Anderson - More Questions Than Answers

[Stewart P Evans]

Statements

The following is not stated with any sense of sour grapes, jealousy or ego-chasing. It is, I hope, factual.

Ripperology has evolved greatly over the years and there are now, mainly thanks to the Internet, many more true Ripper authorities around than at any other time in the past. The forums have led to much vying on the ladder of Ripper hierarchy, as well as battling to establish Ripperological firsts. No longer can any so-called Ripper expert expect to be believed at every turn and his word accepted as gospel. Indeed, the Ripper author or 'expert' had better get his facts right - for if he doesn't he will soon be challenged. From 1987-1991 Martin and a couple of others were in the vanguard of the new Ripperologists emerging at the centenary. This culminated with the enjoyable and very useful A-Z in the latter year.

It could be argued, validly so, that by 1991 Martin was one of the top Ripper authorities (and still so) and given his great charisma and camera appeal he appeared regularly on television. Such a position brings significant results, one of which is that what you state and your opinions carry great weight. Your published statements are taken as unequivocal fact by many.

[Natalie Severn]

Obviously, this is a double fallacy.

But what I dislike is the arrogance of someone who dismisses different opinions as "obtuse imperviousness to reason" arising from a lack of "formal training in scholarship" - even when those opinions come from a trained document examiner!

Yes Chris I too noted that Martin was making a number of assumptions here,one of these being about a "lack of formal training in scholarship" contributors have.

Just as a point of information: I myself am trained in formal scholarship to M.Phil Level in Linguistics.I am also a trained teacher.

And let us be quite clear-just because Martin says something is so, does not mean it is .

[fido]

Hello, Stewart!
Indeed I include you among those who have substituted an attack by Sir William Harcourt here and an eccentricity of Andersonian thinking there for a complete overview of political positions on the Irish question or the whole nature of Anderson's thinking - including the vital fact that his religious activities were far more important to him and central to his life than his police activities. And they need to be addressed. (By the way, I should have said that I addressed these problems thirty years ago; not unfortunately written the boastful claim that I answered them! Apologies to all). I hadn't wished to go into it as a matter of personalities, but you have, Stewart, in various places described Paul Begg and myself as lacking impartiality and in similar ways failingin scholarly objectivity, so I feel entitled to point out the reasons why I think my approach is in fact more balanced and scholarly than yours. To tell the truth, I am rather at a loss to know why you have to spring to the attack on the Anderson and Kosminski question at every opportunity. Or why you persistently accuse the A-Z of an unbalanced presentation of the question. We are equally interested in the opinions of Swanson and Macnaghten, and only wish we knew more about Littlechild so as to be able to evaluate his contribution. Abberline we think has been seriously overvalued by people who underrate the damaging nature of his Pall Mall Gazette interviews and his admission that he had not been given the medical evidence on Annie Chapman. I think you and we are in agreement in discounting the sources accusing PAV, Maybrick, and possibly Donston. None of which stops me from praising people whose work I admire, whether or not I agree with it or they agree with me. Among those whose conclusions I dispute but whose work I have praised you might note R. Michael Gordon, A.P. Wolfe, Bruce Paley, and, not least, yourself and Paul Gainey! I prefer praising to carping and value the friendship of people I think dead wrong but unimpeachably honest and hard-working: John Wilding and the much maligned Shirley Harrison, for example. (This does not mean that I think the honesty and industry of anyone I have mentioned previously is less than perfect!)
Chris - of course there are many cases where the provenance doesn't prove anything one way or another. But the provenance "A mate of mine I used to drink with gave it to me wrapped up so that he never showed it to me open. before I took it home. He wouldn't tell me what it was, but told me to use it. He's dead now," is a sure pointer to worthless rubbish, especially when the first round of enquiries establishes that the said mate's daughters categorically insist that the story is impossible. And a provenance that says "This can be shown to have passed from the writer to his daughter, who never looked at it, and from her to her nephews who found what it contained and tried to make it public without making a lot of money out of it" is excellent once it is shown that the family consists entirely of people of good character. In fact, it effectively rules out of court any idea of fakery or forgery. I note with horror on another board that the 75 quid the Swanson brothers got from the News of the World has been upped to a grand by some process of Chinese whispers. Avoiding casting aspersions on innocent people is incumbent on us all: if we should disapprove of people who cavalierly invent crazy theories to finger prominent or respectable Victorians as far-fetched suspects, we should be even more careful about the living and the rcently dead.
All the best,
Martin F

