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Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1790
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 18, 2005 - 7:43 am: | 
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I have been working on a new project which, hopefully, will be out later this year but, as in the case of the "Cast of Thousands" I wanted to give folks here a taste of what is coming. The new work - "Will the Real Mary Kelly?" (with acknowledgement and apologies to Arthur Douglas!) - attempts to summarise what we can know or reasonably surmise about Mary Kelly and the problems attendant upon studying her background. I am posting below the contents, intro and first chapter and will be posting a couple more later to let folks know what this project is about.
All the best
Chris
WILL THE REAL MARY KELLY…?
by
Christopher Scott
Copyright 2005
Will the real Mary Kelly…?
Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1 - The Affair at Miller's Court
Chapter 2 - Who Died at Miller's Court?
Chapter 3 - The Conventional Account of Mary Kelly's Life
Chapter 4 - The Records
Chapter 5 - The Mysteries of Miller's Court
Chapter 6 - George Hutchinson's Story
Chapter 7 - Kelly Rises from the Dead: Caroline Maxwell and Others
Chapter 8 - Barnett and Other Lovers
Chapter 9 - Other Accounts
Chapter 10 - Mary Kelly Keeps Busy
Chapter 11 - Closing Words
Introduction
In 1939, Winston Churchill famously described the Kremlin, and Russian foreign policy in general, as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." These words could justifiably be applied also to Mary Jane Kelly, the last generally acknowledged victim of the Whitechapel murderer, the nameless, faceless man now known in perpetuity by the brutal sobriquet (which he almost certainly did not coin himself) of Jack the Ripper. It is indeed ironic that a young, unremarkable woman, who has achieved by the manner of her death an enduring immortality that surely would have astounded her in life, presents to the researcher seemingly intractable problems in discovering any tangible and provable facts about her life and background.
Mary Kelly was the last of the so called "canonical" victims, who are widely accepted to be five in number - Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and, finally, Kelly herself. The word "canonical" is derived from an analogy with the world of artistic works. In the fields of painting, literature, musical composition etc., those works which are generally accepted as provably the product of the hand to which they are attributed, constitute that artist's "canon" of work. It may seem bizarre that such savage and infamous killings as the Whitechapel murders should be compared to the products of high art, but the term is now firmly entrenched and it would seem unnecessarily pedantic to seek another. About all of the other four canonical victims we know a good deal with regard to their background and family and their history prior to their falling to the hand of the Whitechapel murderer. We have been able to trace many documentary references to these four women - for example, references in successive census returns, marriage certificates and birth certificates - and in the case of all these four killings, friends, family members and acquaintances came forward with provable testimony about the women. It should be added that of three of these first four victims - Nichols, Stride and Eddowes - we have only to date been able to gain some insight into their appearance from the mortuary photographs which were taken after they had succumbed to their dreadful end. Indeed, Annie Chapman is the only one of the canonical victims for whom a photograph taken in life has come to light. This in itself is not particularly unusual or noteworthy. Although by 1888 photography could certainly not be described as still in its infancy, it is certainly not apparent that women of the social class and background of the Whitechapel victims would have had photographs taken as a matter of course. Of course, it is remotely possible that images taken in life of one of the victims may still lay neglected and unidentified. The photograph of Annie Chapman and her husband came to light only comparatively recently, so it certainly cannot be confidently claimed that all such material has yet emerged.
It must be said that Kelly is not the only possible victim who poses a problem with regard to documentary evidence. In July 1889, Alice McKenzie was found murdered in Castle Alley. She also has proved remarkably elusive when it comes to any provable references in the available records. Contemporary accounts of the case tell us only two things which may have led to some revelation of her background or previous history - that she was allegedly from Peterborough and was also known by the name of Bryant. Both items have thus far led nowhere. Other persons involved in the case of the Whitechapel murders about whom we would desperately like to know more have proved equally nebulous. Among the vast array of suspects whose names have emerged over the years of study and speculation, we would love to know more about Michael Ostrog and Nathan Kaminsky, and among the major witnesses involved, there is still disagreement among researchers about the firm documentary evidence of two of the most important, George Hutchinson and Joseph Barnett. Both of these witnesses became embroiled in the case specifically in relation to the Kelly murder, and we will hear more of both later.
So what material is available about Mary Jane Kelly? When the documentation and press reports relating to her murder are first perused, it would seem that we have a wealth of evidence, some of it extremely detailed. Friends and acquaintances of Mary came forward both at her inquest and more informally to press and police, and offered many alleged facts about her life and background. Central to all of these accounts, as we will discuss in more detail later, must stand the testimony of Joseph Barnett, with whom Kelly lived at various locations for a period of at least eighteen months prior to her murder. It was in the room which they had shared in Miller's Court, off the notorious Dorset Street, that Kelly met her death. However impressive and factual Barnett's testimony may appear at first sight, it has proved impervious to all research efforts to date. Not one of the "facts" itemised by Barnett has led to documentary confirmation. And herein lies the crux of the problem. Because so little is known about Kelly that can be proved - indeed, to all intents, nothing - she has become a blank canvas on which many later alleged accounts and theories have been written. It is indeed ironic that the Whitechapel victim about whom we know least has become the most discussed of them all.
In an entirely unscientific manner, I regard all these alleged facts and theories about Mary Kelly as falling into one of four categories:- feasible, possible, unlikely and barking mad! We will be seeing plenty of each type as we look at available accounts, both contemporary and later. In a highly unflattering comparison, the status of Kelly is rather like a ship that has lain wrecked on the sea bed since 1888. All the later concretions - some of which were spawned amazingly quickly after her death - have hidden, layer by successive layer, what little of the original outline we might once have been able to discern. I will be looking at police statements and accounts to see what, if anything, can be gleaned by way of fact with regard to the crime itself. The statements of her lover, friends and acquaintances - both at her controversial inquest and as reported in the press - will be examined with a critical eye to see if any of the assertions can be verified. Lastly, we will navigate the tortuous and often bizarre accounts of later theorists and writers who have invoked the name and presence of Kelly as a central figure in their account of and explanation for the murders and their perpetrator. What, if anything, can we truly say we know about this most famous and most elusive victim of Jack the Ripper?
Chapter 1
The Affair at Miller's Court
It is, perhaps, ironic that the only definite facts known about Mary Kelly, the most discussed and least documented of the victims of the Whitechapel murderer, are those which attend her death and its immediate aftermath. We will look in the first instance at those facts which the police investigation into the killing of Mary Kelly on the 9th November , 1888, and her inquest were able to elicit. For the moment we will abjure anything which may fall into the realms of hearsay or speculation in order to establish exactly what aspects of the murder and its investigation by the police authorities could fairly and reasonably be accepted as established fact. The theories, hearsay and speculation will, of course, be looked at in due course, but in order to put into perspective just how much or how little we truly know about Mary Kelly, it would seem appropriate to initially look at the established facts as a relatively secure base from which to proceed.
The principal event of the 9th November, 1888, should have been that yearly, colourful celebration of capitalism and pageantry which is the Lord Mayor's Show, marking the inauguration of the quaintly clad senior official of the City of London. This annual ritual has not only survived the intervening years but still occurs in early November and follows substantially the same route. More than five weeks had passed since the last killings in the Whitechapel area - the so called "double event" on the 30th of September - which had witnessed the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes. Whether the killer deliberately chose the day of the procession that marked the Lord Mayor's Show - knowing that many police officers would be occupied in duties connected with the event, or perversely wishing to steal the headlines from the event of the day - cannot, of course, be known. But this day in early November was to mark the final murder in the series which is generally agreed as being attributable to the same hand and certainly there would have been, as much as was possible under the shadow of the recent bloody events in Whitechapel, a comparatively festive atmosphere as, doubtless, many of the locals intended to get their fair share of the festivities.
The location of the events that were to unfold and deprive the Lord Mayor of his moment in the public eye, was a narrow, grimy cul de sac known as Miller's Court, which ran northwards off the infamous Dorset Street. The hair raising descriptions of Dorset Street in the heart of Spitalfields, which cast it as the most evil thoroughfare in London and virtually a "no go" area for the police authorities, may well be overstated and unduly dramatised. Certainly contemporary maps and census information show that the street contained a number of sizeable common lodging houses, such as that run by William Crossingham and the inhabitants of the street must at any given time have included a significant proportion of itinerant persons who used the common lodging houses for casual, short term accommodation. However, these same sources show that Dorset Street also contained a significant number of households with established, long term businesses and residents. We must not assume that all residents even of the common lodging houses were short term lodgers unknown to those who ran these establishments. There is evidence even within the documents relating to the Whitechapel murders to show that it was certainly not unknown for some residents of these houses to stay for months or even years, or to alternate between a small number of such establishments at need.
Miller's Court was essentially a short, blind alleyway with small houses to either side which were tenanted by a variety of households. A narrow arched entrance led into the court from the north side of Dorset Street. Access was gained between numbers 26 and 27 Dorset Street. The business located at Number 27 was a chandler's shop which was managed and run by one John McCarthy and his family. Evidence from a later murder often linked with the Whitechapel series, that of Alice McKenzie in Castle Alley, tells us that McCarthy's shop stayed open to a very late hour and also served food. As well as his business at Number 27, McCarthy was also the landlord of a certain number of properties which he let out. The exact number of such properties that he rented out has never been definitively established, but the properties in Miller's Court were known colloquially as "McCarthy's Rents," so it seems reasonable to assume that at least a number of the properties in the court were let out by him. McCarthy also rented out rooms at 26 Dorset Street and over the course of time the internal layout of the house had been changed to provide more units for letting. Partition walls had been inserted and it was one of these changes which had created the room in which Mary Kelly had been living with Joseph Barnett since February or March of 1888. Although Kelly's room was designated as 13 Miller's Court, it was in effect the ground floor back room of 26 Dorset Street.
The room itself was a dismal, basic habitation which was approximately twelve feet square with a small fireplace. A single door led into the room from the arched alleyway that led into Miller's Court and two windows in the ground floor room looked out onto a bay in Miller's Court where a pump was situated. The furnishing was, as we would expect, sparse and basic - a bed with slatted base and turned pine headboard, two small tables, a washstand and chairs. The famous photograph of Kelly taken after death when the body was still in situ as found shows the partition wall of the room and the outline of a panel door can clearly be seen as forming part of this wall. Presumably at some stage this door, which must originally have led through to another part of number 26 which looked out on to Dorset Street, had been sealed up as part of the creation of this small room for rent.
At the time when the body was found in 13 Miller's Court, late in the morning of 9th November, two other facts must be mentioned which bear on the physical state of the room and its contents. The door which led into the room from the passageway outside was, for some reason, incapable of being opened. There has been much discussion about the absence of a key and its whereabouts, much theorising about how and why the door could not be opened in the normal way. But more of that later as it is not fact but speculation. The other relevant physical fact about the room was that at least one of the panes in the window nearer to the passageway was broken, and this broken glass was either covered with a curtain or had a wad of cloth stuffed into it.
The rent which Barnett and Kelly had been paying for the room was reported as four shillings and sixpence a week. To put this into perspective, the normal charge for a bed at a common lodging house was fourpence per night for a single bed and eightpence for a double. So, by way of comparison, if Kelly and Barnett had lived at one of the lodging houses in Dorset Street, they would have paid fifty six pence per week for their bed, or four shillings and eightpence. It has been argued that it is difficult to see how a couple in the situation of Kelly and Barnett could afford a room at such a rent, but in fact it worked out marginally cheaper than living in a lodging house. John McCarthy claimed at Kelly's inquest that the couple were in arrears with their rent to the sum of twenty nine shillings, and that the rent was due and was paid weekly. This raises two main questions which are 1) Why would a businessman such as McCarthy who operated within the financially precarious environment of the East End, allow such arrears to accrue and 2) why do the arrears amount to such an odd sum? The first of these will be looked at when we come to consider the possible relationship between Kelly and McCarthy. The second question hinges on the simple fact that the arrears due is not divisible by the weekly rent. If the rent were 4/6 per week then six weeks rent would have amounted to 27 shillings. So all we can say with certainty is that somewhere in excess of six weeks rent was unpaid. The most likely reason for the odd amount is that as Kelly lived yards from McCarthy's shop, and presumably did at least some of her day to day shopping there, it is possible that McCarthy extended to her, as one of his tenants, a small amount of credit. But again this is in the realm of speculation. What must be remembered is that twenty nine shillings in the East End was a considerable amount of money and does seem an unusually large amount for McCarthy to allow persons of the social and financial status of Kelly and Barnett to run up.
However, it was the rent arrears that led to the body being discovered in Kelly's room at 13 Miller's Court. McCarthy employed a man most commonly named as Thomas Bowyer, but also listed variously as John or Harry Bowyer and known by the nickname of "Indian Harry." We are told that he was an army pensioner, but to date all searches for more information on Bowyer have proved fruitless. At Kelly's inquest he gave his address as 37 Dorset Street, which was not one of the large common lodging houses located in the street. In 1881 it was occupied by two Jewish families, the Beliskys and the Jacobs, and a Spitalfields family by the name of Fox. In 1891 the occupancy of the house had been taken by four Jewish families of the names of Brooks, York, Donovan and Burns. One of these residents, John Donovan, was listed as a fish porter. Late on the morning of the 9th of November, at approximately 10.45, McCarthy instructed Bowyer to go to Kelly's room and see if he could get any of the outstanding rent. We do not know on what day Kelly's rent would normally have been due or how often Bowyer, or McCarthy himself, had visited Kelly in the period immediately prior to the murder to try and get the outstanding rent money. The fact that Bowyer did not accept the failure of Kelly to answer as proof that she was not in may suggest that he had already had experience of her hiding from the rent man, which must have been a common occurrence in the East End of the time. Bowyer went round to the broken window, of which he was presumably aware, and pulled back the cloth or curtain. As his eyes adjusted to the comparative gloom within the room, he saw first the portions of Kelly's body on the table beside the bed and then the body itself. One can only imagine the effect that the sight of this ghastly shambles had on Bowyer and it must surely have stayed with him to the end of his days. He ran off to get McCarthy who returned with him and the landlord looked through the broken pane himself. McCarthy and Bowyer went to the Commercial Street police station to report what they had found and the police inspector on duty returned with them. There have over the years been various claims by certain police officers that they were first on the scene of the Miller's Court murder. This dubious honour, as reported at the inquest, actually belonged to Walter Beck who was on duty when McCarthy reported the murder.
This is where things start to get complicated. The sequence of events that followed the reporting of the murder in Miller's Court has been variously characterised as a bungling fiasco, an understandably cautious effort by the police to maximise the evidential leads at the scene of the crime, or simply a breakdown in police communications. The truth probably lies, as usual, somewhere in the middle. The timetable of the major players, as reported at the inquest, informs us that the murder was reported to Beck at Commercial Street police station just after 11 o'clock. He appears to have taken the following actions - to notify Dr. Phillips, the divisional police surgeon, and require him to attend the scene, to request the attendance of bloodhounds, whose use had been widely urged and argued about and for which trials had been held under the supervision of Charles Warren, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and, presumably, Beck also notified Inspector Abberline of the events in hand. Beck immediately went to Miller's Court with McCarthy and Bowyer and sealed the court off. Allowing for the time to quickly make the arrangements outlined above and for the time required to get to Miller's Court, Beck must have arrived at somewhere about 11.10. Dr. Phillips states in his inquest testimony that he arrived at the scene of the murder at 11.15 and Abberline got there at 11.30. The breakdown in police communications referred to amounted to the fact that not only were the bloodhounds, whose services had been mooted, not available for loan to the police, they were not even still in London. This, coupled with the fact that the door to 13 Miller's Court could not readily be opened without undue force, led to a considerable delay before Kelly's room was entered.
Dr. Phillips made what observations he could by simply looking through the window from the court and satisfied himself that there was no one in the room who could benefit from immediate medical attention. The doctor reported at the inquest that he remained at the scene until it was finally decided to force entry into Kelly's room. This action was taken at 1.30 in the afternoon. The chain of command in this situation is interesting. Abberline testified that the suggestion to leave the door closed until the dogs arrived came from Dr. Phillips. Word was finally brought that the dogs would not be coming with the arrival at 1.30 of Superintendent Arnold who was the officer who actually ordered the door to be forced. One can only imagine the atmosphere and the conversation during that period of over two hours while those involved stood around in Miller's Court waiting. It must have seemed endless. One wonders how many ventured a look through that broken window, how large were the crowds that built up in Dorset Street, and what rumours were flying around the residents of Miller's Court who were effectively trapped in their own homes.
Once the door had been forced - Phillips says by McCarthy himself - the doctor entered the room and carried out a preliminary examination of the body. This would have been required to formally certify death - not that there was much doubt on that count - but also to see what observations of value could be made by examining the body in situ. In his inquest testimony Phillips reconstructs what he considers to be the sequence of events that attended the woman's death. The body, as found, lay on the side of the bed nearer the door, i.e. the right hand side as viewed from the foot of the bed. But Phillips opined from the pattern and distribution of blood both on and under the bed that the fatal cut to the woman's throat had actually been effected with her lying on the other side of the bed, nearer the partition wall. The body had, in his opinion, been moved after death to where it was found. Phillips reports that there was saturation with blood at the corner nearest the wall of the palliasse (i.e. the mattress), the pillow and the sheet and was even specific enough to say that the immediate cause of death was the severing of the right carotid artery. If these observations are correct they raise some interesting issues. The severance of the right carotid artery with the body in the position that Phillips suggests would mean that the right hand side of Kelly's body was hard against the partition wall. If the killer severed the throat either astride the body or leaning over it, then this would strongly suggest that the killer was right handed, as a left handed cut in this position would be well nigh impossible. The question as to why the body was moved after the throat was cut could either confirm the handedness of the killer - ask any right handed person which side of a double bed they prefer! - or that the killer wished to pose the body to allow maximum access for the subsequent mutilations.
As well as Phillips, in his capacity as divisional surgeon, a team of medics attended the scene of the crime. Dr. Bond, Dr. Browne and Dr. Gabe are also noted as being present. Before any examination was made the now famous photographs of Kelly's body on the bed were taken. The next major arrival was Robert Anderson, the Assistant Commissioner, who is reported to have arrived by cab at 1.50 p.m. The medical men were engaged in their examination at the scene for almost two and a half hours, finishing shortly after 4 p.m. At that point the remains of Kelly were removed in a covered van and conveyed to the Shoreditch mortuary. Inspector Abberline examined the room at 13 Miller's Court and among the meagre group of objects found noted half a candle and a pipe. The inspector also observed that what appeared to have been a substantial fire had burned in the grate, and what appeared to have been clothing had been incinerated and a portion of the wire frame of a woman's bonnet was found. Abberline noted that the spout of the kettle had melted. The ashes from the grate were subsequently sifted carefully, but nothing of note was discovered. This conflagration in Kelly's room has been much discussed and will be examined in more detail later.
