Thomas Fogarty

[Debra Arif]

I went to the LMA today to consult the Wandsworth Prison nominal registers and found 4 entries for a Thomas Fog(g)erty of the right age to have been our man. In each case the prisoner was 5ft 7in tall and had been sentenced at Thames Police Court. Two of the four convictions were for begging and two for 'drunk &c'. There was no mention of his blindness. The prison terms all coincide with gaps in Foggy's STGITE residence and the two 1899 terms are explicitly mentioned in the workhouse records.


6/9/97 - 5/10/97
Occupation: Tailor
Drunk &c

8/10/97 - 17/11/97
Occupation: Labourer
Begging

5/4/99 - 4/7/99
Occupation: Hawker
Begging after previous conviction

11/7/99 - 10/8/99
Occupation: Carver
Drunk &c

The number of previous convictions given is somewhat confusing, being, in order: E0(?), 12, blank and 6.

This cutting from the Islington Gazette of 10th September, 1896 concerns an incident that didn't result in a conviction.

[ATTACH]18502[/ATTACH]

Hi Gary
I don't know if you picked these up already but Fogarty also spent a lot of time in South Grove Whitechapel Union workhouse. None of the dates of his stays clashed with the prison entries either that I can see and it does place him in the right area of the arrest in Whitechapel:

South Grove workhouse creed register 1894-1897
Thomas Fogarty b 1854, homeless, Roman Catholic, hawker, widower (blind), adm 14/4/96 dis 16/4/96, adm 9/6/96 dis 13/6/96, adm 17/6/96 dis 22/6/96, adm 23/7/96 dis 27/7/96, adm 16/3/97 dis 20/3/97, adm 31/3/97 dis 9/4/97, adm 14/4/97 dis 19/4/97

South Grove workhouse creed register 1898-1900
Thomas Fogarty, b 1855, homeless, Roman Catholic, blind, single, adm 2/7/98 dis 5/7/98, adm 6/7/98 dis 11/7/98, adm 13/7/98 dis 18/7/98, adm 21/7/98 dis 25/7/98, adm 26/7/98 dis 1/8/98, adm 8/8/98, dis 28/8/98, adm 27/8/98 dis 2/9/98, adm 11/11/98 dis 15/11/98, adm 19/11/98 dis 26/12/98, adm 27/12/98 dis 2/1/99, adm 2/1/99 dis 7/1/99, adm 8/1/99 dis 13/1/99

[Gary Barnett]

Hi Gary
I don't know if you picked these up already but Fogarty also spent a lot of time in South Grove Whitechapel Union workhouse. None of the dates of his stays clashed with the prison entries either that I can see and it does place him in the right area of the arrest in Whitechapel:

South Grove workhouse creed register 1894-1897
Thomas Fogarty b 1854, homeless, Roman Catholic, hawker, widower (blind), adm 14/4/96 dis 16/4/96, adm 9/6/96 dis 13/6/96, adm 17/6/96 dis 22/6/96, adm 23/7/96 dis 27/7/96, adm 16/3/97 dis 20/3/97, adm 31/3/97 dis 9/4/97, adm 14/4/97 dis 19/4/97

South Grove workhouse creed register 1898-1900
Thomas Fogarty, b 1855, homeless, Roman Catholic, blind, single, adm 2/7/98 dis 5/7/98, adm 6/7/98 dis 11/7/98, adm 13/7/98 dis 18/7/98, adm 21/7/98 dis 25/7/98, adm 26/7/98 dis 1/8/98, adm 8/8/98, dis 28/8/98, adm 27/8/98 dis 2/9/98, adm 11/11/98 dis 15/11/98, adm 19/11/98 dis 26/12/98, adm 27/12/98 dis 2/1/99, adm 2/1/99 dis 7/1/99, adm 8/1/99 dis 13/1/99

Thanks, Debs. I haven’t looked at Fogarty for some time, but I think these are new to me.

[Gary Barnett]

Blind Wood Carvers

By way of a bump-up for old Foggy, I thought I’d mention that I have discovered numerous examples of blind wood carvers, ancient and modern.

There was one who exhibited his work at the Sutherland Industrial Exhibition in 1888. He produced two ‘long-stemmed cups having ferns and coats of arms in relief. The drawing of these articles was surprising, and the execution illustrated the marvellous fineness of touch so much developed in the blind man that it almost served him in place of vision.’ Another exhibited a carving of a ‘man-of-war brig’ at an exhibition in North Devon in 1878.

I doubt that semi-vagrant Foggy produced such fine work. He more than likely used any scraps of wood that came his way and employed whatever bladed tools he could lay his hands on. And given his lifestyle he probably carried his tools on his person at all times.



The blade on this antique carving tool looks very similar to that of a dagger. An impecunious ex-soldier might well have used some kind of a dagger as a carving tool. Alternatively, a wound produced by a dagger-shaped carving tool might well have been thought to have been made by a dagger.

