"Skewering The Ripperologists" Bad Women Podcast- Hallie Rubenhold

[Gary Barnett]

Incidentally, I think our Michael Banks knows Dave Froggat.


And, I should add, is a Black Country Bugle reader.

[Gary Barnett]

Yes, that was essentially the conclusion I had come to, because Robinson was living with his Eddowes grandfather in 1851. I had been thinking the author could have researched the Eddowes surname and noticed Robinson in the same household, but of course it could equally have been that he had researched Robinson and noticed the Eddowes surname, as you suggest.

It would be quite interesting to know whether the Bugle published an article about Robinson in his own right at around that time, perhaps including the results of research into his earlier life?

I was just wondering that myself. I have an annual (1995) that contains the Kidney Kate piece. There’s nothing on Robinson in that but the Bugle was founded in the 1970s. I think there’s a website that lists their various issues and what was in them.

[Chris Phillips]

Thanks. Looking at the Black Country Bugle article posted by Chris Scott here - https://www.casebook.org/forum/messages/4921/16829.html - it looks as though the author did a search for Eddowes in the census, found George Eddowes the hay dealer in 1851 and jumped to the conclusion that he was Catherine's grandfather when in fact he was her great-uncle. As Christopher Charles Robinson and his widowed mother were actually living with George Eddowes at the time, that would have enabled the author (if he recognised the murderer's name) to make the connection and conclude that Catherine and Robinson were cousins (albeit thinking they were first rather than second cousins).

And Rubenhold's "distant cousin" therefore didn't come direct from the Bugle, or (from what I've seen) from Neal Shelden's publications, or from Jarett Kobek's dissertation. I wonder where it came from.

[Gary Barnett]

And Rubenhold's "distant cousin" therefore didn't come direct from the Bugle, or (from what I've seen) from Neal Shelden's publications, or from Jarett Kobek's dissertation. I wonder where it came from.

Good point.

Perhaps that was Hallie’s own discovery. Or it’s on the boards somewhere.

[Michael Banks]

Incidentally, I think our Michael Banks knows Dave Froggat.


And, I should add, is a Black Country Bugle reader.

I do, although I haven’t seen him for ages. Paul Begg knows him too from the beginnings of the Cloak & Dagger.

[Linotte]

Linotte:

I am sending you an email....please read what I send and offer your opinion on this subject.

Hi all,

To recap for anyone who wasn’t in the know, How sent me the short story. I compared it against the book and didn’t find evidence of any lifting. I think Hallie and the author just pulled from the same sources. The podcast might be a different story, though, but get a transcript of that and make absolutely sure that these hunches are true before jumping the gun. To assume is to make an ass out of you and me.

Also, please be really careful when referring to HR on here. Do not give her anything that she can take and spin as possible misogyny. The “Mrs. McGrath” stuff looks really, really bad. If I was coming into this cold, I would assume there was more truth to her allegations of trolling than there actually is. I understand the situation is extremely frustrating and it’s easy to get fed up. But she’s just like any other person who’s using this case and making a controversial claim just to make a quick buck, and she honestly seems to think that making herself the sole “legitimate” subject matter expert of this case is going to set her up for life. Based on similar incidents, we all know that she’s wrong and has seriously miscalculated. She’s a mediocre researcher who didn’t want to do the work, but is a helluva good storyteller and has probably read everything out there on how effectively market her book. Discussion should be about the work, the associated promotion, the podcast, and any other problematic behavior (the very public tantrums on Twitter about the chip shop, or threatening to sue people for less-than-glowing reviews, for instance) associated with these or that could impact how she goes about her work. This is just what I’m doing. Take the emotion out of it, don’t give her the fuel she wants, and do the work to prove her wrong.

[Gary Barnett]

I’m not sure if this appears in the ‘bibliography’ of The Five. It predates it by a year or so and contains a lot of info about Eddowes’ life.

https://kateddowes.wordpress.com

[Gary Barnett]

Hi all,

To recap for anyone who wasn’t in the know, How sent me the short story. I compared it against the book and didn’t find evidence of any lifting. I think Hallie and the author just pulled from the same sources. The podcast might be a different story, though, but get a transcript of that and make absolutely sure that these hunches are true before jumping the gun. To assume is to make an ass out of you and me.

