Earl of Crawford

[How Brown]

Okay....so he's not necessarily a suspect in the WM...

....but I thought it might be a good idea to add a thread about him for discussion.

Any and all information on the Earl would be appreciated.;)

Crawford wrote a letter to the press in December of 1888 mentioning black magic as a motive in the WM.

[How Brown]

Whoops....:o

The Earl was thought to have written a letter ( The One Who Thinks He Knows ) to the Pall Mall Gazette....but in fact it was Stephenson. . Sometimes I forget to check my original posts.:rolleyes:

Nevertheless....what about this character ? Stephen Ryder showed back in 2001 that Crawford wrote to Sir Robert Anderson and may have been a source for the MacNaughten Memoranda.....as well as a pal with known kooky occultists.

[Grey Hunter]

James Ludovic Lindsay, K.T., V.D., D.L., J.P., LL.D., F.R.S., V.P.S.A. (1847-1913), became, in 1880, on the death of his father, the twenty-sixth Earl of Crawford and the ninth Earl of Balcarres. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge and later joined the Grenadier Guards. He resigned his commission when he was elected M.P. for Wigan in 1874. He was President of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1878. He was a great collector and bibliophile as well as having a long-standing interest in matters occult.

In December 1868 he was one of the witnesses to the famous 'levitation' incident at Ashley Place involving the celebrated spiritualist medium D.D. Home. This alone ensured his fame in the occult world and he built a reputation as a savant. It, too, would mean that his name would be very familiar in the Theosophical circles of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, perhaps explaining why they thought he was the author of the December 1, 1888 piece in the Pall Mall Gazette.

[How Brown]

Dear Grey Hunter:

Doesn't this seem to be a pattern of sorts during the course of study of the people involved or peripheral to the WM ? Men and women who straddle the edges of both science and spiritualism and at times,outright silliness?

Crawford was heavily involved with science ( the astronomy position ) and a bibliophile as well as an enabler of such beliefs as "levitation" .... Lytton comes to mind here,being a member of Parliament,yet likewise a dabbler in the similar practices.

Thanks,as always,for your insight(s) to this thread,sor..;)

[Dave O]

Hi Howard,

I haven't read much on the subject, but I think that the combination of science and spiritualism was much more common than it is today. There's a new book out that I'm interested in getting, Ghost Hunters by Deborah Blum, which is about The Society for Physical Research around the turn of the century. The Society was made up of some pretty illustrious people I take it--you can read an article about the book, "Ghost World", at

http://www.salon.com/books/review/2006/08/28/blum/index.html

You can watch a brief commercial that gets you a free day pass for the entire site.

The author also made an appearance on the popular Coast to Coast AM radio show last month (I haven't listened to it yet). This is the same show that Trevor Marriott was on awhile back and I don't know why more people aren't making appearances on it, particularly when they've got a book coming out.

Cheers,
Dave

[How Brown]

Thanks Big D !:thumbsupbud:

That Society for Psychical Research also had a member who committed suicide back in June of 1888 in Brighton.

His name was Edmund Gurney. His picture is shown in the PHOTOGRAPH section in case you wanted to know...Under the "Photograph " thread....

Jeff Bloomfield wrote a piece which appeared in Ivor Edwards' JTR/BMR which covered the events leading up to the discovery of Gurney's body in Brighton.

Yes,it certainly seems that those of a scientific bent ( Check out the documentary on Sir Isaac Newton one day if possible. He was a dabbler in the occult as well experimenting with alchemy ) were interested. Conan Doyle was a believer in fairies and spirits too.

[Dave O]

Hi Howard,

I remember reading something about Edward Gurney's suicide on Casebook I think. I will hunt it up as I forgot he was a member of the SPR. From what I understand, there was a fair amount of debunking going on in the SPR.

Yep, we laugh at Conan Doyle's being taken in by paper fairies today, but I don't think we really take the attitudes of the time into account and the novelty of science and photography.

Dave

[Night Stalker]

Reading both threads on Tabram and Crawford, something jumps out and punches me on the nose !

Both threads have one thing in common......Grenadier Guards!!!!

In the Tabram case, 2 Grenadiers. In Crawfords case, he was a Grenadier Guards officer.

I know there's a significant time gap, but once Crawford left the Regiment, he always had - " the old boy network".

The other train of thought I have is the - Masons. Sir Charles Warren, Dr Gull and I bet you a pound to a penny, Crawford was too.
I know from my own army career, there are many Masons and Buffs in the British Army with their own lodges.

Mere coincidence or have I had one too many JD and cokes.

I know this is an open forum, so please dont slap me too hard if Ive got fact and fiction entwined.

If anything, the most I can do is raise a few eyebrows.:confused:

Night Stalker

[Magpie]

In the Tabram case, 2 Grenadiers. In Crawfords case, he was a Grenadier Guards officer.

I know there's a significant time gap, but once Crawford left the Regiment, he always had - " the old boy network".



interesting coincidence. However the "old boy network" would like not extend to the lower ranks. In the Victorian era, the gulf between soldier and officer was huge.

[Night Stalker]

Hey Magpie,

To this day there still is a huge divide, the "us and them" syndrome.

But through acts of valour or the casual, - "you scratch my back I'll scratch yours" system, you would be surprised by what you can aspire to. Even a lowly Corporal as I was..... get my drift ?:smoker:

Happy hunting,

NS

[How Brown]

Thanks very much for the brief but succint bio on the Earl, Grey Hunter:thumbsupbud:

NS:

You'll notice that the Earl left the Grenadiers in 1874. Its merely a coincidence in the long run this "link" between the gents seen with Pearly Poll/Tabram and the Earl. Magpie is correct as well.

It doesn't hurt to try to raise a few eyebrows either:thumbsupbud:

[Magpie]

Actually I've never heard it suggested that the soldiers seen with Tabram were Grenadiers. I was of the impression that the were identified first as Coldstream Guards, then possibly as Scots Guards. Can someone point me to the Grenadier Guards connection?

[Night Stalker]

Hey Lads,

How -
Ive come round to your way of thinking. You are quite right, 14 years is far too long and Im making a bit too much of this coincidence. Thanks for the pointer bud.

Magpie -
I think theres always been confusion, over which Guards Regiment it was.
Im sure Ive read that, a police officer saw a Grenadier Guardsman standing outside the george yard buildings. At the time of Martha Tabrams murder.
But, I could be wrong mate.

[How Brown]

Night Stalker:

One thing to keep in mind about the site is this:

No one cares if you make a mistake or changed your mind..

If that was the case,I'd have been booted a long time ago.

In fact,you may favor Maybrick today....have an epiphany....and favor Hyam Hyams.

No one cares. No one gets irritated. No one is the worse for wear.

:thumbsupbud:

[Magpie]

I think theres always been confusion, over which Guards Regiment it was.
Im sure Ive read that, a police officer saw a Grenadier Guardsman standing outside the george yard buildings. At the time of Martha Tabrams murder.
But, I could be wrong mate.

Seems plausible:) I was basing my comment on the parades that were held for Pearly Poll to try and identify her companion. However you are right, there's nothing to say that it couldn't have been a Grenadier.

[Grey Hunter]

From a summary report dated September 1888, by Chief Inspector Donald S. Swanson, ref- MEPO 3/140 ff. 36-42 -

2am. 7th Augt. Police Constable 226H. Barrett saw a soldier - a grenadier age 22 to 26. height 5 ft 9 or 10. compl. fair, hair dark small dark brown moustache turned up at ends. with one good conduct badge. no medals. in Wentworth Street; and in reply to the PC he stated he was waiting for a chum, who had gone with a girl.

11am 8th Augt. 1888 The Grenadier Guards who were on leave or absent on night of 6th were paraded and P.C.226H saw them, when he picked out one with medals, and then another both of whom were taken to the orderly room where the P.C. admitted his mistake in identity in the first, and his name was not taken. The second man, John Leary gave an account of himself on that night, which private Law, to whom he referred, and who was brought into the orderly room corroborated without communicating with Leary, thus clearing Leary.

[Night Stalker]

How, Magpie, Grey Hunter -

Thanks for the lively debate, no offence taken.

I always like to raise eyebrows in a light hearted way.;)

Wait til you hear some of my outrageous theories.....The alien landed his space craft in Mitre Square ! - only joking.

[SirRobertAnderson]

:bump2:

There's a book about Gurney, called The Mind of Edmund Gurney by Gordon Epperson. Picked up a copy online - my apologies for whoever first called to this my attention, because I dont' remember .

Interesting critters running around Victorian England to say the least. I'll post more after I read it. But at the outset the author maintains Gurney didn't kill himself, but accidently overdosed on the chloroform he was fond of sniffing.

Medicinal purposes, mind you.

Thanks Big D !:thumbsupbud:

That Society for Psychical Research also had a member who committed suicide back in June of 1888 in Brighton.

His name was Edmund Gurney. His picture is shown in the PHOTOGRAPH section in case you wanted to know...Under the "Photograph " thread....

Jeff Bloomfield wrote a piece which appeared in Ivor Edwards' JTR/BMR which covered the events leading up to the discovery of Gurney's body in Brighton.

