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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Clarence, Duke of (Prince Albert Victor)
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Suspects: Specific Suspects:
Later Suspects [ 1910 - Present ]:
Clarence, Duke of (Prince Albert Victor)
Author: walter s. stewart64
Tuesday, 05 March 2002 - 04:27 am |        | A family tale has it that a great-uncle of my wife was a paid look-alike of the Duke
of Clarence. He had a day job as a tailor in
London; stood in as the Duke on some occasions --
official and unofficial; and, yes, some think he
could be JTR or "Uncle Jack" as I call him. Does
this ring any bells? Could court records tell
whether or not he was actually paid to act as
the Duke at openings, launchings, etc.? I am
tracking this down through genealogical inquiries, but this takes time.Can anyone suggest a name for the tailor?
The story-book line continues:
"Family antecedents were entertainers in London
and performed on street corners with the like of
Fred Astaire and sister. Not sure if this is
connected to Jack.
Am I wasting my time? |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Tuesday, 05 March 2002 - 12:46 pm | | Wish I could help you there, but I have no ideas
of how to doublecheck such a story. But it is
hardly a waste of time to look into filling out
a geneological record into one's own family.
Jeff Bloomfield |
Author: walter s. stewart64
Tuesday, 05 March 2002 - 08:57 pm | | Jeff,
Thank you for your response. I'm working on this
from "both ends"; checking birth and death notices and hoping for some guidance from the JTR
experts. I'm 73 and don't have an awful lot of
time left. Hope I'm not wasting what time I have. |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Tuesday, 05 March 2002 - 10:33 pm | | This is a long shot, and not connected to the
possible contact to the Duke of Clarence, but
have you checked any sources or biographies on
Adele and Fred Astaire, since one other family
tradition was involving them as street entertainers.
Jeff |
Author: walter s. stewart64
Tuesday, 12 March 2002 - 12:26 am | | Jeff, thanks again for your response. I have
spent some time gathering data on Adele and Fred Astaire. If I were planning to write a novel,
this snippet could puff up to a chapter or two.
Interesting, but not for now. Again, if a person
were indeed hired to be a stand-in for the Duke,
would crown records be searchable to prove or
disprove such assertion? This is my quest for now and I've given up tangenting down interesting
byways.
Walter |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Sunday, 17 March 2002 - 06:29 am | | What Price Ephemera?
It is amazing how any Ripper connection, however tenuous, is guaranteed to enhance the price of ephemera or books on the open market.
Although the 'Royal connection' with the Ripper murders has been dismissed many times in the past, it is most certainly not dead. We need look no further than the recent From Hell movie to see that. The topic also regularly pops up for discussion on these boards. It is, in fact, a colourful and popular fiction.
It is in this connection that we again see the influence of the Ripper legend exerting its power with the recent auction of two autograph letters written by Prince Albert Victor, 8 pages, on the Duke of Clarence's headed paper, with envelopes (soiled), 8vo, Castle Rising, King's Lynn, 17 November, 1890 and Cavalry Barracks, 15 January 1891. The reserve price placed on this lot by the reputable auctioneers, Bonhams, was £900-£1200. The sale took place at Knightsbridge on Tuesday 12 March 2002.
An article in the 'Peterborough' column of the Daily Telegraph of 5 March 2002, had mentioned the upcoming items and was sure to bring interest. This especially as the letters were of a very controversial nature. They were written by 'Edward' to his lawyer, George Lewis, and related to efforts to retrieve certain 'compromising' letters that PAV had written to two women, believed to be prostitutes, who were blackmailing him. In one of the letters PAV states, "I am very pleased you are able to settle with Miss Richardson, although £200 is rather expensive for letters." He continues, "I presume that there is no other way of getting them back without paying that sum. I will also do all I can to get back the one or two letters written to the other lady. You may be certain that I shall be careful in the future not to get into any more trouble of this sort."
With such a strong parallel to the theory invented for the role of PAV as Jack the Ripper these letters were sure to attract the attention of collectors. And such was the case. Indeed, the attractive combination of a Royal scandal and Jack the Ripper is very difficult to emulate.
Lot 976 did, indeed, attract the wealthy buyers. In fact it appears to have exceeded expectations. The selling price was a staggering £8,220. Indications are that there were at least three high bidders.
The result has been a very large article spread over two pages of today's Mail on Sunday with the elaborate banner headline "PRINCE OF DARKNESS" designed in the style of the Famous Crimes magazine edited by Harold Furniss, it also includes "Royal Scandal - One Penny - A Gripping Tale of Blackmail, Jack the Ripper, and the Heir to the Throne".
