The Complete and Essential Jack the Ripper

by Paul Begg

  In 1991, Melvyn Fairclough’s The Ripper and the Royals15 gave the conspiracy theorists another bite of the cherry, drawing upon further evidence supplied by Sickert. This evidence came in the form of three diaries allegedly written between 1896 and 1915 by Inspector Frederick Abberline. Abberline had long been considered as an important linchpin in the Ripper case, and new revelations by this most esteemed police officer would no doubt be worth their weight in gold. The diaries, however, were in the possession of Sickert and were not mentioned in Stephen Knight’s book, although whether Knight was unaware of their existence or just passed on the opportunity of consulting them was not clear. Sickert contributed a brief foreword to Fairclough’s book, in which he stated that he wanted to set the record straight about his father’s involvement, commenting that this element had not been fairly portrayed by Stephen Knight. The diaries implicated Lord Randolph Churchill (father of Winston), coachman John Netley and Frederico Albericci as the main conspirators, with Sir William Gull carrying out the murders.

  Drawing on such ‘evidence’, the story had grown into one of utter corruption in high places, going so far as to suggest that Prince Eddy did not die of influenza in 1892, but was taken out of circulation, specifically that he was incarcerated in Glamis Castle, where he died in 1933.16 The scandal had even wider implications with the claim that Eddy’s brother, as George V, had been deliberately and surreptitiously put to death by his physician with the consent of Queen Mary to stop him making a confession as he lay dying. Daniel Farson, in review, was moved to write: ‘Phew! This is fun if taken as a send-up of Ripperology but I have the awful suspicion that Fairclough believes every word that Sickert told him.’17

  Alas, the ‘Abberline diaries’ were no doubt forgeries, putting Joseph Gorman Sickert’s reputation even further into disrepute. There were several glaring errors in them, notably on one page where the author had put Abberline’s initials the wrong way round. Also, details regarding the victims appeared to have been lifted from articles which had appeared in True Detective magazine two years previously18 and carried mistakes. The handwriting wasn’t even Abberline’s. Fairclough’s book also published an alleged letter from actor and artist Harry Jonas confirming that Sickert had met with Peter Sutcliffe – the infamous ‘Yorkshire Ripper’19 – in the mid-1970s and discussed the events of 1888 with him. The handwriting was distinctive and appeared practically identical to that on the diaries, suggesting very strongly that Sickert had written both.

  Sickert maintained his belief in his story until his death in 2003. Despite the fact that much of the tale has been negated by careful research, one must weigh up the possibility that there might have been no smoke without fire. This does not mean to say that there was any involvement in the Whitechapel murders by the government or royalty whatsoever, but all the individuals named in it did exist. Some of Sickert’s less sensational claims might have been true, but embellished by his father in the telling. It is regrettable that this most colourful of characters got swept away with it all and wilfully helped perpetuate the developing saga until, just like Lyttleton Forbes Winslow many years before, he somehow felt compelled to doctor and fabricate evidence to justify himself.

  On a final note, one of the present authors, while conducting a Jack the Ripper walking tour in 2010, was approached by one of the attendees who rather apologetically imparted a most curious tale. The woman claimed that her great-grandmother, who died in 1969 aged almost 100, had been a resident of Buck’s Row at the time of the murders. Following the death of Mary Ann Nichols, residents spoke of a horse and carriage that had been seen in the neighbourhood on the night of the murder. Significantly, the coach bore a coat of arms. What is interesting about this story is that the source was somebody who was a young woman at the time of the murders and who died before the royal theories were made public, and one must make the following conclusions. If the story is true, it is noteworthy; it reflects variously held beliefs that Jack the Ripper was not from the East End slums, but from the upper classes, or it supports the idea that the victims were not murdered where they were found; in its extremest interpretation, it even gives credence to the Sickert/Knight theory of ‘the highest in the land’. There is also the possibility (or indeed probability) that the tale is a ‘Chinese whisper’ passed on to future generations by a former resident of a Ripper murder site, which by osmosis has become infused with elements of the royal conspiracy theory. Alternatively, it may be a total fabrication. Nonetheless, it demonstrates how popular this form of the story has become and that, even in the twenty-first century, the Ripper story will never be free of anecdotal claims and gossip. It is almost a matter of ‘ownership’, where anybody can have their little piece of the Ripper legend or can claim to know about something that others do not. Each published theory would come to make the declaration that the mystery had been solved once and for all, effectively wiping out what had come before – until the next one.