Yes,it certainly seems that those of a scientific bent ( Check out the documentary on Sir Isaac Newton one day if possible. He was a dabbler in the occult as well experimenting with alchemy ) were interested. Conan Doyle was a believer in fairies and spirits too.

[aspallek]

James Ludovic Lindsay, K.T., V.D., D.L., J.P., LL.D., F.R.S., V.P.S.A. (1847-1913), became, in 1880, on the death of his father, the twenty-sixth Earl of Crawford and the ninth Earl of Balcarres. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge and later joined the Grenadier Guards. He resigned his commission when he was elected M.P. for Wigan in 1874. He was President of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1878. He was a great collector and bibliophile as well as having a long-standing interest in matters occult.

Some interesting information here. Thanks GH. The Eton-Trinity (Cambridge) background is, no doubt, a common one among British upper crust but it is interesting that John Henry Lonsdale shared this educational track -- though he would have been 10 years or so after Crawford. Yet, one wonders whether there might have been an acquaintance. I have postulated Lonsdale as a possible source of Macnaghten's "private information" but, of course, Crawford's letter refers to the informant as "she." Mrs. Katherine Lonsdale, perhaps? But this is wild conjecture.

I don't find other references to Crawford's being a bibliophile, though he had renowned philatelic interests. His brother, the 25th Earl of Crawford is described as a bibliophile, so I wonder if there has been confusion between the two. Crawford's philatelic library is now apparently in the hands of the British Library. One wonders whether there is private correspondence also in these documents. Crawford's astronomical library was given to the Royal Observatory Edinburgh in 1888, a bit too early to be of interest to us.

The 26th Earl of Crawford:

[Chris Phillips]

I don't find other references to Crawford's being a bibliophile, though he had renowned philatelic interests. His brother, the 25th Earl of Crawford is described as a bibliophile, so I wonder if there has been confusion between the two. Crawford's philatelic library is now apparently in the hands of the British Library. One wonders whether there is private correspondence also in these documents.

The 25th earl (d. 1880) was his father, not his brother, and both were great bibliophiles. Nicolas Barker wrote a biography of the father and son, with an emphasis on their book-collecting activities, entitled Bibliotheca Lindesiana. The Lives and Collections of Alexander William, 25th Earl of Crawford and 8th Earl of Balcarres, and James Ludovic, 26th Earl of Crawford and 9th Earl of Balcarres (1978).

The family papers are now at the National Library of Scotland. Barker said that the father preserved his correspondence obsessively, but that the son was less systematic. However, I should think there's still a lot of his correspondence among those papers. If there were a Ripperologist at a loose end in Edinburgh, it might make an interesting research project.

For what it's worth, I still think the suspect mentioned in the Crawford letter sounds more like Kozminski (or a similar suspect) than Druitt.

Chris Phillips

[aspallek]

Hi Chris,

Thank you. I stand corrected. My source did say that the 25th Earl was his father. I misread it at first. I also have now seen the 26th Earl of Crawford described as a "philatelic bibliophile." I should think it would be very worthwhile to meander through his papers but I have no plans to be in Edinburgh.

I don't think the Crawford letter sounds like any suspect in particular. It is of particular interest to me in that Macnaghten mentions "private information" regarding Druitt and the Crawford letter suggests "private information," albeit addressed to Anderson rather than Macnaghten.

[R.J.Palmer]

Chris - Just dropped in, and noticed this thread. I've also long suspected that the Crawford letter is more likely to refer to Kosminski than Druitt, but of course it could relate to someone else entirely. I suppose the D'Onstonites might want a piece of the action. But the 'private information' relating to Druitt seems to have gone directly to Macnaghten, so I don't think Crawford is the source.

I know you are not keen on the proposed Martin Kosminski link, but it might be noted that the West End Kosminskis (and Martin in particular) appear to have lived very near to Crawford in West London. Looks like about 175 yards. If I recall, Kosminski's daughter was a singer of some repute in social circles.

At any rate, since the letter is undated, it would be interesting to know if Crawford's time in London could be ironed-out, so we would have a better idea of when this letter may have been written.

[aspallek]

This is by no means a criticism of anyone, but what makes you think the Crawford letter points to any suspect in particular? I don't see the content pointing to anyone at all. The only clue is that is appears to be "private information" and we know that there was "private information" regarding Druitt. Of course, this is practically no help as there was probably "private information" regarding numerous suspects.

[Chris Phillips]

This is by no means a criticism of anyone, but what makes you think the Crawford letter points to any suspect in particular?

As far as I'm concerned, it's mainly the reference to the informant's family being placed "in peril" should suspicions attach to her. That seems to point to a family living in the East End.

There is also Stephen Ryder's comment:
As this is the only letter within his entire surviving correspondence having anything to do whatsoever with the Whitechapel murders, one might assume that this item held particular significance for Mr. Anderson.
http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-emily.html (http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-emily.htmlIt)

It (http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-emily.htmlIt) could perhaps be argued that as Anderson (at least later in life) became convinced that his Polish Jewish suspect was the culprit, it's more likely to refer to that suspect than to anyone else. But on the other hand, it could just be a chance survival.

Chris Phillips

[Robert Linford]

It's an odd letter. I know that people don't always write what they mean, but the word "suspicions" suggests something in the way of an accomplice or accessory - did Crawford instead mean to speak of "scandal" attaching to the woman?

She seems concerned for herself and her family, but no mention is made of any concern for her relative, or for the women he will go on to kill if he isn't stopped. It's very strange.

Robert

[aspallek]

She seems concerned for herself and her family, but no mention is made of any concern for her relative, or for the women he will go on to kill if he isn't stopped. It's very strange.

Possibly because her relative, the killer, is dead! :shocked:

As to the informant's fears, I suppose it could point to the East End. However, I would think that anyone in England would have reason to fear some sort of abuse directed toward her family under such circumstances.

[Robert Linford]

Hi Andy

Well, it's true that the present tense used in the letter may not have been meant as a genuine present tense. Looking purely at Monty, I would have thought that alerting the police after Druitt had been quietly buried, and the inquest safely negotiated, would have been the one way to positively invite bad publicity. On the other hand, though, perhaps this was an example of a Druittist depression at work - maybe similar worries to the ones that afflicted Druitt in his last days?

Robert

[Chris G.]

Hi All

Since I don't think it has been quoted in this thread, here is the text of the Crawford letter, undated, and sent to Sir Robert Anderson, as quoted in Stephen Ryder's dissertation, "Emily and the Bibliophile: A Possible Source for Macnaghten's Private Information" (http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-emily.html):

2 CAVENDISH SQUARE
W.

My dear Anderson,

I send you this line to ask you to see & hear the bearer, whose name is unknown to me. She has or thinks she has a knowledge of the author of the Whitechapel murders. The author is supposed to be nearly related to her, & she is in great fear lest any suspicions should attach to her & place her & her family in peril.

I have advised her to place the whole story before you, without giving you any names, so that you may form an opinion as to its being worth while to investigate.

Very sincerely yours,
Crawford

I would infer from the wording of the letter that the suspect was still alive when Crawford wrote the letter, and that the fear had to do with either harm the suspect might cause the family or himself.

But it is very curious that the letter states that the supposed murderer "is supposed to be nearly related to her" -- was he related to her or not? Or does this wording imply some distant relationship, a cousin many times removed or an in-law, perhaps, rather a close blood relative?

The other thing is that the way the letter is phrased appears to imply that the female who contacted Crawford is not a poor person and that they may be from a family with some standing in society -- which would fit the Druitts.

Or else is it just Crawford's phrasing that makes it appear that way, and the person bringing the information could be any class? However, think about it. Would a person of the Kosminskis' station in life be able to contact a peer of the realm? A poor Polish Jew?

Of course we cannot know if the suspect who is referred to is Druitt or if it is Kosminski or some other suspect, or indeed if the informant's fears were just playing up and the suspected person was absolutely innocent.

The other thing to note is that because the letter is undated and the Whitechapel murders continued into 1889 onward as reported by the press and investigated by the police, the letter may not even be from 1888 and may in fact be from some time later, so it might not in that case be in reference to either Montague Druitt or Aaron Kosminski.

Chris

[Chris Phillips]

But it is very curious that the letter states that the supposed murderer "is supposed to be nearly related to her" -- was he related to her or not?

I think it's just saying that the murderer is supposed to be nearly related to her, not that the supposed murderer is supposed to be related to her. There's only one "supposed".

The other thing is that the way the letter is phrased appears to imply that the female who contacted Crawford is not a poor person and that they may be from a family with some standing in society -- which would fit the Druitts.

Or else is it just Crawford's phrasing that makes it appear that way, and the person bringing the information could be any class? However, think about it. Would a person of the Kosminskis' station in life be able to contact a peer of the realm? A poor Polish Jew?

I don't see anything in the letter that implies the female is not poor. But in any case, if - for the sake of argument - it was Aaron's sister-in-law Bertha Abrahams, she wasn't poor. Rob House's recent discovery in the Booth notebooks shows Isaac Abrahams had an income of up to £3,000 a week in today's money.

