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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 1574
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 4:12 pm: |       |
Obviously we are aware of George Lusk as the main man behind this committee, but I am very interested to know who the other good citizens of Whitechapel were at the original meeting to set up this committee.
My understanding is that sixteen good and true citizens were involved.
Anyone know their names?
If anyone has any information about the 'Toynbee Street Patrol' - set up during the murders in an attempt to protect 'unfortunates' and deter the killer - the Oxford elite were not happy that a whore had been killed in their backyard (I think it was Martha Tabram) - I would be very grateful for that also.
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 3631
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 4:47 pm: | |
Hi AP
Not exactly the TSP but there's a press reports item "Times" Nov 16th 1888.
Robert |
Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1605
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 5:03 pm: | |
Hi AP
I found this list which I did some time ago - might be of some use
Chris
Whitechapel Vigilance Committee
Named members
George Lusk
Joseph Aarons
Rogers
B. Harris (Landlord of The Crown)
W Harris
Reeves
Lawton
Named Contributors
Spencer Charrington
F Wooton Isaacson M.P.
Sarah lane (Britannian Theatre)
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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 1575
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 5:26 pm: | |
Thanks Robert and Chris
That helps.
But I'd still like to know the others. I been all over the place tonight, and all I've found is that one was a picture framer. Could that have been the Taylor of Mitre Square?
Anyways I'll look further.
There is another well-known chap, but damn this brandy I've clean forgot his name. |
Alan Sharp
Chief Inspector
Username: Ash
Post Number: 684
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 5:45 pm: | |
AP
According to Mr Begg's latest tome, the others included people named Cohen, Houghton, H A Harris, Laughton, Lord, Isaacs, Rogers, Mitchell, Barnett, Hodgins, Lindsay, Reeves and Jacobs. Add the two other Harris's and Lusk from the list above who are not on this list (assuming Lawton and Laughton to be one and the same) and you have the 16.
One thing I keep wondering about is H A Harris. Not Harry Harris by any chance?
Begg also points out that Reeves was probably entertainer Charles Reeves whose daughter, music hall star Ada Reeves, stated in her autobiography that her father was one of the original members.
(Message edited by Ash on December 09, 2004)
"Everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise." |
Christopher T George
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 1184
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 9:28 pm: | |
Hi all
In regard to Wooton Isaacson, the Conservative M.P. who contributed to the Vigilance Committee, I found the following on the web, from Punch 1891, a bit of piffle really but interesting for the mention--
"Odd thing befell the universe last week. Happening to mention in this Diary WOOTON ISAACSON, Member for Tower Hamlets, the dissolute Artist drew fancy portrait of LEWIS ISAACS, Member for Newington; labelled it from Dod, "A Progressive Conservative." Oddly enough, both ISAACS and ISAACSON write themselves down in Dod "A Progressive Conservative." So our Artist (occasionally quite clear-headed), got mixed up with the family; descended, so to speak, from ISAAC to ISAAC'S SON. Not quite sure to which apology is due. Just as well to mention it, so that, when the New Zealander reads his Punch a century or two hence, he may have a clear conception of the actuality. Business done.--Quite a lot.
From The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 27, 1891
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/4/2/13421/13421-h/13421-h.htm
Dare we think "A [British] Progressive Conservative" circa 1888-1891 to be anywhere near akin to a "A [U.S.] Compassionate Conservative" of 2004, nah, most probably not. 
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
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R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 497
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 10, 2004 - 9:15 am: | |
AP---The Toynbee Hall Men kept a notebook of their nightly rounds (some entries from it were published in an essay by Samuel Barnett); I always wondered if Toynbee Hall kept an archive and whether anyone ever checked to see if these notebooks had survived? |
NC
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 9:39 pm: | |
Hi AP,
One of the many extroadinary characters brought forth here is Albert Bachert. He propounded the Lodger Theory as well as succeeding Lusk as Chairman of the Vigilance Committee in 1889; the committee being in abeyance by then.
Regards
Neale |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 1578
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 10, 2004 - 1:15 pm: | |
Thanks for that Alan,
very helpful indeed.
I have come across Ada Reeves quite a few times in connection with Jack the Ripper, but not however in regard to her father being on the WVC.
Not sure if it was in her autobiography or elsewhere, but she does refer several times to the Whitechapel Murders, in one case as she is leaving the theatre and news is just breaking of the latest murder.
I also toyed - on the poetry channel - with her performance, as a very young girl I believe, in the panto 'Jack the Giant Killer', and had an equally young Thomas Cutbush watching the performance. But hey, that was fiction.
As a later poster (thanks NC) quite rightly says Albert Bachert was also involved in the WVC, and that is the very name that I had lost in the brandy fumes.
New to me is the fact that there was an even earlier vigilante committee set up by the socialist trade union dock workers who planned to put seventy sturdy dock workers on the streets of Whitechapel from dusk till dawn, however when the Home Secretary refused to pay for their tea and buns whilst on duty the entire scheme fell through. I reckon the police were - quite rightly when you consider the violence that was to shortly follow with the strike in London docks - a tad reluctant to allow beefy dockies the run of Whitechapel of a night. Many heads would have been broken, and amongst them a lot of police heads!
That info was gleaned from Cullen's book.
Yes, RJ, the Toynbee notebooks do still exist. I found them last night under lock and key in some modern socialist organisation (I should have saved the site I hope!) and I'll post that url later.
Thanks Chris, I always enjoy 'piffle' more than anything else. |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 3644
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 10, 2004 - 6:24 pm: | |
Hi AP
There's a fair amount in the "Times" about vigilance Committees and Associations for the period just before JTR. These earlier groupings were set up for the suppression of vice, by means of members obtaining evidence, lobbying for changes in the law, campaigning for existing laws to be more strictly enforced....all kinds of ideas, including giving the PCs on the beat cards bearing the addresses of the night shelters, so that they could help get the women off the streets.
Robert |
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 1288
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 10, 2004 - 7:09 pm: | |
Well bully for Cullen!
Quite frankly I think he had got his facts wrong there AP.
Natalie |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 1580
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, December 11, 2004 - 8:20 am: | |
Possibly, Natalie. I honestly don't know, as I quote merely from his work.
Thanks Robert, the point of interest here I think is that this vigilance committee was set up specifically because of the 'Whitechapel Murders'. Cullen does speculate in his book that the reasoning behind the offer was to get hold of the reward money that was floating around at the time, having already been refused by the government... and when the 'lads' realised that the dosh would not be forthcoming they adjourned to the pub, and have been there ever since. |
Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 1610
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 13, 2004 - 2:07 pm: | |
Guess Cullen may have had a pint(ooooops a point!) there!....having beeen in and out of a few of these establishments... would swear to it!... they're still there!
I also believe that "if it werent for these 'orrible murders....none of these Vigilance jobs would have happened!"
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Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1616
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 23, 2004 - 1:31 pm: | |
On the subject of the Vigilance Committee, the cutting below about a letter sent to the Secretary may be of interest.
It is form the Iowa New Era dated 16 October 1889:
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