Auction of PC Watkin's Ripper Items

[Archaic]

It looks like the items PC Watkins was carrying when he found Catherine Eddowes body - his truncheon, handcuffs, whistle and notebook - are going to be auctioned off, and will probably end up in separate private collections.

Isn't there some museum that would have an interest in buying and displaying them?

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-30194353

Best regards,
Archaic

[Archaic]

Owner's Grandfather Purchased Items From Watkins Family

More info in this article:

http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/local/items-carried-by-constable-who-discovered-jack-the-ripper-victim-will-be-auctioned-in-northamptonshire-1-6436241

Archaic

[Rob Clack]

Hi Bun,

I'd like to know the provenance of these items as something isn't quite right about them.

Rob

[Monty]

A lot of visual discrepencies with these items,

Like Rob, my alarm bells are ringing.

Monty

[Hunter]

I want the whistle he carried on the night he found Catherine Eddowes' body... Lol.

[Robert]

I thought that City police carried rattles, not whistles?

[Rob Clack]

Didn't get whistles to 1889, Robert.

Rob

[Archaic]

Rattlegate?

Hi Bun,

I'd like to know the provenance of these items as something isn't quite right about them.

Rob

Wow, really? I wondered about the whistle as Neil has always said they weren't issued until 1889.

Hopefully not Shawlgate, Part Two. I don't think I could take it!

Rattlegate?

Thanks,
Archaic

[Rob Clack]

Wow, really? I wondered about the whistle as Neil has always said they weren't issued until 1889.

Hopefully not Shawlgate, Part Two. I don't think I could take it!

Rattlegate?

Thanks,
Archaic

I think we need a Whistleblower

Rob

[gnote]

It's unfortunate they don't have his taser or personal radio.

[Robert]

His personal radio came a few years later. Marconi was minding his own business when he got a message "Put the kettle on at the station, Sarge." Made him jump out of his skin.

[lynn cates]

lore

Hello Bunny, Rob, Neil. Perhaps they were Ed's, but from a later time? Then, family lore being such as it is, they became more "interesting"?

Cheers.
LC

[Archaic]

Perhaps they were Ed's, but from a later time? Then, family lore being such as it is, they became more "interesting"?

Hi Lynn.

That's a distinct possibility. I wondered that about the whistle. Errors in the dating and identification of family antiques are incredibly common; I see it all the time.

It doesn't usually derive from an effort to make things "more interesting", but just from family members honestly confusing old family stories with old family possessions.

Most people don't write down family history, stories, trivia, anecdotes, etc. So as the items pass from one generation to the next it's like a whispering game, and things become garbled. This confusion often happens in the span of just one generation, and it never ceases to me.

It's very common for more obscure items to lose their identity completely and be tossed out or donated. Sometimes people know "something" in the family was supposed to be special but they get muddled about which one it was, and accidentally let the truly valuable item go.

Does anybody what the rules were about constables keeping their official gear such as truncheons, etc?

Were they free to keep their duty items when they retired, or were they viewed as the official property of the department to be turned back in upon leaving the force?

Thanks,
Archaic

[Hercule Poirot]

The article doesn't say he had these items the night he found Eddowes' body but that they are items "which belonged to PC Edward Watkins". Having been with the police for some 25 years, it could have been one of his last notebooks, whistle, etc.

RE would have said he did the same with his truncheon Simpson did with the shawl, offer it to his wife. LOL

[Robert]

Hi Hercule

The BBC link has the auctioneer saying that the items may have been physically only yards from the Ripper.

The Northampton newspaper says that the items were carried by Watkins on the night he discovered the body.

Certainly the whistle could not have been carried by Watkins on the night of the murder, since he had not yet been issued with it.

Of course it could be his whistle, maybe the one he was given in 1889.