Why she would have contacted the Earl of Crawford is a good question, though - whoever she was.

Chris Phillips

[R.J.Palmer]

I doubt that we will ever know who Crawford's suspect is, but I agree with Chris George that it sounds like the man is still living, which rules out Druitt. Macnaghten also seemed to make a specific point of writing that the 'private information' about MJD had been received by him, so that's another mark against it.

Personally, I don't see someone from the East End slogging all the way to Marylebone to contact Crawford. More likely, this was someone in the immediate neighborhood who contacting him out of desperation, knowing he was a prominent man, and could pull strings.

I realize that my suggestion has been as popular as intestinal air in church, but I do still note that Jessie Kosminski, age 16, daughter of Martin Kosminski, prominent furrier, lived at 48 Berners Street, Marylebone District 3 which is in the Municipal Ward of Cavendish Square, which is where Crawford lived. This was in 1891, at the time of the Kosminski investigation. I earlier said she lived about 175 yards away from 2 Cavendish Square, but it looks closer to 1/4 mile. Either way, just a walk up the street. Of course, most write-off Martin Kosminski as a name coincidence, and this could well be true; on the otherhand, the social divide between the East End and West End Kosminskis could readily explain the tone of the Letter, and the young woman fearing that her family would be connected to someone “supposed to be nearly related to her.”

Jessie K. was a young woman who was probably trying to make it in the London social scene; as previously noted, she was a trained singer who would go on to perform at fairly prominent social events in the 1890s. The plot thickens...maybe.

[aspallek]

I don't think it's a matter of whether or not is it genuine present so much as it is whether one can claim relation to a dead man. If Henry Ford were my great-great grandfather (which he is not), I might rightly say "I am related to Henry Ford."

As to the "supposed" qualification, I take that to mean this is a supposition made by Crawford, i.e. that she made some remark to lead Crawford to believe that he was a relative. The question remains whether "nearly" means that he was a close relative or whether he means "nearly" in the sense of "almost" as if they may have been childhood friends, so close that they were practically family.

[Robert Linford]

Hi RJ

Well, if it was Jessica then 1902 might be a good bet for the letter. She seems to have got married that year, and it might explain the worry over "suspicions" - I believe that some Jewish marriages are subject to a kind of eugenics test - illness running in the family, that sort of thing.

Robert

[Caroline Morris]

The language to me suggests that what is meant, in today's parlance, would be: 'the murderer is thought [supposed] to be someone who is closely [nearly] related to her'. In short, she thinks a close relative is the murderer.

She and her family would have been in deadly peril if true, and if the murderer had suspicions that she was on to him and busily confiding her fears in others.

That is how I read it.

Love,

Caz
X

[Chris Phillips]

The language to me suggests that what is meant, in today's parlance, would be: 'the murderer is thought [supposed] to be someone who is closely [nearly] related to her'. In short, she thinks a close relative is the murderer.

She and her family would have been in deadly peril if true, and if the murderer had suspicions that she was on to him and busily confiding her fears in others.

Yes, I think that's exactly right.

On RJ's suggestion, it's an interesting one and I'd be only too happy if it turned out to be correct. The problem, as I see it, is that we now know enough about the genealogy to rule out any particularly close relationship between Martin Kozminski and Aaron. They could be cousins at best. And I still feel that the informant's sense of "peril" is pointing towards the East End of London, and probably to the Autumn when the Ripper scare was at its height.

Chris Phillips

[aspallek]

The language to me suggests that what is meant, in today's parlance, would be: 'the murderer is thought [supposed] to be someone who is closely [nearly] related to her'. In short, she thinks a close relative is the murderer.

She and her family would have been in deadly peril if true, and if the murderer had suspicions that she was on to him and busily confiding her fears in others.

That makes good sense, Caz. Still doesn't identify the suspect or the informant.

I suppose one argument against the suspect being Druitt is that a learned man like Crawford would probably have recognized the Druitt name, yet he says he doesn't recognize the informant's name. Of course, the informant may have been a cousin with a different surname. On the other hand, if it were Jessie Kosminski and if she was a fairly prominent singer, it is strange that Crawford doesn't recognize her name.

There's just too many holes even to come up with an educated guess. One area to investigate further is Emily Druitt. Stephen Ryder now believes she was a relative of Jabez Druitt and not directly Montague but it now appears that Jabez was a relative of the Christchurch Druitts.

[Spiro]

The undated letter from the Earl of Crawford sent to Anderson is certainly an enigma and I would like to add some further details that may be of interest to this absorbing thread. I cannot explain its contents, as the details are vague in determining to what and whom it is referring, so I approached the problem from another direction.

The letter was of interest to me in research for an article published in Ripperologist No. 58 March 2005 that included a mention of the Earl of Crawford and his known associates. If the woman who had concerns about someone who “is supposed to be nearly related to her” being the Whitechapel murder could not be identified from the details in the letter alone, then perhaps it would be worth exploring Crawford’s associates for indications. My alternative reading of the phrase was that the woman had knowledge from an association rather than family ties as her fears were for herself and them. It does not mean I am right about that only that it was worth exploring in the attempt to clarify the details that I was not able to do.

Stephen Ryder’s article, Emily and the Bibliophile: A Possible Source for Macnaghten’s Private Information, that discusses his discovery and explores the possibility that the letter perhaps was in reference to Druitt was naturally the first call. In the course of research, I asked for and received an update on Stephen’s position on his article as Andy has mentioned. The complete reply was informative and published as a note to my Ripperologist article and for anyone interested, I will reprint it here:

Ryder subsequently discovered that William Muir’s in-laws were Sophia and Jabez Druitt, who belonged to a different line of Druitts entirely. They had a daughter or granddaughter named Emily, who was an art student. The logical assumption is that it was that Emily Druitt who collaborated on the Blake facsimiles with Muir and Quaritch, and not Montague’s cousin. Jabez Druitt lived in Mile End Road at the time of the Ripper murders and was apparently related to Montague’s family.

[aspallek]

And just to continue on, the existence of correspondence between Jabez Druitt and the Christchurch Druitts (relatives of Montague) has been discovered, though the contents of such correspondence is as of yet unknown.

[R.J.Palmer]

Andy - Just a little clarification. Please note that I didn't say that Jessie Kozminski was a promiment singer; I said she went on to sing at a number of "fairly prominent social events in the 1890s." She may well have been virtually unknown. Regardless, in 1891 she was 16 years old, and there is no reason to believe that Crawford would have been aware of her.

That said, I certainly don't have any emotional stake in the theory, and accept Chris Phillip's point that any link between the East and West London Kosminskis is speculative at best. I still believe the answer lies in Crawford himself; it must have been someone in his neighborhood, or someone who knew of him through a servant, etc. No reason to contact him otherwise. Cheers.

PS. I like Robert's suggestion of a marriage. It's subtle and dramatic. The Jewish matchmaker. Lazy afternoons shopping for elegant silks in Mayfair, all the while her hands trembling with fear that the bridegroom is going to find out the dark family secret sitting in a cell in Colney Hatch, his mind done-in by solitary vices.

[aspallek]

Andy - Just a little clarification. Please note that I didn't say that Jessie Kozminski was a promiment singer; I said she went on to sing at a number of "fairly prominent social events in the 1890s." She may well have been virtually unknown. Regardless, in 1891 she was 16 years old, and there is no reason to believe that Crawford would have been aware of her.

Fair enough, R.J. I took some liberties with what you wrote.

[R.J.Palmer]

Andy - Not a problem.

I still feel that the informant's sense of "peril" is pointing towards the East End of London, and probably to the Autumn when the Ripper scare was at its height.

I can accept that; it would seem to be the case. I don't think you are specifically referring to a Jewish informant, but if so, is there any unintentional irony in this letter, especially considering Sir Robert's later comments on the case? In my mind's eye, I imagine a poor Jewish woman coming to Crawford for advise, fearing a pogrom breaking out in the East End and ruining her family, and Crawford sicking Dr Robert onto her!

I suppose it cuts both ways. In a sense she is 'protecting her own,'; in another sense, she seems willing to secretly point the finger of blame at a near relative. It doesn't quite 'work' in relationship to Anderson's later thoughts; nor perhaps for Macnaghten's. But even if the letter turned out to be irrelevant hookum, it may have helped validate both men's thoughts that a family (or social group) would be hesitant to turn their relative over to justice out of fear of notoriety and reprisal.

[Caroline Morris]

Good points, RJ.

If only we knew what 'Katy' did next...

Did she perhaps refuse to confide in Anderson out of fear?

If he had any confidence in Crawford's instincts, that this woman did indeed have a story worth telling, and if he also discovered she was Jewish, it might well have contributed to his confident conclusion about the Jews protecting their own when push came to shove.

Love,

Caz
X

[Chris G.]

Good points, RJ.

If only we knew what 'Katy' did next...

Did she perhaps refuse to confide in Anderson out of fear?

If he had any confidence in Crawford's instincts, that this woman did indeed have a story worth telling, and if he also discovered she was Jewish, it might well have contributed to his confident conclusion about the Jews protecting their own when push came to shove.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz

I should think that the suspicion against the suspect, if a Jewish suspect, was developed independently of the family. It would not have been "one of his own" who turned the focus of the investigation on the man.

