Occam's razor and Battlecrease

[SirRobertAnderson]

From Wikipedia......

The question I have is this: IF we assume that Keith Skinner is correct in his belief that the Diary came out of Battlecrease as the document we see today, what is the simplest explanation for what the %^$! the Diary really represents ?

For purposes of this thread please take Skinner's contention as a given.

I ASSume that Skinner must have a time frame in mind for when the Diary was taken out of Battlecrease, but I'm not privy to that.

Occam's razor (sometimes spelled Ockham's razor) is a principle attributed to the 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar William of Ockham. The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. The principle is often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae ("law of parsimony" or "law of succinctness"):
“ entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, ”

which translates to:
“ entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity. ”

This is often paraphrased as "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the right one." In other words, when multiple competing theories are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selecting the theory that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest entities. It is in this sense that Occam's razor is usually understood.

[How Brown]

Bob:

I have a couple of questions about what Mr. Skinner mentioned at the Trial earlier this year....

One would be...what could Skinner have possibly determined by looking at or handling the Diary/Scrapbook 15 years after it was first found that no one else could have determined in the interim of the decade and a half since its presence?

Is it possible,as Nina has just mentioned to me...that there is something endemic to the type of scrapbook not found anywhere else in the general vicinity of where Maybrick lived that is shared by this particular scrapbook....or perhaps,it was an American scrapbook brought over by Maybrick after one of his trips to the States ( my idea ) ?

Or ...is it possible that someone who has first hand knowledge of one of the possibilities above divulged information to Skinner that he collated with other details or facts about the scrapbook...and based on this,has determined that it fits the bill.

Or,as Nina has just mentioned ( and will hit me if I do not mention this...ouch ! )...

Is it possible that this scrapbook cum Diary is similar to one of Florence Maybrick's personal scrapbooks and if we factor in the "endemic" aspect...that this is possibly the reason?

[Caroline Morris]

Hi Howie,

What leads you to think that Keith determined something by 'looking at or handling the Diary/Scrapbook 15 years after it was first found'?

Love,

Curious Caz
XX

[Chris G.]

Hi Bob

I have no idea what Keith Skinner's information comprises. My sense is that the information was developed not so much from looking at the Diary as from some other source. For example, you do know that the police apparently made some enquiries into the stories that the electricians who worked at Battlecrease might have found the Diary in the house. It occurs to me that Keith might have received some confirmation from someone that that is what happened.

On the other hand, if the guardbook or scrapbook did come out of Battlecrease, the book that came out of the house might not have contained the Diary. Just that someone knowing the connection of the house to the Maybricks might have had the bright idea of mocking up a "Diary" in which James Maybrick confessed to being the Ripper using the Maybricks' own (modified) scrapbook.

Again, I have no information that is what happened. It's just a possible scenario that suggests itself to me.

Chris

[Caroline Morris]

Hi Chris,

With respect, we've been through this one before over at the Casebook.

If Keith believed the guard book could have come out of Battlecrease before the diary was added, he would not have said what he said in Liverpool about the "diary" coming out of the house.

That much I am in a position to confirm.

And as we both know, Keith is nothing if not extremely careful over the words he chooses.

Love,

Caz
X

[Chris G.]

Hi Chris,

With respect, we've been through this one before over at the Casebook.

If Keith believed the guard book could have come out of Battlecrease before the diary was added, he would not have said what he said in Liverpool about the "diary" coming out of the house.

That much I am in a position to confirm.

And as we both know, Keith is nothing if not extremely careful over the words he chooses.

Love,

Caz
X

Alright, Boss.

Chris :rapture:

[SirRobertAnderson]

If Keith believed the guard book could have come out of Battlecrease before the diary was added, he would not have said what he said in Liverpool about the "diary" coming out of the house.

That much I am in a position to confirm.



No question that Skinner is maintaining the Diary we see is the document that came out of Battlecrease.....which is a game changer in my humble opinion.

Besides nuking the concept of the Barretts as the forgers - IF it's a forgery at all - it tells us that whatever he has learned has not come from an examination of the document itself.

