Complete History of Jack the Ripper (83 page)
Read Complete History of Jack the Ripper Online
Authors: Philip Sudgen
In 1903 Inspector Abberline, that most celebrated of Ripper hunters, bemoaned the fact that Scotland Yard was ‘really no wiser on the subject than it was fifteen years ago’. Today the case is still unsolved. But these are exciting times for those who would seek out Jack the Ripper. We cannot put a name to him. Not yet. But a combination of sound historical scholarship and the latest profiling techniques is beginning to tell us more about him than Abberline would have dreamed possible.
A great many books, newspapers and journals have been consulted during the preparation of this book. Printed sources, primary and secondary, are relatively well-known. Where they have proved of value they are acknowledged in the notes. For a full listing, see Alexander Kelly,
Jack the Ripper
:
A Bibliography and Review of the Literature
(London, 1973; third edition, 1995) and Alexander Kelly, ‘A Hundred Years of Ripperature,’ in Colin Wilson & Robin Odell,
Jack the Ripper
:
Summing-up and Verdict
(London, 1987), pp. 280–314.
The following archival sources have been searched.
Public Record Office, Kew
(a) Metropolitan Police:
MEPO 1/48. Commissioner’s letters, confidential & private, 1867–91.
MEPO 1/54. Out letters, 1890–1919.
MEPO 1/55. Letters to Home Office etc., 1883–1904.
MEPO 1/65. Letters from Receiver to Home Office etc., 1868–91.
MEPO 2/227. Police reinforcements for Whitechapel after Pinchin Street murder, 1889.
MEPO 3/140. Files on each of the Whitechapel Murders.
MEPO 3/141. Whitechapel Murders, miscellaneous correspondence and suspects.
MEPO 3/142. ‘Jack the Ripper’ letters.
MEPO 3/3153. Documents on Whitechapel Murders returned to Yard in November 1987.
MEPO 3/3155. Photographs of Whitechapel Murder victims.
MEPO 6/15. Habitual Criminals Register, 1904.
(b) Home Office:
HO 8/194–6, 201–7. Quarterly returns of prisoners, Chatham (1872–3) and Portland (1874–6).
HO 27/140, 143, 167. Registers of persons charged at Assizes and Quarter Sessions, 1865, 1866 and 1874.
HO 45/9744/A56376. Police repudiate press interviews, 1894.
HO 140/25, 98. After-trial calendars of prisoners tried at Assizes and Quarter Sessions, 1874, 1887.
HO 144/220/A49301. Whitechapel Murders: suspects.
HO 144/220/A49301B. Whitechapel Murders: rewards.
HO 144/221/A49301C. Whitechapel Murders: steps taken to apprehend the murderer.
HO 144/221/A49301D. Whitechapel Murders: suspects.
HO 144/221/A49301E. Whitechapel Murders: use of dogs.
HO 144/221/A49301F. Miller’s Court Murder, 1888.
HO 144/221/A49301G. Whitechapel Murders: police allowances.
HO 144/221/A49301H. Poplar Murder, 1888.
HO 144/221/A49301I. Castle Alley Murder, 1889.
HO 144/221/A49301K. Pinchin Street Murder, 1889.
HO 144/680/101992. George Chapman.
HO 145/5. Criminal Lunacy Warrant Book, 1884–7.
HO 151/4–5. Confidential Entry Books, 1887–95.
(c) Miscellaneous:
ASSI 2/39. Oxfordshire Assize, Lent 1863, crown minute book.
ASSI 5/183/12. Oxfordshire Assize, Lent 1863, indictments.
ASSI 31/37. Kent Assize, Summer 1866, agenda book.
ASSI 35/306, Part 2. Kent Assize, Summer 1866, indictments.
BT 27/66–8. Board of Trade passenger lists, outwards, January-July 1891.
MH 94/6, 11, and 85. Registers of patient admissions to lunatic asylums.
PCOM 2/4. Chatham Prison register, 1871–81.
PCOM 2/55. Millbank Prison register, 1873–5.
PCOM 2/75. Pentonville Prison register, 1873–5.
PCOM 2/364. Portland Prison, governor’s journal, 1872–5.
PCOM 3/342, 605–29. Licenses for release of prisoners, 1873, 1882–3.
PCOM 6/21. Register of Licenses, 1902–8.
WO 97/1450, 2083, 3274, 5324. Soldiers: attestation & discharge papers.
Public Record Office, Chancery Lane
CRIM 1/84. Central Criminal Court, George Chapman case, 1903, depositions.
CRIM 4/1215. Central Criminal Court, George Chapman case, indictments.
National Census Returns, 1841–91.
Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Belfast
D1507. Sir Edward Carson, correspondence & papers.
Office of Population Censuses & Surveys, St Catherine’s House, London
Registers of births, marriages & deaths.
