From then on he was a man obsessed, working with his own team (Keith joined him as an independent researcher in 1993) all day, every day and most of the night. His research was aggressive, exhaustive and often, I felt, ruthless, creating new plots within plots at every twist and turn. Cigar in one hand and a large Scotch in the other, he worried at that Diary and anyone connected with it for five years, spending a fortune and all but breaking himself, financially, emotionally and physically. But, from the unparalleled amount of information and photographs, he unearthed many new and often valuable leads on both Maybrick and the Ripper. Paul Feldman has told his own story about his special relationship with the Diary in his own book Jack the Ripper — The Final Chapter, published by Virgin in September 1997.
While my own team began, painstakingly, to reconstruct the bones of the story, I went first in search of its soul. I wanted to explore and understand what life was like in Victorian London and Liverpool. On June 28th 1992, we joined one of the Ripper walks around Whitechapel with Martin Fido as our guide and then drove, for the first time, to Liverpool where it had all begun.
MY HANDS ARE COLD, MY HEART I DO BELIEVE IS COLDER STILL.
In Liverpool I found a city in which neatly painted Victorian terraces march in orderly rows over the hill, which drops down through acres of council houses to Albert Dock and the River Mersey. Windows were boarded up, shops and offices were derelict and beer cans sprouted on wasteland. Yet the pubs were noisy and full behind their ornately patterned glass and shiny, tiled façades. Liverpool, once a prosperous city, was struggling to survive, its heart torn out by poverty and unemployment. The ships that once served the busiest port in Britain had long since gone.
The city is surrounded by a protective cloak of beautiful parks and fine suburbs. There, the ornate mansions of wealthy Victorian merchants stand, proud mausoleums, recalling an energetic past but occupied today by students and their landladies and the elderly residents of eventide homes. One such suburb, Aigburth, lies to the south of the city centre, on the banks of the Mersey.
Battlecrease House is, as it was when the Maybricks lived there, half of an impressive mansion, built in a time when horse-drawn carriages bumped along the unpaved lane. Now known simply as 7 Riversdale Road, Battlecrease House is a 20-roomed, mushroom-coloured house set well back from the road. It stands opposite the Cricket Club of which James Maybrick was an enthusiastic member. Riversdale Road runs from the Aigburth Road down to the banks of the Mersey and views across the water to the distant Welsh mountains are uninterrupted still.
Maybrick was probably aware of the rumours that a murder had taken place at the house many years before. Nevertheless he moved in, with his young American wife and their two children. In 1889, not much more than a year later, sightseers gathered by the entrance — as they still do — pointing curiously at the upstairs windows of the room where Maybrick died. Some broke twigs from the shrubs surrounding the garden, as mementoes, unaware that the house could have another, even more shocking claim to notoriety.
James Maybrick has never before been associated with the case of Jack the Ripper and, like Michael Barrett, I found myself drawn to retrace the steps of the man whom I suspected had confessed to terrorising London and shocking the world. I walked along the narrow alley at the side of the former grounds of Battlecrease House which leads to tiny Aigburth station where Maybrick had boarded the train into town.
The gravel crunched as I walked up the driveway. I knocked at the door once used by the Maybricks and found myself talking to Paul Dodd, a primary school teacher who grew up in Battlecrease House. As I walked with him around the still splendid rooms, it was easy to imagine the whispered gossip of servants below stairs, to conjure up the immaculate figure of Maybrick himself, with his sandy hair and moustache, striding down the drive, and the coquettish Florie, the sun lighting her golden hair, reading romances in the conservatory.
The house has suffered structurally over the years. It was the only building in the road to escape the bombs of World War II, but was damaged by a landmine, and then by an earth tremor in 1984. A falling tree destroyed the conservatory. Even so, little imagination is needed to reawaken the past.
Through the reception hall and the dining-room, with its stained-glass windows picturing water birds, is the ballroom that opens on to the garden. Intact are the beautiful, ornate ceiling mouldings and the Italian marble fireplace with its exquisite carved grapes and large mirror above. Up the splendid oak staircase were rooms for guests, family and staff, a nursery for the children. Overlooking the cricket pitch is the rather sombre bedroom where Maybrick died. Today it is Paul Dodd’s sitting room.
