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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 **
"Fairy Fay"
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Victims: Specific Victims:
"Fairy Fay"
Author: Tracey H. Stearns
Saturday, 14 November 1998 - 06:42 pm |        | | I don't believe that this was a ripper victim because the injuries are so inconsistant of the known ripper victims. If I am correct, she died of shock by having a blunt instrument forced into her vagina. Unlikely, this was able to be accomplished without a lot of noise from the victims or without assistance from accomplices. |
Author: Gayle Blayney
Saturday, 14 November 1998 - 06:44 pm | | | Further to your page on the 'Fairy Fay' case relating to the Whitechapel crimes I would like to ask who the Member for Derby was referring to in the London Parliamentary debate of 14/11/88 when he said words to the effect of 'As long ago as Christmas week last a woman was found murdered in Whitechapel..'. He then went on to mention the Emma Smith case of Easter 1888. He must be referring to Fairy Fay in the first instant, if not then who? And this also dispells the argument that Fairy Fay was a hazy recollection of the Smith and Tabram murders as he has mentioned this in Parliament less than a year after the supposed killing. Have you any further information on this? |
Author: Stephen P. Ryder
Saturday, 14 November 1998 - 06:44 pm | | | Good eyes. Yes, it is almost certain that the debate of November 14th was discussing the 'Fairy Fay' murder, whose details parallel those given by the member of parliament. The 'myth' of this murder was present as early as September 1888, as it seems newspapers eager to attribute more past murders to the killer used some details of the Emma Smith murder to create a phantom victim. I refer you to Philip Sugden's Complete History of Jack the Ripper, introduction, which covers briefly the history of the Fairy Fay myth. |
Author: Dave Yost
Saturday, 14 November 1998 - 11:26 pm | | I concur Stephen,
The articles refering to the person later to be named 'Fairy Fay' was a compilation of other murders and eventually recorded as fact. Philip Sudgen does a decent job of discussing Fairy Fay, and probably gave the topic more ink than it deserves.
--here's a brief paraphrase with some of my own comments thrown in:
Philip Sudgen points out that Fairy Fay's death is neither mentioned in the police records, in the press reports between December 1887 and January 1888, nor in the death registries at St Catherine's House for that time period. Nor is there any trace of DI Reid's report, (& DI Reid was not assigned to H-Div until Jan 1888, per A-Z.)
Sudgen's trace of relevant news reports lead to the public beginnings of Fairy Fay's existence:
September 1888, Lines on the Terrible Tragedy in Whitechapel refer to an unknown victim killed 'twelve months ago' [September 1887]; On 10 and 11 September 1888, the Daily telegraph wrote that the first Whitechapel murder occurred at Christmas 1887, near Osborn Street and Wentworth Street. Some type of instrument had been `thrust into her body', and she was never identified; Reference was made about this
murder during a parliamentary debate in November
1888, concerning the pardons for the Mary Jane Kelly murder; Dr L. Forbes Winslow referred to the unknown victim in his memoirs, Recollections of Forty Years (1910); but, it was Terence Robertson (Reynolds News, 29 October 1950)
who first used the name, Fairy Fay, stating that she died on Boxing Night, instead of Christmas, and that she died while taking a short cut from a pub near Mitre Square. And, in 1965, Tom Cullen wrote that she died near Commercial Road, instead of at Osborn and Wentworth Streets.
According to the authors of A-Z, the only unknown female who died in Whitechapel during December 1887, died of starvation and exposure. Those with `interestingly similar names', who
died in Whitechapel during December 1886 or 1887, were not murder victims. Yet, in 1894, the Sun did refer to a 'Tottie Fay', but she was in Broadmoor, suffering maniacal fits.
During the media blitz, covering the Whitechapel Murders, there was an insufficient attempt by reporters to verify information used in general news articles, especially if such an
article could perpetuate the human interest aspect and the paper's circulation. They were not always relating facts, but merely writing what would sell, occasionally even making up a
story. In this case, Philip Sudgen has opined that the original story in the Daily Telegraph was a poorly recollected version of the Emma Smith murder with Christmas 1887 being remembered, instead of Easter 1888, (ie. instead of reviewing the data available, the reporter simply wrote what he could remember).