British Library
Additional MS. 57,485. Letters from George R. Sims to Sir Melville Macnaghten.
Bodleian Library, Oxford
MS. Eng. hist. c. 723. Letter: Matthews, 5 October 1888, to Ruggles-Brise, on offer of reward for Whitechapel murderer.
Corporation of London Records Office, Guildhall
Southwark Inquests 1865, No. 229. Charles White inquest, 1865.
Coroner’s Inquest (L), 1888, No. 135. Catharine Eddowes inquest, 1888.
INQ/S/1902/274. Maud Marsh inquest, 1902.
Police Boxes 3.13–3.23. Letters, mainly from general public, to City Police about Whitechapel Murders.
Guildhall Library, Aldermanbury
MS. 10445/33. City of London Cemetery, Little Ilford, burial register, 1888.
MS. 6012A/17–19. Land Tax Books, Mile End Old Town, 1886, 1890–1.
MS. 6015A/4–5. Land Tax Books, Whitechapel, 1887–90.
Greater London Record Office, Northampton Road
MJ/SPC, NE 1888 Box 3 Case Paper 19. Mary Jane Kelly inquest, 1888.
PS/TH/A1/8–24 and PS/TH/A2/5–16. Thames Police Court registers, 1887–91.
H12/CH/B2/2. Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, male admissions register, 1888–1906.
H12/CH/B13/36, 39–42. Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, male casebooks, 1887, 1890–95.
H12/CH/B6/2. Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, discharge register, 1891–6.
StBG/Wh/123/19–20. Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary, admission & discharge books, 1887–9.
StBG/ME/114/4–5. Mile End Old Town Workhouse, admission & discharge books, 1890–91.
StBG/ME/117/12–13. Mile End Old Town Workhouse Infirmary, admission & discharge books, 1890–91.
X/20/355. Mile End Old Town Workhouse, religious creed register, 1890–92, microfilm.
X/20/362. Mile End Old Town Workhouse Infirmary, religious creed register, 1887–92, microfilm.
StBG/ME/107/8. Mile End Old Town, orders for reception of lunatics into asylums, 1889–91.
StBG/ME/112/4. Mile End Old Town, orders for admission of imbeciles into asylums, 1886–1903.
HO.BG/541/71. Holborn Workhouse, City Road, admission & discharge book, 1900.
X/20/65. St. Giles Workhouse, religious creed register, 1889–92, microfilm.
Acc 2385/63. Calendar, County of London Sessions, Clerkenwell, December 1900.
Banstead Hospital: admissions register, 1891–2, and papers relating to Michael Ostrog, 1891–3. (uncatalogued)
At time of writing the following records of Leavesden Asylum had not been allocated references:
Admission order book, Nos. 7351–7400.
Male case register, Vol. 12A, p. 29.
Male medical register, 1870–1917.
Male medical journal, 1918–21.
Admission & discharge book, 1919–20.
Aaron Kosminski file from ‘case files 1919’.
Westminster City Library (Victoria Library), Buckingham Palace Road
D358, D362 and D366. Rate books, Rupert Street, St James Piccadilly, 1887–90.
Holborn Library (Local Studies), Theobalds Road
Rate books, Great Ormond Street, 1887–8.
Royal London Hospital Archives & Museum, Whitechapel
London Hospital, patient admission register, 1888.
MC/S/1/1. London Hospital Medical College, index register of students, 1741–1914.
MC/S/1/6. London Hospital Medical College, register of students, 1876–1889.
Whitechapel Murders: The E. K. Larkins Collection.
Maps and sketches by Dr Gordon Brown and Frederick Foster, Mitre Square Murder, 1888. Originals now framed in Secretary’s Office, London Hospital Medical College, Turner Street, photographs in archives.
Harperbury Hospital, Radlett, Herts
Leavesden Asylum, admissions & deaths registers.
Springfield Hospital, Glenburnie Road, London
Surrey Lunatic Asylum, Male Patients Admission Book, 1880–88.
Surrey Lunatic Asylum, Criminal Lunatics Book, 1885–1950.
St Olave’s & St Saviour’s Grammar School Foundation, New Kent Road
St John’s Charity School, admissions register 1842–7, and charity minutes up to 1857.
Gloucestershire Record Office, Gloucester
Q/Gc 6/5. Gloucester Gaol register, 1865–71.
Q/Sm 1/7. Gloucestershire Quarter Sessions, Epiphany Sessions, 1866, court minute book.
Q/SD2 1866. Gloucestershire Quarter Sessions, Epiphany Sessions, 1866, depositions.
Surrey Record Office, Kingston upon Thames
Acc 1523/3/1/5. Brookwood Lunatic Asylum, admission register, 1887.
Staffordshire Record Office, Stafford
Bushbury, Staffs., parish register, 1832.
The following abbreviations are employed throughout the notes:
CLRO
Corporation of London Records Office.
