10.10.96 (1 day)
Poland Street Workhouse
27.11.96–14.1.97
Strand Union Workhouse, Edmonton
19.1–13.3.97
{20.3–27.4.97
Poland Street Workhouse
{28–29.4.97
Cleveland Street Infirmary
{29.4–18.5.97
St Giles Workhouse, Endell Street
{19–23.5.97
Poland Street Workhouse
29–31.5.97
St Giles Workhouse, Endell Street
28.5–9.6.98
13–15.6.98
29.10–2.11.98
Strand Union Workhouse, Bear Yard
{24–26.11.98
Strand Union Workhouse, Edmonton
{26.11.98–29.3.99 *
Poland Street Workhouse
26.3–12.4.99
Strand Union Workhouse, Bear Yard
{14–15.4.99
Strand Union Workhouse, Edmonton
{15.4–6.6.99
St Pancras Workhouse
27.6–17.7.99
Strand Union Workhouse, Bear Yard
{28–29.9.99
Cleveland Street Infirmary
{29.9–25.10.99
Strand Union Workhouse, Bear Yard
{25.10.99 (1 day)
Strand Union Workhouse, Edmonton
{25.10.99–28.2.00
Cleveland Street Infirmary
3.3–19.6.00
Poland Street Workhouse
4.4–5.6.01
Strand Union Workhouse, Edmonton
{27.7–1.8.01
Cleveland Street Infirmary
{1.8–9.9.01
Hendon Infirmary
{9.9–14.12.01
Cleveland Street Infirmary
{22.12.01–26.2.02
Poland Street Workhouse
{26.2–5.4.02
2.12.04–27.3.05
11–12.4.05
14.4–15.5.05
{23.10.05 (1 day)
Cleveland Street Infirmary
{23.10–3.11.05
Poland Street Workhouse
{3.11.05–31.1.06
2–5.2.06
8–9.3.06
11.3–9.4.06
11–13.4.06
Strand Union Workhouse, Bear Yard
{16.4.06 (1 day)
Cleveland Street Infirmary
{16–25.4.06
Poland Street Workhouse
{25–30.4.06
Cleveland Street Infirmary
{9–22.5.06
Strand Union Workhouse, Bear Yard
{22.5.06 (1 day)
Poland Street Workhouse
15.11.06–30.1.07
(With Annie and Alice. See dates)
Poland Street Workhouse
13.2–28.3.07
5.10–9.12.07
19.8–7.9.08
16–17.9.08
28.10–16.11.08
15.3–12.5.09
St Giles Workhouse, Endell Street
29.4–14.5.13
(With Alice. See dates)
{12.6.13 (1 day)
Cleveland Street Infirmary
{12–25.6.13
St Giles Workhouse, Endell Street
30.6–1.7.13
Cleveland Street Infirmary
{1.7.13–?
St Giles Workhouse, Endell Street
{17–20.10.13
{21.10–29.11.13
Tooting Bec Mental Hospital
{29.1–16.12.13
Caterham Mental Hospital (now St Lawrence’s Hospital)
{16.12.13–18.11.16 (Dead)
*There is possibly an error in date of discharge in view of the overlap with next entry
* * *
Much as Knight didn’t want to believe him, Sickert was telling the truth – the whole thing was a hoax. All the evidence confirms it.
At the beginning of his book Knight placed a quotation from Twelfth Night: ‘here comes my noble gull-catcher’ which, I have always assumed, was a compliment to himself for having provided, as he thought, the final solution. Clearly he didn’t and the kindest thing that can be said about Knight and this particular piece of research is that he was (forgive the pun) gullible.
The extremes to which the Clarence theorists can go is best exemplified by Frank Spiering’s Prince Jack. The author attempts to justify his bizarre creation by stating in the introduction that the book ‘is mainly a reconstruction of what I feel did happen, based on everything I read, officially and unofficially’. His only original source of fresh material was the location, so he claimed, of a copy of Gull’s notes ‘bound in an ancient portfolio’ and kept in the New York Academy of Medicine. Presumably it was from these that he was able to describe Gull’s hypnosis of Clarence and his watching horrified ‘as Eddy showed him how he slit the woman’s throat’. From this examination Gull allegedly discovered the ‘latent cause’ of Eddy’s demented state. The syphilis had thrust him into fits of fantastic rage. Violence was the outpouring of his pain.
* * *
Annie Elizabeth Crook (mother)
Periods spent in Workhouses and Infirmaries. Bracketed dates indicate consecutive periods of refuge.