[How Brown]

What leads you to think that Keith determined something by 'looking at or handling the Diary/Scrapbook 15 years after it was first found'?----Caz

Dear Caz:

What I said was," what could Skinner have possibly determined by looking at or handling the Diary/Scrapbook 15 years after it was first found that no one else could have determined in the interim of the decade and a half since its presence?"

What I meant by this was whether or not since the original discovery of the Diary,did Mr. Skinner determine something unique by way of his research ( see Nina's and my examples...) that no one had thought of before...

[Caroline Morris]

Sorry How, I must have misunderstood where you were going with this one.

As far as I'm aware, Keith's Battlecrease research has not involved any sort of physical comparison with other Victorian guard books.

Hi Chris,

No probs.

:hug:

Love,

Caz
X

[Magpie]

Hey Caz.

Can you confirm that when Keith refers to the "Diary" coming out of Battlecrease, he is referring to the physical artifact that we now know as the "Maybrick Diary", and not another document or source that forms the textual basis for the physical artifact?

[Paul Butler]

Morning All.

As I understand it, and I think I'm right having followed this quite carefully, Keith is saying that his evidence will show that the fully finished, Sir Jimmed diary came out of the Maybrick family homestead at some, (as yet unknown to us at least), time.

I get the distinct impression that Keith's information is the result of following a paper trail rather than anything to do with the physical appearance of the diary or any new revelations derived from the text. If it is a paper trail being followed, I reckon that would likely mean that it came from the house in more recent times before the trail went stone cold.

Have you any idea when we might expect to hear more Caz? I certainly hope that Keith didn't decide to make this revelation back in May and then keep us dangling for another decade or so!

I'm inclined to agree with Chris here about the possibilities. Either the diary is genuinely the work of Maybrick or one of his household or, it was planted there after Maybrick's time by persons unknown, or it was created in a probable real Maybrick & Co. guardbook by someone who lived in the house at a later date.

All three seem unlikely, but I can't think of anything else remotely plausible. I prefer the last suggestion, but who knows?

One thing is for sure. Once we do get to find out, we shall have whole new avenues of speculation opening up and probably even more unanswered questions than we do now. I wonder how much, if any of the existing provenance back to 1943 will be potentially overturned by all this?

Regards to all.

Paul

[Chris G.]

Hi Paul

At the Maybrick Trial, Keith Skinner was at great pains to say that all he could do was follow the documentary evidence, i.e., the paper trail, and that he didn't deal in speculation. So I think you are therefore correct that he has some sort of evidence that proves the Maybrick Diary came out of the Maybrick mansion. And thanks to Caz once again for confirming from what she knows of the information that Keith possesses, that it is the Diary as we know it that somehow came out of the house not just the book that contains the Diary.

Chris

[Paul Butler]

Chris.

Its a big regret of mine that I didn't get off my backside and make a better effort to get to the "Trial". I'm sure I would have enjoyed it. I'm sure I would have enjoyed meeting everyone too.

My loss.

Paul

[Caroline Morris]

Hey Caz.

Can you confirm that when Keith refers to the "Diary" coming out of Battlecrease, he is referring to the physical artifact that we now know as the "Maybrick Diary", and not another document or source that forms the textual basis for the physical artifact?

Hi Magpie,

That is indeed my understanding, based on the documentation I have seen. With Keith, what you see is what you get. He would not have said anything about the “diary” coming out of the house if he were referring to another document or artefact. (And if he tried it, he'd have me to deal with. :humble:)



Have you any idea when we might expect to hear more Caz?


Not really, Paul, but I don’t expect it to be soon I’m afraid.

Looking on the bright side, though, you are right. Hearing more will only open up ‘whole new avenues of speculation’ and ‘even more unanswered questions’. It’s not as though a confirmed Battlecrease provenance could put an immediate end to the years of controversy and ill feeling - quite the opposite. That’s what makes it fundamentally different from the original secret squirrel stuff about certain individuals knowing the modern forgers’ identities but, for reasons best known to themselves, being unwilling or unable to confide in Keith - who vowed publicly to drop the diary investigation like a stone, without breaking any confidences, if the evidence was strong enough.



