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  | Archive through June 25, 2003 | Christopher T George | 25 | 1 | 6-25-03 3:21 pm |
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Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 326
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2003 - 7:42 am: |       |
Thanks for posting that, Chris, and thanks to Dale. It's a shame that the Kelly link seems weaker, but reading the lyrics was enjoyable.
For the past few days I have been trying to get through to the English Folk Music and Dance Library, which I believe covers the whole of the British Isles, but it seems permanently off the hook.
Robert |
Christopher T George
Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 202
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2003 - 9:58 am: | |
Hi, Robert:
Thanks, and thank you for your efforts as well to track down this song. As you probably know, Cecil Sharp was the important collector of English folk songs and folk music around the turn of the 20th century and if "The Fisherman's Widow" is an old song that Mary Jane Kelly would have known it could have been one of the ones he collected. I have just now been able to get through to the English Folk Dance and Song Society http://www.efdss.org/ and am sending them an e-mail to see if they can help us.
All the best
Chris |
Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 275
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2003 - 6:40 pm: | |
Hi all
Re: the print in Kelly's room - this drawing of the interior Kelly's room clearly shows part of a print or picture hanging above the fireplace.
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Christopher T George
Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 205
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 27, 2003 - 10:20 am: | |
Hi, Chris et al.:
I am pretty sure I have seen a drawing that shows the whole of the print on the wall, not a part of it, albeit at a distance. I'll check on it.
Meanwhile, I have heard from the English Folk Dance and Song Society (http://www.efdss.org/) where Malcolm Taylor, Librarian of the EFDSS tells me that one set of lyrics for "The Fisherman's Wife" (or "Widow") were written by nineteenth century Irish songwriter Percy French (1854-1920) making it possible that it could have been a song Mary Jane Kelly knew and could have song, if the composition was 1888 or before that is of course. I am awaiting clarification and the full lyrics.
Meanwhile I have found some partial lyrics for the song--
(From) The Fisherman's wife
By Percy French
And the wavelets fall on the old sea wall
And beat on the cold grey stones,
Singing the song they have sung so long
In their musical monotones.
All the best
Chris
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Christopher T George
Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 206
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 27, 2003 - 11:08 am: | |
Hi, all--
I am told by a reliable source that the sketch of Kelly’s room at 13 Miller's Court showing the picture over the fireplace appeared in Reynolds’s Newspaper, 18 November 1888, p. 5. The newspaper sketch just shows a picture hanging over the fireplace, but no discernible detail to indicate what it was a picture of. I don't have Paley's book with me but something tells me the sketch appears in his book. If so, maybe someone could put up the illustration here. Thanks.
All the best
Chris |
Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 276
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 27, 2003 - 12:01 pm: | |
Hi Chris
I presume this is the illustration you're referring to
Regards
Chris S |
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 330
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 27, 2003 - 1:40 pm: | |
Hi everyone
Thanks for all the info.
In the first sketch of Kelly's room, the artist seems to have indicated blood on the floor on the extreme left of the picture. I think I remember reading that there was a table underneath one of the windows, but surely we'd have heard if the Ripper had loaded up two tables?
I love the desk bureau in the second sketch!
Robert |
Christopher T George
Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 207
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 27, 2003 - 5:59 pm: | |
Hi, Robert & Chris:
Chris, thanks for posting these sketches. The second sketch, showing the interior of 13 Miller's Court, is the one about which I have had some debate on these boards previously, in the boards' previous incarnation. I believe what we see beside the bed is the old washstand with basin, and if this drawing is accurate--which it may not be!--I'm presuming it was pulled out to take the photographs. But the point is the washstand sits exactly where the supposed initials "FM" are in the big photograph which tells me if this furniture was there during the murder, the murderer could not have daubed the initials on the wall. The furniture also shows of course that there was a considerable gap between the right side of the bed and the wall and that the bed was not flush against the wall at the time of the crime.
Best regards
Chris |
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 334
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 27, 2003 - 7:10 pm: | |
Good heavens, Chris! I'd never thought of that as a washstand. But I suppose if the bed and table were originally closer to the window, that would better explain the door's knocking on the table (I'm sure the police would have told McCarthy to be as gentle as possible). Perhaps it was virtually impossible to enter the room without knocking the table.
If the washstand was covering the site of the "FM" at the time of the murder, then I suppose Kelly's head must have been right in the very corner, for blood to have hit the partition instead of the washstand - which I think is in line with the medical findings at the time.
I suppose it also means that the blood spurted out with some force, to have reached the partition. I don't know what the general opinion is regarding whether Kelly was first strangled, but I'm not too sure that she was, myself.
Have I understood all this right? This washstand idea had never occurred to me before - I've always somehow skipped over it.
Robert |
Christopher T George
Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 208
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, June 28, 2003 - 11:41 am: | |
Hi Robert:
I don't want to argue too forcefully for the idea that the washstand was in the corner at the time of Mary Jane Kelly's murder without some verification that it was. If we look at the different drawings of the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street, the fence is rendered in a number of different ways and in different heights, with very regular boards or higglety pigglety boards with considerable gaps between them, so I am under no delusion that what we see in a newspaper sketch is accurate. On the other hand, I just think that the sketch raises the intriguing possibility that there may have been a piece of furniture in that corner, namely the washstand, when the murder took place, and that would impact on the theory that there were the initials "FM" on the wall, in that corner. In terms of the blood splashes on the wall, I am not sure what the washstand theory does to that idea, except that the famous photograph might be misleading in that, while testimony tells us there were such stains, what many construe in the photo as blood splashes could be pre-existing stains on the wall. In other words, don't let your eyes deceive you either in terms of seeing blood splashes or possible initials on the wall.
All the best
Chris |
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 338
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, June 28, 2003 - 4:34 pm: | |
Yes, Chris, and it doesn't inspire confidence in eyewitness testimony when trained artists draw the same scenes in different ways.
That washstand theory is intriguing. I must buy the CD ROM.
Robert |
Sarah
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, September 26, 2003 - 9:15 am: | |
If you follow this link below, then you should find details about the artist Charles James Lewis and his many paintings. If you look under the section entitled "last works at auction" you will see a painting entitled "The Fisherman's Widow". Unfortunately there is no picture but if you click on the artist's name is says that he was born somewhere between 1830 to 1836 and died in 1892. Don't know if this is of any help.
http://www.artistsearch.com/artists/LEWIS_CHARLES_JAMES.htm |
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