An historical pattern

[Mayerling]

Hi, Jeff.

Knowing your interest in all matters maritime and with this thread having taken on a Nautical quality, I feel this is an ideal place to make this post.
I came upon this article today regarding the discovery of the steamship 'The Thames', which was lost in the Russian Arctic in 1878.
Discovery of The Thames

Yours, Caligo

Hi Caligo,

Sorry but I just noticed your kind cite of an article on the rediscovery of the lost steamship, "The Thames". I read it, and it is on a subject few people are well versed about in Western Europe and North America - the search for the "North-EAST" passage to Siberia and Asia. Most of us know about the "North-WEST" passage in Canadian Arctic waters, especially regarding the loss of the Franklin Expedition in 1845-59. About a dozen expeditions went out from the U.S. and Britain to find Sir John Franklin, his two ships, and his 100 or so men, all of whom we now know were dead by 1851. Sir Leopold McClintock finally found that Franklin died in 1847, and his men deserted the two ice bound ships ("Erebus" and "Terror") in a doomed attempt to get to civilized settlements. They were attacked by lead poisoning from badly tinned food they brought, by scurvy, and many succumbed to either the extreme cold, exhaustion, and even cannibalism. McClintock found a document that gave the death toll (including Franklin, an elderly former imperial governor of Tasmania and the leader of two prior Arctic exploration parties in the 1820s) up to 1847. Remains filled in later details. Franklin and his expedition was caught in the sea ice around King William's Island, but (ironically) he actually had found the point where the Northwest passage was located. Recently his ship, "HMS Erebus" was finally found sunk in the waters off King William's Island, but the Canadian government was planning to continue looking for "HMS Terror", the other lost vessel. They would also like to find Sir John Franklin's grave.

The article you sent included the fact that Henry Morton Stanley, back from finding Dr. David Livingston (in 1871) wanted to go on this fatal expedition of "The Thames". Stanley was a reporter for the New York Herald, then owned and edited by the eccentric James Gordon Bennett Jr., but from Paris, not New York. Bennett's refusal to let Stanley go seems puzzling, but likely he had other uses for Stanley as a reporter. But interestingly enough, in 1879, Stanley was a full fledged explorer in Africa. Bennett, in that year, financed an American expedition to explore the North-East Passage from Alaska and the Behring Sea. It was on a ship renamed "the Jeannette", and the ship was under command of Captain George Washington De Long. In place of Morton, the science officer on the "Jeanette" was the meteoralogical reporter on the New York Herald, Jerome Collins. Collins was lost with most of the men (including De Long) when the ship was icebound (like Franklin's ships) and men died of scurvy (like Collins) or were lost in trying to reach land in boats (like De Long, who were lost on the northern coast of Siberia. The survivors were rescued. Wreckage from the Jeanette did flow through the North-WEST passage, and it's discovery in 1887 lead to the Norwegian explorer and diplomat, Frijold Nansen, to construct his special ship "the Fram" to follow the polar seas drifts around Greenland in 1893.

Jeff

[Pierre]

Bridewell doesn't mind in the least, Jerry!

Pierre, if you're interested, The Works used to sell reprint copies of both "The Dickens Dictionary of London 1888" & "The Dickens Dictionary of the Thames" for about £3 each. That was a couple of years ago, but they may still have a few.

Thanks, Bridewell. But those sources are not connected to the murders.

Regards, Pierre

[Bridewell]

Hopefully Bridewell won't mind me posting an old post of his. His source is Dicken's Dictionary of London 1888. He only posted the fixed points in Whitechapel. I did notice, though, "A" division had a fixed point at the Bridge Street Rail Station which is exactly where the underground tunnel I've mentioned before led to the Whitehall worksite.

Bridewell doesn't mind in the least, Jerry!

Pierre, if you're interested, The Works used to sell reprint copies of both "The Dickens Dictionary of London 1888" & "The Dickens Dictionary of the Thames" for about £3 each. That was a couple of years ago, but they may still have a few.

[Caligo Umbrator]

Hi, Jeff.

Knowing your interest in all matters maritime and with this thread having taken on a Nautical quality, I feel this is an ideal place to make this post.
I came upon this article today regarding the discovery of the steamship 'The Thames', which was lost in the Russian Arctic in 1878.
Discovery of The Thames

Yours, Caligo

[Mayerling]

Thanks Jeff. Yes, it was Liz Stride who was said to have survived the sinking of the Princess Alice.

I'll have to read up on the HMS Captain. The design puts me in mind of the Monitor, one of the first ironclads, and I remember being entranced as a lad reading about it's epic battle with the Merrimack. I was rooting for the Monitor; partly because it seemed a more advanced design for the time, but mostly because I misread the name and thought it was called Minotaur. Anyway, that had a low freeboard and did OK, I think....although now I recall, didn't that end up capsizing too?

