Andrews was investigating Tumblety

[David Orsam]

Okay, thank you for the answer, Jonathan.

I'm very open to the whole argument about Tumblety being a JTR suspect but that explanation doesn't make a great deal of sense to me because I would have expected Scotland Yard to have obtained background information on a suspect by cable from the Canadian police (just as it was reported that Anderson requested it from Brooklyn).

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

You also say that "the reporter goes to some lengths to explain who his sources were" but in terms of sources (other than Andrews) its 19th December article only refers to "a whisper". Whether the source of that whisper is any of the three men identified in the article of the 20th as having been interviewed "yesterday" – in response to its article of the 19th – is unclear and, as far as I can see, all three men are simply reacting to what they have read, possibly trying to give the (false?) impression that they knew far more than they were able to let on. Certainly, of those three men:

Actually, David, I was thinking more on the lines of "It is a fact that a paid detective of the British Government, connected with Scotland Yard, has been living in this city for about two years."

This man is identified in other newspapers as a man named "Sketchley" and it was stated that he was one source for information regarding Andrews' trip. The Mail article explains who "Sketchley" was and why he seems trustworthy:
"When Barnett was arrested in England this gentleman called at THE MAIL office and furnished full particulars in connection with Barnett’s arrest. In fact he knew the very officer who had made the arrest, the spot where the arrest had been made, and the court proceedings, even to the evidence, were furnished minutely. The gentleman was not questioned as to his business. He furnished certain information to THE MAIL, and that was all that was required. But the fact that he was connected with Scotland Yard and that he was living in this city made it quite plain that he had an object in doing so."

Interestingly, Palmer edits all this out of his article and merely states "Here the article goes on to repeat the claim that an agent in the pay of Scotland Yard (still unnamed) was living in Toronto."

The Mail article, however, suggests a man with some connection with, and inside information regarding, the actions of Scotland Yard. A man, apparently, keeping an eye on Irish activities. This is not out of the question. The Canadian Government had its own spymaster whose job was to keep an eye on Fenian activity and Irish extremism, a very real danger to Canada, and to liaise and share information with London. It is little known that Le Caron, Anderson's spy, was actually also in the pay of the Canadian Government, who were more than a little pissed off when Le Caron broke his cover and gave evidence at the Parnell Commission.

(1) If Tumblety was known to have set off to New York on 24 December, why on earth would Andrews have gone to seek him out in Canada on 29 December? (Palmer says that Tumblety has some historical connection with Canada but so what? Andrews wasn't trying to write his life story I assume.)

Actually, the story of Andrews' trip is more interesting than that. Barnett, then man Andrews delivered to Canada, was ordered to be extradited to Canada on the 6th of November. Toronto should then have been contacted and told to come and pick him up (it wasn't Britain's job to deliver him). For some reason this didn't happen.

On the 19th of November Robert Anderson told the Foreign Office that the extradition was in danger of falling through (if the person who was to be extradited wasn't picked up in a month the extradition could lapse) and asked that the F. O. tell the Canadians that Scotland Yard would deliver Barnett if they would pay all expenses.

Since there was still time for Toronto to send someone to take custody of the prisoner this request was extremely odd. However, even more dithering from the U.K. side eventually made it impossible for anyone to be sent from Canada in time and Andrews was "forced" to take his trip to Southern Ontario.

Add to this the fact that Andrews handed over Barnett to Inspector Stark of the Toronto Constabulary on the pier at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the 9th of December. Andrews was, therefore, free to go anywhere he wanted. Instead of going to New York, where Tumblety was, he went to Toronto instead and did...whatever he was doing in and around Southern Ontario for a week.

Whatever Andrews WAS doing in Ontario, it seem to have been set up by Anderson using the extradition of Barnett as both a cover and a way of keeping the trip to Canada off the books and out of the public eye. Why all this would be deemed necessary if Andrews was just doing regular police work in connection with the Whitechapel Murders is never explained.

(2) Is it likely that Scotland Yard would have sent a detective to hunt for Tumblety in a foreign country before it had obtained a warrant for his arrest? (and we know the warrant was only obtained on 10 December.)

