JtR FINAL Victim Body to be exhumed

[packers stem]

And if and when the evidence for 'mollies' is presented DJA great,be delighted to accept it but to suggest someone's supposition is correct purely because he's got a distinguished career doesn't really hold any water with me I'm afraid.Met many ripper authors in conferences in the late 90's, all decent fellas but with their own theories and if I'd believed them all... Well lol
More than happy to bow to his experience in his particular medical field but for anything else it's a level playing field and I don't believe every theory from a decent bloke

[Sam Flynn]

So nobody got my "Cole Porter" pun? I must be getting old!

Even Nunners didn't get it, and he's older than Saturn

[DJA]

Richard

I don't recall seeing the porter quote.

But if so I can imagine a pressman being told Joe was a porter and writing coal porter ray than market porter.

Reporter prolly told Joe enjoyed a cold porter after work

[DJA]

I'm pretty sure we'd have spotted something by now if there were documentary evidence suggesting that 'mary kelly' was a blanket term for prostitutes
I've never seen anything to suggest this and think it could be a mix up with the male prostitutes in then Cleveland Street scandal being known as Mary Annes??
Surely Mary Kelly would not have used the name if this were the case,Barnett may not have been too chuffed either and i suspect Catherine Eddowes may have chosen not to use her boyfriends name...
DJA you have no reason to doubt it..why? are you saying there are known press reports at the time saying as such? obviously prior not post murders as post murders it could have been a term influenced by the murders..

Yep. There were Mollies who were known as Mary Anne.

I was in contact with Prosector last year.

He has a distinguished medical and research career.Autoimmune diseases.

Doubt he'd invent that.

Coal would have caused the kettle to melt and clothing burn in a Victorian fireplace.
Grew up with one in Camberwell.

[packers stem]

Hi Bridewell
I've thought about the 'long liz' situation before with respect to Liz long and I've always suspected that it was mistaken identity and an attempt to silence a witness as opposed to any coincidence.
Yes,coincidences can and do occur in life but this, showing the relatively small number of Mary Kellys available to find, would be absolutely astonishing and far too ridiculous to contemplate in my view.
Whatever the reason was for Eddowes to use the name Mary Kelly on that fateful night is irrelevant... Fact is, she did.
I could never accept that some lone miscreant stumbled upon a Mary Kelly that night and then low and behold does the same again 6 weeks later as coincidence.
I'm sure many people will but these same people might also blame coincidence if 3, 4 or 5 of the victims used the same name

[richardnunweek]

Obviously, not implying that the woman known as Mary Jane was a coal porter,but it was reported in one press account, the male she was living with , and according to that account, it would suggest the man she came to live with, which then implies, she moved in with him..
All very confusing, but we would not want it any other way..would we?
Regards Richard.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi.
Kelly a coal porter?

Well, anything goes.

[Gene Lewis]

He'll have to hire someone with expertise

may i suggest Doctor Jari Louhelainen ?

[Bridewell]

Coincidences do happen. Elizabeth Long gave evidence at the Chapman inquest. The next victim was nicknamed Long Liz.

[Bridewell]

Wasn't Mary Ann Kelly the name of John Kelly's wife? If so, the choice of name might just be mischief on the part of Eddowes.

Alternatively, if she was known to the Metropolitan, but not to the City Police, perhaps she gave the name of another prostitute in the hope of passing herself off as someone else.

[Sally]

Hi Packers Stem,

Yes, quite small - the higher proportion of Kellys called Mary or variants could simply be consequent of the popularity of the name; a preponderance of Catholics, if e.g. the majority were found to be of Irish descent, etc.

Whilst not terribly scientific, the exercise doesn't immediately seem to support the premise that Kelly was a byword for prostitute in this period.

Incidentally, I ran the same search for Davies out of curiousity and although I didn't go through the hits in the same detail, it was obvious that the numbers were considerably higher. I'm not sure that Kelly was actually all that common a name, comparatively.

It does make you wonder about the coincidence of Mary Kelly's in the Ripper case, all other things being equal.

[packers stem]

Thanks Sally
So a relatively insignificant number then across the UK as a whole across half a century

[Sally]

Unfortunate Kellys?

As an experiment, I conducted a press trawl for Kellys described either as prostitutes or unfortunates in the latter half of the 19th century, using the BL digitised newspaper collection.

Having gone through the hits and excluded press reports not referring to prostitutes using the name Kelly, I found a total of 35; of which 14 were called Mary or variants [I included Mary Ann, Mary Jane and Maria]

I came across one instance of the name Kelly being used as an alias, which was that of a prostitute in Dundee whose true name was rumoured to be Rose Ann Armour. This lady commonly used the alias Rose Ann Kelly, but also from time to time used the aliases King and Queen

Rose Ann Kelly was briefly thought to have been murdered Rose Ann Kelly was briefly considered to have been murdered in 1877 when the body of an unfortunate, thought to have been suffocated, was found on Stobcross Dock. The victim seems not to have been Rose Ann Kelly, however, as she subsequently went on to commit further petty crimes in Dundee.

One case which is interesting considering the divorce proceedings of Francis Craig is that of an unfortunate called Mary Kelly living on Drummond Street, who was subjected to assault and theft of her umbrella in 1890 by Sarah Evans. [Reynolds Newspaper 27th July 1890] The address on Drummond Street isn't given, but the report does demonstrate that there was prostitution on Drummond Street at the time and of the sort that provided for relative luxuries such as an umbrella.

[packers stem]

Hi Elmore 77
Never seen evidence of it.Kelly was the second most common surname in Ireland in the 19th century,can't see why the surname would have been synonymous with prostitution in Ireland unless someone has evidence to the contrary.
Not convinced about Barnett poncing off her either.Most of what we know suggests her lifestyle caused his leaving.Anything else is supposition or theory from authors.

[GUT]

Hi.
I have read also that McCarthy is quoted to have said , Kelly a coal porter?..surely the landlord would have noticed a Coalman's appearance and one would think the wash sink in the court would have been used frequently.
Was that a press error?
Alias's were being used all the time..nothing new on that, but it would suggest that the female in room 13, was not a Kelly, and most likely a Davis/Davies,
The whole episode in her life is utterly confusing..
Regards Richard.

Richard

I don't recall seeing the porter quote.

But if so I can imagine a pressman being told Joe was a porter and writing coal porter ray than market porter.