Chris

[Chris Phillips]

I should think that the suspicion against the suspect, if a Jewish suspect, was developed independently of the family. It would not have been "one of his own" who turned the focus of the investigation on the man.

You mean you think Anderson was right when he said the Jewish community would refuse to "give up one of their number to Gentile justice"? Wasn't that a rather controversial view even back in 1910?

Chris Phillips

[Caroline Morris]

Well the point is, Chris (George), that Anderson either got to 'see & hear' this woman and to assess her story or he didn't.

If he didn't, was it because he didn't consider this to be a potentially important lead, or was it because the woman didn't take Crawford's advice and refused to talk to anyone in the police?

Love,

Caz
X

[Chris G.]

You mean you think Anderson was right when he said the Jewish community would refuse to "give up one of their number to Gentile justice"? Wasn't that a rather controversial view even back in 1910?

Chris Phillips

Yes it would have been a controversial view then as it would be now. I am just trying to reconcile the Crawford letter with Anderson's theory to see if it is the same suspect. To me, it doesn't make sense that one of his people would give him up to the police and then those same people refuse to go further if he really was a dangerous man.

Chris

[Chris Phillips]

To me, it doesn't make sense that one of his people would give him up to the police and then those same people refuse to go further if he really was a dangerous man.

I don't quite follow that. What evidence is there that the family of Anderson's suspect refused to cooperate with the police?

Chris Phillips

[Caroline Morris]

I wanted to add that if the woman failed to take Crawford's advice for any reason, Anderson could have seen her non-appearance as suspicious and taken the lead further himself simply by obtaining her name from Crawford.

Alternatively, she could have come forward and taken the advice to the letter, by steadfastly refusing to name any names - with the same consequences.

Love,

Caz
X

[Chris Phillips]

Well the point is, Chris (George), that Anderson either got to 'see & hear' this woman and to assess her story or he didn't.

If he didn't, was it because he didn't consider this to be a potentially important lead, or was it because the woman didn't take Crawford's advice and refused to talk to anyone in the police?

As it was a letter of introduction, to be presented by the woman herself, doesn't the fact that it ended up in Anderson's possession imply that she did see him?

Chris Phillips

[Caroline Morris]

It certainly does, Chris.

But she could have got cold feet at any point after handing the letter over, or refused to name any names, as per the advice she was given. Anderson could hardly accuse the Jews of being the sort to harbour murderers, if she was Jewish and had spilled all the beans about this close relative whom she suspected in his very presence!

Love,

Caz
X

[Chris Phillips]

Anderson could hardly accuse the Jews of being the sort to harbour murderers, if she was Jewish and had spilled all the beans about this close relative whom she suspected in his very presence!

That's a fair argument to some extent, but I think it's important to look at the context of Anderson's statement.

He is claiming that at an early stage he and his colleagues decided that the killer was a "low-class Polish Jew" - the reason being that the house-to-house search had eliminated men who lived alone, so that the killer had to be someone who didn't live alone, but was being shielded by "his people". And only the "low-class Polish Jews" would do such a thing.

Of course, that argument has more holes in it than a colander, but unless Anderson made up the whole thing, it describes his reasoning before he knew anything about the particular suspect he's talking about.

If it later turned out that his favoured suspect's family did cooperate with the police, that would admittedly render his argument more inconsistent than it otherwise would have been. But that's hardly decisive, because the argument is inconsistent in so many other respects.

Even if one wants to give credence to Anderson's claim that "our diagnosis was right on every point", there's the possibility that he found vindication for his criticism of the Jewish community in his belief that the suspect was protected by a Jewish witness. In that sense, there would be no need to bring the suspect's family into it at all.

Chris Phillips

[Chris G.]

To me, it doesn't make sense that one of his people would give him up to the police and then those same people refuse to go further if he really was a dangerous man.

Chris

I don't quite follow that. What evidence is there that the family of Anderson's suspect refused to cooperate with the police?

Chris Phillips


No evidence whatsoever, Chris. Except that is what Anderson said happened, or at least we can infer that it was the suspect's family when Sir Robert wrote, "his people knew of his guilt, and refused to give him up to justice." (The Lighter Side of My Official Life, Chapter IX (http://www.casebook.org/ripper_media/rps.lighterside.10.html))

Chris

[aspallek]

There is another possibility. If the woman hand delivered the letter of introduction, as seems likely, Anderson might have immediately referred her to his assistant, one Melville Macnaghten (depending on the date, of course) and it may have been Macnaghten who heard her "private information."

[Chris Phillips]

No evidence whatsoever, Chris. Except that is what Anderson said happened, or at least we can infer that it was the suspect's family when Sir Robert wrote, "his people knew of his guilt, and refused to give him up to justice." (The Lighter Side of My Official Life, Chapter IX (http://www.casebook.org/ripper_media/rps.lighterside.10.html))

You've just illustrated exactly the point I was making above - that it's very misleading to take that quotation out of context.

The context is a description of Anderson's reasoning before he knew anything about a specific Polish Jewish suspect. It is all general reasoning, unrelated to any particular family:
One did not need to be a Sherlock Holmes to discover that the criminal was a sexual maniac of a virulent type; that he was living in the immediate vicinity of the scenes of the murders; and that, if he was not living absolutely alone, his people knew of his guilt, and refused to give him up to justice.

To say that all this must apply to the suspect, because if it didn't Anderson's claims would be inconsistent, is a big leap of faith. Indeed, our knowledge of Aaron Kozminski's circumstances suggests that much of what Anderson said didn't accurately describe him. We know that there is no indication in Aaron Kozminski's medical records that he was any kind of "sexual maniac". He probably didn't live within the area of the house-to-house search. And his family were not "low-class Polish Jews", but respectable tradesmen and entrepreneurs.

Chris Phillips

[Chris G.]

Hi Chris

Anderson wrote, "In saying that he was a Polish Jew I am merely stating a definitely ascertained fact." Swanson's notes to the same text would appear to indicate that a specific suspect was meant, and that suspect was Kosminski. Yes you can say that the statements that Anderson made do not specifically describe Kosminski's circumstances, but most of the writings by the policemen do not exactly fit the facts either. Square pegs in round holes -- leaving us Ripperologists to try to interpret what they said and what the real circumstances were.

Chris

[Robert Linford]

Chris (P), wouldn't someone like Anderson have considered family tradition, rather than recent attainment, the touchstone of class? The Kosminskis would have seemed low class in origin to him - even the Druitts were only "fairly good family" to Macnaghten.

Robert

[Chris Phillips]

Chris (P), wouldn't someone like Anderson have considered family tradition, rather than recent attainment, the touchstone of class? The Kosminskis would have seemed low class in origin to him - even the Druitts were only "fairly good family" to Macnaghten.

I think there may well have been an element of this in Anderson's statements - he may have been distinguishing the recent Jewish immigrants in the East End from the established Anglo-Jewish community, among which - he was quick to protest - he had personal friends.

What is difficult for me to believe is that Anderson considered the Jewish immigrant community as a whole to be one in which families would be likely to shield a serial murderer, and in doing so allow him to continue killing. Particularly remembering that that community was on the whole significantly more law-abiding than the Gentile population of Whitechapel. The claim might sound a bit less unreasonable if it referred to some kind of criminal under-class within the immigrant community.

Either way, it seems to me that it must have been the result of racial prejudice, despite Anderson's protestations.

Chris Phillips

[Chris Phillips]

Anderson wrote, "In saying that he was a Polish Jew I am merely stating a definitely ascertained fact." Swanson's notes to the same text would appear to indicate that a specific suspect was meant, and that suspect was Kosminski. Yes you can say that the statements that Anderson made do not specifically describe Kosminski's circumstances, but most of the writings by the policemen do not exactly fit the facts either. Square pegs in round holes -- leaving us Ripperologists to try to interpret what they said and what the real circumstances were.

I wasn't arguing against the proposition that Anderson's suspect was Aaron Kozminski. On the contrary, I think the suspect clearly was Kozminski.

I was just pointing out that Anderson's story contains inconsistencies, and that it's dangerous to draw inferences from it without taking those inconsistencies into account.

But perhaps the discussion is wandering too far from the Earl of Crawford's letter.

Chris Phillips

[Spiro]

And just to continue on, the existence of correspondence between Jabez Druitt and the Christchurch Druitts (relatives of Montague) has been discovered, though the contents of such correspondence is as of yet unknown.

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the additional details, good work. It is also great to know that this has been followed up on what appears to be an East End connection for another line of Druitts in Jabez. It is I agree an alternative explanation for the vague details in the Earl of Crawford's letter to Anderson.

Spiro

[SPE]

This thread seems to have ended without deciding anything definite on the letter, understandably I guess.

Mention of the Crawford letter in a recent post led me to look at it again. It seems to be a pretty important document as it introduces a female (identity unknown) who states that she "has or thinks she has a knowledge of the author of the Whitechapel murders. The author is supposed to be nearly related to her, & she is in great fear lest any suspicions should attach to her & place her & her family in peril."

