Identifying D'Onston and Other Related Problems

[Grey Hunter]

For Bernard O'Donnell a major (and eventually insurmountable) problem was identifying 'Dr. D'Onston' as a person. In the early 1970s the release of information in the official files led to the identification of 'D'Onston' as 'Dr. R. D'O Stephenson' and he was then historically identified with the publication of genealogical information on him. Richard Whittington-Egan published this significant material in his 1975 book A Casebook on Jack the Ripper.

As I intend this review to include aspects of D'Onston research that followed I shall end this post here as an introduction to the thread.

[Grey Hunter]

O'Donnell tried to trace a report of the inquest on 'Ada' (D'Onston's love) but without a surname it proved a hopeless effort.

D'Onston had, allegedly, brought an action against Mabel Collins for the recovery of his letters. The case had come up at Marylebone court some time in the early 1890s. A very careful search of the press sources failed to reveal any report of it in any newspaper.

O'Donnell was unable to find any doctor of medicine named D'Onston listed with the British Medical Association or with the General Medical Council. But 'D'Onston' was, however, in the British Library catalogue of authors with the letters 'M.D.' handwritten next to his name. O'Donnell did establish that a man calling himself Roslyn D'Onston and 'Tautriadelta' existed at the necessary period of time.

[Howard Brown]

Pardon me GH....and I will exit from the thread a.s.a.p.

Perhaps if the name Cook was substituted for Collins ( she was married to Keningale Robert Cook and evidently retained her married surname at the time of the trial ), something would surface.
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Back to the thread and Grey Hunter......

[Grey Hunter]

Richard Whittington-Egan

It should be noted by all who would research D'Onston that the first person to trace and use the O'Donnell Manuscript was author Richard Whittington-Egan in the early 1970s when he was writing his book A Casebook on Jack the Ripper. In this book he reproduced lengthy extracts from the O'Donnell manuscript and identified Stephenson as D'Onston. That was over thirty years ago, a long time before many here had ever heard of Jack the Ripper, let alone D'Onston.

Richard had the original O'Donnell manuscript at home in his possession for a long period of time. Richard found "the quest for D'Onston...almost as Will-o'-the-wispish as that for the Ripper himself." Nevertheless, Richard established all the main facts about D'Onston and included the newly-found Scotland Yard material on him. Thus all this information entered the public domain, as shown, over thirty years ago. When Melvin Harris became interested in Jack the Ripper it was Richard Whittington-Egan who enclouraged him to pursue further research on D'Onston, the results of which may be found in Melvin's books.

[Grey Hunter]

Elwyn Jones and John Lloyd

Another early appearance of D'Onston, also 1975 the same year as Whittington-Egan, was in The Ripper File An Investigation by Detective Chief Superintendents Barlow & Watt. In this book he appears, from the official files, as Dr Stephenson who was offering his own suspect Dr Morgan Davies. It's only a short refrence but it's there, and even mentions that Stephenson had been 'writing about the Ripper for the Pall Mall Gazette.'

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Stephen Knight

The most useful part of Stephen Knight's 1976 book, Jack the Ripper the Final Solution, is that containing transcriptions of the Scotland Yard suspects file. At the time Knight accessed these records, in the mid-1970s, they included much material that has since gone missing.

As a result the book has about five pages, 225-230, on Dr Roslyn D'O Stephenson. It was fortunate indeed that this text was preserved in print as the originals were soon to go missing. A few photocopies of them have, however, survived.

[Grey Hunter]

Established as a Suspect

What the above shows is that D'Onston was well-established as a suspect over ten years before the Ripper centenary, a fact that was, apparently, overlooked by some who claimed in the 1990s that he was a 'new' suspect.

I have always maintained that D'Onston is a contemporary, valid, and interesting suspect (whereas some Ripper 'experts' dismissed the theory as 'dotty') but I did point out many years ago the weakness of the case against him. D'Onston's letter to the City Police in October 1888 and the mention in the official files involving Marsh and Inspector Roots does establish his credentials although it is hardly a persuasive case and he was rejected by Roots as a suspect.

The main case, and most of the information, against D'Onston is derived from W.T. Stead's Borderland piece of 1896 and the story of Vittoria Cremers and Mabel Colins as recorded by Bernard O'Donnell. Not one item of hard evidence is adduced. And these people are hardly the best and most reliable sources to base a theory upon. But such is the case with many Ripper suspects.

What should not be gainsaid is the fact that D'Onston makes a better suspect that McCormick's Dr Pedachenko nonsense that was published in 1959 by Jarrolds. This means, of course, that whilst McCormick was researching and writing The Identity of Jack the Ripper c. 1958, O'Donnell was researching and writing his own Ripper book Black Magic and "Jack the Ripper" or This Man Was "Jack the Ripper". In the event McCormick was published and O'Donnell was rejected, for reasons yet to be made clear.

