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Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Message Boards » Victims » Mary Jane Kelly » Mary Ann Kelly alias "Eva" « Previous Next »

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Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn

Post Number: 1922
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 11:27 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

In the generation just before Mary Kelly of Miller"sCt
there was a famous Irish Republican woman named
Mary Kelly or Mary Ann Kelly.She became famous writing pamphlets etc for the Republican movement in 1848.She was from a strong Republican family
in Dengal moving to Dublin as a young woman.She wrote under the alias "Eva" but was famous enough in Ireland to be known by her real name, Mary Kelly.
I wonder was Mary her real name or did she use this names as an "alias" and if so can any significance be given to it?
Natalie
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil

Post Number: 544
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 4:49 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

And could our MJK have been using a famous/evocative name as a nom-de-guerre?

I can imagine that Mary Kelly is a fairly common Irish name, but if it was assumed in the case of MJK we could be looking for anyone.

Natalie, this is wholly new information for me, thanks for drawing attention to it.

Phil
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Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn

Post Number: 1925
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 2:02 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Phil,
There is that possibility if indeed the murders
were in any way linked to what was going on in the Govt.re the Irish question.The idea was around at the time that some sort of link existed ,hence Monro"s famous words about it being " a political hot potato" as well as the remark that Monro who was also in charge of the Secret Service [Irish]was considered the very man who could give the "hint" as to who the killer was.This does not though mean the killer was a Fenian .Rather that the killer was a man
who had friends in high places.
The one archival hint of some "oversight" is a note from Henry Matthews,the Home Secretary,to his private secretary,Evelyn Ruggles-Brice:"Stimulate the police about the Whitechapel
Murders.MONRO might be willing to give a hint to the CID people if necessary."
So there does seem to have been a link apart from one of the Phoenix Park Murder knives turning up in the hands of our very own Ripper expert Donald Rumbelow!
But back to the thread"s title.
Yes Mary Kelly could have been linked to all this in some way,could have taken the name because of admiration for one of her Fenian compatriots but probably our Mary Kelly was what they said at the inquest an "unfortunate"----who ended up the victim of a sexual[or non-sexual depending on your view]serial killer!
Natalie
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil

Post Number: 547
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2005 - 2:18 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Only one small point, Natalie, and I am in no way disagreeing with your analysis:

I think we have to be very careful about the interpretation of the Ruggles-Brise comment and the "hint". Munro was an experienced policeman working for the HO, and Matthews trusted him. The Met were clearly making heavy-weather of the Ripper investigation. Against that background, the "hint" MAY have been no more than a simple suggestion that Munro energise and give some direction to a flagging investigation.

On the other hand the comment might be very significant.

But when you write: ...The idea was around at the time that some sort of link existed ,hence Monro"s famous words about it being " a political hot potato" as well as the remark that Monro who was also in charge of the Secret Service [Irish]was considered the very man who could give the "hint" as to who the killer was....

I am not sure that the words I have bolded can be sustained on the basis of the recorded words. I have carefully checked the wording which reads: " Stimulate the police about the Whitechapel murders. Monro might be willing to give a hint to the CID people if necessary."

I don't think this can be extrapolated as you
do. Don't forget that on 22 September, when the note was written, Anderson was away on sick leave and there may have been a leadership vacuum at the top of the CID. The note could as readily refer to this as to something more sinister or surreptitious.

Phil
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Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn

Post Number: 1931
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2005 - 12:40 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Phil,
Yes I think you raise important points there.
On the "Ginger Beer Bottles "thread you will see
I have tried as best I can to present some thoughts on a case re the Irish /Fenian/Bitish Govt. interlacings with the events in Whitechapel.
It does seem a bit of a preposterous I admit but stranger things have happened!
Best Natalie
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil

Post Number: 550
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2005 - 3:14 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I have participated positively in that thread - I think it is a plausible area for research.

Phil
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Christopher T George
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chrisg

Post Number: 1462
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Monday, May 16, 2005 - 2:08 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi Phil and Natalie

I have also toyed with the idea of a Fenian connection to the murders through Tumblety but there evidence seems lacking that the name "Mary Kelly" or the ginger beer bottles had a connection to the Fenians in any way. Both the name and such bottles clearly were common so it's hard to make a link absent other clues that might link Mary to the Fenians. In regard to the broken "Ripper" knife in the possession of Don Rumbelow, I believe the story is that it was supposedly found at one of the later (1889+) murder scenes and had the same manufacturer, Weiss, as the knives used in the Phoenix Park murders of 1882. Thus no clear link is apparent either to the canonical murders that ended with Mary Jane Kelly or to the Dublin assassinations, so what relevance the Rumbelow knife has to the better known Whitechapel murders is questionable.