The letter is an introduction to Anderson at Scotland Yard although Crawford states that her "name is unknown to me." The woman obviously saw Anderson and related her story as Crawford's letter of introduction remained in his possession. Frustratingly the letter is undated.

You would have thought that research may have thrown some light on this matter, but no. The letter must have been written in the period 1888-1891, when the 'scare' was current, and I would favour a date of 1891 myself.

the Earl of Crawford was a fairly close acquaintance of Anderson and it would appear that some intermediary who knew both the woman and Crawford engineered the letter of introduction for her. Stephen Ryder discovered this important letter about ten years ago and it still remains a mystery. I was tempted to speculate that the woman was a member of the Druitt family.

[Nemo]

Wouldn't "nearly related" imply some connection via marriage rather than blood

Perhaps a fiance or husband of a sister or similar

She's worried that suspicion will fall on her and thence her family, so it sounds like she was closely associated with this man, perhaps housing him

[Chris G.]

Hello Stewart and Nemo

Yes the "to be nearly related" remark means at least that the woman was not a close relative. East End resident Jabez Druitt's family might qualify as "nearly related" to the Wimborne and Christchurch Druitts. Jabez Druitt, a Monumental Mason by profession, was a descendant of Thomas Druitt. He lived in Mile End Road, as discussed in an old Casebook thread (http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=506&page=2).

Chris

[SPE]

Hello Stewart and Nemo
Yes the "to be nearly related" remark means at least that the woman was not a close relative. East End resident Jabez Druitt's family might qualify as "nearly related" to the Wimborne and Christchurch Druitts. Jabez Druitt, a Monumental Mason by profession, was a descendant of Thomas Druitt. He lived in Mile End Road, as discussed in an old Casebook thread (http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=506&page=2).
Chris

Unfortunately the word 'nearly' could mean either, i.e. closely related or almost related, and we don't know which it is. I'd always assumed it was the former.

[Rob House]

I had also always interpreted this to mean that the woman was "closely related" to the suspect.

Rob H

[Nemo]

"The author is supposed to be nearly related to her, & she is in great fear lest any suspicions should attach to her & place her & her family in peril"

I can see how that interpretation fits with the text, but there is also the possibility that the author was not a member of her blood family and she did not want suspicion to fall on her, and subsequent harm to befall her family, in my mind, from the public reaction

If the author was a member of her immediate family then her family would be in danger by the association anyway

It reads to me as if the woman is telling of someone close to her family but not within it, and she doesn't want any association between the author of the Ripper crimes and her family

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

I don't think its a Druitt because Montie would have been safely dead by the time a marginal relative had learned or stumbled upon the terrible secret.

Plus, they would not an intermediary to see Anderson. A member of the middle or upper classes would have just walked straight through his office door. Much more likely to be a lower class family in the East End anxious to use a Nob go-between to the ruling elite.

The letter was found amongst Anderson's papers. He favoured the Polish Jew suspect, not the English Gentile Gentleman -- in fact makes no known reference to Druitt at all even to dismiss him?

Therefore, it is more likely to be about Aaron Kosminski, still 'on the prowl' as late as Feb 1891.

Also, the woman's fear about the family name being ruined matches Anderson's later bitterness about a clan, or a 'people', not informing authorities in better time of their dark suspicions.

That it was only a single family, not all Polish Jews of the East End resisting 'Gentile justice', matches Macnaghten in the Aberconway version and his careful allusion that the Kosminski family 'suspecting the worst' which, generically at least, matches the Crawford Letter.

[Chris G.]

Hi Jonathan

Of course we are dealing with pure speculation here since we don't know the exact circumstances of the suspect nor of the family mentioned in the Crawford letter. Nor do we know when the letter was written, as Stewart pointed out. Suppose, though, that the letter could, possibly, have been written during the height of the murders, and have been about Druitt. The letter seems to indicate that the suspect was a "live" threat to the family in question.

Now, we know, as you say, that Anderson favored Kosminski and not Druitt. Does that mean, however, that he might not have known about Druitt and received a communication that mentioned a suspicion about Druitt? Must Anderson be, as it were, "Kosminski pure" as Macnaghten, equally hypothetically, was "Druitt pure"? I don't think that such a situation necessarily follows.

One other thing, from the Crawford letter, phrased as it is, right or wrong, I get the sense of a genteel family or at least an "acceptable" family and no sense that the woman in question could have been of Jewish background or other ethnic background. Given the bigotry of the day, I have an idea that if the lady in question had not been of English Christian background, there might have been something in the note that might have betrayed the woman and her family was not "one of us".

All the best

Chris

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

Thanks Chris G.

In my opinion Druitt had nothing whatsoever to do with the Ripper investigation until the MP stumbled upon the family's secret in West Dorset -- in Feb 1891.

The Crawford Letter might be from a Druitt but if so it would fly in the face of the MP story, ALL the primary police and press sources from 1888 to 1891, and in the face of Macnaghten's memoirs; the only Ripper document with his name on it for the general public.

I don't buy the line that the family is probably not Jewish. Their tentative approach to Dr. Anderson via cumbersome intermediaries -- including a toff known as a worthy do-gooder amongst the poor -- suggests to me exactly the sort of approach by fearful outsiders: poor, foriegn and Jewish. The whole poijt of the woamn's approach is anxiety and distress.

Macnaghten knew about Druitt and Kosminski [and I think Tumblety too] as this is documented.

Whereas Anderson makes no reference to Druitt in any form, except negatively by omission.

The brilliant R J Palmer has recently shown that Anderson was concerned about Tumblety -- at least initially -- in getting in contact with NYC police authorities in 1888.

But on Druitt ... nothing.

I wonder if Anderson ever saw the official version of Macnaghten's Report? It was never sent anywhere. The unofficial version was shown only to Griffiths and Sims, that we know of -- and I think specificially created for them.

The Crawford Letter is tantalizing, for sure, but without a name and/or a date that is what it will remain.

[Chris G.]

Hello Jonathan

Anderson favored Kosminski. That we know. Whether he was right in his certainty is another question entirely. But we don't know that he didn't know about Druitt and other suspects. He probably did know about them, but discounted them.

You discount a connection between Druitt and Anderson because it suits your theory about the West Country MP and Macnaghten to do so. But that does not mean that the MP's revelation was the first inkling of an idea that Druitt could have been the murderer.

Yes of course we are dealing with speculation here. But, if there was real suspicion that Druitt could have been the killer, isn't it reasonable to theorise that someone could have had thoughts about Druitt prior to February 1891 when MP Henry Richard Farquharson leaked the information?

All the best

Chris

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

In my opinion, only the Druitt family.

Not the police or the press.

Macnaghten was just as certain as Anderson. He admits in 1914 that the identity of the fiend was not known until 'some years after' the man committed suicide.

This matches the West of England MP story of Feb 1891; and the sudden emergence of a surgeon's son as a Ripper suspect outside his own family.

It also matches the primary sources about the police investigation from 1888 to 1891.

If that old lie told by McCormick had really been true, about Backert being pulled aside and told on the quiet that they had fished out the fiend's body from the Thames, then the patrols would have been pulled -- they were not.

Scotland Yard would hardly have been making chumps of themselves two years later claiming that Tom Sadler mnot only killed Coles but also was the fiend.

[Chris G.]

Hello Jonathan

You speak some truth about the patrols not being pulled, which I think tells the lie to the idea that anyone ever identified who was really the killer. On the other hand, ideas about the killer were floating around, and again I would urge the idea that someone might have thought about Druitt before the MP Farquharson let out the idea that Druitt could have been the killer. Why should he have been the first to reveal the supposed truth???

Most of the ideas about who the killer was are obviously duds. People were literally groping in the dark. But there may have been some truth in there somewhere as well.

And as for the police officials, I just think, as I have written many times before, that the police basically were totally at sea. Anderson, Macnaghten, and Littlechild were producing "notes" riddled with bad information.

People make up whole theories based on this bad info. Bottom line though is that the killer got away with it, and these guys were left analyzing the fumes.

Pitiful.

Chris

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

Fair enough, Chris, but my view is quite different.

Macnaghten was not, to me, 'pitiful' as he arrived at SY as he said in 1913 exactly 'six months after' Druitt had killed himself.

That's not his fault.

Yet Mac did achieve something vital about this mystery -- not that you would know it from this site or its sister.

He learned of the killer's death and identity he as he writes: laid the Ripper's ghost to rest.

It's actually not specualtion to claim that Druitt was the murderer.

The Assistant Commissioner from 1903 to 1913 claimed this to be true.

It's a theory.

It is speculation that Macnaghten was correct in his choice, as we do not have access to what he had on this suspect.

In my opinion, you miss a rich dimension of the Ripper mystery in thinking that anybody outside the Druitts, or at least anybody in the police or te press or the govt had ever heard of Montie until after the Sadler debacle.

That in 1891 the mystery was solved then had to be carefully handled.

Once Macnaghten was convinced after meeting with Farquaharson, as I think he did, the question was ... what to do about it?

There was the problem that the cops had been chasing a phantom, that the fiend was a gentleman, that he was from a Tory family -- and the libel laws were just a ghastly tar baby.