Both McCormick and O'Donnell were journalists of the old school, working at the same period of time, who must, surely, have known each other. Had Harraps have accepted O'Donnell's manuscript, then 1959 would have witnessed a similar publishing coincidence as we saw in 1965 when the Cullen and Odell books were almost simultaneously published. Which would have been the better book? Only a reading of both can provide the answer - and the O'Donnell manuscript is not, as yet, generally available.

To follow - 'The Mystery of Joe Gaute'

[Grey Hunter]

A Sample Page from the O'Donnell Manuscript

Although O'Donnell's book wasn't published, it is fortunate that his manuscript has survived. Here is a sample page of that manuscript, which is copyright to the estate of Bernard O'Donnell, copy courtesy of the late Melvin Harris.

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The Mystery of Joe Gaute

The name of the late Joe Gaute is familiar to anyone with an interest in crime books and criminology that dates back over the past forty years plus. He was a personal friend of many of the great crime authors of this period and had a vast and comprehensive collection of crime books and ephemera. He was co-author, with Robin Odell, of The Murderers' Who's Who, Murder 'Whatdunit' and Murder Whereabouts.

Joe joined the publishers Hutchinson in 1928 and said, "One of the first books to come on to my desk, and which incidentally, was to form the beginning of my crime library, was The Mystery of Jack the Ripper by Leonard Matters." Joe's long and enduring publishing association with Jack the Ripper had begun.

In 1935 Joe moved to Harraps and it was whilst still there, in 1964, that he was contacted by a young Robin Odell who was writing a new book on Jack the Ripper. Robin received much help and encouragement from Joe and Harraps published Robin's successful Jack the Ripper In Fact and Fiction in 1965.

In 1975 Joe commissioned a new young Ripper author, one Stephen Knight, who had written Jack the Ripper The Final Solution, published by Harraps in 1976.

So it seems to be something of a mystery as to why Joe did not accept the O'Donnell manuscript for publication when it was submitted to him in 1958. After all, here was a new Ripper book, with a new suspect, written by a seasoned Fleet Street crime reporter and at a time when the country had not seen a new Ripper book since before World War II (William Stewart's Jack the Ripper A New Theory was published in 1939 and was immediately forced into obscurity by events on the global stage).

Does anyone have any ideas?

[Grey Hunter]

The Mystery of Joe Gaute

O'Donnell's work introduced the then new Ripper suspect Roslyn D'Onston, and read like a detective story as O'Donnell described how he discovered the man and his story against a background of black magic and lost love - the ingredients of a best-seller, surely?

[Robert Linford]

Weird, especially as 1958 was the 70th anniversary (although there may not have been much interest amongst the public, it would have made a good selling point).

Did O'Donnell not take his book somewhere else?

[Dave O]

Hi everybody,

Fascinating, I'm getting a good education on both Stephenson and This Thing of Ours here. I do hope there's more. It seems to me that the issue with not publishing O'Donnell must have been something other than a perceived lack of interest, since McCormick's publishers deemed a book about Jack the Ripper was a good business venture. And since Joe Gaute had an interest in Jack the Ripper himself, and later published Odell in the mid-60s and Stephen Knight in the 70s, the subject matter couldn't have been an issue.

Given the vagaries and whims of publishers, could it be that Gaute knew O'Donnell and did not care for him for some reason? Had they ever worked together before? As Robert says, didn't O'Donnell take his book to another publisher?

Dave

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Literary history of Jack the Ripper

It's getting late here, but a quick post before I retire.

I shall have to have a long chat with my friend Richard Whittington-Egan over the weekend. He knew both O'Donnell and Gaute and may have some ideas as to why O'Donnell didn't attempt to publish elsewhere, although perhaps he did and was turned down.

Richard's as yet unpublished book The Quest For Jack the Ripper does contain a chapter on this and I don't want to steal his thunder. But if he agrees I shall let you all know what he says.

This literary history side of the Ripper story is what I find especially intriguing and it's great to see as much of it recorded as possible. Anyway stay tuned for updates.

[Grey Hunter]

A Learning Curve

This exercise is proving useful to me too. I have just discussed this topic with Richard and find that I had my facts slightly wrong with regard to the date of Joe's involvement. It was not 1958. As far as Richard can tell, the O'Donnell manuscript must have been rejected before the Gaute approach which was not made until after O'Donnell's death.

So the assumption now is that the manuscript was rejected back in the late 1950s by whichever publisher or publishers O'Donnell approached. As far as Joe Gaute was concerned he found the O'Donnell manuscript discursive and the fact that O'Donnell had not identified D'Onston as Stephenson left it a bit up in the air on proving his story, resulted in Joe feeling that it wasn't right for publication. As this would have been after the publication of Cullen and Odell in 1965 this is probably more understandable.

The search for the facts goes on apace...

[Dave O]

Thanks very much for that; I really enjoy hearing about the writers who were working before 1988. I wonder if anybody has anything biographical on Bernard O'Donnell for newbies like me? I know he was a reporter, what sort of things did he write about?

Dave