Is it plausible that Druitt did it?

[aspallek]

Hi Anna,

Is this at the local Blackheath library? I hope to be in London late this summer for a few weeks. Perhaps we can meet then and sift through some of this.

[anna]

Sorry Andy....our posts have crosssed.No, the information has been moved.It was thought to be stored in too many different places,so sensibly it was all moved into one old building which is now a resource centre.Woolwich Arsenal was a large ammunition factory during the war and is a huge area,now housing the Firepower! exhibition -if you google it in,you can see what we have here,which is heaven to anyone interested in army vehicles and history.Accross the road from the exhibition is the resource centre,and you can catch a riverboat to and from London from here aswell.There is a riverwalk,and seats to sit and eat and watch the river. It would be brilliant to have some help.You never know what you might find,as the head librarian in charge of all the records in really lovely and wheeled out a large trolley full up of box's of pictures etc,which is where I got the one's I originally posted of Blackheath railway station in 1888 from.She has loads more according to he, more than she can put out,as the room with the books,microfilm etc is quite small,so it can get a bit hectic,to say the least!

[ella090]

Says Ella, the "relative" of Druitt who seems pretty insistent that her ancestor dunnit.

I don't fully believe that he done it, hell i have enough lunatics in my family to try and want to preserve what respect us Druitts have left. However, you believe that the murderer was local etc, I dont see any reason to discount those of a higher class. It is ridiculous to assume that this person must be living in whitechapel, especially when all classes had the ability to frequent the local brothels and therefore get a relatively good knowledge of the area.

Also, although the Witness statements are vague they do give a good description of Druitt, and atleast allow us to rule out certain suspects. There must also have been a reason for Macnaughton to have so passionately have believed that Druitt was indeed the killer.

Continually, the "relative" written in your little superior speech is slightly impertinant, given the fact that it is true that I am a relative, and I have my families diaries to prove it.

I shall be sure to dedicate my book to you.

Ella

[ella090]

N.B pray tell me, if someone of Druitts class wouldn't frequent Whitechapel then why is the Duke of Clarence a suspect?

[Sam Flynn]

N.B pray tell me, if someone of Druitts class wouldn't frequent Whitechapel then why is the Duke of Clarence a suspect?

For entirely the wrong reasons, Ella - and it's a long story. I can't see why anyone of Clarence's or Druitt's class would have "frequented" Whitechapel anyway, with more "respectable" brothels in the West End and elsewhere.

Contrary to popular misconception, Whitechapel wasn't the "vice capital" of London - there were at least a dozen prostitute hot-spots scattered throughout the Metropolis, and Whitechapel was by no means the largest or most popular. With comparatively few brothels in the area, such prostitution as went on was generally provided by run-down local streetwalkers catering for an equally run-down local clientele. The notion of gentlemen swanning in from Kensington or Chelsea for a night of debauchery in some perfumed pleasure-palace off the Commercial Road couldn't be more wrong-headed.

[ella090]

The East End would be safe to someone who didnt want to be seen. West End area was known to many. The Killer must have had certain sexual inadequacies or odd behaviour towards women. Which would you prefer to be in? A well Known West End up-market Brothel or somewhere where you do not want to be seen or for that matter noticed by anyone you might know

[Ben]

Hi Ella,

While most rational students of the case have long since accepted the stronger probability that the killer was local (or locally based at the very least), nobody ever stated that the killer "must be" one. Gareth's earlier post was misunderstood in that regard and the "misunderstanders" then had the courtesy to apologize. All was fine and dandy until you repeated the initial misunderstanding.

Also, although the Witness statements are vague they do give a good description of Druitt

Again, not true I'm afraid. Not the reliable non-discredited ones, at least.

The Killer must have had certain sexual inadequacies or odd behaviour towards women. Which would you prefer to be in?

If I had the financial means and the transport, I'd do what a number of killers with transport availability did; I'd travel to various places to avoid getting caught rather than commuting into the same concentrated, localized area every single time. Gareth's "The notion of gentlemen swanning in from Kensington or Chelsea for a night of debauchery in some perfumed pleasure-palace off the Commercial Road couldn't be more wrong-headed" observation is absolutely spot on.

[aspallek]

I can't see why anyone of Clarence's or Druitt's class would have "frequented" Whitechapel anyway, with more "respectable" brothels in the West End and elsewhere.

This assumes Druitt went to the East End to patronize brothels or prositutes. If he is the killer, I believe he went to the East End to find hapless victims, not to have sex with prositutes.

[anna]

Didn't the Queens son visit Whitechapel...Bertie,the womanising one? That's when he wasn't playing at fireman from his flat in Watling St.Don't get much more upper class,with due respect,than that!!

[Sam Flynn]

This assumes Druitt went to the East End to patronize brothels or prositutes.

I was making a general point, Andy. Too many folk think that Whitechapel was "the" place to go to find prostitutes, and that people of all classes flocked there to enjoy its dubious "delights", but this was simply not so. It was a squalid hole, within which its squalid whores served their mainly squalid clients.

Whether or not Druitt's aim was to patronise brothels, or to exercise some murderous urge, then the fact remains that there were places other than Whitchapel in which he could have done so, many of which were closer to home.

[aspallek]

Yes, Gareth, I know you were making general point. The End End was indeed squalid and the prostitues there were regarded as vermin. Not so the West End. That's precisely the point, isn't it?

[Pilgrim]

Reynold's Map of East London, 1882.

Over the course of the 19th century, the East End became synonymous with poverty, overcrowding, disease and criminality.[4]

~~~


Reynold's map of East London, 1882.

[Pilgrim]

Toynbee Hall, 1884.

Toynbee Hall

In 1884, the Settlement movement was founded to encourage university students to live and work in the slums, experience the conditions and try to alleviate some of the poverty and misery in the East End.

Toynbee Hall, founded in 1884 on Commercial Street, Whitechapel in the East End of London, is the original university settlement house of the settlement movement. A centre for social reform, Toynbee Hall was founded by Samuel and Henrietta Barnett, and named after their friend and fellow reformer, Oxford historian Arnold Toynbee. Notable residents of Toynbee Hall included R. H. Tawney, Clement Attlee, Guglielmo Marconi, and William Beveridge.

~~~

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Andy,

Yes, Gareth, I know you were making general point. The End End was indeed squalid and the prostitues there were regarded as vermin. Not so the West End. That's precisely the point, isn't it?

There were verminous prostitutes all over London, but your point is valid. However, the "East End" often gets conflated with "Whitechapel" in some folks' minds, whereas you and I know that it constituted only part of a much larger East End; Spitalfields, where strictly-speaking most of the Ripper victims resided, was an even smaller region. Whatever, both Spitalfields' and Whitechapel's populations of verminous streetwalkers were by no means unique in that part of the world.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Sam,

You're absolutely right. Whitechapel's populations of verminous streetwalkers were by no means unique in 1888.

And Drury Lane was a lot closer to the West End.

Here is an article from the New York Times dated 21st October 1888. It was written by our old friend Harry Jackson Wells Dam.

As the article is so huge, I have had to post it in kit-form to make it legible.

Here is Part 1.

Regards,

Simon