Or, why would Scotland Yard apparently manipulate an extradition process in order to set up a trip to a foreign country to investigate Tumblety when Tumblety was still in London going through his legal problems?

(3) Is it not possible that Andrews' trip to North America could have had a number of objectives so that trying to narrow it down to one will never succeed?

Who can say? Escorting documents from North America back to London, considering the importance of the Parnell Commission to people like Robert Anderson, is not as highly improbable as Tumblety supporters would have everyone think. However, the supposed Ripper connection is a non-starter.

Word that Andrews was to travel to New York in connection with the Whitechapel Murders Investigation came out of Montreal when Andrews, who was traveling back to Halifax and a ship home, was forced to stop his journey. As far as I can tell this news appeared in only one Montreal newspaper, however, oddly, Andrews had been interviewed by several Montreal papers without this information being commented on.

After one day in Montreal, he had been forced to stop because of the weather, Andrews went to the Central Station and boarded a train (Palmer claims that there is some confusion as to exactly how long Andrews stayed in the city, implying that he was there in secret conference with the Montreal Police concerning Tumblety. I have no idea where this confusion comes from since it's fairly clear from multiple sources that he was only there for the one day). Andrews' departure was witnessed by a group of reporters, and he left, not for New York and the Ripper, but, instead, continued on his journey to Halifax. Reports that Andrews was to investigate the Ripper in North America were untrue.

Wolf.

[David Orsam]

Thank you for that fuller explanation Wolf, which makes things a lot clearer.

At the same time, I don't really see how Sketchley's information about a British detective being in Toronto adds one way or the other to our knowledge of Andrews' mission, or would trouble Palmer greatly.

I find it interesting that both you and Jonathan agree that Andrews was using a cover story and that there was more to it than returning Barnett.

I see the force of your point about Andrews not going to straight to New York after depositing Barnett and certainly find the theory that Andrews was merely after background information in Canada weak.

I also see the force of Jonathan's point that if the mission was a secret one connected with the Parnell case it was a bit of a blunder for Andrews to reveal it to a reporter.

I can also see that Scotland Yard might have been embarrassed at Tumblety's flight from bail hence everything was being hushed up.

On the whole, though, I share your scepticism about the claim that Andrews was doing anything JTR related.

[Jonathan H]

Dear David

Everything Wolf has written is wrong, except that Andrews was being sent on some other task abroad than simply handing over a prisoner.

Inspector Walter Andrews was one of the critical trio of detectives working the whitechapel murders. Why would Anderson suddenly divert him on a completely different task? Unless he did not.

Of course Sir Robert Anderson kept it off the books and, of course, both he and Andrews were loathe to admit he was investigating Tumblety in Canada--because the suspect had got away. If he was the fiend they were unable to crack him whilst in custody and now he was out of their jurisdiction.

It was humiliating for the Yard, again! If anything the Parnell rumour-error helped as it took the atention way from Whitechapel, plus Anderson and Andrews knew it was quite untrue.

Doing a background check on Tumblety was standard procedure, e.g. Scotland Yard did the same with Cream, the prostitute poisoner.

The notion that Andrews was sent with Monro's approval to grab dirt on Parnell does not hold up if you examine all of the available sources. It would have been a political own-goal of stupendous stupidity --let alone Andrews blithely admitting he was engaged in partisan sluething, right at the moment that CID already had a black eye over the Ripper.

What Wolf does not grasp is the political/publicity (as in excruciating and toxic) aspects of this tale; that they were trying to find relevant and incriminating material on a suspect they had lost, probably forever. Yet Anderson judged that the effort had to be attempted--a measure of how seriously Tumblety was taken, at least at that moment, as a Ripper suspect.

It is possible that Andrews found nothing useful, or perhaps scraps that tended to clear the American (Jack Littlechild does not mention Andrews' trip at all).

As a sidenote, Guy Logan was a hack writer of the Edwardian and post-war era. In 1905 he wrote a melodrama about the un-named Druitt. His information could only come from one of two sources: Macnaghten and/or Sims. Logan also wrote about Andrews investigating a suspect whio had fled to America. His information is unlikely to have come from newspaper reports because he had adopted the notion that the suspect fleeing stopped the murders in their tracks. This is a Macnaghten bit of propaganda, aggressively hustled to the public from 1898.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

"Inspector Walter Andrews was one of the critical trio of detectives working the Whitechapel murders."

