Mrs. Hammersmith?

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

I may have found a new candidate for Mrs. Hammersmith:

Angelica Frangopulo (Mrs. Dimitrios Galati).

Her husband would have worked in the cotton business with Augustus Agelasto and her home was closer to Sefton Park than James Maybrick. Stoneleigh is on Alexandria Drive.

Angelica (Stamatios) Frangopulo b. 10 Jan 1851 Manchester, Lancashire, England UK d. 31 Dec 1920 Highfield, Greenbank Drive, Sefton Park, Liverpool, Lancashire, England UK (agelastos.com)

Augustus Agelasto…. | GHOSTLY TOM'S TRAVEL BLOG….. (toms-travels.net) [Correction: this St. Peter's Square is in Manchester, not Hammersmith. Sorry.]

[Caroline Brown]

Interesting, San Fran. Thanks for this.

There had to be a reason why the diary author introduced Mrs H, but predictably Mike Barrett was as clueless as the rest of us.

Love,

Caz
X

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

Thanks, Caz.

I used to go with the Robert Louis Stevenson and The Suicide Club literary reference for Mrs. Hammersmith, so the wife of a new member of the club he "frequented", or Mrs Briggs because her husband, as I recall was [a major].

[Caroline Brown]

Hi San Fran,

I am ashamed to say I have never read The Suicide Club and should really remedy that!

I found a review from last year here:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/143474.The_Suicide_Club

Part of the review goes as follows:

'Prince Florizel of Boemia, tired of his boring routine as ruler, takes a walk along the city's streets with his loyal squire, the Colonel Geraldine. Both awkwardly conceal their identity with plain clothes and ridiculous fake names: Theophilus Godall and major Alfred Hammersmith. During their stroll they encounter a young man who's offering free pastries and after curious questioning reveals the reason for that unlikely action: the man is bankrupt and is doing one last good deed before ending it. He explains how he intends to do this through the support of "The Suicide Club", further intriguing Godall and Hammersmith that pretend to be in a similar situations and ask to also attend the next meeting.'

I wonder if the reviewer was using similar wording to the actual short story, because it's certainly similar to the diary author's choice of words:

'Strolled by the drive, encountered Mrs Hammersmith...'

Odd little coincidence there.

Love,

Caz
X

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

I have Matilda Janion/Brigg born in Hawaii and visiting in Norfolk in 1891. Although she did have a sister at 16 South Albert Road right next to Aigburth Drive and Sefton Park in 1889. She died in November of that year. Maybe she, or I guess the "hoaxer" thought she, was visiting her dying sister.

If Sir Jim was strolling down the drive in Sefton and by some chance met Mrs. Major Briggs, I think he would have called her Mrs. Honolulu!

[Jay Hartley]

I still believe the writer was using a nickname for 'Mrs Hammersmith'. It would not beyond the realms for that to be true. I believe her to be Eleanor Bridge, wife of cotton exchange trader George Bridge. The drive was colloquially known at the time as the road being called 'Queens Drive'.

Incidentally, the replacement Hammersmith Bridge opened in mid 1887. Perhaps the writer saw Eleanor as a replacement for someone else and thought it made a good wordplay joke.

Some details...

- George Bridge was born Liverpool December 1848 (aged 40 in 1888) Baptised 15/01/1849
- Father Mark Nelson Bridge & mother Elisabeth Bridge
- Address was Windsor Street, Toxteth Park 1851 census (father was a pilot)
- Lived with parents & siblings at 6 Myrtle Street, Liverpool (aged 12 - 1861 census)
- Age 22 still living with parents, this time Richmond Terrace, Everton, West Darby (1871 census)
- Married in 1873 to Eleanor Young (born 1847)
- 1881 census address is Innismore Newsham Park, West Darby. 6 miles north of Battlecrease House with main road linking being Queens Drive (The Drive).
- George's Occupation: Cotton Broker
- In 1887 Hammersmith Bridge was re-opened to the public by Prince of Wales on 11/06/1887.

