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Alan Sharp
Chief Inspector
Username: Ash
Post Number: 588
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - 2:45 pm: |       |
Apologies if this has been discussed before - I can't seem to find it anywhere.
George Brown, a Metropolitan Policeman, committed suicide in Hyde Park on November 16th 1888 by shooting himself.
Has anyone ever looked into this chap, found out what division he was from, what the reasons for his suicide were etc.
(in other words, me being lazy, is there any point in me looking further?) |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2431
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - 3:19 pm: | |
Hi Alan
Chris George did a long and very interesting article "The Mysterious Life And Death Of PC Richard Brown" in 'Ripperologist' number 49.
Robert |
Stephen P. Ryder
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3091
Registered: 10-1997
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - 3:22 pm: | |
We have two contemporary press reports which mention PC Brown's suicide:
http://www.casebook.org/about_the_casebook/cbindex.html?showindex=Richard%20Brown
Stephen P. Ryder, Exec. Editor
Casebook: Jack the Ripper |
Alan Sharp
Chief Inspector
Username: Ash
Post Number: 590
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 13, 2004 - 6:16 am: | |
Thanks. Interestingly I have Rip 49 somewhere, I'll have to dig it out! |
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 750
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 13, 2004 - 10:24 am: | |
Hi, Alan
I hope you do read my article on P.C. Richard Brown in Ripperologist 49. It is quite an interesting story. His background is murky. In joining the Met's E Division in August 1886 and also earlier when he joined the Royal Artillery in Liverpool in March 1878, he claimed to have been born in Adelaide, South Australia, but the address given does not check out. Additionally when he deserted from the artillery and joined the Northumberland Fusiliers on November 12, 1878, he gave his place of birth as Heligoland, which is an island off Germany, then a British possession but later traded by the British for Zanzibar. He was courtmartialed spent time in the Millbank Military Prison and went back into the Royal Artillery, being honorably discharged in spring 1886, several months before joining the Met. A notation in his Army papers indicates that his address was Bethnal Green, in the East End, although so far I have been unable to find a specific address.
Brown was let go from the police on Tuesday, 13 November 1888 (four days after the murder of Mary Jane Kelly) for failing to appear on parade for night duty at a quarter to ten, and was said in the Police Orders for that day to be "considered unfit for the Police Force", although his conduct otherwise while serving in the Met appears to have been good. He was allowed to resign from the police in order to keep his testimonial. After his resignation, he told acquaintances he had plans to go abroad, bought a revolver supposedly for protection during his trip, then shot himself at midday on Friday, 16 November while seated on a park bench in Hyde Park, not far from the Hyde Park police station, on a path leading to the Serpentine.
The question of a whistle heard about the time of the suicide was not resolved. P.C. Duncan McKenzie, 593A, heard the whistle, which he thought was a police whistle, walked down the path toward the lake and found Brown slumped on a park bench "with the revolver tightly clasped in his right hand and blood flowing from his mouth." (The Times, 20 November 1888).
In the Jewish Chronicle of 29 December 1888, reporting belatedly on the inquest it was stated that "It transpired that Sir Charles Warren had shown him great kindness and the deceased became very depressed when the resignation of the late Chief Commissioner [of the Metropolitan Police] was announced."
The circumstances of Richard Brown's life and death are certainly odd but whether his death had anything to do with the murders remains to be seen.
I do plan a follow-up article for a future issue of Ripperologist.
Best regards
Chris George
(Message edited by ChrisG on May 13, 2004) |
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