Another indication of this is that the Daily Telegraph did write that something had been `thrust into her body'. Again, this is reminiscent of the Emma Smith murder. These alone
contradict any arguments, favoring Fairy Fay's existence.
On the surface, the successively varying 'facts' of the Fairy Fay case seem to be a normal progression in the recovering of more and more data, (ie. 'unknown woman', becoming 'Fairy Fay'; Osborn Street and Wentworth Street, being replaced
by Commercial Road, etc). There is a problem with accepting such 'facts'. They each stem only from unreferenced material.
Terrence Robertson specifically wrote that 'Fairy Fay' was the name of the unknown woman. Interestingly enough, there is no contemporary news report, or police report, which uses
such a name. From where DID the name originate? Most likely, Terrence Robertson, himself. Just as the 'new' date, Boxing Night, started with his article in Reynolds.
In 1965, Tom Cullen supported, without verification, Robertson's writings, even adding the comment that it was the press which gave Fairy Fay her name and altering the location to
Commercial Road, (which might have been a mis-writing of Commercial Street, since the original location was Osborn and Wentworth). Hence, the myth continued.
This is an interesting aspect of our subject of mutual interest - taking non-referenced items and viewing them as facts once they've been published in a book or 2.
Cheers,
Dave |
Author: Glenn R. Lockhart
Saturday, 09 January 1999 - 02:43 am | | From the Sunday Times, 11.11.88, under headline, THE EAST END MURDER. / PARDON OFFERED TO ACCOMPLICES / LATEST PARTICULARS :
On April 8 of this year Emma Elizabeth Smith was found dead near Osborn Street, Whitechapel, with an iron stake driven through her body...
Could this be part of the confusion? Note the same street name; same type of damage inflicted also ?
Just a thought; forgive me if I'm talking out of turn...
Cheers, Glenn R. Lockhart (umlockha@cc.umanitoba.ca) |
Author: Dawn Anderson
Saturday, 03 April 1999 - 07:48 pm | | Hello!
I just wanted to clarify that Emma Smith was found to be raped by a gang of thieves, with a blunt instrument tearing certain tissues resulting in her death. Fairy Fay, as I recall, had the stake driven through her body. This is correct, right? Either I am really confused, or someone isn't quite as nit picky about their facts.
Thanks! |
Author: Steve Cook
Saturday, 10 April 1999 - 02:43 pm | | If you compare, as Sugden did, the cases of 'Fairy Fay' and Emma Smith, it becomes fairly obvious that the case of Smith was used as a basis for the other case, there are too many similarites to be otherwise. My own research has also failed to reveal any evidence of a similar case at the time suggested for 'Fairy Fay', for at least a month either side. I don't suggest that Robertson invented the case, merely that a lot of 'myths and legends, have developed into a 'case'.
Steve Cook |
Author: Jill De Schrijver
Thursday, 08 July 1999 - 03:17 pm | | Hello all,
I found a report as Printed in the London Times -- September 3, 1888 on http://www.historybuff.com/library/refLT9388.html where there is a little unnamed reference to a victim "less than 12 months previously" in the second paragraph:
"The murder, in the early hours of Friday moring last, of the woman now known as Mary Ann Nicholls, has so many points of similarity with the murder of two other women in the same neighbourhood -- one Martha Tabram, as recently as August 7, and the other less than 12 months previously -- ... each murdered in such a similar fashion,..., particularly when it is remembered that all the three murders were committed within a distince of 300 yards from each other."
First I just thought they meant Emma Smith, but if they knew her name so why would they not state it then. Also if you go back to Easter 1888 there is only a difference of 5 months. So why then mention "less than 12 months" instead of 6.
Now I myself am inclined to think Fairy(tale) Fay(=mythical figure) was a myth. I don't have any of the books stated above (I ordered some of them this week)so I cannot read the history start of this aleged murder. But as mentioned this article also dates from september (supposed beginning of the myth).
But still I keep my mind open (and this little reference nags at me).
Steve Cook finds that there is no mentioning of any murder as far back as at least a month before Christmas. But in this London Times article they are willing to go further back. September 3 minus 12 months and going up a bit again, means to me late September, October and November are left.
Has any search been done upon those months for reference material?