The Times, 14th September 1888—





Regards,

Simon

[David Orsam]

Thank you Jonathan.

I am curious as to the source of your statement that Andrews was working the Whitechapel murders. I don't think I have ever seen his name mentioned in any of the police documents in connection with the investigation but might be wrong.

Also, I can't help noticing that you have slightly adjusted the emphasis of what Logan said. You phrase it as him saying that Andrews was "investigating" a subject - which would be consistent with a background search - but what Logan actually wrote (as helpfully reproduced earlier in this thread) was that Andrews was "sent specially to America in December 1888 in search of the Whitechapel fiend". If it was a mere background search then Logan got it wrong.

I'm prepared and willing to be convinced by your argument but I'm very sceptical about your claim that going to a foreign country for a background check of someone not in custody was a "standard procedure". Perhaps if you are trying to build up a case for trial but what was the point if Tumblety had fled?

[Jonathan H]

Andrews status as a Whitechapel detective is, I recall, mentioned in Walter Dew's memoirs (apart from some contemporaneous newspaper reports about the purpose of his trip abroad).

In my opinion the 'point' was that he was believed by the Yard to be Jack the Ripper.

The alternative was doing bugger all.

If it was proved abroad that he was the culprit that could be a sticky wicket for the Yard too, if you were seen to have just washed your hands of a multiple murderer once he absconded.

I did not make it cleara bout Logan.

I think that Macnaghten either directly or via sims told this hack that the Andrews' mission was to hunt for the killer. Certainly the murders stopped at that point. botrh of these bits are false.

Later i think Macnaghtenh changed tack with Tumblety, or at least did when chatting with Jack Littlechild. He discovered that the latter did not know or did not recall the Andrews' mission and so he told him that it was 'believed' that the american took his own life after fleeing to France.

This would be the origin of Littlechild's perplexity over Sims constantly writing about a doctor chased by CID but who killed himself. He wrote to the famous author in 1913 and the latter replied that he was referring to Dr D--- a suspect that was the subject of a definitive Home Office Report by the commissioner and which had been sighted by Griffiths for his book book of 1898.

This made Littlechild believe that Sims must have meant Tumblety (as D sounds like T) and he was the only doctor suspect from 1888 he could think of--but who had been arrsted, not about to be. But the ex-chief disagreed with Sims' certainty; that if this certainty comes from Major Griffiths then he got his information probably from Anderson "who only thought he knew".

[David Orsam]

Andrews status as a Whitechapel detective is, I recall, mentioned in Walter Dew's memoirs

Yes, this does seem to be correct. From the Casebook transcript of Dew's memoirs:

"The officers sent [to hunt JTR] from Scotland Yard were Chief-Inspector Moore, Inspector Abberline and Inspector Andrews, assisted, of course, by a large number of officers of subordinate rank...These three men did everything humanly possible to free Whitechapel of its Terror. They failed because they were up against a problem the like of which the world had never known, and I fervently hope, will never know again. "

So I would accept that this tips the scales to some degree back in favour of the Andrews-was-on-a-JTR-related-mission-in-Canada argument.

However, on the basis that Andrews was hardly likely to have made this effort if Tumblety was safely locked up in jail when Mary Jane Kelly was murdered, someone does need to demonstrate (either in theory or in practice) that it was possible to be remanded into custody on a Wednesday and then bailed on a Thursday.

Perhaps one for Mike Hawley to attempt....

[mklhawley]

Hi David,

I just finished a fiction novel, but I have been doing some interesting Tumblety research, just in a slight different area at the moment. Simon and Trevor will love it.

Mike

[Simon Wood]

Hi Mike,

You've just finished writing a fiction novel, reading one or colouring it in?

Please specify.

Regards,

Simon

[mklhawley]

Hi Mike,

You've just finished writing a fiction novel, reading one or colouring it in?

Please specify.

Regards,

Simon

Ha! Love it. Connecting the dots first.

Writing one. Third in a series, The Ripper's Hellbroth (2013), Jack's Lantern (2014), and this one, House of La Bete (2015). Only Ripper's Hellbroth involves JTR.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Everything Wolf has written is wrong

Merely claiming this doesn't make it so.

Inspector Walter Andrews was one of the critical trio of detectives working the whitechapel murders. Why would Anderson suddenly divert him on a completely different task? Unless he did not.

Two things. First, other than Dew’s memoirs, there appears to be no evidence that Andrews WAS involved with the Whitechapel Murders Investigation. No existing police reports; Home Office reports; newspaper articles, nothing. This doesn’t mean that he wasn’t involved in some way but we have absolutely no clue what he did or when he did it. The investigation carried on until at least 1891 (when the last investigative report was filed) and Andrews could have been involved at any time between then and 1888. Using the argument that Anderson would never “divert” one Inspector for a couple of weeks on a secret political mission that was close to his own heart, as well as the hearts of the, then, Powers That Be, cannot be seriously entertained with what little information we now have.

Second, the above statement completely ignores the great importance that was given to the Parnell Commission – an attempt at crushing the political career of Parnell, and with it the anti-Unionist cause – by Anderson and others in the police and government who saw Parnell as attempting to destroy the Union. Anderson hated Parnell with a passion bordering on the obsessive.

“But Anderson was a very political animal and in no small way very bigoted. It was a major part of his makeup and must be assessed with all other aspects of the man to decide upon his true nature and the veracity of his word.”
Stewart Evans, Casebook, 17 August, 2010.

“As you know, Anderson was away until after the murders of Stride and Eddowes, and not dealing with anything, and he was far more concerned with the Special Commission than the murders.”
Stewart Evans, Casebook, 23 May, 2011.

If you don’t understand this fact, and Jonathan refuses to, you are left floundering in the dark.

Of course Sir Robert Anderson kept it off the books and, of course, both he and Andrews were loathe to admit he was investigating Tumblety in Canada--because the suspect had got away. If he was the fiend they were unable to crack him whilst in custody and now he was out of their jurisdiction.

It was humiliating for the Yard, again! If anything the Parnell rumour-error helped as it took the atention way from Whitechapel, plus Anderson and Andrews knew it was quite untrue.

Again, two things. First, Anderson set the wheels in motion to send Andrews to Southern Ontario when he sent his letter to the Foreign Office on the 19th of November asking to hand deliver Roland Gideon Israel Barnett to Canada. It seems likely that the plan wasn’t spontaneously thought up on that date and may have been in the works since at least the 6th of November when Barnett was ordered to be extradited, but no one bothered to tell Toronto. Be that as it may, on the very same day, Monday, the 19th of November, Tumblety, still in London, was at the Old Bailey awaiting his trial. He had NOT “got away,” and was STILL “in their jurisdiction,” and it’s hard to see how Scotland Yard could be “humiliated” by this.

Second, we now know that reports of Tumblety’s arrest and flight to New York WERE reported in various British newspapers. We certainly know that the North American Press was filled with Tumblety news stories so suggesting that Anderson was trying to keep everyone in the dark, both in Britain and in North America, about Tumblety is farcical.

If Anderson was so embarrassed as to send Andrews to Southern Ontario in person, so that their shame would never get out, he rather spoiled everything by contacting New York and Brooklyn and responding to San Francisco’s telegram. Wouldn’t it have been better, since Andrews was going to North America anyway, to send the inspector to the New York City area to have a quiet, and private, word with the police authorities? Instead, Andrews arrived in Toronto, spent a week travelling around part of the province and then went back to England.

Doing a background check on Tumblety was standard procedure, e.g. Scotland Yard did the same with Cream, the prostitute poisoner.

If you actually think that the circumstances between Cream’s case – eyewitnesses, victim reports, handwriting, Cream’s own admissions and inside knowledge of murders no one else suspected etc. (plus they weren’t sure exactly who Cream was) – are in any way similar to Tumblety’s – absolutely no evidence to connect him to the Ripper Murders – then you can’t be taken seriously. What evidence could Scotland Yard find to convict Tumblety of the Ripper Murders in Southern Ontario? Why was it deemed necessary to send a man all the way across the ocean when a simple telegram, like those sent to New York and Brooklyn, would suffice?

