Jack the Ripper: The Secret Police Files

by Marriott, Trevor

  As far as the entry relating to John Kelly is concerned, she states that it shows him receiving a file from Jenkinson. However, again reading the entry this is clearly not the case. The entry clearly relates to one of a number of files the Metropolitan Police received from Jenkinson who was asked to hand over his files to the newly formed Special Branch before he left his post in 1887.

  There are other entries in the register, which confirm my belief. In staying with the John Kelly entry a further examination of newly found police records reveals a John Kelly aka John Moran who was an informant working for both the British and Irish Governments in 1886. He was relocated to Canada and subsequently received yearly payment from the British Government after being relocated these are recorded up as far as 1887 so I would suggest the John Kelly shown in the register are one and the same and not the common law partner of Catherine Eddowes as suggested by Lowde’s. This negates her theory that both were working as spies for Special Branch.

  With regards to Ms. Lowde’s theory, she even goes so far as to say that Chief Inspector Littlechild was actually responsible for Eddowes murder and also ordered the murder of Mary Kelly, as both were planning to reveal details involving the indiscretion of Prince Albert Edward Victor and his alleged association with Mary Kelly which resulted in her allegedly giving birth to a love child who was subsequently spirited away by Special Branch officers. This version differs from the other version where Annie Crook is named as having given birth to a royal love child of Prince Albert Victor.

  I cannot accept what Ms. Lowde is suggesting in relation to the entries. It is a fact that all the entries are undated. It is now clear that all of the entries in the register were entered retrospectively en masse after 1894, and although the entries in the register relate to files formulated from February 1888, there is clear evidence to show that earlier files predating February 1888 were also entered in the ledgers. The entries referred to by Ms. Lowde and other entries on that same page are proof of that.

  With regards to the entry regarding the McDoughty murder I have closely examined this entry and the entry could in fact refer to a “Mr. Doughty” and not “McDoughty”. The person who made all of the entries has made such a small entry prefixing the surname it could be either. In any event I could find no specific references or details of any murders in either name. I did find an entry in The Guardian newspaper dated November 23rd 1887. Part of the article related to a Henry Doughty and having regard to the date and the fact that the entry in the register could have related to that same time period they could be one and the same. The entry in the ledger refers to a specific murder however, it could be the case that it was a plot to murder which never came to fruition; the article shows Henry Doughty as an Irish activist and he without a doubt would have come to the notice of police. The extract reads:

  “Mr. Henry Doughty, who calls himself the London workingmen's delegate to Ireland, was on Friday last sentenced to a month's imprisonment for inciting people to adopt the Plan of Campaign and to join the League in a proclaimed district. Mr. Doughty on hearing the sentence rose, and, waving his hat in the air, shouted “God save Ireland." The cry was taken up by the people in court, a number of soldiers belonging to the Leinster regiment being especially demonstrative. The magistrate immediately sentenced a countryman who was arrested in the act of observing for O'Brien to a week's imprisonment, and the tumult subsided. Mr. Doughty was subsequently removed to the gaol at Limerick, care being taken to prevent anything like a disturbance on the way.”

  In February 2009 Alex Butterworth’s Freedom of Information appeal was heard. It should be noted that despite lodging the appeal Alex Butterworth was not notified of the date of the hearing, nor was he given the opportunity to attend and to add more weight to the appeal or call any witnesses in support of his appeal, turning the appeal hearing into a one-sided affair.

  During the appeal the Metropolitan Police went to great lengths to emphasize to the appeal tribunal the importance of not disclosing the identity of informants. In fact they went so far as to say that it was not possible to distinguish in the ledgers and register as to what information related to informants and what did not. This without a doubt was a misleading statement, which in my opinion had a major impact on the tribunal’s final decision.

  Due to the overwhelming police evidence much of which was heard in closed session the information commissioners conceded defeat and a compromise was made between the Metropolitan Police and the Freedom of Information Commissioner, both agreeing that the ledgers and register could be made public subject to all proper names being redacted out. This made the ledgers and register nothing more than a black mass of the redactors pen. To show this more clearly the same unredacted page previously referred to in (Picture 15 ) is now shown following the redacting process in (Picture 16 ).

  Following this decision I went to inspect copies of the register and the ledgers. It became clear that despite all the redaction it would have been a relatively easy task for someone like me or in fact any other experienced police officer to go through the register and ledgers and be able to distinguish which entries related directly to information given by named informants and that which did not.

  Even in redacted form it soon became apparent that the register was an early form of collators record used to collate information submitted by police officers. When I joined the police service in 1970 we operated collators systems. This was in the form of a card index system. Information was manually entered on index cards by officers working in the collator’s office.

  This was information submitted to the office by officers on the beat etc. It would include general information about crime and criminals, motors vehicles connected to suspects etc. The information would have been either gathered by officers themselves or could have been passed on to them by informants or members of the public. It should be said that it was not always accurate and reliable and in some cases may have been as a result of malicious intent by the provider.

