Archive through April 30, 2000

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Archive through April 30, 2000

Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Suspects: Specific Suspects: Contemporary Suspects [ 1888 - 1910 ]: Druitt, Montague John: Archive through April 30, 2000

Author: Simon Owen Monday, 03 April 2000 - 11:19 am
Imagine what it would have been like if Eddy had met Montague Druitt : it would have been almost like meeting a mirror image of himself. The fact that Montague looked so much like Eddy might have set either the Prince's mind , or the mind of one of those close to him , reeling with the possibility that Druitt could act as Eddy's double. Who might have realised this first ? J.H. Lonsdale , a friend of Harry Wilson who was a possible lover of Eddy , lived at No. 4 Kings Bench Walk , five doors down from Druitt. H.L. Stephen , brother of J.K. Stephen , lived at No. 3 Kings Bench Walk , six doors down. In the same building , below Druitt , lived Reginald Dyke Acland brother of Theodore Dyke Acland - Dr William Gull's son-in-law. And also here was Edward Henslowe Bedford , the solicitor later to be deeply involved in the Cleveland Street affair cover up. J.K. Stephen himself lived not far away at Lincoln's Inn , and his other brother Herbert lived at No.4 Paper Buildings which was opposite King's Bench Walk. Druitt's younger brother Edward was in the same regiment as Frank Miles , a suspect for the Ripper himself. Frank Miles' brother was Eddy's equerry. (H/S,p.240). Druitt had played cricket against Harry Goodheart ( a homosexual friend of Eddy ) and Evelyn Ruggles- Brise( Sir Henry Matthews Personal Private Secretary ) in the 1876 Winchester vs Eton cricket match. Any of these men might have spoken to Eddy as to how alike him Druitt looked ; from such a little acorn a mighty oak might have grown.
Author: Neal Glass Monday, 03 April 2000 - 01:23 pm
Simon, I am naturally interested in any possible link between MJ and Eddy. If Howells & Skinner say he was invited, then I will go with that until I have reason to question it. But as for how this is interpreted, I approach it with caution. For one thing--and correct me if I am mistaken--Howells & Skinner were writing before it was understood that MJD was not the near-do-well that he is thought to have been in earlier Ripper books? Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't it relatively new information that he mixed with some very successful people at the Morden Cricket Club? And shouldn't a conscientious scholar check to see if any of those gentlemen were also on the guest list? Because if they were, then that could be the link, I'm afraid. And this would not be a poor reflection on Howells & Skinner. It would just be a matter that we presently have a clearer idea of MJ's social life than we once did. The other side of this is if you can in fact establish that no one else in the club was invited, then this fact becomes a bombshell. Seriously. It's a very big deal if someone can establish that no one else at the cricket club was invited but Montague. As for James Kenneth Stephen living with anyone but his parents during his mental illness, I must scratch my head. I am not going to discount that he may have had a flat of some kind to get away now and then. And it has been awhile since I read anything on Stephen one way or another, but please keep in mind that Stephen was the first cousin to Virginia Woolf. There are sources on Stephen that have nothing to do with Ripper studies at all. I myself became interested in the case only because I caught wind of the fact that James had once been a dubious latter-day suspect in it. So I had already had an impression of him quite apart from the theories about him being the killer. And my impression is that he more or less lived with his parents. Emotionally he could not really take care of himself. His behavior was unpredictable, and Eddy and he were seriously estranged at that point. I do not dismiss that James may have been the first to seduce the prince at Cambridge. They were very close at one point. But I know for a fact that the Windsors got Eddy as far away from James as they could, long before his accident unbalanced his senses. And AFTER he lost his senses people tended to simply avoid James. When they ran into them they were tolerant and perhaps at times condescending in their tolerance, but he was never a part of any conspiracy. So please give me some sources on your second message, all these individuals living so close together and the possibility of their knowing one another. But if you really want to score a big huge point and be big man on campus, so to speak (Jack the Ripper University!), you'll get busy on comparing the guest list, if you have it, with the membership at the cricket club. Thanks, Neal
Author: R.J. Palmer Monday, 03 April 2000 - 07:37 pm