All my best

Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil

Post Number: 556
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Monday, May 16, 2005 - 3:11 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Where did the 1889 connection come from Chris? I had never seen a date given by Rumbelow. Only that its provenance - the Churchill firm to the lady who was curator at the Soane Museum...

Grateful for citations to back up your brisk dismissal of any link.

Phil
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Christopher T George
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chrisg

Post Number: 1463
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Monday, May 16, 2005 - 8:29 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi Phil

I thought I had read that a knife was found beside the body of one of the later Whitechapel murder victims but I have yet to find that reference. Absent that, I offer the following: in A to Z, 3rd edition, 1996, Begg et al., pp. 200-201 state that the knife had been owned by a Miss Dorothy Stroud who had been given the knife in 1937 by Hugh Pollard, sporting editor of Country Life and partner of gunsmith Robert Churchill who often worked with Scotland Yard. This was thought to give the knife excellent provenance but does not (in my view) tie it to the murders. The knife was in a case with blood-stained lining which Miss Stroud subsequently burned, and the knife got broken while being used in the garden.

The authors of A to Z cite an unverified report in the Pall Mall Gazette that a knife was found beside Annie Chapman's body but no other report has been found to verify that as a fact. Besides which, such a knife if so found would not, I think, have been in a case beside the body, which would make its absence from other reports even more glaring. Phil, I hope this helps. It is Nick Warren writing in The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper who makes the assertion (pp. 382-3) linking the Rumbelow knife to the knives used in the Phoenix Park murders but that might be wishful thinking based on commonality of maker rather than cold fact.

All the best

Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil

Post Number: 558
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 1:57 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Chris, thank you. I knew the background to the knife and am very familiar with the Warren article (one of the main reasons why I am attracted to the Fenian possibilities). That is why I asked about the 1889 date you gave, as I had not seen that anywhere in my reading.

I agree that no source gives us evidence that the knife or box was found at a "canonical" murder scene (if I can put it that way) but the Churchill provenance is a good one, and allows us to trace the knife back to at least the 20s or before with some certainty - ie within the lifetime of coppers who worked on the JtR case.

We must, of course, treat it with caution, but that is why statements such as 'it dated to an 1889 killing', must be used with their reference.

I don't want to be critical, just clear.

Phil
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Christopher T George
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chrisg

Post Number: 1464
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 6:21 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi Phil

That's fine, Phil, I agree with you, such statements should be supported and I am glad you called me to task on the point.

The Robert Churchill "provenance" is hazy at best and with due deference to the authors of A to Z is not any provenance at all, unless there is a signed statement from Robert Churchill saying he possessed the knife and it was given to him by Scotland Yard official X, giving details of where the knife was found and why it was suspected to be the Ripper's knife.

In other words, the information about the knife is like a lot of the "evidence" in the Ripper case: unsatisfactory.

All the best

Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil

Post Number: 559
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 7:26 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

But the history of the Rumbelow knife has not been seriously questioned up to now.

The Churchill's might easily have acquired such an item, it is demonstrably of the right period, and Miss Stroud was not the sort to invent the legend attaching to it.

Although not particularly well-known now, not so many years ago the Churchill firm was quite celebrated. Robert was known as the "Gun Expert" and the BBC did a drama series about him with (I think) Wensley Pithey in the title role. It would have been early/mid 60s.

I seem to recall it was Churchill who pioneered the identification of bullets and guns from the impressions left on the shell-casings by the hammer (I am not technical so the jargon may be wrong).

He was also involved with a case with a link to MJK. In the 20s some armed robbers killed a police constable and shot out his eyes because they had heard the rumour that the eyes of a dead person retained an image on them of the last thing he/she saw. Photos of the eyes of MJK were said to have been taken for the same reason. It was largely on Churchill's evidence IIRC, that the murderers were executed.

I agree that we have NO evidence to link the knife with the JtR killings or with any suspect. But if the Pheonix Park connection could be made that in itself would be interesting.

Of course, the knives might be the ONES to have been used in the assassination in the Park, hence their retention. The legend later got garbled.

To be treated with caution, I think.

