The Diary of Jack the Ripper - The Chilling Confessions of James Maybrick

by Harrison, Shirley

  And the last one’s ripest for Jack’s idea of fun.

  If The Chronicles of Crime did not exist — or if, as has been imputed, they were the result of Mr McCormick’s imagination — we of the Diary had a problem. For the Diary and the poem echo each other and include the images of burning and ripeness.

  In the library I found the Faber History of England in Verse, edited by Kenneth Baker MP (now Lord Baker). There, in the Victorian section, I found ‘Eight Little Whores’, attributed anonymously. I wrote to Mr Baker to check if his source was indeed Victorian or whether he had merely read Donald McCormick’s book or any of the others that followed it. He was fighting an election at the time and was also moving house. As a consequence his reference notes had been irretrievably buried in a trunk. He could not remember whether he had, or had not, read any Ripper books.

  I turned to Iona and Peter Opie’s Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (new edition 1997)

  There I found the old favourite, ‘Ten Little Nigger Boys’. This begins:

  Ten little nigger boys went out to dine

  One choked his little self and then there were nine…

  I learned that this rhyme first appeared in 1869. It was based on an American song by Philadelphia musician Septimus Winger (composer of ‘Oh where, oh where has my little dog gone?’). It was taken up by the many minstrel groups which had arrived from America in Britain. By the late 1870s was a very popular ditty, included in the repertoire of musical societies and ballad shows and performed by artistes such as Michael Maybrick, throughout Victoria’s reign.

  There are other echoes from the Diary in the poem. There is the threat to set the town alight, reflecting Maybrick’s threat to burn down St James’ (presumably the church where he was married). Most curious perhaps is the mention of Henage Court. Years later — not until 1931 in fact — a retired policeman, Robert Spicer, who had been a young constable in 1888, wrote to the Daily Express. They sent a reporter to see him and an article appeared under the headline ‘I caught Jack the Ripper’.

  Mr Spicer described what happened in the early hours of one night after the double murder. He had come to Heneage Street (mispelt Henage in the Daily Express and in the poem) off Brick Lane. Fifty yards down is Heneage Court, at the bottom of which was a brick-built dustbin. Both Jack and a woman (Rosy) were sitting on this. ‘She had 2s (10p) in her hand and followed me when I took Jack on suspicion. He turned out to be a highly respected doctor and gave a Brixton address. His shirt cuffs still had blood on them. Jack had the proverbial bag with him (a brown one). This was not opened and he was allowed to go.’

  Spicer got into trouble for his over zealous arrest and completely lost heart in police work. But was he wrong? Nobody seems to have checked on the respectable doctor. In fact, Spicer saw him again at Liverpool Street station. His appearance was always the same: high hat, black suit with silk facings and a gold watch and chain. He was about 5’ 8”, about 12 stone, fair moustache, high forehead and rosy cheeks. A good description of Maybrick!

  We went to visit PC Spicer’s granddaughter who has lived in the same house in Woodford Green, for 60 years. She told us how Rosy wrote to her grandfather after the event, thanking him for saving her from murder and thereafter always sent him Christmas cards. Like so many other documents, these have now been lost. But the family remembers Mr Spicer clearly as a tall, striking figure with a big beard. He had eight children and eventually became a groundsman for Bancroft’s School in Woodford and also for the cricket club but he, like Dutton, died a lonely man and his body was not discovered until a week after his death.

  According to the Diary, Maybrick was now beginning to fear that he could be caught. Drugs continued to provide his escape.

  I cannot live without my medicine. I am afraid to go to sleep for fear of my nightmares reoccuring. I see thousands of people chasing me, with Abberline in front dangling a rope.

