Stages in the Creation of a Myth: Kate Eddowes the Balladeer

[Jose Oranto]

As I said before, I have contacted the administrators and apologized, and will proceed to remove the inappropriate part of my post.

[Admin]

Hi, first point, we can't look at every single post.
If you think a post is inappropriate then please report it.

The posts in which the text was quoted as been removed at the request of the original poster.
His apology is accepted by Admin.

[Jose Oranto]

I apologize once again to Rubenhold or any other woman (or man) who may have been offended, I wish I hadn't made such a stupid comment. If anyone wants to discuss this further, I welcome any private messages. Now let's continue with our investigation.

[Admin]

As stated previously, the post has been removed as unacceptable, a situation the member concerned fully appreciates and has apologised for publically.

If anyone, member or not, feels a comment is inappropriate they should contact Admin with regard to it.

Further comments on this thread relating to the deleted post, or anything else non-thread related will be removed, please stick to the subject matter.

Admin.

[Gary Barnett]

I was hoping the ‘Bloodlines’ book would contain the birth information of the Conway children so I could see their father’s stated occupation.

Annoyingly, it didn’t.

Does anyone have that info?

[Gary Barnett]

This is from a review of the ENO opera that appeared in the Guardian:


Not that this is a documentary opera in the manner of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic or his more recent Girls of the Golden West; there is not enough material on the lives of the Ripper’s victims to enable that. In fact little is known about most of them other than their names. What Bell and Jenkins offer instead is a “dramatic reimagining”; an evocation using some of the known facts and embroidering them with invented material in an attempt to find a narrative thread on which to hang an opera that, with a single interval, runs for almost three hours.


It seems Lesley Garrett didn’t get the “dramatic reimagining” memo.

[Gary Barnett]

Another aspect of the myth that is contradicted by Conway’s pension record is the claim that in 1866 he and Kate had a ‘regular pitch’, presumably in the Midlands (Bilston?) and were so flush with money they lived ‘for a spell’ in lodgings in Moxley, a village near Wednesbury. Of course, they may have been so well off that he didn’t need to draw his pension until they returned to London. ;-)

[Gary Barnett]

Harriet Conway’s birth cert (courtesy of Jose).

Her father was an illiterate bricklayer’s labourer.

[Debra Arif]

Thomas Conway was described as a hawker on Harriet's death certificate a few weeks later, which I did share with Jose and he shared the birth certificate with me.

1869 27 April died at 13 Cottage Place, Bell StreetHarriet Conway, female, age 5 weeks, daughter of Thomas Conway, hawker. Died of marasmus 2 weeks and convulsions 4 days. Informant Catherine Conway, present at death 13 Cottage Place Bell Street Westminster. Registered 28 April 1869

Also in 1869 Catherine seems to have described Thomas as a 'tinman'- I say 'seem' because all I am doing is sharing things I have researched, and I think it is them. Others may disagree but please, there's no need to be obsesively rude to me if you think I have something wrong.

Woolwich Rd workhouse20/11/69 Cathe Conway 28 admitted from G [Greenwich?] Date of order of admission 20th Nov 1869, cause of admission sick, religion RC, wife of Thomas, a tinman.discharged 18th Dec 186

Please note I am not expressing or promoting any view that Conway wrote or sold ballads! Just noting his various listed occupations.

[Gary Barnett]

I wonder where the ‘Bilston’ label (as in Bilston Kate) comes from?

At one time Kate lived in Bilston Street*, but I think that was the name given to the road between Bilston and Wolverhampton when it entered the centre of Wolverhampton. E-W (from memory) Wolverhampton Road, Bilston Road and Bilston Street were essentially the same thoroughfare. Bilston Street was not in Bilston.

The Bugle, of course, raised the profile of Bilston by claiming that TC had 400 extra copies of the Robinson ballad printed there. I suspect that’s what the play’s author was referring to.

Of course, Bilston Kate is easier on the tongue that Wulfrunian Kate. Personally I prefer Black Country Kate, but there are differing opinions about whether Wolverhampton is actually part of the Black Country.


*Bison Street according to Casebook.

[Gary Barnett]

Thomas Conway was described as a hawker on Harriet's death certificate a few weeks later, which I did share with Jose and he shared the birth certificate with me.