Phil
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Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn

Post Number: 1937
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 10:17 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Chris,
The Nick Warren article draws attention to two factors in the Phoenix Park murders which MIGHT be linked to the ripper:

Thomas Burke-the[alleged] main target of the assassins had his throat cut-an unusual modus operandi for assassins then the most common being stabbing.

Lord Cavendish who came to his rescue suffered repeated stabbings.


Re. The Rumbelow knife.

There were twelve bought by an Irish man posing as a " surgeon" .All were traced to the seller,John Weiss in Oxford Street London .They were designed by the Napoleonic surgeon Lisfranc
and were amputating knives which was an unusual choice of weapon.They cost 12shillings and sixpence each,were top of the range[costing today something in the region of several hundred pounds each.
The author Nick Warren points out that the chances of such idiosyncratic weapons turning up
in the ripper hunt were minimal----yet they did!

The paper parcel Hutchinson said was held by Mary"s 2am Mr Astrakhan may have held such a pair of knives-he described it as a newspaper parcel,about 12 inches long.The knives were all originally 12 inches long!

If you believe Hutchinson"s account then the possibility exists that this was someone connected with these events---from either side---a Fenian link
or a police link---- or whoever had access over the six year period to one of the twelve knives bought by the bogus doctor.

On the other hand the knife could also lend weight to Stowell"s claim about someone high up-in the Prince"s circle or Abberline"s remark----again -someone very high up the social ladder !
The long rumoured story of the link with the emminent doctor now starts to sound some basis in the circumstantial.
Who other than an assassin or a well to do surgeon would have needed and/or been able to afford, a knife costing -in today"s money, several hundreds of pounds? A Gull perhaps /---who lived just a stone"s throw from where the knives were originally made and sold ie Bond Street/ Oxford Street-Gull lived in Brook Street less than five minutes away!
Worthy of more than a cursory dismissal,Chris,
-Jack could have been any of these from an Irish Doctor to an English Doctor- to an English /Irish / Jewish or American crackpot doctor or policeman or ruffian,whatever -his side-line --- serial killing and mutilating!
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil

Post Number: 560
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 11:36 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Natalie - If bought for an assassination, of course, the knives need never have gone near a doctor or surgeon. They were envisaged simply as weapons.

On the package allegedly carried by Mr Astrakhan, knives 12" long would need a box closer to 18" or 20" long. 14" would be too short (only an inch either end) to allow for the surround and the frame of the box/lid. 16"-18" allows for a more generous "presentation".

Could someone mistake a box of such a size as 12"?

Phil
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Christopher T George
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chrisg

Post Number: 1465
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 12:22 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi Phil & Natalie

I'm sorry but I do have to fault the provenance of the knife without the actual facts to back it up. As I stated before, the knife was given to Miss Stroud by Hugh Pollard, sporting editor of Country Life, who was a partner of gunsmith Robert Churchill who often worked on important cases with Scotland Yard. But who is to say Churchill ever had the knife? It's only implied that he had the knife and got it from somebody connected with the police. But you can't assume that.

In fact, I would say that the supposed "excellent" provenance is not much better than that of the flowered shawl that is alleged to have come from Eddowes which has an iffy and unestablished provenance as well. To reiterate, Pollard worked with Churchill but Pollard might have got the knife through some other channel that we don't know about. We don't know why it was thought to be the Ripper's knife and who made that conclusion.

Natalie, you also state: "Who other than an assassin or a well to do surgeon would have needed and/or been able to afford, a knife costing -in today"s money, several hundreds of pounds? A Gull perhaps ..."

The answer to this is any top surgeon could afford and use such surgical instruments. I don't think that just because Gull could afford such instruments or that he lived near to Weiss's establishment means a thing in terms of any involvement in the Ripper murders.

Again, Phil, I have also been intrigued by the possibility of Fenian involvement in the murders, as I mentioned, but we do have to analyze the information and not make assumptions where the facts are lacking, just as you cautioned me earlier.

All the best

Chris

(Message edited by ChrisG on May 17, 2005)
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
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Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn

Post Number: 1938
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 12:26 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Phil,
Its difficult to tell from the various reports how long this parcel was.It varies fro 8 inches[illustrated police report to 18 inches in some press reports.PCSmith also saw a man with a parcel wrapped in newspaper and again different lengths are reported in the press.