Later that day I also paced the ‘Flags’, the vast open forum in the centre of Liverpool that was once the hub of Britain’s cotton industry, and visited the grave where Maybrick is buried. The large cross that once capped the headstone was, mysteriously, missing and on a return visit in February 1997 I saw that the stone had been desecrated further by graffiti and a serious attempt to smash it in two.
* * *
At the time of Maybrick’s birth there had been Maybricks in Liverpool for 70 years. They hailed from the West Country and one branch settled in the Stepney and Whitechapel area of London’s East End. Later, when unemployment became bad, some moved on to the busy port of Liverpool.
The parish church of St Peter, in the centre of Liverpool had long been a focus for James’s well-respected family. There had been Maybricks at the organ, Maybricks on the parish council and, when James was born on October 24th 1838, his grandfather was parish clerk.
St Peter’s was consecrated in 1704 as the cathedral church and, according to the Liverpool Courier, was the first building in Church Street, ‘originally surrounded by a picturesque belt of stately elms whose foliage harmonising with the summer livery of hedgerows and the floral beauty of the meadows, completed the charm of rural peace.’ A somewhat different view of the church which dominated so much of Maybrick’s childhood was that it was ‘plain almost to ugliness.’ Inside, the building was lofty, dark and oppressively sombre.
James’ christening, on November 12th, must have been a particularly happy affair for his parents, William, an engraver, and Susannah, who had already lost a four-month old son the year before. They decided to follow the Victorian custom and name the new baby James, after his dead brother. James’ older brother, William, was then aged three.
By the time James was six, his grandfather was dead and his father had succeeded him as parish clerk. Yet despite their childhood involvement with St Peter’s and respect for Victorian convention, none of the Maybrick brothers remained churchgoers as they grew up. Interestingly, though William and James were married in church, the three younger boys defied convention and preferred the registry office.
The family was living at 8 Church Alley, a narrow lane in the shadow of St Peter’s that ran into busy Church Street. It was only a few seconds walk from the road whose name was later to play so large a part in the story — Whitechapel. This Whitechapel, in contrast to its London namesake, was a fashionable shopping street. Just around the corner was the Blue Coat Hospital, a school for poor boys and girls. In Church Street itself James could linger at the Civet Cat, a nick-nack shop that sold exciting foreign toys. Or he could dream of faraway places while peering in the window of Mr Marcus the tobacconist, who ran flag-bedecked train excursions from Liverpool to London.
With the arrival of three younger brothers, Michael, born 1841, Thomas, born 1846, and Edwin, born 1851 (another brother, Alfred, had died at the age of four in 1848), the family moved to a more spacious house around the corner: 77 Mount Pleasant. They led a simple life, with no staff until after James left home, when the 1861 Census credits them with a house-servant named Mary Smith. Nothing is known about the parents’ influence and personality and little about the boys’ childhood or schooling. James probably attended Liverpool College, like Michael, but records were lost during World War II. We do know the boys threw themselves into
sport, especially cricket.
However, there were other, more sinister entertainments on tap in the area of the Maybrick family home. Just round the corner, in Paradise Street, was the notorious Museum of Anatomy, reputed to contain the greatest number of preserved anatomical specimens in Britain. In 1850, the year that James was twelve, a four-wheeled landau had driven up Lime Street carrying one ‘Dr’ Joseph Thornton Woodhead, who had just arrived from America with 750 waxen models of anatomical parts and genitalia. The heavily loaded cab overturned, spilling its grisly contents into the street and Dr Woodhead decided, on the spot, to rent nearby premises for their display. In James Maybrick’s young days, the Museum of Anatomy became one of Liverpool’s most popular and shocking ‘sights’. We looked at the catalogues for 1877. They surround the exhibition with typical Victorian religious and moral justification. ‘Man know thyself’ was the legend over the door. Ladies were admitted for only three hours on Tuesday and Friday afternoons. Gentlemen were admitted at all other times. They were warned: ‘If any man defile the Temple of God, him will God destroy.’