At the Maybrick Trial, Keith Skinner was at great pains to say that all he could do was follow the documentary evidence, i.e., the paper trail, and that he didn't deal in speculation.

Hi Chris,

I very much appreciate what you say here. Elsewhere, one might think that there was something intrinsically wrong with a reputable researcher going where the documentary evidence leads him, if it’s leading him to a deeply unpopular place. Fortunately, Keith does not worry his pretty head over people who would think less of him for unearthing something they would prefer to remain buried. :)

Love,

Caz
X

[Chris G.]

. . . Looking on the bright side, though, you are right. Hearing more will only open up ‘whole new avenues of speculation’ and ‘even more unanswered questions’. It’s not as though a confirmed Battlecrease provenance could put an immediate end to the years of controversy and ill feeling - quite the opposite. That’s what makes it fundamentally different from the original secret squirrel stuff about certain individuals knowing the modern forgers’ identities but, for reasons best known to themselves, being unwilling or unable to confide in Keith - who vowed publicly to drop the diary investigation like a stone, without breaking any confidences, if the evidence was strong enough.

At least though I should think the new information that the Diary came out of Battlecrease, whenever it is revealed, should cut dead the speculation that Anne Graham and her former husband Mike Barrett hoaxed the Diary, despite the number of accusations and innuendos that that is exactly what happened. Although as you say, it will likely open other cans of worms. :rolleyes:

Of course if the Diary did come out of Battlecrease, as now seems to be the case, that leaves open the question of how the Diary got from Battlecrease into the hands of Tony Devereaux and the Barretts, unless Keith's information somehow answers that question.




At the Maybrick Trial, Keith Skinner was at great pains to say that all he could do was follow the documentary evidence, i.e., the paper trail, and that he didn't deal in speculation.


Hi Chris,

I very much appreciate what you say here. Elsewhere, one might think that there was something intrinsically wrong with a reputable researcher going where the documentary evidence leads him, if it’s leading him to a deeply unpopular place. Fortunately, Keith does not worry his pretty head over people who would think less of him for unearthing something they would prefer to remain buried. :)

Love,

Caz
X


Thanks, Caz. I have a lot of respect for Keith as a researcher and wish him well with tidying up the questions about the Diary, if he is able to do so.

Chris

[Caroline Morris]

Hi Chris,

Yes, poor old Tony Devereux. It should be remembered that we only know his name because Mike initially claimed that the diary had come from him shortly before his unexpected death from a heart attack in 1991.

And upon such shifting sand was built the whole unfortunate citizen Kane conspiracy theory. In the absence of a hands-on diary role for Devereux, the theory could only collapse.

Love,

Caz
X

[Chris G.]

Hi Caz, Sir Bob, and Paul

The other way I might think the Diary could have come out of Battlecrease and not be the genuine article would be if some resident of the house other than Paul Dodd or the Maybricks thought it might have been "neat" to have mocked up a diary as if the famous resident of 1888-1889 could have been the Ripper. I may have mentioned elsewhere that the children of a descendant of British Major General Robert Ross, killed outside of Baltimore by a sniper on September 12, 1814 while leading his Redcoats up toward the city, mocked up a fake parody "Diary of General Robert Ross." The narrative continues right up to where he had lunch at McDonalds, near the spot where he was shot, after which the writing stops abruptly.

Chris

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/135/390928625_b3ee198929_o.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/77/390928626_095cd5c04b_o.jpg

[SirRobertAnderson]

Hi Caz, Sir Bob, and Paul

The other way I might think the Diary could have come out of Battlecrease and not be the genuine article would be if some resident of the house other than Paul Dodd or the Maybricks thought it might have been "neat" to have mocked up a diary as if the famous resident of 1888-1889 could have been the Ripper.

Absolutely possible, Chris. In fact if we take Mr. Skinner at his word, that is actually the most reasonable scenario.

