The masonic annulment of the marriage, triagonal perfection and the killer.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Would anyone describe these two forms of headwear as remotely similar? No matter what the lighting.

Rex asked how likely it would have been for a killer to have killed in an area with constables patrolling? I’ll ask one - what would be the chances of a killer dressing as a Police Officer and risking being seen with one of the victims? Or of being seen in uniform by a real Constable ?

[The Rookie Detective]

I thought I'd take a look at what was going on in this thread...

I'm not sure what's worse, spending time reading through some of the comments, or some of the finest researchers wasting their time playing up to this complete claptrap.

The fact this thread has dominated recent days when other ongoing threads actually have some contextual credence, is most baffling.

But seeing as I'm here...I might as well try and salvage this, and input some actual workable data regarding the Freemason angle...


Let's say hello to some key Freemasons around at the time...

Dr Barnardo
Frederick Abberline
Coroner Wynne Baxter
Coroner Henry Crawford
Commissioner, Sir Charles Warren (Senior Member)
Chief Inspector Donald Swanson
Arthur Dutfield
John Littlechild
Arthur Conan Doyle
Oscar Wilde
Rudyard Kipling
MICHAEL Maybrick - member of the Supreme Grand Council of Freemasons

George Lusk
A builder and former member of the Doric Lodge 933, and former member of the Board of Works. Lusk failed to keep up with his payments and was chucked out of the lodge in 1889.

William Wainwright -
A church warden, past Master and treasurer for the Doric Lodge 933 and former member of the Whitechapel Board of Works.

But here's where things get interesting...


William Wainwright was shot in the head on a train in 1892. It was somehow ruled as suicide... but it's pretty clear he was murdered.
Another man who worked for Wainwright was also murdered in a separate incident after having had his throat cut.
This case was also deemed as suicide.

Now...William Wainwright had 2 brothers...

One of which was Henry Wainwright...who in 1874 murdered his paramour in his workshop on Whitechapel Road, and buried her in his cellar, treating her body with lime.

However, a year later in 1875, on the anniversary of the murder, he needed to MOVE her body and so chose to dismember her...akin to the Torso Killer.

However, he was caught transferring her body parts wrapped in parcels...and subsequently hanged.

But his younger brother Thomas (the 3rd brother) only served 7 years as an accomplice for helping in the transferring of the body parts and wasn't deemed to be involved with the dismemberment of the body, or the murder the year before.

Thomas Wainwright left prison in 1881...

So...

William Wainwright was connected to George Lusk through the same masonic lodge and both worked for the Whitechapel Board of Works.

The potential significance of the Board of Works to both the Ripper and Torso murders, features prominently in other threads...check them out!



So we have the senior police, coroner's, entrepreneurs, judges, clergymen and businessmen all involved with the freemason brotherhood.

Now IF, and it's a big IF, the Freemasons were somehow involved or complicit with the Ripper AND Torso killings, then the connections are there for all to observe and pass subjective judgement on.
This doesn't involve looking at symbols or angles of triangles etc... because that would saturate a potentially interesting topic with utter nonsense.

The irony is that by pushing for a Freemason link that isn't there, it puts people off...but then that in turn detracts from the fact that there are connections there to be made, but only if we look at the facts instead of looking for signs and symbols.

The freemasons obviously had a powerful influence and there's no doubt that the brotherhood protected their own, but does that mean anything in context with the Ripper case?

The fact that through the Freemasons, and the Whitechapel Board of Works, we can link George Lusk to a man (William Wainwright) who was murdered on a train and whose brother had been hanged for having dismembered a woman in his workshop in Whitechapel Road, similar to the torso killings, it all starts to feel connected.

There are so many more connections, but they're worth saving for another thread.


R.D.

[Fiver]

William Wainwright was shot in the head on a train in 1892. It was somehow ruled as suicide... but it's pretty clear he was murdered.

William Wainwright's wife had left, attempted a return, quarreled bitterly, and left him again. He had started drinking heavily. His son said William Wainwright had been complaining of poor health and had "looked as if he had quite enough". A long time family servant testified to William Wainwright previously contemplating suicide by revolver and took the gun away from him at that time. There's not even a hint that William Wainwright was murdered.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff thanks for that, like normal I took a series of measurements with slightly varing points, for Berner Street, from the pavement, where the attack by BS man started to back inside the gateway where the body was found. I used the Foster sketch to place Eddowes, but of course that might vary slight on individual measurement.
The map used was the OS 1:1056 1893-1895.
The range was 944-951 yards

With the measurement of 925 - 926 for Bucks Row to 29 Hanbury St, I went from the gateway of Brown's Yard, to the Front door of 29 and it varied 925-926 yards

I remeasured to the spot the body was found, between the steps and the fence and got 926.66 yards

Have a great new year btw


Steve

Hi Steve,

I figured you had done multiple measurements, so I just went with a single one to see how similar the estimate was. Looks like I was within the range you found, confirming my suspicions that our estimates were within expected ranges of measurement error.

And all the best in the New Year to you too.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

And what did you get between Bucks row and 29 Hanbury street? For the record.

Hi Rex mundi,

I hadn't done that one at the time, but for the record I did it just now and got 927.3 yards. I only did a single measurement, so that's based upon a single placement of the markers. Steve, as he indicated above, has done a more proper version, by placing the markers multiple times and averaging the estimates. However, going back, I see his average estimate was 925, and my single measurement of 927.3 will be well within that measurement variation range.