St Marylebone Workhouse
18.4–6.5.85
(With Alice)
St Giles Workhouse, Endell Street
22.1.89 (1 day)
(With Alice)
St Pancras Workhouse
7–23.2.03
12–27.3.03
St Pancras Infirmary
{28.10–12.11.03
St Pancras Workhouse
{13.11.03–13.5.04
Highgate Hospital (hemiplegia)
{13.5–11.11.04
St Pancras Workhouse
11–14.11.04
Poland Street Workhouse
{14.11.04–7.8.06
13.11.06–3.4.07
{(With Alice and Sarah. See dates)
Cleveland Street Infirmary
{3.4–11.6.07
Hendon Infirmary
{11.6–31.10.07
Cleveland Street Infirmary
{31.10.07–12.3.13
Hendon Infirmary
{12.3.13–?
Fulham Road Infirmary (now St Stephen’s Hospital)
{18–19.2.20
Note: Both Annie and Alice also received out-relief from the St Pancras Board of Guardians between 1902 and 1903
* * *
Alice Margaret Crook (daughter)
Periods spent in Workhouses and Infirmaries. Bracketed dates indicate consecutive periods of refuge.
St Marylebone Workhouse
18.4.85–6.5.85
(With Annie)
St Giles Workhouse, Endell Street
22.1.89 (1 day)
(With Annie)
29–30.4.94
St Pancras Infirmary
1–5.9.04
Poland Street Workhouse
{10–11.10.05
Cleveland Street Infirmary
{11–20.10.05
Poland Street Workhouse
{20–21.10.05
{22–26.11.06
{(With Annie and Sarah. See dates)
Cleveland Street Infirmary
{26–29.11.06
Hendon Infirmary
{29.11–4.12.06
Poland Street Infirmary
{4.12.06–28.1.07
St Giles Workhouse, Endell Street
{29–30.4.13
(With Sarah. See dates)
Note: Both Alice and Annie also received out-relief from the St Pancras Board of Guardians between 1902 and 1903
* * *
The book has never had a British publication. This may be partly due to the faulty research and to the style, which the American reviewer, Dale L. Walker, described as ‘concocted, Grade Z fiction’:
Through the darkness he watched her lean against the wooden fence and begin to pull up her skirts. Eddy removed his coat, revealing the leather butcher’s apron tied around his wai
st. She stared at him in a second, obviously trying to make out what he was up to. Playfully at first, he reached to her throat, grabbing the red bandanna. Then he let his knife slide out of the newspaper.
The woman gave a sudden grunt, and in terror began to push at him. As she tried to shove him away, with one hand clutching the bandanna, Eddy dropped the knife and hit her in the face with all his might.
She reeled back against the fence. He hit her a second time. Twisting the bandanna knot tighter, it seemed to take several minutes before her choking stopped. Then she suddenly sank backward.
Picking up the knife and levelling it at her throat, he hacked back and forth twice until the blade touched bone.
He could feel her wet blood all over his hands as he lay her down near the steps where there was more light. Tearing open the collar of her dress, he drove the knife into her chest, revealing her heart and lungs and then with another thrust he ripped open her stomach.
Spiering took exception to Walker’s description of his book. Writing some weeks later to the newspaper in which the review was printed, he made the astonishing claim – not in his book – that ‘the Gull papers contained the confession of Victoria’s grandson, HRH Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward, the Duke of Clarence and Avondale, whom the Royal Physician was treating for syphilis. They detail the Prince’s account of the sordid murders he committed in Whitechapel and his motivation for these murders.’
The thought that such a shattering confession might exist prompted Walker and myself to write to the New York Academy of Medicine in an attempt to locate these papers. In both instances the result was the same. A reply to my letter from the librarian dated 13 January 1986 stated that all of the material available for researchers is catalogued:
None of the entries in our catalogue for works by or about Sir William Gull contain the material referred to by Mr Spiering. In a library the size and age of ours, it is possible that a set of notes bound with a larger work or other works could have gone unnoticed by our cataloguers, but it is highly unlikely. Mr Spiering was never able to remember or reconstruct the catalogue entry he submitted for retrieval from our stacks and in which he allegedly found the notes by Gull. Thorough searches by staff also proved fruitless.
Losing possession of a document such as this – if it existed – is on a par with some of Spiering’s other research. A full page plate of Sir Charles Warren is in fact a portrait of Sir Hector Macdonald, a contemporary British Army officer serving in the Sudan. The mistake was repeated in the paperback edition, even though it had been pointed out to him.
In 1978 Spiering challenged the present Queen to open the Royal archives on the Duke of Clarence, offering to stop impending publication of his book if she held a press conference and revealed what she knew about her ‘great uncle’s acts of murder and his own extraordinary death’. (The book suggests that Lord Salisbury, possibly with the connivance of Clarence’s father the Prince of Wales, determined that he should be done away with and had him killed with a morphine overdose.) A Buckingham Palace spokesman said that his allegations were not sufficiently serious to warrant a special statement from the Queen, but the archives would be opened to Mr Spiering and he could examine them, as had other researchers.
Spiering’s reaction to the offer – ‘I don’t want to see any files’ – led to the inevitable conclusion that his challenge had been made to publicize his book.