[Paul Butler]

Absolutely possible, Chris. In fact if we take Mr. Skinner at his word, that is actually the most reasonable scenario.

Morning All.

Sir Bob.

Absolutely. I agree that the most plausible scenario you can come up with, assuming a Battlecrease origin for the book, is one involving a previous owner or tenant of the house, who could hardly be unaware of its notorious past.

I believe Paul Dodd and his family have lived in the house since the 1940s, and Billy Graham supposedly got the diary during the war from Granny Formby.

Assuming Mr Dodd's family had nothing to do with it, and I think that is a safe assumption to make, maybe something happened around that time. Did someone maybe find himself a little hobby to while away the hours during the wartime blackouts? :-)

The only problem I have with this idea is that I don't really see how this sort of thing could ever be established by the means we know Keith is following. i.e. following a paper trail.

regards to all.

Paul.

P.S. Technically speaking, if the diary came from "Battlecrease" it would have to have been in 1889, as the name was changed to "Ingleton" after the Maybricks left for obvious reasons! Doesn't have quite the same ring to it does it? Sounds more like a Blackpool bed and breakfast.

[Chris G.]

. . . Technically speaking, if the diary came from "Battlecrease" it would have to have been in 1889, as the name was changed to "Ingleton" after the Maybricks left for obvious reasons! Doesn't have quite the same ring to it does it? Sounds more like a Blackpool bed and breakfast.


Hi Paul

I should think the house would still count as "Battlecrease" and was certainly referred to that way during the Maybrick Trial, so I should think Keith possibly meant that it came from the house that used to be known as Battlecrease.


I agree that the most plausible scenario you can come up with, assuming a Battlecrease origin for the book, is one involving a previous owner or tenant of the house, who could hardly be unaware of its notorious past. . . .

The only problem I have with this idea is that I don't really see how this sort of thing could ever be established by the means we know Keith is following. i.e. following a paper trail.


I am going to assume Paul might have some sort of evidence that shows a book was removed from the house, possibly during the renovation work.

Prior to the Maybrick Trial, I had a curious communication from a member of the Liverpool discussion forum of which I am a member and he told me that the Vicar of Grassendale, since deceased, was questioned as part of the police investigation into the Diary. Possibly whatever Keith has came out of the same investigation, I don't know. But here of course I am dealing in speculation, which Keith says he doesn't deal with. As you and I are speculating, there must be some sort of document or maybe a statement that bears out the origin of the Diary. Interesting.

All the best

Chris

[SirRobertAnderson]

Assuming Mr Dodd's family had nothing to do with it, and I think that is a safe assumption to make, maybe something happened around that time. Did someone maybe find himself a little hobby to while away the hours during the wartime blackouts? :-)


Caz should know this....I can't remember the year right now, but Florence did return to England at some point. Off hand I think it was in the '30s, in order to try to reestablish relations with her kids. She would have had motive, methinks. Not to mention probably a little mentally unsound after 15 years under harsh prison conditions....

This falls into wild speculation, but what if she wrote the Diary in an effort to show her kids that James was a monster ?

[Caroline Morris]

Hi Sir Robert,

According to Shirley's book, Florie returned to England 'at least twice': once in 1911, after she heard of her son Bobo's untimely death in Canada; and again in 1927, hoping for a family reconciliation. According to Edwin Maybrick's daughter, Edwin was 'out' at the time.

Florie may well have become a bit senile by the late 1920s, because she spoke bitterly of her children (plural) evidently not wanting any more to do with her because they thought her guilty of making them fatherless. An all too common feature of senility is imagining close relatives are still alive even when they have been dead for decades.

Shirley also wonders if the 1927 visit may have been linked somehow with the death of Sarah Maybrick the same year in London's Tooting Bec Hospital. Sarah was certified dead of senile dementia.

