Proof of Innocence?

[Steve Blomer]

Druitt bowled 10 overs.
It occured to me that the Blandford batting collapse could have been caused by rain affecting the wicket.

I did wonder myself, it looks as If he may have opened the bowling, if so , and if bowling unchanged we have either 19 or 20 overs min for duration.
One issue, I understood he was a medium pacer, while on a old sticky almost impossible to bat against, (hence why you see Bradman batting at lower than 8 on some stickies.) It was also very difficult for bowlers above slow to physically bowl.
If so, and 20 overs was duration, about 1hr to 1.15 .
While today teams struggle with 15 overs an hour, 18 overs was common start 20th century , and club cricket even today's manages 16-18 an hour.

However, without full scorecard impossible to say.

[Abby Normal]

for all we know the private info Mac could have gotten was directly from druitts brother telling him that he confessed or something just as damming. it must have been pretty bad to have made such an impression on Mac.

[Simon Wood]

As people "more likely than Cutbush" to have been the Ripper, Macnaghten chose a dead man and someone incarcerated in a mental asylum. And just to prove how inept he was at framing innocent people, Macnaghten threw in a Russian doctor who, six months after his memorandum was written, was paid £10 compensation by the Metropolitan Police for false imprisonment for a crime at Eton he supposedly committed whilst being held during the Autumn of Terror in a Parisian jail.

The Macnaghten memorandum is dangerous nonsense. Druitt, Kosminsky and Ostrog were innocent men.

[Abby Normal]

As people "more likely than Cutbush" to have been the Ripper, Macnaghten chose a dead man and someone incarcerated in a mental asylum. And just to prove how inept he was at framing innocent people, Macnaghten threw in a Russian doctor who, six months after his memorandum was written, was paid £10 compensation by the Metropolitan Police for false imprisonment for a crime at Eton he supposedly committed whilst being held during the Autumn of Terror in a Parisian jail.

The Macnaghten memorandum is dangerous nonsense. Druitt, Kosminsky and Ostrog were innocent men.

druit wasnt dead and kosminsky wasnt incarcerated during the autumn of terror

[Chris Phillips]

I did wonder myself, it looks as If he may have opened the bowling, if so , and if bowling unchanged we have either 19 or 20 overs min for duration.
One issue, I understood he was a medium pacer, while on a old sticky almost impossible to bat against, (hence why you see Bradman batting at lower than 8 on some stickies.) It was also very difficult for bowlers above slow to physically bowl.
If so, and 20 overs was duration, about 1hr to 1.15 .
While today teams struggle with 15 overs an hour, 18 overs was common start 20th century , and club cricket even today's manages 16-18 an hour.

However, without full scorecard impossible to say.

A friend who is knowledgeable about cricket pointed out to me last night that until 1888 an over normally contained only 4 balls, not 6.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_(cricket)#Historical_number_of_balls_per_over_in_Test_cricket

He also suggested the possibility that this could have been planned as a match of two innings per side, like some of the others whose details have been posted here, but terminated because of the weather.

[Phil Kellingley]

A friend who is knowledgeable about cricket pointed out to me last night that until 1888 an over normally contained only 4 balls, not 6.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_(cricket)#Historical_number_of_balls_per_over_in_Test_cricket

He also suggested the possibility that this could have been planned as a match of two innings per side, like some of the others whose details have been posted here, but terminated because of the weather.

Was the match actually a Test match? I think not.

[Chris Phillips]

There were some highfliers, but the most likely identity of 'G. Smart' and 'R. Smart' on the Blandford team would be George Smart, the station master, and his son, the telegraph operator.

Which is interesting.

Thanks for these researches into the team members, which are interesting. So the team wasn't entirely composed of toffs, though no shop workers so far either.

[Phil Kellingley]

for all we know the private info Mac could have gotten was directly from druitts brother telling him that he confessed or something just as damming. it must have been pretty bad to have made such an impression on Mac.