Then, because I had things open, I measured the other inter-crime sequence distances (the distances between crime X and crime X+1) and got the following single measurements, in yards:

927.33 (Nichols -> Chapman)
943.67 (Chapman -> Stride)
945.00 (Stride -> Eddowes; previously measured)
643.33 (Eddowes -> Kelly)

Anyway, anyone can do their own measurements using the tools found here

I set the overlay to be the OS 25 inch one as I like the detail, but note some of the streets have been renamed.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

So on the measurements alone the theory collapses entirely.

[rjpalmer]

So on the measurements alone the theory collapses entirely.

Not entirely, Herlock. The Freemasons could have been inept at using a yardstick!

And if you recall, the Freemason Sir Charles Warren wrote a monograph in later years, Ancient Cubits and Our Weights and Measures. The Freemason were fascinated by ancient and obscure methods of measuring.

Not to encourage this sort of thing, but since a cubit varied from person to person--being basically the distance from one's elbow to one's fingertips--roughly half a yard---this could explain the small differences we are seeing if the Freemason were using biblical methods for their calculations.

For instances, if Prince Eddy measured the first distance and Netley the second, this could explain the small difference between 945 and 927.

Arm length!

And Jeff's numbers being slightly less than a 1,000 yards could actually help the theory, depending on where Rex Mundi is going with it.

1,000 yards is roughly .57 of a mile.

In the Jewish faith, Jews were only allowed to travel a maximum of 2,000 cubits on the Sabbath (.56 of a mile, using one standard estimate of a cubit) as this was the supposedly the distance the Ark of the Covenant traveled when crossing the Jordan River.

An Orthodox Jewish murderer, or someone implicating one, couldn't have traveled more than .56 of a mile from his bolt hole to the crime scene.

I suggest exhuming the bodies of Prince Eddy and Netley, measuring their skeletons, and trying more calculations.

Better dig up Gull, too!

Let me know when you've finished.

Ciao.

[Mark J D]

Let's say hello to some key Freemasons around at the time...

Gosh! Can I shyly ask: how are historical Freemasons identified?? Can they just be looked up somewhere??

You'll never guess who I'm wondering about...

Thanks,

Mark D.

[erobitha]

Gosh! Can I shyly ask: how are historical Freemasons identified?? Can they just be looked up somewhere??

You'll never guess who I'm wondering about...

Thanks,

Mark D.

To a certain degree. Many of the historical files, such as lodge member records, are available on Ancestry, but not all records are there. You might have to contact those charming people yourself...

https://museumfreemasonry.org.uk/research

[rjpalmer]

To a certain degree.

Pun intended?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Not entirely, Herlock. The Freemasons could have been inept at using a yardstick!

And if you recall, the Freemason Sir Charles Warren wrote a monograph in later years, Ancient Cubits and Our Weights and Measures. The Freemason were fascinated by ancient and obscure methods of measuring.

Not to encourage this sort of thing, but since a cubit varied from person to person--being basically the distance from one's elbow to one's fingertips--roughly half a yard---this could explain the small differences we are seeing if the Freemason were using biblical methods for their calculations.

For instances, if Prince Eddy measured the first distance and Netley the second, this could explain the small difference between 945 and 927.

Arm length!

And Jeff's numbers being slightly less than a 1,000 yards could actually help the theory, depending on where Rex Mundi is going with it.

1,000 yards is roughly .57 of a mile.

In the Jewish faith, Jews were only allowed to travel a maximum of 2,000 cubits on the Sabbath (.56 of a mile, using one standard estimate of a cubit) as this was the supposedly the distance the Ark of the Covenant traveled when crossing the Jordan River.

An Orthodox Jewish murderer, or someone implicating one, couldn't have traveled more than .56 of a mile from his bolt hole to the crime scene.

I suggest exhuming the bodies of Prince Eddy and Netley, measuring their skeletons, and trying more calculations.

Better dig up Gull, too!

Let me know when you've finished.

Ciao.

Note to Admin - someone has hacked Roger’s account.

[erobitha]

Pun intended?

It wasn't, but I'll take it.

[Herlock Sholmes]

How about this?

http://lechmerevolunteerlodge.org.uk/

[GBinOz]

How about this?

http://lechmerevolunteerlodge.org.uk/

And this:

https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/personExtended/mp02668/sir-edmund-lechmere-3rd-bt?tab=biography

[Lewis C]

Elizabeth Long didn’t mention seeing the man that she said that she’d seen with Chapman wearing a deerstalker. Edit, she did in The Times version….i just read it after seeing Lewis’ post.

Israel Schwartz didn’t mention a deerstalker for BS man or Pipeman.

Best and Gardner who reckoned that they saw Stride enter a pub with a man just a couple of hours before her body was discovered described him as wearing a Billycock Hat (a bowler)

James Brown, who said that he saw Stride 15 minutes before her body was discovered, didn’t mention a hat.

William Marshall, who said that he’d seen Stride with a man at around 11.45, described the man’s hat as a peaked cap like one that a sailor would wear. O not a deerstalker.

PC Smith did say that the man that he saw was wearing a deerstalker.

Joseph Lawende didn’t mention a deerstalker.

George Hutchinson made no mention of a deerstalker.

….so of the main witnesses we get two out of eight mentioning a deerstalker.

Hi Herlock,

I'll also note that one of those 2 witnesses, Elizabeth Long, saw what she did when it was after dawn, so what she saw wouldn't have looked even remotely like silhouettes.