  On further examining the register not only had the names of informants been edited out but all others names, which are clearly not informants had also been edited out. The first thing that struck me was that despite all the editing out of these ledgers it could be seen that they contained a wealth of information. I would have to say these ledgers and register are some of the most informative and interesting vintage police documents I have come across, and to think these ledgers were offered to The National Archives and they declined to take them stating they contained no useful information.

  After going through the register in redacted form I did find four interesting undated entries regarding Jack the Ripper and the Whitechapel murders.

  The first entry was under a specific entry titled Jack the Ripper, the entry read, “The name given to suspect -------- at Bushmills” followed by a file reference number obviously the name has been redacted out. The missing file would have contained the relevant information as to why that person had been considered to be a suspect.

  The second entry found was an entry from Chief Inspector Littlechild, which read, “Suspect --------- & The Whitechapel Murders” followed by file reference number. Again the name has been redacted out, and again the relevant now missing file would have contained an entry as to what the information was to make Littlechild submit the information to be recorded.

  The third entry read, “McGrath, William – “said to be connected to Whitechapel murders””

  The fourth entry read, “McGrath, William – “suspicious Irishman at 57 Bedford Gardens””

  In addition at the back of the register were references made to anonymous letters received by Special Branch regarding the Whitechapel murders. I would have imagined that perhaps the contents of these may have been entered under separate register entries and may have even been the specific entries referred to above.

  The names, which are shown in the four specific entries, could have been the names of Ripper suspects already known. Or they could just be names suggested by
informants or names simply given to the police, which warranted further investigation. If they were to reveal names of new suspects the Ripper mystery would be thrown wide open yet again. There may of course have been other vital information regarding Jack the Ripper and the Whitechapel murders in the ledgers and the register, but due to the heavy redacting I found it almost impossible to assess and evaluate all the entries fully.

  Undeterred by this I then submitted a number of additional specific requests to the Metropolitan Police under the Freedom of Information Act to access the ledgers and register in unredacted form. These requests were centred around the four entries from the register and any other entries relating to the Whitechapel murders and Jack the Ripper, which may be contained in them but due to the heavy redaction were not readily visible. At the time I emphasized to the police that I had no interest in informants or disclosing the names of informants. Despite all of this the Metropolitan Police again rejected all of my requests.

  The police were using the Butterworth appeal decision for their basis of the constant refusals. I then lodged an appeal with the Metropolitan Police on all their decisions to refuse access. This is an appeal conducted internally by the police, needless to say as expected, was also unsuccessful. This is a ridiculous part of the Freedom of Information process whereby the police review a decision made by them via a different department.

  In the interim period I obtained a copy of the thesis written by Lindsay Clutterbuck, which I studied and read meticulously. In Clutterbuck’s thesis he clearly states he had been given special permission to access the ledgers and register. He states he decided to use and publish the names of the informants as they were recorded in the primary documents, however he accepts that these names may or may not have been totally accurate, having regard to the fact that informants do not always use their correct names and equally police officers also refer to their informants by secondary names or nicknames.

  Clutterbuck at the time he wrote his thesis was a serving Special Branch officer of the rank of Detective Chief Inspector working in the Specialist Operations Department at New Scotland Yard where he undertook a variety of roles relating to counterterrorism. For three years he was head of the MPS unit responsible for national and London-wide counterterrorism policy and strategy. He without a doubt would have known about the Metropolitan Police policy on informants. He obviously thought it did not apply to informants going back 125 years. Nor would it seem his superiors who obviously gave him permission to examine and then extract and publish many extracts and details of informants.

  However, in any event all the informants and other names contained in the ledgers have been dead for many years and on looking at the long periods that a large number of them spent working for the Metropolitan Police Special Branch, Clutterbuck believes it is quite possible that any belated recognition of their services may well have met with their approval. In the thesis he describes the ledgers as follows:

  Special account box volumes of 1 to 3

  There are three special account books each measuring 160 millimetres by 200 millimetres and printed into five columns per page. They detail, amongst other items what appears to be the cash amounts paid out to individual informants. In all, approximately 6000 individual entries span a total of the 24 years from 1888 to 1912.

  Book one which is headed “special” account and runs from February 1, 1888 to December 5, 1894.

  Book two, with no heading commences on December 12, 1894 and finishes on December 25, 1901.

  Book three again with no heading covers the years from January 1, 1902 to March 27, 1912.

  The Chief Constable’s register is a bound ledger measuring 27 centimetres by 38 centimetres by six centimetres weighing 4 kg. The front cover is embossed with the words “crime department – special branch” and the first page bears the stamp “criminal investigation department –chief constable’s office – SPECIAL” with the handwritten date of 20.4.88 inserted into its centre. It appears to serve at several functions and each page is divided into four columns, each headed respectively;

  NAME

  SUBJECT

  REFERENCE TO CORRESPONDENCE FOLIO

  REFERENCE TO CORRESPONDENCE IN REGISTER

  At the rear of the book, two pages detail anonymous letters sent to the special branch. A further six pages contain references to extract from the press, ranging from the radical to the establishment, from within Great Britain and abroad. However, it is the remainder of the book that contains the most significant research material in relation to the Victorian special branch and also the Whitechapel murders.

