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marcel hawthorne
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, February 24, 2003 - 3:38 pm: | 
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Who is this John Anderson (sailor), then? I had seen him as a "favourite" on a number of the old profiles as well, but I can't find a word about him in A-Z, Sourcebook, et alia. Please advise on this new intriguing suspect! |
Kevin Braun
Police Constable
Username: Kbraun
Post Number: 9
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 1:06 pm: |
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Hi Marcel,
John Anderson was a sailor, who according to shipmate James Brame (aboard the Annie Speer), confessed to the East End murders on his deathbed. Brame stated that Anderson was about thirty eight years old, had medical knowledge (US Navy hospital assistant), fair complexion, red hair, mustache, face pitted with smallpox scars. The description possibly matches Mary Ann Cox's ID of "blotchy face, and full carrotty mustache".
The Brame account was published in Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper October 1896. According to Brame, Anderson had been robbed and almost ruined by a prostitute in London. He swore revenge. From the LWN article...
"He brooded on this, and at length resolved to be revenged on the whole class....having little money took lodgings at a quiet farm-like house near Bromley...... He would leave his lodgings in the evening, and make his way to the Whitechapel district where he committed the terrible deeds as he found opportunity. The knife he used was similar to that used by a slaughterman. He had found a conferderate in his awful work, and it was this fact that enabled him to evade capture. The confederate would wait at a spot appointed with a clean smock, which Anderson at once drew over his blood-stained garments, so avoiding any suspicious appearance."
Two days before his death, Anderson delirious with fever would scream out "There's another! How she bleeds!"
I have borrowed heavily from a March 10, 2001 post on the old boards by Christopher T. George. Thanks!
Take care,
Kevin |
marcel hawthorne
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 2:46 pm: |
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Thank you for the information! Kevin! This sounds like an interesting story. But what makes it any different from the hundreds of other spurious deathbed confesions recorded by the press in the years after 1888?? Why are so many people here listing him as a top suspect?? |
Dan L. Hollifield
Police Constable
Username: Vila
Post Number: 2
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 26, 2003 - 8:30 am: |
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Marcel,
Perhaps its the combination of his medical skills, his description closely resembling that given by Mary Ann Cox, and his being a sailor & thus lending the possiblity of his ship's schedule matching the murder dates.
As to this last point, as I recall from a discussion in the chatroom, their is a pair of Casebook patrons who are looking into that in some detail.
Vila |
Kevin Braun
Police Constable
Username: Kbraun
Post Number: 10
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 26, 2003 - 10:02 am: |
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Marcel,
I am not aware of any other deathbed confessions recorded by the press in the years after 1888. Could you list a few?
I think Anderson is an intriguing suspect, but the case for him is thin,thin,thin. Brame may have invented the account. Anderson may not have been anywhere near London in 1888. I could go on.
I also recall the chatroom discussion Vila (Hi Vila) mentioned in his above post. Perhaps in the near future we will learn more of Anderson's whereabouts at crucial times.
Take care,
Kevin
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John Whitaker
Police Constable
Username: Kingjohn39
Post Number: 6
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 26, 2003 - 10:40 am: |
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Kevin,
Dr. T. Neill Cream is one that comes to mind. Although I doubt that he was being truthful, if he did indeed claim to be Jack.
John |
Kevin Braun
Sergeant
Username: Kbraun
Post Number: 11
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 26, 2003 - 11:41 am: |
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Hi John,
"He was charged and found guilty of the death of Matilda Clover, and was sentenced to hang on November 15, 1892. It was there that he would perform his last (and perhaps most inexplicable) action -- he is said to have uttered 'I am Jack...' as the noose fell taut and squeezed the life out of his body. As the Ripper murder scare was still in full force, the immediate assumption was that Cream had confessed to being Jack the Ripper." (From Casebook:Suspects Dr. Thomas Neill Cream )
Yes, I had forgotten about Dr. Cream, thanks. Not exactly a deathbed or a confession but close.
Take care,
Kevin |
Stephen P. Ryder
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 2634
Registered: 10-1997
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 26, 2003 - 11:45 am: |
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Fogelma's was a death-bed confession. I believe the 'Dr. Stanley' theory was also based on a death-bed confession. I seem to remember a few others from the various newspapers but can't find them at the moment. |
Kevin Braun
Sergeant
Username: Kbraun
Post Number: 12
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 26, 2003 - 2:53 pm: |
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Hi Stephen,
"Before he died this man sent for the Rev. J. Miosen, the pastor of a Nestorien church in New York. To him the dying man told enough to connect him with the crimes committed in London." (Empire News (U.K.)23 October 1923)
Certainly a death-bed confession recorded by the press after 1888. For the Empire News article see http://casebook.org/press_reports/empire_news/en231023.html. Well done Stephen.
Take care,
Kevin |
R.J. Palmer
Police Constable
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 2
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 9:34 am: |
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Hi. D'onston is another suspect that allegedly made a deathbed confession, although Melvin Harris argues rather persuasively in an appendix to The True Face of Jack the Ripper that this is apocryphal, confounding Cremer's account with the Fogelma confession. In fact, there's no record of D'Onston's death. [Did the Biblical scholar and world traveller spend his last days in Palestine, I wonder?]