After Kelly's remains were removed to the Shoreditch Mortuary, there remained the harrowing matter of the full post mortem. Although Kelly's body was given unprecedented attention in situ, with a bevy of medics examining the body for somewhere in the region of two and a half hours before it was deemed ready to be moved from the room at Miller's Court, a full and detailed post mortem was conducted at the mortuary. Although Dr. Phillips was the doctor initially summoned by the police and was the first on the scene, the post mortem, although attended by a group of medical men, was carried out and the report on it written up by Dr. Thomas Bond. The detailed post mortem report, which was missing for many years but was finally returned anonymously to Scotland Yard, is dated the 16th of November, but this was obviously not the date on which it was performed. Another document penned by Dr. Bond, commonly referred to as the "profile", in which Bond compares each murder in the series and draws certain conclusions about the killer, makes it clear that the post mortem was actually carried out on the day of the murder. This document is dated the 10th of November and Bond refers to the post mortem that he carried out on the Dorset Street victim "yesterday."
The post mortem report of Thomas Bond laid certain myths to rest. Even until the late 1980's it was frequently stated that Kelly had been pregnant at the time of her death, whilst, in direct contradiction, certain contemporary press reports stated, or more often hinted, that Kelly's uterus had been excised and taken by the killer, whilst other reports at the time were adamant that the post mortem showed that no bodily parts were missing. When Bond's report became available for study, it was stated that this showed that the killer did appear to have taken a "trophy" but in Kelly's case it was the heart. It was even theorised that it was the woman's heart which had been burnt in the fire. The interpretation of what Bond actually intended to convey hinges on the use of one word. In the post mortem report, the doctor simply says “the pericardium was open below and the heart absent.” In my opinion this is only open to one interpretation, namely that the killer excised and took the heart away. Theories about the organ being burnt on the fire or boiled up in the kettle simply do not stand up to examination in the light of Abberline’s unequivocal statement that the fire and its contents attracted specific attention and were carefully and systematically examined. The statement of Bond is also interesting in that the killer did not simply excise the organ but removed it via an opening in the lower part of the pericardium. This is a membranous sac filled with fluid which surrounds the heart and is divided into three layers. It serves to limit the motion of the heart, serves as a shock absorber and prevents the heart from overexpanding when blood volume increases. The logical “cut off points” for the heart would be the major artery and vein located at the top of the organ, so to remove it from below whist leaving the pericardium intact would have been no easy feat.
The details of Bond's post mortem make disturbing and uncomfortable reading, even to a reader in an age when we are supposed to be desensitised to violence and gore. Kelly had been utterly dehumanised and virtually disassembled. The doctor commences his report with a detailed summary of the position in which the body was found as can be seen in the famous photograph taken at Miller's Court. Bond then lists the physical condition of the body as it was found and the disposition of the various body parts as the killer had placed them around the room. Bond listed the following as the major areas which had been subject to mutilation:
1) The surface of the thighs had been removed
2) The surface of the abdomen had been removed and the contents thereof extracted
3) The arms bore several jagged wounds
4) The face had been mutilated beyond recognition
5) The tissues of the neck had been cut down to the vertebrae
The killer had placed (which does not imply any ritualistic motive) the body parts about the room as follows:
1) The uterus, both kidneys and one breast were under the head
2) The second breast was by the right foot
3) The liver was between the feet
4) The intestines were by the right side
5) The spleen was by the left side of the body
6) The surface tissues from the thighs and the abdomen were on the table beside the bed.
The first fact that is apparent is that not all the bodily parts are accounted for. The lungs and the major part of the stomach were in situ but, as well as the comment Bond makes later about the heart, he makes it clear that the abdomen was entirely emptied but such a major organ as the bladder is not mentioned or listed. Although Kelly's body had been so grossly abused the post mortem was reported in the press as including, as in the case of the Chapman murder, the replacing of the body parts back in their natural positions within the body cavity. As part of the bladder had been removed in the case of Chapman, the fact that this organ is simply not mentioned in Kelly's post mortem is surprising. As the document we are looking at in this case is not a press report which might be expected to edit or summarise such findings, but the full post mortem report itself, this omission is hard to explain.
Anything further in connection with the Kelly murder is either speculation, more or less informed, hearsay or sheer fantasy. The degree of dissension concerning Mary Jane Kelly and the purported facts surrounding her life and death is astounding. Apart from the more outlandish legends and versions of reality which have arisen, which we examine later, even the more mundane aspects of this singular murder and its background cannot be agreed upon. Can we truly know anything about the background and character of Kelly? What were her movements immediately prior to the killing? Was it, indeed, Mary Jane Kelly who was killed at Miller's Court? What was her real name? Was Kelly the last victim of the Whitechapel murderer? Upon none of these questions is there any degree of concensus. We will now look at these and other mysteries in turn and see what light, if any, can be thrown into these dark corners.
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 4263
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 18, 2005 - 9:28 am: |
|
Chris, this is superb! You picked a difficult task, taking on Kelly, but this is going to be essential reading.
PS I liked the Holmesian title of Chapter 1.
Robert |
Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1799
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, March 19, 2005 - 10:58 am: |
|
Another chapter at random....
Chapter 7
Kelly Rises from the Dead: Caroline Maxwell and Others
We now come to one of the oddest aspects of an odd case! Put simply, two witnesses claimed to have seen Kelly out and about on the streets near Miller's Court hours after the time when medical and circumstantial evidence suggested she had been killed. The first of these, who gave a police statement and testified at the Kelly inquest, was Caroline Maxwell. The second, who was quoted in press reports but did not give official evidence, was Maurice Lewis. The stories told by these two witnesses have caused much consternation and have given rise to elaborate theorising, most of it centring on the idea that the woman killed in Miller's Court was not, if fact, Kelly, but that she survived and was seen the next morning.
We must look at what these two people actually said they had seen. Mrs. Caroline Maxwell described herself as the wife of Henry Maxwell who was, in her account, the deputy of a lodging house at 14 Dorset Street. I say "in her account" because I have been unable to find a couple named Henry and Caroline Maxwell in either the 1881 or 1891 census, and have to date failed to find any record of their marriage. Of course, it is possible that Henry and Caroline were not actually married, but in that case if they were living together as man and wife in either 1881 or 1891 I would have expected the census to show them as such. Whatever their marital status, Mrs. Maxwell said in her police statement, dated 9th November, that she had seen Kelly standing at the entrance of Miller's Court, her exact words being "I had not seen her for three weeks until Friday morning 9th about half past 8 o'clock." Mrs. Maxwell had a brief conversation with Kelly. When she returned to Dorset Street at about 9 a.m. she again saw Kelly standing outside the Britannia public house talking to a man. We will look at the content of what was said later, but at the moment the critical and puzzling aspect of these events is their chronology.
The second witness who claimed to have seen Kelly on the morning of the 9th of November is quoted in press accounts as being a tailor named Maurice Lewis, but this version of his forename is almost certainly an error. His name was actually Morris Lewis and he is listed in 1891 as living at 21 Spelman Street, Spitalfields. He and his household are given as follows:
Head: Morris Lewis aged 50 born Russia - Tailor
Wife: Rachel Lewis aged 47 born Russia
Daughter: Sarah Lewis aged 11 born Russia
Lodger: Sarah Cohen aged 26 born Poland - Fan sewer
Lewis claimed that he had seen Kelly drinking in the Britannia at about 10 a.m. on the morning of the murder. Lewis also claimed that on the previous evening he had seen Kelly drinking in the Horn of Plenty public house with "Julia," the mysterious fellow prostitute Kelly had offered shelter to, and a man identified as Danny which press sources identified as a nickname for Joseph Barnett. However, it has been suggested more recently that this may in fact have been Barnett's brother, Daniel. The other noteworthy feature of Lewis's press statement is that he had known Kelly for five years. This is longer than Hutchinson had claimed to have known her, and in fact would take Lewis's alleged acquaintance with Kelly back to 1883, which predates the time when Barnett claimed she moved to London. Is Lewis claiming that he knew her while she still lived in Wales? Or is there some more down to earth explanation, for example that Lewis claimed five months' acquaintance, and not five years?
All of these claims make it necessary to look at the alleged chronology of events on the night of Kelly's murder. We will try to fit existing statements into a time framework which is crucial to addressing the central question to try and resolve the claims of Maxwell and Lewis - i.e. at what time did Mary Kelly die? From the claims and statements of the various witnesses who said they saw Kelly on the evening of the 8th or the morning of the 9th of November, we get the following alleged chronology:
8th November:
10 a.m. - Julia Venturney sees Kelly having breakfast in her room with another woman.
Afternoon: Maria Harvey claimed that she and Kelly were together all the afternoon.
6.55 p.m. - Maria Harvey claims this was the last time she saw Kelly in her room and that Barnett arrived at this time.
7.00 p.m. to 8 p.m. - Barnett visited Kelly in her room and said there was a woman there with Kelly when he arrived.
Evening - Maurice Lewis claimed he saw Kelly, Julia and "Danny" (possibly Joseph Barnett) drinking in the Horn of Plenty public house at the corner of Crispin Street and Dorset Street.
11.45 p.m. - Mary Ann Cox entered Dorset Street and saw Kelly walking in front of her with a man. This time is taken from her police statement, but at the inquest she gave the time as 12.00 midnight.
9th November:
12.00 - 12.15 - Mary Ann Cox leaves Miller's Court and hears Kelly singing in her room.
1.00 - Mary Ann Cox again goes out and Kelly is still singing.
1.00 - 1.30 - Elizabeth Prater stands at the entrance to Miller's Court, talking for a short time to John McCarthy. At the inquest Prater gave the times she was at this spot as 1.00 to 1.20.
2.00 - George Hutchinson meets Kelly near Flower and Dean Street.
2.00 - 3.00 - Sarah Lewis arrives at Miller's Court and sees a man standing outside the lodging house opposite the entrance to Miller's Court. In her inquest testimony Sarah Lewis gave her time of arrival as 2.30.
2.05 (approximately) - Hutchinson sees Kelly and the man she met standing at the entrance to Miller's Court.
2.08 (approximately) - Hutchinson sees Kelly and the man enter Miller's Court and go into her room.
2.50 to 3.00 - Hutchinson leaves the entrance to Miller's Court.
3.00 - Mary Ann Cox returns to Miller's Court. There is no light in Kelly's room and all is quiet.
3.30 - 4.00 - Elizabeth Prater in the room above Kelly's is awakened and hears two or three screams in a female voice of "Murder."
3.45 - 4.00 - Sarah Lewis hears a cry of "Murder" in a female voice.
5.45 - Mary Ann Cox hears someone leave Miller's Court.
8.30 - Caroline Maxwell sees Kelly standing at the entrance to Miller's Court and speaks with her briefly. It should be noted that in the police statement the time was entered as a marginal note and at the inquest Maxwell gave the time as 8.00 to 8.30.
9.00 - Maxwell sees Kelly standing outside the Britannia public house at the corner of Dorset Street talking to a man. In her inquest testimony she estimates this sighting at 8.45.
10.00 - Maurice Lewis sees Kelly in the Britannia public house.
10.45 - Bowyer finds Kelly's body in her room at Miller's Court.
During this time Kelly was allegedly seen in the company of a man by the following witnesses:
Mary Ann Cox - saw Kelly enter her room with a man about midnight. About 36 years of age, 5ft 5in in height.
Caroline Maxwell - saw Kelly with a man about 9 a.m. on the 9th. Age about 30 years of age, 5ft 5in in height.
Hutchinson - saw Kelly meet a man in Commercial Street. Age 34 or 35, height 5ft 6in.
We now come to the vexed question of the time of Kelly's death. It must be noted that at the inquest the only medical man who gave evidence was Dr. Phillips and his deposition in the inquest papers does not include an estimate of the time of death. The post mortem report as signed by Dr. Thomas Bond, whilst including a very detailed list of the injuries, does not include an estimate of the time when death occurred. When looking at the time of death we have certain factors to bear in mind:
1) Although the body was found at 10.45 a.m., the room was not entered, on Phillips' testimony, until 1.30 p.m.
2) At the time of Kelly's murder, estimation of time of death was more an art than a science. It was based on a combination of rigor mortis (if present) and algor mortis, the reduction of body temperature after death until it matches the surrounding air temperature. In current practice the time of death from body temperature is estimated using a formula called the Glaister equation. This is expressed as follows: 98.4 degrees Fahrenheit minus the rectal temperature of the body divided by 1.5 gives the number of hours elapsed since death. However even today this is used only as a guide and the result can be skewed by other factors.
3) Kelly's murder took place in early November, a cold time of year, which means the ambient temperature may well have been relatively low, especially in a room with a broken window. There had been a fire in the room but we have no way to know the time or duration of this blaze.
4) The gross mutilations of Kelly's body had eviscerated and partially skinned the corpse. This would have opened to the ambient air temperature many surfaces which in a less visceral killing would have cooled more slowly as they would have remained enclosed within the body cavity.
So, the estimated time of death from contemporary sources cannot give us any guide as to when Kelly died. A most relevant article on this subject, which appeared in Ripperoo magazine, written by Cherise McClain, Carl Dodd & Julian Rosenthal and entitled "ESTIMATING MARY KELLY'S TIME OF DEATH" has some very interesting observations. Although Dr. Bond does not mention time of death in his post mortem report on Kelly, another report dated the 10th of November which compares four of the killings, he has this to say, which gives much more detail:
"In the Dorset Street case the body was lying on the bed at the time of my visit, 2 o'clock, quite naked and mutilated as in the annexed report. Rigor mortis had set in but increased during the course of the examination. From this it is difficult to say with any degree of certainty the exact time that had elapsed since death as the period varies from six to twelve hours before rigidity sets in. The body was comparatively cold at 2 o'clock and the remains of a recently taken meal were found in the stomach and scattered about over the intestines. It is therefore pretty certain that the woman must have been dead about 12 hours and the partly digested food would indicate that death took place about 3 or 4 hours after the food was taken, so one or two o'clock in the morning would be the probable time of the murder." The authors of the Ripperoo article qualify Bond's estimate by saying that, in their estimation, rigor mortis peaked at 3 p.m. which leads them to suggest a time of death of 3.00 to 3.30 a.m. Their general comments on rigor mortis note that it sets in as a general rule after 3 to 4 hours and "peaks" after about 12 hours. However, they do note that certain factors can slow or accelerate its onset. Among these they include air temperature and moisture in the air.
Even today there is much disagreement about the onset and duration of rigor mortis. Of the sources I have consulted the following estimates were but a few of the variations:
1) Onset 3 hours after death - duration 26 hours. (deathonline.net)
2) Onset 10 minutes to several hours - duration 72 hours (chemistry.about.com)
3) Onset 10 minutes to several hours - duration 24 hours (Columbia Encyclopaedia)
4) Onset several hours - duration 48 hours (Explainthat.info)
These are only a few among many opinions on the subject.
So Dr. Bond in the passage referring to time of death cites three factors - body temperature, rigor mortis and the remains of a meal in the digestive tract. On the first of these, Bond says the body was "comparatively cold" at 2 o'clock but appears to make no further use of body temperature as a guide to time of death. With regard to rigor mortis, Bond specifically says "Rigor mortis had set in but increased during the course of the examination. From this it is difficult to say with any degree of certainty the exact time that had elapsed since death as the period varies from six to twelve hours before rigidity sets in," but then proceeds to say "It is therefore pretty certain that the woman must have been dead about 12 hours." These two statements blatantly contradict each other, and the only other factor mentioned between them is the placing of the remains of Kelly's last meal within her digestive system. In my opinion, the only resolution of this is that Bond was basing the certainty of his 12 hour estimate on the likely time Kelly took her last meal, a fact which he could not possibly have known.
There is one statement in the Ripperoo article with which I must disagree. The authors say that Bond started his autopsy at 2 p.m. All sources which mention the autopsy agree that it took place at Shoreditch Mortuary and involved the reconstruction, as far as this was possible, of the remains to ascertain if anything was missing. The medics present at Miller's Court entered the room at about 1.30 pm and the remains were removed some four hours later. However, I would suggest that some of Bond's observations, such as those relating to stomach contents and placing of food remains in the intestines, would not have been carried out in situ at Miller's Court but would have been reserved for the full examination at Shoreditch.
One final piece of circumstantial as opposed to medical evidence which has been used in an attempt to place the time of Kelly's death is the fact that two of the witnesses reported hearing a cry of "Murder" in a female voice at approximately the same time. Elizabeth Prater said she heard two or three such cries at 3.30 or 4.00 a.m. She had just been woken and how she estimated this time is not known from her police statement. However, in her inquest testimony this statement is qualified in two respects, as she deposed "I noticed the lodging house light was out, so it was after four probably. It is nothing uncommon to hear cries of murder so I took no notice - I did not hear it a second time." So both the time and number of the cries are uncertain. The lodging house she refers to as her reference point for estimating the time is also mentioned in her police statement, albeit with no reference to the lights being out - "I did not take much notice of such cries as I frequently hear such cries from the back of the lodging house where the windows look into Miller's Court." Logically this can only refer to the lodging house at 28 and 29 Dorset Street, next door to McCarthy's shop. In both 1881 and 1891 this establishment is listed as under the proprietorship of Alexander McQueen and his wife Ann. The other witness who reported a cry was Sarah Lewis, who heard a single cry shortly before 4 o'clock. The variations between these timings is small and it seems reasonably certain that both women, some time shortly before or after 4 a.m., heard a single cry in a female voice. Of course, whether or not this was Kelly is a very different question indeed. However, we must remember that witnesses repeatedly state in evidence throughout the period of the murders that such cries were so common that no notice was taken of them. As Elizabeth Prater was sleeping in the room above Kelly she should have been well placed to state with certainty whether the cry or cries came from the room below. But all she said in her inquest testimony was that the cry seemed to come from "close by."
