Did Anderson Know

[Tom_Wescott]

Why would Her Majesty find pleasure in the confinement of another human being? That's just cold. I hope they've found a better term for this in the century since?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Cap'n Jack]

I think we must study the implication and meaning of the term as it was used in thr LVP and not in our modern world.
Two great things must be considered here.
That Her Majesty's Most Gracious Pardon was offered for a conviction in 1888, and then that Her Majesty's Pleasure was used to convict Anderson's 'suspect'.
It's a rock and a hard place.

[Debra A]

Custody, removal, and discharge of criminal lunatics-Under 39 & 40
Geo. III. c. 94, secs. 1 and 2, 3 & 4 Vict. c. 54, sec. 3 (ante pp. 795 and
797), the place and manner of detention of Queen's pleasure lunatics
were absolutely in the discretion of Her Majesty. Under 23 24 Vict.
c. 75 (ante p. 97), Broadmoor was appointed an asylum for criminal
lunatics, and it remains the only criminal lunatic asylum. Under 27 & 28
Vict. c. 29 sec. 2, the Secretary of State was empowered to order lunatics
to be removed to any lunatic asylum or other proper receptacle for insane
persons, but it did not (and does not) thereby become a criminal lunatic asylum.
The practice of the Home Office was (1) to send to Broadmoor all Queen's
pleasure lunatics charged with a serious crime, and all female convicts becoming insane while under sentence of penal servitude; (2) to remove to and retain at Woking convict prison all insane male convicts under sentence of penal servitude until within a few weeks of the expiry of their sentence, when they were removed to Broadmoor; (3) to remove to the nearest county or borough asylum all other insane prisoners; (4) to remove and retain at Parkhurst or Dartmoor Prisons weak minded convicts who had not been shown to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State to be unfit for penal discipline, and require special treatment.
Under the cCriminal Lunatics Act 1867 (30 Vict. c. 12) the Secretary of State was empoweredto discharge, absolutely or conditionally, any criminal lunatic (sec. 5) and to remove from a criminal lunatic asylum any criminal lunatic whose sentence had expired (sec. 6)
Under the Prisons Act 1877, the Secretary of state generally adopted, as regards lunatic prisoners other than convicts, the course formerly taken by visiting justices viz. if a lunatic prisoner was in what formerly was a borough prison, he was removed to a borough asylum, and if he was in what formerly was a county prison, he was removed to a county asylum. With reagrd to Queen's pleasure lunatics, the practice was to consider from time to time, upon a report from the medical superintendentof Broadmoor their various conditions and circumstances, and to discharge them absolutely or
conditionally as soon as it was thought safe to do so. There was, however, no systematic revision of the cases at Broadmoor, nor does there appear to have been any revision whatever of the cases of Queen's pleasure lunatics detained in county or borough asylums. Conditional discharges were frequently granted, but only in cases where in the first
instance an application had been set in motion by the authorities of the asylum or by the friends of the criminal lunatic, or by the criminal lunatic himself.The only condition usually inserted in the warrant of discharge was that the patient should return immediately into the same or other custody whenever required to do so by the Secretary of state.

Renton, Alexander Wood, Sir. The law of and practice in lunacy : with the Lunacy Acts 1890-91 (consolidated and annotated) ... Edinburgh, 1896

[Jeff Leahy]

Why would Her Majesty find pleasure in the confinement of another human being? That's just cold. I hope they've found a better term for this in the century since?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Don't be stupid Tom. The term simply dates back to when the king was simply concidered to rule be devine right. Its sought of what the whole Civil War was about. The King was head of the church after Henry the 8th. What he said was the law. British law has developed over many years.

The problem with British law, on the whole, is that its not necessarily written down in black and white. It's developed over centuries through cases and verdicts...called presidents...and presidents can be over ruled in the 'LORDS' and 'The Commons' but usually rests with the 'Law Lords'.

To add to the problem many laws made centuries ago are not writen out of the satute books by parliament for various reasons...

So Britain still has bizarre laws that date back centuries..I tried to make a TV program about it called 'Satute' where we took old laws and tried to enforce them...some of which included; the right of pregnant women to 'pee' in a policemans helmit, the right to drive sheep across London Bridge, and the fact that you could still be hung under British law for breaking into a ship yard in Portsmouth...British law is a strange and complicated thing...

its not black and white.

Pirate

PS Yes my nephew also mentioned Parkhurst, and you raise the question of Dartmoor? We require dates. Thanks for info Debra, I will pass it all to him, its about time he actually earned his keep.

[Debra A]

I was just going to ask you if that last post was addressed to me Pirate but I've just seen the edit.
I was in a rush when I posted so just to clarify, the text I posted was not my assessment of the criminal lunacy laws it is from an 1896 legal book that I referenced at the end of the post. I would assume that as it was written in 1896 it would cover precedents and ammendments made to the criminal lunacy acts over the years leading up to it's publication.

[Chris]

Debra

Thanks for posting that very useful extract.

So at least it's clear that at Broadmoor there were not only "Her Majesty's Pleasure" prisoners, but also insane female convicts, and insane male convicts whose sentences had expired or were about to expire. (Apparently the basis for the detention of the latter classes was the Criminal Lunatics Act of 1840.)