Also, please be really careful when referring to HR on here. Do not give her anything that she can take and spin as possible misogyny. The “Mrs. McGrath” stuff looks really, really bad. If I was coming into this cold, I would assume there was more truth to her allegations of trolling than there actually is. I understand the situation is extremely frustrating and it’s easy to get fed up. But she’s just like any other person who’s using this case and making a controversial claim just to make a quick buck, and she honestly seems to think that making herself the sole “legitimate” subject matter expert of this case is going to set her up for life. Based on similar incidents, we all know that she’s wrong and has seriously miscalculated. She’s a mediocre researcher who didn’t want to do the work, but is a helluva good storyteller and has probably read everything out there on how effectively market her book. Discussion should be about the work, the associated promotion, the podcast, and any other problematic behavior (the very public tantrums on Twitter about the chip shop, or threatening to sue people for less-than-glowing reviews, for instance) associated with these or that could impact how she goes about her work. This is just what I’m doing. Take the emotion out of it, don’t give her the fuel she wants, and do the work to prove her wrong.

Hi Linotte,

Hallie joined the Forums in the name of McGrath.

Gary

[Gary Barnett]

Hi Linotte,

Hallie joined the Forums in the name of McGrath. .

Gary

I’m sorry, if describing a woman who uses her husband’s name by that name is an example of misogyny, then I’m a misogynist

[Gary Barnett]

According to Ms Hallie Rubenhold (is that ok?)

“Apart from a small booklet containing fifty-seven pages of text, nothing else on the subject existed, but somehow, I’d already got off on the wrong foot.”

It’s just not true, is it? A glance at the bibliography in The Five will tell you that.

[Gary Barnett]

Hi Linotte,

Hallie joined the Forums in the name of McGrath.

Gary

Here’s an example of ‘Hallie McGrath’s’ research methodology.

https://www.jtrforums.com/forum/the-...he-casual-ward

Post 107 etc

[Linotte]

I’m sorry, if describing a woman who uses her husband’s name by that name is an example of misogyny, then I’m a misogynist

Nah, you’re not a misogynist. If Mrs. McGrath was her user name, then you’re in the right to refer to her as such.

I feel like an ass for saying what I did. But at least it’s clarified in this thread and it’s out there. So now she can’t use it to say, “Oh, look at those misogynistic asshole Ripperologists!”

[Gary Barnett]

Nah, you’re not a misogynist. If Mrs. McGrath was her user name, then you’re in the right to refer to her as such.

I feel like an ass for saying what I did. But at least it’s clarified in this thread and it’s out there. So now she can’t use it to say, “Oh, look at those misogynistic asshole Ripperologists!”

I never know what to call her - Rubenhold seems a bit formal, Hallie makes it seem like we’re pals (we aren’t), so I tend to use HR. But I think she took exception to that at one stage.

It’s a minefield. :-)

I didn’t imagine we’d find any direct lifting from Bishop, although the title of his story is very close to that of the podcast, but as Debs pointed out, the contrast between Conway’s sensitive description of Kate and the detective’s perception of her as a ‘whore’ is very much how HR portrayed things in the book.

[Chris Phillips]

I was just wondering that myself. I have an annual (1995) that contains the Kidney Kate piece. There’s nothing on Robinson in that but the Bugle was founded in the 1970s. I think there’s a website that lists their various issues and what was in them.

The Wikipedia article on the Bugle links to http://www.blackcountrybugle.co.uk/ but that now forwards to the Birmingham Mail website.

Some of the old website can be found through the Wayback Machine at archive.org. At one time there used to be a searchable database of articles, but of course the archived version doesn't work. At another there used to be a browsable archive of old articles, but the copy at archive.org is incomplete. But quite a large proportion were about old murder cases.

It seems quite likely that there would have been an article on Robinson, and if so it might provide some useful background on the Eddowes article and its reliability.

[Gary Barnett]

I did access a site that listed the articles when I was looking for the Kidney Kate one a while back. Can’t remember the details now. There are sufficient errors in the KK one to call it’s overall reliability into question. Kate working in Spitalfields market, Stride being killed at 10 o’clock etc.

I think HR may have taken her lead from Jarett Kobek when she expressed her doubts about the article’s accuracy, but she carried on regardless constructing the myth.