Jill (going to sleep over it now: it's 1 a.m. out here) |
Author: Jill
Monday, 12 July 1999 - 10:59 am | | Hello all,
My A-Z (revised '96)arrived, and I did get as far as the map. When trying to locate the murder sites of all victims (not only canonical)I was not sure if I placed the 'Fairytale' murder right (Wenthworht and Osborn Street), since I could not locate Osborn Street on this map. So I took a look at the Casebook map (sorry, these are the only ones I have at the moment). There I thought I could make out Osborn Street as the extension of Brick Lane. If this is true, then obviously Fairy Fay would have been killed at the same site as Emma Smith was attacked.
I 'want' to conclude that Fairy Fay is a myth: the newspapers would have mentioned that Emma Smith was attacked at the place where another woman was killed not so many months before.
Still the mentioning of a murder in the article I stated in the previous post unnervs me. I have tried to surf the net for murder articles from the period september-november 1887, but had no luck there till now. This is I did not find any such broadkept library site.
Is the statement in the particular article from the previous post the starter of a myth?
Is my location of Osborn Street right? Can anyone give me advice about a good reference map, because I have the same trouble with other not-canonical victims?
Jill with the unprenouncable (not for me, it isn't) sirname |
Author: anon
Monday, 12 July 1999 - 12:08 pm | | | Fairy Fay has been conclusively proven to be a myth created by confusion surrounding the Emma Smith murder. Further debate on the matter is pointless. |
Author: Jill
Monday, 12 July 1999 - 12:17 pm | | | Anon- Where can I find these conclusive proofs? Are they somewhere else on the board? In the Casebook? The A-Z?...I'm new, I don't have a lot of reference, so I just try to figure this out by searching for it and reading it. |
Author: Caz & Jules
Tuesday, 13 July 1999 - 12:28 am | | Hi All,
I might have this wrong, but I didn't think it was possible to 'prove' a myth IS a myth. What if evidence were to be found later (say 20 years after Stephen Ryder finally gets shot of the anons from this place?) to show some substance to this particular one?
Anyone else add to this....please?
Caz
G'day Anon,
Fair dinkum mate you're a bloody legend. I wish I could conclusively prove myths.
Jules |
Author: Edana
Tuesday, 13 July 1999 - 04:56 am | | Hey Jules, I see you made it to the UK ok. Is Caz treating you well? (As if I doubted it for a second).
Dirty Fairy Fay..they have taken her away and she'll never walk down Lime Street anymore.
I'm off to read about Fairy Fay. I remember reading somewhere that she wasn't quite the myth some anon folks might believe.
Edana |
Author: Ashling
Wednesday, 14 July 1999 - 01:29 am | | Hi y'all.
JILL: Welcome aboard. The info you seek on Fairy Fay debunked is on the board "Into the New New Millennium." The opening post by Stewart, together with his post of March 21st, gives the details. If you don't already know - Stewart is a retired British cop who co-wrote JtR, First American Serial Killer.
Take care,
Janice |
Author: Jill
Wednesday, 14 July 1999 - 02:15 am | | Janice- Aaaah... that explains a lot (I've just read it). Thanks a lot fot the tip, it woud have taken at least some more few weeks before fiding that one (since there is so much to read here).
An attack instead of a murder. The name lost in time, the witness becoming a phantom and a writer who thought of the appropriate name for a lady-ghost.
Thanks Stewart
P.S. Still a lot of ghost hunting left.
Jill |
Author: scott hannaford
Monday, 19 July 1999 - 05:14 am | | With regards to 'Fairy Fay', I have looked at national and provincial newspapers from 1885 to 1888, and never seen a mention of such a murder taking place.
Most researchers admit that FF did not exist, and that persons mentionin her were confusing her with Emma Smith. |
Author: Jill
Monday, 19 July 1999 - 05:43 am | | Scott- Stewart Evans posted a very reasonable explanation of the occurence of the myth on the board "into the New New Millenium". A friend of Emma Smyth, who was also one of the witnesses who last saw her, told apparently at Emma's inquest that she had suffered a similar attack in the week of Chrismass 1887. She was hospitalised for 2 weeks. Her name is Margaret Mames. I'm still trying to find the inquest (or an article about it). So FF was not murdered, she had survived the attack, her friend Emma did not.