Intriguingly, back in 1894, an article had appeared in the American Brooklyn Eagle, headed 'There are no flies on her', and said: 'Mrs Sarah Maybrick of Brooklyn asks that her daughter, Hester, be removed to an insane asylum. She imagines she has been deserted by her lover and flies whisper in her ear that he is faithless.' A copy of the article was found among Maybrick case researcher Trevor Christie's papers.

I'd forgotten this detail, but it does strike me as a rather extraordinary and ironic coincidence, considering the demons our diarist puts in 'Sir Jim's' head on account of Florie deserting the marital bed and becoming faithless when she discovers that he has been faithless - and with a woman calling herself Mrs Sarah Maybrick, who allegedly gave birth to five children fathered by James. :eek:

There is surely something more to this than meets the eye. Might Florie have made it her business to seek out Sarah after her release from prison? Might Sarah have made it her business to seek out Florie? Or was it a case of never the twain wanting to meet? They certainly both had grievances with the treatment they had from Jim lad.

Love,

Caz
X

[Paul Butler]

Afternoon Caz.

Sarah Robertson/Maybrick, is certainly an interesting character in the whole saga, and it's so frustrating that we know a little about here, but that it’s so full of gaps.

It certainly looks like she and James were never married, but played out the fantasy of being so nevertheless. The bible that he gave to her seems to bear that out.

A bit of a hypocritical present for a couple who were “living in sin” don’t you think? Particularly enscribing it to “my darling wife”. A wicked lie, and written in a bible too!

I wonder if marriage was out of the question due to her being a shop girl, and maybe James’ family didn’t approve? Or maybe James’ himself was reserving himself for something better when the opportunity arose of a match with an impressionable girl with a potentially well off Mother.

How sure can we be that Sarah was indeed the woman he was keeping in Liverpool? At around that time wasn’t she supposed to be in Sunderland? If the Sarah Maybrick in the US was the same person, which I doubt somehow, then she was a very well travelled woman, moving from Whitechapel to Liverpool, to Sunderland to New York! Seems a bit unlikely to me.

And what about the alleged five kids? MacDougall says they all died, but Feldman thinks he found them, or rather their descendents, near Peterborough, though to my mind he fell short of actually proving it. How did James and Sarah produce five unrecorded offspring? No birth or death records to be found.

Not to mention the strong possibility that he fathered a few others in Norfolk, Virginia too……..

Regards.

Paul

[Caroline Morris]

Hi Paul,

I can't imagine that Maybrick's family would have approved if he had wanted to make an honest woman of Sarah Robertson. But he may have used this as an excuse, because I'm sure I read somewhere that his mother did not approve of his engagement to Florie either, yet he was determined to go ahead regardless.

What is the source for Sarah being in Sunderland? I'm not doubting this, I just can't recall the details. She is supposed to have followed James around on his travels in the UK, and according to Bernard Ryan, his brothers Thomas and Michael paid a visit to her in 'a distant part of Liverpool' when James died, because he owed money to someone who had made dresses for her. She also admitted that 'jewels in her possession had been given to her by Jim as security for money she had loaned him, and that her five children were, in fact, the brothers' nephews and nieces'. If that's true, one wonders who was financing whom, and how.

There is also some evidence that Sarah travelled with Jim to America at least once. A woman calling herself Mrs Maybrick, and giving an age much closer to Jim's than Florie's, has been found accompanying James Maybrick across the pond shortly after his marriage. So it's at least possible that Sarah had reasons for wanting to return to the States at some point after Jim's death, and she could have had the means too, especially if he had made some private financial provision for her and the kids before making the final will that deprived Florie.

I'm not sure how common the name Maybrick was in the 1880s and 90s, but Trevor Christie presumably thought the 1894 Brooklyn article significant, to have added a copy to his collection. And of course, it's much harder to track down records for illegitimate children, particularly when there are so few details available, such as names, dates of birth or how long they lived. I'm afraid I didn't find Feldy's Peterborough connections convincing at all.

