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David H
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 24, 2004 - 3:31 pm: | 
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It would appear that Mary Ann Kelly was living with her parents - John and Ellen Kelly and family at Church Street, Flint, Wales, according to 1881 census. She was 16 years old, and born Ireland. Her brothers were recorded as Patrick b: Caemarvon, Wales, and John, aged 11, b: Flint, Wales. Father John Kelly and his wife Ellen were also born in Ireland.
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Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 1529
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 26, 2004 - 5:44 pm: |
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David
Thats interesting where did you get het 1881 census from?
Suzi |
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 1249
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 26, 2004 - 5:54 pm: |
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It might be worth looking in the Flint church records to see if this Mary Ann Kelly married a man named Davies or Davis.
Thanks for the info David.
Natalie |
David H
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, November 28, 2004 - 4:18 pm: |
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Suzi
I have 1881 census on CD - with a national index its easy to locate most people listed - although variations in how a name is spelt can cause problems.
It may be of interest that my grandmother lived in Chapel Street, Flint, and Mary Ann Kelly lived in the next street - Chapel Street. They were of similar age....maybe they went to the same local Catholic School - St Mary's I think |
Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 1537
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 29, 2004 - 1:49 pm: |
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Hi David
The trouble with Davis and Davies is that in Wales there are an awful lot of em!
As to Flint this appears to be way too high up for it to be 'our' Mary
MAYBE tho at the point when Mary was 16 the family could have been in Flint before moving down....a look as Nat says at the marriage records could well be worth a look
Suzi
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Lauren
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, November 29, 2004 - 3:21 pm: |
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i think not about this particular person that was killed but the opthers aswell, because i think he was a doctor because he took out the organs that were part of the abdominal area. I am just 14 year old girl and i was just thought about what i have just wrote because not an everyday man in them days would know about hem organs and where they were. |
Donald Souden
Inspector
Username: Supe
Post Number: 320
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 12:18 pm: |
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Lauren,
This thread is not really the place for the point you have raised. That said, while you may be only 14, your observation is a valid one. Although not necessarily indicating a doctor by any means, JtR probably had a better sense of the internal human anatomy than was possessed by most Whitechapel residents of the time. Knowledge that could have been gained in any number of ways other than a medical education, but still a good idea of what is what under the skin, so to speak.
Problem has been that the only contemporaries offering an opinion on the scope of the Ripper's anatomical knowledge were doctors. Theoretical physicists today would probably consider even well-informed amateurs as having no great knowledge of their subject, yet how much of the general public can tell an electron-neutrino from a tau-neutrino? Or, in 1888 Whitechapel, a womb from a bladder?
Don. |
Lauren Ransom
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2005 - 12:49 pm: |
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Have any of you seen 'From Hell'?? Is there any truth in the claim that the rightful heir to the throne is callled alice and was taken to Ireland by Mary Annn kelly who was not actually killed, or is this to make the largely dull film more interesting?? |
John Carey
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 5:37 am: |
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Pay attention, folks. Unless Joe Barnett’s story is completely adrift, we will not find our Mary Kelly living with her parents, brothers and sisters at the time of the 1881 census. According to Barnett, Mary had left home two years earlier, loved and lost Mr Davis the collier and she had gone on to Cardiff and a bad life.
Here are details of eight Mary Kelly’s I found in the 1881 Gloucestershire census; although initially they look as though any of them could, perhaps have been the same Mary Kelly who ended up at 13 Miller’s Court seven years later, I have dismissed all of them, although some readers may have other ideas.