Yes I agree that if they were bought for an assassination they need never have gone near a doctor or surgeon.All I am meaning is that there were presumably others who would have bought from this batch of surgeons amputation knives apart from the assassins!Among this exclusive and specialist shop"s customers would have been,for one example and almost certainly, Dr William Gull since he lived just around the corner.I mean how many such specialist shops would have existed in London?
This isnt at all to say Doctor Gull was guilty as accused in various films and texts on the ripper but rather that there may be a link to him via this knife or to other doctors and surgeons of that time-including student doctors buying their amputation knives and such.
Natalie
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Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn

Post Number: 1939
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 12:33 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Chris,
You seem to have assumed Phil wrote the last post you replied to.If you check it you will see I wrote the one about the Doctors in which I say the same thing as you viz----

A doctor or surgeon could have afforded them!

----and to reiterate Dr Gull lived about 3-5 minutes walk away!





Natalie
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Christopher T George
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chrisg

Post Number: 1466
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 12:38 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Thanks for pointing that out, Natalie. You will see I have amended my post to take allowance of what you said.

Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil

Post Number: 561
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 1:14 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Chris - absolutely right. I applaud and admire your scrupulousness.

I would never, I hope build the knife into any solution without much more corroborative evidence than we have. That said, I think it is a piece of POTENTIAL evidence that merits thoughts and research.

Thanks again for sharing my aspiration for higher standards,

Phil
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Cludgy
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Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 10:55 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I recently had a conversation with someone who is searching his family tree.

One female ancestor (of his) from the 18890's was proving very tricky to trace, it seems she had travelled to France, but not in her real name.

Enter coincidence one, he was disscussing the assumed name in the library family search room(found in shipping records, she was accompanied by someone whom he could identify)when someone remarked that they knew this name. It turned out that the name was that of a child who had died in the 1890's.

Enter coincidence two, someone else (in the search room) had been reading a book about Victorian England, and had read that in the latter part of the 19th century, prostitutes would enter graveyards and find out from the gravestones the name of a deaseased person. They would then apply for a passport in the dead persons name. Photographs were not on 19th Century passports.

The prostitute would then go and ply her trade in France.

This turned out to be the case with my friend. His relative latter returned to the UK, and he has a record of her being prosecuted for prostitution here in the UK.

Now my question is, did Mary Kelly (who said that she had travelled to France)use this method to obtain the name Mary Kelly

Regards Cludgy
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Mr Poster
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Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 7:48 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hello
As an Irishman I can say this with some confidence: Mary was probably the most common female name at the time, Kelly probably one of the most common surnames at the time. The Mary Ann Kelly you are talking of was not really a pamphleteer but was a contributor of the usual sort of "Rising of the Moon" maudlin pseudo- military rebel tunes we would now be doing well to be rid of, to the newspaper the Nation. And she was not famous. Not even well known. And probably the only reason she was coming up with this stuff was that it was trendy at the time for women to get involved. But given that the English occupiers at the time had pretty much banned education for the natives, I imagine she was fairly well off if she could write (in English!) and was probably not some kind of bog trotting literary Boadiciea. More likely just indulging for the frisson or thrill but hardly hiding pikes in the thatch. Busy writing chest lifting marching tunes and remembering Vinegar Hill.

And Ive never heard of Dengal. Dingle maybe, Donegal even. But if she was from there and the sort of Republican to be really famous she would have been Maire Caolaoigh or something. Plus Mary Kelly was writing around 30 years before MJK was born, the verbal tradition was still predominant and the Nation was read by people who came from a different class than our girl. As MJK was probably never in Dingle or Donegal I doubt she ever met the by then aged Mary Kelly so she could only have picked up on her from the unlikely written medium in which case she would not have known her name and would have called herself Eva Kelly, the name by which Mary Kelly was known.

But if you want a Fenian link that isnt Mary Kelly or the Phoenix Park murders, try reading up on their history of facial mutilation usually carried out on servants of the crown, bailiffs and such like. Very partial to cutting off noses,lips, slashing of the eyes with riding spurs and general cutting.

Irsih republicanism was never exactly known for its subtlety. Why discredit a politician or whatever by killing whores when you can blow him up? But neither have Irish republicans been known for letting gin sodden whores be privy to their plans. And prior to the civil unrest of the '60's Ive never heard of them collecting empties to make bombs.

