How important is this?

[Phil Carter]

Hello all,

Isn't it strange what little snippets one misses? I have read through the boards, dissertations, the Wiki, everything on Casebook in the last 6 weeks, and I still miss things... Whatever areas and connections I go back into, I find something that starts to jog my mind... and when I found the following, it suddenly made me jump back...you know...one of THOSE moments...

My thanks to Adam Wood for his magnificent dissertation on Coroner Wynne Baxter, parts of which I quote below,,,

Perhaps the theory Baxter actually ascribed to most was revealed in the Evening News of 1 October 1920. While mentioning in its obituary that Baxter presided over the Ripper inquests, the paper states that he attributed these crimes to the Fenians. "Dr Baxter advanced his theory to the Home Office, who told him he was not alone in his opinion."

and further...

......None of Baxter's inquest papers, including the Ripper files, have ever been discovered, despite searches in the various Government archives, personal family files, educational institutions, and archives of Wynne-Baxter and Keeble. The correct deposit for inquest papers, the London Metropolitan Archives at Northampton Row, holds extensive volumes of Coroners' Registers for the Counties of Middlesex and London (catalogue COR/A), including the Western District for 1856-1930, the North Eastern District for 1921-1932, and the all-important Eastern District for 1925-1934. Not a single file from Baxter's 30,000-plus inquests during 1886-1920 is held. It's possible that these were destroyed, but given Baxter's precise and studious nature it seems impossible that he didn't store the papers somewhere. (my emphasis)

Now what does that mean? Well, firstly, I cannot recall any link from a person involved directly in the Whitechapel murders, on the ground as it were, who gave any statement, linking the possible murderer to the Fenian cause. This comment, shows that the Home Office not only recieved this statement from Wynne Baxter, but also had, and confirmed, that others had voiced the same opinion.

Now what THAT means is very interesting indeed. Because, if, and it a fair assumption, the Home Office passed on all their Fenian related letters and documents to the Secret Department, as they surely would, it means there is a chance of DIRECT correspondance to the Government from at least ONE person, Wynne Baxter, sitting in the Secret Department Files at Kew.
So if that is there, surely, there would be ALL correspondance re Fenianism and the Whitechapel murders sitting in a file with it. It isn't extreme to think in terms of probabilities.

Secondly, the fact that 30,000 inquest papers... 30,000!!! have all gone missing seems extremely strange. We are told the man was meticulous (precise and studious)...."Various Government Archives" eh?

What are the chances of further notes, letters and papers relating to the Whitechapel murders from Baxter also sitting in the files from the Secret Dept IF there are any links, as he has been quoted on referring to Fenianism?

I welcome your thoughts, discussions and comments on these two points.

best wishes

Phil

[lynn cates]

blitz

Hello Phil. Was there ever any hint that these papers could have been destroyed during the blitz? Sometimes, that seems like a default explanation.

The best.
LC

[protohistorian]

Hello Phil. Was there ever any hint that these papers could have been destroyed during the blitz? Sometimes, that seems like a default explanation.

The best.
LC

Indeed Lynn, combining the nature of the man and the blitz accounts for it well. The consolidation of documents in a singular geographic location increases the likelihood of complete destruction with the destruction of the repository. What was a good idea in one era (the consolidation of papers) could very well be disadvantages in another (London of the Blitz) Respectfully Dave

[Observer]

Hi Phil

The Fenians? What were they hoping to achive? Also oganisations like The Fenians more often than not own up to their deeds, otherwise whats the point in perpertrating them?

all the best

Observer

[lynn cates]

terror

Hello Observer.

"o[r]ganisations like The Fenians more often than not own up to their deeds"

Quite true. Occasionally, they even try to claim credit for deeds not perpetrated by them. I suppose this is to make them seem even MORE terrifying?

The best.
LC

[Phil Carter]

Hi Phil

The Fenians? What were they hoping to achive? Also oganisations like The Fenians more often than not own up to their deeds, otherwise whats the point in perpertrating them?

all the best

Observer

Hello Observer, Lynn, Prohistorian, all,

Let me put this another way...

What on Earth would make Coroner Wynne Baxter come out with such a statement?

Everyone whom we know of having an opinion had a reason..
But Wynne Baxter, has apparently told the Home Office of his suspicions, and they responded saying he wasn't the only one!

Here we have a man very much in the know... not only by the nature of his contact with the police and the doctors, but by the fact that he would have first hand knowledge of the evidence.