1869 27 April died at 13 Cottage Place, Bell StreetHarriet Conway, female, age 5 weeks, daughter of Thomas Conway, hawker. Died of marasmus 2 weeks and convulsions 4 days. Informant Catherine Conway, present at death 13 Cottage Place Bell Street Westminster. Registered 28 April 1869

Also in 1869 Catherine seems to have described Thomas as a 'tinman'- I say 'seem' because all I am doing is sharing things I have researched, and I think it is them. Others may disagree but please, there's no need to be obsesively rude to me if you think I have something wrong.

Woolwich Rd workhouse20/11/69 Cathe Conway 28 admitted from G [Greenwich?] Date of order of admission 20th Nov 1869, cause of admission sick, religion RC, wife of Thomas, a tinman.discharged 18th Dec 186

Please note I am not expressing or promoting any view that Conway wrote or sold ballads! Just noting his various listed occupations.

Thank you Debra. I agree that excessive rudeness is inappropriate.

Having spent a considerable amount of time over several years searching for anything of substance that supports the ballad myth, I couldn’t let the implication that there was a specific link between Irish army barracks and ballad writing go unchallenged.

I will reread the article and post everything ballad-related that I find. People can then decide for themselves whether Kilkenny barracks was a balladeers’ Alma Mater. If it was, this thread will be brown bread.

[Debra Arif]

Thank you Debra. I agree that excessive rudeness is inappropriate.

.

You know what I meant Gary.

[Gary Barnett]

In 1861 only 384 men inhabited Kilkenny barracks. Allocating the regulatory 600 cubic feet room space per man would have allowed an occupancy of 586 men, thus creating a deficiency of 200 men in accommodation terms. It was claimed ‘that these barracks appear to have been occupied but partially during the year allowing the troops a liberal cubic space in their quarters and hospital no incidents of overcrowding had taken place’.56 However there was in the report a criticism of the medical facilities available at the barracks. The hospital accommodation consisted of ‘three wards, en suite, the innermost ward being devoted to sick prisoners over whom a soldier on guard is placed, and the sick in the other two wards have to be disturbed at every change of guard by the men passing and repassing by day and night’.57 The report concluded that ‘this hospital is ill adapted for sick both from its structure, position and neighbourhood. It would be better to build another’. The hospital site though in a ‘tolerably good part of the barrack enclosure’ was compromised by the magazine being placed beside it ‘with the constant disturbance by the placing of sentries and their half-hourly calls, especially at night when quietness for sick men is most necessary’.58 Other negative factors were that:

Immediately behind the magazine, and much too close to the hospital, are the barrack privies, and on the opposite side o f the hospital is the wash-house where the barrack washing is done, neither o f which buildings ought to have been placed there at all. More recently a ball court has been provided for the barrack, a most laudable and necessary adjunct to all barracks, but in this case the court has been placed against the end wall o f the hospital, so that the noise proceeding from the game is heard in all the wards on that side.59

[Gary Barnett]

You know what I meant Gary.

And I hope you knew what I meant.

Others may be imagining that I and some imaginary clique have been ‘excessively rude’ to you on social media. Is that what you are implying?

I’m not convinced that asking a silly question about the A-Z counts as excessive rudeness. Your response to it certainly does.

[Gary Barnett]

The role of Kilkenny novelists of the period in the formulation of an Irish identity will be explored, as will be their observations in regard to the presence of the military locally. Of less literary merit, but of no less importance, the role of the ballad in expressing national sentiment will be assessed. As the composers of these ballads, and those listening to their recital, struggled with the use of a new language in the transition from Irish to English, their message was always couched in simple terms the populace would understand. Their portrayal of the military and the activities of recruiting officers in particular are gems of humorous parody.

Kilkenny’s nineteenth century magistrates did not doubt the cultural threat to England’s interests that ballad singers and the peddlers of ballad broadsheets constituted and vigorously prosecuted those engaged in these activities. This chapter will discuss Kilkenny’s contribution to this folklore, in both Irish and English languages, and in James Cahalan’s terms ‘piece together from a thousand scattered sources’ a more explicit study of their influence.