Macnaghten navigated his way through all these minefields very deftly.

Sims will write much later that the police could not point at a dead man and say here is the fiend:'The dead cannot defend themselves'.

No, they sure can't.

It is just that ... Macnaghten -- via Sims -- does 'point' to the dead Druitt, and yet 'defend' him at the same time by cocooning him in fictional information, one element of which was that the cops were pursuing him whilst he was alive.

Far from 'pitiful' I think Macnaghten was cunning and scrupulous.

Anderson chose a suspect Macnaghten had rejected, and then the former over-reached and mudded him up; Littlechild showed that 'Dr D' was much more like an embarrassing and 'likely' suspect, 'Dr T', but knew nothing of the real 'Mr D' -- and why would he? -- and Abberline was just guessing that a serial killer/mutilator of strangers could become a covert wife-poisoner.

Of the police figures of the era, Macnaghten is far and away the most convincing, though that assertion is an extreme-minority opinion.

[Caroline Morris]

Hi All,

In Victorian speak, 'nearly' means exactly the same as today's 'closely', and 'almost related' makes little sense, then or now. On top of that, if what was meant was 'not closely related', or not a blood relation, why would anyone have picked a phrase that conveyed the opposite?

As I posted elsewhere, think of the lyrics: "See thee more clearly; love thee more dearly; follow thee more nearly". This can only mean more closely.

If this was a female blood relation of Druitt's, I could certainly imagine Anderson's face, if confronted by some posh woman who was clearly as mad as a box of frogs, insisting that Monty had been going out at dead of night to rip up the fallen women of Whitechapel - she had seen the truth in his eyes and it was giving her nightmares. It might explain quite a lot!

Hi Jonathan,

If Tumblety was considered an 'embarrassing' suspect (and why would he be, by the time of the Littlechild letter, if the murders never spread beyond Whitechapel and they had no evidence to charge him with them, even if he hadn't fled the country?), why did Littlechild go all out to 'inflict' him on Sims by name, as a very likely one? I thought it more likely that Druitt was the embarrassing name, and that Littlechild may have been trying to steer Sims away from the D name and tempt him with the relatively harmless T one - the former notorious rogue with a large dossier.

Love,

Caz
X

[SPE]

I don't think its a Druitt because Montie would have been safely dead by the time a marginal relative had learned or stumbled upon the terrible secret.
Plus, they would not an intermediary to see Anderson. A member of the middle or upper classes would have just walked straight through his office door. Much more likely to be a lower class family in the East End anxious to use a Nob go-between to the ruling elite.
The letter was found amongst Anderson's papers. He favoured the Polish Jew suspect, not the English Gentile Gentleman -- in fact makes no known reference to Druitt at all even to dismiss him?
Therefore, it is more likely to be about Aaron Kosminski, still 'on the prowl' as late as Feb 1891.
...

I don't think the fact that Druitt was dead would obviate this letter being about a member of his family.

The Ripper scare was still alive in the memory and the situation still volatile in 1891. With the Coles murder rekindling the scare a person who believed that the 1888 murderer was a close relative would still be very concerned about the name getting out thus ruining the family name and possibly leaving them open to repercussions. Anderson's personal preference has nothing to do with it. Also no one could simply 'walk straight through his office door' - it wasn't even in a public area and the Assistant Commissioner would not see any member of the public without prior arrangement or, as in this case, a letter of introduction.

However, I think that Rob House showed that it could also relate to Kosminski.

[Rob House]

Hello Stewart,

Yes I think it could relate to Kozminski. Kozminski had a sister (Matilda) and two other female relatives who would be considered "nearly related" to him—specifically, Isaac's wife Bertha, and Woolf's wife Betsy. Matilda is the sister that Aaron threatened to attack with a knife... which would seem to (arguably) suggest that Matilda would not have been opposed to having Aaron put away, etc.

I think it is certainly plausible that a member of the Kozminski family would be very worried about their safety if it should come out that Aaron was the killer. So trying to find a discreet solution would make sense in my opinion.

It is still a bit difficult to see why (or how) one of Aaron's relatives would have come in contact with the Earl of Crawford, James Ludovic Lindsay... The only link I know of is that Lindsay was a member of the House of Lords Committee on the Sweating System. The committee first met on March 16, 1888, and was charged with investigating the "sweated trades" largely focusing on the Jewish tailoring trade. And of course both of Aaron's brothers, Isaac and Woolf, were ladies tailors. Isaac was a sweater (as it was generally defined in those days)... i.e. his workshop on Greenfield Street would have been called a "sweater's den" or something to that effect.

This is the only point of contact I have been able to see. Of course, it is possible that Isaac may have been called to testify before the committee, as many tailors were apparently. I suppose the records of this committee might exist somewhere, and might include the names of all the people who testified... if we could find Isaac in there that would be interesting.

(Eg. Select Committee of the House of Lords, Report on the Sweating System, Parliamentary Papers 1890) --- I have not seen these.

Rob H

[Chris G.]

Hi Rob

To add to your post, Samuel Montagu, the Jewish MP for Whitechapel and Tower Hamlets, was on that same sweating committee so could have acted as an intermediary in the situation of getting a member of a Jewish family in touch with the Earl of Crawford and therefore Anderson. Just a thought.

Chris

[How Brown]

Rob:

You may not be aware, but this link takes you to the 1888 Parliamentary hearings :

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?p=93206&highlight=parliamentary+papers#post93206

[Rob House]

Hi Chris G,

Thanks for that info... I was not aware Montagu was on the committee. An interesting thought....

Howard,

Thanks for the link. Perhaps you can help answer this....

I have not read through that thread, but I believe (and I may be wrong) that the names of the people who testified are not always included in the Select Committee's published Report. (??)

If I am wrong, and the names are always given, and if the report includes all the testimony of all the witnesses, then it would just be a matter of going through the whole report (1000 pages?) and looking for the names of any member than the Abrahams family testifying.

However, if (as I am assuming) the Report does not include ALL the testimony and the names of witnesses ... I still think that there must be records on file somewhere that would have the names of witnesses. Are the files of these Parliamentary Committees publicly available somewhere?

Rob H

[Rob House]

Chris G,

As you are probably aware, Samuel Montagu also brokered (in 1889) an agreement between striking workers in the tailoring trade, and the master tailors. The strikers who organized the Great Strike of Tailors and Sweater's Victims in August 1889 were headquartered in the White Hart pub on Greenfield St, just a few houses north of Isaac Abrahams' and Matilda and Morris Lubnowski's addresses on Greenfield St.

Montagu met with both the striking workers and with members of the Master Tailors' Protective and Improvement Association, which met (coincidentally) in Christ Church parish hall on Hanbury Street.

So yes... to your point, it seems one of Kozminski's sisters could have easily come into contact with Montagu, who then introduced her to Lindsay, who in turn wrote the letter of introduction to Anderson. Seems plausible...

Rob

[Rob House]

Howard,

The link seems to be the Parliamentary Committee on Immigration... I think there was a separate Committee on the Sweated Trades more specifically.

Rob H

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

To Caz

Both Tumblety, because he had been arrested and fled, and Druitt, because he was long dead and unknown, were embarrassing suspects for Scotland Yard.

But fused together by Macnaghten, via Sims, the 'Drowned Doctor' becomes a triumphant suspect, one almost caught by a super-efficient dragnet.

Littlechild has never heard of Druitt -- and why would he have? -- but does know about Tumblety and that is why he is disentangling the real Dr T from the mythical Dr D, suspecting some self-serving sideshow by Anderson.

Why does he not mention Macnaghten when it is all his handiwork?

My theory is because in the original letter sent to Littlechild by Sims he had mentioned the 'Home Office Report by the Commissioner' as seen by Griffiths, as Sims does in 1903 in his spat with Abberline. Littlechild thought Sims must mean Anderson in 1888, when he actually meant Macnaghten in 1913 -- who had supposedly written a definitive Report for the Home Officer years before he was Assistant Commissioner.

Which Macnaghten hadn't. The document Griffiths had actually seen was not sent to the Home Officer, nor was it an accurate reproduction of the official Report of 1894.

Littlechild is understandably ignorant of all these Macnaghten machinations.

What he does know is that the only middle-aged medico hotly pursued by CID as the fiend was arrested, not nearly arrested, and then jumped bail on a morals charge, subsequently 'believed' to have committed suicide.

To Stewart

I did not mean literally bashing down Anderson's door, just that a Gentile, English family like the Druitts, or a Druitt, could simply make an appointment.

On the other hand, unless something else turns up about the Crawford connection I suspect this is not about Kosminski anymore than it is about Druitt. It's a tiny Red Herring.

For the same reason the Druitts would hardly be advertising their connection to the Whitechapel murderer, so the Kosminskis, any Kosminski, would be shy of exposing themselves to the fury of 'Gentile Justice'.

I think that it is more likely that Aaron Kosminski came to Scotland Yard's attention after he was permanently incarcerated, and that the first senior police officer to investigate him -- somewhat redundantly since he could not be arrested -- was Macnaghten, since 'Kosminski' begins in the extant record in a Mac document. Even in Swanson's private scribble he writes the name exactly as Mac did: sans any other name. Macnaghten is consistent about Kosminski in the official and unofficial versions of his Report, and what he passed onto Sims, and in his memoirs: a minor suspect.

