Could These Be Alice Mackenzie's Relatives ?

[Gary Barnett]

Hi RJ,

It’s great that someone else is on the case. I’ve only recently been focussing on Alice’s Spitalfields period and her death.

Yes, I wondered about the scar under the eye. Cicatrises are scars, I think, but I was unable to find out what ‘dresum’ means. Do you have any idea?

[R. J. Palmer]

All I could ever figure is Phillips meant "Dorsum of the left forearm." I can't find dresum in any medical book, but the medicos frequently refer to the dorsum of this and the dorsum that, when describing the anatomy.

I haven't seen the original handwritten report. Maybe Dr. P's handwriting was terrible, which seems to be a common trait of the medical profession.

[R. J. Palmer]

Of course, in my suspicious, 'Ripperlogical' mind, I interpret three distinct scars on the back of Alice's forearm with wounds from a previous and as-yet-to-be discovered knife attack

;-)

[Gary Barnett]

Of course, in my suspicious, 'Ripperlogical' mind, I interpret three distinct scars on the back of Alice's forearm with wounds from a previous and as-yet-to-be discovered knife attack

;-)

And I was wondering, if it had meant the inner forearm, the scars may have been evidence of a failed suicide attempt.

Shows what a crap Ripperologist I am.

[R. J. Palmer]

Well, here's a mystery that maybe you can clear up, Gary. I was scratching my head about it last night before bed, but couldn't figure out what it meant.

It concerns the brother George Palmer, the ropemaker, who punched Alice in 1869. [Note: in post #414 you point out that she's wandering Mile-End after the assault].

The 1871 shows a George Palmer, ropemaker, right age, living at No. 1 Albert Street, Mile-End with his sister-in-law, Jane Palmer.

All well & good, but who the heck is she?

As far as I can tell, George had three brothers. Ben, William, and John. William married an Ellen Salter in 1870, and John would marry a Mary Anne Jones a few months later.

That only leaves Ben, doesn't it? But he's off with Alice.

And on the next page of Jane Palmer's 1871 entry, it shows that she has a 7 year-old son....Benjamin.

What, ho?

Was Benjamin Palmer traipsing around and living with Alice McKenzie when he was already married to this nurse, Jane?

She must have been remarkably accommodating if she let his little brother crash at her digs.

[Gary Barnett]

I came to the conclusion that Jane may have been Ben’s common-law wife (i.e. not his wife at all). I think her maiden name may have been Ingram, but I can’t find a marriage between the two.

[Gary Barnett]

I came to the conclusion that Jane may have been Ben’s common-law wife (i.e. not his wife at all). I think her maiden name may have been Ingram, but I can’t find a marriage between the two.

There was also a Sarah in 1861 who was supposedly Ben’s wife. Then there’s Alice in 1871 and ‘Mrs Palmer’ in 1881.

[Gary Barnett]

Looks like Ben Jr married Fanny Bennett in Stepney in 1889. His father was recorded as Benjamin (Deceased)

[Gary Barnett]

This is Thomas Ashe, a minor Victorian poet who was the Mathematics and Modern Form master at the Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Ipswich when Henry Rider Haggard, the author of King Solomon’s Mines and She, was a pupil there.

In addition to being a poet and a schoolmaster Ashe had been ordained as a Deacon in 1859 and as a Priest in 1860 by none other than the Bishop of Peterborough, and he was for a time the curate of the church at Whittlebury cum Silverstone in Northamptonshire.

Between 1879 and 1881 he lived in Paris, and towards the end of his life he became something of a recluse living in an apartment in St George’s Square, Pimlico. He spent the last ten years or so of his life in London.

He died in December, 1889 after an illness of some three months - consumption, I think.

AND, in 1861, Alice Pitts’ sister, Martha, was his household servant.

[Gary Barnett]

Ashe was a very odd bod, it would seem.

He wrote a set of lyrics with the title ‘Marit’ that were described as ‘fanciful love-poems addressed to a child of thirteen or so’. The image above is an extract from ‘Marit’.

As I say, he was ordained by the Bishop of Peterborough in 1859/60 when Alice Pitts would have been 14/15 and Martha 19/20.

And what does ‘Marit’ mean?


“Marit is a girl's name meaning "pearl", "lady", or "mistress of the house" that comes from the Greek name Margaret and the Aramaic name Martha.”

[Gary Barnett]

Ashe was a very odd bod, it would seem.

He wrote a set of lyrics with the title ‘Marit’ that were described as ‘fanciful love-poems addressed to a child of thirteen or so’. The image above is an extract from ‘Marit’.

As I say, he was ordained by the Bishop of Peterborough in 1859/60 when Alice Pitts would have been 14/15 and Martha 19/20.

And what does ‘Marit’ mean?


“Marit is a girl's name meaning "pearl", "lady", or "mistress of the house" that comes from the Greek name Margaret and the Aramaic name Martha.”