[Stewart P Evans]

Anderson

Anderson's importance cannot be gainsaid. I have always advised those interested in him to read all they can find - both written by him and about him. Only then can they draw their own conclusions. Of course most will not bother to do this but, Ripperologically speaking, they will probably rely on what their favourite author has to say about him.

I have told the story in the past of how, in 1968 in Bournemouth, I purchased a three-volume set of Major Arthur Griffiths's Mysteries of Police and Crime (1903) in which I read of the three suspects of the Macnaghten memorandum, sans names, and of Anderson and Macnaghten. I was, at the time, attending law college in Bournemouth and felt that here, with the police words on the case, the answer was, most likely, going to be found.

So I was, from a very early date, receptive to such material and sanguine of such source material being productive of a solution.

[Chris]

And a provenance that says "This can be shown to have passed from the writer to his daughter, who never looked at it, and from her to her nephews who found what it contained and tried to make it public without making a lot of money out of it" is excellent once it is shown that the family consists entirely of people of good character. In fact, it effectively rules out of court any idea of fakery or forgery.

I'm sorry, but all this boils down to is that you, personally, don't believe that the people concerned would have faked the marginalia.

Now obviously that point of view depends on the book having a secure provenance, but it has nothing to do with the way in which scholars normally use provenance to establish authenticity, because it depends entirely on your personal assessment of the character of the people concerned. As I said, obviously the marginalia themselves have no provenance before 1987, when they were first made public.

As it happens, I don't think the people concerned faked the marginalia either. But I would never dream of accusing those who held a different view* of "obtuse imperviousness to reason", let alone of attributing that to a lack of "formal training in scholarship". Because the argument you have just outlined depends entirely on a subjective assessment of character.

[*I'd better make it clear that by "a different view" I mean the view that it is possible that the marginalia were not written by Donald Swanson.]

[Stewart P Evans]

Statements

In view of what Martin has said I feel that we should look at some of his statements with regard to Anderson. These are a few statements which, I feel, show a lack of objectivity, bias, or opinion posing as fact.

“Anderson was a scrupulous born-again Christian, quite incapable of lying through vanity.”

“Anderson was correct. Once identified, his suspect fits everything we know about the nature of sexual serial murderers.”

“At the same time he had a peculiarly scrupulous regard for the truth and would never have lied directly though when he thought anti-social criminals [is there any other sort?] were involved he was prepared to mislead with half-truths or mental reservation (as he did before the Parnell Commission). His statements about the Ripper’s identity are far too direct to come under this heading.”

[Stewart P Evans]

Obsessed

Why are Stewart and Natalie so obsessed with trying to remove Anderson from the position of "most reliable and plausible witness who was in a position to know what had been discovered"? If my conclusion had been anything other than "Anderson could have been wrong. He was always opinionated," I would understand the need to overthrow it. Given my success in accurately identifying from internal evidence which Times articles Anderson contributed, and Natalie's oversight in suggesting that they included more than one Parnell letter and that Anderson had a hand in that, I feel justified in trusting my own judgement against Natalie's in assessing Major Smith's character, personality and reliability - especially in view of the dry description of him as an entertaining but very unreliable raconteur inscribed by an acquaintance in Scotland Yard's copy of his memoirs.Martin F

I am not 'obsessed with trying to remove Anderson from the position of "most reliable and plausible witness who was in a position to know..."[etc.]' My concern has been to redress the imbalance of information on Anderson (a) caused by the sheer weight of selected Anderson material in your book and Paul Begg's books, that includes the A-Z, and (b) the apparently deliberate omission from said books of information that militates against Anderson such as the R. Harding Davis piece of 1889 and the Daily Chronicle article of 1908.

