A Very Discreet Man : James Monro and the Whitechapel Murders
Andrew L Morrison
Of all the senior police
officials who were involved with the Jack the
Ripper case, James Monro remains the most enigmatic. He alone amongst the
high ranking policemen did not publish any memoirs and yet it is possible
that he was more informed about the case than most if not all his
contemporaries. If anybody knew the truth about the events of 1888 it
was him.
Before going over what he could have known, who he could have told, who
could have provided him with information, etc., I will give a brief summary
of his life and career.
1838: Born in Edinburgh. His father was George Monro, a solicitor.
He was educated at Edinburgh High School and the Universities of
Edinburgh and Berlin.
1857: Enters Indian Civil Service and holds post of Assistant Magistrate
and later Collector.
1863: Married.
1877: Becomes District Judge and Inspector-General of the Police in
Bengal.
1881: Meets and becomes friends with Melville Macnaghten after the latter
is assaulted by natives.
1883: Appointed Commissioner of the Presidency Division (Bombay).
1884: Resigns his post and returns to England to become Assistant
Commissioner Metropolitan Police (Criminal Investigation
Department).
1888: August - Resigns after a struggle with Commissioner Charles Warren
over the independence of the CID and Warren's blocking of the
appointment of Melville Macnaghten. Monro is appointed "Head of the
Detective Service" by Home Secretary Henry Matthews.
November - Charles Warren resigns as Commissioner and is replaced
by Monro.
1889: June - Appoints Melville Macnaghten Assistant Chief Constable
(CID).
July - Investigates the murder of Alice McKenzie.
1890: Resigns as Commissioner after an arguement over the Police Pensions
Bill and attempts to make civil servant Evelyn Ruggles-Brise Chief
Constable (CID). Monro returns to India and sets up a medical
mission at Rhanagat, 40 Miles from Calcutta.
1905: Returns to Scotland and then Cheltenham
1920: January 28 - Dies age 81
The first thing that a researcher would point out is that during the period
of the Ripper murders Monro was not actually a member of the police.
However, officers involved in the case were encouraged by the Home
Office to consult this "Head of the Detective Service" about the murders,
much to the annoyance of Charles Warren.
Who were these men who consulted with Monro? One of them was his successor
in the CID, Robert Anderson. Much of Monro's work had involved combatting
the threat from the Fenian terrorists. In this he had been assisted by
Anderson who from 1876 to 1886 was the Home Office "Adviser to matters
relating to political crime". Thus, the two men knew each other very well
indeed and it is very likely that Anderson shared all the information he
had about the Whitechapel murderer with Monro. Monro was also consulted by
Chief Inspector Donald Swanson and Chief Inspector Reid.
There were other sources that Monro could get information from. In 1887
Inspector Frederick Abberline was transferred to Scotland Yard from H
Division (Whitechapel) on the express wishes of Monro and the Chief
Constable (CID) Adolphus Williamson so it is possible that he also
consulted Monro.
The Special Branch or Special Irish Branch came under Monro's control when
he was Assistant Commissioner (CID). The head of that department between
1883-1893 was John George Littlechild who in recent years has come to the
fore in Ripper studies due to his letter implicating Tumblety.
Monro was surrounded by sources of information about the murders and not
all his information was necessarily second-hand. He investigated the
murder of Alice McKenzie in Castle Alley, 1889 as at the time it was
thought it could be the work of Jack the Ripper. There is even some
evidence to suggest that he visited the site of Mary Kelly's murder. His
grandson James recalls him saying "It was terrible, even the ceiling was
splashed with blood."
Further evidence that Monro was deeply involved in the Ripper case exists
in the form of a memo sent by Home Secretary Henry Matthews to his Private
Secretary Evelyn Ruggles-Brise. It reads "Stimulate the Police about the
Whitechapel murders. Monro might be willing to give a hint to the CID
people if necessary." This suggests that Monro had knowledge that the CID
did not or at the very least had come to some very different conclusions.
So what did Monro know and what was his theory about the case? Here there
is a problem because as mentioned before he did not publish memoirs or
give much in the way of interviews. However, although there are no
published memoirs there do exist some private, written memoirs that Monro
wrote for his family. These were uncovered by Martin Howells and Keith
Skinner. They do not contain anything about the Ripper case or even the
Cleveland Street Scandal of 1889. What they do contain however gives us an
idea of Monro's character. One passage shows his pride in his discretion.