Love,

Caz
X

[Paul Butler]

What is the source for Sarah being in Sunderland? I'm not doubting this, I just can't recall the details. She is supposed to have followed James around on his travels in the UK, and according to Bernard Ryan, his brothers Thomas and Michael paid a visit to her in 'a distant part of Liverpool' when James died, because he owed money to someone who had made dresses for her. She also admitted that 'jewels in her possession had been given to her by Jim as security for money she had loaned him, and that her five children were, in fact, the brothers' nephews and nieces'. If that's true, one wonders who was financing whom, and how.



Hiya Caz.

The source for that little piece of info is "Russells brief" found in the Christie papers in Wyoming. Admittedly all it says is that Sarah was "living in Sunderland" in 1889. She could easily have moved there in spring or early summer after the s*** had hit the fan in Liverpool to avoid too much of it flying her way. She was born there, so presumably had family there.

The same source tells us that after a few years in the east end, the pair moved to Chester, Manchester and Liverpool, so maybe James hadn't lived in the east end quite as long as I for one had assumed.

Sarah's actual birth date seems to be in some doubt. Her age was given as 72 when she died, when in all likelihood she was actually 89. The alleged photo of her taking tea in the garden with Elizabeth Maybrick in around 1925, two years before her death, certainly looks like an old woman approaching her 90s rather than in her early 70s!

If this photo of "Old Aunt" really is of our Sarah, and she's sitting next to someone with the surname Maybrick, then surely this does give some credence to Feldman's belief that he found descendants of James and Sarah?

I have to admit that I find the chapters in Feldman's book concerning the Peterborough branch of the family very hard going. You have to keep checking back to remind yourself as to what is fact and what is wishful thinking.

If James and Sarah really had three children together before his marriage to Florrie, and they were representing themselves as married, then it seems very likely that those children would have been given the Maybrick name. It seems realy odd to me, illegitimacy or not, that all three escaped having a birth, baptism or death recorded!

have a nice weekend.

Paul

[SirRobertAnderson]

:bump:

Has anyone looked into the good Vicar ?

Hi Paul

I should think the house would still count as "Battlecrease" and was certainly referred to that way during the Maybrick Trial, so I should think Keith possibly meant that it came from the house that used to be known as Battlecrease.



I am going to assume Paul might have some sort of evidence that shows a book was removed from the house, possibly during the renovation work.

Prior to the Maybrick Trial, I had a curious communication from a member of the Liverpool discussion forum of which I am a member and he told me that the Vicar of Grassendale, since deceased, was questioned as part of the police investigation into the Diary. Possibly whatever Keith has came out of the same investigation, I don't know. But here of course I am dealing in speculation, which Keith says he doesn't deal with. As you and I are speculating, there must be some sort of document or maybe a statement that bears out the origin of the Diary. Interesting.

All the best

Chris

[Chris G.]

Prior to the Maybrick Trial, I had a curious communication from a member of the Liverpool discussion forum of which I am a member and he told me that the Vicar of Grassendale, since deceased, was questioned as part of the police investigation into the Diary. Possibly whatever Keith has came out of the same investigation, I don't know. But here of course I am dealing in speculation, which Keith says he doesn't deal with. As you and I are speculating, there must be some sort of document or maybe a statement that bears out the origin of the Diary. Interesting.

All the best

Chris

:bump:

Has anyone looked into the good Vicar ?

Not that I thus far believe in the Fletcher Rogers "did it" scenario but in light of the above I did take notice that in the Liverpool Mercury obituary of 21 December 1891 kindly posted by Robert, it mentioned that Mr. Rogers was one of the local worthies who was "instrumental in the establishment of the Church of St. Mary at Grassendale."

Chris

[Paul Butler]

Chris.

I also noticed that one of the mourners at the funeral was an Ellison. I wonder if this is the same Ellison family that started inexplicably giving their offspring "Maybrick" as a middle name?

The normal reason for giving a surname as a middle name at that time was to preserve the maiden name of the mother.

Hmmmmmmm!!!???

Paul

[SirRobertAnderson]

it mentioned that Mr. Rogers was one of the local worthies who was "instrumental in the establishment of the Church of St. Mary at Grassendale."

Chris

:jaw: