A lock of Kelly's hair...

[Chris Scott]

Definitely not seen this one before!

Lloyds Weekly
25 November 1888

On Sunday evening a venerable lady called upon Mr Wilton, the undertaker, and said she wanted a lock of Mary Kelly's hair, and was willing to pay anything for it. The undertaker replied that that was impossible, and continued obdurate in spite of his visitor's entreaties. The lady explained her mission at some length. She was acquainted, she remarked, with a female spiritualist who has been blind since she was three years of age. The sightless spiritualist was a "strong medium" and, could she but have a lock of the deceased's hair, the lady felt sure the murderer's accurate description would be revealed. The singular request was not complied with, and the aged lady expressed her disappointment.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Chris!

Evermore interesting...

My thoughts about the mediums are in short the same as Lennon-McCartney's: "...The voices out of nowhere put on specially byt the children for a lark..." (The song being: Cry Baby Cry).

But then; had the lady been more stubborn she could possibly had saved us a lot of time. Finding dna from the lock of hair could have effected in the following ways:

1. It could have obviously cut down the number of Mary Kelly's "relatives" from these boards!

2. It could have saved some trouble from us trying to seek for "our" Mary Kelly from the haystack of LVP Mary Kellies.

But then, thinking about, what MJK's friends said about her:

Joseph Barnett and Mrs. Carthy, a woman with whom she lived at one time, say that she came from a family that was "fairly well off" (Barnett) and "well to do people" (Carthy). Mrs. Carthy also states that Kelly was "an excellent scholar and an artist of no mean degree."

This is from the victims introduction of this site and I sincerely hope, that some members don't start to turn MJK into a drop-out lady from Creme de la Creme...

All the best
Jukka

[Sam Flynn]

...are you sure it didn't say "ear", Chris?

[anna]

Hi all,
This seems to be slightly strange...
We have an aged lady wanting to buy a lock of Kelly's hair at any price,from the undertakers,to catch Jack The Ripper.

Why would she pay a lot of money,at the risk that it would be all for nothing.
If it were a prostitute just asking for a lock of hair for that purpose,that would be believable,as I bet they were pretty nervous.
Ok,we have the reward money,if the medium can "see" Jack....other than that,it would be pointless.

I'm just wondering if this was a relative of Kelly's,who didn't want to get involved in all the hoo-ha that surrounded her death and funeral,...maybe she came to watch it all from a distance.People in those days put locks of hair in jewellery,especially lockets...and maybe it's possible,it was for this purpose.

ANNA,

[Robert]

This was a lady gifted with precognition who knew that one day her great grandchildren would be able to sell it on Ebay.

[Mitch Rowe]

Hi all,
This seems to be slightly strange...
Why would she pay a lot of money,at the risk that it would be all for nothing.
ANNA,

It may not have so strange back then. Life was more of a mystery. People believed in fortune tellers and what we would call occult activities.

I dont find it at all unusual.

[Chris Scott]

Hi Mitch
I have certainly seen other instances where there were psychic initiatives to try and identify the murder, and this is apart fom the famous Lees story.
Also the whole Victorian attitude to death and its pararphernalia - mourning jewellery, locks of hair in lockets etc - was very different to that we have have today.
Chris