Did Anderson Know

[Phil Carter]

Stewart,

I don't think we thank you enough, nor do you ask for it, but thanks very much for posting the documents that you do and for trying to keep us honest.

Cheers,

Mike

Hello Mike,

Yup. Total agreement.

Stewart, had it not been for much of what you provide, many of us would remain a little lost. Many thanks indeed.

best wishes

Phil

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jeff,

Consult all the other available accounts [see also Alan Sharp and SPE on Casebook] and you will discover that it was William Henry Adelbert Fielding [the family name is actually Feilding], together with Captain Whelan and Robert Anderson who in December 1867 set up the short-lived Secret Service Department in London.

As a point of interest, on 5th April 1868 E. Trelawny, a self-described 'gentleman spy', sent a letter to William Feilding at the Secret Service Department in which he claimed that Gladstone had agreed to disestablish the Church of Ireland in return for the Vatican's promise of Irish catholic votes. William Feilder passed the letter to Disraeli, who subsequently dispatched Trelawny to Ireland in search of evidence, hoping that proof would spark an anti-catholic backlash and tip the forthcoming election in favour the Conservatives. Trelawny spent four weeks in Ireland [during which time the Secret Service Department had been disbanded], and during that time he also claimed to have discovered not only that the secret agreement was true, but that there also existed a vast Vatican conspiracy to use Irish nationalist agitation to undermine the English constitution.

Percy Fielding C.B. was a Lieutenant Colonel commanding the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards. He retired on half-pay on 5th September 1877. William also returned to the regiment after his brief affair with the Secret Service Department, retiring on half-pay 29th September 1877.

Regards,

Simon

[jason_c]

Lets remember it is highly likely Abberline also "pilfered" documents from Scotland Yard.

[Stephen Thomas]

Sir Edward Bradford - but that is fully explored in the new revised edition of The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper. I don't intend to repeat it all again here. But, as I say, you no doubt have your own ideas and far be it from me to try and convert you.

Thanks, Stewart.

Off to Amazon I go.

I've described you before here as the best Ripperologist bar none and I stick by that, but please do not get ratty with me or other people who believe that Anderson just MIGHT have been describing what actually happened. You don't know and I don't know and nobody knows, as YOU you well know, because otherwise all would have been revealed by now. And it hasn't been.

[Natalie Severn]

Do you know Stephen I never thought Stewart WAS saying it didnt happen.In fact,the way in which Stewart posted his understanding,as an ex-policeman himself, on the venture to the sick Policeman"s seaside home, made me think that Anderson may , finally, have lost his marbles----and I am not joking when I say this.
If a very vulnerable and sectioned patient living peacefully in a lunatic asylum really was carted off "with difficulty" between the two elderly policemen, Anderson and Swanson,to be "identified' as Jack the Ripper,then as Stewart implied in a post way back ,that was most certainly not just unorthodox behaviour for two policemen to be engaged in, but was almost certainly unlawful.
Moreover we are given to understand that this procedure failed only because the witness ,having instantly recognised him , refused to testify-because this witness,at a policeman"s home in Sussex ,being Jewish himself [really? How many Jewish Policemen were there in Whitechapel then?], didnt want him to swing! What sort of a farcical failure was this exactly?
Come on Stephen, get real please .Either Anderson had lost it at this point,or it was a load of complete piffle.

[Chris]

Natalie

I do think a few things are worth bearing in mind:

(1) Anderson doesn't say anything about any Seaside Home.
(2) Swanson mentions only "the Seaside Home"; he doesn't specify the Convalescent Police Seaside Home. Obviously neither of them says anything about the witness being a policeman.
(3) Although of course Anderson wrote initially that the alleged identification took place after the suspect was caged in an asylum, that was omitted from the book version of his memoirs. Swanson is clear that the committal to Colney Hatch took place after the alleged identification.
(4) Nothing is said by anyone about the suspect being "carted off" by Anderson and Swanson - who of course were scarcely elderly in 1888-91! - he was "sent" with difficulty, which might mean all kinds of things. I can't imagine what law you think might have been broken by any of this.