The notion that Andrews was sent with Monro's approval to grab dirt on Parnell does not hold up if you examine all of the available sources.

You need to look at the actual sources rather than just believe what Palmer tells you. A small library of books, newspaper and magazine articles have been published dealing with the behind the scenes actions of Monro’s CID, Scotland Yard and the Salisbury Government concerning Parnell and the Irish cause. Anderson called these “extra legal” actions. Oddly Palmer can find absolutely no evidence that any of this took place, even though some of the sources he claims to have used specifically provide evidence that they did.

What Wolf does not grasp is the political/publicity (as in excruciating and toxic) aspects of this tale; that they were trying to find relevant and incriminating material on a suspect they had lost, probably forever. Yet Anderson judged that the effort had to be attempted--a measure of how seriously Tumblety was taken, at least at that moment, as a Ripper suspect.

Again, Tumblety wasn’t “lost” when Anderson set the wheels in motion to send Andrews to Ontario. He was still in London. And, if Anderson “judged that the effort had to be attempted--a measure of how seriously Tumblety was taken, at least at that moment, as a Ripper suspect” this doesn’t explain why Anderson, or Andrews apparently, never asked for the Toronto Police’s help. Tumblety is not mentioned even once in the Toronto Police Services correspondence fonds found in the Toronto City Archives for the years 1888/89. No telegram queries like those sent to New York and Brooklyn. No mention of aiding Inspector Andrews’s Ripper investigation. No mention of Jack the Ripper. Andrews, apparently, was just meant to stumble around on his own attempting to do a police investigation in Southern Ontario without the aid of the police of Southern Ontario.

Wolf.

[David Orsam]

First, other than Dew’s memoirs, there appears to be no evidence that Andrews WAS involved with the Whitechapel Murders Investigation. No existing police reports; Home Office reports; newspaper articles, nothing. This doesn’t mean that he wasn’t involved in some way but we have absolutely no clue what he did or when he did it. The investigation carried on until at least 1891 (when the last investigative report was filed) and Andrews could have been involved at any time between then and 1888.

I don't think Dew's memoirs can be dismissed quite so easily. Admittedly, they are not accurate as to some of the details of the murders but it's hard to believe he could have suffered quite so catastrophic a failure of memory as to misidentify Andrews as having been involved in the investigation. He is certainly right about Inspector Moore - and we know this because we have a report of Moore in the MEPO file about Stride's grapes dated 4 October 1888 - but absent this and a reference to him instructing Sgt White in White's report - I wonder if there would be any evidence at all as to his involvement in the JTR investigation in 1888. Was he even mentioned in any newspapers in connection with it during 1888?

So Dew was right about him at least, as regards 1888.

And I'm not sure that the theory that Dew might have been talking about Andrews investigating the post-1888 murders really holds up to scrutiny. In his memoirs, although Dew does refer to murders taking place up until 1891, he states that his own view was that the last Jack the Ripper murder was that of Mary Jake Kelly. That being so, it's a little hard to believe that he would include Inspector Andrews as someone investigating JTR murders which Dew himself did not believe were JTR murders.

And we have just as much other evidence to show that Andrews was involved with the JTR case during 1889-1891 (i.e. none). So, if Dew is right in saying he was involved, then 1888 is the more likely year.

In any case, even if Dew was only aware of Andrews involvement in 1889, the very fact that Andrews got involved in the case at all surely adds weight to the notion that he could earlier have gone to North America on JTR related business.

Maybe we don't have corroborating evidence of Andrews being in the investigation from the police documents or the newspapers but we know that a lot of police documents are missing and the newspapers didn't necessarily know what Scotland Yard was doing.

Personally, I think we have accept that Dew's memoirs do give a little bit of a boost to Jonathan's theory.

[Jonathan H]

Apoplexy Now

Dear David

I would suggest that you try and get a hold of two important and well-written secondary sources: Wolf's essays on Andrews' trip and Palmer's essays that refute that interpretation.

