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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 **
Seaside Home Location
Casebook Message Boards: Police Officials: General Discussion:
Seaside Home Location
Author: A.M.P.
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 01:01 pm |        | In relation to the identification of Anderson’s witness, Chief Inspector Swanson wrote some time after 1910 that the suspect “…was identified at the Seaside Home where he had been sent to us with difficulty in order to subject him to identification”.
Writers on this subject invariably state that Swanson was referring to the Convalescent Police Seaside Home. The first of these opened in Hove, Sussex in March 1890, with a purpose built one opening three years later. According to the authors of the A-Z, “Thus if Swanson was correct, the identification took place at least eighteen months after the original sighting and sixteen months after the last Ripper murder”. The piece then goes on to discuss the difficulties which this timescale throws up and the attempts made to explain it. All the while it continues to accept that the Seaside Home was indeed a police convalescence establishment.
Has it, I wonder, been established beyond doubt that the Seaside Home had a police connection. Or is it just a widespread assumption which we should question? The only reason for asking is that when checking on something else a few months ago I came across an institution called The Sea Side Home Of The London City Mission. The home was operational in the 1880s and was located at Ventnor, Isle Of Wight. It could be contacted through the Secretary, a Mr. Charles Savell at 3 Bridewell Place, New Bridge Street, London. This tells us that there was at least one other Seaside Home in existence with charitable or philanthropical roots. Is there any possibility that Swanson was referring to such an establishment, rather than a police home? If so, are there implications for the date of the identification?
Any thoughts or information received gratefully, especially from A-Z author Mr. Begg, to whom best wishes for a speedy recovery are extended. |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 03:16 pm | | It would seem to be a fair assumption that 'Anderson's witness' was Joseph Lawende. This is in view of the fact that it was Lawende who was used in an identification attempt involving James Thomas Sadler arrested by the police in connection with the Coles' murder, which occurred on February 13, 1891.
The police felt that Sadler may have been responsible for the previous Whitechapel murders, hence they attempted to have Lawende identify him. The great significance of this, of course, is the fact that the attempted identification of Sadler as 'Jack the Ripper' took place over ten days after Kosminski had been permanently incarcerated on February 4, 1891.
The Convalescent Police Seaside Home was a police establishment for convalescent police officers (sick or injured) and was still in use at Hove in 1969 when I joined the police force. (It has since moved to Flint House in a different location).
It is significant that Swanson, in the marginalia, refers to only 'the Seaside Home,' and makes no mention of a location or it being the Police Home. The assumption which should be questioned is that it was the police home. Could it have been some other 'Seaside Home' or even a 'Seamen's Home' incorrectly recalled?
Another point to be remembered that such a procedure as described, or assumed, in Swanson's scribbles is not a correct police procedure and may not be entirely accurate. |
Author: Simon Owen
Thursday, 20 April 2000 - 07:05 am | | | As I was looking through the Times archives at the Guildhall , London yesterday I came across an advertisement ( on the front page I think ) of the London Times for 8th November 1888. It was a charity for a convalescent instituition at Bexhill on Sea , which was designed to allow poor people to recover in the healthy atmosphere of a seaside town , away from the London smog. I only took brief notes but if anyone has the time perhaps they could print out the full advertisement here. It is certainly a candidate for Swanson's Seaside Home in any case. |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 29 May 2000 - 12:46 pm | | The Metropolitan Police Convalescent Fund was
started in 1887, and very quickly became the most
popular police charity of the time. In 1888 or '89
(I forget which), the Police Gazette circulated a
request from the fund committee (or some other
central authority) that all Met Divisions should
report the names of officers who had received
grants to go to boarding houses for convalescence,
prior to the use of a definite named home. (This,
if I recall, was not the Hove home, but a
boarding house elsewhere which, I inferred, must
have offered the police some priority).
Until he, too, saw the entry Paul Begg always
challenged my insistence that 'Seaside Home' in
police parlance could refer to somewhere
unspecified on the coast in the years 1887-1890.
When he saw it he contacted me to say that he had
found it and I was right - apparently forgetting
that it was because of the entry that I made the
claim in the first place.