A reviewer in 1879 said the Marit lyrics were ‘fanciful love-poems to a child of fourteen or fifteen’ and then immediately followed that by saying, ‘It may be that the great majority of the poems are dramatic only, and arose from no incident in their author’s own life; but very many of them impress one so vividly with their truth that one is obliged to imagine - perhaps quite wrongly - that “these things were”.’

[Gary Barnett]

The evidence is building up to show that during 1859/60 Ashe lodged in a ‘lonely chamber’ in the Peterborough Minster Close where the Pitts family lived. The 1841-71 censuses record lodgers/boarders living with the family, so it is possible that Ashe was part of their household.


The Sisters

Two sisters by the embers,
Watch the fire burn low:
They both of me are thinking,
In their hearts, I know.

And scarce a word is spoken,
As they sit side by side:
If they speak, it is only
Their deeper thoughts to hide.

They love me both past telling:
‘Tis that they muse upon:
That both should love me grieves me,
Who can love only one.

Love is a blessing, surely ;
It should make us glad :
Pity, with so much loving,
Three should be so sad.

The little heart is breaking
To lean upon my breast :
She is but a child, the youngest :
I love the eldest best.


That may or may not be about the Pitts sisters, but by 1861, Martha, Alice’s older sister, was living in Ashe’s household in Silverstone, a few miles from Peterborough and Alice, aged 16, was 40 miles away in Leicester.

It’s obvious that Ashe had an unhealthy interest in little girls. He wrote about them frequently. He described himself as the ‘lover’ of one who was just 4 years old.

I wasn’t expecting this rather unpleasant turn in Alice’s story. As well as a poem about a ‘Marit’ (Martha) Ashe wrote one about an ‘Alice’ who failed to turn up for a clandestine meeting.

I’m on the look-out for more detailed information about Ashe that might confirm that he was briefly part of the Pitts household. He was a graduate of St John’s College, Cambridge and in his last year there he and another undergraduate founded the college magazine ‘The Eagle’. This image above is an extract from an article printed in the Eagle after his death. It’s clear that the ‘favourite field’ referred to is his obsession with young girls.

In another poem, ‘The Pleiads’, he writes of leaving his chamber in Minster Close and passing through the Minster gate into the market where he encounters ‘wicked women, Two by two, who whisper low;’ and describes their ‘soft good nights, that shame’.

Was Alice groomed by Ashe when she was in her mid-teens?

In 1851, Alice’s eldest sister, Ann, was in service in the household of a farmer named Wright Crane in Thorney, Cambridgeshire. There were other servants in the household and Crane’s wife was the daughter of a Peterborough butcher - it all seems very respectable and geographically close to Peterborough (8 miles or so). And on the face of it Martha’s residing in the household of a curate and his spinster sister in Whittlebury (also Cambs & within the Diocese of Peterborough) also seems rather respectable. Alice’s being placed in the household of a master brazier in Leicester seems slightly less so (?).

[Kattrup]

There's a long review of Ashe including some biographical details in The Westminster Review 125-126, 1886: https://books.google.dk/books?id=pzw...0ashe%22&hl=da &pg=PA417#v=onepage&q=%22thomas%20ashe%22&f=fal se

This is from the Machester Literary Club, 1890:


Talk about damning with faint praise!

I don't find his poetry about young girls particularly unhealthy, it was an element of Victorian idealisation and not uncommon. Lewis Carroll famously took nude photos of Alice Liddel, for instance.

But interesting with his links to AM


His book Poems with the poem Alice, 1859.

[Gary Barnett]

There's a long review of Ashe including some biographical details in The Westminster Review 125-126, 1886:https://books.google.dk/books?id=pzw...0ashe%22&hl=da &pg=PA417#v=onepage&q=%22thomas%20ashe%22&f=fal se

This is from the Machester Literary Club, 1890:


Talk about damning with faint praise!

I don't find his poetry about young girls particularly unhealthy, it was an element of Victorian idealisation and not uncommon. Lewis Carroll famously took nude photos of Alice Liddel, for instance.

But interesting with his links to AM


His book Poems with the poem Alice, 1859.

Ah, idealisation. That’s OK then. Grown men taking nude pictures of little girls, speaking of them ‘flirting’ with them, being their ‘lovers’ and arranging secret meetings with them in the undergrowth would count as ‘unhealthy’ in most people’s books, I would imagine. The reverend Francis Kilvert was another such ‘idealist’. His diaries are quite well known but a lot of stuff was omitted from them before they were published.

Thanks for the links. I hadn’t realised the Alice poem was from 1859.

I have copies of two books on order. One contains some biographical information.

[Kattrup]

Here is Dryope; and other Poems, 1861

Here is Pictures and other Poems, 1865

Here is Edith, or Love and Life in Cheshire, 1873