  The fact that immediately after the Kelly murder Maybrick’s headaches worsened was recorded in affidavits for Florie’s trial. He even added yet another doctor to his already overcrowded team of medical consultants. Dr J. Drysdale was an elderly Scotsman, neat in appearance and sparing of words. Maybrick consulted him in Liverpool on November 19th, 22nd, 26th and again on December 5th and 10th, telling him that for three months he had endured pains from one side of his head to the other. This had been preceded by a pain in the right side of the head and a dull headache. He said he was never free from pain except sometimes in the morning. If he smoked or drank too much he experienced a numbness on the left side of his hand and his leg and was liable to suffer from an eruption of the skin on his hands. He said nothing concerning drugging himself.

  ‘He seemed to be suffering from nervous dyspepsia’ was all Dr Drysdale could diagnose, which he repeated when he gave evidence at the trial. Then with masterly understatement he added: ‘I should say he was hypochondriacal’.

  It was perhaps natural that, with all of London on the trail of the Ripper, he should decide to return to the scene of his first confessed attempt at killing, Manchester, where brother Thomas lived.

  My first was in Manchester so why not my next?

  At this stage the Diary is becoming increasingly confused as Jekyll and Hyde fight within him.

  The children constantly ask what I shall be buying them for Christmas they shy away when I tell them a shiny knife not unlike Jack the Ripper’s in order that I cut their tongues for peace and quiet. I do believe I am completely mad. I have never harmed the children in the years since they have been born. But now I take great delight in scaring them so. May God forgive me.

  David Forshaw says that Maybrick’s fondness for his children is quite consistent with the psychology of the serial killer. He was trying to distance himself from them, unsucessfully, and only his medicine could relieve the torment. It was a vicious downward spiral.

  On December 5th a newspaper clipping was sent to Dr William Sedgwick Saunders, the City of London’s Public Analyst. Written across the newspaper was the message:

  England

  Dear Boss. Look out for 7th inst. Am trying my hand at disjointing and if can manage will send you a finger. Yours Jack the Ripper

  Saunders Esq

  Police Magistrate

  This letter has not been analysed by handwriting experts to be beyond doubt in the same hand as the ‘Dear Boss’ letter. But it looks very similar. Is it not a strange coincidence that it is written over a story concerning three Liverpool businessmen running about naked in a public place. Here in one short item are the words ‘Liverpool’, ‘mad’ and ‘businessman’.

  The constant use of such provocative clues, says David Forshaw, shows the gambling criminal’s way of tempting fate. He did not want to be caught, but the possibility excited him.

  The handwriting in the Diary is becoming more and more uncontrolled. Frustration and rage are relieved by the violent crossing out of line after line of disconnected words. In the midst of the frenzy the pressure of trying to compose seems to become overwhelming. He is losing confidence and control.

  So help me God my next will be far the worst, my head aches, but I will go on damn Michael for being so clever the art of verse is far from simple. I curse him so. Abberline Abberline, I shall destroy that fool yet, So help me God…

  I am cold curse the bastard Lowry for making me rip. I keep seeing blood pouring from the bitches. The nightmares are hideous. I cannot stop myself from wanting to eat more. God help me, damn you. No one will stop me. God be damned.

  He wants to stop but he must go on.

  * * *

  November was the time of the Maybrick pre-Christmas ball at Battlecrease House. Amongst the guests was Alfred Brierley. Soon after, Charles Ratcliffe, an old business colleague of Maybrick’s wrote to John Aunspaugh about a cargo of poor quality corn. Tucked away in a note at the bottom of the letter is the comment ‘Think Alf is getting the inside track with Mrs James’ affections.’

  The Diary records:

  The
bitch, the whore is not satisfied with one whore master, she now has eyes on another.

  On December 22nd Inspector Walter Andrews and a party of colleagues were sent down to New York from Montreal, where they had been on another case. According to the Pall Mall Gazette, Jack the Ripper had left England for America three weeks earlier. Although the New York police strongly denied the link, rumours appeared in the New York papers that this was Francis Tumbelty and that he was the man Inspector Andrews was now after. Researcher Mark King discovered that Tumbelty had been arrested in London on November 7th on a charge of gross indecency and indecent assault. He was held in custody, brought before magistrates nine days later, and his trial fixed for December 10th. This rules him out as the killer of Mary Jane Kelly, although Paul Gainey and Stuart Evans argue that he could have been released on unrecorded police bail. He left the country on November 24th. The rumour that he was the Ripper was given credence when Tumbelty disappeared from New York, presumably to escape attention.