Where does this leave Caroline Maxwell's testimony? The concensus of opinion is summed up in Philip Sugden's excellent book "The Complete History of Jack the Ripper" when he mentions the possibilities that she was lying, drunk or mistaken. We must look at each possibility in turn:
1) Maxwell was lying. If this were the case the obvious question would be what was her motive? The usual motives for such action in a high profile murder case would be notoriety or financial gain. There is no evidence that Maxwell gained either. She was not, as far as can be traced, interviewed by the press so the extent of any notoriety would be limited to the inquest hearing itself. In the full inquest transcript as reported in the Daily Telegraph of November 13th, the Coroner specifically warned her to be careful about her evidence as it was at variance with other testimony. He said "You must be very careful about your evidence, because it is different to other people's. You say you saw her standing at the corner of the entry to the court ?" to which Maxwell replied "Yes, on Friday morning, from eight to half-past eight. I fix the time by my husband's finishing work. When I came out of the lodging-house she was opposite." Later in her cross examination by the Coroner, Maxwell said, regarding her alleged second sighting of Kelly that morning, "I am sure it was the deceased. I am willing to swear it." The Coroner rightly reminded her "You are sworn now." This was Dr. McDonald's reminder to her that lying under oath at a Coroner's Court, just as in a criminal court, constitutes perjury and was and is a very serious offence. Would she have been willing to risk this for what seems to be very little if any personal return? Also we must remember that unlike some other spectacular evidence like that of George Hutchinson, which came to light days after the murder, Maxwell's evidence was on file with the police from the very beginning of the investigation.
2) Maxwell was drunk. The itinerary of Maxwell which caused her to be in and around Dorset Street at the times she claimed was because her working day had started and she was about her normal business. Her husband was deputy at a lodging house opposite the entrance to Miller's Court. Incidentally, this was presumably the same establishment outside which Sarah Lewis saw a man standing on the morning of the murder. It was Maxwell’s custom to go to the house between 8 and 8.30 in the morning, as she says this was how she judged the time when she collected the plates from her husband's place of work. It was while she was doing this that she saw Kelly at the entrance to Miller's Court. After her brief conversation with Kelly she left to go on an errand to Bishopsgate to get her husband's breakfast and on her return to Dorset Street, which she estimated at about 8.45 she saw Kelly again outside the Britannia talking to a man. This mundane routine does not sound like the actions of a woman so drunk that she would be incapable of even knowing what day it was. The statements and the actions of Maxwell as reported simply do not allow the interpretation, in my opinion, that she was incapable with drink.
3) Maxwell was mistaken. The usual interpretation of this option is not that she was mistaken about seeing Kelly and speaking to her, but that she had the wrong day. This version suggests that the events described by Maxwell may well have happened but it must have been on the Thursday morning, or even earlier in the week, and not on the Friday when the body was found. This seems logical enough but there is one huge stumbling block to this interpretation of Maxwell’s testimony. As stated already, Maxwell did not, like Hutchinson, come forward some days later but was interviewed by the police and made a statement at the very beginning of the investigation. Her statement, like those still extant, is dated the 9th of November. In other words, she was interviewed on the very day of the murder. The events she was describing had happened that very morning. It stretches credibility to the extreme to suggest that she became so confused that she mistook events from the previous day or even earlier with what had happened on the very morning of the day she was being questioned about. It may seem odd that Maxwell refers to the day in question as "Friday morning 9th" instead of "today" or "this morning." Mary Ann Cox refers to "last night," Sarah Lewis to "this morning" and Maria Harvey "last night." However, other witnesses refer to the day of the murder, the day they were being interviewed, more formally. Thomas Bowyer refers to the "9th instant" and Elizabeth Prater says that she "returned about 1 a.m. 9th." So this way of referring to the very day when they were being interviewed cannot be taken as evidence in Maxwell’s case that she had got the wrong day.
The story told by Maurice Lewis is frustrating in that his account only appeared in the press. There is no police statement available nor was he called at the inquest and his testimony subjected to scrutiny by the Coroner and the jury. We simply do not know whether Lewis would have maintained his story under oath and risked the charge of perjury if it was concocted. The story that he saw Kelly and two companions drinking on the previous evening does not of itself raise problems. It is the assertion that he saw Kelly drinking in the Britannia at 10 a.m. on the morning of the murder which raises severe doubts. Although the alleged second sighting by Maxwell placed Kelly outside the Britannia and Lewis allegedly saw her inside drinking, there is a one and a quarter hour time difference between the two sightings. If Maxwell did see Kelly, there is a two hour difference between her seeing Kelly the second time and the body being found. But in the case of Lewis' story this gap narrows to only forty five minutes.
So where does all this leave us? Difficult though Maxwell's statement is to fit in with the conventional time scheme of events on the 9th of November, none of the usual objections to her version of events is watertight. We cannot say with certainty that she was lying, drunk or mistaken. If she had the right day - the very day she gave her statement - then it must have been Kelly she saw, as she spoke to her and Kelly addressed her by name. Lewis' story must be treated with more caution as it was never given or tested in court, so we have no way of knowing to what extent he would have stuck by it under oath. Also at least one part of his story - that he had known Kelly for five years - is highly suspect in that this predates the commonly agreed date when Kelly moved to London. We would dearly love to know more about the relationship, if any, between Lewis and Kelly and exactly when and how he came forward with his information. There is one last and cryptic mention in the Times of yet another, but unfortunately unnamed witness, who claimed to have seen Kelly during the same time period as Maxwell: "Another young woman, whose name is known, has also informed the police that she is positive she saw Kelly between half-past 8 and a quarter to 9 on Friday morning." As this young woman is not named and this information is included in neither the police statements nor the inquest testimony, it is not possible to pursue this alleged information any further.
The whole question of the time of death and Maxwell's statement is summed up in this same article from The Times of the 12th of November:
"Great difference of opinion exists as to the exact time, or about the time, the murder of Mary Jane Kelly took place. Mrs. Maxwell, the deputy of the Commercial lodging-house, which is situated exactly opposite Miller's-court, the place in which the room of the murdered woman is situated, gave positive information that she saw Mary Jane Kelly standing at the entrance to Miller's-court at half-past 8 on Friday morning. She stated that she expressed surprise at seeing Kelly at that early hour, and asked why she was not in bed. Kelly replied, "I can't sleep. I have the horrors from drink". Mrs. Maxwell further stated that after that she went into Bishopsgate-street to make some purchases, and on her return saw Kelly talking to a short, dark man at the top of the court. When asked by the police how she could fix the time of the morning, Mrs. Maxwell replied, "Because I went to the milk shop for some milk, and I had not before been there for a long time, and that she was wearing a woollen cross-over that I had not seen her wear for a considerable time". On inquiries being made at the milk shop indicated by the woman her statement was found to be correct, and the cross-over was also found in Kelly's room. Against these statements is the opinion of Dr. George Bagster Phillips, the divisional surgeon of the H Division, that when he was called to the deceased (at a quarter to 11) she had been dead some five or six hours. There is no doubt that the body of a person who, to use Dr. Phillip's own words, was "cut all to pieces" would get cold far more quickly than that of one who had died simply from the cutting of the throat; and the room would have been very cold, as there were two broken panes of glass in the windows. Again, the body being entirely uncovered would very quickly get cold. It is the opinion of Mr. M'Carthy [McCarthy], the landlord of 26, Dorset-street, that the woman was murdered at a much earlier hour than 8 o'clock, and that Mrs. Maxwell and the other person must have been mistaken."
It is interesting and perhaps significant that the shop Maxwell claimed she had been to confirmed her visit, suggesting that she had the right day after all. The statement by the Times that Phillips estimated the time of death as five to six hours before 11.15 is obviously in error. Phillips and the other medical men did not gain access to the body, on his own testimony, until 1.30.p.m. The time quoted of 11.15 is the time he arrived at Miller's Court, not the time he started his examination. The article does not make clear whether the estimate of five to six hours allowed for the variable they highlight of ambient temperature and exposed viscera, or whether Phillips was basing this purely on body temperature and the extent of rigor mortis. If Phillips estimated time of death as five to six hours before his examination started, this would place it about 7.30 or 8.30 a.m. If he had not made sufficient allowance for the abnormal features of this murder - the low ambient temperature and extent of mutilation - it means the time of death would have been later than this.
I am not saying that Caroline Maxwell's testimony can be taken at face value. I am simply saying that it cannot be dismissed lightly merely because it is inconvenient. If her story is true it throws, of course, a very different light on the murder at Miller's Court. It would mean that Kelly was killed some time after 8.45 a.m. Since the medical men did not gain entry to her room until 1.30 p.m. this would mean the body would have been lying in situ for up to four and a half hours which certainly falls within the various times quoted for the onset of rigor mortis. If this were true our sights should be set not on Hutchinson's well dressed man, not on the blotchy faced man with the quart of ale but rather on the last man seen with Kelly - standing with her outside the Britannia at 8.45. He was described by Maxwell as follows in her police statement: "About 30, height about 5ft 5in, stout, dressed as a market porter." It may be significant that in her inquest testimony Maxwell's description of this man is markedly different: "The man was not a tall man; he had on dark clothes and a plaid coat. I could not say what hat he had on." Her assertion that he was dressed as a market porter simply does not square with this latter description. She does not specify which type of market porter - most probably either Spitalfields or Billingsgate - but such a man would hardly be likely to wear a plaid coat as his normal working gear. We will consider later the possible significance of why this description changed so markedly.
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 4269
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, March 19, 2005 - 11:50 am: |
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It's a great read, Chris. Stimulating and impressively organized.
Robert |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 1361
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, March 19, 2005 - 1:44 pm: |
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Chris,
Great read and you have mentioned points that i have argued for years.
One of the most frustrating points i have carried with me since the early seventies is where did i get the following quotation.'Her eyes looked queer, as if she was suffering with a heavy cold'
That quotation was apparently said by Mrs Maxwell to the police, and yet no documentation exists to the fact.
My point has always been, Hutchinsons 'Oh I have lost my hankerchief' goes hand in hand with Kelly possibly having a cold.
As Hutchinson and Maxwell are two independant witnesses, and the victim is supposed to have died before Maxwells sighting.
The question is. If Mrs Maxwell was telling porkies or mistaken why the reference to her mayby being with cold, surely this is a solid reason to believing her statement, a statement she had every chance to retract.
Regards Richard. |
Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1800
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, March 19, 2005 - 2:14 pm: |
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Hi Robert and Richard
Thanks for the comments:-)
I will post one more chapter (just one more!) and am deciding which one to post
Thanks again for the positive feedback
Chris |
Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 579
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, March 19, 2005 - 6:22 pm: |
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Hi Chris,
Good stuff, but you didn't discuss the idea that Maxwell was mistaken not on the date and time but on who she thought Mary Jane Kelly was. The details she gives about Mary don't seem to match up with what other people said about her. Between the possibility of just being confused and the frequency with which people can have similar names or nicknames (the other famous "Mary Kelly" in the case being a prime example, though of course we can be fairly certain Maxwell did not see her either), I think she could be talking about someone else entirely.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
 Profile  Email  Dissertations  Website
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Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1803
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 11:38 am: |
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Hi Dan
Thanks for the comments.
The aspect you mention should perhaps have been discussed more fully. I think that the Maxwell Kelly is the "real" Mary Kelly on two counts:
1) If the conversation as reported is anywhere near accurate then Maxwell would have been standing in very close proximity to Kelly and the latter addressed her by name.
2) In both her police statement and inquest testimony Maxwell said she knew not only Kelly but Barnett as well. In the police statement she claimed to know of Kelly and Barnett's situations and difficulties. She said: "she was known as Mary Jane and that since Joe Barnett left her she has obtained her living as an unfortunate."
Both these indicate, in my opinion, that the Kelly that Maxwell was talking about was the same Kelly as lived with Barnett.
All the best
Chris
(Message edited by Chris on March 20, 2005) |
Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1804
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 1:30 pm: |
|
Last sample chapter!!
Chapter 5
The Mysteries of Miller's Court
There are certain aspects of the Miller's Court murder which are, or have been made into, nagging mysteries. The minutiae of what was or was not found in the room after Kelly's corpse was discovered have been endlessly discussed, teased apart and invested with layers of meaning. In this context I am talking only about alleged features of the crime scene itself, not apparent contradictions such as sightings of Kelly after logic dictated that she was already dead. These other aspects will be looked at later.
The order of events at the crime scene, as we saw earlier, was that, after the initial flurry of activity which followed Bowyer and McCarthy summoning the police shortly after 10.45. a.m., there was a period of enforced and, surely, frustrating inactivity caused by the confusion and uncertainty over the possible arrival and use of bloodhounds. Eventually the room at Miller's Court was broken into at about 1.30 p.m. and the medical men then spent up to four hours in their examination of the remains before they were removed to Shoreditch Mortuary. Considering the small size of the room (only approximately twelve feet square) and the fact that a posse of medical men was cited as being present at the scene, it can surely only have been after the remains were removed that Abberline had a free hand to investigate the room and examine its contents. The most discussed of the mysteries attendant upon the crime scene were:
1) The locked door and the missing key
2) The clothing found in the room
3) The fire lit in the room
4) The writing on the wall.
There is much confusion on the matter of the locked door and the missing key. One point must be made plain straightaway. Sources at the time make it clear that the door which led into Kelly's room from the passageway into Miller's Court was opened by means of a latch key. A latch lock, as opposed to the more secure lever lock, was simply a metal bar or bolt on the inside of the door which fitted into a small metal plate located on the door jamb to keep it closed. The latch key was essentially a simple metal lever which could be used through the keyhole to raise the metal latch from the outside to enable the door to be opened from without. Two of the main features of a latch lock are that the door can be closed on exiting without using a key as the latch will simply fall into place as the door is closed, and the door can be opened from inside without the need for a key by manually raising the latch. References to the door being locked and the lack of a key are mostly from press accounts of the time and these are of interest in trying to settle the question of whether the key was lost, if so when, or whether the killer may have taken the key with him.
The Daily Telegraph of 10 November : "The last person to have left the place must have closed the door behind him, taking with him the key from the spring lock, as it is missing." The spring lock referred to here is a variant of the latch lock in which the latch is kept in place when the door is closed by a spring rather than just by gravity.
The Daily News of 10 November: "The lock of the door was a spring one, and the murderer apparently took the key away with him when he left, as it cannot be found."
The East London Advertiser of 17 November: "On looking through the keyhole he (Bowyer) found the key was missing."
The Star of 10 November: "He (Bowyer) then tried the handle of the door and found it was locked. On looking through the keyhole he found the key was missing."
The Times contains substantially a compilation of the above phrases, virtually verbatim, but adds, with regard to an alleged sighting of Kelly with a man about midnight, "The pair reached Miller's Court about midnight, but they were not seen to enter the house. The street door was closed, but the woman had a latchkey, and, as she must have been fairly sober, she and her companion would have been able to enter the house and enter the woman's room without making a noise."
These press reports lay the seeds of all the later variants and speculations of what actually happened to the key - that the killer had the key prior to the murder, that the killer took the key with him and so on. In contrast to these press reports are the police statements and inquest testimony. Neither Bowyer not McCarthy made any reference to looking through the keyhole, but only to knocking on the door and then going round and looking in through the broken window. In fact, the only reference to the key in the police or inquest evidence comes from Inspector Abberline, who said at the inquest: "I am informed by the witness Barnett that the key had been missing for some time and that they opened the door by reaching round through the window."
Another variance of fact is the time at which the police, specifically Superintendent Arnold, finally ordered the door of Kelly's room to be broken in to allow access to the murder scene. The press reports frequently report that this happened shortly after the discovery of the body at 10.45. The Daily Telegraph, for example, says: "Nothing, however, was done until the arrival of Mr. T. Arnold, the Superintendent of the H Division of Metropolitan Police, who, shortly after eleven o'clock, gave orders for the door of the room to be broken open." However, Dr. Phillips at the inquest testified as follows: "I remained until about 1.30 when the door was broken open I think by Mr. McCarthy - I think by direction of Superintendent Arnold who had arrived." It would seem that the testimony under oath of the police divisional surgeon, who had been kept waiting at the scene of the crime for two and a quarter hours, is more likely correct. Indeed, Phillips’s testimony shows in his stated time of arrival at the crime scene that the time quoted in the press was nonsensical. Phillips says "I was called by the police about 11 o'clock and proceeded to Millers Court which I entered at 11.15 a.m." According to the press account the door had already been opened by this time, but this was patently not the case.
The whole point of the above comparison of the press and inquest accounts is how quickly and how comprehensively misinformation and plain error could creep into the written accounts of the murder. With so many press reports being syndicated and plagiarised, these errors spawned like mushrooms in the dark. So, in considering the matter of the missing key, we must bear in mind that no mention whatever was made in police statements or at the inquest of Bowyer peering through the keyhole and noticing that the key was missing. And the certainty of the assertion that "the woman had a latch key" in The Times is flatly contradicted by their own words in the same sentence that "they (Kelly and the man) were not seen to enter the house." If they were not seen to enter, how could the observer know that Kelly opened the door with a key and not, as Abberline reported, manually via the window? The whole matter of the key and the locked door is dealt with at the inquest in one matter of fact, almost dismissive sentence of Abberline's - that the key had been lost and the door opened via the broken window. I can see no firm grounds for doubting the simplicity of Abberline's statement or for embellishing the facts into the murderer surreptitiously making off with the key. In my opinion, the simple statement of the key's loss is the most likely explanation, and almost certainly what actually happened.
The matter of the clothing found in the room at Miller's Court devolves into three questions:
1) What happened to Kelly's clothing?
2) What other clothing was in the room?
3) What clothing was burned in the fire?
