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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 **
The Dorset Connection
Casebook Message Boards: Police Officials: Police Officials:
The Dorset Connection
Author: Robeer
Thursday, 27 June 2002 - 04:21 am |        | Do you believe in coincidence? There is a connection to Dorset and the Met PD. This connection includes Abberline, Monro, and Macnaghten. The common denominator being the Druitt family.
As we know Abberline was from Dorset. He was lead investigator in the JtR case. Monro was the link between Dorset and Macnaghten.
Neither Abberline nor Monro were ever forthcoming about what they knew. Macnaghten's comments about MJD are curious as we know, as if he wants history to know he did have knowledge of JtR's identity but can't come out and say it. Did he add the two additional suspects simply as decoys? Did Macnaghten's ego get the best of him and cause him to reveal what Monro and Abberline kept secret?
Robeer |
Author: Christopher T George
Thursday, 27 June 2002 - 10:47 am | | Hi, Robeer:
And Mary Jane Kelly was killed in a court off Dorset Street, and Sir Frederick Treves of Elephant Man fame was also from Dorset... as was Thomas Hardy. I really think it is all too easy to get carried away with such supposed connections, Robeer. Dorset was a relatively large English southern county, not too far from London, so some connections are probably quite natural. Moreover, the Druitts had important connections with another English southern county, Hampshire, with Christchurch in that English county, so they were not merely a Dorset family. And there was that murder in Havant near Portsmouth in Hampshire. . . Need I go on? Oh, er, and Stewart Evans is from Dorset too!!!! Need we say more??? 
Chris |
Author: Robeer
Thursday, 27 June 2002 - 11:26 am | | Chris,
Thanks for joining in. Your input is always welcome. In fact, I need to ask you a question: who was the female cousin of MJD that may have written a letter speculating as to the possibility of MJD being JtR? I'm not sure if her name was identified in the letter and my memory thinks you figured out her identity. Hope you can save me time trying to locate this info on the Message Board. Thanks.
Robeer |
Author: Christopher T George
Thursday, 27 June 2002 - 11:43 am | | Hi, Robeer:
Thanks. Glad my input helped, if negatively! The letter you mention has not been researched by me, but was discovered by Stephen Ryder at Duke University. Although the family name is not given in the letter, considering a connection that Stephen infers could have brought some parties involved with the letter together, Stephen postulated in his article in the October 2001 issue of Ripperologist that the person who brought the matter of a Ripper suspect to the attention of Sir Robert Anderson was Emily Druitt, a cousin of Ripper suspect Montague John Druitt.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Robeer
Thursday, 27 June 2002 - 02:12 pm | | Chris,
Thanks. That is the letter I was thinking of. Perhaps you quoted this finding somewhere in the archives. If Lionel did publish a pamphlet in Australia then it would appear suspician of MJD was common knowledge among the family. Was there conclusive proof or just strong suspician?
It appears they believed in his guilt enough to make contact with the police investigating the murders, if Macnaghten's statements are true.
The question then becomes did the Druitt family use their Dorset connections to influence the police to keep the identity of JtR a secret?
Casebook: Monro, by Andrew L. Morrison,
Quote:If we look at M J Druitt then there is a connection between him and Monro. The Private Secretary to Charles Warren, James Monro and his successor, Edward Bradford, was Walter Ernest Boultbee. Boultbee married in 1885 Ellen Barker, a niece of Alfred Mayo who was a distant relation of the Druitt family. Macnaghten talks about "private information" could this have come from Monro who had been told something by Boultbee?
No one knew more about the investigation than Abberline, Monro, and Macnaghten. Two of those were reticent to talk about the case and Macnaghten was somewhat vague and minimal in his discussion of the case. His original correspondance was internal but he finally alluded to the 3 suspects in his memoir, as if he could contain himself no longer.
Robeer |
Author: Christopher T George
Thursday, 27 June 2002 - 03:48 pm | | Hi, Robeer:
Well, unfortunately, as fascinating as it is to speculate, I am afraid, as with the supposed letter concerning, possibly, Emily Druitt, in speculating some connection through Boltbee, we are thrashing around in the dark, without knowing the true circumstances. I would just caution against any inference that there was some dark "Dorset plot" to quash information on the Druitt connection. When we realize that it seems to have been pretty common knowledge that a man who drowned in the Thames at the end of 1888 was the Whitechapel murderer, we have to wonder just how much covering up there was. On the other hand, I suppose it is not unreasonable to think that there may have been some attempt to save the Druitt family embarrasment. We might though take Dorset man F. G. Abberline out of the Dorset coverup idea if it is really true that in 1903 he thought that Severin Klosowski (George Chapman) was the murderer. This again relates to the compartmentalization of the police that Stewart Evans has talked about, that police officials might have their own chosen candidates for the best suspect.
