The Handwriting

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

The Diary handwriting issue has been dealt with before. Most people think it's conclusive of forgery. But how unequivocable is the handwriting analysis?

I'll just post some of the clearer images I can find for comparison.

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

will4a.jpg
will4b.jpg

will4b.jpg
will4c.jpg


The Maybrick Will
page 1 bottom half

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

9336E9F4-66E1-46E4-B8EC-EAB3649397B8.jpg rip2.jpg







The Ripper Diary

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

Let’s imagine that these are two samples of natural handwriting! Easy enough for most here.

I thought there were only two possible reasons for temporary changes in handwriting:

Schizophrenia
Purposely disguising handwriting

It turns out there are more:

Conditions that affect handwriting can be temporary (drugs or alcohol), static (paralysis), or progressive (a changing illness).

Typical indications of mental illness, drugs or intoxication affecting writing include distortions in spacings, relative size of strokes and letter formations. Physical problems tend to manifest themselves as trembling, pen slippage, and changed letter formations (for ease of creation). Nervousness and tension can also affect handwriting. The position of the writer can influence the writing, i.e. leaning, sitting, standing, constricted space. The writing surface can affect the writing quality, e.g. a rough surface can create what appears as tremors in the writing. And finally, the writing instrument can affect the appearance of the writing.

https://medcraveonline.com/FRCIJ/the-process-of-forensic-handwriting-examinations.html

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

hand3.jpg EatPD7lX0AcseSe?format=png&name=small.png

Ripper Diary
hand2.jpg
Maybrick Bible

[Scott Nelson]

The problem is that you have to have a large enough sample of reliable handwriting to start with to do comparisons. Did Maybrick write his will, or did he have a clerk write it for him? His signature at the bottom doesn't match the writing in the will. And the bible birthday note to his 'wife' doesn't match either the bottom signature on the will or the writing in the body of the will itself.

So while it may be fine to speculate about health or time-related changes in handwriting or purposely disguised writing, there has to be a body of reliable, original writing to begin with. To my amateur eyes, I see no progression from the aforementioned samples to the handwriting in the Maybrick Diary.

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

I agree with all you’re saying, Scott. I can pick out a few things here and there but I wouldn’t really hazard a guess one way or another.

If someone says it’s conclusive that the Maybrick samples and the Diary samples are from two different hands, they should be able to explain their reasoning, not say Rendell and run.

I can see it doesn’t match on the whole but I’d like to know about the history of exonerations based on a negative handwriting match.

PS With limited samples you can still look for “signature” anomalies. How about r in the the Maybrick Will signature’s “br” and in the body of the Will compared to the other “r”s? I don’t know if the deviation is a “br” thing or a May(br)ick thing.

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

I think it's a Maybrick "br" thing only in the Will. All the Rs I've seen in the Diary are written as in the Signature. I'm not sure how common or uncommon it is. Here's a look.

rrrs.jpg

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

The Diary Rs and the Maybrick signature Rs are the calligraphy of the 1850s, James was born in 1838.

Does anyone know when the cursive R changed to todays version, as used in the body of the Diary? It had to be at least by 1889 when the Will was drawn up.

https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/libr...h/oct2006.html

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

Yes, the Diary and Maybrick, in his signature, used the Georgian Era cursive R.

In the body of the Will, he uses the Victorian cursive R in everything except his name. This means the cursive writing in the Diary matches someone born early in the reign of Queen Victoria who switches back and forth to Georgian. The Victorian Era started in 1837 a year before James was born.

(243) Pinterest

https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/library/files/special/exhibns/month/oct2006.html

Vector Clipart Vintage 17th Century Handwriting Alphabet - Etsy Canada

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

In 1993, the Diary handwriting was declared to "seem to be" more modern than Victorian. I don't know how many diaries or personal papers they looked at before (maybe they only looked at political documents) but your can see for yourself if this seems to be true.


Hand3.jpg

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

The problem is that you have to have a large enough sample of reliable handwriting to start with to do comparisons....
So while it may be fine to speculate about health or time-related changes in handwriting or purposely disguised writing, there has to be a body of reliable, original writing to begin with. To my amateur eyes, I see no progression from the aforementioned samples to the handwriting in the Maybrick Diary.

Now that I've looked at the Handwriting, I can make a couple of conclusions:

- the Diary does not overtly seem to be written in a modern hand or a hand that seems modern.

- The Diary "seems to be" written in an early Victorian script which "seems" to match the Maybrick signature and the Maybrick Bible sample in more than one peculiar way

They have the pointed Ps like in Piggy, and the Rs which are definitely Georgian and early Victorian.

piggy Ps.jpg rrrsmaybrick.jpg


- Georgian would more likely be James' natural hand as opposed to the majority of the Will which was a business document copied out as uniformly and conformist as possible. He only faltered or defaulted when he wrote the name Maybrick.



- It appears that Northerners and the Scots kept the Georgian R longer than the Londoners. Compare Londoners from 1859 with a Scot from 1874.

Victorian Letters x 45 Replies to Advert 1859 London | #168462556 (worthpoint.com)
Victorian Letter Writing (nathanaelrubin.wixsite.com)

[Caroline Brown]

Very early on, before Robert Smith decided whether to take a punt on the diary, he was able to compare the handwriting with the Victorian examples he already owned, and to satisfy himself that they were entirely compatible. Had he suspected that the writing in the diary was modern in style, or at least unlikely to date back as far as the 19th century, he could have walked away and saved himself a shedload of grief.

I have known Robert since 1999, and contrary to all the negative speculation aired by people who never met the man, concerning his motives, intelligence, common sense and intuition about the various clients he has engaged with during his long literary career, I will never believe he would have walked into Mike Barrett's world with his eyes half shut, or would have stayed there if he thought for a second that the diary could have been a recent fake when he first saw it.

Love,

Caz
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[Scott Nelson]

Caroline, do you think the handwriting in Maybrick's Will is his, or could it be a scribe's?

[Caroline Brown]

Hi Scotty,

I'm afraid that's not something I'd be any more qualified to have an opinion on than anyone else - including your good self.

There is a passage on page 66 of Bernard Ryan's book which refers to Alice Yapp claiming that Michael and Edwin were trying to get their dying brother James to sign a will, because they couldn't find the one he made on 25th April, after the quarrel on Grand National day. But something's not quite right here because if the brothers couldn't find that will, how were they going to get James to make and sign another when he was literally "sick unto death"?

Whatever the brothers had bothered James with - and Yapp could have of course have been mistaken about it concerning a will - he couldn't have signed a new one on his death bed because a more thorough search had to be made on the morning following his death.

The will was found because, on page 96, Ryan writes: 'Having avoided a public reading of their brother's will at the Coroner's Inquest, Michael and Edwin now privately broke the seal and read the document. It was written in James's rather shaky hand on blue paper.'

One question would be why this warning did not appear to register in Goldie Street, if the Barretts were using Ryan's book as their Maybrick bible to create the diary. If this document survived it could prove a blessing or a curse for anyone needing to write like the real Jim in the early 1990s.

But it's clear to me that there was no conscious attempt, need or desire, to make the handwriting recognisable as James Maybrick's - nor indeed to disguise the handwriting - so Ryan's words were not needed. I don't think the person holding the pen gave a tinker's cuss about how the handwriting looked.

Love,

Caroline
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