L. Forbes Winslow

[Chris]

In his book, Recollections of Forty Years (1910), Forbes Winslow quoted a letter he had received from a woman in Melbourne giving a long and involved story about a friend of hers who had sailed from London to Melbourne in 1889, and had left for South Africa about six years previously. She claimed this man was the Ripper, and Forbes Winslow said of her letter that it "seems in every way to corroborate my views on the matter", concluding that he believed that "Jack the Ripper is the man in South Africa".

What Forbes Winslow didn't mention is the story that appeared in the press soon after the letter was publicised. The Press Association report, dated from Melbourne 25 July 1910, was printed by several Australian and New Zealand newspapers, of which the Colonist, 26 July, was one:

[Chris]

Here's an article by Forbes Winslow from the New York Times, 25 June 1911, which includes a story of his Ripper-hunting activities:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=950DE4DF1539E333A25756C2A9609C946096D6CF

It's accompanied by this interesting illustration:

[Chris]

Regarding the claim made in 1910 that Forbes Winslow's Australian correspondent was discredited because she had recently been treated for alcoholism, it's interesting to note that in her letter to him she said she had contacted the police in the early 1890s to tell them about the man she knew. Certainly her story was already in circulation several years before she wrote to Forbes Winslow, as shown by a report in the Grey River Argus, 7 December 1905:

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=NEM19051207.2.5

After giving a brief account of Macnaghten's three suspects, obviously based on Arthur Griffiths's book, the report says:
"In addition to these there was the story of a woman in Melbourne, who alleged that a sailor confessed the crimes to her, and whose movements tallied with the recrudescence of the murders in Whitechapel."