  It is organized into alphabetical cuts, with each letter further divided into sub cuts headed A, E, I, O, U. At 35 lines a page there is a minimum of 1000 entries per letter of the alphabet, plus “Mc” and the use of the spare capacity at the back for overflow. Very few pages are not filled completely, giving a total of up to 30,000, one line entries.

  A number in the “reference to correspondence” column always in the format of a fraction e.g. 3622/2 accompanies each one line entry. Another number, usually between one and 400 e.g. 294 appears in the “Folio in correspondence register” column.

  Overall the ledger appears to have been designed to operate on three levels.

  As a register for correspondence and information sent to special branch by the rest of the Metropolitan Police and other police forces plus the home office other government departments, and members of the public. In addition to requests for information and documents not only from provincial police forces in England, but also from The USA, South Africa and Australia.

  As an index to the reports submitted by its own officers.

  As a nominal and subject index of people and topics mentioned as in 1 and 2 above.

  The ledger also gives an insight as to how Special Branch set up their ports screening system enabling them to identify Irishmen and Irish Americans entering the UK. Special Branch also took a great interest in screening and interrogating cattlemen who arrived on cattle boats. From entries in the ledger it would seem suspect Irishmen would attempt to enter the UK on these boats.

  In his thesis Clutterbuck makes reference to two entries in the ledger relating to the Whitechapel murders and Jack the Ripper. One is a named person suspected of being Jack the Ripper. I was unable to confirm as to whether these are the same two entries I have previously referred to...

  Although Clutterbuck’s thesis is formulated around the workings of Special Branch he does pass comments in relation to certain police officers who have previously been mentioned in connection with the Whitechapel murders, these being Inspector Abberline, Chief Inspector Littlechild, Sir Robert Anderson, and James Monro all of whom in later years all suggested they knew the identity of Jack the Ripper in their respective memoirs or letters, or interviews with the press.

  Clutterbuck specifically mentions Monro and refers to a sentence in a memorandum from the Home Secretary Henry Matthews sent in 1888 to his Private Secretary Evelyn Ruggles-Brise that read: “Stimulate the Police about the Whitechapel murders. Monro might be willing to give a hint to the CID people if necessary.” This memo seemed to suggest that Monro at the time knew more about the possible identity of Jack the Ripper than his role as “secret agent” for the home office allowed him to reveal to the detectives investigating the murders. Clutterbuck states in his thesis that the Chief Constable’s register contains several intriguing references to at least support the contention that “special” had more than a passing interest in Jack the Ripper, but none to corroborate Francis Tumblety the new contemporary suspect that Stewart Evans and Paul Gainey had put forward in their book “The Lodger” (1995). Conversely he states that their conclusion (Evans and Gainey) that “Ripperologist’s” could no longer rely upon the writings of Sir Robert Anderson as accurate tends to echo in the comments of Superintendent Mallon of the Dublin Metropolitan Police some years previously (Bussey.1910). Anderson stated in his book published in 1910 that he knew the identity of the Ripper, b
elieving him to have been a Polish Jew, but never naming him.

  One might well ask if Monro did have his own theory about the Ripper murders. He was involved in the investigation in 1889 of the murder of Alice McKenzie as Robert Anderson was on leave at the time, in relation to that murder Monro is quoted as saying, “I need not say that every effort will be made by the police to discover the murderer, who, I am inclined to believe, is identical with the notorious Jack the Ripper of last year.” By this statement he obviously has a firm belief that she was a Ripper victim. If that is the case, I would suggest this adds even more weight in ruling out Francis Tumblety as being the Ripper as it is fact that he was not in the country at the time of this murder.

  As far as Monro is concerned, it could have been not so much a matter of discretion on his part as a case of ignorance. We do know he had a theory because in 1890 he told Cassell’s Magazine he had “decidedly” formed a theory and stated, “When I do theorise it is from a practical standpoint and not upon any visionary foundation.” His grandson Christopher remembers him saying, “Jack the Ripper should have been caught”.

  The truth is that Monro never published his memoirs and in fact no one knew he had written any until they were discovered in a back room in a house in Edinburgh in 1983, unseen by anyone outside his family. The memoirs contained detailed references to a number of notable cases he had been involved in. They make no mention of the Ripper case. So if Monro did know anything more than his own personal theory as to the identity of Jack the Ripper he took it to his grave. I personally do not believe he did.

  I would thoroughly recommend Clutterbuck’s thesis for those interested in how Special Branch was formed and how it operated from its conception in 1888 to the present day. I was amazed as to exactly how much information from the ledgers and the register Clutterbuck had published. In fact out of 439 pages of his thesis 117 bear reference to specific entries in the aforementioned ledgers and register.