[Caroline Brown]

I have Matilda Janion/Brigg born in Hawaii and visiting in Norfolk in 1891. Although she did have a sister at 16 South Albert Road right next to Aigburth Drive and Sefton Park in 1889. She died in November of that year. Maybe she, or I guess the "hoaxer" thought she, was visiting her dying sister.

If Sir Jim was strolling down the drive in Sefton and by some chance met Mrs. Major Briggs, I think he would have called her Mrs. Honolulu!

Matilda Janion married army captain Thomas Charles Briggs in 1871 in Halewood, Lancs:

http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/Liverpool/...1846-1939.html

Marriage: 2 Aug 1871 St Nicholas, Halewood, Lancs.
Thomas Charles Briggs - Full age, Captain in the Army, Bachelor, Newcastle on Tyne
Matilda Isabel Janion - Full age, Spinster, Halewood
Groom's Father: George Briggs, General in the Army
Bride's Father: Robert Cheshyre Janion, Merchant
Witness: John George Echalay; Robert Janion; Ellen Mary Janion; G. Briggs; E. M. Thompson
Married by Banns by: Thos. Chambers M. A. Rector
Register: Marriages 1846 - 1939, Page 34, Entry 67
Source: LDS Film 2147880

According to Bernard Ryan's book, The Poisoned Life of Mrs Maybrick, Matilda had once been engaged to James Maybrick, and they even set a date for the wedding but James broke it off. Unfortunately, Ryan doesn't give a source for this, and if it was Florie Maybrick's mother who made this claim, I don't know how reliable it was.

The marriage between the Briggs didn't last, and they had separated by the time James and Florie met and married. According to Chris Jones, Briggs was never a Major, but there is the army link with both him and his father.

At the time of Florie's trial, Mrs Briggs gave her address as Livingston Avenue, Sefton Park, which is close to Aigburth Drive, and she and her sister Martha Hughes had been frequent visitors to Battlecrease and the Maybricks right up until James's death.

The diary entry featuring Mrs Hammersmith [spelled inconsistently in the same short passage] implies this is someone known to the Maybricks, but if the surname was an invention - possibly based on the fake name Major Alfred Hammersmith, from Stevenson's book, The Suicide Club, of 1878 - she would inevitably resist all efforts by researchers to identify her as a real person. There is plenty of information throughout Bernard Ryan's book, regarding the part Mrs Briggs and the other Janion sisters played in the last year of James Maybrick's life, yet not a single reference in the diary to any of them by name.

It strikes me as odd that a modern hoaxer trusting Ryan's book as a source would avoid the Janions and other real people like the plague, but then introduce the untraceable Mrs Hammersmith, and give her a brief role of little or no consequence.

Love,

Caz
X

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

Not a Major and separated? Then Mrs. Briggs theory is out.

I still believe the writer was using a nickname for 'Mrs Hammersmith'. It would not beyond the realms for that to be true. I believe her to be Eleanor Bridge, wife of cotton exchange trader George Bridge. The drive was colloquially known at the time as the road being called 'Queens Drive'.

Incidentally, the replacement Hammersmith Bridge opened in mid 1887. Perhaps the writer saw Eleanor as a replacement for someone else and thought it made a good wordplay joke.

I think you nailed the Hammersmith, JW! I see how Google puts Hammersmith Bridge even above Hammersmith the district. Is this the first time you mentioned it?

So Mrs. Hammersmith was Eleanor Bridge.

Do you think there was still an element of Suicide Club with the fanciful name and game playing? If so, I was partially right.

Again, it's not something a modern hoaxer would come up with without the internet, I think.

[Jay Hartley]

Not a Major and separated? Then Mrs. Briggs theory is out.

I think you nailed the Hammersmith, JW! I see how Google puts Hammersmith Bridge even above Hammersmith the district. Is this the first time you mentioned it?