If no one agreed with me then I think that I should have realised that I was wrong, but all other informed commentators agree with me and I have merely supplied information that was previously missing from readily available works. Indeed, neither of the above, although highly relevant, appears in any edition of the A-Z, ostensibly a reference work, whilst some irrelevant and trite material is included. But I am not the only one who sees a lack of objectivity in the work, most others do too. Much that is opinion is presented as fact. But, as regards Anderson, I do not consider him to be a 'most reliable and plausible witness'. With due respect, Martin, it is your opinion that he is.

Let me illustrate an example of Anderson's patent 'bending' of the facts and a totally misleading statement that appears in his 1910 book -



We know that Anderson knew damned well that the 'Poplar case of December, 1888' [Mylett] was a case of murder, it was found to be so at the inquest, and remains, to this day, on Scotland Yard's books as an unsolved murder. Yet to read his book you wouldn't know this, nor of his 1888/89 shenanigans in trying to get it pronounced as a death from natural causes ending in his failure to do so. Any modern researcher using his book for reference to the case would immediately write it off as not being a murder at all. So what is this? Deception by Anderson, faulty memory, his belief??? You tell me.

[fido]

How far has Stewart gone in researching the nature and character of born-again Christians in general, especially in the late Victorian period, and in researching Anderson's positions on ethics and theology, and the accounts of him by other people in this respect, to identify a lack of objectivity in my statement? What does he imagine I meant by "scrupulous" - (a very important adjective in the quotation)? Does he think I see the scruples of an evangelical fundamentalist as generally admirable?

What does Stewart know about sexual serial murderers that displaces the rather inforomed opinions of Dr Luigi Cancrini and John Douglas?

Where has Stewart found evidence of Anderson's offering the public bare-faced porkies without the cover of mental reservation? Where has he found him being deliberately and dishonestly misleading simply to aggrandise his own professional achievements? How does my comment undermine the - surely objective? - conclusion, "Anderson might have been wrong"? Does Stewart concede as much about Littlechild's assertion that Anderson only thought he knew? And if he doesn't, on what study of Littlechild's character and personality does he base this unquestioning respect for his opinion?

Chris - you're sitting on an unnecessary fence. Nobody who has met the Swansons has ever imagined that they could or would have forged the entries. Only Stewart, of all those who have looked at the original volume and other examples of Swanson's memos, notebooks and marginalia, has ever thought that there was anything to suggest that the authorship needed checking. And as the end result of his suspicions and checking, he too concludes that Swanson wrote them. So where is the space for this "possibility" you want to allow for? It is equally possible that Beethoven didn't write the 9th Symphony, or Milton didn't compose Paradie Lost. We've only the words of the publisher and the amanuensis for those ascriptions, and why should anyone trust them? Closer to home, as I've said before, the Littlechild letter might be open to even graver suspicion if one felt that an unscrupulous dealer somewhere along the line reckoned that Sims's correspondence would fetch a better price if it included some new Ripper ideas. I'd call anyone who seriously put forward that notion hopelessly unscholarly and obtuse - but ONLY because I know Stewart and am sure that his judgement is too good for him to be sold such a pup, and it is manifest that this is the opiion of everyone who has met him or studied his work carefully. Such details of public reputation underpin the provenance of viortually everything that is acepted as genuine wih an impeccable provenanceas part of the case for it.
I notice you don't comment on bad provenance which damns a work such as the Maybrick diary.
All the best,
Martin F

[Chris]

Chris - you're sitting on an unnecessary fence.

No - I'm suggesting you are placing yourself on an inappropriate pedestal.

I'm suggesting that if you disagree with people on a matter of opinion, it would be appropriate to produce a counter-argument, rather than insulting them and going on and on about the fact you are an academic and they are not.