Living with parents
1 Mary Kelly, 28, tailoress. born Bedminster, Somerset. 1881 at Pipe Court Bristol St Augustine. Father John Kelly painter, born Cork, Ireland. Five sisters, no brothers. (RG11 piece 2476 folio 135 page 10)
2 Mary Kelly, 12. born Bristol. 1881 at 16 All Saints Street, Bristol Christ Church. Father John Kelly, general labourer, born Ireland. Two sisters, no brothers. (RG11 piece 2467 folio 102 page 15)
3 Mary Kelly 11, born Pimlico, Middlesex. 1881 at 32 Bellevue Crescent, Clifton, Bristol. Mother Mary Kelly, charwoman, born County Cork. Two bothers, two sisters (RG11 piece 2481 folio 13 page 19)
4 Mary Jane Kelly, 17, born Marwood, Devon. 1881 at Oak Hill, Henbury, Gloucestershire. No occupation. Father Robert Kelly, agricultural labourer, born Marwood. Three brothers, three sisters. (RG11 piece 2505 folio 99 page 4)
5 Mary A Kelly, 8, born Tidenham, Gloucestershire. 1881 at Penmoyle Terrace, Tidenham. Father John Kelly, general labourer, born Ireland. Three brothers, three sisters. Eldest brother Thomas Kelly, 22, was a labourer in an iron works. (RG11 piece 5220 folio 50 page 11)
In an institution
6 Mary Kelly 17, born Birmingham. 1881 inmate at Her Majesty’s Prison, North Hamlet. (What had she done?) (RG11 piece 2530 folio 61 page 45)
7 Mary Kelly, 16, born Bristol. 1881 inmate at the New Orphanage, Ashley Down, Bristol St James and St Paul (RG11 piece 2488 folio 85 page 8)
And finally …
8 Maria Kelly, 21 tailoress, born Bristol. 1881 at 1 Cherry Alley, Bristol St Paul. Father Edward Kelly, born Ireland, mother Catherine Kelly born County Limerick. Four sisters, one brother. (RG11 piece 2472 folio 26 page 6)
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Gareth W
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, May 30, 2005 - 7:31 pm: |
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One attraction of the Kellys of Flintshire is that the birth of *this* Mary Kelly's younger brother in Caernarfonshire may corroborate the oral history passed down to us from MJK's friends. It's the birthplaces of some of the other family members that may cause problems.
Digging further back the 1871 census entry for the self-same family states that this Mary Ann Kelly was born in Wicklow, not Limerick, as the MJK stories would have us believe. Quite some distance from Limerick to Wicklow (c.150 miles), so either MJK's memory was faulty or her friends passed down a distorted reconstruction of their own recollection of MJK's story. After all, Limerick and Wicklow have certain phonemic similarity and - I daresay - Limerick is the more well-known of the two regions.
There is another Mary Ann Kelly recorded in the 1861 Cardiff census and her age was put at two years old on the census form, making her 28 or 29 when MJK was killed. Her parents were Thomas (apparently a soldier from Dublin) and Mary, who hailed from Ballincollig, County Cork. This Mary Ann and her brother, James, were also born in Ballincollig.
If my map-reading skills are any good, Ballincollig is between 40 and 50 miles south of Limerick. Ballincollig is resolutely in County Cork, but not that far away from Limerick's border, and by today's standards it's no distance at all.
Despite the missing Caernarfon connection, this Cardiff Mary Ann Kelly was at least born closer to Limerick than the Flint Mary Ann Kelly. Slightly more tenuously, the coal-mining industry was stronger in South Wales (Cardiff being a massive coal port at the time) than in Flintshire, which may increase the likelihood of MJK having married a man who died in a mining disaster. On that point, Cardiff is also very close to Merthyr and Bedwellty (for those pursuing those Davis/Davies threads) than is Flintshire. Finally, there is MJK's reference to Cardiff Infirmary, which might also tie in with two-year-old Mary Ann Kelly as listed here in the 1861 census.
By the 1891 census the same Mary Kelly (senior) appears to be living in the same part of Cardiff, but she is then listed as head of her family and neither her husband nor her homonymous daughter are listed. Her husband, being a soldier, may have been fighting alongside my great-grandfather in Natal (forgive my flight of fancy!) or he may have been dead. And Mary junior ...? Who knows. |
Gareth W
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, June 02, 2005 - 4:25 pm: |
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Sorry, guys - downloaded one census too many!
The 1861 census referred to in my last post (Mary Ann Kelly from Ballincollig) is actually the listing for the Pembroke St Mary Military Barracks - hence the father, Thomas, being a soldier. The rest of the stuff about South Wales still applies in that Pembroke is still much nearer to Cardiff and the mining valleys etc than Flintshire is. Perhaps more interestingly, Pembroke is only around 30 miles from Carmarthen.