  14.

  A Crisis of Identity

  In April 1982, Bruce Paley published an article in True Crime magazine1 which put forward Joseph Barnett, Mary Kelly’s former lover, as Jack the Ripper. This was an interesting proposition, not just for the theory itself, but because responsibility for the murders had been laid at the feet of somebody who had been directly involved in the first place. Paley had been working on the idea of Barnett as the Ripper for some time, and a fiction novel2 had also been published, putting Mary Kelly’s former lover forward as the killer. Paley’s premise, later expanded in a well-received book,3 suggested that Barnett killed prostitutes to scare Mary Kelly from working the streets. When this failed, he killed her, making it look like a Ripper murder, and with the motive for his deeds now extinguished, he moved on to a quiet life in Shadwell. A significant development in theorizing was made apparent in the book, for Paley used recently developed criminal profiling methods to present Barnett as his suspect and was convinced that he fitted many of the criteria. Nevertheless, with his close association with Mary Kelly, Barnett had been questioned thoroughly following the murder and had been well and truly exonerated. Another writer, Paul Harrison, who was also convinced of Joseph Barnett’s guilt, had previously produced his own theory in print,4 but not only did Harrison publish his theory without any acknowledgement to Paley’s ideas from the 1980s, but he extended his theory into a book-length treatment entirely using the wrong Joseph Barnett. In his search to find Joseph Barnett in the records, he settled on a different Barnett as Mary Kelly’s lover. This one lived from 1860 to 1927, whereas later research found that the real Barnett lived from 1858 to 1926.

  The early 1980s were a period of relative inactivity in a field that had attracted considerable recent interest, but it was merely the calm before the storm. After all, the centenary of the Whitechapel murders was fast approaching, and this would bring with it media coverage without precedent, producing some of the most valuable discoveries in the case.5 By 1986 numerous authors had already begun to put together their individual contributions to the literary output of the period. In August of that year, John Morrison, a former lorry driver from Leytonstone, made a rather unique contribution to the Ripper theory bank. Morrison had his own ideas about the identity of Jack the Ripper and claimed to have been researching the case since he had lost his job in 1982. Apparently, like a modern-day Stuart Cumberland or Robert Lees, it all came to him in a dream:

  I dreamt I was in court. They were trying Jack the Ripper. Lord Hailsham was the judge. He called for the evidence – and they produced a Guinness Book of Records. Next morning I went along to the library and looked up the Guinness Book. And there it was! James Kelly was listed as the longest-ever escapee from Broadmoor. He had murdered his wife in Liverpool and been declared insane.6

  He then went on to propose the theory that James Kelly had had an affair with Mary Jane Kelly (who took his surname) in Liverpool and was so infatuated with her that he killed his wife. Mary deserted him after carrying his child, which James considered ‘vile treach
ery’, and he made his way to the East End, where he murdered ten prostitutes in his hunt for Mary Kelly. Each time he asked them their names and then murdered them to silence them. But Morrison’s story was riddled with dubious sources, including an alleged book written by the mistress of Inspector Joseph Chandler, which, although disguised as fiction, set out the story. Morrison’s ideas received a considerable amount of media coverage, particularly in the local press, and he was in and out of the newspapers for a good two years after his original claims were published. James Kelly would be reconsidered as a suspect several years later, when James Tully, using considerably better sources, made him a more promising prospect.7