Martin Fido |
Author: GARY ONDREJ DANKO
Saturday, 23 December 2000 - 12:07 pm | | What seems to me to be an important question is why Robert Anderson makes no mention of this himself.
However, I've often wondered whether the seaside home in question, is the one presumed.
Are there any records pertaining to such an interview?
If so where could they possibly be?
Is there any other cases that used the house, which could possibly throw light on activities past there.
Does it still stand?
Sorry for all the questions, however I've spent some time away from the subject.
How important is this line of enquiry when trying to indentify Jack the Ripper now that it is largely assumed as the man was identified, ie Kosminski was with Stride who seems to be discounted as a Ripper Victim. |
Author: Jon
Sunday, 24 December 2000 - 10:34 am | | Good question Gary, (your last sentence), but it is simply because we can only 'assume' Stride was not a victim that we cannot ignore any of the facts or speculations, surrounding her death.
We have few, if any, certainties in this case so it is rather better to view them as Whitechapel murders rather than Ripper murders. We should review all the crimes against women between Annie Millwood of Feb. '88 to Francis Coles of Feb. '91.
Which includes the 3 (or 4) torso victims.
Nichols, Chapman & Eddowes, and likely Kelly, I think most would agree are by the same hand, but as for the rest, its completely open.
Regards, Jon |
Author: Diana
Monday, 25 December 2000 - 08:02 am | | | We can't be certain of anything, but if Chikatilo teaches us anything MO can change. Jack could have done all of them. |
Author: The Viper
Monday, 05 February 2001 - 07:46 am | | The following letter appeared in the Jewish Chronicle on 7th September 1888:-
A SEASIDE CONVALESCENT HOME.
Sir, Another summer has passed away, and yet the urgent need of a new Jewish Convalescent Home has not been met. I have heard of the pressure upon the existing convalescent home belonging to Lady Rothschild, and of the dozens who have been refused (as well as of the many who have been restored) because the accommodation at that hospitable place is necessarily limited; but I hear nothing tangible as to the establishment of a spacious Jewish Convalescent Home, capable of relieving in turn the deserving poor of our faith.
Those who have been able to get away to our many health resorts, will think of the poor people shut up in slums from the commencement of the year to the end of it, and will wish like I do that the idea originating with my friend, Miss Emily Harris, should bear fruit, and the home become an accomplished fact. Will any one favour me with the reason why the home has not yet been established? I hear sufficient money has been subscribed to commence, so cannot a house be found? I think there was an idea of establishing the Home at Brighton; surely in such a large town a house can be found fitted for the purpose. I think that place highly suitable, one consideration being a large Jewish congregation for a provincial town, and another reason is the railway fare not being too expensive. In this week’s Chronicle I notice an advertisement for a convalescent home to be sold; could not sufficient money be subscribed to purchase this place, if suitable for the purpose?
Kindly excuse the length of this letter, but I am very interested in the proposed Home, and that is my only excuse. Thanking you beforehand.
Yours obediently, L.D.
So here we have an apparently long running debate about securing a 'Seaside Home', with Brighton being mentioned as a possible location for it. Taken with Anderson's comments about his suspect being a Polish Jew, it would be interesting to know whether such an establishment was ever opened. If so, it would certainly be an alternative site to the police home usually assumed to have staged the identification. Any readers down there in Brighton or Hove fancy looking into this one?
Regards, V. |
Author: Martin Fido
Tuesday, 06 February 2001 - 06:25 am | | Dear Viper,
The reason for focussing discussion on the Police Convalescent Home is that Swanson uses the phrase 'the Seaside Home' which, then and now, is normal Metropolitan and City Police colloquial for the PCH. (This was immediately noted by Don Rumbelow when the marginalia surfaced in 1988). I note that LD sticks to the formal term 'Convalescent Home', though the fact that there is definite and demonstrable error in Swanson means we shouldn't, I suppose, rule out the possibility that he had confused a Jewish rest home with a police one - especially if the identification he recollcted took place in one of the ad hoc homes used by the Police Convalescent Home Fund between 1887 and the purchase of the Hove house.
With all good wishes,
Martin F |
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