To Chris

We do not know how the terrible family secret of the Druitts leaked to their local Member of Parliament?

Perhaps it was an open secret in West Dorset?

Or, perhaps it leaked on the 'servants grapevine'?

The connection between the Druitts and Farquharson is [originally] geographical, party political, and class-based, therefore it suggests some kind of local transmission of information.

[How Brown]

Rob:

My mistake ! Sorry about that.

[SPE]

...
To Stewart
I did not mean literally bashing down Anderson's door, just that a Gentile, English family like the Druitts, or a Druitt, could simply make an appointment.
...
I think that it is more likely that Aaron Kosminski came to Scotland Yard's attention after he was permanently incarcerated, and that the first senior police officer to investigate him -- somewhat redundantly since he could not be arrested -- was Macnaghten, since 'Kosminski' begins in the extant record in a Mac document. Even in Swanson's private scribble he writes the name exactly as Mac did: sans any other name. Macnaghten is consistent about Kosminski in the official and unofficial versions of his Report, and what he passed onto Sims, and in his memoirs: a minor suspect.
...

No, a Gentile English family like Druitt's could not 'simply make an appointment' to see the Assistant Commissioner. It wasn't his job to see people with suspicions, that was delegated to a lower level of the command structure, such as a detective inspector. However, in this case it would seem that the woman concerned wanted total confidentiality at a high level and felt that a letter of introduction would ensure that. As regards what actually happened it's all personal opinion, speculation and interpretation - not fact. There will always be contrary arguments and no consensus of opinion.

[John Malcolm]

Rob, check this out:


http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=1206502611&searchurl=kn%3Dsweating%2Bcommittee%26sts%3Dt%26x% 3D71%26y%3D6

[Rob House]

Hi John,

Nice... and only $4200 !

Rob H

[Jeff Leahy]

On the other hand, unless something else turns up about the Crawford connection I suspect this is not about Kosminski anymore than it is about Druitt. It's a tiny Red Herring.

For the same reason the Druitts would hardly be advertising their connection to the Whitechapel murderer, so the Kosminskis, any Kosminski, would be shy of exposing themselves to the fury of 'Gentile Justice'.

I think that it is more likely that Aaron Kosminski came to Scotland Yard's attention after he was permanently incarcerated, and that the first senior police officer to investigate him -- somewhat redundantly since he could not be arrested -- was Macnaghten, since 'Kosminski' begins in the extant record in a Mac document. Even in Swanson's private scribble he writes the name exactly as Mac did: sans any other name. Macnaghten is consistent about Kosminski in the official and unofficial versions of his Report, and what he passed onto Sims, and in his memoirs: a minor suspect.



Crawford was responsible for investigating the Sweater system. The Kosminski's ran a sweater shop.

Matilda was threatened with a knife by Aaron. If she went to Anderson then it would appear it was without the support of the brothers.

Family dis-unity..now there's a thing

Pirate

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

To Pirate

Yes, that is a perfectly reasonable counter-point.

Of course, it means that Anderson is even more of a mean-spirited, stiff-necked, near-bigot that he could write so damningly about the East End Polish Jews -- as an entire community -- if in fact one of them, a Kosminski by marriage perhaps, was trying to hand over the identity of the fiend to Anderson, and to him personally.

To Stewart

If you have another look at Anderson's memoir he seems to be quite happy to entertain all sorts of people in his office -- including an English woman who wants to marry an Indian and needs his matrimonial advice. Anderson had a view of himself as a wise sage on a range of issues, happy to pontificate to a range of seekers of his attention. I don't really see him turning away a member of the 'better classes' who claims to know the indentity of the fiend, especially if it can forever exorcise the Tumblty fulmble, even if they have appraoched him through inappropriate administrative channels.

Again, I agree only up to a point with you about theories and speculation.

For example, I don't agree that all arguments are of the same quality.

Yours [and Rumbelow's] own 'Sailor's Home' theory regarding Aaron Kosminski is streets ahead of anybody else's both in terms of the lucidity of the argument, and because it makes sense of all the contradictory sources on this issue.

Reading it for the first time was one of the greatest pleasure I have ever had regarding this mystery.

Macnaghten believed it was Druitt. It's not my theory and speculation -- it's his!

Historically speaking, as opposed to forensic science or legal arguments, it matters not a jot that we do not have access to the original evidence against Druitt.

A senior, contemporaneous police official with no known axe to grind on the case, the failure of which was never laid at his door, and who, as a source in terms of creed and class, goes totally against the expected bias by picking a fellow English gentleman.

In my experience, anecdotally-speaking, 'Jack the Oxonian' is what fascinates people today, outside the 'community' that is, because it is so unexpected [actually it is partly a return to the Edwardian paradigm of the top-hatted toff] yet resonates with the modern serial killers who are invisibl;e by their outward respectablity: Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, BTK Dennis Raeder, et al.

Perhaps Macnaghten was right?

Perhaps the conventional wisdom that Macnaghten's memory was failing him, and that he only hardened in his opinion about 'Doctor Druitt' as retirement loomed, and held in his fist a generous advance for his memoirs -- is wrong?

The idea that the Crawford Letter is yet another source on Montie, to Anderson, running parallel perhaps with the MP is, to me, highly unlikely.

The MP story strongly implies that the police are in the dark about Druitt and all other sources concur.

Macnaghten wrote an official Report so obscure that I think Browne missed it when he wrote his history of Scotland Yard. All that guff about Macnaghten believeing the Ripper was trying to bump off Balfour is nothing more than a too-literal reading of his memoirs.

Mac then showed another version of it to cronies -- but not cops.

I do entertain the argument, a strong one for sure, that Macnaghten is actually always writing about Tumblety, in a deliberate fusion/deflection, with Druitt.

[SPE]

'Theories! We are almost lost in theories there are so many of them.'

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

Yes, great quote -- Abberline isn't it?

But that's not a reflection on how I feel, partkly because of your excellent work with Don Rumbelow.

If that was Abberline he was never part of the Magic Circle of toffs regarding the information on fellow toff Druitt [or Kosminski and Tumbeklty for that matter] yet a minor, comic writer like Richardson was?

For me Macnaghten was not lost in theories at all, and once the MP was identified in 2008 a satisfatory explanation of his veiled, contradictory machinations between 1891 and 1913/14, was now available.

I prefer the quote:

'That remarkable man was one of the most fascinating of criminals. Of course he was a maniac, but I have a very clear idea of who he was and how he committed suicide ...

[SPE]

...
For me Macnaghten was not lost in theories at all, and once the MP was identified in 2008 a satisfatory explanation of his veiled, contradictory machinations between 1891 and 1913/14, was now available.
I prefer the quote:
'That remarkable man was one of the most fascinating of criminals. Of course he was a maniac, but I have a very clear idea of who he was and how he committed suicide ...

"...but I have a very clear idea of who who he was and how he committed suicide..."

Yes, at least he was honest enough to admit it was only an 'idea' and did not claim it as 'a definitely ascertained fact.'

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

Dear Stewart

I'm afraid we disagree about this too.

Yes, on one level -- a narrowly semantic one -- there is a gullf between Anderson's 'definitely ascertained fact' and Macnaghten's 'idea' and 'in all probability' and 'if my conjections be correct ...' and so on.

But Macnaghten's actions over many years must also be weighed; his learning of the Ripper's identity from a fellow gentleman for whom it was a 'doctrine', creating via cronies the Drowned Doctor mythos, and claiming that he had the goods but destroyed it, and his memoir chapter -- unlike Anderson's -- much longer, more detailed, more compassionate about the victims, and more accurate to the primary sources, and a whole chapter devoted to the mystery.

The Ripper even turns up in the preface in which Macnaghten hints that he was not too late to at least identify the 'mad miscreant'.

Therefore, taking all that into account, I argue that Macnaghten is just as certain as Anderson -- if not more so -- about his chosen fiend; rightly or wrongly.

Also, Anderson, Littlechild, and Swanson all convey, however briefly, coherent police-suspect narratives about their prefered suspects.

Macnaghten does no such thing. He suppresses any kind of decent yarn in his memoir because I think he had much more to tell, much more to keep veiled, whereas the others had exhausted most of what they knew -- or 'thought they knew' -- within a paragraph.

[SPE]

...
Yes, on one level -- a narrowly semantic one -- there is a gullf between Anderson's 'definitely ascertained fact' and Macnaghten's 'idea' and 'in all probability' and 'if my conjections be correct ...' and so on.
But Macnaghten's actions over many years must also be weighed; his learning of the Ripper's identity from a fellow gentleman for whom it was a 'doctrine', creating via cronies the Drowned Doctor mythos, and claiming that he had the goods but destroyed it, and his memoir chapter -- unlike Anderson's -- much longer, more detailed, more compassionate about the victims, and more accurate to the primary sources, and a whole chapter devoted to the mystery.
The Ripper even turns up in the preface in which Macnaghten hints that he was not too late to at least identify the 'mad miscreant'.
Therefore, taking all that into account, I argue that Macnaghten is just as certain as Anderson -- if not more so -- about his chosen fiend; rightly or wrongly.
Also, Anderson, Littlechild, and Swanson all convey, however briefly, coherent police-suspect narratives about their prefered suspects.
Macnaghten does no such thing. He suppresses any kind of decent yarn in his memoir because I think he had much more to tell, much more to keep veiled, whereas the others had exhausted most of what they knew -- or 'thought they knew' -- within a paragraph.