Hi Josh,

You're right. In December 1862 the Monitor was being towed off Cape Hatteras in heavy, stormy seas, and got swamped and sunk, with the loss of
about ten of her crew. Her remains were a mystery until the 1970s when the wreck was discovered, Eventually the engine and cannon machinery (designed by John Ericsson) and the revolutionary gun turret, wint some items of interest were removed from the sea bed, and are being restored and exhibited in a museum at Newport News, Virginia. The rest of the Monitor was left on the sea bed as too brittle to salvage and restore, and also because (in the over the century period after the disaster), it became an artificial reef for various sea creatures (so it is not only a historical site, but a nature site as well).

The Merrimack (technically the CSS Virginia) also had a low draught, and could not be towed away from Hampton Roads except up the James River. As McClellan's troops advance up the Peninsula (in the 1862 campaign of that name) the Virginia was in danger of being captured. It was blown up. Small bits of it are now exhibited in some museums.

As for the wrecks of the U.S.S. Cumberland and U.S.S. Congress, their remains are still at the bottom of Hampton Roads.

Jeff

[Joshua Rogan]

In some cases 'the link' seems to be the clubs, Jewish or otherwise, where the girls may well have plied their trade with punters exiting and intoxicated. JTR may have known it too and there's no reason why he couldn't have been a member of such clubs.

Sounds plausible, for Stride and Eddowes. I can only think of two clubs off the top of my head (it is late, mind); the IWEC in Berner St and the Imperial in Duke St. Do you know any others?

[Joshua Rogan]

Thanks Jeff. Yes, it was Liz Stride who was said to have survived the sinking of the Princess Alice.

I'll have to read up on the HMS Captain. The design puts me in mind of the Monitor, one of the first ironclads, and I remember being entranced as a lad reading about it's epic battle with the Merrimack. I was rooting for the Monitor; partly because it seemed a more advanced design for the time, but mostly because I misread the name and thought it was called Minotaur. Anyway, that had a low freeboard and did OK, I think....although now I recall, didn't that end up capsizing too?

[MysterySinger]

In some cases 'the link' seems to be the clubs, Jewish or otherwise, where the girls may well have plied their trade with punters exiting and intoxicated. JTR may have known it too and there's no reason why he couldn't have been a member of such clubs.

[Mayerling]

How do you know all this stuff, Jeff?

A near tragedy was the HMS Magaera in 1871 (another ship with a major design flaw), alluded to at the inquest of Liz Stride. Although they all ultimately survived, several hundred recruits were stranded for a few months on remote Ile St Paul in the southern Indian Ocean.

Hi Joshua,

I liked ship and maritime history, including shipwrecks (especially modern ones, like RMS Titanic or the Normandie or Andrea Doria). If one is brought to my attention, like HMS Magera, I make a note of it. Another shipping tragedy tied to the C5 victims is the sinking of the Princess Alice in the Thames in 1878, in s collision with another ship, and the loss of nearly 700 lives. One of the victims (I think it was Stride or Eddowes) claimed she lost her husband and child in it, but so far nobody has been traced to the victim.

The story of HMS Atalanta is tied by many people (probably erroneously as she was sailing AWAY from Bermuda) with the so-called "Bermuda Triangle", so I knew of it. The "Eurydice" disaster actually was the subject of a poem by Gerald Manley Hopkins (better recalled for a similar poem "The Wreck of the Deutschland", which is frequntly anthologized - the "Deutschland" was wrecked in 1875). As for the "Captain" tragedy, it is complicated by it's position in the development of ironclads and iron warships, and its inventor/designer (Captain Cowper Coles, who was lost in the disaster) insisting on following a design that was dangerously unsteady for the boat - he wanted the cannon to have more than say 60 degree spread for aiming and firing, wishing to give the cannon virtual unlimited aiming ability: up to say 180 degrees. How to do this? Reduce the unnecessary objects blocking the cannon. Unfortunately, this was the masts of the ships. The result was that HMS Captain was subject of what became known as the "Low Freeboard" controversy (which ended when it's loss basically showed Coles' idea was fatally rediculous). Basically, if the oceans did not have current and heavy weather resulting in waves and ships bobbing about, but was just calm 100% of the time, HMS Captain would never have sunk! This is not a joke, but basically what the whole tragedy is about.

Jeff

[Joshua Rogan]

How do you know all this stuff, Jeff?

A near tragedy was the HMS Magaera in 1871 (another ship with a major design flaw), alluded to at the inquest of Liz Stride. Although they all ultimately survived, several hundred recruits were stranded for a few months on remote Ile St Paul in the southern Indian Ocean.