In his inquest testimony, Dr. Phillips said "she had only her under linen garment on her." This seems plain enough, but Dr. Thomas Bond's post mortem report begins in the following way: "the body was lying naked in the middle of the bed." This apparent contradiction is usually resolved by reference to the larger of the two post mortem photographs of Kelly. It is argued that this clearly shows her to be wearing some sort of linen chemise but a close examination of the conformation of these areas of cloth show this may not be the case. In the photograph, the two main areas where this "garment" is visible are over Kelly's left shoulder and draped over the top of her left thigh and across the lower part of the abdominal cavity. However, close scrutiny of these areas shows that the portion over the left shoulder is simply pulled or laid over this area, and shows no similarity to the sleeve of a chemise. Indeed the pale material continues under the left arm and joins up with the cloth laid over the top of the thigh. The whole conformation looks much more like a section of a sheet or a pillow case which has been pulled up round sections of the body rather than any kind of undergarment. Of course, Kelly was dressed when she last went out on the evening of the 8th, or the early hours of the 9th of November. Whether she stripped, or was stripped, prior to what she believed would be a normal client, or whether the body was stripped by the killer prior to his carrying out the mutilations, will never be known. Various press accounts report that Kelly's clothing was not only accounted for but appeared to have been neatly stowed away. The Daily Telegraph has this to say: "That the woman had had no struggle with her betrayer was shown by her position and the way in which her garments, including a velvet bodice, were arranged by the fireplace." Two of the witnesses described what Kelly was wearing when they last saw her. Mary Ann Cox, in her police statement, said she saw Kelly at a quarter to midnight on the 8th November, at which time she was wearing "a linsey frock, red knitted crossover around shoulder, had no hat or bonnet on." In her inquest testimony, the time of the sighting was cited as midnight, and her garments were described as "no hat on, she a red pellorine and a dark shabby skirt." A pellorine, more properly spelled pelerine, is defined as "A woman's cape, usually short, with points in front." The name comes from the French word meaning a female pilgrim, and presumably refers to the traditional pilgrim's cloak. The other witness who described what Kelly was wearing was Caroline Maxwell, who claimed to have seen Kelly at 8.30 on the morning of the 9th November. We will discuss the anomalous timing of this testimony later, but in the present context, we must note that in her police statement, Mrs Maxwell said Kelly was wearing "a dark dress black velvet body, and coloured wrapper round her neck." In her inquest deposition, the apparel of Kelly was described as "a dark skirt - velvet body - and morone shawl and no hat." The "morone" (i.e. maroon) shawl may well be the same garment as the red knitted crossover and red pellorine, but the reference to a "velvet body" (i.e. velvet bodice) is most interesting as this is the only garment of Kelly's specifically mentioned in the account of her clothing found in the room.
There was reference to other clothing left in the room by Maria Harvey, who had slept in the room at Miller's Court with Kelly on the Monday and Tuesday of the week of the murder. Harvey was a laundress and in both her police and inquest evidence gave a detailed list of articles of clothing she had left in Kelly's room, and which would still have been there at the time of the murder. These are itemised as: -
2 men's shirts
1 boy's shirt
A man's black overcoat
A black crepe bonnet with black strings
A child's white petticoat
Of these items which were present at the time of the murder, Harvey stated that only the man's overcoat had been shown to her by the police. We hear no more of the fate of the rest of these garments.
We now come to the much debated subject of the fire that was lit in the room at Miller's Court. At the inquest the only mention of this was by Inspector Abberline who had this to say: "There had been a large fire, so large as to melt the spout off the kettle. I have since gone through the ashes in the grate and found nothing of consequence except that articles of woman's clothing had been burnt which I presume was for the purpose of light as there was only one piece of candle in the room." At this moment we are only looking at the issue of clothing burned in the grate - we will look at other issues raised by the fire shortly. The press accounts which refer to the fire in the room confirm that the ashes were examined - in fact, some say they were passed through a sieve - and that nothing of importance was found. Some press accounts add the fact that part of the wire rim of a woman's bonnet was found in the ashes. The questions that arise at this point are - what clothing was burnt and why? One unanswered - and unanswerable - question is whether there was a fire already going in the grate at 13 Miller's Court when the killer, by whatever means, gained entry. It seems likely to me on two counts that this would have been the case. In view of the time of year it would not be at all unlikely that Kelly would have had a fire burning. And it seems most unlikely that the killer would pause during or after the mutilations to Kelly's body to light a fire from scratch to burn articles of clothing for whatever purpose. But of course this begs the question of who actually burned the clothing. It is usually assumed by most observers - including Abberline - that the killer himself burned the clothes. As to what clothing was burned, various exotic theories have emerged to explain this strange act. One frequently quoted is that the killer burnt part of his own clothing, which was bloodstained, to avoid venturing out into the street in such a condition. This seems to me most unlikely. Unless it was a lighter inner garment, such as a shirt, a man's outer garment, especially a winter garment, of the period would most likely have been of a fairly dense material such as tweed or serge. Such a garment, especially if blood soaked to the extent that the killer felt he had to destroy it, would simply not burn but would at most smoulder, and substantial amounts of it would surely have remained to be found by Abberline. Another theory is that the killer burnt part of Kelly's clothing. But if this were done to destroy evidence - the most conceivable motive - this is nonsensical in the light of the horrifically mutilated body left on the bed to be discovered. The most likely answer seems to be apparent - that the clothing burned in the grate at Miller's Court was the clothing left by Maria Harvey, except for the man's overcoat for the very reason mentioned above - that such a heavy, dense material would not burn but merely smoulder in a small, domestic grate. But how do we equate this with Abberline's statement that he found the remains of a woman's clothing? All the available statements, and the stated ferocity of the fire, suggest that all Abberline found were ashes, which would be impossible to identify with certainty as male or female clothing. The only item which would not burn and would be left in a recognisable form was the wire rim of the crepe bonnet left by Maria Harvey.
This brings us on to more general questions about the fire, such as the melting of the kettle and the purpose for which such a fire was lit. Abberline described it as "a large fire" - but it not clear whether he meant large as in size, with much material burned, or large as in temperature, for the main result of this largeness is the melting of the kettle. But again these assertions beg many questions. How can we be sure that all of the material that was found by Abberline was the result of a single fire burned on the night of 8th to 9th November? Is it not possible that what Abberline found was the accumulation of ashes from a few or even many days' fires? Are we to assume that Kelly was punctilious enough to clean out the grate every day and that, therefore, all the debris found on the day of the murder was the product of only one large fire instead of days of small fires? All the mysteries regarding the fire are based on the assumption that it was the killer who burned the clothing and that everything that was found in the grate that day resulted from one conflagration. We do not know what type or quantity of fuel Kelly had in her room - wood or coal - but if she took a client back to her room on the evening of the 8th and the room was dark and cold, it is not inconceivable that Kelly herself stoked up the fire with all she had to hand, the more easily burned articles left by Maria Harvey. Again we have no way of knowing for certain that the melting of the kettle actually happened on the night of the murder. If it had happened earlier it is hardly the sort of circumstance that a visitor would have commented on or even noticed - it is an event small in itself, which only became important because of its location and its assumed synchronicity with the murder. One note about the melted kettle, which all revolves around one word. Abberline did not say that the fire had melted the spout "of" the kettle - he said it had melted the spout "off" the kettle. This would only make sense in one context. The type of kettle used by someone of Kelly's means, which were limited to say the least, would in all likelihood have been a cheap tin kettle in which the spout was soldered to the body of the object. The melting point of tin is 232 degrees Celsius, 450 degrees Fahrenheit - a rather high temperature for a small domestic fire, however well stoked. However the melting point of solder, specially the type of low grade solder used in cheap tin ware, is somewhere about 118 degrees Celsius, i.e. only 18 degrees above the boiling point of water and certainly achievable in a domestic grate. What I suggest may have happened and what Abberline implied in his statement, was that the heat of the fire, either on the night of the murder or some previous occasion, weakened or even melted the solder joint on the kettle and the spout fell off.
We now come to one of the most recently alleged and most fiercely debated mysteries of the room in which Mary Kelly died. In 1992 there came to the attention of the publishing world the document which has become generally known as the "Ripper Diary". It was not long before this curious piece of writing came to the world's attention and it has been generating much heat and partisan debate ever since. This is such a complex topic with so many subsequent ramifications that I do not have time or space to go into all aspects of it here. Nor, indeed, is this the place to do so as it fully deserves a detailed treatment in its own right. All that concerns me at present is the assertion that the killer left two initials on the wall behind the bed and that not only do these give a clue to who the killer was but even point to his motive. The text of the Diary is not laid out in the format of a traditional journal with convenient dates and clear time divisions. The narrative is disjointed and the only unequivocal date mentioned in the work is that at the end where the diary is signed - the date given being the 3rd of May, 1889. Although the hand that penned the Diary, whoever it was, never mentions James Maybrick by name I think there can be no doubt, whatever one's feelings about the real author or date of the work, that the reader is intended to believe that Maybrick was the writer. Maybrick himself died on 11th of May 1889, eight days after the alleged date of the last entry in the Diary. Although, as already stated, no entry in the Diary is dated, some of the principal events described can be clearly identified - for the purposes of the current work we are, of course, looking for the Diary references to Kelly. The murder is described on pages 241 to 245 of the document, and there are two references to the so called "writing on the wall." Both references are, as is the nature of the diary, oblique and quasi cryptic. The first comes in the doggerel verse, typical of that which fills much of the Diary:
"An initial here and a initial there
Would tell of the whoring mother."
It does seems odd that the author would in the space of one line get the indefinite article both right and wrong - even though the author does quote the passage correctly a few lines further on. But we are not concerned here with his literary style or his grammatical correctness, only with the alleged content as it applies to Kelly. The second mention in the same section of the Diary says:
"I left it there for the fools but they will never find it. I was too clever. Left it in front for all eyes to see. That amuses me."
The now accepted explanation of these passages is that the killer - in this scenario, Maybrick - left two initials written in blood and visible on the back wall of the room in Miller's Court. These letters can allegedly be seen on the wall immediately above the angle of the wrist of Kelly's left hand which lays across her stomach. The two initials that Maybrick wrote are, allegedly, "F M." These are the initials of his wife, Florence Maybrick, who was eventually charged with his murder by poisoning, convicted, sentenced to death but eventually imprisoned. The whole rationale of the Diary (if such a word can be used of a document which is, or deliberately sets out to be, steeped in insanity) is that the killer, Maybrick, committed the murders as a result of his wife's infidelity with Alfred Brierly. Florence is repeatedly referred to in the Diary as the "whore" or the "whoring mother" and Brierly as the "whore master." So the writer of the Diary - Maybrick or whoever - is gloating in his intellectual superiority over the "fools" who do not see the clue in front of their very eyes, the initials of the woman, the whore, whose perfidious behaviour has given rise to all these insane, unspeakable events. At least, that is the writer's version of things.
As is common in the field of Ripper studies, the reality is both more complex and less clear cut. The writer says he left the initials "in front for all eyes to see" but it has to be said that even when the location of the alleged initials is pointed out, there are many people who are simply unable to see them. It reminds me of those computer generated 3D pictures that were in vogue some years ago - some could see the depth effect instantly, some were never able to achieve it. In this context it is important to bear in mind that the larger photograph we have of Kelly's remains lying on the bed is not at all clear, the image being in many respects degraded with numerous miscellaneous marks upon the image which cannot be definitively interpreted. This kind of image is very fertile ground for the human brain's propensity not only to see patterns where none exist but to actively impose structure and order on disconnected stimuli. This is analogous to our seeing shapes in the stars and naming them as constellations, or seeing shadows in the dark as faces or human figures. Our brains desperately strive to make sense out of chaos, order out of random images. We have no control over this propensity - it is the way we are programmed and in evolutionary terms it has served us very well. Personally, I can sort of see the M but the F of the alleged initials eludes me. Whether these shapes are random marks on the photograph or wall, perhaps even marks of blood, will probably never be known.
One other observation which I have never seen mentioned elsewhere seems to me important. In the comment - ""I left it there for the fools but they will never find it. I was too clever. Left it in front for all eyes to see" - who are the fools the writer is referring to? The police? Is it a battle of wills between the police and the killer, who is showing his imagined cleverness and superiority by leaving what he obviously sees as a blatant clue? But why then does he say it was left for "all eyes" to see? That he was leaving it for posterity? But that does not make sense as it relies on two circumstances coming about which the killer at the time of the murder could not possibly have known. The tone of the Diary suggests that these entries relating to the killings were made within a short time of the act itself when the mood of elation and superiority was still upon him, while the rush of what he had done still excited him. The preamble to the entry interpreted as relating to the Kelly murder starts with the words "I have read about my latest." The first press coverage of the killing - which of course includes no mention of the initials on the wall - made the papers late on the 9th November, with much fuller coverage the following day. This suggests the killer is trying to give us the impression he is recollecting the Kelly murder within a day or two of the deed. But in order for him to leave the initials on the wall for "all eyes to see" - i.e. to be spotted latter by those clever enough to see them - he would need to have assumed two things:
1) That the murder scene was going to be photographed
2) That the picture taken would be from such an angle that the initials on the wall would be clearly in line of sight.
The other pictures we have of victims are post mortem photographs taken in the mortuary, not in situ at the murder scene. How could the killer have known that a photographer would be hired to photograph the body in the room and so record the initials for all time? If the photographer had chosen or been instructed to take the photograph from the foot of the bed, or, as in the case of the other victims, as a close up of the face, the initials would not have been visible and a record of them would have been lost forever. It seems much more likely to me that a later observer, noticing the semblance of initials in what were actually random markings on the wall or the photograph, extrapolated the story of the initials from the perspective of the killer in a manner which the murderer, at the time of the killing and its aftermath, could not have known would be preserved in this way for future generations to see.
So, these are some of the alleged mysteries attending the killing of Mary Kelly. They have been debated at meticulous length and I am sure this heated discussion will continue. Of course, I do not claim to have "solved" any of these points - if such a solution at this remove in time is possible. But I have tried to look at them logically and to assess what would have been the most feasible background to each occurrence in the light of the statements made at the time. These matters will not be laid to rest nor, perhaps, should they be because healthy debate should be a part of any investigation or consideration of the Whitechapel murders. But that debate should, in my opinion, always be tempered by what is probable or even, on occasion, possible.
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 4277
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 2:29 pm: |
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Bravo again, Chris. I've enjoyed all this immensely, and best of luck with the book. It deserves success.
Robert |
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 1698
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 4:52 pm: |
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Yes Chris Robert is right it makes excellent reading-quite enthralling the way you manage to present the facts so that they enhance the sense of mystery and suspense.
Best of Luck with the publication
Natalie
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Richard Brian Nunweek
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 1362
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 4:56 pm: |
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Hi Chris,
Bravo, a throughly explained episode, and full of huge debate.
I am in awe of you immense research, and dedication to this site, and we are privileged to have you as a major contributor.
Richard. |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 1876
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 5:07 pm: |
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Yes, Chris, I enjoyed that immensely too.
I intend to read the chapter again when I have some spare time, but I do have one small point, and that is the question of the supposed delay - for whatever reason - in examining the crime scene.
Recently I have come across several cases of murder from this time period where the victim has actually been left at the crime scene for some considerable time to allow the inquest to view the exact crime scene undisturbed by police or anyway else apart from a single doctor who has established that the victim is in fact dead, but great pains have been taken to ensure that the doctor does not interfere with the actual crime scene.
So in other words the victim has been left at the crime scene while the whole machinery of an inquest comes into play, which would have taken at least 24 hours, when not 48 hours, so my thinking here is that what you suppose is ‘delay’ is actually untoward haste. |
Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 2218
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 5:12 pm: |
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Chris
Just going to read all this through...Thje Mysterious Affair at Millers Court sounds wonderful
Well done you
She says about to read it!!!
Suzi |
Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 2219
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 5:38 pm: |
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Sensational Chris well written and its got me going again on who exactly did Julia V see with MJK ....who was that 'other woman'...Maria H springs to mind...Am interested though as to why JV was there at 10.00 am
The comment by Caroline Maxwell re the cross over shawl that she hadn't seen Mary wearing for some time.....is tantalising
Suzi |
Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1805
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 6:09 pm: |
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Hi all
Thanks for the great comments.
AP,
I take your point but the delay I referred to was the period between first arrival on the scene (Beck) and the final opening of the door. During this period no one was able to gain access to the room so nothing constructive could have been done directly. I'm sure they used to time to interview McCarthy, Bowyer, residents of Miller's Court etc.
In the situation of Miller's Court I don't think it would have been practicable to leave the body in situ to be viewed as part of the inquest - feelings were running so high and the crowds gathering so large that they would probably have had a full scale riot on their hands.
Thanks again for all the input
Chris
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Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1806
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 6:32 pm: |
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Oh, go on then!!
One final chapter for folks to see:
Chapter 9
Other Accounts
This chapter will examine some of the oddities which occur in the various reports of the murder of Mary Jane Kelly. There are various strange outcroppings in the story as related in press accounts. Some are clearly in error, others are intriguing but currently not provable. What is amazing is how quickly some of these accounts arose and how detailed and plausible some of the stories are. Some of them gained wide currency but to understand this we must remember that many stories would have been syndicated i.e. an account written by a correspondent in London would have been wired by telegraph countrywide or even worldwide, and any errors or inventions in that account would thereby have been propagated. So, we shall be looking at a variety of accounts that grew from the Kelly case - some plausible, some less so - which appear to have been in error.
1) The location of Kelly's room.
The early reports which described the scene of the murder included certain errors that appeared in a good number of press reports both in the United Kingdom and abroad. The amazing speed with which reports could be forwarded from London is evidenced by the fact that on the 9th of November, the actual day of the murder, reports of the events were published in the Boston Daily Globe, The Washington Evening Star and the Ottawa Free Press. The three most persistent errors appear to be:
1) That Kelly lived on the second floor
2) That Kelly's room faced onto Dorset Street
3) That the name of the court where she lived was Cartin's Court. One report in The Star even refers to the location of her room as McCarthy's Court.
An example of this misinformation can be found in the Boston Daily Globe for the 10th of November:
"A woman, 26 years old, by name Mary Jane Kelly, has lived for four months in the front room on the second floor of a house, up an alley known as Cartin's court. This poor woman was in service a short time ago, but since she came to reside in the court she had been recognized by neighbors as a person who like so many unfortunate members of her sex in the eastern end of the town, has managed to pass a wretched existence by the practice of immorality under the most degrading conditions. Cartin's court faces a small square with a narrow entrance, and is surrounded by squalid lodging-houses with rooms to let to women of this unfortunate class."
An even more bizarre report from the East and West Ham Gazette of the 10th of November claims that Kelly's body was found in a shed. They named the alleyway as Dorset Court:
" At half-past 10 yesterday morning the dead body of a woman, with her head almost severed from her body, was found in an untenanted outhouse or shed in Dorset-court, Dorset-street, Commercial-street, Spitalfields. It had evidently been there for some hours, but several scavengers who were in the court at nine o'clock declare that the body was not there then."
The idea that Kelly's body was found on an upper floor facing the street is actually compounded with a strange story that she did not live in the building but came there with a man who rented a room. This is recounted in the East London Observer of 19th November:
"According to all accounts, the woman who was murdered was not a regular habitué of the place; on the contrary, she was rather well dressed, apparently about twenty-five years of age, and even good looking. As to what time she came to the house on Friday morning, and as to the description of the man who accompanied her, no definite information has been received at the time of writing, thanks to the extreme reticence of the police. This much, however, has been found, that some payment was made by the man for the use of the room; that that payment was received by someone residing in the house; and that the murderer and his victim entered the place in the small hours of Friday morning - between one and two o'clock as near as can be gathered. The couple proceeded to a front room of the upper floor of the house, and it was on a wretched looking piece of furniture that the murder was committed. The inhabitants of the house are not early risers, and it was not till ten o'clock on Friday morning that they even thought to ascertain the reason why the door of that front room was locked."