Spiering failed to substantiate any of his allegations. In 1980 he was completing an article on Gull’s notes and his discovery of them. It never appeared.
Grade Z Fiction?
Walter Sickert
Ripper and Royalty has been the perfect combination for the sensation seekers despite the ridicule that has been heaped upon the resulting theories. A comic book, with the Duke of Clarence as Jack the Ripper fighting Dracula for the love of Mary Kelly, had to be either a high or low point in Ripperana, depending upon your perspective. Sickert’s name has continued to be bandied about as a suspect ever since Knight involved him in his trio or quartet of killers. A more determined effort than Knight’s to put Sickert into the frame, was made in 2002 by the American crime novelist Patricia Cornwell, who pointed an accusing finger in Portrait of a Killer – Jack the Ripper – Case Closed, which of course it is not. Nothing in her book can point to that self-satisfying conclusion. Cornwell had already been pre-empted by Jean Overton Fuller’s Sickert and the Ripper Crimes which was published in 1990 and which, as the title suggests, points to Sickert being the Ripper, but with an equal lack of evidence, some of it clearly picked up from the Knight–Gorman–Sickert theory, to substantiate the charge. Cornwell makes no acknowledgement to this work except for the book’s title in the paperback bibliography.
Cornwell, having seen sinister undertones in some of his paintings, believes that Sickert was a psychopath, a fraud, that he may have murdered as many as twenty to forty people before he died in 1942, and that he continued to kill until he was burnt out. He was also one of the leading artists of the day. Many of his paintings hang in national collections.
Sickert’s supposed motive for the murders is that he had a penile fistula which left him as a child emotionally and physically scarred. The evidence for this is a throwaway statement by a relative by marriage based on family hearsay. The reality is that the hospital where he was treated dealt with anal and not penile fistulas and, even if true, it certainly does not seem to have affected his subsequent affairs and three marriages. Sickert later declared that the operation had completely cured his problem. Nonetheless, Cornwell insists that it was a penile fistula and that his treatment at home and at hospital, and the resulting sexual failures, were part explanation for the Whitechapel murders. (Overton Fuller remarkably thought that seeing the first stage production of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in August 1888 might have triggered something latent within him and brought forth the Mr Hyde side of his character.)
Cornwell’s research involved DNA technology. One complication was that none of the artist’s DNA was available for comparison. When he died, he was cremated. There are no family members alive or known from whom DNA could be taken. There is no evidence for Joseph ‘Sickert’ Gorman’s claim that he was Sickert’s son; he was thirteen years old when the artist died, which means that Sickert had sired him at the unlikely age of sixty-nine.
DNA is passed down from both parents. Cornwell usefully makes a comparison with an egg; the nuclear DNA, passed down from both parents, would be found in the yolk and the mitochondrial DNA would be found in the egg white. Mitochondrial DNA was found on the Dr Openshaw letter; an Ellen Sickert letter; an envelope from a Walter Sickert letter; a stamp from a Walter Sickert letter; and a Ripper envelope that tests positive for blood but is so degraded that it might not be human. There is no way of knowing who any of this DNA belonged to. Statistically this mitochondrial sample excludes 99 per cent of the contemporary Victorian population which means that, with an estimated national population of more than forty million people, this DNA sequence could have been found in more than four hundred thousand persons. It has to be repeatedly stressed that there is no Sickert DNA for Cornwell’s comparison. There is no proven connection between Sickert and the Ripper letters. Even a sample of commonplace stationery cannot make this link, although Cornwell struggles to make one. But, for a moment, let us assume that there was and that Sickert could be proved to have written this letter. So what if he did? It no more makes him Jack the Ripper than Tom Bulling, the journalist Best or his provincial colleague, or George Bernard Shaw, or any one of the hundreds who wrote such letters.
Cornwell’s research was focused in part on the clutch of Jack the Ripper letters in the National Archives at Kew and the Guildhall Records Office. What survives is only a fraction of what was known to exist. Those in the Guildhall Records Office I rescued from an otherwise empty cupboard in the cellar basement of City police headquarters and deposited in the Guildhall. The fact that many of the letters were missing their envelopes was entirely due to the fac
t that over the years the stamp collectors within the force had removed them, because they wanted the stamps for their collections. This made a precise dating of some of the letters impossible.
Cornwell became convinced, contrary to all logic and without any evidence to support her claim, that most, if not all of the public correspondence had been written by Sickert in a disguised hand. When I asked her at a Readers and Writers Roadshow publicizing her book, whether she had actually looked at the claims by the journalist called Best that he and a provincial colleague had written some of it, she said that she had not. Nor, in her book, does she even consider the possibility that Thomas Bulling was the author of the letter to the Central News Agency giving the name Jack the Ripper.
The Complete Jack the Ripper Page 26