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Chris Scott
Detective Sergeant
Username: Chris
Post Number: 81
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 7:12 am: |       |
I found this press report from 1910:
Elyria Evening Telegram 12 July 1910
"JACK THE RIPPER" NOW IN MAD HOUSE
London:
Sir Robert Anderson, for more than 30 years chief of the criminal investigation department of the British department, and head of the detective bureau at Scotland Yard, has at length raised the veil of mystery which for nearly two decades has enveloped the identity of the perpetrator of those atrocious crimes known as the Whitechapel murders.
Sir Robert's revelations, in an article over his signature in one of the leading London reviews and supplemented by a letter in the London Tomes, effectually disposes of the popular stories ascribing the outrages to a peer, now dead who, despite his great wealth had rendered himslef an outcast by his vices and eccentricities, or to a man untitled. but of birth and breeding, who, after manifesting unmistakable signs of mental disorder, had suddenly vanished from his accustomed haunts in London, eventually to die in a madhouse.
Sir Robert establishes that fact that the infamous "Jack the Ripper", as the unknown slayer had been dubbed by the public, and at whose hands no less than 14 women successfully lost their lives within a circumscribed area of the East end of London, was an alien of lower though educated class, hailing from Poland, and a maniac of the most virulent and homicidal type - of a type recorded, by reason of his rarity, in medical treatises, but one with which the world at large is not familiar.
The most important point of all made by Sir Robert is the fact that once the criminal investigation department was sure that it had in its hands the real perpetrator of the Whitechapel murders, it procured from the secretary of state for the home department a warrant committing the man for detention "during the king's pleasure" to the great asylum for the criminal insane at Broadmoor five or six years ago.
There is also one illustration to this article:
I was particularly interested in the last paragraph. Considering this article was written in 1910, it says that the warrant for the suspect's detention was authorised "five or six years ago" - i.e. 1904-1905. Also the fact that the warrant is quoted as being "during the king's pleasure" suggests it must be after 1901 as that was the date of Victoria's death and would have been issued in the reign of Edward VII.
Hope its of interest
Chris S |
Robert Charles Linford
Detective Sergeant
Username: Robert
Post Number: 70
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 8:21 am: | |
Hi Chris
Thanks for putting that up. The newspaper says that 14 women "successfully" lost their lives. This will open up new vistas for conspiracy theorists.
It certainly does sound as if he was originally detained around 1904-5. Surely this couldn't have been a renewal of a previous order, with "King's" substituted for "Queen's", could it?
Robert |
Chris Scott
Detective Sergeant
Username: Chris
Post Number: 82
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 8:36 am: | |
Hi Robert
As the article says the warrant in question was for committing the man to Broadmoor and not for extending his detention, i assumed the meaning of the correspondent was that this was the initial taking into detention
Also under English Law a court order for a suspect to be detained "at Her Majesty's pleasure"
means that the person will be detained as long as deemed necessary so I woundnt think it would need to be renewed
I think Im right in saying that in our time an order for someone to be detained at "Her Majesty's pleasure" would be issued by a court and not by the Home Secretary direct. A famous instance of this being used was in the infamous Craig and Bentley case in the 1950s. Bentley was hanged but Craig was sentenced to be detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure. This form of sentence is certainly still available to English courts but I am not sure when it was last used
Regards
chris
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Chris Scott
Detective Sergeant
Username: Chris
Post Number: 83
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 8:39 am: | |
Re my previous post I found this:
The sentence of detention at Her Majesty's pleasure has always carried with it an expectation that the period spent in custody will be reviewed from time to time. In the past the Home Secretary carried out the review. The law was changed, following the decision of Thompson and Venables in the European Court of Human Rights, to give the trial judge responsibility for setting the minimum term for all offenders sentenced to be detained at Her Majesty's pleasure since 30 November 2000.
The full article is at:
http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/legal_pro/min_terms/review.htm |
Chris Phillips
Sergeant
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 46
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 9:25 am: | |
Chris
That's another very interesting find, but very puzzling. I suppose it refers to the initial publication of Anderson's memoirs in Blackwood's Magazine?
But if so where have these details about Broadmoor and the committal "five or six years ago" come from? And if I remember correctly the unambiguous statement in the headline that the Ripper was still living is more than Anderson says explicitly.
Five or six years ago sounds definitely inconsistent with what Anderson says elsewhere. Broadmoor* and the survival of the suspect probably not so, but they would contradict the Swanson marginalia (though clearly Swanson was wrong about Kosminski having died soon after his committal).
[*In 1998 Paul Begg posted In 1898 a newspaper referred to the "asylum at Broadmoor, where Jack the Ripper so recently died."]
I don't remember having seen a reference to Anderson's accompanying letter to the Times before - is it possible that it's slipped through the net?
