May my end a warning be...

[Gary Barnett]

And thanks to Dusty Miller for an image of the Ripperana item:

[Gary Barnett]

From the contemporary newspapers who spoke of Thomas Conway hawking/writing biographical pamphlets to Lesley Garrett enthusing about Kate Eddowes being a well known gallows balladeer is a long stretch.

Many liars and lazy researchers lie in between.

[Tom_Wescott]

I'm enjoying this thread. New stuff every time I come back. It's great when good research begets good research, but perhaps it's even sweeter when bad research begets good research.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Gary Barnett]

It seems Kate Eddowes and Christopher Robinson were second cousins, sharing a common great grandfather, William Eddowes.*

Kate’s Eddowes’ line:

Father - George, born Wolves 1808
Grandfather - Thomas, born Wolves 1783
Great grandfather - William, born Birmingham, 1759


Robinson’s:

Mother - Mary Ann, born Bilston 1811
Grandfather - George, born Pontypool (Wales) 1785
Great grandfather - William born Birmingham, 1759

There was something of a social divide between the two families. While Kate’s father and grandfather were factory workers, Robinson’s grandfather had his own business as a hay dealer and his mother owned property (houses).

The Pontypool birth for Robinson’s grandfather, George, is from the 1851 census. In 1841, he was living in Wolves and on the census in the ‘whether born in same county’ column is written N.

Thinking of my own family situation, I can only recall having met 2 of my grandparents’ numerous siblings, although I was vaguely aware of the names of a few more. As for their offspring, until I developed an interest in family history, I couldn’t have named a single one.

Bearing all this in mind, and that Kate spent much of her childhood in Bermondsey, I don’t think we can take it for granted that she would have met Christopher Robinson or that she would have felt any personal connection to him. However, I imagine she may well have been aware of her family link to such a locally notorious case.

*I derived this info largely from Ancestry Trees.

[Sam Flynn]

On one occasion in January 1866, she hawked such a ballad at the execution of her own cousin, Christopher Robinson, hanged at Stafford.

If Kate happened to be in Staffordshire a year later, she could have rubbed shoulders with the infant Arnold Bennett.

[Gary Barnett]

If Kate happened to be in Staffordshire a year later, she could have rubbed shoulders with the infant Arnold Bennett.

No doubt she and Conway sold their ballads in the Five Towns.

[Gary Barnett]

Who could have come up with this level of detail? And why does it appear nowhere else?

They returned from Stafford in style, booking inside seats on Wards coach with proceeds from ballad sheet sales. It had been a profitable trip and after leaving the coach at Wolverhampton, the jubilant poet hired a donkey cart and set off with Catharine for Bilston where he ordered another 400 copies from Sam Sellman, the Church Street printer. Her quick wit and repartee had played a major part in selling so many copies of her poetical companion's ballad at Stafford and he rewarded her with the price of a flowered hat from Woolley's in Bilston High Street whilst he waited in the Market Tavern for Sam Sellman to run off the extra order which would be on sale at their regular pitch on the following Monday. Such was their lifestyle, comfortable at that time as they lived as man and wife for a spell in lodgings at Moxley. Conway-Quinn produced impromptu ballads about any event which captured the public interest and made a fair living from rhyming talents which, he considered, would be even more fully appreciated in London - hence their eventual move to the metropolis.

Black Country Bugle, 1995

It reads like it came from Conway, but he doesn’t exactly seem to have courted publicity.

[Gary Barnett]

According to the Bugle, in January, 1866 Thomas Conway placed an order for 400 extra copies of the successful Robinson ballad with Sam Sellman, the Church Street printer.

The 1851 census shows there was indeed a ‘stationer’ of that name operating in Church Street, Bilston. However, by 1861 he had moved to Penn/Upper Penn and was operating as a timber merchant. He remained in Penn for the rest of his life and by 1881, aged 78, he was being described as a retired timber merchant.

[Chris G.]

Hi Gary

You ask, "Who could have come up with this level of detail? And why does it appear nowhere else?"

The seemingly obvious answer is that the narrative is fiction, conjured up out of the few facts known about Eddowes and Conway. Your observation that Conway seemingly shied away from publicity is pertinent, although of course he might have been a different character earlier on. Still the almost moment-by-moment observation of the couple smacks of the story having been given a fictional treatment. That is, the writer has latched on to a Black Country woman who met her end famously in the East End of London, and wanted to make the most of it.

Cheers

Chris

[Gary Barnett]

Hi Gary

You ask, "Who could have come up with this level of detail? And why does it appear nowhere else?"

The seemingly obvious answer is that the narrative is fiction, conjured up out of the few facts known about Eddowes and Conway. Your observation that Conway seemingly shied away from publicity is pertinent, although of course he might have been a different character earlier on. Still the almost moment-by-moment observation of the couple smacks of the story having been given a fictional treatment. That is, the writer has latched on to a Black Country woman who met her end famously in the East End of London, and wanted to make the most of it.

Cheers

Chris

Hi Chris,

It was, of course, a rhetorical question. The most likely source of much of the detail in the account is the imagination of a writer on the Bugle staff.

Gary

[Chris G.]

Hi Chris,

It was, of course, a rhetorical question. The most likely source of much of the detail in the account is the imagination of a writer on the Bugle staff.

Gary

Fair enough! Thanks, Gary.

Chris

[Sam Flynn]

It was, of course, a rhetorical question. The most likely source of much of the detail in the account is the imagination of a writer on the Bugle staff.

...who, whilst doing a bit of background research, found reference to a plausible-looking printer in the right area and of roughly the right era. Possibly.

[Chris G.]

...who, whilst doing a bit of background research, found reference to a plausible-looking printer in the right area and of roughly the right era. Possibly.

Yes that at least tells us that the narrative is entirely conjured out of whole cloth.

[Gary Barnett]

I should add that the Bugle seems to get Kate’s genealogy muddled up, suggesting she is descended from Pontypool-born George Eddowes rather than his Wolverhampton-born brother, Thomas. (Can anyone confirm who her grandfather was?)

It also claims the Lusk kidney was sent three days after Kate’s murder and Liz Stride was killed at 10.00pm.

[Gary Barnett]

Catnach

I suppose I should be grateful to HR for this addition to my library:

http://ia800905.us.archive.org/11/items/lifetimesofjames00hindrich/lifetimesofjames00hindrich.pdf