  In early June 1883, James Kelly married Sarah Bridler, his landlady’s daughter, but shortly after the marriage he became increasingly mentally unstable. Furious quarrels with his wife and mother-in-law ensued, climaxing in him fatally stabbing Sarah in the neck with a pocket knife. Kelly was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, but a new Criminal Lunacy Act led to his undergoing further mental examination by specialists, and they concluded he was mentally disturbed. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and he was sent to Broadmoor. In January 1888 he escaped and was later seen in east London. At the end of the year, he went to France, returning to England at some point before going to New York in 1892. He continued to travel extensively in America, periodically returning to Britain and eventually, tired of running and in ill-health, he presented himself at Broadmoor, where he stayed until his death in 1927. The case against Kelly as the Ripper was that he did not appear to have been dangerous to any women other than his wife, and there was no evidence that he was actually in London at the time of the murders.8

  The run-up to the 1988 centenary saw a quick surge of new works. Authors such as Martin Fido, Martin Howells, Keith Skinner, Terrence Sharkey and Melvin Harris made their Ripper debuts at this time and were joined by such members of the old guard as Colin Wilson, Robin Odell and paranormal researcher Peter Underwood. Donald Rumbelow’s 1975 book was also given a timely reprint. Many of these efforts made a point of putting forward a suspect, introducing the wider public to as-yet ignored candidates like Aaron Kosminski and David Cohen (Fido) and Roslyn D’Onston Stephenson (Harris).9

  Ironically, the centenary year saw only one new Ripper book published, Paul Begg’s The Uncensored Facts,10 an attempt to lay down the story of the Whitechapel murders in as factual a way as possible, taking advantage of the material from the Scotland Yard and Home Office files that had now been made available for general consultation at the Public Record Office. By this time, several important discoveries had been made which should have put the study of the Whitechapel murders on to a level historic footing. The first of these new revelations came in the form of the copy of Robert Anderson’s 1910 memoirs The Lighter Side of My Official Life, which had once belonged to Chief Inspector Donald Swanson and contained the marginalia relating to Anderson’s suspect, who Swanson said was ‘Kosminski’. Swanson’s copy of the memoirs had been passed on to his daughter and on her death (about 1980) the book came into the possession of Jim Swanson, her nephew.11

  Kosminski, of course, was not a new name. He was included in Melville Macnaghten’s memoranda of 1894, along with Druitt, although it was the latter who found favour with the theorists after the discovery of the document in 1959. But here was a previously named suspect who was now mentioned once again by one of the most senior officials in the case and consequently could not be ignored. Jim Swanson managed to get the notes published in the Daily Telegraph,12 although the accompanying article hardly hit the heights of sensationalism. It referenced Martin Fido’s research and included comment by Donald Rumbelow, but the whole tone appeared to be one of caution. In the UK, London Weekend Television’s Crime Monthly series, featuring investigations into crimes past and present, took on the Ripper. With a distinct sense of ‘ownership’, Crime Monthly, and in particular its presenter Paul Ross, claimed to have unmasked Jack the Ripper at last.13 Right up to the eleventh hour, Ross was tight-lipped: ‘All I can say is that the man we think was the killer was arrested as a suspect at the time, but he is not a famous suspect.’14 Nor was he a new one. In a classic case of the media presenting previously known facts as if they were some form of esoteric investigative secret known only to them, Crime Monthly named its suspect – Kosminski.

  The ever popular game of ‘whodunnit?’ was properly addressed in The Secret Identity of Jack the Ripper, another TV special, introduced by the actor Peter Ustinov and featuring a panel of experts from various relevant fields.15 As well as appearances by authorities Colin Wilson, Daniel Farson, Donald Rumbelow and Martin Fido, the studio panel consisted of William Waddell, curator of Scotland Yard’s Black Museum, forensic pathologist William Eckert, Anne Mallalieu QC and Roy Hazlewood and John Douglas of the FBI. The latter pair brought with them their ‘state of the art’ criminal profile of the Whitechapel murderer, something that had been created especially for the programme. This study, created using psychological profiling techniques developed over many years dealing with serial murderers, was seen as a ground-breaking tool in the attempt to identify Jack the Ripper.