Indeed it could. Except we have no idea where MacN got his information from and it's unlikely he had any contact with his brother. We do know that he got the age and profession wrong so even if he was fed information 3rd hand that it wan't accurate, so unlikely to have come from his family. As MacN refused to say where he got his information from the most likely explanation is that he simply made up a story of getting the story from the family to fit his attempt at defending Cutbush. None of the information he alleges except the name of Druitt is correct. MacN was in a very senior position in the police and couldn't even get right the fact that the accused Cutbush was not a relative of a serving policeman, when all he had to do was ask that policeman.

[Chris Phillips]

Was the match actually a Test match? I think not.

No, it wasn't a test match. According to the article I linked to, four balls per over was the rule for both test matches and first-class cricket before 1889. That seems to have been invariable at that level

Perhaps it was different for amateur cricket, but I haven't been able to find any indication of that.

[Chris Phillips]

I have been assuming, as I think most people have, that a "half-holiday" meant the shops closed at lunchtime. Evidently that wasn't at all what it meant in Blandford in the 1880s.

Early closing had been decided at a public meeting in the Town Hall in April 1883, when it was resolved, subject to consultation, that the shops should close at 4pm from May to September, as reported by the Blandford and Wimborne Telegraph, 27 April 1883:



Interestingly the early-closing meeting had been preceded by a meeting held, also in the Town Hall, to found the cricket team. Both meetings were convened by the same two men, W. E. Brennand and E. O. Richards, who were joint secretaries of the Recreation Ground Committee. Both were elected to the committee of the new club. From the same newspaper, on the same page:



Evidently the same early-closing arrangement - closure at 4pm - continued beyond the year 1888. Blandford Weekly News, 8 May 1889:

[Chris Phillips]

So obviously this half-day closing fits in perfectly with the report Ed posted of the activities in May to mark the reopening of the recreation ground "for the season" [Edit: which also took place on a Thursday].
https://www.jtrforums.com/forum/pers...475#post588475

In view of the letter above, according to which half-day closing ended in September, did "the season" coincide with the period of half-day closing?

Just to confirm that the afternoon's events in May did mark the start of early closing in 1888, here is the Blandford Weekly News of 28 April:

[Phil Kellingley]

He also suggested the possibility that this could have been planned as a match of two innings per side, like some of the others whose details have been posted here, but terminated because of the weather.

And, equally possible, is that the weather delayed the start of the match so it went on later.

[Phil Kellingley]

No, it wasn't a test match. According to the article I linked to, four balls per over was the rule for both test matches and first-class cricket before 1889. That seems to have been invariable at that level

Perhaps it was different for amateur cricket, but I haven't been able to find any indication of that.

The Wikipedia article you indicated was specifically about Test matches, which is why I raised the point. If it was different at amateur/semi-professional matches (which is possible) then that should also have been indicated. Simple answer - we don't know and making assumptions doesn't prove anything. It may well have been 4 balls per over - but it could have been 8 and unless we have categorical proof of that, the time the match started/ended, the weather, etc. we really can't say either way.

[Chris Phillips]

The Wikipedia article you indicated was specifically about Test matches, which is why I raised the point. If it was different at amateur/semi-professional matches (which is possible) then that should also have been indicated. Simple answer - we don't know and making assumptions doesn't prove anything. It may well have been 4 balls per over - but it could have been 8 and unless we have categorical proof of that, the time the match started/ended, the weather, etc. we really can't say either way.

The article is not specifically about test matches. It says "generally the same as the number of balls per over in force in other first-class cricket in that country."

That is confirmed by other online sources, such as this "A History of Balls to an Over in First-Class Cricket" (reprinted from the journal of the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians):

https://acscricket.com/?page_id=464

At that level, a four-ball over seems to have been the invariable rule before 1889. I couldn't find any indication that it was different at other levels. If you can find any, please do. But if you can't find any at all, I think there will be a strong presumption that the same rule was followed.

[Edward Stow]

This obviously wasn't first class cricket.

The conduct of local cricket matches and the rhythm of life in Blandford have a huge bearing on this issue - which has some significance for the history of this case beyond a petty 'my suspect is better than your suspect' squabble.
Druitt occupies a prominent position in the historical study of this case - he is part of the folklore associated with it - and whether anyone likes it or not 'Ripperology' is part folklore.
The drowned doctor stories, the Macnaghten Memorandum, Sims, Macnaghten himself - what is found here potentially affects how all these sources should be evaluated and judged.