  Christmas was celebrated at Battlecrease House, as it was all over the country, with a tree, presents and cards. But there was still much talk of Jack the Ripper since the police appeared to be making no headway.

  The children enjoyed Christmas. I did not. My mood is no longer black, although my head aches. I shall never become accustomed to the pain. I curse winter. I yearn for my favourite month, to see flowers in full bloom would please me so.

  Warmth is what I need, I shiver so. Curse this weather and the whoring bitch.

  Warmth was what he could no longer have from Florie. Far from it. Just before Christmas he describes a seventh, unidentified murder — once more in Manchester. Yet the old excitement is no longer there. He no longer feels ‘clever’.

  I could not cut like my last, visions of her flooded back to me as I struck. I tried to quosh all thoughts of love. I left her for dead, that I know. It did not amuse me. There was thrill.

  The experience only seems to work for him when it embraces an impersonal act of mutilation. In rage and frustration he returns to Battlecrease — and beats his wife.

  I have showered my fury on the bitch, I struck and struck. I do not know how I stopped. I have left her penniless. I have no regrets.

  Florie wrote to her mother on the last day of 1888 but did not mention the beating. This is not surprising — it is a well known phenomenon, which would have been equally true in respectable Victorian society, that battered wives hide their hurt from the world. Often they suffer for years and they certainly do not confide in their mothers.

  In his fury he tore up his will this morning as he had made me sole legatee and trustee for the children in it. Now he proposes to settle everything he can on the children alone allowing me only the one third by law. I am sure it matters little to me as long as the children are provided for. My own income will do for me alone. A pleasant way of commencing New Year.

  The Baroness described the year’s end when she wrote to Home Secretary, Henry Matthews, in 1892. ‘The December of 1888 was the first time during her married life she had been able to dance or had been out in society; and her health was then stronger. She was left unattended by her husband.’

  Maybrick was in sombre mood. The weather matched that mood. The fog that had blanketed Liverpool at the beginning of 1888 returned on New Year’s Eve and the local paper, the Liverpool Echo, predicted that ‘There is no agreeable change of weather and to judge by appearances we are likely to experience a bad spell of mist, rain and general murkiness.’

  It was a bad omen for 1889.

  10

  WHEN I HAVE FINISHED MY FIENDISH DEEDS, THE DEVIL HIMSELF WILL PRAISE ME.

  The slaughter in Whitechapel had stopped but the story of Jack the Ripper had not ended with the murder of Mary Jane Kelly. During the spring of 1889, Maybrick’s worsening health and the turmoil surrounding his private life created a vortex into which Florie and the family were drawn. If any of them had any suspicion that James Maybrick was the most feared man in Britain they did not reveal it. His secret was soon to be buried deep with his corpse in Anfield Cemetery. But his death would also destroy the life of his young American wife.

  Why did the Maybrick family close ranks and the servants conspire against her? Why did the medical men disagree about how James Maybrick died? Why were so many crucial letters destroyed and Maybrick’s prescriptions torn up? And why did Edwin and Michael suppress information about their brother’s past at the trial and stand by while his widow faced the unimaginable horror of the gallows?

  This much is known. In January, according to the cook, Elizabeth Humphreys, Alfred Brierley’s visits increased. He was also a regular companion of the Maybricks at the race meetings they so enjoyed. Maybrick was only too aware of Florie’s flirtations — indeed, because of them seven women had already died. True to Victorian morality which applied very different rules for men and women, Maybrick’s own infidelity was of no importance.

  David Forshaw is not surprised that Brierley continued to be invited to join the family. The perverted pleasure of watching the unsuspecting couple was just part of a power game. Even as he described the pleasure of ripping he became excited by the idea of voyeurism.