CPL
Coroner’s Papers, Langham: Eddowes inquest, see under Corporation of London Records Office.
CPM
Coroner’s Papers, Macdonald: Kelly inquest, see under Greater London Record Office.
DN
Daily News
DT
Daily Telegraph
ELA
East London Advertiser
ELO
East London Observer
GL
Guildhall Library
GLRO
Greater London Record Office (now London Metropolitan Archives)
PMG
Pall Mall Gazette
PRO
Public Record Office
RLHAM
Royal London Hospital Archives & Museum
T
The Times
WCL
Westminster City Library (Victoria)
Notes
Introduction
1
For recent literature see Alexander Kelly,
Jack the Ripper: A Bibliography and Review of the Literature
(third edition, 1995) and Ross Strachan,
The Jack the Ripper Handbook
(Irvine, Scotland, 1999).2
Register of cases, PRO, DPP 3/7, application No. 420.3
They are now published in Stewart Evans & Keith Skinner (ed.),
The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook
(London, 2000), pp. 3–5. This book, an altogether magnificent selection of primary source material, is indispensable to serious students of the case.4
Dew,
I Caught Crippen
(London, 1938), pp. 91–92.5
For the fruits of recent research into some of the Ripper’s victims, see Neal Shelden,
Jack the Ripper and his Victims
(Hornchurch, Essex, 1999).6
J. Shepherd, H. Ellis & G. Davies,
Identification Evidence
(Aberdeen, 1982), pp. 80–86; J. Shepherd, ‘Identification After Long Delays,’ in Sally Lloyd-Bostock & Brian Clifford (ed.),
Evaluating Witness Evidence
(1983), pp. 173–187; G. Davies, ‘Mistaken Identification: Where Law Meets Psychology Head On,’ a paper read to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 9 September 1994.7
A. Aylmer, ‘The Detective in Real Life,’
Windsor Magazine
, I (1895), p. 507.8
H. L. Adam,
CID Behind the Scenes at Scotland Yard
(London, not dated), p. 14.9
Daily Chronicle
, 1 September 1908.10
Compare deposition of Inspector Abberline, 12 November 1888, CPM, f. 12, and report of Dr Phillips, 22 July 1889, MEPO 3/140, f. 265.11
D. S. Goffee, ‘The Search for Michael Ostrog,’
Ripperana
, No. 10, October 1994, pp. 5–12.12
St Giles Workhouse, Religious Creed Register, 1889–92, GLRO,
Microfilm X/20/65. The following records of Banstead Hospital, held by GLRO but uncatalogued at time of my research, contain valuable information: Admissions Register, 1891–2; Reception Order, 4 May 1891; Macnaghten, 7 May 1891, to Medical Supt.; Notice of Discharge, 29 May 1893.13
Aylesbury Reporter
, 7 July 1894;
Bucks. Herald
, 16 and 23 June, 7 July 1894; Remissions and Pardons 1894–1907, PRO, HO 188/3, p. 19.14
Woolwich Gazette
, 16 and 23 September 1898;
Woolwich Herald
, 23 September 1898.15
Calendar, County of London Sessions, Clerkenwell, 18 December 1900, No. 90, GLRO, Acc 2385/63;
T
11 and 20 December 1900;
DT
20 December 1900.16
Register of Licences, 1902–8, No. 64026, PRO, PCOM 6/21; Habitual Criminals Register, 1904, PRO, MEPO 6/15, p. 244.17
The chain of command amongst the various police officers involved on the case is well described by Nick Connell & Stewart Evans,
The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper: Edmund Reid and the Police Perspective
(Cambridge, 1999), espec. pp. 13–14, 24–5, 28–30.18
H. L. Adam, ‘My Forty Years as a Crime Investigator,’
Thomson’s Weekly News
, 26 November 1932.19
Norman Hastings, ‘Chapman was not Jack the Ripper,’
Thomson’s Weekly News
, 21 June 1930. On Hastings’s work in general, see Nick Connell, “When the People Were in Terror” by Norman Hastings,’
Ripperologist
, No. 33, February 2001, pp. 4–6.20
Michael Conlon, ‘A Tale of Two ‘Frenchys’,’
Ripperana
, No. 34, October 2000, pp. 1–10; Melvin Harris,
The True Face of Jack the Ripper
(London, 1994), p. 165; R. Michael Gordon,
Alias Jack the Ripper
(Jefferson, North Carolina, 2001), pp. 225–246.21
Gordon,
Alias Jack the Ripper
, pp. 248–250.22
Stewart Evans & Paul Gainey,
Jack the Ripper, First American Serial Killer
(London, 1996); Evans & Skinner (ed.),
Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook
, pp. 611–622.23
Stefan Petrow,
Policing Morals: The Metropolitan Police and the Home Office 1870–1914
(Oxford, 1994), pp. 61–62.