Abberline thought about Chapman, and no other did.
Anderson? He had his idea...
Magnaghten? He had his idea...
Littlechild? the same
etc etc etc ...

and we have all tried in vain to find every reason, for and against, for each and every one of the contemporary suspects.
Yet here is a man at the centre of all this..saying..Fenians.
What evidence is there?
Well, a darn sight more than any consideration of Chapman and, a darn sight more stuff of suggestion than a man drowning in the river, (Druitt) being suggested as a suspect by one man based in part on the "private info" told to ONE policeman that has never been proven, and the same man (a policeman) known to have destroyed papers on the subject!

Here's for starters..

Anderson meeting Le Caron (the double-role spy, heavily Fenian involvement) in Paris on his way home from his sojourn...
Anderson heavily involved in the Fenian issue and top man of the Secret Dept.
Various policemen, Abberline included, brought in to the Whitechapel murders case, with heavy Irish connections...
The thread running through this series of murders involving people of Irish extraction.
The Post Office robbery, carried out by the Fenians, at the very time of the murders and in the same area.
The fact of the Irish Constubulary turning up at Kelly's murder scene WITH the Postmaster general.
The fact that Kelly, supposedly Irish, was stated as being SEEN the next morning AFTER she was supposed to have been murdered, by TWO people.

Now I call that lot suspicious, comtemporary and suggestive enough. And to top it all, Coroner Wynne Baxter, a man in the middle of all this, points his finger at Fenianism.

As regards the missing reports, there has never been any suggestion, as far as I am aware, of his papers being stored with the police files of the City force, that were destroyed in the blitz. Or that they were destroyed in the blitz at all. The fact is, between his death in 1920, and the 2nd World War, they had not been located either.

best wishes all

Phil

[perrymason]

Some excellent theorizing Phil, and that comment from Baxter is certainly food for Fenian thought.

It should be mentioned that the man who took over the investigations suggested that the Ripper murders were connected with the plot to assassinate Balfour....an issue which was, realistically speaking, of far greater importance that the solving of some ghastly murders in the ghettos.

I believe that you are thinking correctly about this.....it is hard to imagine that ALL the missing related documents were destroyed, stolen or lost....but it is easy to imagine that if some tangible link existed from the Ripper crimes to high profile Fenian activities that the matter would be of utmost importance to Parliament and to the matter of National Security.

The Jubilee Bomb plot undertaken by Fenians was foiled by 2 of the highest ranking members of the Ripper investigations....Abberline had extensive Fenian experience in that area, it may be part of the reason for his re-assignment, and so did many of the senior personelle.

It has been pointed out that the Irish cause was something so prevalent in the area in recent years that all officers would be exposed to some degree to those kinds of investigations,...but it would be primarily the Special Branch or Home Office that would be directly involved with Fenians.

If....the 2 investigations overlapped somewhere, I feel sure that some information about those cases would be locked away in some Special Branch or Home Office files. Special Branch is mandated to keep all files secure in perpetuity....which means they are legally bound to deny the public access to any such documents should they exist....forever.

Would be nice if that rule could be bent a bit in these cases.

My best regards Phil

[lynn cates]

suppression

Hello Phil and Mike. This is very interesting. I wonder why anyone would want this suppressed? I would have thought, perhaps, the other way about? Put it out that there is national security at stake and both public support would increase and perhaps some private donations.

Or is it possible that SY made a gaffe in the handling of it and didn't want the details known?

The best.
LC

[Phil Carter]

Hello Mike, LC, all,
Thank you for your thoughts and comments.
Indeed LC, I find this extremely interesting and very pertinent to the case.
The words national security can very well cover any revelations.

As to the Secret Dept files in existance, in perpetuity has been discussed before, and personally, I can see no reason today, 121 years after the murders, for these files to remain closed. The two reasons I have been shown for this in perpetuity clause, or rule, are effects upon the members of the family, names from the time of the crimes, and those who are related today to those people, and "not in the National Interest/National security."

Well, if 121 years means 4 or 5 genrations down the line are still affected, one wonders what the effect of the names of all of His Majesty King Edward VII's various lovers and concubines have upon today's family members?

Am I correct in my assumptions that the Parnell Commission was just around the corner as well?... and that Anderson got into a pickle there too? Something to do with Le Caron denying he was a double agent. I could be getting mixed up here though, forgive me.

best wishes to all

Phil

[lynn cates]

closed files

Hello Phil.

"I can see no reason today, 121 years after the murders, for these files to remain closed"

I agree. Neither can I.

The best.
LC

[Archaic]

re: Baxter's Inquests

Hi, everyone.

It's certainly very strange if the records of ALL of Baxter's 30,000 inquests have disappeared or are locked away some where.