The account of the same day from the Ottawa Citizen is one which mentions the actual floor on which Kelly's room was allegedly located:
"It has been learned that a man respectfully dressed accosted the victim and offered her money. They went to her lodgings on the second floor of the Dorset street house."
The source of these errors would appear to have been an original account drafted by a reporter who visited the scene and interviewed locals. This, or a similar report also of a very early date, would seem to be the origin of the allegation that Kelly was married to a man named Lawrence. The most specific item which is in error is that the name of the court was Cartin's Court. There does not appear to have been a real court in London at this time of that name - or at any other time, come to that. There is no such road in the 1891 or 1901 census, nor does the Ordnance Survey map for this area of 1894 show any such name. My guess would be that this was a local nickname for Miller's Court. The court was obviously too narrow to park carts and barrows in - as was done in Castle Alley, scene of a later murder attributed by some to the Ripper - but there may in the past have been some connection to carters or carting. There is another possibility. The houses in Miller's Court were known colloquially as "McCarthy's Rents." It is possible that a previous owner and landlord may have been named Cartin. As an indicator, there were 30 individuals in the 1881 census of the surname Cartin, the majority of whom were of Irish origin.
2) Mary Jane Kelly had a son.
The story that Kelly had a young son living with her is both very early in origin and also becomes incredibly detailed very quickly. The outline of the story is that Kelly had a young son, whose age seems to vary from seven to eleven years old, living with her. On the night of the murder a man came to her room and she sent the child to stay with a neighbour. For once we have a quoted source for the earliest occurrence of this story. On the 9th of November, the day of the murder, an account appeared in The Star which specifically says that the details were told to the Star reporter by the inhabitants of the lodging houses in Dorset Street. This includes the first mention of Kelly's child:
"But from the startled inhabitants of the lodging-houses in Dorset-street a Star man got a few details. The victim is a woman who went by the name of Mary Jane and she lived in the room in which she has been murdered, with a man and her little son - about 10 or 11 years old."
The fuller version of the story of the boy appeared in the Times of the following day, 10th November:
"Another account gives the following details: Kelly had a little boy, aged about 6 or 7 years living with her, and latterly she had been in narrow straits, so much so that she is reported to have stated to a companion that she would make away with herself, as she could not bear to see her boy starving. There are conflicting statements as to when the woman was last seen alive, but that upon which most reliance appears to be placed is that of a young woman, an associate of the deceased, who states that at about half-past 10 o'clock on Thursday night she met the murdered woman at the corner of Dorset-street, who said to her that she had no money and, if she could not get any, would never go out any more but would do away with herself. Soon afterwards they parted, and a man, who is described as respectably dressed, came up, and spoke to the murdered woman Kelly and offered her some money. The man then accompanied the woman to her lodgings, which are on the second floor, and the little boy was removed from the room and taken to a neighbour's house. Nothing more was seen of the woman until yesterday morning, when it is stated that the little boy was sent back into the house, and the report goes, he was sent out subsequently on an errand by the man who was in the house with his mother. There is no direct confirmation of this statement."
The oddest mention of Kelly having a child comes from the Star of the 10th of November. After leaving Kelly, Barnett went to live at Buller's Lodging House, 25 New Street. The Star reporter tracked Barnett down to a public house near his lodgings and interviewed him. This interview appears to quote Barnett as confirming that Kelly had a child:
"JOE BARNETT'S STATEMENT.
In a public-house close by Buller's the reporter succeeded later on in finding Barnett, who is an Irishman by parentage and a Londoner by birth. He had lived with her for a year and a half, he said, and should not have left her except for her violent habits. She was a Limerick woman by birth, he says, but had lived in Dublin for some time. She went by the name of Mary Jane, but her real name was Marie Jeanette. He knew nothing about her proceedings since he left her, except that his brother met her on the Thursday evening and spoke to her. He himself had been taken by the police down to Dorset-street, and had been kept there for two hours and a half. He saw the body by peeping through the window.
To our reporter Barnett said he and the deceased were very happy and comfortable together until another woman came to sleep in their room, to which he strongly objected. Finally, after the woman had been there two or three nights he quarrelled with the woman whom he called his wife and left her. The next day, however, he returned and gave Kelly money. He called several other days and gave her money when he had it. On Thursday night he visited her between half-past seven and eight, and told her he was sorry he had no money to give her. He saw nothing more of her. She used occasionally to go to the Elephant and Castle district to visit a friend who was in the same position of life as herself. Kelly had a little boy, aged about six or seven years, living with her."
Apart from the question of Kelly’s child, this statements contains other matters of interest:
1) Barnett’s assertion that Kelly had lived in Dublin fits with the area of Ireland from which the family of Mary Ann Kelly, of Flint, was listed as originating.
2) In this account there is yet another motive quoted by Barnett for leaving Kelly, namely her violent habits.
3) He specifically says that his brother had met and spoken with Kelly on Thursday evening, the 8th. This fits the assertion of Maurice Lewis that he saw Kelly with “Danny,” presumably Daniel Barnett.
4) We do not have a definite time for Barnett going to the police from the lodging house in which he was staying. However, his assertion that he saw the body by peeping through the window suggests this may have been before the door was forced at 1.30 p.m.
What are we to make of this? There is no definite record of Kelly having a child. But, there again, as we have seen, there is no definite record of Kelly doing anything! In the light of Kelly's colourful past and her time spent on the streets it is no means beyond the bounds of possibility that at some stage she had fallen pregnant or had even given birth to a child. However, there is not one shred of evidence from the inquest or any statement by a witness that Kelly had a child living with her at the time of her death or shortly before. The attribution of the statement to Barnett that this had been the case could be the result of some creative journalism, appending a supposed item of information which had appeared in the press to Barnett's words to give them a spurious legitimacy.
3) Kelly was pregnant at the time of her death.
This allegation is an object lesson in how supposed facts can become embedded in the fabric of Ripper studies and passed from hand to hand - or from pen to pen - until they become canonised and accepted as established fact. A number of major books prior to the 1980s stated that Mary Kelly was pregnant at the time she was murdered. Tom Cullen even put a time on this, saying that she was three months pregnant.
The mystery with this story is how and when it arose. There is absolutely nothing in the contemporary evidence or press reports to suggest that Kelly was carrying a child. I have been unable to trace when this supposed fact was first mentioned, but it must have been some not inconsiderable time after the murder. The authoritative document to resolve this matter is the post mortem report by Dr. Thomas Bond, which was not available for study until 1987, when it, along with other important material relating to the Whitechapel murders was returned anonymously to the police authorities. Dr. Bond did not, as has been implied in some sources, specifically say that Kelly was not pregnant. His only mention of the uterus was to say that it had been found lodged under the victim's head, along with other organs. The logic in the case for dismissing Kelly's pregnancy is that if Kelly had been pregnant, Bond would surely have mentioned it. But how confidently can we put words into the mouth of a doctor at this remove in time? It would seem to be a very important point but we cannot be utterly certain that Bond would have mentioned the fact. In my opinion, the balance of probability is that he would have drawn attention to the fact, and Kelly was probably not carrying a child at the time of her death.
4) Members of Kelly's family.
The only information we have about Kelly's family background is that which was supplied by Joseph Barnett. One question that has been posed by some researchers is why members of Kelly's family did not come forward either to identify the body or at least to attend the funeral? Certainly in the cases of some of the former victims, family members came forward or were traced by the police and gave inquest evidence. If the outline details of Kelly's life, and the name that she used, were true, her family would have had difficulty in avoiding exposure to the details in the press.
There are some press reports that her family had been contacted and were on their way to London for the funeral, but in the event no family members attended her interment. But there is one more detailed and intriguing report which appeared in The Star of the 12th of November. This is in the context of another alleged interview with Joseph Barnett:
"Some further details as to the woman's antecedents are coming out. Joseph Barnett, the man she lived with in the room in which she was murdered said: - "When she was but little over 16 years of age she married a collier, but I do not remember his name. He was killed in an explosion in the mine, and then Marie went to Cardiff with her cousin. Thence she went to France, but remained only a short time. Afterwards she lived in a fashionable house in the West-end of London; but drifted from the West-end to the East-end, where she took lodgings in Pennington-street. Her father came from Wales, and tried to find her there; but, hearing from her companions that he was looking for her, Marie kept out of the way. A brother in the Second Battalion Scots Guards came to see her once, but beyond that she saw none of her relations, nor did she correspond with them. When she was in Pennington-street a man named Morganstone lived with her, and subsequently a man named Joseph Fleming passed as her husband."
These allegations that her father came seeking her in Pennington Street and her brother visited her once, I have not seen elsewhere and cannot make any judgement about their reliability. It may be significant that the only relation who allegedly visited is the only one of her siblings mentioned by Barnett by name. This brother in the Scots Guards was named by Barnett in his inquest testimony as Henry, also known as Johnto. The episode of her father seeking her and her keeping out of his way does have the possible ring of truth of either her shame in what she had become or of a family rift which drove her away. But this does not constitute proof and this story attributed to Barnett remains just another unproven tale.
5) The "other man".
There is a report which I have so far found in only one source which alleges that Kelly was seen with an unknown man away from Miller's Court shortly before the murder. The source of this story was Mrs. Carthy, Kelly's former landlady in Breezer's Hill, off the Ratcliff Highway. After the murder on the 9th of November, Mrs. Carthy was traced and interviewed regarding what she knew about Kelly. One section of this article is tantalisingly interesting:
"The unfortunate victim is described as being a woman about 25 years of age, 5ft 7in in height, rather stout, with blue eyes, fair complexion, and a very good head of hair. She had two false teeth in her upper jaw. She was known to be leading a gay life in the neighbourhood of Aldgate. Mrs. Carthy states that the deceased when she left her place went to live with a man in the building trade, and who she (Mrs. Carthy) believed would have married her. She, however, was awakened by Kelly some short time ago at two o'clock in the morning, when she was with a strange man, and asked for a bed for the night. On that occasion Mrs. Carthy asked the deceased if she was not living with the man who took her from the neighbourhood. She replied in the negative, and explained her position. From this time she was never seen in the neighbourhood."
Now, it all depends on what Mrs. Carthy meant by the phrase "a short time ago." Does this mean days, weeks or months? This interview was published on the 17th November, 1888, in a provincial UK paper from east Kent entitled the Thanet Advertiser. So, shortly before that time, Kelly turned up at her old haunt in Breezer's Hill with an unknown man asking for a bed. There can be no question of misidentification of Kelly, as Mrs. Carthy had been her landlady and knew her well. The man could not have been Joseph Fleming as it seems apparent that Mrs. Carthy knew him as well. The unknown factor is whether the ex landlady knew Joseph Barnett, with whom Kelly was by that time certainly living. But to theorise that the unknown man was Barnett is nonsensical. The couple by this time had been living for almost a year and a half at Miller's Court. Why would they walk all the way to Breezer's Hill (a not inconsiderable distance) to get a bed for the night? It makes no sense. The other thing which Mrs. Carthy does not reveal is whether or not she allowed Kelly and the unknown man to stay the night. Who he was and when this happened are yet two more unknowns in the Kelly story.
6) Visits from a past lover?
It seems that Kelly's relationship with Joseph Fleming, the plasterer, was particularly close. Mrs. Carthy, in the article quoted above, said that she thought that Fleming would have married Kelly. Although Carthy does not refer to him by name, her statements that Kelly went to live with him from Breezer's Hill and also that he was in the building trade, makes this identification pretty certain. There are also fragmentary hints that Fleming carried on visiting Kelly even after she was living with Barnett, who observed that she was "very fond of him."
Unfortunately, the section of Barnett's testimony dealing with her relationships with Morganstone and Fleming is extremely muddled. This can be explained by the fact which Barnett himself stated that he did not know the order in which these relationships occurred. The section in question, which describes Kelly's movements after she returned from France, reads:
"She came back and lived in Ratcliffe Highway for some time, she did not tell me how long. Then she was living near Stepney Gas Works. Morganstone was the man she lived with there. She did not tell me how long she lived there. She told me that in Pennington Street she lived with a Morganstone, and with Joseph Flemming, she was very fond of him. He was a mason's plasterer. He lived in Bethnal Green Road. She told me all this, but I do not know which she lived with last. Flemming used to visit her."
The fuller version as printed in the Daily Telegraph throws a little more light on this period in Kelly's life:
"She returned to England, and went to Ratcliffe-highway. She must have lived there for some time. Afterwards she lived with a man opposite the Commercial Gas Works, Stepney. The man's name was Morganstone.
[Coroner] Have you seen that man ? - Never. I don't know how long she lived with him.
[Coroner] Was Morganstone the last man she lived with ? - I cannot answer that question, but she described a man named Joseph Fleming, who came to Pennington-street, a bad house, where she stayed. I don't know when this was. She was very fond of him. He was a mason's plasterer, and lodged in the Bethnal-green-road.
[Coroner] Was that all you knew of her history when you lived with her? - Yes. After she lived with Morganstone or Fleming - I don't know which one was the last - she lived with me."
This seems to make it clear that she never actually lived with Fleming but he used to come and visit her when she was living at Pennington Street. Breezer's Hill, where Kelly lodged with Mrs Carthy, was a short thoroughfare that connected George Street, the western end of the former Ratcliff Highway, and Pennington Street. As Mrs Carthy seemed to know a substantial amount about Fleming and his relationship with Kelly, I would guess that this Pennington Street address where he visited Kelly was actually the Carthy house in Breezer's Hill. In the abridged form of Barnett's testimony as contained in the inquest papers, his simple statement "Flemming used to visit her", which could have indicated that he came visiting to Miller's Court after she was living with Barnett, now seems more likely to refer to the time when she was living at Breezer's Hill.
The other source for information about Kelly's relationship with Fleming is Julia Venturney. In her police statement she stated:
"She (Kelly) told me she was very fond of another man named Joe, and he had often ill-used her because she cohabited with Joe (Barnett)."
In the deposition from the inquest papers, this becomes:
"Deceased told me she was fond of another man named Joe who used to come and see her and give her money. I think he was a costermonger - she said she was very fond of him."
Again, this is infuriatingly ambiguous. Does the phrase that this man "used to come and see her and give her money" refer back to the time before Kelly lived with Barnett, or was Venturney saying that Fleming (to whom this other "Joe" must surely refer) still visited Kelly after she moved into Miller's Court? And did he give her money because he was very fond of her, or for some other reason? When we looked at Hutchinson, we saw the possibility that he was a casual client of Kelly's - did the same still apply to Fleming? Barnett specifically says he never met Morganstone - he does not make the same statement about Fleming. So we cannot know if the two ever met. But the statement of Venturney that he (Fleming) ill used Kelly because she was living with Barnett (either at Miller's Court or at one of their earlier lodgings) does confirm that there was continued contact between Kelly and Fleming after she took up with Barnett.
Fleming is an intriguing character in that the various statements about him tell us the following:
1) He wanted to marry Kelly
2) Kelly was "very fond" of him
3) Contact between Kelly and Fleming was maintained at least for a time after she started living with Barnett
4) He "ill used" Kelly because she was living with Barnett - whether this was physical or verbal is not known, but my guess would be the former.
How and why the relationship finally ended between the two is not known, nor is the date when they last met before Kelly's death. Another intriguing aspect is whether or not the police made any efforts - and indeed possibly succeeded - in tracing Fleming and interviewing him. I would have thought that a man who had been very close to the deceased, was jealous of the man she was currently living with and had physically abused her, was someone the police would have been eager to speak with. There is no surviving evidence that the police traced him, or made any effort to do so, but that, of course, does not definitively mean that such a search was not undertaken. Fleming, however, remains a man about whom we would like to know much more.
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Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 580
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 6:52 pm: |
|
Hi again Chris,
Still reading the last bit, but just FYI that Don Souden in the January issue of Ripper Notes tackles much of the same ground in his article "The Murder in Cartin's Court" (which is reproduced for free here on the Casebook as a sample article for those who don't subscribe). Concerning the term "Cartin's Court," he argues that it likely came from a garbled mishearing of "McCarthy's Court," which I would think is probably the most likely explanation, especially with the similar example of a paper printing "Mellow Court" instead of Miller's Court. The reporters were just talking to people and writing down what they thought they heard.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
Profile Email Dissertations Website
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Joan Taylor
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, March 18, 2005 - 8:39 am: |
|
I think this is an extremely helpful opportunity. I would like to encourage you Chris in your endeavors which never fail in their usefulness. |
mal x
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 5:07 pm: |
|
the problem with a morning mutilation of Kelly is that it's virtually impossible to achieve, it would take far too long, way too risky etc and the chances of being seen by many witnesses leaving her place are very high indeed.
please consider that everyone was up and about in busy Millers court, water pump outside her window etc, the Ripper would've definitely been aware of this and never butchered her in the morning.i think as such we can rule out a morning mutilation, it's the one part of the Ripper story that you can say is almost definitely true, ``Kelly was killed at about 3.40 am``.
i wouldn't push this morning mutilation, it's totally unbelievable.
even so, what you've written is excellent |
Lindsey Millar
Inspector
Username: Lindsey
Post Number: 357
Registered: 9-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 7:49 pm: |
|
Chris,
Great job! This is fantastic, and I wish you every best with your book - it's going to be well worth publishing, and well worth reading!
Thanks so very much for sharing this with us.
Bestest,
Lyn
"When a man grows tired of London, he grows tired of life" (or summat like that)
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Harry Mann
Detective Sergeant
Username: Harry
Post Number: 56
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Monday, March 21, 2005 - 5:53 am: |
|
Chris,
An excellent account of Kelly's murder.
One part,that of Maxwell's sighting,reminds me of three incidents in my life when I was mistaken for another person.
The first time was by a person who had worked with myself and this other person for a number of years.He addressed me by this person's name.
The second time was by a person who had known myself and this other person since childhood.Incidentally this second person was closely linked to Fred West and his wife,the Gloucester serial killer.He too addressed me by the other person's name.Both meetings were in broad daylight at arm's length distance.
The third was adamant that I was a Commissioner of police.