I notice you don't comment on bad provenance which damns a work such as the Maybrick diary.

Not only did I comment on it - in general terms - but you responded to my comment! There was nothing in your response inconsistent with what I'd said in the first place - that a lack of provenance can incur grave suspicion, but it obviously can't, of itself, prove a document is a fake.

As for the specific document you mentioned, I make it a rule not to discuss it these days. But I'm sure there's at least one person who'd love to discuss it with you till the cows come home.

[Stewart P Evans]

'Swanson Marginalia'

And to all who are offended that I have no respect for anyone who can't see why the provenance and appearance of the marginalia makes them unimpeachably genuine - sorry: it's your obtuse imperviousness to reason that I deplore. (By the way, am I the only person to remember indelible pencils - common items at one time that instantly explain the mysterious purple tinge). I'm sorrythat demurrers haven't had the formal training in scholarship to take for granted the importance of provenance, and its offering the virtual certainty that the Maybrick diary was fake while the Swanson papers are even more certainly genuine. Buit I have to set their position against that of equally untrained or self-trained scholars like Paul Begg and a host of other in the Ripper world who see it with ease. In no way do I base my respect for people's work on whether their general opinions concur with mine.Martin F

Here we go again. So now, obviously, Martin believes that I have an 'obtuse imperviousness to reason' that he deplores. And why? I think that we should take another, hopefully brief, look at this.

I well recall, a few years back, Martin's almost hysterical sudden appearance on the boards when I commented on the 'marginalia' that I had then actually seen and examined. (Martin gets mysteriously updated when it is felt that something has appeared on the boards that he should see and address. As witness his appearance now). You would have thought that the pencilled notes in the book were the Holy writ and how dare anyone even challenge them? Well let's see what it amounts to. I was not the first to raise a question (no accusations made) about the notes. A leading Ripper authority mentioned to me, c. 1992, that he was not happy about the rather odd notes on the rear free endpaper of the book and the very 'convenient' "Kosminski was the suspect." at the end of said notes. I really wasn't in a position to make any informed response as I had never actually seen the notes (I had only a photocopy) and I had always accepted them as perfectly genuine, albeit a bit puzzling for the comments of a senior police officer.

In 1991 Paul Harrison's book Jack the Ripper The Mystery Solved was published and in it was to be found the following -



He could not get away with this and the Begg/Fido response appeared in the A-Z - "Paul Harrison's suggestion that the marginalia may not be genuine is completely unfounded. Their provenance is established beyond a peradventure, and the handwriting has been confirmed as Swanson's by the Home Office document examiner."

And that should (and apparently did) account for any 'Doubting Thomas' there might be. I have to admit that my own 'discomfort' with the endpaper notes were the anomalies and the fact that they did not sound like the words of a senior police officer nor the actions of a responsible police force. But, be that as it may, I still did not seriously doubt the source. After all, the Home Office document examiner had confirmed the handwriting and, apparently, had raised no issues over the notes.

I was very surprised to learn that the examination by the Home Office document examiner had amounted merely to photocopies of the notes and photocopies of Swanson's handwriting from the official files being sent to the examiner who had pronounced them the same (as an amusing aside the first sample of handwriting sent from the files was not Swanson's and initially caused a worry). Now anyone who has been involved in the forensic examination of handwriting, and I have, knows that no examiner would ever use photocopies for such purposes. Moreover, the result of his examination was, apparently, a letter to Paul Begg which has never been published.

All very unsatisfactory then, and the claim in the A-Z about the handwriting being confirmed now appeared a tad misleading. No proper examination, apparently, had been done. When I examined the notes first-hand myself I was immediately struck by the fact that a different pencil had been used on the two sets of notes and there were minor variations in the handwriting. But what concerned me more was the fact that these rather obvious differences had raised no comment in 1988 when the notes had been first examined. At no time did I ever accuse anyone of fakery - I merely raised points that, as I see it, should be raised for the reading public and students of the case in order that they may be in full possession of all the facts. For that I have been denigrated.