[Anna Morris]

Interesting thought about the wood chisels, Gary. Those pictured look like finer, smaller types. I don''t think the one pictured would particularly make a wound like a sword. I think that tool is called a gouge. In some writings, bayonet wounds are described as triangular. Some thought a bayonet was used on Martha Tabram. That gouge or something similar might make a wound somewhat like a bayonet. And we wonder where Foggy was that night......hmmmmm......?

I would think a heavy wood chisel could have made the bayonet-type wound to Martha''s sternum.

[Gary Barnett]

Interesting thought about the wood chisels, Gary. Those pictured look like finer, smaller types. I don''t think the one pictured would particularly make a wound like a sword. I think that tool is called a gouge. In some writings, bayonet wounds are described as triangular. Some thought a bayonet was used on Martha Tabram. That gouge or something similar might make a wound somewhat like a bayonet. And we wonder where Foggy was that night......hmmmmm......?

I would think a heavy wood chisel could have made the bayonet-type wound to Martha''s sternum.

Hi Anna,

Killeen believed the wound to the sternum had been caused by ‘some kind of dagger’. He obviously based that on the shape of the wound. Some bayonets had dagger-shaped blades, but so, it seems, did some woodworking tools.

I think it was PP’s story of the soldiers that led to the view that the wound to Martha’s sternum was caused by a dagger or a bayonet.

Gary

[Anna Morris]

Hi Anna,

Killeen believed the wound to the sternum had been caused by ‘some kind of dagger’. He obviously based that on the shape of the wound. Some bayonets had dagger-shaped blades, but so, it seems, did some woodworking tools.

I think it was PP’s story of the soldiers that led to the view that the wound to Martha’s sternum was caused by a dagger or a bayonet.

Gary

Woodworking tools are a real point to ponder on this one.

[Gary Barnett]

Woodworking tools are a real point to ponder on this one.

Anna,

You’re obviously spending too much time in the company of the likes of Robert and Gareth.

[Anna Morris]

Anna,

You’re obviously spending too much time in the company of the likes of Robert and Gareth.

True.

[Robert Linford]

A letter to the police from Foggy :

https://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-250810990/stock-vector-chaos-pattern-tangled-texture-with-chaotic-lines-hand-drawn-dinamic-scrawls-frame-with-random-wav

[Anna Morris]

A letter to the police from Foggy :


https://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-...ith-random-wav

I should have seen that coming! Before it was all visible I noted the label was "Chaos Pattern, Vector and Finish."

More on topic=> Didn't We once figure out that Foggy did some wood carving in the building trade? That would use larger, heavier tools.

[Gary Barnett]

I should have seen that coming! Before it was all visible I noted the label was "Chaos Pattern, Vector and Finish."

More on topic=> Didn't We once figure out that Foggy did some wood carving in the building trade? That would use larger, heavier tools.

No. He was shown as a carver/wood carver on some workhouse records which also record him as blind.

I think it’s a reasonable assumption that moving between the workhouse, infirmary, dosshouses and occasionally living on the street he would have carried the tools of his trade with him.

[Gary Barnett]

Does anyone know the exact wording of Tom Cullen’s claim that James Bousfield possessed a ‘key chain’ that had been part of Martha Tabram’s stock?

Presumably there was some kind of a fob attached to the chain. Could it have been a crudely carved wooden one?

[Gary Barnett]

What if Foggy had carved the fob on James Bousfield’s key chain and was expecting a share in the proceeds when Martha had sold it. She hadn’t, because she’d left it behind, but would Foggy have believed such a story?

In that scenario it wouldn’t have taken much for a vicious blind beggar with an ungovernable temper to have lost it, bashed Martha on the head with his stick, ripped open her clothing to look for the fob or some money to cover it and, finding nothing, to have commenced stabbing her, first with a small whittling knife and finally with a dagger-shaped carving tool.

The next day, fearing someone might have seen him with Martha, he coerces Poll into going to the police with a made up soldier story. Poll reluctantly agrees, but later gets cold feet and does a runner to her cousin’s, telling her doss-house friends that she intends to kill herself.

[Cogidubnus]

Does anyone know the exact wording of Tom Cullen’s claim that James Bousfield possessed a ‘key chain’ that had been part of Martha Tabram’s stock?

Presumably there was some kind of a fob attached to the chain. Could it have been a crudely carved wooden one?

It's from a footnote under the first chapter of "Autumn of Terror", Gary:-

An unexpected result of the Tabram Inquest was that soldiers stationed in the Tower of London were forbidden to carry bayonets or sidearms while on leave. This information was given to me by James W.Bousfield, whose mother ran a boarding house at No 4 Star Court (now Planet Street) where Martha Tabram lodges. Bousfield, then aged 83, showed me one of the key chains which Tabram had hawked for a living, and which he had retained as a souvenir after the murder.

Hope that helps

Dave

[Gary Barnett]

It's from a footnote under the first chapter of "Autumn of Terror", Gary:-



Hope that helps

Dave

Thanks, Dave.

I gathered as much from the A-Z, but wondered whether Cullen might have provided more detail.