I wonder how common such misunderstandings are. |
Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1807
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 21, 2005 - 9:20 am: |
|
Hi all
Again thanks for all the constructive comments:
Dan:
Interesting idea for the origin of Cartin's Court, and an equally plausible one. I am sure that misreporting of interviews did occur and gave rise to misspellings.
Mal:
I am not actually proposing a morning mutilation scenario per se but rather saying that some of the testimony which claims to have seen kelly in the morning cannot be as easily disposed of as might first appear.
All the comments are very helpful and I'm glad the extracts have proved of interest and generated some debate
All the best
Chris
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 4282
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 21, 2005 - 9:57 am: |
|
Great stuff again, Chris. Thanks for putting all this online.
Robert |
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 1701
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 21, 2005 - 4:06 pm: |
|
A really brilliant read Chris.Thanks for putting it on line and again the best of luck!
Natalie |
Thomas C. Wescott
Inspector
Username: Tom_wescott
Post Number: 323
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 21, 2005 - 5:28 pm: |
|
Chris,
Sounds great, but as your title is a request (i.e. will the real Mary Kelly please stand up) why do you put a question mark at the end?
Yours truly,
Tom Wescott
P.S. Put me down for a copy! |
Phil Hill
Inspector
Username: Phil
Post Number: 220
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 22, 2005 - 8:09 am: |
|
I ran off copies last night, and look forward to reading them with eager anticipation. At first glance they look very creditable. I wish you well.
More later,
Phil |
Lee McLoughlin
Detective Sergeant
Username: Lee
Post Number: 58
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 22, 2005 - 8:40 am: |
|
Hi Chris,
That was wonderful stuff! I hope the book is out soon as I am already looking forward to reading it.
Best Wishes,
Lee |
Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1808
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 22, 2005 - 9:35 am: |
|
Hi Tom
Without getting too arty-farty about the title, it was, I suppose, a combination of a plea, almost, to Kelly to reveal herself and also a query as to any firm documentary evidence about this mysterious woman will ever come to light.
Thanks to all for the comments.
Chris
(Message edited by Chris on March 22, 2005) |
Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 2224
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 22, 2005 - 3:43 pm: |
|
Chris
Wow!! Good stuff eh!!!! I think....for what thats worth a great working title it says it all in some ways
Stand up tho..hmmm scary!!!
'Mary Mary quite Contrary' springs to mind tho...LOL hang on have found another few..................
-
Hey! have found this one from Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828 - 1882 (sadly!!)
'We two' she said 'will seek the groves
Where the lady Mary is,
With her five handmaidens.whose names
Are five sweet symphonies'
Gosh!!!
.....feel a drawing coming on here
And then theres this that did make me smile...........
A A Milne
WHAT is the matter with Mary Jane?
Shes's perfectly well and she hasn't a pain,
AND IT'S LOVELY RICE PUDDING FOR PUDDING AGAIN,-
What IS the matter with Mary Jane?
Suzix
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Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 2225
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 22, 2005 - 3:50 pm: |
|
And then-
But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part,which shall not be taken away from her'
Hmmm odd one but from the Bible having trawled through the Oxford book of Quotations!!!!
Lol Chapter headings maybe
And then there is this Byron
'I Have a passion for the name of @mary'
For once it was a magic name to me:
And still it half calls up the realms of fairy
Where I beheld what never was to be.
Love that one!!
Suzix |
Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 2226
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 22, 2005 - 3:51 pm: |
|
OMG!!!! that wasnt a website for mary there!! meant to be an ' !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lovely tho isnt it!!!!
Suzi x |
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 1707
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 22, 2005 - 4:48 pm: |
|
Chris,you have whetted our appetites with these
extracts .Really looking forward to it now!
Suzi,
since you are grabbed by Mary poems at the moment
how about the lovely one Burns wrote to "Highland Mary"[another celt]:
3rd verse
But Oh!fell death"s untimely frost,
That nipped my flower sae early!
Now green"s the sod, and cauld"s the clay,
That wraps my Highland Mary!
O pale,pale now,those rosy lips
I aft hae kissed sae fondly!
And closed for ay the sparkling glance,
That dwelt on me sae kindly;
And mouldering now in silent dust
That heart that lo"ed me dearly!
But still within my bosom"s core,
Shall live my Highland Mary.
[it was another of my Mum"s favourite poems that]
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Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1817
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 23, 2005 - 11:27 am: |
|
This is probably putting my head in the lion's mouth but....
I have been asked by mail what my thoughts are on Barnett so here is the chapter in question. I'll be posting details very shortly about where the books can be otained
All the best
Chris
Chapter 8
Barnett and Other Lovers
Various men are mentioned in the conventional account of Kelly's life as having had a relationship with her. These are, in probable chronological order,
1) The man Davis or Davies to whom she was supposedly legally married
2) The man Morganstone, with whom she lived near Stepney Gas Works, possibly in Pennington Street
3) Joseph Flemming, a mason's plasterer - his address is given as Bethnal Green Road.
4) Joseph Barnett, whom Kelly had met around Easter 1887.
The exact order in which Kelly lived with Morganstone and Flemming is not immediately clear. Barnett, from whom this information came at the inquest, said of these two men : "She told me all this but I do not know which she lived with last." We will take a look at all these men, especially the last, Joseph Barnett, with whom Kelly had been living until a short time before her death and who has in more recent years been put forward as a vigorously supported suspect, at least as the killer of Kelly, if not for the Whitechapel murder series as a whole.
We have already mentioned in an earlier chapter the man Davis or Davies. We have so little information about this alleged husband of Kelly that it is at present not possible to trace him reliably in the available records. This problem is exacerbated by the combination of the surname and location involved, for one could easily rephrase the well known dictum about "looking for a needle in a haystack" to read "looking for a Davies in Wales!" There are a number of surnames - Jones, Davies, Morgan - which are as common in Wales as Smith or Brown are in England. All we can say with certainty at present is that there is no record of a legal marriage within a reasonable period of the reputed date of the event - 1879 - between a Mary Jane Kelly and a man named Davis or Davies. This only leaves a limited number of logical possibilities:
1) The woman's real name under which she married was not Mary Jane Kelly
2) Kelly did legally marry but her husband's name was not Davis or Davies
3) Kelly did know and live with a man named Davies of Davis but the alleged marriage never took place
4) The whole incident was invented by Kelly
5) The whole incident was invented by Barnett
We simply do not have sufficient information at present to determine which of these circumstances reflects what actually happened.
The man Morganstone raises the opposite problem to Davies in that his surname does not appear to exist at all! There is no traceable British record, under census information or Births, Marriages and Deaths, of an individual named Morganstone. It has been theorised that Barnett may have misinterpreted the name as a surname when it should have been a forename and surname i.e. the name should have been rendered as Morgan Stone. But this combination is not helpful either, in that the few occurrences of this name relate to individuals whose ages would make it impossible for them to be the person involved in the Kelly story. Another possibility put forward is that Barnett misheard the name as told to him by Kelly or rendered it in an Anglicised form. The most common forms of known names put forward as possible correct versions of the man's name are Morganstern and Morganstein. But in fact if we look closely at Barnett's words there is an anomaly that may suggest that Kelly lived at two different locations with Morganstone. In the inquest testimony his exact words are quoted as : "She came back and lived in Ratcliffe Highway for some time, she did not tell me how long. Then she was living near Stepney Gas Works. Morganstone was the man she lived with there. She did not tell me how long she lived there. She told me that in Pennington Street she lived at one time with a Morganstone, and with Joseph Flemming, she was very fond of him. He was a mason's plasterer. He lived in Bethnal Green Road." This is most confused. First we are told that Kelly lived near Stepney Gas Works with Morganstone, then that she lived in Pennington Road with both Morganstone and Flemming. How are we to read this? The statement of Barnett's could be interpreted to mean that at one time she was living with both Morganstone and Flemming at Pennington Street, but it is more likely that this menage a trois is more a product of confused wording rather than being his intended meaning. Another possibility is that Kelly lived with Morganstone near Stepney Gas Works and then moved with him to Pennington Street where she later met and moved in with Flemming in the same road. Certainly the two locations are clearly separated and in different areas. Stepney Gas Works was located at the corner of Ben Jonson Road and Harford Street, between Commercial Road and Mile End Road. Pennington Street lay to the southwest and ran parallel to the south of the Ratcliff Highway, later George Street. Certainly this area to the south and west of the Ratcliff Highway is one associated with Kelly's earlier life in more than one account. Two earlier landladies of Kelly were based in this area. Mrs Carthy was said to have been Kelly's landlady in a house in Breezer's Hill which connected Pennington Street and George Street, and Kelly lodged allegedly at some stage with the oddly named Mrs Buki near the western end of George Street. If we list the partners and locations attributed to Kelly we get this puzzling progression:
1) Kelly lived near Stepney Gas Works with Morganstone
2) Kelly lived in Pennington Street (which is not near Stepney Gas Works) with Morganstone and Flemming
3) Flemming lived in Bethnal Green Road.
The logical, but by no means certain, interpretation of this sequence of events is that Kelly first lived near the Gas Works with Morganstone, then move with him to Pennington Street where she met Flemming with whom she subsequently moved to Bethnal Green Road. However, as we shall see, this is not what actually happened.
However, this brings us no nearer to determining who Morganstone was. Neal Stubbings, author of the series of excellent books about the lives and backgrounds of the first four canonical victims, identified the most likely candidate as one Adrianus Morgenstern. There is one definite census listing for this man and his family in 1881. At that stage the address at which he was living was 43 Victoria Road, Fulham, and the family is listed as follows:
Head:
Adrianus L Morgestern (sic) aged 33 born Alphen Priel, Holland - Gas stoker
Wife:
Jeanette aged 28 born Mzerbo(?), Holland
Children:
Johanna C aged 7 born Proogendaal
Maria aged 6 born Proogendaal
Wilhelmina L aged 4 born Fulham
Petronella C aged 3 months born Fulham
Brother (i.e. of head of household):
Maria A Morgestern aged 26 born Alphen Priel, Holland - Gas stoker
The researcher Louis van Dompselaar found fuller details for the family, but the name of the spouse in his research varies from that given in the 1881 census:
Head:
Adrianus Lucas Morgenstern born 1848 in Alphen en Riel
Wife:
Antonetta Smits born 1853 in Meerlo
Children:
Johanna Cornelius born 1873 in Roosendaal
Maria Petronella born 1875 in Roosendaal
Wilhelmina born 1877
Petronella C born 1881 in Fulham
The brother listed as living with the family in 1881 is detailed by Louis van Dompselaar as follows:
Maran (?) Morgenstern born 1855 in Alphen en Riel. In December 1881 he married Florence Charlotte Gilbert at Fulham. The listing of this marriage in the BMD registers gives the groom's name as Marian Morgenstern. The other records relating to this family show that Petronella Carlin Morgenstern died in Fulham in March 1882 at the age of 1.
I have been unable to trace this Morgenstern family in the 1891 record but, oddly, there is one entry that may be connected. At 20 Cordelia Street, Bromley, there is a listed a 43 year old gas stoker named Adrianus Felix, born Rotterdam, Holland. This corresponds with Adrianus Morgenstern with respect to age, trade, forename and country of birth. But his wife is a 27 year old named Elizabeth Felix and they are listed as having a 17 year old daughter named Anna, also listed as born at Rotterdam. This daughter - Anna aged 17 in 1891 - could conceivably be one of his offspring listed in 1881 - Johanna aged 7. Whether Morgenstern changed his name to Felix and remarried cannot be proven at this time.
When we come to Joseph Flemming we are on firmer ground. Brief biographical details were given concerning him in an earlier chapter, but it is now time to look more fully at what can be discovered about him. Firstly the spelling of his name. In census records his name is usually rendered as FLEMMING but in his birth record it is spelt FLEMING. His birth was registered at Bethnal Green in the 2nd Quarter (April to June) of 1859 (Volume 1c page 254). His parents were Richard Fleming, a plasterer, who was born in Ramsgate, Kent in 1822 and Henrietta Fleming, who was born in Camberwell, Surrey in 1822. His mother's maiden name was Henrietta Masom and the couple were married in Lambeth in the 3rd Quarter of 1842 (Volume 4 page 205). Joseph had an elder sister named Jane who was born in Hoxton in 1857, and two younger sisters, Mary Ann born in Bethnal Green in 1863 and Jessie born in Bethnal Green in 1868. The family is listed in the 1871 census living at 60 Wellington Street, Bethnal Green.
By the time of the 1881 census, Joseph had left home and was living in lodgings in 61 Crozier Terrace which was in Homerton, north east of Bethnal Green. By this time he is listed as following his father's trade as a plasterer. His landlady was Ellen Copping, a 35 year old laundress. Also living in the household were Ellen's two daughters - Emily aged 13, and Ann aged 2 - and a second lodger, John Percy, a 27 year old ropemaker, also born in Bethnal Green.
Joseph's family is listed in the 1881 census as living at 4 Cyprus Street and is itemised as follows:
Head:
Richard Fleming aged 59 born Ramsgate, Kent - Plasterer
Wife:
Henrietta Fleming aged 59 born Camberwell, Surrey
Children:
Mary Ann aged 19 born Bethnal Green - Brace machinist (Fancy goods textiles)
Jessie aged 13 born Bethnal Green
Other:
Alice W Rickiam aged 65 born Southsea, Hampshire - Nurse
Emma E Emsworth aged 41 born Lambeth - Lodger
By the time of the 1891 census, Joseph's father, Richard Fleming, is listed as an inmate in the Shoreditch District Infirmary. His details are given as:
Richard Fleming, Married, aged 70, Plasterer, born Ramsgate, Kent.
Richard Fleming's death was registered in Shoreditch in the 1st Quarter of 1894. (Volume 1c Page 59)
In the 1891 Census, Joseph's mother and younger sister are listed as living at 123, Lever Street, City Road as follows:
Head:
Henrietta Fleming aged 69 born Camberwell - Married
Daughter;
Jessie Fleming aged 23 born Bethnal Green - Brace machinist
As for Joseph himself, it looks very much as though he had changed his trade by 1891. At that time he would have been 32 and this, coupled with the fact that he was born in Bethnal Green, led to the only viable identification for him in the 1891 data so far found. This listed him as living in a lodging house at 9 Victoria Park Square, Bethnal Green and gave his details as follows:
Joseph Flemming aged 32 born Bethnal Green - Boot finisher.
This entry lists him as married but no wife is included in the listing for the lodging house. The trade of Boot Finisher is not written in as such but consists of ditto marks from the entry above and I have on occasion found this type of entry to be in error.
By 1901 Joseph's aged mother was still alive and living at 220 Chalk Close, Shoreditch. The household is listed as follows:
Head:
Henrietta Fleming aged 79 born Camberwell
Daughter:
Jessie Fleming aged 33 born Bethnal Green - Brace machinist
Grand daughter:
Henrietta Finch aged 25 born Bethnal Green - Cork factory
At the present time the whereabouts of Joseph Fleming himself in 1901 have not been determined.
We now come to the man central to much recent theorising in the case of the Kelly murder - Joseph Barnett. There are a certainly no lack of entries under this name - for example, the 1891 census lists 36 individuals thus named in London alone. The problem is deciding which of these men is the Joseph Barnett referred to in the Kelly case. We actually learn surprisingly little about him from his police and inquest evidence, not even his age. From these sources we can deduce the following points about Barnett and his background:
1) He had worked as a fish porter, labourer and fruit porter.
2) He had at least one sister.
3) At the time of the murder his sister was living at 21 Portpool Lane, Gray's Inn Road.
4) He had known Kelly and lived with her at various locations for 18-20 months
5) The couple had lived at Miller's Court for about 8 months.
Two leading contenders for identification as the Barnett we are seeking have emerged. The first was postulated by Paul Harrison and was born in 1860 and died in 1927. The second, put forward by Bruce Paley, was born in 1858 and died in 1926.
Paul Harrison tells us the following facts about his contender that should help us to identify him:
1) He was born 23 December 1860
2) He was the second son of David and Maria Barnett. The father was a general dealer.
3) The family resided at 127 Middlesex Street.
4) His parents were devout Catholics.
From this information we are able to trace the family in the 1871 census. It should be noted that at that time they were living at 126 Middlesex Street, not 127.
Head:
David Barnett aged 48 born Whitechapel - General dealer
Wife:
Maria Barnett aged 42 born Holland
Children:
Hannah aged 22
Phoebe aged 18
Abraham aged 16 - Cigar maker
Joseph aged 11
Nancy aged 11
Sarah aged 7
Rachel aged 4
Israel aged 3
Rebecca aged 1
All children were born in Whitechapel.
By the time of the 1881 census David Barnett, the head of the household was dead. The family at this time were listed at 127 Middlesex Street:
Head:
Maria Barnett (Widow) aged 48 born Netherlands - Greengrocer
Children:
Abraham aged 20 - Rivetter
Joseph aged 18 - Rivetter
Nancy aged 17 - Tailoress
Sarah aged 18 - tailoress
Rachel aged 14
Israel aged 11 - Errand boy
Rebecca aged 10
All children born in Whitechapel.
The death of David Barnett is listed in June 1876 in Whitechapel.
Harrison has an odd thing to say about Barnett's meeting with Kelly in 1887: "Barnett fell for the girl instantly who vividly reminded him of his late mother." In fact his mother was still alive and listed in the 1891 census and Joseph was living with her! The family is listed under the surname Barrett, but the details of the family members make the identification with the Barnett family of 1871 and 1881 certain. The remnants of the family were living at 7 Calverley Street, Mile End.
Head:
Maria Barnett (Widow) aged 60 born Rotterdam - General dealer (Shop)
Children:
Joseph aged 28 born Whitechapel - Bootmaker
Israel aged 22 born Whitechapel - Tailor
Rebecca aged 20 born Whitechapel - Tailoress
Servant:
Leah Jacob aged 17 born Spitalfields
Son in Law:
Joseph Benjaman (sic) aged 23 born Whitechapel - Boot maker
In fact, Joseph Benjamin was not yet technically Maria's son in law as he and Rebecca Barnett did not marry until the second quarter of 1891 and Rebecca is still listed in the census of that year as single.
In 1901 Maria Barnett was still living at 7 Calverley Street with one single daughter and one married daughter.
Head:
Maria Barnett (Widow) aged 75 born Rotterdam - general dealer (Shop)
Daughters:
Sarah aged 32 born London
Nancy Burchell aged 36 (Married) born London
Son In Law:
Joseph Burchell aged 37 born London - Clothing traveller
Grandchildren:
Sarah aged 17 - Cigarette maker
David aged 16 - Clothes dealer
Marie aged 13
May aged 11
Hannah aged 9
Leopold aged 2
All born in London.