[Stewart P Evans]

How far has Stewart gone in researching the nature and character of born-again Christians in general, especially in the late Victorian period, and in researching Anderson's positions on ethics and theology, and the accounts of him by other people in this respect, to identify a lack of objectivity in my statement? What does he imagine I meant by "scrupulous" - (a very important adjective in the quotation)? Does he think I see the scruples of an evangelical fundamentalist as generally admirable?
What does Stewart know about sexual serial murderers that displaces the rather inforomed opinions of Dr Luigi Cancrini and John Douglas?
Martin F

Well, I have to admit that I have done no research into the nature and character of born-again Christians (although I have known a few in my time) but I am happy in the knowledge that many others agree with me on Martin's lack of objectivity. Oddly I know quite a bit about sexual serial killers and have many books on the subject. I have also dealt personally with a serial sexual offender who murdered a young girl (I found the body). I also know that I do not agree with the FBI reasoning on the Ripper case and some of the flawed information they have used.

[Stewart P Evans]

Above Post

Where has Stewart found evidence of Anderson's offering the public bare-faced porkies without the cover of mental reservation? Where has he found him being deliberately and dishonestly misleading simply to aggrandise his own professional achievements? How does my comment undermine the - surely objective? - conclusion, "Anderson might have been wrong"? Martin F

I refer you to my above post on Anderson's remarks about the Poplar case. Anderson simply hated the idea of unsolved murders during his regime.

[Howard Brown]

Since "we" are all fortunate to have both of you gentlemen here on this thread...perhaps SPE will bring up some of the issues found in the essential "Scotland Yard Investigates"...such as the possible confusion over Sadler's identification with that of the Seaside Home identification by SRA,as suggested in that important book by SPE....or that it does seem strange, to say the least, to some of us...why Swanson felt a need to write the marginalia in the first place. I for one do not understand the act at all,but I am not qualified to comment on the debate on its provenance. Are there any other officials' works which have marginalia that either of you two have ever seen of a supportive nature as found in the words of the Swanson Marginalia?

That Anderson manipulates the reader with his personal evaluation of the final judgment of the Mylett Case in retirement and decades after the event leads me,at least, to feel he could do so in other instances. Is it not possible to you,Mr. Fido. that he could have put his feelings above facts from time to time?

[Stewart P Evans]

Thought

Does Stewart concede as much about Littlechild's assertion that Anderson only thought he knew? And if he doesn't, on what study of Littlechild's character and personality does he base this unquestioning respect for his opinion?
Martin F

Oh dear - the gloves are off now! Littlechild makes the perfectly reasonable and common sense obervation that Anderson only thought he knew. And of course that statement is perfectly true Anderson did only think he knew - as any perfectly reasonable commentator should know. Littlechild enjoyed a very good reputation at was one of the few detective officers trusted by Williamson at the time of the scandal of the detectives.

[Stewart P Evans]

Littlechild Letter

Closer to home, as I've said before, the Littlechild letter might be open to even graver suspicion if one felt that an unscrupulous dealer somewhere along the line reckoned that Sims's correspondence would fetch a better price if it included some new Ripper ideas. I'd call anyone who seriously put forward that notion hopelessly unscholarly and obtuse - but ONLY because I know Stewart and am sure that his judgement is too good for him to be sold such a pup, and it is manifest that this is the opiion of everyone who has met him or studied his work carefully.All the best,
Martin F

Tut, tut Martin. It didn't take long for you to counter with the Littlechild letter, did it?

For a starter, not that it is any business of yours, no great price was ever paid for the Littlechild letter. In fact Eric Barton bought it together with a large amount of other George R Sims material, some of which I have. Eric didn't even realise the significance of it and sold it to me with other letters. Also, of course, it was subjected to forensic examination in 1996 by Dr. Audrey Giles and Peter Bower and declared to be genuine.