Above emphasis added. For a start the statement that Macnaghten 'learned the Ripper's identity from a fellow gentleman' immediately reduces it to the status of hearsay. Totally inadequate as far as making it any sort of 'fact'. You state that "Macnaghten is just as certain as Anderson -- if not more so -- about his chosen fiend; rightly or wrongly." That, I'm afraid, is merely your opinion - not a fact. All that all of this does prove is that there was no consensus amongst the chief officers of police as to the killer's identity and that the said identity remained unproven and unknown.

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

True, Stewart, it is just my opinion and the merits and demerits of it will be decided by others.

Actually, the jury is apparently 'in' on that one; that of all the old suspects I could have latched onto, for a revisionist take, Montie Druitt is the most unpromising and thoroughly debunked.

It's so against the grain of the sentiment on these sites that I am practically treated, by some, as if I am spitting on an innocent man's grave if[/U] there was stronger surviving evidence pointing to his culpability, in some verifiable and measurable form.]

Essentially, I am arguing for a new Macnaghten whose opinion, I think, is far more important than the other policemen of his day [I concede that a very strong argument can also be mounted that J G Littlechild was really the key police figure in what he, as a source, reveals to us about the real chief suspect of 1888].

I do not think that Macnaghten would agree with you, Stewart, that just because there was no SY consensus as to the Ripper's identity, it was unknown and perhaps unknowable. [As if Anderson would ever agree with Macnaghten?]

I certainly do not agree with the conventional wisdom that the competing police chiefs and their competing suspects all -- automatically -- cancel each other out.

Not at all.

I argue that Anderson is over-reaching about a 'mystery' he cared little for and about which he remembered even less -- and despised Mac -- that Swanson is simply recording Anderson's self-serving, mix-and-match fantasia, that Littlechild understandably knows nothing about the too-late suspect, M J Druitt, and that Abberline is desperate in retirement to see a successful end to this infernal case -- and again knows nothing about Druitt either, despite his I-know-everything empty bragging.

Macnaghten is the paramount police figure and it is inconceivable to me that he would have lazily, casually, and callously gone along with mere hearsay, with just unproven, ghastly slander against a fellow Gentleman, a tragic chappie at that -- unless it [I]was proven, in 1891, at least to his satisfaction that this really was Jack the Ripper.

Perhaps Macnaghten did destroy something in 1913?

Something that was not just a record of the hearsay from an upper class twit politician?

Something substantial?

On the other hand, he makes no reference to such an action in his memoir, which, incidentally, he is clearly adapting from his 'Aberconway' version -- which he had most certainly not thrown in the fire -- whilst pretending to be writing entirely from memory.

I believe that he met with William Druitt, or somebody close to the family, or somebody to whom Montie made a confession, that hands-on Macnaghten checked as thoroughly and as discreetly as he could. That he discovered yet more incriminating horrors about 'Simon Pure' Druitt as a 'sexual maniac' [with a 'diseased body' too, apparently] all much more than mere hearsay.

My judgement of Macnaghten is that if the information received about Druitt was just hearsay he would have dismissed it.

All the pressure was on him to dismiss it.

Eg. no suspect to interview/arrest/charge, the surgeon's son has inconveniently been dead for over two years so we would have to admit to have been chasing phantoms, a family of barrister/physicians who will aggressively sue the moment his name, or recognisable identity, surfaces in the tabloids, and, the final shocker, he was 'one of us'.

If it was just Macnaghten bantering over brandy, in his London club with Big Mouth Farquharson, the assistant chief constable would have told the MP to shut his trap, that this could be a 'Jack the Tory' scandal in the making, and to stop slandering a fellow, deceased, Anglican gentleman based on what ... malicious and ludicrous gossip in his constituency.

But Mac did not do this.

The MP was muzzled, for sure, but by 1894 Macnaghten, in a report in which the might-be-a-doctor Druitt is a minor suspect, Mac is careful to leave the Tory MP right out of it, whilst recasting the entire saga as one in which the police seemingly already knew that Mary Kelly was the final victim when in fact that's misleading at best. It is Druitt-centric -- the allegedly minor suspect -- yet one who was a sexual manaic and was 'believed', not suspected, by his own family -- which is proof's shadow [he also claims that nobody saw the Whitechapel murderer without revealing that Lawende had been deployed, and had said 'no', to a suspect, Sadler, that the police had made fools of themselves over].

Without ever committing himself to outright deceit it is an amazingly slippery bit of business that Official Report by Mac, which it seems nobody ever read until decades later [Even more dodgy when you consider what the 'draft' or 'rewrite' version alters; Druitt becomes Henry Jekyll, and now Mac is certain and the trash family isn't, and there is a witness -- a cop no less, and so on].

If people reject Macnaghten and Druitt then why not reject Kelly as the last victim?

After all, she's only the last victim because of the timing of Druitt's self-murder.

Why not add Frances Coles as Swanson did, and Reid did and refused to let go of?

As everybody in fact did, until Mac -- finding Druitt -- rightly or wrongly changed the 1888 to 1891 paradigm, to just the 'autumn of terror'.

So no, I do not think the no-name/no-date Crawford Letter is particularly important; not compared to Macnaghten's memoir which receives remarkably short shrift in many accounts of the case.

[SPE]

Over the years I have had three 'preferred' suspects. In 1965 it was Druitt, in 1988 Kosminski, in 1993 Tumblety and now? Well now I have realised the folly of having a 'preferred' suspect when there is no hard evidence against any one of them.

'Strength' of a suspect seems to be arrived at, by the individual, based on personal and subjective interpretation and opinion - usually strongly influenced by what others have written. The value of an individual police officer's statements seems to be based on personal assessments of that particular officer and what he said. What is patently obvious is that none of them actually did know.

Since writing a 'suspect based book', which I have explained in the past was unavoidable, I have tried to remain objective and to not push any particular suspect. That said, I have endeavoured to address unfairness and misconceptions when I have seen them.

I push no particular senior police officer as the 'key police figure', I rather argue for all possibilities and all claims to be explored. The problem with accepting that one particular officer is the 'key figure' to follow is self-defeating and leads to a blinkered view of Ripper history.

It is absolutely fine to present your personal arguments and ideas, others usually love to try and knock them down anyway, but don't let your passion blind you to the broader picture. I personally believe that Macnaghten did not know any more than Anderson, who himself knew no more than Macnaghten. Both had their own opinions, agendas and reasons for taking the path they followed. Certainly both, in 1894, knew of Druitt and Kosminski.

When you start to use ploys, to bolster your arguments, such as Macnaghten must have known 'something' more about Druitt you are doing the same as the Kosminskiites who argue that there must have been 'something' more that Anderson knew on their man. It won't wash I'm afraid. Speculate all you like, but until you come up with something substantial you, and your hypotheses, will be merely rejected by those who choose to follow a different path or no particular path at all.

Yes, why not reject Kelly as a Ripper victim? Some have, whilst others argue strongly for her retention. Why not add Frances Coles, certainly at least one authority argues for her possible inclusion. What you actually have is a series of eleven unsolved murders from 1888 to 1891, collectively classed (albeit inaccurately) as 'the Whitechapel murders' for which no offender was ever convicted.

When a murder is officially unsolved, as these all are, the offenders are, obviously, unknown and, consequently, no one can say with exact certainty just how many of those eleven fell to a common hand. Each should be investigated as an individual and unsolved case.

[Chris G.]

Hello Stewart

Many thanks for that excellent post which has to be one of the wisest postings I have ever read on the case. Bravo.

Chris

[How Brown]

An article referring to the Earl of Crawford
If I find more,I'll put them here on the thread..


New York Times
November 12,1898
**************
http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac287/HowieNina/September%202010%20Forums/bs1.jpghttp://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac287/HowieNina/September%202010%20Forums/bs2.jpghttp://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac287/HowieNina/September%202010%20Forums/bs3.jpg

[How Brown]

I gotta kick out of this one..."one of the leading astronomers and electricians of GB.."
Like he went around in a van with a sign and a tool belt fixing toasters and stuff...

Galveston Daily News
October 5, 1888
***********
http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac287/HowieNina/September%202010%20Forums/trip.jpg

[Nemo]

I'm interested in what Chris G mentioned in regard to S Montagu, the MP as possibly being the intermediary for a woman to approach the Earl of Crawford

To me, it seems a distinct possibility that he (Montagu) would be approached by someone interested in the reward money around October 1888

It would be a viable reason for someone to approach the authorities on the quiet, to claim a reward, yet wish to conceal the identity of the miscreant in some way because he was a relation