[Mayerling]

Actually, the naval college at Portsmouth closed in 1837. After that cadets were trained aboard the vessels, like in the film "Master and Commander" I imagine. Live and learn. I love that movie but was wondering what those kids were doing on board ship in time of war.

Also, it's "St. James Passage" formerly "Church Passage" [name changed in the 1930's], leading to Duke Street or "Shoemaker's Row".

Hi Aldabaran,

It was probably assumed that active naval participation in wartime would ensure the young cadets get used to heavy fighting, and that they would learn their duties faster. How successful such training really was is anyone's guess.

I know that the young cadets were sent to sea as soon as possible - in fact both the Duke of Clarence and his brother (the future King George V) were sent on a training cruise in the early 1880s.

There were three major sea tragedies between 1870 and 1880 concerning warships and two were full of young cadets. The first, the sinking of HMS Captain off Cape Finisterre, did have young cadets aboard, but they were chosen due to family connections (HMS Captain was a new, experimental, ironclad - which turned out to have a serious design floor in it that caused it to capsize easily). The then son of the First Lord of the Admiralty, Hugh Childers, was one of the new young ensigns on board. The Captain was the grandson of the American Revolution's "Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne". So it went through the ill-fated crew.

The other two were training ships: "H.M.S. Eurydice" (1878) and "H.M.S. Atalanta" (1880). "Eurydice" was sunk by a heavy wind in a sudden squall, with loss of most of her company of cadets. "Atalanta" left Bermuda in early 1880, and was never heard from again.

Jeff

[Joshua Rogan]

Russell Edwards wrote that he walked two possible routes from the Stride site to the place where Eddowes was found. He experimented with a slow approach, lurking in doorways to avoid passersby as he thought the Ripper might have done--and that didn't take more than six minutes. A normal, strolling pace took three minutes and moving rapidly only two.

Frederick Foster, at Eddowes' Inquest;

From Berner-street to Mitre-street is three-quarters of a mile, and a man could walk the distance in twelve minutes.

[Aldebaran]

Actually, the naval college at Portsmouth closed in 1837. After that cadets were trained aboard the vessels, like in the film "Master and Commander" I imagine. Live and learn. I love that movie but was wondering what those kids were doing on board ship in time of war.

Also, it's "St. James Passage" formerly "Church Passage" [name changed in the 1930's], leading to Duke Street or "Shoemaker's Row".

[Aldebaran]

Spoiler: Isn't this guy the Ripper in the Sherlock Holmes game?

I have seen only a few of the videos of the Sherlock Holmes game. They are quite entertaining but, the first part of this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IrqtT6K8YY

with the map where Sherlock explains to Watson in a scientific manner where
the Ripper probably lived, where his comfort zone was, according to the murder map, is brilliant. Everyone interested in this old case should watch it, but I am getting the feeling that anything connected to science scares the people on this forum off. Anyway, Aldgate for the killer's residence seems reasonable to me. I am also interested in the fact that Mitre Square connected to St. James Place by a small passage. Not being a Londoner, I am wondering what lay beyond that as far as possible residence goes.

Regardless of where the Ripper actually lived, after being jolted [and I seem to be the only one] by the fact that the murder sites are laid out in a pattern resembling the brightest stars in the constellations of the night sky of autumn, looking toward the north-east, I don't now know how these murders can have been randomly committed by some Whitechapel lunatic. It is like the Ripper took a map of the area along Whitechapel Road and superimposed a map of the autumn heavens over it, perhaps marking the key positions with a blob of his red ink. It so incredible that it might just be true. The Ripper wrote in a letter that the police wouldn't be able to "fix" him. Perhaps he meant "fix his position" in a navigational sense. It is a nautical term, which, as Wiki says, "Two or more objects of known position are sighted, and the bearings recorded. Bearing lines are then plotted on a chart through the locations of the sighted items. The intersection of these lines is then the current position of the vessel."

Had the Ripper actually been in the Royal Navy? It is difficult for me to believe that an ordinary seaman was well-schooled in navigation by the stars, but someone who had been to the Royal Navy College at Portsmouth might have been. But it's not necessary to have been in the navy to understand astronomy. The Ripper, figuring he could "get away with murder" in Whitechapel, also probably figured the police would be ignorant of what his "fixed points" meant. Just something to think about. I came here on account of the DNA and to get some background on it--but it looks like I've been sucked into the mystery.

BTW, as a bit of trivia--did you know that, in the years leading up to 1888 there was an average of 11 murders in London per year--but that in 1888 there were 28?

[Harry D]

The first part of this video is quite interesting. I agree that the killer spread out the scenes of his crimes at all points of the compass. As I tried to point out in another thread, which this one effectively highjacked, you could virtually connect the points with a straight line, navigating by the heavens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IrqtT6K8YY

Spoiler: Isn't this guy the Ripper in the Sherlock Holmes game?