These exhibits, intended to ‘advance science and learning’, included freaks of nature and a section on masturbation labelled as ‘self pollution — the most destructive evil practised by fallen man.’ There were full-sized models of operations on the brain and stomach and of a hysterectomy, ‘a young lady in the act of parturition’ and a man ‘discovered in the family way.’ It would not have been diffiult for any visitor to pick up rudimentary anatomical knowledge. I remembered that Nick Warren, editor of Ripperana magazine and himself a surgeon, believes that the Ripper must have had anatomical experience, though whether he was actually a doctor is disputed.
The museum was not closed until 1937 when it was removed to Blackpool and finally, most strangely, to the seaside resort of Morecambe Bay on the Lancashire coast. There, it was re-opened by former Madame Tussaud’s employee, George Nicholson, alongside a waxworks display which included the usual range of historic figures, including, of course, Jack the Ripper. It was here, during the late 1960s that another notorious killer — Peter Sutcliffe, ‘The Yorkshire Ripper’ — spent hours, peering through the peepholes of the Torso Room at the sordid, offensive and by then seedily dilapidated models. There were to be many occasions over the next few years that I sensed the spirits of Peter Sutcliffe and James Maybrick walking side by side.
* * *
From an early age, according to a later profile in The New Penny magazine, Michael was the shining star with the musical gift of ‘harmonious invention’. At the age of 14, one of his compositions was even played at Covent Garden Opera in London and he was awarded a book of sacred music for his performance in the choir of St George’s Church. The dedication reads: ‘Presented to Master Michael Maybrick as a token of regard for his musical perception.’
He was organist at St Peter’s church between 1855 and 1865. William and Susannah encouraged Michael to study and in 1866 he went to Leipzig where it was discovered that he had a fine baritone voice. From there he moved on to the Milan Conservatoire. He made his London debut as a singer in 1869 and appeared with the National Opera Company at the St James’ Theatre in October 1871. He went on to sing during the inaugural season of the Carl Rosa Operatic Company and there is reason to believe that he, and possibly James, had friendly links with the Rosa family. Michael was present at the funeral of Parepa Rosa in 1874. James Maybrick’s physician in New York was a Dr Seguin, whose family pioneered opera in America and were related to the Rosas.
Michael gave himself the stage name Stephen Adams and formed a partnership with the librettist, Frederick Weatherly. Together they wrote hundreds of songs such as ‘Nancy Lee’ and ‘A Warrior Bold’. By 1888 Stephen Adams was Britain’s best-loved composer. ‘The Holy City’, which he wrote in 1892, sold around 60,000 copies a year from publication and remains a firm favourite today. Ironically, he also later wrote a lively ditty, ‘They all Love Jack’.
For his siblings, Michael was a hard act to follow. William became a carver and gilder’s apprentice. Thomas and Edwin went into commerce. By 1858 James Maybrick had gone to work in a shipbroking office in the capital. That period of his life has been a blank to us — until now.
* * *
In 1891, two years after Florence’s trial, Alexander William MacDougall, a tall, distinguished, if loquacious, Scottish lawyer, published a 606 page Treatise on the Maybrick Case in which he asserted, among many other things, that, ‘There is a woman who calls herself Mrs Maybrick and who claims to have been James Maybrick’s real wife. She was staying on a visit at a somewhat out of the way place, 8 Dundas Street, Monkwearmouth, Sunderland, during the trial; her usual and present address is 265 Queen’s Road, New Cross, London SE.’ No. 265 is still there, now a shadow of its Victorian elegance. It was a substantial property with a garden much larger than its neighbours. MacDougall also claimed that Maybrick was known to have had five children prior to his marriage to Florie.
Who was the mysterious ‘Mrs Maybrick’? Census records, street directories and certificates of birth, death and marriage can resurrect the skeleton of any life long after it is over. But it is a long, slow process, fraught with problems, since form-filling is not always accurate and very often dates and details are incorrectly given. Census records for 1891 were not released until January 2nd 1992, according to British custom. Only then could the truth of MacDougall’s assertion be established. Only then was it possible to fill in some of the details of Maybrick’s secret life in London.
