Red Jim and the Lady

[Lynn Cates]

Hello All. The following is from "The Sydney Mail" 30 December 1893. (Generously donated by Simon Wood.)

It is striking how one spy knew not another. A tribute to Sir Ed's efficiency.

Anyone have a clue about the beautiful young lady shuttling between London and Paris for pleasure?

Cheers.
LC

[Lynn Cates]

lady provocateur

Hello All. Whilst reading the introduction to Sir George Fottrell's diary, the author noted that Sir Ed had used a lady agent provocateur in 1884. He noted that Michael Davitt recorded the incident in his "Fall of Feudalism."

Finally found it online.

http://archive.org/stream/falloffeud...up/search/xxxv

If anyone knows the identity of Mrs. T, I'd be much obliged to discover it. Also, not sure if I've heard of Featherstone and Davis before.

Still trying to identify all his agents.

Cheers.
LC

[Lynn Cates]

S Y

Hello All. Christy Campbell gives her pseudonym as Mrs. Tyler.

It was supposed that she was a wife of an upper echelon SY chap.

Cheers.
LC

[Tom_Wescott]

Hello All. Christy Campbell gives her pseudonym as Mrs. Tyler.

It was supposed that she was a wife of an upper echelon SY chap.

Cheers.
LC

Now that is very interesting. Are we talking in 1884? Who does that rule out and who does that rule in as the SY toff?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Lynn Cates]

ruled out

Hello Tom. Thanks.

Excellent question. I have been trying to rule in and out as well.

Campbell says her identity is "impenetrable." And, of course, the SY business may or may not be true.

BUT she was passing as a widow and she was reputed to be quite attractive.

My guess is that we can rule out any connection to the Andersons and Monros and even Williamsons. I presume inspectors were too low. What about chief inspectors? Maybe one of their spouses?

Cheers.
LC

[Tom_Wescott]

I couldn't say without seeing the sources you're seeing. It's your job to figure out this one! You'd be looking for a Scotland Yard man, higher up, who attended public functions without his wife. If she were too visible, she could hardly expect to pass as a widow under an assumed name. Identify top yard men in the right time period with wives no older than their early 40's. Then look at functions attended by these men. I've seen a bunch of these in the papers and they usually name those attending and their wives. I would imagine only one would stand out who attended a majority alone.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Lynn Cates]

how high?

Hello Tom. Thanks.

"If she were too visible, she could hardly expect to pass as a widow under an assumed name."

And THIS, I believe, is the prime consideration.

Just wish I knew how high up to look.

Cheers.
LC

[Tom_Wescott]

I'd look quite high. Possibly a man with a woman who has her own money and traveled the continent on her own quite a bit. Her husband's friends wouldn't blink an eye to find out she's touring Paris again, etc. For people like Anderson and Warren, living on a salary, this would throw up a big flag I would think. What else do you know about this woman? When does she first come on the radar? When does she leave the radar? Description? Habits? Traits? Nationality?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Lynn Cates]

diamonds

Hello Tom. Thanks.

Well, since she worked for Sir Ed, she need not have any of her own money. Spying was a VERY lucrative business.

In fact, she was described as rich and wearing huge diamonds. Of course, her stated "interest" was Irish nationality.

Seems to me that, if she is really tied to SY, she should be relatively easy to find. But my impression is that Sir Ed preferred barmaids and what not.

Did you see Simon's post on the other site?

Cheers.
LC

[Tom_Wescott]

No, I didn't see Simon's post. I'm sure that if it's worth anything it will find it's way here.

My point is that if this woman were missing for lengths of time doing secret work, then we must consider that in her "real" life she's either wealthy or playing the part of a sickly woman. If her husband and home were of moderate means it could not be explained away that she was off on the continent yet again for leisure. She or her husband would have to have their own money for this to work. If she passed as a sickly woman she could have an excuse for not taking visitors or making public appearances with her husband. But that's the least likely.

Also, you cannot throw jewels and a fancy gown on a barmaid and expect her to gain the confidence of anyone in the higher classes. They'd see right through her. Look at the classes and people who the woman was said to move through. That's the same class she would found in when in London.

What do you mean when you say her "stated interest was Irish Nationality'? Incidentally, I don't know who Sir Ed is.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Lynn Cates]

FF

Hello (again) Tom. Here's a better job. From "FF."

"The Spymaster's growing circus of personally recruited agents had embarked in the summer of 1884 on some very curious intelligence operations. In the first week of July an 'attractive widow' turned up at the Gresham Hotel, Dublin, under the name 'Mrs Tyler'. She expressed 'extreme revolutionary views' while entertaining in her sitting room, over plentiful champagne . . . The fragrant visitor was especially eager to know more about Mr Parnell's views on dynamite. He was a secret sympathiser surely. The 'Lady Dynamiter' was rumbled. Reconstituted scraps of a Home Office telegram retrieved from her fireplace were sent to Sir George Trevelyan, Chief Secretary for Ireland since the murder of Sir Frederick Cavendish in 18882, with the accusation 'that the Government were employing agents provocateurs to promote crime'. Mrs. Tyler promptly vanished from Dublin. Questions were raised in parliament. She was a Jenkinson spook."

Campbell's footnote indicates that:

"The identity of Mrs. Tyler remains impenetrable. She was described in one account as the 'wife of a high official of Scotland Yard'. The 'attractive widow', however, seems not to have been Mrs. Martha Thomson."

Cheers.
LC

[Lynn Cates]

spotted

Hello Tom. Thanks.

Sir Ed Jenkinson.

You are probably right that she needed to comport herself well. And, as a matter of fact, she was spotted rather easily by Davitt.

"Irish Nationality" was a way for her to express pro-Irish sympathies. She was trying to get information linking Parnell to dynamite.

Cheers.
LC

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Lynn. Campbell's rather final statement that her identity is "impenetrable" is curious. And maybe he's correct. Do you think so? Whoever this wife was, I suppose her husband worked in Special Branch. They may have been "recruited" at the same time. Was there a Special Branch in 1884?

Also, did "Mrs. Tyler" pass as a widow or a married woman?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Lynn Cates]

impenetrable

Hello Tom. Thanks.

Yes, that struck me too. Perhaps he tried and was denied access to her identity? I know that there are still some files like that which are closed due to their sensitive nature.

Widow or married woman? Snippet indicated widow. Simon's snippet--from a paper--indicated married, but with "different tastes."

Wonder how well she had worked out her cover story?

Cheers.
LC

[Lynn Cates]

Brave, brave, Sir Robert.

Hello Tom, All. Here is a snippet posted by "Trade Name" on the other site.

"MR. JAMES O'CONNOR (Wicklow, W.)

said that the Home Secretary need not have taken so much trouble to assure the Committee that he had no acquaintance whatever with the persons Connected with this dynamite conspiracy. No one on the Opposition side of the House supposed for a moment that any Home Secretary ever had a personal acquaintance with the agents who had, as his hon. Friends and himself maintained, been employed by certain permanent officials in the Home Office or Scotland Yard. The right hon. Gentleman had asserted most emphatically that there was a reality in the conspiracy of September last. He admitted that there was a reality in that conspiracy, but with whom did that reality originate? With whom did it begin? The Nationalist Members maintained that it originated with the employees of the Home Office and Scotland Yard. How was it that Mrs. Tyler had never been arrested for the conspiracy which she went to Dublin to found in 1884. The Nationalist Members had in their possession telegrams sent from the Home Office to this woman at the Gresham Hotel in Dublin, and there were in the possession of Members of the House letters written and signed "Robert Anderson, Home Office," in reference to payments for informer's service."

Hmmmm.

Cheers.
LC