It seems feasible that a few of those inquests might pertain to matters that the government deems 'sensitive', but surely not all 30,000 of them.

I realize that many archived documents were destroyed during the Blitz, but if that's what happened to Baxter's inquests, I say it's quite an impressive display of "precision filing techniques" for the govt. to have managed to put every single one of 30,000 inquests in the same physical location.

> Just out of curiosity, where were Baxter's Coroner's Inquests reports originally filed?
-For example, those which he completed before the Whitechapel Murders?

Were any of them ever moved to the London Metropolitan Archives, and perhaps removed at a later date, or is this unknown?

Thanks and best regards, Archaic

[Phil Carter]

Hi, everyone.

It's certainly very strange if the records of ALL of Baxter's 30,000 inquests have disappeared or are locked away some where.

It seems feasible that a few of those inquests might pertain to matters that the government deems 'sensitive', but surely not all 30,000 of them.

I realize that many archived documents were destroyed during the Blitz, but if that's what happened to Baxter's inquests, I say it's quite an impressive display of "precision filing techniques" for the govt. to have managed to put every single one of 30,000 inquests in the same physical location.

> Just out of curiosity, where were Baxter's Coroner's Inquests reports originally filed?
-For example, those which he completed before the Whitechapel Murders?

Were any of them ever moved to the London Metropolitan Archives, and perhaps removed at a later date, or is this unknown?

Thanks and best regards, Archaic

Hello Archaic,
Thank you for your reply. Excellent points.
The answer to one question may lie in the quote from Adam Wood's dissertation..

.....None of Baxter's inquest papers, including the Ripper files, have ever been discovered, despite searches in the various Government archives, personal family files, educational institutions, and archives of Wynne-Baxter and Keeble. The correct deposit for inquest papers, the London Metropolitan Archives at Northampton Row, holds extensive volumes of Coroners' Registers for the Counties of Middlesex and London (catalogue COR/A), including the Western District for 1856-1930, the North Eastern District for 1921-1932, and the all-important Eastern District for 1925-1934.( my emphasis)

and further...

...On 13 December 1886 he was elected to replace the late Sir John Humphreys as Coroner County of Middlesex (Eastern District) with 1,401 votes, beating Dr Roderick MacDonald into second place with 1,069 votes....
(my emphasis)

That means his pre-Ripper things were of only 2 years in that district as Coroner.

Isn't it also strange that loads of papers, listed above, were in a known place, but not the ones pertaing to the Eastern District for the time we talk of?

Agreed, surely not all 30,000 inquest records have a security issue... but as you pointed out, strange (and indeed) a remarkable feat that they disappeared off the face of the planet! 30,000!!!

best wishes, as always

Phil

[Sam Flynn]

What on Earth would make Coroner Wynne Baxter come out with such a statement?

Perhaps because he had a penchant for "knowingness", speculation and sensationalist theorising? Judging by the detailed press transcripts of his Ripper inquests, it's not hard to arrive at such a conclusion.

[John Savage]

Hi Phil,

You ask what happened to Wynne Baxters coroner records, and I think that the simple answer is that they were destroyed because no one thought them worth keeping.

It seems that his records were given to the London County Council, probably at their request, and the policy was that such papers were kept for a reasonable period of time - probably about twenty years. After this time they would have been thought to be irrelevant and the archivist's constant problem of what to keep and what to throw away seems to have sealed their fate.

Cases of unsolved murder might ofen have been preserved as with Eddowes and Kelly, but as far as we know this did not happen with Wynne Baxter's papers. It should be remembered that his papers were considerable and we estimated that they could have weighed as much as three tons.

Davod O'Flaherty, Robert Linford and myself covered this matter in an article in Ripperologist No. 69, July 2006 and I am sure you could find more detail there.

Rgds
John

[Phil Carter]

Perhaps because he had a penchant for "knowingness", speculation and sensationalist theorising? Judging by the detailed press transcripts of his Ripper inquests, it's not hard to arrive at such a conclusion.

Hello Sam,
Thanks for your reply.
Sensasionalised theorist? Well, that's certainly one way of judging him.
Because that is a speculative answer in itself.

Not sure I would label him that way though.


John,

Davod O'Flaherty, Robert Linford and myself covered this matter in an article in Ripperologist No. 69, July 2006 and I am sure you could find more detail there.

Thank you for pointing that out, I will endeavour to look it up. However, it doesn't take away the fact the a man at the very centre of the JTR case,
was a person who almost certainly was in a position to be "in the know".

best wishes,

Phil