One other interesting point, can the other two suspects be identified?
(1) a peer, now dead who, despite his great wealth had rendered himslef an outcast by his vices and eccentricities
(2) a man untitled. but of birth and breeding, who, after manifesting unmistakable signs of mental disorder, had suddenly vanished from his accustomed haunts in London, eventually to die in a madhouse [could be Druitt, if the last 6 words were omitted?]
Chris Phillips
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R.J. Palmer
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 51
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 10:54 am: | |
Interesting. That's quite a picture, Chris. Unless I'm greatly mistaken, the Times letter was mentioned on the old message boards in a discussion by Martin Fido & Stewart Evans, but had not been located despite a search. The above article is very similar to one that Michael Conlon found published in the New York Times in 1910, which goes into some length about at "Her Majesty's Pleasure" and I wonder if it is based on that article? But the suspect being confined 'five or six years ago' is certainly wrong, as the Anderson theory was mention in an article in Windsor Magazine as far back as 1895, and again, by Anderson himself, in 1901. RP |
Chris Phillips
Sergeant
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 47
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 10:59 am: | |
I wrote:
One other interesting point, can the other two suspects be identified?
(1) a peer, now dead who, despite his great wealth had rendered himslef an outcast by his vices and eccentricities
(2) a man untitled. but of birth and breeding, who, after manifesting unmistakable signs of mental disorder, had suddenly vanished from his accustomed haunts in London, eventually to die in a madhouse ...
Actually, with a bit of reflection, maybe I can answer my own question.
Stewart P. Evans's dissertation On the Origins of the Royal Conspiracy Theory quotes Philippe Jullian's book Edward and the Edwardians to the effect that "others attributed the crimes committed in Whitechapel to the Duke of Bedford". The Duke at the time of the murders was Francis Charles Hastings Russell, whose suicide while temporarily insane in 1891 created a sensation. Rather an unlikely suspect, as apart from other considerations he was nearly 70 at the time of the murders.
Dan Farson, in his 1959 book, also refers to an aristocratic suspect named Russell: A name that occurs frequently involves the Russell family, with the suggestion that the man was confined to a private mental home after the murders. He adds that "with colossal cheek" he wrote to Bertrand (Earl) Russell about this story, only to receive an abrupt rebuff.
This doesn't sound as though it fits the Duke of Bedford (and why write to Earl Russell, who belonged to a different branch of the family, if the Duke was the suspect in question?). However, f I remember correctly, an uncle of Bertrand Russell was indeed confined to an asylum, coincidentally the same one in Chiswick where Druitt's mother died (though it seems he was committed before the murders took place).
Just possibly this Russell suspect may be the untitled but high born suspect mentioned in the article above?
Chris Phillips
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Robert Charles Linford
Detective Sergeant
Username: Robert
Post Number: 72
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 12:11 pm: | |
Hi all
In the "Childhood" chapter of his autobiography, Bertrand Russell says of his grandmother:
"I noticed that any allusion to insanity caused her a spasm of anguish, and I speculated much as to the reason. It was only many years later that I discovered she had a son in an asylum. He was in a smart regiment, and went mad after a few years of it. The story that I have been told, though I cannot vouch for its complete accuracy, is that his brother officers teased him because he was chaste. They kept a bear as a regimental pet, and one day, for sport, set the bear at him. He fled, lost his memory, and being found wandering about the country, was put in a workhouse infirmary, his identity being unknown. In the middle of the night, he jumped up shouting 'the bear - the bear!' and strangled a tramp in the next bed. He never recovered his memory, but lived till over eighty."
It all sounds perfectly plausible to me!
Robert |
Chris Scott
Detective Sergeant
Username: Chris
Post Number: 84
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 12:22 pm: | |
Hi all
I have been mailed asking me to post the whole article so please find attached:
CS
  |
Chris Scott
Detective Sergeant
Username: Chris
Post Number: 85
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 12:29 pm: | |
Here is the title header to above article
 |
AP Wolf
Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 183
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 2:15 pm: | |
Chris (Scott)
As ever you unearth real gems and this is a sparkler.
I am in a mind to pat you on the back and say well done, for this new information does smack of a continuing effort by the police officials of the time to disinform, but this time with an arrow that does point vaguely at Thomas Cutbush.
As regards 'Her Majesty's Pleasure', this is fraught with unknown factors. Yes, today such orders are available for review, but even then we can't be sure, for another rule may apply then, this is 'sectioning' and this does allow for a prisoner to disappear forever within the prison system. I honestly do not know when 'sectioning' first came into play in the UK prison system.
Your point about 'Her Majesty's Pleasure' being used in difficult criminal and legal situations where otherwise guilt for a certain crime may not be proved by a normal court of law - as in the very case you mention - so what amounts to a 'life sentence' is instead passed - quickly and obliquely - is masterful, and I for one think massively influential when considering the sad case of Thomas Cutbush.