So Mrs. Hammersmith was Eleanor Bridge.

Do you think there was still an element of Suicide Club with the fanciful name and game playing? If so, I was partially right.

Again, it's not something a modern hoaxer would come up with without the internet, I think.

I had mentioned it at ‘the other place’ previously. There are many who are not convinced. I am.

As for the suicide club book, I have never actually read it so can’t comment on that. The writer was definitely attempting wordplay at every opportunity. I started from that.

Being 75%+ psychopathic myself (tested twice), if I were him, what would I do? I would have in-jokes with myself. As Hammersmith is so unusual a name it should either jump out in a census record that had meaning or it was a nickname.

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

You've convinced me. I had a wordplay on the location but the bridge seems to trump the district, even on Google. The timing of the reopening is also significant.

I read Suicide Club for the Maybrick Diary associations with Hammersmith and "the club". I would assume there were other possible bridge names that would be funny applied to a woman named Bridge, but perhaps the RLS book tipped the scales for Hammersmith. Otherwise, Mrs Vauxhall might have worked.

[Caroline Brown]

Interesting, you two.

Any more info on this Eleanor Bridge, erobitha? She has to be someone Florie Maybrick would have known well enough to confide in, on the subject of her children and James's health, and whoever authored the diary had to know this too. 'Sir Jim' calls Mrs Ham(m)ersmith a bitch.

Not a Major and separated? Then Mrs. Briggs theory is out.

I'm not following your reasoning here, San Fran.

Mrs Briggs was separated, but she remained married and kept her married name.

Nicknames wouldn't necessarily have an obvious explanation to those of us who never knew the people concerned, so Mrs B remains a potential contender in my view, with or without the Major Hammersmith link. Could have been Mrs Hughes for that matter - same initial.

Ooh, entering Line of Duty territory here with a mysterious H.

Love,

Caz
X

[Caroline Brown]

I was born in Queen Charlotte's Hospital, Hammersmith, and I went to school in Hammersmith from the age of eleven. I used to meet my husband in Hammersmith when we were courting in 2011, and we would stroll together along the riverside from Hammersmith Bridge to Chiswick. Happy days. Not the school days, the courting.

My Mum's name was Mrs H, and one of her nicknames for me when I was tiny was Fairy Fay.

Make something of all that!

Love,

Caz
X

[Jay Hartley]

I don't have much on Eleanor Bridge (nee Young).

- She was born in Cheshire 1847 to John (a merchant) & Alice Young
- In 1871 census she was still living with her parents at aged 24
- The address was Richmond Terrace, Everton, West Darby, Lancashire
- On that census she had three brothers Thomas (born 1846 - a Clerk), Edward (born 1850 - a clerk), Rowland (born 1857) and one sister Louisa (born 1853)
- She died in the Wirral aged 80 in 1927

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

Any more info on this Eleanor Bridge, erobitha? She has to be someone Florie Maybrick would have known well enough to confide in, on the subject of her children and James's health, and whoever authored the diary had to know this too. 'Sir Jim' calls Mrs Ham(m)ersmith a bitch.

Mrs. Hammersmith does have to be someone Florie confided in but she can't be that close if James was surprised when she asked about his health. It seems more like Florie was gossiping with the neighbors like Eleanor Bridge.

He might even be angrier knowing that she was gossiping with the wife of his cotton merchant competition.

Strolled by the drive, encountered Mrs Hamersmith, she enquired of Bobo and Gladys and much to my astonishment about my health. What has that whore said? Mrs Hammersmith is a bitch.

[Jay Hartley]

I remember coming across the fact his middle name was O Neill. Think it appears on the 1891 census when they moved to the Wirral. Oddly by 1901 they were at Princes St in Toxteth Park.

For some reason I also think there was a Freemason connection between George and James but can’t for the life of me remember exactly what right now.