The main problem I have with the John Anderson story, beyond the fact that none of the details have been corroborated, is that the motive of being robbed by a prostitute is not only naive and even cartoonish, but it is strangely reminiscent of the old 'Malay' yarn that was circulating in the autumn 1888. In that story, a certain George Dodge told of another sailor--- 'Alaska' or Lascar--who had been robbed in a similar fashion, swore revenge, and began killing East End prostitutes. A reporter for the New York Word chased down the story, and found out that none of its details held water, and the whole thing was little more than a sailor's yarn. I wouldn't be surprised if the John Anderson tale falls into the same catagory or is even derived from the earlier tale. The bit about Anderson falling into a fever and raving 'There's another!' also strikes me as a rather stock item in stories of this sort.
Sorry for the cynicism. Cheers, RP. |
Kevin Braun
Sergeant
Username: Kbraun
Post Number: 14
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 2:33 pm: |
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RP.,
Three sailors' yarns invented or embellished by a Ripper hungry press. Sounds good to me. We do know that a John Anderson was buried in Iquique Chile, where Brame claimed Anderson made the death-bed confession. Can we say the same about Fogelma or the 'Malay' cook?
Take care,
Kevin |
R.J. Palmer
Police Constable
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 5
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 04, 2003 - 10:15 pm: |
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Kevin--I sometimes lag a year or two behind in the latest information. Could you tell me how we know that a sailor named John Anderson was buried in the necropolis at Iquique? I'm not doubting the information, only I've never heard that this had been confirmed. All the best, RJP |
Kevin Braun
Sergeant
Username: Kbraun
Post Number: 15
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 05, 2003 - 12:54 pm: |
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RJP,
I remember, but I can't seem to find it now, an article or a post (old Casebook Boards) on Nick Connell's research in Chile. The gist of the article (post), "a John Anderson" or the " Annie Speer John Anderson". I will keep looking.
Take care,
Kevin |
Kevin Braun
Sergeant
Username: Kbraun
Post Number: 16
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 10, 2003 - 10:07 am: |
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RJP,
It seems that my memory is not as good as it used to be. The post (March 2001, old Casebook boards) I was referring to, did not state that Connell did research in Chile; only that he may have. The post goes on to discuss the difficulty of doing work on a name as common as John Anderson and finding "....independent corroboration that he is the man mentioned in the LWN article". Please accept my apology. We do not know that a John Anderson is buried in the necropolis at Iquique Chile.
Take care,
Kevin |
Christopher T George
Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 473
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 11, 2003 - 1:06 pm: |
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Hi, all:
I still have hopes of finding new information on John Anderson. In fact, I have just sent an e-mail to Mark Andrew Pardoe, who has been digging up information on the suicide in Hyde Park on 16 November 1888 of P.C. Richard Brown, some of which appeared in my article in Ripperologist No. 49, September 2003, on "The Mysterious Life and Death of P.C. Richard Brown." Before P.C. Brown was a Met policeman in "E" Division (1886-1888), he was a decorated private in the Royal Artillery(1878-1886), except for a six-month period when he went AWOL and joined another British Army regiment (part of his strange history!!!), and before that a sailor (presumably for some period up until around early March 1878 when he joined the Royal Artillery).
It is my hope that Mark can find information on Brown from the time he served as a sailor, and perhaps at the same time dig up something new on John Anderson. Unfortunately, as we have lamented, the names Brown and Anderson are so common!
Nick Connell did confirm to me last year that he has not so far been able to follow up the Anderson story (see below). As Nick states, his article in Ripperana was more or less a republication of the Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper piece of October 1896 giving the story about Anderson by his supposed shipmate James Brame, despite Kevin Brown's implication in his post of March 5, 2003 that Nick carried out research in Chile. Moreover, as noted by Kevin above, apparently no one has yet confirmed as Brame claimed in the Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper story, that John Anderson was buried in the necropolis of Iquique, Chile, and nor indeed to verify Brame's claim that he and Anderson served together on the barque Annie Speer. But the latter information might be obtainable readily enough if we can find the right ship's lists and seamen's certificates. So far, from census information, it does appear that James Brame was an Ipswich area man, which makes sense since the Lloyds piece states that Brame's story first appeared in an East Anglian newspaper.
I have also found out a bit more about the Annie Speer from a maritime history contact, although unfortunately it is later history about the ship, but interesting nonetheless, tangentially. My contact told me: "Annie Speer not mentioned in Lubbock's Nitrate Clippers but on page 152 of Last of the Windjammers Vol. II he says that Annie Speer was later called Bankleigh owned by William Just, and that she was sold to Norway in 1907, remamed Ceres, later Iona, being
scrapped in 1924." To this information, Jimmy Jenkinson added, "Bankleigh was owned by Bank Shipping Co. Limerick and managed by William Just & Co, and registered in Liverpool.}
Best regards
Chris George
*********
From Nick Connell to Chris George 20 Nov 2002
Hello Chris
I'm afraid all I have on Anderson is what Nick Warren printed in Ripperana which is more or less a complete transcript of the Lloyd's article. I found it originally by chance. If I ever have any spare time at the newspaper library I order a year of a tabloid paper to browse through and things like this often turn up although the Anderson story seems a bit better than much of the tabloid fare and contains several checkable details.