The 1861 Cardiff census simply lists "Ireland" as the birthplace for two Marys (mother and 2 year old daughter) and a husband/father called Daniel Kelly, some sort of tradesman/dealer (illegible on the census return).
I've found another Mary Ann Kelly in Whitechapel in the 1871 census, of which more in a separate thread.
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Cliff Roberts
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, June 16, 2005 - 3:16 am: |
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For what it's worth, the 1871 Census for Portsmith, Hampshire, shows a Mary Jane Kelly, age 9, living with father John, 34; mother Elizabeth, 45, and two brothers, Michael, 13, and Henry, 7, all born in Ireland. They are listed among the military families at Cambridge Barracks. John Kelly is described as a private. I seem to recall our Mary Jane having told friends that she had a brother named Henry and that he had enlisted in the military guard. That would seem to make the girl in this 1871 census a viable candidate for our Mary Jane. |
Richard Poplar
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, August 07, 2005 - 8:33 am: |
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Does anyone know what kind of accent Mary Kelly had? If we knew this, Irish, Welsh, cockney, we would have a very good idea of her origins.
I think she was a London girl who took the name of Kelly. |
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 2002
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - 5:20 am: |
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Hi Richard,
I've often wondered how many accents in the Victorian East End would be instantly recognised, either by the indigenous population or immigrants, if they differed from one's own. We take it for granted these days, because of phones, films and tv. But in those days you'd have to learn from personal experience in order to distinguish between accents. What would sound 'foreign', for instance, to a Cockney?
An Irish accent would have been familiar enough in the east End, so if Mary didn't have one, and wasn't even called Kelly, she'd have needed to explain why, which might just account for the Welsh connection.
Could she have been born in Wales and called Davies? And if the tragic young widow tale was made up, at least no one would be suspicious if she ever heard the name Davies and reacted instinctively to it. It must be quite difficult to 'lose' your birth names completely. In a crowded room, it's said that you can always hear your own name, even if it is whispered.
Just thinking out loud.
It just seems so strange to me that she hasn't yet been pinned down under the name Mary Jane Kelly. The longer the search goes on, the more likely it becomes IMHO that she adopted the name Mary Kelly to fit with her story when she needed one.
For all we know she could have been a foundling, determined to wipe out a miserable childhood by inventing a large family for herself.
Love,
Caz
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 4755
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - 6:01 am: |
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Hi Caz
Just on the foundling idea : she did get letters from Ireland, didn't she? So I think she had some family. But the whole bit about being married and widowed and shabbily treated as to compensation, may have been taken from some acquaintance.
Robert |
Gareth W
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - 11:49 am: |
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Robert,
It doesn't quite follow that because Mary received letters from Ireland they were from any relatives of hers. They could've been sent by anyone in fact, as I can't recall any testimony relating to the letters that said definitively that they'd been sent by her family. Also, didn't one witness, a Mrs Phoenix, state that Mary's family had abandoned her? Now there's "abandonment" as in "foundling" and "abandonment" in the sense of "disowning". Mary's abandonment could have fallen into either category, both of which would explain why no relatives came forward after her very public - and tragically private - death.
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Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 2276
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 12, 2005 - 6:26 pm: |
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Wasnt it her landlord[and a possible relative it seems]John McCarthy,who said he had himself seen the letters received from her mother in Ireland?
Natalie |
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 2277
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 12, 2005 - 6:30 pm: |
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P.S. ...and wouldnt that suggest that her name was indeed Mary Kelly or possibly "Davies" through the marriage she said she had-and that John McCarthy had seen letters addressed to her by one of these names? |
Gareth W
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, August 12, 2005 - 7:40 pm: |
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Nat,
McCarthy merely surmised that the Irish letters were from Mary's mother. As I said, there is no extant testimony from anyone that definitively links the Irish correspondence with Mary's family.
Out of interest, I'm currently tracking a "possible Mary" via various sources which, if I have the right one, strongly suggests that her mother had already died long before she moved to London and that most of her family remained in Wales. I'll let you know if I get onto something.
Cheers.
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