knowing someone" in the broadest sense from the briefest to the Biblical.

[Chris G.]

I'm not the one who still believes Mary Kelly to be Welsh, at least having moved there. How you could say she's Welsh and didn't know a Welsh doctor catering to Welsh clients a couple of blocks from her lodging is beyond me.
Maybe you've changed your mind too. I wrote that a year ago. Now I agree with those who think Mary Kelly was from Liverpool.

John Williams was the doctor to the Queen's children and I see no reason to dismiss him as Mary Kelly's gentleman friend, even if she's NOT from Wales. We are trying to find this gentleman, aren't we?
I think we could define "knowing someone" in the broadest sense from the briefest to the Biblical.

Did I say Mary was Welsh? There have been so many candidates for Mary Kelly and I don't think any one of them has been definitively tied down as being "the" Mary Jane Kelly, have they? And as for the rest of your statement, "How you could say she's Welsh and didn't know a Welsh doctor catering to Welsh clients a couple of blocks from her lodging is beyond me", well, Whitechapel and Spitalfields were teeming with poor people, Jewish, Irish, Welsh, English, etc. I think it is entirely possible that a Welsh upper class doctor could have been working within a couple of blocks of a resident with Welsh ties without them having contact.

Chris

[Shawn-a]

Dear Chris,
The Wales/Liverpool debate in which I engage in my own time in my own "forums" has got me confused and going back and forth between you and Sam Flynn. Sam is the one who believes in a Mary possibility who was born in Liverpool, but moved to Wales.
I already stated I don't believe she knew Morgan Davies anymore, which I meant in a gentleman friend sense. He DID cater to the Welsh and was a "ladies man" according to at least one person. So you have to admit he's more likely not to have known her if she wasn't Welsh, which seems to be the case based on 120 years of research and what to me is the most credible witness statement by someone who should know as well as anyone--a missionary, who'd meet more people and travel more than the average Whitechapeler.

[Debbie McDonald]

Dear Franklin

Have just joined the forum and am still finding my way about. Noticed this comment from you some time ago relating to the Stephen and Druitt connection. I hope that since you have read my book 'The Prince, His Tutor and the Ripper' that you have found the answer to your question -at least as far as it can be proven.

If you have any more questions please ask and if I can I will answer them (regarding Stephen especially)

Deborah McDonald

[Franklin]

Dear Debby,

I'ts been a while since we last chatted with eachother. The same goes for the other die-hard jtrforum members. Reading all your replies, I suddenly see what I've been missing for the last year or so...

As for your book Debby, you probably already read the review that I wrote about it on my site. It's very well researched and certainly a great addition to my collection of top ripper books.

As for now, I'll leave it to this quick reply. Will get back to the forums within a week or so.

[How Brown]

Just a quick in and out to say "welcome back" to our good friend,Franklin...:kiss:

Glad to see you are back in action !