Narrative Of Doctor Tumblety ( 1872, New York)

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Hi Paul.

The story of the Batty Street Lodger is a bit convoluted with different sources saying different things and the possibility that two separate incidents were muddled together. The short and sweet answer is that no, the man in question was not Tumblety.

The man was described as being a "foreigner," which usually meant a European Jew, and he wasn't a lodger at the house in Batty Street. According to an interview with the woman who ran the lodging house, which appeared in The People, 21 October, 1888, the man only had his washing done at the Batty Street house and that he was "a ladies' tailor, working for a West-end house."

Wolf.

[Debra Arif]

Hi Paul
it's also further complicated (I think!) because the earliest recorded published version of the breaking lodger story on 9th/10th Oct involves the 'private detectives' Grande and Batchelor, who, thanks to Jerry D recently, we know were paid by the Evening News for stories, so, I suppose it depends on what you feel about their Packer grape story, plus the lodger story and what their motives may be?..Legitimate PI's or attention seeking fantasists...or whatever.