Anderson in NY Times, March 20, 1910

[robhouse]

I am starting to wonder if the source of all this nonsense was none other than... George Sims. I found this in his book "Among My Autographs" starting on page 80.

http://books.google.com/books?id=TnYm4U0ysrUC&pg=PA81&lpg=PA81&dq=mrs+brough+broadmoor&source=bl&ots=njeXYcCkQh&sig=MJ-RC7EKY7PYa3sHWWxF5-oqQC4&hl=en&ei=GuopS-v_ENK9lAef86GeBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CA8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=mrs%20brough%20broadmoor&f=false

Specifically, a letter from George Augustus Sala referring to an article Sims wrote in the Referee circa 1890 on his visit to Broadmoor. In the letter, Sala (born November 1828) relates a visit to Bedlam during which he spoke to Edward Oxford and apparently Mrs. Brough, who was busy "at fancy needlework". The visit was apparently in around 1860 apparently... but it seems possible that this account somehow found its way into the Anderson article... updated of course with a more first person narrative.

Anyway, Sims could be the culprit. I wouldnt be surprised if Cunliffe-Owen patched together the article from a variety of sources, (Sims, Blackwoods, etc) taking ample liberties wherever he saw fit.

Sala, incidentally would have been the right age to refer to Dr. Meyer as "a very old and dear friend." And presumably, if the writer of the article (presumably Cunliffe-Owen or Anderson or whoever Simon Wood seems to think) was a very dear old friend of Dr. Meyer, you would think he would get the name right, instead of referring to him as "Dr. Meyers."


But then again, what do I know? I am just a "rabid apologist for SRA." Of course, that may be better than Chris Phillips, who only gets referred to, derisively, as "Chris someone-or-other on Casebook."

Rob H

[Chris]

That said, some questions still remain. Did Cunliffe-Owen actually use Sir Robert Anderson as a source for his article? If so, did he personally interview Anderson? And where and when did the interview take place? London or New York? Maybe Broadmoor?

On those questions, I still feel that the article was based only on published accounts of Anderson's opinions.

[Scott Nelson]

Thanks to Simon Wood and Chris Phillips for providing this information. I was, I think, one of the first to question Simon's identification of Cunliffe-Owen with "Veteran Diplomat."

That said, some questions still remain. Did Cunliffe-Owen actually use Sir Robert Anderson as a source for his article? If so, did he personally interview Anderson? And where and when did the interview take place? London or New York? Maybe Broadmoor?

[Chris]

Simon Wood kindly sent me details of the evidence for the identification of "A Veteran Diplomat" as Frederick Cunliffe-Owen.

This is page 496 of Who's Who in America, 1913 (available through Google Books), which identifies "Veteran Diplomat" as one of Cunliffe-Owen's noms de plume:


(In addition, Naomi W. Cohen, in "The Abrogation of the Russo-American Treaty of 1832", Jewish Social Studies, vol. 25, number 1 (1963), pp. 24, 25 - available online at http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/F-9A.PDF - discussing another article by a "Veteran Diplomat" in the New York Times, identifies the author as "Cunliffe Owen".)

As further confirmation of the accuracy of the "Who's Who" account, Simon provided an article from the Galveston Daily News, 26 December 1896, in which an article headed "Ex Attache describes the gorgeous ceremonial customary at courts of royalty" is signed "F. Cunliffe Owen".

This seems to establish the identification straightforwardly enough.

[Jonathan H]

I agree Chris.

What I was arguing is that behind this hodge-podge of bits and pieces is Anderson's [sincerely believed] chief suspect -- completely unrecoverable here.

This article is a mythical offshoot; an offshoot because it is not written, or directly contributed to, by Anderson himself.

However, in my opinion, Anderson and Swanson [and Macnaghten] between 1891 and 1894 began to dramatically telescope when the Ripper murders ended [Kelly not Coles] and when the Polish Jew suspect first came to their attention [1889, or 1888 -- NOT 1891, or even later].

[Chris]

Not that I've any particular reason to think the identification is incorrect, but I can't really understand why the evidence for it couldn't have been cited in the article.

Well, apparently the response to the latest request for information on this is that if we don't "accept" what Simon Wood has written, we are to do our own research and "get Googling".

Oh dear.

[Chris]

I see Simon Wood has responded to my post over at jtrforums.com. I'm not sure why, as he has a Casebook account, and I don't have one on jtrforums.com.

Anyway, to reply here:

(1) As I have said, the article is quite clear that its account of Anderson's views is based on "an article over his signature in one of the leading London reviews for the current month, and supplemented by a letter from him printed in the London Times". There is no hint that the author has interviewed Anderson or had any personal communication with him.

I can't accept the argument that, despite this, the article must be based on an interview with Anderson simply because there is a large picture of Anderson at the top of it.

(2) As I have said, the story of the visit to Broadmoor is given in the first person, without any quotation marks and without any reference to Anderson. The natural interpretation is that it's the author of the article who is supposed to have visited Broadmoor.

But Simon Wood says that can't be the case, because the article was written by Frederick Cunliffe-Owen, who would have been too young to visit Broadmoor before Meyer's death. Therefore, apparently, the story must have come from Anderson.

The problem with this is that - as Simon Wood deserves credit for having demonstrated - the story of the visit to Broadmoor is in any case a fantastic invention. Anderson could no more have seen "Boy Jones" or Mrs Brough at Broadmoor than could Cunliffe-Owen. But of course Cunliffe-Owen could very well have fabricated the whole thing under the cloak of anonymity.