I must admit I'm still not quite clear what "Her Majesty's Pleasure" prisoners constituted by the late 1880s. Certainly they included those found "guilty but insane" (Trial of Lunatics Act, 1883). Apparently also those found "unfit to plead" (at least for some crimes - though I wouldn't have guessed this from what I've read about the statutes).

Then again the Criminal Lunatics Act of 1800 had made provision for those "discovered or apprehended under circumstances that denote a derangement of mind and a purpose of committing some crime for which, if committed, such person would be indicted" to be detained, and the Criminal Lunatics Act of 1838 had made further provision for them to be sent to an asylum or released into the custody of a friend or relation. From what I've read I would guess these wouldn't constitute "Her Majesty's Pleasure" prisoners, but it would be nice to be sure.

[Debra A]

I must admit I'm still not quite clear what "Her Majesty's Pleasure" prisoners constituted by the late 1880s. Certainly they included those found "guilty but insane" (Trial of Lunatics Act, 1883). Apparently also those found "unfit to plead" (at least for some crimes - though I wouldn't have guessed this from what I've read about the statutes).

Chris, I did have the published statistics of HMP prisoners from 1887 to 1892. I will try and find them again. Being found "Insane on arraignment" or "unfit to plead" certainly cropped up a few times. Cutbush himself appears in this category.

[Chris]

Chris, I did have the published statistics of HMP prisoners from 1887 to 1892. I will try and find them again. Being found "Insane on arraignment" or "unfit to plead" certainly cropped up a few times. Cutbush himself appears in this category.

Thanks - that would be very interesting.

I wonder whether "insane on arraignment" may refer to prisoners who were arraigned before the law was changed in 1883?

[Graham]

"Her Majesty" in this context is a euphemism for the Government, otherwise referred to as Her Majesty's Government or just HM Government. "Pleasure" means that a person can be held in custody until it "pleases" the Government to release him or charge him or chop off his head or whatever. Nothing to do with our dear Queen personally. Although one suspects that she'd be chuffed to death to see a few certain persons banged up.

Graham

[celee]

Wow, I can not believe I started a thres that got 34 pages of comments, 340 post.

Your friend, Brad

[Scott Nelson]

But the thing you have to ask yourself is, how many of those posts contain anything of real value?

[Jeff Leahy]

But the thing you have to ask yourself is, how many of those posts contain anything of real value?

To be honest Scott you could ask that question of 90% of the total posts made on casebook? Its the rare 10% that we are all interested in...

Except in Tom Wescotts case where I would imagine even one post with any real content or genuine humour would be most appreciated

Pirate

[perrymason]

But the thing you have to ask yourself is, how many of those posts contain anything of real value?

I would think only the lucky ones do,.. because we all know that there is no evidence that fully supports Anderson's comments or opinions. Nor Macnaughtens in the Memorandum.

Senior Men giving opinions about what they thought should have remembered that their opinions should be restricted to the factual evidence and the Offices official findings or position.....which still is that we have 5 unsolved murders committed by an unknown assailant or assailants within some 13 or 14 unsolved attacks during the relevant period.

I think they speculated far too much, and with unsubstantiated "oomph". Huge EGOS meeting complete frustration and embarrassment, thats what we have here.

Best regards all.

[Jeff Leahy]

Well that’s largely what this thread is about ‘What did Anderson Know?’

We simply don’t know how much more Anderson knew that we do not have on record. Clearly we don’t have everything on record or we would not have the Swanson Marginalia…but we do. What else did Anderson know? That we do not?

Probably quite a lot.

Pirate

[Natalie Severn]

Well that’s largely what this thread is about ‘What did Anderson Know?’

We simply don’t know how much more Anderson knew that we do not have on record. Clearly we don’t have everything on record or we would not have the Swanson Marginalia…but we do. What else did Anderson know? That we do not?

Probably quite a lot.

Pirate

Anderson probably knew nothing more at all,apart from what police knew then ,much of which we now know.

I dont believe that

a] Anderson had the slightest clue who Jack the Ripper was.Had he or any of the senior police officers known who he was ,then we too would know the identity of JtR . We dont and neither did he----or Macnaghten or Abberline or Swanson ----none of them had any idea who he was orwhere he lived,just as Major Smith said in 1910 upon learning that Anderson was claiming he knew .Major Smith ought to have known,having been acting Chief Commissioner of the City of London Police in 1888 and present in person at the crime scene of Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square on the night of her murder and a man who still held a keen interest in the case twenty years later.
b] But I really dont believe for one moment that Robert Anderson was part of any conspiracy to hide the identity of the Ripper.That,in my view is just nonsense.

c]given his temperament,I think its very possible that Robert Anderson may have genuinely believed he knew the identity of the ripper.
It is obvious that Sir Robert Anderson clearly believed JtR was a lunatic and the mentally ill Aaron Kosminski who was from the "low class" Polish/Jewish Whitechapel community and "lived among his people",may well have been the man who Robert Anderson believed " fitted the bill".But that doesnt make him Jack the Ripper---and the more we learn about Aaron , Colney Hatch and Leavesdon,the more it is clear that it cannot be the case.
Best Wishes
Norma