Hello all. I'm still not overly impressed with the amount of money Druitt was carrying on him. The checks could well have related to his dismissal, as many have suggested. Could one of them also have had something to do with the legal case from the previous week? We also know that at the 19 November Board meeting of the Cricket Club Druitt 'proposed that an acre of land be taken behind the Grand Stand at a similar proportionate rent to that paid for the present land.' (Begg/p.176) Was there to be a financial transaction for this? (Druitt was Treasurer as well as Secretary). Here's some speculation: the note left to George Valentine at Eliot Place was somewhat vague. Something along the lines that 'for the best of all concerned, I am going away'. Druitt takes his checks and scrams, maybe even thinking about leaving the country. Is he really set on suicide? He's still buying return tickets... Being vacant from his room for several days, Valentine does a search and finds the note in early December. The gents at the Cricket Club honestly believe that Druitt has 'gone abroad' at this point, and by 21 December they replace him as secretary. Only when Druitt is later found drowned, do those concerned re-read the note as 'alluding to suicide'. When the American footballer O.J. Simpson fled police he was despondent and suicidal, later claiming that he planned to kill himself on the grave of his ex-wife. He also had $10,000 in the glove compartment! Maybe Druitt had a Plan A and a Plan B... One last point. Simon: a link between Druitt and Prince Eddy is only important if Eddy is shown to be viable Ripper candidate. That said, as always, I find your speculations of great interest. Best regards, RJP (a mere freshman at JTR University)
Author: Neal Glass Tuesday, 04 April 2000 - 01:00 am
Hate to butt in, but a link between Druitt and Eddy is not only important if Eddy is shown to be a Ripper candidate. Getting down to the reason Druitt ever appeared on Mcnaughten's list is significant historical value in itself. It shows us what the thinking of early Scotland Yard was about, how rational or how desperate that thinking was in the face of the world first doumented serial murders. I want to know why he was on that list. I know why the other two were, and I know the reasons were thin, just as I believe the reasons Druitt was there were probably ever bit as thin. But what were those shaky tentative reasons? Who fingered Druitt and why? Fellow Freshman, Neal
Author: Simon Owen Tuesday, 04 April 2000 - 07:56 am
It may be that Druitt is on Macnaughten's list because (i) he was mistakenly believed to be a doctor and (ii) he had commited suicide which accorded with the idea that the killer's mind would have given way because of the bloodshed of Miller's Court. Plus Macnaughten had ' private information ' from Druitt's family ( William Druitt ? ) which led them to believe Montague was the Ripper : this information was never revealed. The doctor/medical student who ended up in the river was probably a man called John Sanders , who was searched for after the Stride murder but not found : Macnaughten probably confused him with Druitt somehow.
Author: Guy Hatton Tuesday, 04 April 2000 - 08:43 am
No it wasn't: During the period of the murders he was confined at West malling Place, a private asylum in Kent, and he died, aged thirty-nine, in the Heavitree Asylum, Exeter, in 1901. Sugden, Complete History, p.155
Author: Simon Owen Tuesday, 04 April 2000 - 09:00 am
That would explain why Sanders was not found then !
Author: Neal Glass Tuesday, 04 April 2000 - 11:44 am
Simon, someone would have to establish that no one on the guest list was also from Druitt's cricket club. In all likelihood someone from the club got Druitt invited. And like a lot of people who got an invitation to those things, he had probably never met Prince Albert Victor in his life. But hang in there, Neal
Author: R.J. Palmer Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 10:52 am
Good morning. Ignore this. A boring post, and nothing whatsoever about Martin Fido. But, at the risk of sounding like a crabby bore, I still can't see how a link between Druitt and Prince Eddy would be a "bombshell"... If we found that Fredrick Deeming and Neill Cream were once cell mates, it would no doubt be interesting to students of the case, but what would it prove? The fact would still remain that neither of them were even in England at the time of the Whitechapel murders. Rather then focus on suggestive (though admittedly interesting) trivialities, 'The Eddy Theory' needs to ultimately tackle more fundamental questions, such as, for instance, was or was not the Prince in Scotland on the night of the double event? Besides, think for a moment. If I counted all the people that I knew in my life, my school mates, neighbors, barbers, friends of friends, etc., I must be acquainted with 4 or 5 Hundred people at the very least. Maybe more. Now if you think that each of these people also know 4 or 5 Hundred people, one can see that the circle of "acquaintances" widens to huge proportions. Finding out the fact that William Gull's son-in-law's brother once rented a room in the same building that Druitt had his legal chamber is a sort of grotesque triumph of research, I suppose, but it is hardly suggestive of anything. (Damn, I'm sounding grouchy. Must need more coffee) What I want to know is how Druitt managed to bumble and stumble his way onto Mcnaughten's list...(if only for insight into how rumour-mills work!) Was it really only on the strength of his timely suicide, as Abberline suggested? Or did Macnaughten really have 'private information' of some sort? (Gossip?) Why Druitt and not Buchan? It irritates me that I'll never know the answer... RJP
