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Stephen P. Ryder
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 2868
Registered: 10-1997
| | Posted on Sunday, November 02, 2003 - 10:50 am: |       |
Sickert and the Ripper Crimes: An Investigation into the Relationship Between the Whitechapel Murders of 1888 and the English Tonal Painter Walter Richard Sickert
Jean Overton Fuller
Mandrake, 2003
Softcover. 284pp., illustrated, bibliography, index.
ISBN 1869928-687
The 2002 release of Patricia Cornwell’s best-selling Portrait of a Killer propelled Walter Sickert’s popularity as a Ripper suspect to all new heights. But she wasn’t the first to put him forward as the killer. Twelve years previously a poet and artist named Jean Overton Fuller made her own case against Sickert, in a much less-publicized book, Sickert and the Ripper Crimes.
The entirety of Jean’s theory rests upon a story told to her in the 1940s by her mother, who had herself heard it directly from Florence Pash. Pash was a close friend of Sickert’s – one of the very few sources we have who knew him all the way back to the 1880s.
Jean’s story has close parallels with the “Royal Conspiracy” laid down by Stephen Knight in the 1970s. According to Fuller, Prince Eddy did indeed have an affair with a commoner, who bore his illegitimate child. The royal offspring was of course hushed up, and for a time stayed with Walter Sickert. He had in turn acquired a domestic to watch the child – a woman named Mary Kelly. Unfortunately, Mary got wise to the child’s royal parentage, and began to blackmail Sickert with her knowledge. This enraged Walter, who fervently desired to protect the Royal family, and in a sudden urge he took it upon himself to murder Mary and (possibly) several other prostitutes with whom she had shared her deadly secret. (I say possibly, because Jean is open to the idea that Walter murdered only Mary and Kate Eddowes – Kate, she believes, was a “mistake”).
Once the job was done, Sickert reverted back to his “normal” life, possibly venting his sadistic urges at the canvas instead. Over the years he shared bits and pieces of his story with Florence Pash, telling her he’d inserted clues as to the real story into several of his paintings, so that the truth could be known after his death.
Of course, Florence knew only small parts of this story. Although she claimed to have met Mary Kelly, she seems not to have made the link that Sickert was the killer (instead, she believed Sickert only knew who the killer was). Florence only told Jean’s mother what she herself knew – it was the Fuller women who filled in the blanks and discovered the supposed connection between Sickert and Jack the Ripper.
Is the connection valid? If you believe Florence Pash’s story word for word, it would almost have to be. But there is no outside evidence to support any of it. Could Florence have made it up? Possibly. It seems more likely, however, that Sickert himself may have fabricated it, perhaps just to “get a rise” out of his friends. There is no doubt that Sickert held a deep-seated fascination with Jack the Ripper, and was quite the jokester in his day – it would not have been out-of-character for him to have done such a thing, simply to add a sense of notoriety or mystery to his reputation. (Tumblety may been of the same persuasion - as he managed to link himself to both the Lincoln and Garfield assassinations in America, as well as with the Ripper murders in London.)
In the third (2003) edition, Jean includes a supplementary chapter – “Development since first publication.” In it she relates her encounters with Joseph Sickert, as well as her thoughts on the 1992 book by Melvyn Fairclough, The Ripper and the Royals. She is dismissive of Melvyn’s “flavor” of Royal Conspiracy, and of the certainly-forged Abberline Diaries – but with a twist. She believes both to have been concocted by Walter Sickert himself, who then “planted” them with his son Joseph. She notes similarities between Walter Sickert’s handwriting and that of both the From Hell letter and the Abberline Diaries.
Perhaps surprisingly – or perhaps not – Jean is highly dismissive as well of Patricia Cornwell’s “evidence” against Walter Sickert.
Although she admits she’s out of her depth in discussing the intricacies of mitochondrial DNA, she openly rejects Cornwell’s claim that Sickert was impotent. She also rejects – quite rightly – the idea that Sickert wrote all or nearly all of the 600+ Ripper letters. The scribbles found in the much-touted Lizard guest book impress Fuller as being not at all similar to Sickert’s drawings. Indeed, if she were asked to collaborate with Cornwell on a book about Sickert as the Ripper, Jean says her answer would be a resounding NO.
Altogether, Sickert and the Ripper Crimes remains an important and unique examination of Walter Sickert’s connections with the infamous murders. The story told by Florence Pash and fleshed out by Fuller is hard to swallow in several respects, but I have no doubt that Florence was telling the truth as she believed it to be. The question is now whether her version of events is actual truth, or yet another invention by the endlessly beguiling Walter Sickert.
It should be noted that several canards and factual errors do appear in the text (and remain uncorrected even in the third edition). The most glaring error being the mislabeling of Annie Chapman’s photograph as “Elizabeth Stride”, and vice-versa. The text itself could use a slight editorial brush-up in places. Still, it is an intriguing story which should not be ignored.
Stephen P. Ryder, Editor
Casebook: Jack the Ripper |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Detective Sergeant
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 137
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 03, 2003 - 3:40 pm: | |
i would be interested to get hold of a copy of this.
hope it is released in the uk sooner rather than later!
jennifer |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 360
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 03, 2003 - 3:29 pm: | |
Hi Stephen and Jennifer
Ms. Fuller's updated book should prove an interesting read in light of Ms Cornwell's having 'solved' the mystery. My copy of the book came from England and I was under the impression that this book was never released in its original form in the U.S.. I would expect the updated version will be released in the U.K.
I recall that I came away with a couple of impressions after reading the book when it first came out. Firstly, that Walter Sickert was a nasty piece of work who would have been capable of using fantasy and imagination to inject himself into the JTR murders. Secondly, that he was not capable of any actual involvement himself.
A brief word on Melvyn Fairclough's THE RIPPER AND THE ROYALS, Melvyn now believes that he was duped and has distanced himself from the book.
As the lads from the A-Z indicate anything on JTR coming from Joseph (Gorman) Sickert, should be approached with a great deal of caution.
All The Best
Gary |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 361
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 03, 2003 - 3:32 pm: | |
P.S. When looking for the book check art/history as well as true crime. |
Robert Clack
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rclack
Post Number: 140
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 03, 2003 - 5:03 pm: | |
Hi Jennifer
The book is available now. I got my copy from amazon uk website in September.
All the best
Rob |
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