The Jack the Ripper Location Photographs: Dutfield's Yard and the Whitby Collection (11 page)

The album then moves on to Germany and under a picture of the Hotel Deutsches Haus in Bingen (looking very similar to one standing today, albeit with many alterations) she recalls ‘Here I slept with a feather bed over me and a bootjack under my bed’.

After one image of Geneva, the bulk of the photographs are from the main destination of the trip – Italy. Several photographs were taken in Venice, others in Rome, Florence, Pisa, Genoa, Bordighera, Pompeii and Naples. Amongst the Rome images are photos of two named women (possibly travelling companions) and a clear image of the photographer herself – sadly, with her eyes closed. The Europe images conclude with another shot from Holland of a dog pulling a cart and finally of the photographer standing in an ice cave at Mer de Glace.

The rest of the album consists of the nine later images taken in the US. An old woman (the photographer in her later years?) in a white dress sits, surrounded by flowers, on the veranda of a small wooden outbuilding in the first. The second is of a middle-class clapboard house. There are several rustic photographs of people chopping wood and fishing, as well as photographs taken inside a house of a family round a table, a painting of a distinguished-looking gentleman and another of a well-dressed little girl standing next to an easel which holds a painting of a small child. Another painting is visible in the background.

Later American photograph, from the album

Elderly couple with the Stars and Stripes, from the album

The final shot in the album is of an elderly couple outside a different clapboard house. The old woman may well be the same one in the white dress from the earlier image. They flank a huge Stars and Stripes flag, hung from the roof. Dee Anna Grimsrud of the Wisconsin Historical Society inspected the later photos and had to conclude that they could be of almost anywhere. However, the final image did provide some interesting information. She noticed that the flag not only appeared to be brand new, but that it had 48 stars on it. The probability is that the photograph was taken when Arizona became the 48th State of America on 14 February 1912, a dozen years after the European trip. This could suggest the photographer came from Arizona, but it is nothing more than a possibility.

Ellen Engseth of the Wisconsin Historical Society provided me with information on the Heinn label at the back of the album. Heinn was a large Milwaukee-based company dealing in stationery and they are credited with creating the loose-leaf system of filing. Between 1896 and 1977, they were extremely prolific throughout the US and not just in Wisconsin. The red stamp of the number ‘642’ probably relates only to the type of album being sold. The company is now owned by Majestic Industries, but numerous e-mails to them over a long period of time elicited no reply.

The European Vacation
In the same e-mail where she noted the Arizona connection, Dee Anna Grimsrud asked me if I had contacted Cook’s Tours to see if their business records went back to 1900. I had actually not seriously considered a planned package deal extended break to Europe from so early a date, though I knew that Thomas Cook did run excursions, and had assumed it to have been an independent journey the photographer had arranged herself. The mention of Thomas Cook did bring to mind the comment in the album from Ross Castle, when the photographer mentioned she was collected by a Cook’s jaunting car.

Unsurprisingly, I had expected a Cook’s jaunting car to have been a charabanc of some description. Martin Fido subsequently pointed out, however, that a jaunting car in Ireland at that time was not a powered vehicle but a tiny pony and trap, on which the passengers would sit along the sides. There was always the possibility, of course, that the jaunting car had just been in the vicinity and came to the photographer’s assistance but seeing the name of Cook now mentioned twice, I thought it worthy of direct investigation.

I sent an e-mail to the Archive Department at Thomas Cook. Cook, a cabinet maker from Market Harborough, first held an excursion on 5 July 1841 when he organised a trip from Leicester to Loughborough for fellow Temperance Society members to attend a meeting by train. His first commercial venture was to Liverpool in 1845 and in 1855 he began to branch out into Europe, his business being helped by the International Exhibition in Paris. Trips to America followed in 1865. By the time of the 1900 vacation, Thomas Cook was the largest organisation of its kind in the world, with branches in many major countries.