Author: Neal Glass Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 02:36 pm
Ah, yes, you'll never know. It does keep coming back to that, now doesn't it? I want to know how Druitt ended up on the list because I am historically interested. If you care to venture forth into speculation, then I can talk about why a definite link between Eddy and MJ is not so boring as you might suppose. You will not find the Ripper, but you may well find out why he ended up on the list, and don't be surprised if it is not a bombshell. The discovery of Aaron Kosminski was a bombshell. It did not lead to the Ripper but it did bring light to the darkness in one corner of the cave. The Littlechild letter was a bombshell. Sadly I cannot say it led to the Ripper, but it has implications that have yet to be explored. Think like a historian, RJ. But what I am getting at is only a bombshell if we can compare the guest list with the cricket club membership list to eliminate that Druitt was simply getting an invitation the way anyone in his station in life might wrangle an invitation of that kind. You will not be bored by where that leads. And you will see that the straws that Simon is always grasping at are not so questionable if ever they should find their proper home at long last. Promise, Neal
Author: R.J. Palmer Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 06:12 pm
Um, I am thinking. How would the inclusion of members of Druitt's Blackheath Cricket, Football and Lawn Tennis Company on the guest list 'eliminate' anything? The Prince Eddy invitation was for a dinner in Dorset, MJD's home town. If other members of the Blackheath Club were invited this would make things odder still, not more commonplace...
Author: Neal Glass Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 10:55 pm
I'm not quite sure I follow you. Why would their presence be odder? Please elaborate. And keep in mind that it simply seemed to me that someone like Druitt would probably be at a royal gathering because someone had gotten him invited, not because he was personal friends with the prince or with someone close to the prince. So from there it seemed to me that sensibly it would be about someone at his club, that kind of thing. Why would it be odd for a club member who knows someone who knows someone to get some invitation to a dinner? MJ was in Bournemouth there in Dorsetshire. Apparently he grew up there. I understand that, so why would that make a club member being invited odd? Keep in mind that I would love for it to be very odd and to establish the possibility that Druitt and Eddy might have really known one another. But that seems too odd to be true. Or is it really? Enlighten us both. I'm intrigued. Neal
Author: R.J. Palmer Thursday, 06 April 2000 - 04:35 am
I inadvertantly left out "Wimborne" in my previous post. Sorry. Druitt was born in Wimborne, Dorset which was where Prince Eddy was presumably shooting in December 1888. My take is that some of the local big wigs threw a dinner party in Eddy's honor, and fleshed out the guest list by inviting Druitt and his mother. They couldn't have been prominent guests, as the hosts were obviously unaware that Druitt was dead and his mother institutionalized. I don't see where any of the cricket players back in Blackheath would have been involved. That's all I meant. Regards, RJP
Author: Neal Glass Thursday, 06 April 2000 - 02:11 pm
Oh, okay. It didn't seem to me that Montague was high enough up the social ladder to be invited to a party in a royal's honor, so maybe he had wrangled the invitation in advance through someone who was so esteemed as to naturally get invited to those sorts of things all the time, probably from the cricket club. The cricket club seems to have been where his social life was centered. It did go past me that it was actually his home town. But now that we're on the same page with this, so to speak, let's chat a bit about that: Here MJ's mother was invited with Montague, which Simon has pointed out as odd in that Montague was not the oldest son. How prestigious had the Druitt family been in Wimborne? I wouldn't know. They had money. There was a farm. The girls were secure and endowed. I'm scratching my head. Why Montague? You say they could not have been prominent because the person doing the inviting did not know the mother had been institutionalized. That assumption about not being prominent guests is not necessarily so. It doesn't necessarily follow. Institutionalizing someone was very hush hush in those days, usually. The Stephen family had a retarded daughter that was put away. It