We found those details and for the first time established the names of the inhabitants of 265 Queen’s Road. They were Christiana Conconi, a 69-year-old widow of independent means from Durham, her surprisingly young daughter, Gertrude, aged 18, and a 13-year-old visitor. There were two other persons in the household: a lodger named Arthur Bryant and Christiana’s niece, Sarah Robertson, single, listed as aged 44 from Sunderland, County Durham. We realised that these ages did not tally with certificates we unearthed later. Christiana was more probably 74 and Sarah 54.
Was Gertrude really Christiana’s child? We have been unable to unearth a certificate to establish the true parentage of Gertrude, who gave her name on her marriage certificate in 1895 as Gertrude Blackiston otherwise Conconi. Her father is there said to be George Blackiston, deceased, Admiralty Clerk.
Gradually the story of Sarah Ann Robertson/Maybrick unfolded. She was first found in 1851, at the age of 13, living with Aunt Christiana at 1, Postern Way, Tower Hill, which runs into Whitechapel. Christiana’s father was Alexander Hay Robertson, a general agent, who died in 1847. That same year she married Charles James Case, a tobacconist, their residence being 40, Mark Lane which lies near Tower Hill between the City of London and Whitechapel.
James Maybrick went to London in 1858 and it seems probable that since shipbroking tends to centre on the City itself, this was where he met Sarah Ann. Charles Case died in 1863 and three years later Christiana remarried. Her new bridegroom was a paymaster in the Royal Navy named Thomas David Conconi. Their address was said to be 43, Bancroft Road. One of the witnesses at their wedding signed her name ‘Sarah Ann Maybrick’.
In 1868, Thomas Conconi added a codicil to his will: ‘in case my said wife shall die during my life then I give and bequeath all my household goods furniture plate linen and china to my dear friend Sarah Ann Maybrick, the wife of James Maybrick of Old Hall Street, Liverpool, now residing at No 55 Bromley Street, Commercial Road, London.’
This was the house then occupied by the Conconis. Whether the codicil means that Maybrick was also living with the family is unclear. But according to the 1871 census, Sarah Ann, listed as a ‘merchant’s clerk wife’ [sic] was there. James was not. The street still exists, its modest two-storey houses restored in 1990 are now framed by shiny black railings. Number 55 was demolished for redevelopment after World War 1. Turn right at the end of the street on to Commercial Road and it is but a brisk ten-minute walk to Whitechapel, the scene of Jack the Ripper’s mu
rders.
At Wyoming University, amongst the file of handwritten notes by Trevor Christie, author of ‘Etched in Arsenic’, was one headed ‘Russell’s Brief’. Russell was Sir Charles Russell who later became Florie Maybrick’s leading counsel. It said of James:
At the age of 20 (1858) he went to a shipbroker’s office in London and met Sarah Robertson, 18, an assistant in a jeweller’s shop, she lived with him on and off for 20 years. Her relatives thought they were married and she passed as Mrs M with them. They had five children, all now dead.
Author Nigel Morland, who wrote This Friendless Lady (1957), claims that two of these offspring were born after James’ marriage to Florie. However no source is given for this information and neither have we ever unearthed a marriage certificate for James and Sarah.
When Thomas Conconi died in 1876, at Kent House Road, Sydenham, South London, ‘S. A. Maybrick niece’ of the same address was the informant. When Christiana herself died in 1895 at Queen’s Road, Sarah once again signs herself Sarah Ann Maybrick. But she is listed in the 1891 census as Robertson. However at the time of her own death on January 17th 1927, the records refer to ‘Sarah Ann Maybrick, otherwise Robertson, spinster of independent means of 24 Cottesbrook Street, New Cross.’ She was then living with William and Alice Bills. She was buried, un-named in a common grave in Streatham, London.
In 1995 Keith Skinner, hot on the trail for Paul Feldman, went to meet Alice’s daughter, Barbara. She remembers that Sarah was known in the family as ‘Old Aunty’ and that she was a lonely, sweet old lady who was very good with children. Barbara showed Keith a large Bible which had been given by Sarah Ann to Alice. Inside was written, ‘To my darling Piggy. From her affectionate husband J.M. On her birthday August 2nd 1865.’ Was Maybrick a bigamist?
The Diary of Jack the Ripper - The Chilling Confessions of James Maybrick Page 6