  The whore seen her master today it did not bother me. I imagined I was with them, the very thought thrills me. I wonder if the whore has ever had such thoughts? I believe she has…

  As the dismal weather wore on, Maybrick became restless.

  It shall not be long before I strike again. I am taking more than ever. The bitch can take two, Sir Jim shall take four, a double double event ha ha. If I was in the city of whores I would do my fiendish deeds this very moment… Once more I will be the talk of England… When I have finished my fiendish deeds, the devil himself will praise me.

  At least there was no need for concern about a supplier for his ‘medicine’. He had discovered a new source —Valentine Blake — who was a member of a team working for the manufacturing chemist William Bryer Nation, developing the use of rhea grass, or ramie, as a substitute for cotton.

  Have I not found a new source for my medicine.

  Long after the trial was over, in April 1894, Valentine Blake and William Bryer Nation both gave affidavits to solicitor J.E. Harris. Astonishingly, their statements were not sent to Henry Matthews, and never published until they appeared first in 1899 in J.H. Levy’s book on the case, The Necessity for Criminal Appeal. If the Diary is a modern forgery, its forger would have had to locate and read its learned text to find the only printed reference to a new source of medicine.

  It seems that in January 1889 Blake had travelled to Liverpool to meet Maybrick. He needed help in the marketing of a new product. Maybrick casually asked Blake to tell him the chemicals used in its manufacture. ‘I do not wish to obtain your trade secrets,’ he reassured him. ‘It is a question of price and the chemicals may be obtained more easily in Liverpool.’

  One of the substances was arsenic. The two men chatted about the arsenic-eating habits of Austrian peasants and about Thomas de Quincey, author of Confessions of an English Opium Eater. Blake wondered ‘that De Quincey could have taken such a quantity as 900 drops of laudanum in a day.’

  Maybrick apparently smiled. ‘One man’s poison,’ he said, ‘is another man’s meat, and there is a so-called poison which is like meat and liquor to me whenever I feel weak and depressed; it makes me stronger in mind and body at once.’

  ‘I don’t tell everybody,’ he went on, ‘and wouldn’t tell you only you mentioned arsenic. It is arsenic. I take it when I can get it but the doctors won’t put any in my medicine, except now and then a trifle that only tantalises me.’

  Blake said nothing. Maybrick continued, ‘Since you use arsenic can you let me have some? I find difficulty in getting it here?’

  Blake recalled in the later affidavit, ‘I had some by me and that since I only used it for experiments, which were now perfected, I had no further use for it and he, Maybrick, was welcome to all I had left. He then asked what it was worth and of
fered to pay for it in advance. I replied I had no licence to sell drugs and suggested we should make it quid pro quo, Mr Maybrick to do his best with the ramie grass product and I to make a present of the arsenic.’

  When they met again in February, Blake gave Maybrick about 150 grains of arsenic in three different packets. ‘I told him to be careful with it as he had almost enough to poison a regiment.’

  The timing of this sudden dramatic increase of intake in drugs is reflected immediately in the Diary. The handwriting becomes wilder and the threats lurid. Maybrick returns to London where the failure of his attempted eighth killing provokes uncontrolled rage.

  Damn it damn it the bastard almost caught me, curse him to hell. I will cut him up next time, so help me. A few minutes and I would have done bastard. I will seek him out, teach him a lesson. No one Will stop me. Curse his black soul. I curse myself for striking too soon, I should have waited until it was truly quiet so help me. I will take all next time and eat it. Will leave nothing. not even the head. I will boil it and eat it with freshly picked carrots.

  In March 1889, the children caught whooping cough and Dr Humphreys was called. The Diary makes an early reference to Gladys’ rather fragile health.

  ‘My dearest Gladys is unwell yet again, she worries me so.’

  This deceptively simple passing reference to Gladys strongly supports its author’s intimate personal knowledge of the family.