All the best
Chris |
Author: Robeer
Thursday, 27 June 2002 - 06:39 pm | | Chris,
Thrashing around in the dark is pretty much what the Meassage Board is all about, since we have next to nothing to go on. Maybe some thrashing will cause one or two clues to fall our way out of some dark closet if we explore in that direction. I would imagine an established, prominant family like the Druitts would have connections and would be inclined to use them to protect the family name in 1888 England. If Abberline wanted to divert suspician in another direction and is being hounded to name a suspect, wouldn't George Chapman be convenient?
After all, some students of the case are perplexed that a smart cop like Abberline would name such an unlikely suspect. If Chapman was already convicted of murdering women then he would prove useful as a Ripper suspect. Either Abberline used Chapman out of desperation, as a decoy, or he wasn't the sharp detective we thought he was.
There was an excellant thread lost in the December crash When did the Police "relax"? Information provided to that thread closely paralleled the Bachert story as to the timing on reduction of special patrols. Police supposedly took Bachert into confidence and told him the Ripper was drowned in the Thames.
How much actual influence the story allegedly told to Bachert played a part in the discontinuation of extra patrols was unclear. Was this drowning used to shut Bachert up or did police really believe the man who drowned was JtR? This story adds support to Macnaghten's notes and indicates at least certain police officers believed MJD was the Ripper.
Perhaps Macnaghten did not have conclusive evidence and was reluctant to go public but as time passed he seems to have become more convinced the family suspicians were correct. The lack of conclusive evidence may be the reason no one made public police knowledge or there was a quid pro quo where the family cooperated with police in return for non disclosure. We know Monro did have a theory:
Casebook: Monro, by Andrew L. Morrison
Quote:We may not know what his theory was but we do know he had one because in 1890 he told Cassells Magazine he had "decidedly" formed a theory and "When I do theorise it is from a practical standpoint and not upon any visionary foundation." His grandson Christopher remembers him saying "Jack the Ripper should have been caught." Even more exciting, he was supposed to have left his eldest son Charles some papers relating to the case. If these ever existed they were probably destroyed by Charles Monro but he told a younger brother Douglas that their father's theory on the case was "a very hot potato."
What could have been Monro's theory? Some clues might be found in the Macnaghten Memoranda.
So Monro had a suspect in mind who was a "hot potato" but went to his grave with this secret. If that secret would have inflicted much pain and suffering on a certain prominant family in Dorset we must admire Monro and Abberline for doing the honorable thing, as frustrating as that might be for modern day ripperologists.
Of all detectives involved in the case the ones in the best position to know are the least talkative. They are noticed by their absence from the debate. Don't you find that strange? Their silence causes us to be even more curious. "Still water runs deep." What did they know they did not want us to know?
Robeer |
Author: Caroline Morris
Friday, 28 June 2002 - 08:58 am | | Hi Robeer,
Anyone using the words "Jack the Ripper should have been caught", presumably didn't think Druitt was the hot potato feeding the fishes - dead killers don't need to be 'caught', just identified, so the case can be laid to rest with them.
(Unless there was some reason why he should have been caught before he took his final plunge?)
Love,
Caz |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 28 June 2002 - 10:33 am | | Hi Caz,
Do those words really rule out Druitt? Suppose Monro had known about Druitt and thought him as sussy as Macnaghten did, and also thought that there were clues that, if read properly, would have led to his arrest before his suicide? I don't think anything like this happened, of course. But I just want to be a little cautious about letting one phrase categorically disunite Druitt from Monro's theory.
All thebest,
Martin F |
Author: Caroline Morris
Friday, 28 June 2002 - 11:19 am | | Hi Martin,
'Suppose Monro had known about Druitt and...thought that there were clues that, if read properly, would have led to his arrest before his suicide?'