"But says the Times 'Mr Monro albeit a strong man was not always discreet'
...But what does the Times mean by being discreet? I suppose it means that
I did not always do as the Times thought I should have done. This may be
so. But where is all the evidence of indiscretion on my part? Let me hear
them and I shall be able to reply."
One might well ask if Monro did have a theory about the Ripper murders.
After all, it could have been not so much a matter of discretion on his
part as a case of ignorance. 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. Monro and Macnaghten had known each other since 1881
and all indications are that they were very good friends and colleagues.
Macnaghten wrote of Monro that "I doubt whether any of the gentlemen who
filled his position before or after his time gained more completely the
affection and confidence of their officers (Days of My Years, 1915)."
Macnaghten did not join the Met until 1889 so his information on the case
was second hand. Where did it come from? 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?
What about Kosminski? The most obvious source that Macnaghten could have
heard about him from is Robert Anderson. However, Macnaghten and Anderson
don't seem to have got on all that well. In his memoirs Anderson recalls a
colleague making a silly fuss over a threatening letter and in his copy of
the book Donald Swanson identifies the colleague as Macnaghten. Macnaghten
dedicated his memoirs Days of My Years to Anderson's successor Edward
Henry. More telling perhaps is that in 1891 there were reports of attempts
to get Macnaghten moved to the uniform branch of the Police. Therefore,
although it is possible that Macnaghten heard about Kosminski from Anderson
he could just as likely have heard it from his friend James Monro who had
been told by Anderson or Swanson. The same could apply to the information
about Michael Ostrog.
There could be another link between Macnaghten, Monro and the Ripper. In
The Rise of Scotland Yard by Douglas G Browne (1956) there is the
statement "Sir Melville Macnaghten appears to identify the Ripper with the
leader of a plot to assassinate Mr Balfour at the Irish Office". The
department which would have dealt with any such plot would have been the
Special Branch. Could John Littlechild have told Monro something and could
Macnaghten have then picked up on it? It has been suggested that this is a
distorted reference to Tumblety who was known to sympathise with the
Fenians and was nominally implicated with the assassination of Abraham
Lincoln.
The annecdotal quote by
Monro "Jack the Ripper should have been caught"
could apply to Tumblety or Kosminski. The former was able to escape to
America and the latter was certified insane and so it could never be
proved he was the killer. Both these events could have been very
embarrassing to the Met if they had been revealed. Scotland Yard
allowing the Ripper to slip through their fingers was "a very hot potato"
indeed.
The same could apply if Druitt was the killer as he "escaped" by
committing suicide. It would apply even more so if the theory in Howells
and Skinner's The Ripper Legacy is true: i.e. Druitt was killed by a group
of powerful and influential men who did not want Druitt caught and tried
in case he brought them down with him. On the other hand perhaps Monro's
theory involved somebody else who we have never heard off.
In their book "Jack the Ripper : Summing up and Verdict" Colin Wilson and
Robin Odell mention a theory in which Monro is actually the murderer! His
motive is revenge against the police and in particular Charles Warren for
the way he was treated and made to resign. Needless to say this theory has
not gained any support.
On December 2 1888, the day before Monro officially took up the post of
Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police G R Sims (the journalist who was
later to write about the Ripper being a man whose body was dragged from
the Thames) wrote "It would be strange if the accession of Mr Monro to
power were to be signalised by such a universally popular achievement as
the arrest of Jack the Ripper. From information which has reached me I
venture to prophesy that such will be the case" It didn't happen but did
James Monro know who the Whitechapel murderer was and if he did does this
information still exist? It is possible that this very discreet man took
the truth about the Autumn of terror to his grave.
References
Begg, Paul. Jack the Ripper: The Uncensored Facts (London, Robson 1989)
Begg, Paul & Fido, Martin & Skinner, Keith. The Jack the Ripper A to Z (London, Headline 1991)
Evans, Stewart & Gainey, Paul. The Lodger: The Arrest and Escape of Jack the Ripper (London, Century 1995)
Fido, Martin. The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper (London, Weidenfeld 1989)
Howells, Martin & Skinner, Keith. The Ripper Legacy (London, Sphere 1988)
Sugden, Phillip. The Complete History of Jack the Ripper (London, Robinson 1995)
Wilson, Colin & Odell, Robin. Jack the Ripper : Summing Up and Verdict (London, Corgi 1988)