No offence, but we're not even at the races with this one. Famous female non de guerres are Grainne Uaile and.....nope..thats about it. Mary Kelly is the same as John Smith.

mr Poster
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Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn

Post Number: 1943
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Thursday, May 19, 2005 - 6:18 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hello Mr Poster,
Thanks for the information.
Name stuff seems quite right -a common name.Added to which her real name according to her ex boyfriend Joe Barnett was Marie Jaenette- as written on her death certificate.Joe said she simply chose the name Mary Kelly to go by.
As for Irish republican"s not sharing their secrets with "gin sodden whores"-well that wasnt what I was implying myself.I said she may have been a sympathiser----and she may have.
The ginger beer bottles are documented as having been used in various radical causes mostly by the Russian anarchists but not only by them.Neither the Russian Anarchists or the Irish Republicans had
a monopoly on armed insurrection or ingenious methods of acquiring containers for making molotov cocktails!The French Communards had beaten them to it in 1848 and 1870 -a section of them calling themselves the Dynamitards.
Actually the only rumour in political terms that seems to have circulated to date is that Mary Kelly may have been a police agent.I very much doubt that too!
But if you are claiming that there were no Fenian or Irish Republican Women activists-well thats just not true.
Another point:"Why discredit politicians when you can blow them up".That wasnt the point. The point I was making was that the Jack the ripper murders may just possibly have been some kind of counter ploy-an irritant or powerful distraction from bombings campaigns and the like, having the effect of causing senior police officers to start chasing their tails, spatting amonst themselves and becoming overwhelmed to the point of resignation-eg Warren etc.
Very interested in your comment about facial mutilation-any knowledge of the internal mutilation feature being a known punishment?
But I think you are quite right almost certainly-we"re not even at the races on this one- Good term!
Natalie

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Cludgy
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Posted on Friday, May 20, 2005 - 7:40 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I'd like to further qualify what I wrote above

The prostitute would look at headstones, and find those with the date of birth of the dead person, she would only choose those whose age corresponded to her own of course

She would then trot off to the appropriate authority, and give the name and date of birth of the dead person. The person in charge of issuing the passport(apparently) only checked ,if that person had been born in this country. A passport would then be issued.

Regards Cludgy
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil

Post Number: 583
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Friday, May 20, 2005 - 5:47 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I think this is the method Frederick Forsyth refers to in his novels (especially Day of the Jackal) for gaining false identities. If not it is close.

Phil
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Cludgy
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Posted on Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - 7:57 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi Phil

I wasn't aware of Fredrick Forsyth including this method of obtaining a false passport, in his novel.

I just wonder if he had heard of this procedure actually happening in Victorian England.

I have been thinking of reasons as to why a prostitute would go to such lengths to obtain a false passport in this way, i.e.why did they not just go and get a passport in their own name?

The only thing I can come up with, is perhaps if one had a criminal record(i.e. a conviction for soliciting) then maybe such persons were banned from owning a passport.

Is there any suggestion that Mary Kelly had a conviction for soliciting?

Regards Cludgy
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Donald Souden
Chief Inspector
Username: Supe

Post Number: 564
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - 2:23 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Cludgy,

Forsyth would not have needed any Victorian examples as it was a common practice used at least as early as the 1920s by Communist agents and was described by Whittaker Chambers (among others)in magazine articles in the 1930s.

Don.
"He was so bad at foreign languages he needed subtitles to watch Marcel Marceau."
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Cludgy
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Posted on Wednesday, May 25, 2005 - 9:41 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi Donald

Thanks for that. The question is why would a prostitute want to obtain a false passport in this way. I have found out that they did indeed use this method to gain entry to France, Belgium etc

Regards Cludgy
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Phil Hill
Sergeant
Username: Phil

Post Number: 21
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Thursday, May 26, 2005 - 8:08 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I don't think passports were quite the same now as in 1888.

I have no idea when the little booklet style came in, but have an idea that in the Victorian period we were still talking about a letter style document with the Foreign Secretary literally asking the authorities abroad in the Queen's name to be helpful to the name traveller. in that sense it was almost a personal letter of introduction.

I am also unsighted on whether you actually NEEDED a passport to travel or whether prostitutes did as is stated above. But I suppose that a false identity and background MIGHT have aided in obtaining a passport which perhaps required people to be (or appear to be) of a certain class.

I think we should forget the modern "democratic" system whereby everyone is seen as having a right to a passport. I suspect that in 1888, the UK authorities could easily have refused to issue travel documentation to anyone considered "unworthy" in some way.

Phil
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Cludgy
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Posted on Friday, May 27, 2005 - 7:07 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi Phil

I think you are right re passports in the victorian era

Mary Kelly told a story, of how she had visited France, it would be interesting to know if she had obtained a passport. I wonder if there are any existing records(Kew) of peoples applying for passports, 1880-1888?

Regards Cludgy

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