Joseph's brother Israel had married by 1901 and was living at 17 Beaumont Square, Mile End:
Head:
Israel Barnett aged 31 born Aldgate - Tailor's cutter
Wife:
Hannah Barnett aged 31 born Aldgate
Children:
Marie aged 5
Hannah aged 3
Nancy aged 3 months
All born in Mile End.
Joseph himself I have been unable to trace definitely in 1901 but in this case I think that is not overly important in that we have seen enough of his life and whereabouts to form a judgement on whether this is the Joseph Barnett who lived with Mary Kelly.
Unfortunately I do not think we can say that the man outlined above was the man we are looking for. By way of background, it should be pointed out that the bearers of the surname Barnett in this period in the East End appear to have fallen into two main ethnic groups - Irish and Jewish. Harrison claims that the Barnett he identified was of Irish background and states that Maria Barnett actually moved to Ireland some time after the death of her husband, leaving Joseph to fend for himself. Neither statement can be squared with the facts as revealed in the documents. Not only did Maria Barnett stay in London until at least 1901 but Joseph was living with her until at least 1891. However, the main objection, in my opinion, is the background of the family. The names of their offspring - especially Abraham, Sarah, Israel and Rebecca - display in my opinion an undoubtedly Jewish background. Maria and David Barnett married, according to Harrison, in 1848 and her maiden name was Maria Lazarus. Actually the name is listed in the index as Mary Lazarus. Also we are told she was born in Rotterdam. All the facts point to Maria being of Dutch Jewish origin and the names of the offspring confirm this identification. Harrison tells us that by the time Barnett met Kelly in early 1887 his mother, Maria, was already dead. I think this is based on a misidentification. A Maria Barnett aged 63 was registered as dead in Whitechapel in March 1887 but the real mother of the Joseph Barnett under examination was certainly still alive in 1891 (he was still living with her) and is still listed in 1901. The last point which causes me problems with this identification of Joseph is the matter of his trade. Harrison tells us that he worked as a fish porter and a fruit porter. In the two available census returns for which Joseph was of a suitable age to have a trade listed (1881 and 1891) he is listed, respectively, as a rivetter and a bootmaker. A rivetter in this context would indicate a boot rivetter, so there is no indication from the evidence we have of Joseph working outside the boot making trade.
We next come to the candidate put forward by Bruce Paley, and I will say from the outset that I think we are here on firmer ground. This Joseph was the son of John and Catherine Barnett, both parents being Irish born. The earliest view we have of the family is in the 1861 census, when they were living at 2 Cartwright Street, Aldgate:
Head:
John Barnett aged 43 born Ireland - Porter at Billingsgate
Wife:
Catherine Barnett aged 40 born Ireland
Children:
Dennis aged 12
Daniel aged 9
Catherine aged 8
Joseph aged 3
John aged 10 months
All children listed as born in Aldgate, City of London
By 1871 both parents were absent, and the second son, Daniel, was listed as head of household, living at 24 and a half, Great Pearl Street, Spitalfields:
Head:
Daniel Barnett aged 20 born Whitechapel - Fishmonger
Sister:
Catherine Barnett aged 17 born Whitechapel
Brothers:
Joseph Barnett aged 13 born Whitechapel
John Barnett aged 9 born Whitechapel
The death of Joseph's father, John, was registered in Whitechapel in the third quarter of 1864 (Vol 1c page 339) but the later whereabouts of his mother, Catherine, remains a mystery. The oldest son, Dennis (also spelt Denis) married in 1869 and his listing in 1871 is as follows:
108 Gosset Street, Bethnal Green
Head:
Denis Barnett aged 22 born Gravesend, Kent - Labourer
Wife:
Mary Ann Barnett aged 21 born Bethnal Green
Daughter:
Mary Ann aged 9 months born Bethnal Green
The one anomaly here is that Denis is listed as born in Gravesend, whereas in 1861 all children of the family were listed as born in Aldgate. This Kent connection may be of significance later.
By 1881 the family had fragmented significantly. The oldest son, Dennis, had moved to Bermondsey and is listed as follows:
5 Goulston's Buildings, Bermondsey
Head:
Dennis Barnett aged 33 born Gravesend, Kent - Fish porter
Wife:
Mary Ann Barnett aged 32 born Bethnal Green
Children:
Dennis aged 9 born Bethnal Green
John aged 6 born Bermondsey
Aunt:
Mrs Hayes aged 75 born Ireland.
The identity of this Mrs Hayes is a mystery. She is presumably the sister of either Catherine or John Barnett, but which is not known. The mysteriously disappearing Catherine Barnett would have been somewhere about 60 in 1881, so it not likely to be her having assumed another identity for unknown reasons.
The second son, Daniel, in 1881 had also moved to Bermondsey and had moved into lodgings:
9 Aldred Street, Bermondsey
Lodger:
Daniel Barnett aged 29 born Middlesex - Fish porter
The head of the household is listed as James Murphy, aged 51, a cab driver.
Joseph himself was also living in lodgings in Horatio Street in Bethnal Green just to the south of Haggerston Park. By chance his younger brother John was visiting him at the time of the census, which aids greatly in verifying that we have the right individual.
1 Horatio Street, London
Head:
George Bailey aged 28 born City of London - General dealer
Wife:
Mary A Bailey aged 26 born St Luke's
Children:
James aged 5 born St Luke's
Lizzie aged 3 born Shoreditch
Alfred aged 1 born Shoreditch
Lodger:
Joseph Barnett aged 22 (Unmarried) born Whitechapel - General labourer
Visitor:
John Barnett aged 20 born Whitechapel - Fish porter
When we come to 1891, we can trace two of the brothers without too much difficulty:
Charles William Mowl Victoria Home No 1, Commercial Street, Whitechapel
Lodger:
Daniel Barnett aged 44 born Whitechapel - Fish porter
and
46 Hanbury Street
Lodger:
John Barnett aged 30 born Whitechapel - General labourer.
However, Joseph himself, like his mother before him, seems to have done a disappearing act! There is no definite sighting of him in the 1891 or 1901 census. I applied a little logic to this situation to see if I could find him. Joseph's birth certificate gives his date of birth as 25th May 1858, so at the time of the 1891 census he would have been 32 years of age, one month away from his 33rd birthday. As always we must be wary of age alone as an identifier as this can be very "fluid" in census records and often varies by a year or two either way. In the census records we have for Joseph, his ages at the times of the censuses are given as follows:
1861 - 3
1871 - 13
1881 - 22
In the 1891 census we would therefore be looking for a Joseph Barnett of 33 or thereabouts. I have searched under variants of the forename (Joseph, Joe, Jos, J. etc) and under the surname (Barnett, Barnet) and possible logical mistranscriptions (Barrett, Bassett, even Parnell). There were a few possible identifications but, without exception, there was one huge stumbling block for all these individuals. All were listed as married, and from the ages of the children listed, it was obvious that the marriage took place well before 1888. The available evidence we have about Barnett offers, as far as I am aware, not the slightest hint that at the time he was living with Kelly that he was married and had fathered children.
All of the above searches were carried out on the premise that Barnett, after the murders, carried on living in London. The next logical step was to extend the same searches as outlined above outside the capital incorporating the added provisos that any individual who seemed a likely identification must be either unmarried or must have married since the time of the murders in late 1888.
All of the above conditions lead to only one individual. This person's surname in the 1891 census (both the index and original enumerator's sheet) was listed as Barnet but this same man's name was listed in 1901 as Barnett. To reiterate I was looking for someone with the following characteristics:
1) His name would be Joseph Barnett or some feasible variant thereof
2) His age would in 1891 be 33 or close thereto
3) If he were married indications are that this would have occurred after November 1888
4) His trade would probably be that of a labourer or of similar status.
5) His place of birth would have been listed as in or near Whitechapel
The only person fulfilling all these criteria was married and was in fact living in Kent. He had one daughter but she was only 11 months old at the time of the marriage (i.e. born May 1890 and conception some time about August 1889) which means that the marriage could well have taken place in 1889. The Kent connection brings us back to the fact that Dennis Barnett, is listed in two census entries as born in Gravesend, Kent. There had apparently been a Kent connection at some stage with the family, but currently that is all we can say on that subject.
The listing in 1891 for this Joseph is as follows:
3 True Briton Alley, Minster in Sheppey, Kent
Head:
Joseph Barnet (sic) aged 33 born Spitalfields - Labourer
Wife:
Catherine Barnet aged 37 born Bridge, Kent
Daughter:
Florence Teresa Barnet aged 11 months born Sheerness, Kent
The 1901 information for this family is as follows:
Yielstead, Stockbury, Kent
Head:
Joseph Barnett aged 44(?) born Spitalfields - Agricultural labourer
Wife:
Catherine Barnett aged 48 born Bridge, Kent
Daughter:
Florence Barnett aged 10 born Sheerness
Did Joseph Barnett marry shortly after the Kelly murder and leave London for Kent? I cannot say that for certain. All I can say is that this Joseph Barnett living in Kent is the most likely option I have found to date. Bruce Paley's Barnett disappears from the record from the time of the Kelly murder until 1906 when he reappears in Shadwell and resumes his profession of fish porter. Whether this Kent Barnett fills in the missing years I cannot firmly say - but he is the nearest possibility I have yet uncovered.
This all leads us to the inexorable question - why has Barnett proved so popular as a comparatively recent suspect? It must be pointed out that even those who support Barnett's candidacy are divided on just what he stands accused of. Some would give him the mantle for all five murders, but many suggest that he was the killer of Kelly alone.
Before looking at the alleged case against Barnett, we should examine the alibi that Barnett himself gave for the night of the murder. He had been with Kelly earlier in the evening of Thursday, 8th November and left her room in Miller's Court somewhere about 7.45 or 8.00 that evening. When asked about his whereabouts on the night of the murder, the Daily Telegraph of 10th November reported as follows:
"Barnett is a porter at the market close by, and he was able to answer the police that on Thursday night he was at a lodging-house in New-street, Bishopsgate-street, and was playing whist there until half-past twelve, when he went to bed."
The Irish Times of 10 November states:
"Last night he visited her between half-past 7 and 8,and told her he was sorry he had no money to give her. He saw nothing more of her. He was indoors this morning when he heard that a woman had been murdered in Dorset street, but he did not know at first who the victim was. He voluntarily went to the police, who, after questioning him, satisfied themselves that his statements were correct, and therefore released him."
The implication of these two alleged timings is that Barnett was in the lodging house from well before 12.30 a.m. when he retired until after 10.45 as he was "indoors" when he heard of the murder which, even spreading rapidly from mouth to mouth, would have taken quite a while to spread from Dorset Street to Bishopsgate. What is not known and not made explicit from the sources is at what time Barnett actually arose on the morning of the 9th and whether he left the lodging house between waking and hearing about the murder.
Various points are raised in the case against Barnett and we will now look at these in turn:
1) Barnett is described as 5ft 7in in height, aged 30, medium build, fair complexion and moustache. This allegedly matches well various witness descriptions of men who could be the killer. From the available descriptions there are only two, in my opinion, that can be said to match Barnett's physical appearance closely. Joseph Lawende saw a man in the company of a woman he identified from her clothing as Catherine Eddowes shortly before the murder in Mitre Square. This man was described as aged about 30, 5ft 7in to 5ft 8in in height, fair complexion and moustache. Israel Schwartz saw a man assault a woman in Berner Street shortly before the murder of Elizabeth Stride. This man is described as about 30, broad shouldered, 5ft 5in in height, brown hair, fair complexion and small brown moustache. Three men were allegedly seen near Miller's Court in the hours leading up to Kelly's murder, two of them in her company. Neither the blotchy faced man with the carroty moustache seen by Mary Cox, nor the well dressed man seen by George Hutchinson match the description of Barnett. And the man seen by Sarah Lewis outside the lodging house opposite Miller's Court is so vaguely described that no meaningful comparison is possible. Other witness accounts which describe the man seen as Jewish or foreign in appearance have no point of similarity with Barnett. Caroline Maxwell's sighting of Kelly talking to a man outside the Britannia public house varied from the police statement (where he was described as dressed as a market porter) to her inquest testimony (in which he had on dark clothes and a plaid coat.) Maxwell added in her police statement "I was some distance away and am doubtful whether I could identify him." In her inquest testimony this had become the more positive "I could not describe the man." The fact that the man was dressed as a market porter calls to mind that Barnett had worked as both a fish and fruit porter, but whether he would still have been wearing the clothing of that trade some time after he had ceased working in that capacity is questionable. Also, Maxwell said in her testimony specifically that she knew Barnett. Either the man she saw was not Barnett or she did not wish to identify him. We must not forget that Barnett had also testified, so he would have been sitting there in court as Maxwell testified.
2) Barnett's relationship with Kelly could have explained why the killings ceased with her death. This is based on the supposed motive for Barnett being the Ripper. This runs as follows: Barnett's loss of employment in June or July 1888 meant he was no longer able to support the couple financially, and Kelly had once more resorted to prostitution, of which Barnett strongly disapproved. This line of reasoning argues that the earlier murders were scare tactics to keep Kelly off the streets, and when this failed and the couple split up on the 30th October he finally murdered Kelly in a fit of spurned love. There are certainly indications in Barnett's testimony that he knew Kelly was again working on the streets and that he strongly disapproved. In his police statement he says:
"in consequence of not earning sufficient money and her resorting to prostitution, I resolved on leaving her."
This is modified in his inquest testimony when he says:
"I separated from her on the 30th of October. I left her because she had a person who was a prostitute whom she took in and I objected to her doing so - that was the only reason, not because I was out of work." He also adds this item of information:
"She had on several occasions asked me to read about the murders - she seemed afraid of some one, she did not express fear of any particular individual, except when she rowed with me but we always came to terms quickly.”
The fact that Kelly was curious about the murders is not in itself remarkable as it would have been by this stage in the series still a major topic of conversation and speculation. The ambiguous statement is that she expressed fear of some one, and the only individual to whom this applied was Barnett himself. This part of the evidence, in the more fully reported exchange in the Daily Telegraph, runs as follows:
[Coroner] Have you heard her speak of being afraid of any one ? - Yes; several times. I bought newspapers, and I read to her everything about the murders, which she asked me about.
[Coroner] Did she express fear of any particular individual ? - No, sir. Our own quarrels were very soon over.
This shows that the summary of evidence in the inquest papers had conflated two items of testimony into one sentence with an almost certainly unintended double meaning. The inquest papers could be read almost to imply that Kelly feared Barnett on occasion, and the fact this follows immediately upon the question of reading reports about the murders could imply she feared he was the killer. The fuller version as reported in the Telegraph makes it clear that this meaning was neither intended nor could it reasonably be read into what he had actually said.
There is certainly evidence that Kelly and Barnett had argued on occasion of which the broken window was a legacy. Barnett himself admitted that they argued but said any such rows were soon over. There is also contained in the witness statements indications that Kelly was not the easiest woman in the world to live with. Although Barnett himself said "she was as long as she was with me of sober habits," the evidence of other witnesses certainly casts doubt upon this assertion. John McCarthy, their landlord, stated: "I very often saw deceased worse for drink - she was a very quiet woman when sober but noisy when in drink." Mary Ann Cox said that when she saw Kelly at midnight she was "very much intoxicated" and ended her statement with the words "I very often saw deceased drunk". Caroline Maxwell's alleged first sighting of Kelly on the Friday morning describes her in the throes of a bad hangover. Julia Venturney asserted: "She lived with Joe Barnett - she frequently got drunk."
We must also remember the number of witnesses who specifically said they knew Joseph Barnett as well as Kelly. McCarthy and Bowyer, his factotum, would have known the couple comparatively well. Caroline Maxwell, Julia Venturney and Maria Harvey specifically said in their testimonies that they knew Barnett. If Joseph Barnett had been hanging about Miller's Court later than he claimed to have been there, there was a very high chance that he would have been recognised if seen.
The one point at which Barnett changed his story between the statement he made on the day of the murder and the hearing of the inquest, was with regard to his motive for finally separating from Kelly on the 30th October. In his police statement he attributed this to his "not earning sufficient money to give her" and her "resorting to prostitution." At the inquest, three days later, he stated that he left her "because she had a person who a prostitute whom she took in and I objected to her doing so - that was the only reason, not because I was out of work." I believe this change in his evidence was motivated by trying to save face, both for himself and his dead lover. The fact that he could no longer support Kelly financially must have troubled him in two ways:
1) In that more chauvinistic age he would almost certainly have seen himself as the breadwinner and provider of the household. Of course, in the east End many women worked from financial necessity, but in late Victorian times the man of the household was still definitely seen as the provider and head of the family.
2) More troubling to him, almost certainly, was the fact that financial hardship would force Kelly back into the only profession she knew. How and when Kelly first became involved in prostitution is not known. Barnett blamed it on her cousin in Cardiff when she went to stay there, but this is unprovable. There is certainly ample evidence from the witness statements that Kelly had been working as a prostitute and that Barnett strongly disapproved of her doing so, not unreasonably.
There is also the minor possibility that had Barnett admitted that he had not been working and had in effect been living off the proceeds of Kelly's prostitution, he would have laid himself open to a charge of living off immoral earnings.
To summarise, I cannot see any indication in the available testimony that Barnett would have reacted to Kelly's conduct by resorting to hideous and disfiguring murder. All we can know at this remove in time seems to indicate that he cared deeply about Kelly and tried to do his best for a woman who had a troubled and unsettled past and must have proved difficult and perhaps even violent to live with.
3) The ginger beer bottles found in Miller's Court are linked with the mention of a ginger beer bottle in the "Dear Boss" letter which was the first to use the nickname "Jack the Ripper." This is a nonsense point on two counts:
1) Ginger beer bottles were a very common container in late Victorian London and would have been reused in a variety of ways. The fact that some were found in Kelly's room is in itself meaningless, as the same would have been true of many abodes in the East End.
2) The "Dear Boss" letter, in my opinion - as well as that of many researchers - has nothing to do with the Whitechapel murderer and was not a product of his hand. Who did write it - whether a journalist or some other unnamed individual - is a lengthy and much debated question, and that debate does not belong here. But even if Barnett were the killer, that would not relate him to this dubious document in any way.
