PC near Mitre Square and the Seaside Home

[Harry D]

No doubt this idea has been floated before, but hey what hasn't at this point?

One of the question marks about the Swanson Marginalia is why Kosminski would be taken to a "Seaside Home" (presumably the police convalescence home in Brighton) for identification, particularly as the witness was said to be a fellow Jew. However, Macnaughten doesn't refer to a Jewish witness when discussing Kosminski, he mentions an "individual seen by the City PC near Mitre Square". Any way you slice it there's going to be some margin for error here. I don't doubt that an identification took place. The Seaside Home is far too specific a detail to be made up, and far too high profile a case to get mixed up with another. However, I do think it's possible that Swanson & Anderson conflated the Seaside Home identification with another incident in the Whitechapel investigation. At least this way we have a logical connection between the ID & the seaside home (the City PC near Mitre Square).

Thoughts?

[ohrocky]

Do we know the precise location of the "Seaside Home"? There was a police seaside home in Clarendon Villas that opened in 1890. The "new" seaside home is still there. It's an impressive looking building. The foundation stone was laid in 1892 and it was opened just nine months later in July 1893. Would those dates not make it too late to be the "seaside home" that Swanson mentions?

I am a "local lad" and regularly pass by the seaside home. If anybody wants me to do any digging in local archives just let me know.

[Harry D]

In case it wasn't obvious, it's my assertion that "Kosminski" or another suspect was taken to the Seaside Home to be identified by Macnaughten's "City PC near Mitre Square".

[Wickerman]

..... However, Macnaughten doesn't refer to a Jewish witness when discussing Kosminski, he mentions an "individual seen by the City PC near Mitre Square". Any way you slice it there's going to be some margin for error here. I don't doubt that an identification took place. The Seaside Home is far too specific a detail to be made up, and far too high profile a case to get mixed up with another.

Macnaghten does confuse the Stride case with the Eddowes in another instance. Here he did it again, there was no PC near Mitre Square, in my opinion he was confusing the PC in Berner St. who saw the victim with her killer.
He is talking about PC William Smith. Mac. wasn't infallible, often his recollections had a basis in fact, but sometimes the wrong fact.
I'm sure I recall Paul Begg arriving at that conclusion, can't remember in which book.

[Harry D]

Macnaghten does confuse the Stride case with the Eddowes in another instance. Here he did it again, there was no PC near Mitre Square, in my opinion he was confusing the PC in Berner St. who saw the victim with her killer.
He is talking about PC William Smith. Mac. wasn't infallible, often his recollections had a basis in fact, but sometimes the wrong fact.
I'm sure I recall Paul Begg arriving at that conclusion, can't remember in which book.

Thanks, Wick. You may be right and Macnaughten was confusing it with PC Smith. I don't think we can state that as fact, though.

Either way, it would make sense for the witness to be a PC, otherwise why take the suspect to the seaside home? Do we know of any PCs connected to the Ripper investigation who may have been recuperating there? I'm guessing not.

[Scott Nelson]

Swanson just writes the "Seaside Home" so we don't know if he meant one associated with the police.