Jill |
Author: Jon
Monday, 19 July 1999 - 08:56 am | | | Emma who? |
Author: Jill
Monday, 19 July 1999 - 12:23 pm | | Sorry- Emma SMITH
Jill |
Author: Max
Wednesday, 01 September 1999 - 09:39 pm | | | I believe "Fairy Fay" to be a Ripper victim. I'm not too familiar with other serial killers but it has been suggested that what a serial killer does to his victims starts off at one point and escalates higher. So the ripper may have started with Fay and continued killing escalating the wounds inflicted upon the dead women. The issue regarding "fairy fay" as being real, seems to me simple. Though newspapers do not report the death of any fairy fay, fairy fay could well have beem the nickname of a prostiute or a woamn in the area. All of the women later killed by the Ripper all had nicknames, so its possible her true identity is something else. |
Author: angee a.
Sunday, 16 January 2000 - 08:40 pm | | hi all!
this stuff is kinda gross!
ne1 know n e more about it????
Angela |
Author: Sarah R. Jacobs
Thursday, 07 December 2000 - 07:40 pm | | | Something made me think of Ted Bundy when I read how "Fairy Fay" died. Bundy's first official victim was raped, strangled, and had a tree branch shoved into her vagina as far as it would go. Suppose Bundy was "inspired" by the story of Fairy Fay? It would have been interesting, as Ted also had a fascination with long knives, and may have killed a very young neighborhood girl when he was only 13 or so, in exactly the same manner, only he left the little girl between two houses... Just like his hero Jack? |
Author: Carl Dodd
Thursday, 14 December 2000 - 02:59 pm | | Hi, all.
Just thought I'd drop in and put in my 2 pence worths of idea. When people talk about Fairy Fay there seems to be a police report lacking as to her death/murder. People are putting great stock in the idea that there MUST BE a police report somewhere. The truth is that policemen are like all sorts of other people. Some are just plain lazy. I've seen officers blow off writing a report when one should have been written. I know of one case where a man was threatened by another man with a gun, reported the incident to a policeman and the policeman did NOT write a report. The lazy officer in this incident got a 3 day suspension. If or when Fairy Fay was killed/died there is a possibility that maybe, just maybe, a police officer did not write a report.
It could also be that the death of Fairy Fay was handled differently than what we expect because of some sort of procedure that was in place in those days. Imagine that a dead body was found on a public street and the officer knew that she, the dead person, had no next of kin or relatives. Suppose he knew that a medical school might pay him a nice sum of money for a cadaver with which to practice. Instead of contacting the local police surgeon the officer contacts the medical school. This could be why we get a rumor of a dead woman named Fairy Fay, no body and no police report. The point is that any number of things or procedures could have caused the Fairy Fay Incident to come to life.
What would I do in this situation? I would accept the idea that a woman named Fairy Fay did die back in 1887/1888. I would accept the idea that a police report, for some unknown reason, was not written. I would also be careful in trying to use Fairy Fay as a murder victim or JtR victim. The plain truth is that we don't have enough to include her as a murder or JtR victim. We also don't know what happened to the body of Fairy Fay so we need to keep that in mind. What we have is a lot of rumor so we must be careful in how we use the information. Most rumors do have some basis in fact BUT getting the right facts is often hard to do with a rumor. By now we're all pretty sure that Adolf Hitler is dead. The trouble is which story do you believe about his death? Did he die at the bunker with Eva Braun in Berlin? Did he die, as another rumor has it, on a submarine while trying to flee from Germany? Then there is the rumor about Adolf being flown out of Berlin at the last minute only to have his plane crash in: a. a sea, b. a lake or c. a river. To me it doesn't matter how Hitler died. I just feel comfortable knowing that Hitler is probably dead and that he won't live to be 150 years old or be a threat to me. But then again, we don't have a police report on Hitler's death, do we? I guess military reports would be acceptable in lieu of a police report.... |
Author: Judith Stock
Thursday, 14 December 2000 - 04:50 pm | | Might you also accept that Fairy Fay, JUST POSSIBLY, could be an urban legend? While being able to accept that the police were lax, and even derilict, in their duty, one must also be open to other possibilities.
Regards,
Judy |
Author: Judith Stock
Thursday, 14 December 2000 - 04:54 pm | | AHEM, I beg everyone's pardon. The word is "derElict", not as I spelt it, "derilict".