Somewhere in all this police disinformation is a weighty truth, and I believe the reference to Broadmoor and the years scanned by the information you found do supply that truth. |
Chris Phillips
Sergeant
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 48
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 3:02 pm: | |
Robert
Thanks for posting that extract re Bertrand Russell's uncle. I think I've seen less likely suspects. Maybe he should have his own thread, but he seems to have been committed to an asylum well over a decade before the Whitechapel murders.
Burke's Peerage (1949 edn) says this of him:
"George Gilbert William, B.A. Camb, Lieut. 9th Lancers, b. 14 April, 1848; d. 27 Jan. 1933"
This web page includes a group photograph from 1863 in which he is shown, and says:
Willy went permanently insane in 1874 ...
http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~bertrand/parents.html
And indeed, in the 1881 census, he appears in the asylum at the Manor House, Chiswick, as:
Wm. (Hon) RUSSELL Patient U [unmarried] Male 33 [born] Richmond, Surrey, England Lieut H M S Retired
Chris Phillips
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Robert Charles Linford
Detective Sergeant
Username: Robert
Post Number: 73
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 4:54 pm: | |
Hi all
Two Chrises, thanks for the links.
I am out of my depth with all this legal stuff, but, as you all doubtless know already, the Lord Chief Justice at the time of the Louisa Lowe affair ruled that imprisoning a sane person - or presumably keeping imprisoned an insane person who'd recovered - wasn't a criminal offence, as long as the intent wasn't malicious. So unless this was overturned it effectively allowed for detention without appeal, didn't it?
Robert |
John Ruffels
Sergeant
Username: Johnr
Post Number: 32
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 7:25 am: | |
Hello All,
As Lewis Carroll said:
"It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards!"
Might the missing article have appeared in 1898?
Over to you Chris.( That is, Chris Scott ).
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Chris Scott
Detective Sergeant
Username: Chris
Post Number: 89
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 2:26 pm: | |
Certainly worth a look John
I have found the same article word for word with same illustration in another 1910 paper but Ill see if any 1989 papers carred anything similar
Chris S |
Chris Scott
Detective Sergeant
Username: Chris
Post Number: 90
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 2:26 pm: | |
1898 papers that should be
CS |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Detective Sergeant
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 144
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 2:36 pm: | |
Hi Chris,
Towards the end of the old boards you mentioned that the actor Richard Mansfield was living in lodgings , and that one of his fellow boarders was a clerk in holy orders, considering that Dr J and Mr hyde was showing in London at the start of these murders, and that their is religious tones to these murders,I believe he shared these lodgings in 1881, I wonder if you could trace the clerk in holy orders, for although a long shot his name could possibily come into the fray.
Richard. |
Chris Scott
Detective Sergeant
Username: Chris
Post Number: 92
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 8:20 am: | |
Hi Richard
I have traced from my notes what I posted to the old boards for Mansfield from the 1881 census:
RICHARD MANSFIELD
While looking for something else (that is often the way!!) I found our old friend Richard Mansfield (later of Jekyll and Hyde fame) in the UK 1881 census. At the time he was boarding in London and, interestingly, he is listed not only as an actor but also as a law student.
The address where he was boarding 1881 was 107 Gt Russell St and the full listing for the household is:
Frank M. COBBETT Head M Male 33 Blackheath, Kent, England Insurance Agent Edinbro Life
Hazel COBBETT Wife M Female 23 Virginia, America
Alfred SCOTT Boarder U Male 31 Peckham Rye, Surrey, England Clerk In Holy Orders
Richd. MANSFIELD Boarder U Male 27 Massachusetts Actor ((Law Student))
Albert BACK Boarder U Male 23 Cambridge, England Law Student
Francis DENFRI Serv M Male 39 (F), Italy Manager Of Boarding Ho
Caroline BARIDAN Serv U Female 27 Plymouth Cook Dom Serv
Eliza MACER Serv U Female 20 Chelmsford, Essex, England Housemaid Dom Serv
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Chris Scott
Detective Sergeant
Username: Chris
Post Number: 93
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 9:42 am: | |
Hi Richard
The cleric lodging with Mansfield in 1881 was Alfred Scott. His birth was registered at Camberwell in March 1850. In the 1901 census, the only Alfred Scott of the right age (51) and born in Camberwell is listed as living in Wetheral, Cumberland and "living on own means". |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Detective Sergeant
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 149
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 4:22 am: | |
Hi Chris ,
Many thanks for that, I have been desperately trying to recall his name.