You will then come to your own conclusion as to who is probably correct in their examination of the primary record--one that is incomplete and contradictory.

Quite different from the grotesque caricature of R. J. Palmer as some sort of mountebank, unworthy of consideration, he is, in my opinion, the greatest living writer on this subject. His analytic skills are as scrupulous and as judicious as Paul Begg, and he is also a great prose stylist.

Yet to be fair, Wolf is correct, and I was wrong, in my speculation that Anderson would have sent Andrews just to be seen to doing something pro-active about the fleeing Tumblety--for one thing it was way too expensive for such a gesture.

In fact, Palmer argues no such thing.

I re-read Roger Palmer's trilogy last night. I was only going to re-read the pertinent section, but these pieces are such pure pleasure I ended up re-reading all three. The only depressing element is that you are conscious of your own book's inadequacy, but, oh well, you have to keep going. Nobody is going to tell the unknown and untold story of Macnaghten, Sims and Druitt if I don't, so that, sadly, is that.

Palmer's "Inspector Andrews Revisited" is a polite but surgical, even brutal demolition of Wolf's (and others) revisionist thesis that Andrews had nothing to do with the Whitechapel investigation, this opinion having become RipperLand Orthodoxy (where it is treated as fact and you trigger a hailstorm of abuse if it is questioned). Palmer discovered that Wolf made a number of tiny but telling errors (who doesn't?) which, of course, the latter does not concede in his rude dismissal of Palmer.

But I am not going to painstakingly cut and paste large chunks because it does not seem to help.

A brief summation, however, will not do either.

Anyhow, accepting its limitations, Palmer agues that Anderson set in motion Andrews' trip to Canada to do a background check on the American Ripper suspect because 1) they had the suspect in custody, as they would have Cream later and still send an investigator, and 2) Anderson may have initially believed Dr T was a Canadian.

The argument that Scotland Yard engaged--openly?--in trying to help the "Times" against Parnell is shown to be not only unlikely but ludicrous and naive about a range of sources about Anderson, Warren, Monro and Andrews, the Parnell affair. The detective did have meetings with relevant authorities in North America, e.g. he was not just sightseeing. Plus if he was there to pick up anti-Parnell witnesses and material, why was it never used? That Walter Dew was correct about Andrews is obvious. How could he be wrong about something so mundane?

Again, David, I stress that the above is an opinion, about an opinion, debunking another's opinion. You need to get access to the essays and see for yourself.

One last observation though.

The vehemence and rudeness that this 'debate' triggers by the those who do not believe that Tumblety was a major Ripper suspect, or a Ripper suspect at all, or that Andrews was seeking anything to do with Tumblety in North America--which is their prerogative and is just an historical interpretation--should put you on your guard, as I am sure it already has.

Why does it get so ghastly with these people so quickly? Disagree with Palmer sure (for that matter, he and I don't agree on Macnaghten and Druitt) but why the need to trash him? Why is Trevor so defensive--and so furious all the time??

[David Orsam]

Well, looking at the chronology here I can see that if Tumblety departed Le Havre on 24 November (earlier in this thread I mistakenly typed December but meant November) and Andrews left for Canada on 29 November, Andrews might not have known at that stage that Tumblety had fled the country: the news (I think) first being included in a press report on 1 December, meaning that perhaps the police only found out on 30 November. (Someone will no doubt correct me if I'm wrong.) That being so then, yes, Andrews might have been instructed to ask some questions about Tumblety in Canada (as he was going there anyway), in order to build up a case against him for the Whitechapel murders, and, indeed, might also have been instructed to ask some questions relating to the Parnell case. It is still all a bit speculative though - and leaves unanswered the question of what Andrews could have been hoping to find out about Tumblety in Canada that would have been relevant to a JTR investigation - and, however, brilliantly Palmer puts the argument, it does ultimately need some hard facts to prove the case which appear to me to be absent. And it still leaves the issue outstanding of whether Tumblety could have been released from custody on 8th November, as to which my impression is that no-one currently seems to know one way or the other whether this was possible.