That's if Cunliffe-Owen was the author of the article, which is impossible for the rest of us to judge unless we're told what evidence the identification is based on. Not that I've any particular reason to think the identification is incorrect, but I can't really understand why the evidence for it couldn't have been cited in the article.

[Scott Nelson]

I must say that I'm baffled why anyone should think that Anderson wrote the description of the visit to Broadmoor...

The visit is described in a first-person narrative without any quotation marks or any reference to Anderson. The natural interpretation would be that it was the author of the article who was claiming to have visited Broadmoor.

Quite correct Chris. Clearly about 95% of the posters on this site don't read very carefully, including me. There is absolutely no evidence that Sir Robert Anderson had any direct involvement in the March 20th NY Times article.

[Chris]

I see there is an ongoing discussion of Simon Wood's article at jtrforums.com.

I must say that I'm baffled why anyone should think that Anderson wrote the description of the visit to Broadmoor, or why anyone should think that the author of the article implied that it was anything to do with Anderson.

The visit is described in a first-person narrative without any quotation marks or any reference to Anderson. The natural interpretation would be that it was the author of the article who was claiming to have visited Broadmoor.

And there is absolutely no suggestion that the author of the article based his account of Anderson's beliefs on any kind of personal interview. The claim is that the account was based on "an article over his signature in one of the leading London reviews for the current month, and supplemented by a letter from him printed in the London Times".

If this had been an "exclusive", based on unpublished revelations received directly from Anderson, it would certainly have been mentioned. Clearly it was nothing of the kind - only a garbled account of what had been published under Anderson's name elsewhere, combined with the author's own even more unreliable reminiscences.

[Jonathan H]

Neverthless , behind this garbled/mythical offshoot is a genuine and extraordinary suspect who may well have been Jack the Ripper: Aaron Kosminski.

I think this is yet another expression of the tension Anderson felt between his sincere belief about the Polish Jew suspect [it was Kosminski!] and and the need to discreetly conceal when exactly he had been discovered [after he was incarcerated, and after he had been an inactive murderer for two years.] Here we have bits and pieces of the histroical truth, as in there really was a house-to-house search, and there was a major Polish Jew suspect which came to Anderson's attention.

Also, the police could not arrest a man already institutionalised, which is the acutely frustrating bottom line about Kosminski.

Of course the article builds on Anderson's claim that after the search this suspect came to their attention -- which is chronologically true -- with the gap of two years eliminated in favour of a much more satisfying 'shilling shocker' narrative.

This article is an unintended offshoot of the original strategy by Anderson and Macnaghten, in 1894, to bury when exactly Druitt and Kosminki came to police attention [Anderson, I believe, later forgot all this political manouvering about a mystery of limited interest to himself, but Macnaghten, the original 'Ripperologist', did not].

This article renders Kosminski as completely unrecoverable as Druitt, who is impenetrably cocooned in the 'Drowned Doctor' mythos. They also both tell much better stories which make Scotland Yard look super-efficient.

I also find it interesting that in 1895 Anderson and Swanson were beginning to brief the press about the 'locked-up lunatic'. But Swanson, already, thinks he is dead?

Of course, Kosminski did not die until 1919. Anderson never made this claim, and Macnaghten, between 1894 and 1898 [whenever the 'Aberconway' version was written] seems to know that the suspect is very much alive in the asylum.

This mostly fictional article does not claim the suspect is dead either.

[Chris]

In an interesting article in the current Ripperologist (issue 109, December 2009), Simon Wood identifies the author of this New York Times article as Frederick Cunliffe-Owen [1855-1926], who he says was running an intelligence agency in New York on behalf of the British Home Office. Unfortunately Wood doesn't reveal the source of any of this information.

Inexplicably, he apparently assumes that most of the article was written by Anderson - though there seems to be nothing to indicate that anything beyond the first section is attributable to him. On the information found by Wood, much of the content of the article appears to lie in the realm of fantasy. This makes it easier to understand how the article could report Anderson's opinions so inaccurately, but doesn't of itself tell us anything about those opinions.

[robhouse]

It seems to me clear that this article is (as Scott says) a confusion of what Anderson wrote in Blackwood's in March 1910, and Cutbush who was named as a suspect by the Sun newspaper in February 1894.

I am still confused at where the article comes up with the statement about consigning the Ripper to Broadmoor "five or six years ago". Of course Cutbush was committed to Broadmoor much earlier, but he did die in 1903... maybe this is the source of the "five or six years ago" remark? Another confusion?

I still for the life of me can't figure out what this "letter from [Anderson] printed in the London Times" is a reference to...! I think Stewart documented most of Anderson's public statements on the Ripper in the older Anderson thread, but I cant see any letters by Anderson (to any newspaper). I guess it is probably a reference to the Globe interview with Anderson on March 7, 1910.

Seems like a very bungled article by the "veteran diplomat"...

[aspallek]

Well, it would have been 1903-04 at the King's Pleasure.

Yes I understand that. My point is that if we consider Swanson to be an accurate reflection of Anderson's reasoning the identification and incarceration would have taken place at her majesty's pleasure, i.e. before 1901.

[Scott Nelson]

Well, it would have been 1903-04 at the King's Pleasure. The entire report by "Veteran Diplomat" is considered a confusion of the earlier Cutbush case.

[aspallek]

Wait a minute? The King's pleasure? The suspect was committed five or six years before 1910? When did the identification take place?