Apologies,
Judy |
Author: Carl Dodd
Friday, 15 December 2000 - 12:20 am | | Judy, you ask if Fairy Fay could be a legend. Yes, it is possible. The trouble is that legends and rumors have a start somewhere in some fashion. Something had to start the Fairy Fay story.
As to the police being derelict, understand that procedures change for law enforcement on a day-to-day basis. It wasn't that long ago in the U.S.A. that some city policemen were hired for a wage of "$200.00 a week and all that they could graft." All police agencies go through transitions and changes. In the late 1800's some sheriffs in the U.S.A. got paid so much a month plus so much for each arrest that they made. Up until the 1990's if a police officer arrested a military AWOL the military services would send a check for $25.00 to the policeman or his department. In the late 1800's the selling of a cadaver was not unheard of by any means. Grave robbers used to make their livings by digging up dead people from cemeteries. Around the world police officers have always tried to make ends meet on tight budgets and remain human. And, being human, there are all sorts of policemen. Good ones and bad ones. Lazy ones and active ones. Tall ones and short ones. Police officers reflect the society that they serve. This may explain why there is not a report on Fairy Fay. |
Author: Wolf Vanderlinden
Friday, 15 December 2000 - 12:54 am | | Stewart Evans has proven quite conclusively in his and Nicholas Connell's excellent book, "The Man Who Hunted the Ripper", that "Fairy Fay" is a garbling of the attack and murder of Emma Smith and a similar attack on one Margaret Hames, a widow aged 54 who was a friend of Smith's and who was attacked in the same general area as Smith, around Christmas 1887.
Mrs. Hames gave evidence at the inquest into Smith's death and told her story of being attacked. The attack was of a severe enough nature to send her to hospital from December 8th until two days after Boxing day, 1887, a period of three weeks, and thus linked her tale with the death of Smith. In September of 1888 newspapers first started to expand the count of Ripper victims back to include an unnamed woman who was murdered either during Christmas week or Boxing day, 1887.
It wasn't until Terence Robertson's series of articles in Reynolds News in 1950, that the unnamed woman was finally named. In Robertson's story entitled "The Madman who Murdered Nine Women", Reynolds, October 29th, 1950, he writes, "First victim in this ghastly parade of death was a woman known as ‘Fairy Fay', for want of a better name", thus clearly showing that he, Robertson, had invented the name.
Stewart believes that Robertson got the idea for the name from a report from Reynolds Newspaper, 15th of January, 1888, in which is mentioned "A Notorious Character" known as "Tot Fay".
Wolf. |
Author: Stephen P. Ryder
Friday, 15 December 2000 - 10:35 am | | The press article which seems to indicate the origin of the Fairy Fay myth is on the Casebook at:
http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/lloyds_weekly_news/lw880408.html |
Author: Judith Stock
Saturday, 16 December 2000 - 12:37 am | | Dear Wolf, Stephen and Carl,
Thanks for the support information, Wolf and Spry. Carl, I absolutely agree about the quality of policing at any given time; as in any other group, there are the good, the bad, and the ugly (to steal a phrase). That said, I have to disagree that just because "Fairy Fay" was said to have been a real person who suffered an horrible death, that means she WAS real.
As Wolf mentions, she was first "named" in 1950, and that after a journalist wrote a piece about the "eleven victims." We all know how accurate and scrupulously honest all journalists are.
Nope, on this one, I really can't blame the police for failure to report, for negligence, or for dereliction of duty. I must stick to my firm belief that Fairy Fay wasn't a real person, but the creation of an overactive imagination and a desire to titillate.
All that aside, can't we agree to disagree, and know that all this is really not in aid of much more than a verbal exercise? Trying to attribute Fairy Fay to the Ripper seems a pointless debate to me; there is more evidence that she DID NOT exist, than that she did. I'm willing to accept that she DID NOT, until there is primary source evidence that she DID.
Sorry, Carl, to be such a pain about this one; it's just that there is so much crap running around about the Ripper, I think the only thing we can do logically is to study primary sources, and avoid the second, third, and fourth-hand stories that only cloud the issue. Speculating about the whereabouts of non-existent police reports is like wishing there were a Polaroid photo of Jack standing over Mary......it probably won't happen.
Best regards and happy holidays to all,
Judy |
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