Exactly so - that's why I added that same cautionary bit in brackets. I just didn't put it as clearly as you just did.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 28 June 2002 - 01:15 pm | | Sorry to have been so dim about your final sentence, Caz.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Robeer
Friday, 12 July 2002 - 04:24 pm | | To all,
Does anyone know which Met division would have responded to the Druitt suicide when and where the body was found and which detective would have been responsible for investigating this death and filing the report? Would that same detective need to testify at the inquest?
Robeer |
Author: Martin Fido
Saturday, 13 July 2002 - 07:04 am | | Hi Robeer,
Presumably the River Police (Thames Division). They had a divisional CID of four officers from 1975-1917.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Martin Fido
Saturday, 13 July 2002 - 07:05 am | | A-hh-hummm! Make that 1875, please, operator!
Martin F |
Author: The Viper
Saturday, 13 July 2002 - 12:12 pm | | (Thanks to Howells & Skinner's The Ripper Legacy for this). The following is taken from the Acton, Chiswick and Turnham Green Gazette, dated 5th January 1889. It is an account of the inquest on Druitt's body:-
Henry Winslade was the next witness... About one o'clock on Monday he was on the river in a boat, when he saw the body floating. The tide was at half flood, running up. He brought the body ashore, and gave information to the police.
PC George Moulton 216T said he searched the body, which was fully dressed excepting the hat and collar. He found four large stones in each pocket in the top coat; £2 10s in gold, 7s in silver, 2d in bronze, two cheques on the London & Provincial Bank (one for £50 and the other for £16), a first-class season pass from Blackheath to London (South Western Railway),a second half return Hammersmith to Charing Cross (dated 1st December), a silver watch, gold chain with a spade guinea attached, a pair of kid gloves and a white handerchief. There were no papers or letters of any kind. There were no marks of injury to the body, but it was rather decomposed.
So, assuming the report to be accurate, it seems that the waterman spotted the body and managed to bring it ashore himself. He then ran off to find a local policeman. The body was discovered at Chiswick, which is adjacent to Hammersmith. Moulton was an officer of T (or Hammersmith) Division of the Met.
Regards, V. |
Author: Kevin Braun
Saturday, 13 July 2002 - 04:10 pm | | Viper, Robeer, All,
Stones in the pockets, the suicide(?) remind me of ...
Start with a body found on the morning of June 17, 1982 beneath London's Blackfriars bridge. The corpse was dangling from a rope, weighed down with 14 pounds of brick and stone; the victim's hands had been tied behind his back, a fact which seemed to be ignored by the coroner who pronounced the affair a simple suicide. But there was much more. The body was that of Roberto Calvi, head of the elite Banco Ambrosiano, at the time the largest privately owned financial institution in Italy. A second inquest, demanded by Calvi's family, began to blow open a financial and political scandal that has reverberated throughout the continent, and beyond. (BBC News, April 19,2002)
For what it is worth.
Take care,
Kevin |
Author: Timsta
Saturday, 13 July 2002 - 10:13 pm | | Kevin:
And of course, much as it pains me to point this out, Calvi's *was* a Masonic murder (P2 Lodge, if my memory serves me).
tim |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Sunday, 14 July 2002 - 12:35 pm | | I have been working on a slight parallel to this
thread regarding Melville Macnaghten and when
he first began to postulate his list of suspects.
I can think of a reason for reticence on the part
of Sir Melville about Kosminski's and Ostrog's
names: if they were still alive they could sue
for defamation of character. But the same is
not true about Druitt. He's dead. His family
could not sue for slander against his name.
Indeed, although it is now highly questionable
that such a pamphlet ever existed, if Montague's
cousin Lionel Druitt did write a pamphlet in
Australia regarding "knowing" the identity of the
Ripper, there would seem to be a tradition of
the family boasting about it (provided this
pamphlet pointed at Montague - Lionel might have
been writing about another suspect, like Frederick
Deeming for example). While there is always a
chance that the Yarders were trying to be kind
to the well-to-do family of a suspect by its
reticence, I suspect legal threats played a bigger reason for than that.
Jeff |
Author: Martin Fido
Tuesday, 16 July 2002 - 06:30 am | | Hi Jeff - check back with Howells & Skinner, "The Ripper Legacy" for proof that the Australian pamphlet was not by Lionel Druitt or about any Druitt. (They found it).
All the best,
Martin F |
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