A Cook’s touring car in Paris, 1900

An Irish jaunting car at Blarney Castle

Paul Smith runs the extensive Archive Department and his communication of 14 August 2008 was to prove extremely useful:

‘Many Americans visited Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as part of an escorted Cook’s Tour. These tours were especially popular in 1900, as tourists in this year were presented with the unique opportunity of visiting both the Paris Exposition (including the Olympic Games) and the Passion Play at Oberammergau. All European tours in 1900 appear to have included a few days in Paris; many of them also featured a visit to Oberammergau; but only one tour appears to have also incorporated a tour of Ireland (which you mention). This was ‘Tour No. 22’ and the itinerary, as listed in the pages of the American edition of
Cook’s Excursionist and Tourist Advertiser
(a monthly newspaper issued by Thos Cook & Son), was as follows:

A Thomas Cook advertising poster from 1900

New York, Queenstown, Cork, Blarney Castle, Glengariff, Killarney, Dublin (3 days), Belfast, Giant’s Causeway, Larne, Glasgow, The Trossachs, Edinburgh, Melrose, London (7 days), Paris and the Exposition (8 days), Brussels, Antwerp, The Hague, Amsterdam, Cologne, Bonn, The Rhine, Mayence, Heidelberg, Munich, Oberammergau, Lake Constance, Falls of the Rhine, Lucerne, The Rigi, Brunig Pass, Interlaken, Grindelwald, Berne, Lausanne, Fribourg, Geneva, Chamonix, Tete Noir Pass, Martigny, Brigue, Simplon Pass, Stresa, Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome (6 days), Naples, Capri, Sorrento, Pompeii, Vesuvius, Naples, New York.

The tour lasted 103 days and cost $970.

The fares included: travel tickets and hotel accommodation at first-class hotels; transportation of 250lbs of baggage on the ocean steamers and 56lbs on the railways; omnibuses between stations, piers and hotels; fees for sightseeing and carriage drives; fees to hotel servants and railway porters; and ‘the services of an experienced Conductor, who will supervise the arrangements throughout’. The fares did not include: steward’s fees on the ocean steamers; wines, liquors or other drink not ordinarily supplied at table d’hôte; expenses of carriages, guides or sightseeing when not ordered by the Conductor.

The tour was originally advertised as departing New York aboard the Cunard Line Steamship
Umbria
on Saturday 26 May 1900, but the April, May and June editions of
Cook’s Excursionist
shows a revised departure date of Saturday 2 June 1900 and a new ship: Cunard’s
Lucania
.

Details of the hotels to be used in Paris are listed in the ‘Excursionist’ but I am afraid no information is provided about any other hotels used on this tour. However, a 4-page list of all the hotels used by Thos Cook & Son throughout the world appears in every issue of the
Excursionist
.

This was a remarkable breakthrough, as it set in stone the times of the European vacation. We know that the tourist came from America because the first image in the series is of the short-lived Dewey Arch in New York from where, of course, the
Lucania
would sail.

The RMS Cunard
Lucania

The RMS Cunard
Lucania
was a steamer built in Glasgow in 1893 and made her maiden voyage on 2 September that year. She was one of the largest ships of her day, weighing 12,950 tons, 620’ long and capable of holding 2,000 passengers (600 First Class, 400 Second Class and 1000 Third Class). Through the 1890s, she constantly beat speed records on the North American transatlantic route. In 1901, she became the first Cunard ship to be fitted with Marconi wireless.

First Class accommodation on board the
Lucania
was the finest money could buy. The public rooms (and state rooms on the upper deck) were heavily panelled in oak, satinwood and mahogany. The floors were thickly carpeted, the furniture heavily upholstered and velvet curtains hung over every porthole and window. The First Class smoking room held the first ever open fire on a passenger ship. The First Class dining saloon was unsurpassed, rising 10’ and possessing a central well that pierced through three decks to a skylight. The ceilings were white and gold, supported by Ionic columns, and the walls were of mahogany, inlaid with ivory.