  In short, it stated that the Whitechapel murderer was a male. He was of white race in view of the fact that white was the predominant race at the crime scene locations, and that generally crimes such as these are intraracial. He would have been between twenty-eight and thirty-six years of age, did not look out of the ordinary and was probably unmarried. He came from a family where he was raised by a domineering mother and weak, passive or absent father. In all likelihood, his mother drank heavily and enjoyed the company of many men. As a result, he failed to receive consistent care and contact with stable adult role models. His anger would have become internalized, and in his younger years he would have expressed his pent-up destructive emotions by creating fires and torturing small animals, seeking an employment where he could work alone and experience his destructive fantasies such as butcher, mortician’s helper, medical examiner’s assistant or hospital attendant. He would have had some type of physical abnormality, although not severe, but he would have perceived this as being psychologically crippling. He would have been seen as being quiet, a loner, shy, slightly withdrawn, obedient and neat and orderly in appearance. He lived or worked in the Whitechapel area. The first homicide would have been in close proximity to either his home or workplace. Finally, prior to each homicide, the subject would be in a local pub, drinking spirits, which would lower his inhibitions, and would be observed walking all over the Whitechapel area during the early-evening hours. He did not specifically seek a certain look in a woman; however, it was by no accident that he killed prostitutes.

  Altogether it was a rather austere presentation, serving the Ripper with the gravitas a serious criminal case no doubt deserved, but the real thrust of the proceedings was to get these esteemed experts in crime history, law, forensics and murder investigation to pick a likely candidate to be the Ripper. They had five suspects to choose from: Roslyn D’Onston Stephenson, Montague Druitt, Prince Albert Victor, Sir William Gull and ‘Kosminski’, and each suspect was put forward with reasons for their candidacy. But the results of the investigation were rather interesting; each member of the panel independently chose ‘Kosminski’, albeit for differing reasons. A studio audience vote was, perhaps, less surprising, with the most votes going to Sir William Gull and Prince Albert Victor, proof that the royal conspiracy theory had bitten very deep into the public consciousness.

  Another name that had been lingering on the outskirts of Ripper theories for many years was finally put in the frame as a bona fide suspect himself: Walter Sickert. Jean Overton Fuller’s Sickert and the Ripper Crimes16 took its central idea from claims made by Ms Fuller that Sickert’s friend Florence Pash had told her that Sickert had seen all the victims, presumably at the murder sites. By this time, the story that Walter Sickert was somehow ‘Ripper obsessed’ had done the rounds many times. Stephen Knight’s theory went as far as
saying that there were many references to the murders in Sickert’s paintings, despite there being scant evidence to support such claims, although Sickert subsequently did a painting of an interior called Jack the Ripper’s Bedroom, the only example. Perhaps the genesis of this belief was that he had once told a story that a room in which he had lodged in Mornington Crescent, north-west London, could boast the Ripper as a former occupant (according to the landlady), but Jean Overton Fuller’s theory, in keeping with earliest traditions of suspect-based Ripperology, was derived from hearsay and inventive thinking, as well as further unsubstantiated material which nobody else ever saw. It could be fair to say that the notion of Walter Sickert as the Ripper was a hangover from the ‘royal conspiracy’ theory. Most of the major players in the story had been exonerated of any involvement by careful research since the publication of Stephen Knight’s book, perhaps leaving Sickert as a last-gasp attempt at implicating somebody with friends in high places.

  With that concept worryingly in mind, the field wholeheartedly welcomed the arrival of The Jack the Ripper A-Z, an illustrated encyclopedia which attempted to set out as much information about the Whitechapel murders as possible in an easy to reference format.17 Its authors, Paul Begg, Martin Fido and Keith Skinner, were by now well respected in the field, and in his foreword Donald Rumbelow described it as ‘the anchor of future Jack the Ripper studies’. In the ensuing years, new research and a sudden glut of new suspects would ensure several updates, but most theories, no matter how unlikely, were included. Many of the dubious claims of early twentieth-century authors were given the caution they no doubt deserved, and the by-now popular royal cover-up theories were no exception. Perhaps in a polite attempt to put these spiralling ideas to rest once and for all, the A-Z politely stated in reference to Joseph Gorman Sickert that ‘it is to be regretted that overall extreme caution is recommended in examining any story emanating from or otherwise associated with Mr Sickert’.