It is proberly of little significance, but as the play Dr J and Mr Hyde started the same time as the Murders, and I just thought that a mind that was twisted could have acted out the horror of the play, and as a middle aged man was heard to say to Stride [mild speaking] 'You would say anything but your prayers' and a letter was sent' stating 'I am a clerk in holy orders' it is just possible that this former lodger with Mansfield saw the play with a man he knew portraying the monster, and a killing spree started.
Terribly tongue in cheek I know, but possible.
Richard. |
Chris Scott
Detective Sergeant
Username: Chris
Post Number: 107
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 7:19 am: | |
Hi Richard
An intriguing theory! I will have to look up the letter you mentioned because a bell is ringing somewhere in which a writer not only said he was in holy orders but mentioned the church to which he had been attahced previously - I think it was St Pancras. Is that the same letter you mentioned?
The scenario you mentioned reminded me of some aspects of the Scottish "Bible John" case in which also the killer was never identified.
Regards
Chris |
Chris Phillips
Detective Sergeant
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 55
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 09, 2003 - 4:04 am: | |
I checked the Times index, and found that Anderson wrote three letters to the Times in 1910 - on 12, 22 and 30 April - but they concerned the furore that had been raised over his authorship of the "Parnellism and Crime" articles in the Times in the 1880s, and don't mention the Whitechapel murders.
There were also extensive reports of Parliamentary questions and debates over the Parnellism issue.
At one point the Ripper was mentioned as a small side manoeuvre in this main battle:
Wednesday April 20:
Mr. MAC VEAGH asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention had been called to the revelations published by Sir Robert Anderson with regard to what were generally known as the Jack the Ripper murders; whether he obtained the sanction of the Home office or Scotland Yard authorities to such publication; and, if not, whether any, and if so what steps could be taken with regard to it.
Mr. CHURCHILL. - Sir Robert neither asked for not received any sanction to the publication, but the matter appears to me of minor importance in comparison with others that arise in connexion with the same series of articles. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. MAC VEAGH asked whether there was a Home Office minute expressly prohibiting the publication of documents of this kind.
No answer was returned.
I can't understand where the Elyria Evening Telegram obtained the circumstantial details about Broadmoor and the committal "five or six years ago". Does anyone have any ideas?
Chris Phillips
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Chris Scott
Detective Sergeant
Username: Chris
Post Number: 129
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 09, 2003 - 10:32 am: | |
Hi Chris P
Many thanks for checking that- if I find anything relevant I will post it here
Regards
chris S |
Jeffrey Bloomfied
Sergeant
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 38
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, May 11, 2003 - 1:33 am: | |
Hello all
A fascinating thread this.
I though I might add a point regarding the Russell
family in the 1890s, linking a member to another
Ripper suspect.
In 1890 the Earl Russell married Mabel Scott, but
soon discovered that he had married a gold digger.
As the marriage collapsed he tried to get out of
it, but her terms were too extreme. Throughout
the 1890s there were a series of expensive
litigations that Mabel constantly lost. However,
when the Earl fell in love with Mollie Sommerville, he went to the U.S., got a divorce
in Reno, and married Mollie. Then he returned
to England. In 1901 he was tried for bigamy
before the House of Peers (Lord Chancellor Halsbury presiding), and was found guilty. As
a result he had to spend three months in Holloway.
[It wasn't until the death of Mabel from tuberculosis a few years later that the Earl could
legally remarry Mollie - a very happy marriage as
it turned out.]
In November 1891, while the marriage turmoil was
starting out, Mabel received a letter that she
subsequently lost (at least her solicitor, Sir
George Lewis, said as much) from a detective
claiming that Earl Russell had poisoned a prostitute. The letter appears to have been one
of the letters written by Dr. Thomas Neill Cream,
presumably for extortion purposes.
Best wishes,
Jeff |
Jeffrey Bloomfied
Sergeant
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 41
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, May 11, 2003 - 3:29 pm: | |
I have been thinking some more about the two
suspects that are dismissed in the article for
Sir Robert's Polish suspect. It is more than
likely the Duke of Bedford, but the newspaper
article does not mention his death by suicide.
It can be that unpopular eccentric the Marquis
of Queensberry, who would play an important role
in destroying Oscar Wilde. He died in 1900. I
may add one of his sons, who was Prime Minister
Lord Roseberry's personal secretary, did commit
suicide in 1894.
As for the second person who was a man of good
breeding and not an aristocrat, but who died in
an asylum, it could be James Kenneth Stephen,
or Frank Miles, or a total misreading on Druitt.
Fascinating article, but I feel it was a piece of
filler news, meant to occupy space in the paper in
a fairly dull time. As such, it was not necessary
to do more than print it, without fully proof-reading or double checking it.
I did like noting the bits about Edward VII's
unfortunate nanny, and Edward Oxford (of the
1840 assassination attempt).
Best wishes,
Jeff |
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