There did not appear to be a follow up to the Anderson story in Lloyd's. The information that the story first appeared in Ipswich newspapers came from the Lloyd's story. I did not check any of these but I think it would definitely be an avenue to pursue. . .
Good luck with your researches.
Regards
Nick
(Message edited by ChrisG on December 11, 2003)
(Message edited by ChrisG on December 11, 2003) |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 3530
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 22, 2004 - 6:54 pm: |
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Hi Chris
There are a couple of references to the "Bankleigh" in the "Times" for the year 1900. It seems to have been a grain ship (hence the later name Ceres?). I couldn't find the name "Annie Speer".
Robert |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 3531
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - 4:52 am: |
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Chris, there was something after all.
OCT 14th 1893
Robert |
Christopher T George
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 1111
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - 8:12 am: |
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Hi Robert
Yes that's the vessel. Thanks. As noted in the reminiscence about John Anderson as told by shipmate James Brame, the Annie Speer called in at Iquique, Chile, and it is in the necropolis there that he was buried.
All the best
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
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Christopher T George
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 1114
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - 3:16 pm: |
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Here is a view of the port at Iquique, Chile, at the height of the saltpetre trade, the trade that John Anderson's ship, the Annie Speer was engaged in when he took ill and died in 1895. During the last years of the nineteenth century, the Chilean port exported huge quantities of nitrate for the world's arms and gunpowder needs. This is from a Spanish language website for Iquique that states that at its height in 1912, Iquique exported 1,300,000 tons of salpetre. The trade hit a slump after World War I and then declined with the manufacture of artificial nitrates.
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 3536
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - 4:55 pm: |
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Chris, I may be wandering into the realms of fantasy here, but this nitrate....if you threw some of it on a fire, could it cause a brief but intense heat of a kind that could melt the spout off a kettle?
Robert |
Christopher T George
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 1115
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - 7:27 pm: |
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Well. . . yes, I suppose that's possible, or else blow a bloody big hole in the side of 13 Miller's Court. 
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
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NC
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, November 22, 2004 - 8:34 pm: |
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Guys,
Another confession, although allegedly on the gallows not deathbed, is Frederick Bailey Deeming. I'm not sure what the motivation is for these "confessions" - maybe just to give themselves a bit of post mortem notoriety.
Neale |
Tee
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - 7:02 pm: |
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Roslyn Donston Stephenson Is buried in East Finchley.
All the best.
Tee |
Brad McGinnis
Inspector
Username: Brad
Post Number: 206
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 24, 2004 - 7:01 am: |
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Hi Guys! Nitrate of soda is fairly inert on its own. Its often used as a fertilizer. If you combine it with sugar and light it you have the basic fusee or road side flare. To make a crude explosive you must mix it with sulfur and powdered charcoal. This is basically the recipe for black powder. Cheers! Brad.
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eelrebrab
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, February 18, 2005 - 8:27 am: |
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hi ripper fans
does any one out there think that a american doctor called "Tumblety"had anything to do with whitechapel murders?} |
Donald Souden
Inspector
Username: Supe
Post Number: 447
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 20, 2005 - 1:11 pm: |
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Barberlee,
Why not read all those threads under his name on the boards?
Don.
"He was so bad at foreign languages he needed subtitles to watch Marcel Marceau."
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Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 1976
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 20, 2005 - 1:21 pm: |
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Don,
that's a good idea!
Jenni
"Pick up the pieces and make them into something new, Is what we do!"
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ex PFC Wintergreen
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, March 21, 2005 - 8:35 pm: |
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R.J Palmer you suggest earlier that if Anderson's killings started with his being robbed it is naive and cartoonish belief, I personally don't think that's a good enough reason to disregard the story.
The first time Peter Sutcliffe went with a prostitute he paid her the money but then decided against the whole thing. He took her back to her depot and she said she'd go and get change for his money. (He gave her ten pounds saying she could keep five pounds worth) But she never came back out, and he found her several weeks later and confronted her in a pub. Instead of giving the money back she went round telling everyone in the pub and Sutcliffe left humiliated.
He went looking for her a third time with a stone in a sock, but he never saw her again and beat another prostitute instead and that's where all his killings started from.
This isn't to say that he didn't harbour thoughts of murdering prosititutes before that but the incident where the woman stole his money is still one of the catalysts.
And Kevin a few other confessors to being the ripper are:
Avery, John
Blanchard, Alfred Napier
Brodie, William Wallace
Bull, William
Davidson, John
Fitzgerald, John
Maybrick, James (purely subjective of course)
Simm, Clarence
It seems he was a popular alter ego.
Regards Wintergreen
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