This may be all well and good for the collecting market, but it demonstrates the selling power of the subject and the fact that such items are well beyond the purchasing power of most of us. |
Author: Christopher T George
Sunday, 17 March 2002 - 08:10 am | | Hi, Stewart:
Thank you so much for that interesting rundown of what has been happening on the auction market in regard to Prince Albert Victor's letters. I must admit that I have not been giving the Royal conspiracy theory too much attention, knowing that it is held in low regard by experts such as yourself. I am interested to note, however, that these letters, apparently written by the Prince, do lend credence to the fact that he was actually implicated in the types of scrapes with prostitutes in which he is accused of being involved under the conspiracy story. I suppose this is one reason that the Royal theory has a certain power, i.e., that PAV hardly lily white in real life.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: rob dobbin
Wednesday, 01 January 2003 - 06:54 pm | | I don't believe there is anything more than sensationalism to the Royal Conspiracy theory, but there are a couple of misleading details to the introductory page
http://www.casebook.org/suspects/eddy.html
that, at the risk of appearing pedantic, I would like to address as they seem to add some slight, specious color to the theory.
The fact that Prince Albert ("Eddy") had a tutor at Cambridge (James Kenneth Stephen) is certainly no sign that he was an inferior scholar. All students at Cambridge (and Oxford) have tutors--education at both universities is based on the tutorial system, whereby students meet with their tutors once or twice a week to read papers or translate assigned material.
Second, it is not true that "[h]e had been given no proper education, and as a result he was interested in nothing." Like all members of the royal (Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) family at the time he was in fact subjected to what could only be described as a brutal educational regimen, starting early in the day. The example was set by Prince Albert, Victoria's husband. It's true that he proved an indifferent scholar, but that only led his father to redouble his efforts on his son's behalf. In 1884 the Prince of Wales wrote to Eddy's German tutor that "It is with sincere regret that we learn from you that our son dawdles so dreadfully in the morning... He will have to make up the lost time by additional study... He must put his shoulder to the wheel." Like others of his family he also began service in the Navy at an early age (17). He did not distinguish himself there either, but he appears to have been slow, not in any way vicious or depraved.
Finally, the theory that he had an affair with Stephen is just idle gossip. Tutors at Cambridge in Eddy's day were not allowed to marry and there was a subculture of homosexual experimentation (Byron is a well-known example)--but there is no evident to support the claim that Eddy took part and even less to support a claim of murder/blackmail some have concocted on this flimsy basis. |
Author: Janice pinch
Wednesday, 01 January 2003 - 07:41 pm | | | hi everyone, yes i am still around- yes i still question the royal family and any involvement they may have had in the JTR murders. I just got a copy of the diary on dvd that i intend to watch. I am interested in all theories , but am stuck on the royal family. |
Author: Philip Rayner
Thursday, 02 January 2003 - 09:29 am | | Of all people, Patricia cornwell has shed doubt on the prince resorting to murder to solve a blackmail problem and for once she seems to have evidence.
The prince was blackmailed by two women, she asserts and his response was to pay them off. As far as I know this was regarding a trifling sexual liason, nothing to do with Crook. Hardly the action of a ruthless man who would kill to protect his reputation.
Knowing the Victorians way of dealing with these things I think it more likely that the women involved would be quietly spirited away into an asylum not butchered.
One cannot prove there was no conspiracy but the theory is certainly doubted by many Ripperologists and I believe that it is trying to make more of the case than there actually was. We just love conspiracy theories (JFK/Diana/Aliens/area 51)and it makes a good story.
I would like to point out that my Grandfathers mothers sisters uncles base born son is a fifth cousin twice removed by marriage of Albert Victor and an unnamed female impersonator and I am presently attempting to claim my birthright after this unjust cover up. It's true honest guv. |
Author: chris scott
Monday, 13 January 2003 - 06:20 pm | | Hi all
I thought I had seen everything in the field of Ripper "studies" but the following revival of the Clarence story has to be the daftest version I have seen yet!!!
A somewhat amusing revival of the story was by a Polish defector from the Soviet, known as Colonel Goleniewski, who is said to have provided much accurate information about Soviet spies and saboteurs in western Europe, but who, after some years, was either coerced by the C.I.A. to discredit himself or concluded, not without justification, that American boobs will believe anything. He pretended to be the Czarevich who was murdered by Jewish Communists in 1918, and for a time published a periodical entitled *Double Eagle*, to advance his claim to be the legitimate Czar of Russia. The periodical was chiefly noteworthy for the phenomenal credulity of its subscribers. Among the great historical revelations contained it was an article on the Duke of Clarence, who, indeed, had been Jack the Ripper, but did not die in 1892; protected by the police, he went into a luxurious retirement until he went to Germany and became Adolf Hitler. Naturally, he did not die in the bunker under Berlin, but was smuggled to safety and was then (in 1980) living happily under an assumed name in Britain (and hence flourishing at the ripe age of 126, thus outdoing the celebrated Count Waldeck).
You can read more about this at a site called
MURDER MYSTERY SOLVED
by Professor Revilo P. Oliver (January 1991)
at
http://www.stormfront.org/rpo/RIPPER.htm
Regards
Chris Scott |
Author: Guy Hatton
Wednesday, 15 January 2003 - 06:52 am | | Might be worth warning readers that Stormfront.org is a neo-Nazi site. Proceed with extreme caution.
Cheers
Guy |
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