wasn't for talking about. That the mother and Montague were invited means only that whoever put together the invitations did not know what almost no one but people closest to the family would have known. I'm not saying the Prince knew Montague, but then we can't say the Prince did not know him just because a name did not get taken off a guest list that may have been in the making before there was any crisis at the Druitt house. How far in advance was a guest list drawn up for a gathering of that kind? That's one question. So I'm back to who did Montague know who would have known the prince or who would have known someone who knew the prince? It is not a great leap to suggest that IF there were a cricket club member in attendance at the dinner, then the coincidence of Montague also being a member may resolve the question. Someone who knew Montague at the club was invited to a dinner in honor of the royals. It was to be in MJ's hometown, so the person mentioned it to Montague who may have shown some enthusiasm for going. Naturally getting Mother an invitation was part of the excitement of going. It would have been something the whole family would have talked about for years to come, dinner with the Prince. In this scenario the mother is not having a breakdown yet. She has not been institutionalized, and the idea of the party is still maybe a few months in advance or something. They're on a guest list, and no one making the arrangements is the wiser that the Druitt family is subsequently having serious problems. No bombshell there. But take the cricket club member out of it. Let's say there is no cricket club member. Who got Montague and his mother invited to the party? Go down the list of people in attendance and ask yourself who could have conceivably known Druitt. If the answer points to someone that Simon has mentioned that says something to me that is interesting. I find it very interesting. Actually if Simon's names aren't there either, it always leaves the possibility, however remote, that the Prince knew Montague personally. But I'm willing to bet it's one of Simon's names on that guest list. And that's all you need for a little fireworks. Best regards, Neal
Author: Simon Owen Friday, 07 April 2000 - 04:54 am
From what I've read , the shooting party in Wimborne was going to be a quiet little affair ; a few friends of Lord Wimborne going out to blast a few grouse and pheasants with their shotguns etc. Then , out of the blue , Eddy decides to join the party. Court life was probably quite dull at the time due to the mourning over the recently-deceased Prince Alexander of Hesse so Eddy had probably decided to get away for a while. It was certainly an act which was against protocol and guaranteed to annoy his grandmother and father. Anyway , Lord Wimborne now has a royal visitor on his hands so a ball and dinner has to be cobbled together quite quickly. And for some reason Montague and his mother get invited , not his brother William. Druitt was dead however at this point and his mother insane , which Lord Wimborne couldn't have known. What are the possibilities here then ? It is possible that Eddy wrote to Lord Wimborne saying ' I'm looking forward to seeing my friend MJD again ' , that would certainly be a reason for him going down to Dorset. Wimborne remembers Druitt has a mother alive so invites them both. His lack of knowledge of the family explains the lapse in ettiquette. Or Lord Wimborne believed that Druitt moved in influential circles in London and that he would be a suitable guest , so he invited him. Sadly though we can't prove a connection between Eddy and Druitt , we would need more evidence.
Author: Neal Glass Friday, 07 April 2000 - 02:13 pm
The evidence would begin (but not end) with the guest list. How did Montague get invited? One question would be to look into whether Wimbourne was maybe especially close to Montague. They simply had a close friendship. That would be a matter of letters, I guess. But the guest list is important. It really is. Neal
Author: Simon Owen Thursday, 20 April 2000 - 07:50 am
From The Times of November 18th , 1888 : " Last evening Prince Albert Victor arrived at Wimborne , Dorset on a visit to Lord Wimborne at Canford House " Now this was particularly bad protocol because Prince Alexander of Hesse had died at 10am on the 15th December ONLY TWO DAYS EARLIER and the Royal family were expected to mourn him. To give an example the Russian court announced 3 weeks mourning over the dead Prince , what was Eddy doing therefore ? And why go to Dorset in particular ? The mystery deepens. Hopefully Keith Skinner will post and tell us who was on the guest list for Lord Wimborne's party ; that may clear things up somewhat.
Author: R.J. Palmer Saturday, 22 April 2000 - 11:49 pm
Simon- I think you mean December 18th for The Times article... Is that correct?
Author: Simon Owen Tuesday, 25 April 2000 - 04:38 am
Yes I do , thank you RJP. The article in the Times appeared on December 18th 1888.
Author: Simon Owen Sunday, 30 April 2000 - 02:43 pm
Who blamed Druitt David ?