4) The "mystery" of the locked door is also cited as showing that Barnett may well have still been in possession of the key and his use of it to let himself out after having murdered Kelly would explain why the door was locked when the police arrived. In the fuller version of the inquest testimony, Inspector Abberline testified: "An impression has gone abroad that the murderer took away the key of the room. Barnett informs me that it has been missing some time, and since it has been lost they have put their hand through the broken window, and moved back the catch. It is quite easy." There was at least one witness in court who would have known the truth of this statement. Maria Harvey testified that she had stayed with Kelly in her room overnight on the Monday and Tuesday and had spent all Thursday afternoon with her. She must have been aware of the unusual arrangement for gaining access in the absence of a key. It is frustrating that she was not questioned on this matter as she was the one person present who could have verified what Barnett had said. However, as the fact that the door could not be opened became such an issue on the day of the murder, and held the police up until 1.30, a point extensively mentioned at the inquest, it seems odd that Harvey would not have mentioned the presence of a key if it had been available in the days before the murder. I can see no valid reason from the evidence we have for doubting that Barnett's story was the simple truth. He was interviewed for four hours on the day of the murder and Abberline made a point at the inquest of refuting the idea that there was any mystery attached to the whereabouts of the key.
The final point raised in the allegation that Barnett has a case to answer is his alleged similarity to the F.B.I. profile of the killer. Apart from the many questions raised about the accuracy of such profiling, the portrait produced is, in my opinion, so vague as to apply to many hundreds, if not thousands, of men living in the East End at the time. Also two points raised for consideration are, in my opinion, flawed. The profile says the killer would probably be a white male, 28 to 36 years of age living or working in Whitechapel. This fits Barnett and countless other men living in the area in 1888. The profile asserts the killer would have had an absent or passive father figure - Barnett's father died when he was young, 6 years of age, and his mother mysteriously disappeared from the household. The next point, that "the killer probably had a profession in which he could legally experience his destructive tendencies" is, in my opinion, flawed when applied to Barnett. This idea that filleting dead fish would either have satisfied the dark urges of a homicidal maniac or have prepared him with enough anatomical knowledge to dissect a human corpse is absurd. Apart from that, we must remember that Joseph Barnett was a fish porter, hence his main duty would have been carrying the fish in circular baskets. A distinctive reinforced hat was worn for this duty as these baskets were carried piled on the head. Many of the fish sold at Billingsgate would have been gutted and filleted on the quayside where they were caught before being sent off to market. The next item in the profile claims "the Ripper probably ceased his killing because he was either arrested for some other crime, or felt himself close to being discovered as the killer." Barnett, as stated above, was interviewed for four hours on the day of the murder, at least part of the time, evidently, by Abberline himself. Barnett must have been aware that in the early hours of the investigation he would have been a strong prima facie suspect. He asserted that as soon as he heard in the lodging house where he was staying about the murder he voluntarily went to the police. Abberline raised no doubts about Barnett's testimony, and the Coroner at the inquest made a point of saying to Barnett that he had given his evidence "very well indeed." Hardly the circumstances in which a man would feel himself to be "close to being discovered." The last point of comparison is the other one which I feel is flawed. The profile says the killer is likely to have "some sort of physical defect which was the source of a great deal of frustration or anger." This has given rise to the recent assertion, on the basis of one press report, that Barnett suffered from a condition called echolalia. Echolalia has been depicted as a speech impediment in which the last words of the interlocutor are repeated for no apparent reason.
The condition of echolalia is actually much more complex than this. There are actually two types of the condition - immediate and delayed. The latter type would not apply to the assertion made about Barnett. Delayed echolalia occurs when a phrase is repeated long after exposure to it and usually completely out of context. An example of this is the repetition of the phrase "Who's on first?" by Dustin Hoffman's character in the film "Rain Man." Immediate echolalia itself is subdivided into two categories - interactive and non-interactive. The categories of each type have seen summarised as follows:
Functional categories of immediate echolalia (Prizant & Duchan, 1981).
Category Description
A. Interactive
1. Turn taking 1.Utterances used as turn fillers in an alternating verbal exchange.
2. Declarative 2.Utterances labelling objects, actions, or location (accompanied by demonstrative gestures).
3. Yes answer 3.Utterances used to indicate affirmation of a prior utterance.
4. Request 4.Utterances used to request objects or others' actions. Usually involves mitigated echolalia.
B. Noninteractive
1. Nonfocused 1.Utterances produced with no apparent intent and often in states of high arousal (e.g., fear, pain).
2. Rehearsal 2.Utterances used as a processing aid, followed by utterance or action indicating comprehension of echoed utterance.
3. Self-regulatory 3.Utterances which serve to regulate one's own actions. Produced in synchrony with motor activity.
Echolalia is commonly associated with autism, it being calculated that up to 75% of persons with autism exhibit echolalia. The condition can also be associated with Tourette's Syndrome and some types of schizophrenia.
However, all this is academic unless we address the central issue of did Joseph Barnett suffer from echolalia? The links in the chain of evidence are, in my opinion, very weak.
1) On the basis of one press report we are told that Barnett repeated words.
2) We assume that this repetition was of the severity and nature to constitute a recognised condition
3) That condition was echolalia.
The fullest account we have of Barnett's actual words is the inquest report from the Daily Telegraph. This is important in that it actually gives the wording of the Coroner's questions as well as Barnett's answers. Having gone through Barnett's testimony in detail, the following is a list of instances when he uses words which occurred in the preceding question:
1) [Coroner] Were you on good terms ? - Yes, on friendly terms
2) [Coroner] Was she, generally speaking, of sober habits ? - When she was with me I found her of sober habits
And that is it! The only examples I can find where Barnett actually echoed a word or words used by the questioner. I hardly think this constitutes a psychological condition or a speech impediment.
To be fair to Barnett, if he were not the killer, we must for a moment ponder the psychological condition in which he would have been at the inquest. He was the focus of press attention in the most notorious case of the day, in the formal, imposing setting of an inquest court, giving intimate and unflattering details about the woman with whom he had lived for a year and half and who only a few days before had been murdered in an appalling and degrading manner. I think a little hesitancy or verbal stumbling on Barnett's part could be forgiven, and, in my opinion, that is why the Coroner commented on the manner in which he had given his evidence, for getting through a harrowing and traumatic experience with a modicum of dignity and lucidity. We may give the Ripper many names - and, indeed, many such have been put forward - but it is my opinion that Joseph Barnett is not one of those names.
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 4289
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 23, 2005 - 4:35 pm: |
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Extremely thorough and painstaking, but not at all dry. Congratulations again, Chris.
Robert |
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 1714
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 23, 2005 - 6:12 pm: |
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Sensitively observed Chris.The attention to detail is really impressive.And a really good read.Congratulations.
Natalie |
Brad McGinnis
Inspector
Username: Brad
Post Number: 239
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 24, 2005 - 8:22 am: |
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Damn! Well researched, well written, and as always to the point. I hope Stephan puts this post in the dissertations section. Good job Chris! Brad.
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Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1831
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 24, 2005 - 1:05 pm: |
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Thanks for all the comments - much appreciated.
Chris |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 1364
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 25, 2005 - 5:18 am: |
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Hi Chris,
My question is 'Can we assume that Barnett was not married when he met kelly.?
I believe there is a strong possibility that the real Joseph Barnett was a Jew, and he married in 1878 to a jewess [one Julia Jacobs], and fathered five children between 1879-1886 all the children having jewish names.
This imformation came from you Chris some time back.
Can we dismiss this candidate as Joe, he could have easily have left his wife for a period until after the kelly murder.However the jigsaw does not fit as this Barnett was living in the Mile end road at the time of the 1891 census, apparently not with his mother.
However this Barnetts eldest daughter Rachael could have been named after one of his sisters.
Confused as always .
Regards Richard.
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Clive Appleby
Police Constable
Username: Clive
Post Number: 8
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Friday, March 25, 2005 - 10:37 am: |
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Chris,
Excellent work and fascinating reading.
Although nothing like as intensively as yourself, I am in the process of doing some work on the kelly case and examining the question as to whether she was killed by the same hand as killed at least three of the other victims; Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes. (Stride and Tabram also being debatable).
As with all studies that do not have a particular cause to promote, the results are likely to be inconclusive.
However, I am leaning towards a view that for various reasons and on a (narrow) balance of probabilities, Kelly was not killed by "Jack the Ripper". (Although this view may alter subject to further work and reconsideration of the arguments "for" and "against").
If this is the case (and only if) for various reasons that I won't go into here, I also do not believe that Joseph Barnett can be dismissed lightly as a suspect.
That aside, I was intrigued by one detail in the account of an interview given by Barnett to the reporter from the Star on the 9th November and published on the 10th. This is where Barnett is alleged to have said:
"He knew nothing about her proceedings since he left her, except that his brother met her on the Thursday evening and spoke to her".
Of course newspaper reports can be unreliable, but this detail does not strike me as being sufficiently sensationalist to have been invented nor having sufficient "margin of error" for it to have been misreported. Subject to the truth or otherwise of this report, you can at least include in your list of "known facts" about "our" Barnett that "possibly had at least one brother"
If the Star account is true, although not "earth shattering" in itself, it could have interesting implications and pose a number of questions (for both the Pro-Barnett as the killer of kelly camp and the opposite, subject to interpretations).
Bruce Paley obviously picked up on this statement and ties it in with the Maurice Lewis account to the press that Lewis saw kelly in the "Horn of Plenty" between 10.00 - 11.00pm on the 9th with some companions, among them her friend Julia and a man identified as "Dan", described as an orange seller with whom Kelly had recently been living.
Paley concludes that Lewis has mistaken Joseph Barnett for Daniel Barnett and adds, based on the report in the Star, "although it is known that Daniel did meet with Kelly later that night".
This looks like an assumption on Paley's part that it was Daniel Barnett who met with Kelly sometime that evening, as (again if the account is true) Joseph Barnett does not specify which of his brothers met with Kelly.
Then, as indeed now, East End families are very close-knit, and we know that certainly his sister was supportive as he went to live with her after leaving Bullers lodging house because of the intrusions.
One implication of Joseph Barnett's statement is that, although it was obviously a very busy day for him (hearing about the murder, being interviewed for a fair length of time by the police, giving interviews to the press etc), he must have seen his "brother" at some time on the 9th November to know that he met with kelly the previous evening (unless he only knew that a brother was due to have met with kelly, but did not know for certain whether this meeting actually took place).
This could have interpretations at oppostite extremes of the arguments.
(1) If Daniel, or one of Joseph's brothers did visit/see kelly on the evening of the 9th, what was the purpose of this visit, and what was said ? Were the male members of the Barnett family (or at least one other) clanning together in support of Joseph, and bullying Mary Kelly because she "wasn't towing the line" in her behaviour.
In addition, if, as according to the inquest testimony of both Barnett himself and Julia Venturney, kelly was still "fond" of Joe Flemming/Fleming, was she still seeing him and thereby making Joseph Barnett something of a "cuckold" (to use the old-fashioned but useful word). In which case did any of the Barnett's know, and was this considered an insult not only to Joseph Barnett, but to the whole family ?
If so, did the "bullying" go a stage further ? Was kelly murdered by the Barnetts as the ultimate sanction and the crime made out to look like a Ripper killing to detract suspicion ? (One of my reasons for questioning whether Kelly was a victim of the Ripper in the first place, is that the extent of the mutilations appears to me more like an exaggerated parody of a Ripper killing than the "natuaral progression" of a serial killer).
Although not conclusive in any way, it is also interesting to note that the Home Secretary made the fascinating observation in the context of offering a pardon, that there were grounds to believe that there was an accomplice involved in the kelly killing, which was not the case with those that went beforehand.
Unfortunately we do not know what these grounds were, other than that it seems to be in connection with something after the actual killing rather than before or during.
Conversely, Joseph Barnett meeting with one (or more) of his brothers on the 9th November might merely be the natural behaviour of family members rallying round to support a distraught (and briefly suspected,) but totally innocent sibling. At any event (and again only if the report is true) if one of Barnett's brothers did meet with kelly on the night of 9th November, he would have been a crucial witness and I would have expected him to have been interviewed by the police. There does not seem to be any evidence that this happened.
Were the Barnett's "whiter than white" or "blacker than black" ? We do not know. It could just be "shades of grey" whereby there were undoubtedly intense domestic frictions in the whole Barnett-kelly relationship, but these were subsumed by something far more sinister, as all of their lives were dramatically intruded upon by something and someone far more sinister, namely "Jack the Ripper", whoever he, she or they may have been.
(Whilst working on this post I have discovered from the Jack the Ripper A-Z that Mark Madden has also proposed that both Barnett brothers should be taken seriously as suspects for the kelly murder. I cannot therefore claim any originality here, but have arrived at this as a possibility independently.)
Best Wishes and keep up the good work.
Clive
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Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1838
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 25, 2005 - 12:31 pm: |
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Hi Richard
I remember the Joseph/Julia couple and I did some follow up work. If I remember rightly (I will look out the research notes and post)the census details and especially the dates of births of the children made his living with Kelly for 18-20 months during 1887 and 188 simply unfeasible. But I will look this up and post what I have
Clive
Many thanks for the comments and I will read your post with great interest> Good luck with your own researches and I hope we can see the fruits of them!
All the best
Chris
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Richard Brian Nunweek
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 1365
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 25, 2005 - 12:43 pm: |
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Hi Clive,
Good post you proberly know I am a Barnett man, the only problem I find frustrating is a positive identification of the actual man.
Paley seems to have found the man as his Barnett had a brother called Dan, however i do not believe it is as simple as that.
You are correct the pardon is intresting the wording ' There are certain facts in the latest murder that was found wanting in the others that suggest that the murderer had a accomplice that if not actually assisted the killer in the event may have done so afterwards'[ not exactwording]
One wonders if the police actually came to the conclusion very quickly that the murder occured during daylight hours , therefore the killer would have been seen [if not actually in the streets] when he reached a safe house.
I believe all speculation is wasteful unless there is a positive identification of the real J Barnett.
Regards Richard. |
Donald Souden
Inspector
Username: Supe
Post Number: 480
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 25, 2005 - 1:03 pm: |
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Clive,
You might want to check the "General Discussion> There are certain circumstances" thread where the topic of the pardon was examined. I won't repeat my observations, but after researching the issue I came to the conclusion the pardon offer was a palliative to the public and that the "certain circumstances" statement that came several weeks after the offer was -- to use a modern term -- just so much spin. And all the more because in the same Parliamentary debate in which Matthews made that statement he willingly extended the pardon offer to cover all the suspected Ripper murders.
Don.
"He was so bad at foreign languages he needed subtitles to watch Marcel Marceau."
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Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1839
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 25, 2005 - 1:20 pm: |
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Here are the entries for the Joseph/Julia couple for 1891 and 1901.
Joseph/Julia Barnett
1891
50 Mile End Road
Head: Joseph Barnett aged 32 born Whitechapel - Commercial traveller
Wife: Julia Barnett aged 32 born Whitechapel
Children:
Louie aged 12
Rachael aged 11
Gershon aged 9
Matilda aged 7
Rosetta aged 5
1901
57 Northwold Road, Hackney
Head: Joseph Barnett aged 42 born Clerkenwell - Commission agent
Wife: Julia Barnett aged 42 born Islington
Children:
Lewis aged 22 born Holborn - Clerk to wine merchant
Gershon aged 19 born Islington - Barman
Matilda aged 17 born Stoke Newington - Dressmaker
Rachel aged 21 born Stoke Newington - Housekeeper
Rose aged 15 born Stoke Newington - Clerk in bookshop
Of course, there is no definitive proof that this couple did not split up in 1887 to 1888 and get back after the Kelly murder, but the professions as given - commercial traveller and commission agent - do not, in my opinion, ring true with the Barnett involved with Mary Kelly
Chris
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Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1840
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 25, 2005 - 1:29 pm: |
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And here is the same family in 1881
1881
6 Artillery Street
Head: Joseph Bassett (sic) aged 17 born London - Boot clicker
Wife: Julia Bassett aged 17 born Middlesex
Children:
Lewis aged 3 born Middlesex
Rachael aged 2 born Middlesex
(Message edited by Chris on March 25, 2005) |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 1367
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 25, 2005 - 1:53 pm: |
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Thanks Chris,
Now I am confused unless you have got the wrong ages.
Clearly the 1881 census has two wrong entries a] the surname, b] the ages, although the children are named the same [ well almost] Lewis[ instead of Louis, and there ages corresponde.
The ages of the couple who marries in 1878 must have been aged 14[ is that conceivable then under British Law?]
As you correctly stated we have no way of knowing if this Barnett if infact he was not a Bassett..left his wife for Kelly and returned head in hand to his wife after her death, also the change if professions is possible since he started off as a boot clicker/ Commercial traveller/ commission agent[ similar].
He proberly was not are Barnett, however we have to look at every avenue.
Thanks,
Richard. |
Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1841
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 25, 2005 - 2:11 pm: |
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the ages in 1881 are as given in the transcribed index (on the Mormon site) as is the surname Bassett. I have not yet had a look at the original sheet. If the 1891 and 1901 returns are correct then in 1881 both Julia and Joseph would have been 22 years old. This is certainly a more feasible age to have children of 2 and 3 years old.
I suspect the 17 age given is in fact a misreadng for 22 and as soon as I can verify this I will let you knwo
Chris
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Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1842
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 25, 2005 - 2:22 pm: |
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Actually now that I look at the original sheet both ages do show clearly as 17. So there is a 5 year discrepancy. On the original it also looks as though the age of Lewis is given as 3 months and not 3 years. This is odd in that all the following returns Lewis is listed as the oldest child and in 1891 he is listed as 1 year older than Rachel. Despite the age discrepancy, I am sure that the combination of names Joseph/Julia/Lewis/Rachel make it pretty certain this is the same family.
 |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 1368
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 25, 2005 - 2:57 pm: |
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Hi Chris,
Strange all the same, the writing is obscure, I can actually see Barnett, not Bassett, the third letter of the surname looks like a R to me the third and fourth letters have a different stroke to be the same lettering, the bottom half of the fourth letter in the surname looks like a N to me.
Mayby its my eyes and the cans of Nectar I have indulged in.
Richard. |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 1369
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 25, 2005 - 3:00 pm: |
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Hi Chris,
Strange all the same, the writing is obscure, I can actually see Barnett, not Bassett, the third letter of the surname looks like a R to me the third and fourth letters have a different stroke to be the same lettering, the bottom half of the fourth letter in the surname looks like a N to me.
Mayby its my eyes and the cans of Nectar I have indulged in.
Richard. |
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