[Natalie Severn]

Chris,
I distinctly recall Stewart suggesting a couple of scenarios that might tally with these claims.In one of these he wondered who would have given authority to remove a mentally ill man from a mental institution / Lunatic asylum, concluding that if it was Anderson,he was acting unlawfully.

Maybe it was Swanson who was confused , when he sort of "doodled" about Seaside homes in the margins of Anderson"s memoirs.
The whole story has become such a pig"s ear of tale-it wasnt very clear when Anderson wrote those few lines about it,still less when Swanson added his bits-maybe it should be called " Swanson"s Amnesia" rather than marginalia- a queerer conundrum would be hard to come across.

[Chris]

The whole story has become such a pig"s ear of tale-it wasnt very clear when Anderson wrote those few lines about it,still less when Swanson added his bits-maybe it should be called " Swanson"s Amnesia" rather than marginalia- a queerer conundrum would be hard to come across.

It's certainly a conundrum, but please let's not make more of a pig's ear out of it than it already is.

[Natalie Severn]

It's certainly a conundrum, but please let's not make more of a pig's ear out of it than it already is.

I"ll take that on board Chris, I just find it to have become such a difficult set of claims to treat seriously .

[Stephen Thomas]

Come on Stephen, get real

Hi Norma

I've spent my entire adult life attempting that but as absolutely nobody knows what 'reality' is, this has proved rather difficult for me.

Things get confused

Unconnected things get connected

Four facts:

1. Anderson (1910/1911) says a Polish Jew did it.

2. Swanson (date unknown) scribbles the Seaside Home stuff in Anderson's book.

3. MM memo (1894, surfaced c1969) mentions Kosminski.

4. Somebody (date unknown) writes that the Seaside Home guy was Kosminski.

People connect these facts in different ways.

[Natalie Severn]

Confidentially

Dear Stephen,

On record

Macnaghten said he had "private information" and thought it was Druitt

Anderson said it was a definitely ascertainable fact that the police knewwho it was

-Littlechild said Anderson "only thought he knew" and Tumblety was a better bet

-The Sun said they had "private information"[from Inspector Race[?] and thought it was Cutbush

Abberline said "nobody knew" but later hedged his bets on Chapman

Both Inspector Dew and City of London police chief Henry Smith said "nobody knew"

Monro may have had some kind of "hot potato" in mind .

People connect these facts in different ways its true,but there is no getting away from the suspicion that nobody actually knew who the ripper was or where he lived
Best
Norma

[Phil Carter]

Hello Norma,

It is with your last posting in mind, that I am reminded, once again, of the following comments from Stewart Evans from another thread called "In the name of honesty"....

".....Cynicism comes (or deepens with age) - don't resist it."

and

"....But remember this - no one will ever know for sure the identity of the killer who stalked the East End back in 1888."

So the cynical moi is developing one very clear idea in combining those two comments...

No one will ever name Jack The Ripper from 1888, because I cynically suspect, The "Whitechapel Murderer", with the name that was itself invented, "Jack The Ripper"the multi-murderer...is a creation in itself. That, I cynically suspect, is why no one knew....nor why we won't ever know. I cynically suspect that it was brilliantly created confusion, wrapped up around a murder or two. Logical really. Thank you Mr Robert Anderson and Co. for your contribution to history. You have fooled a lot of people, as was always your whim, wasn't it?
One is allowed to suspect, cynically, isn't one?

best wishes

Phil

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Phil!

Well, the Whitechapel murderer was alson known as "The Monster of the East End"!

There are probably some variations too, that even we - meaning all the members on these boards - have never heard of!

OK; one needs a certain amoung of cynicism in the jungle of Urban Legends concerning Jack the Ripper.

But too much cynicism is bad too...

All the best
Jukka

[Stewart P Evans]

Around For a Long Time

Thanks, Stewart.
Off to Amazon I go.
I've described you before here as the best Ripperologist bar none and I stick by that, but please do not get ratty with me or other people who believe that Anderson just MIGHT have been describing what actually happened. You don't know and I don't know and nobody knows, as YOU you well know, because otherwise all would have been revealed by now. And it hasn't been.

Stephen, you and I have both been around for a long time. I do thank you, and I have before, for the kind comments, though I am sure that there are those who would disagree with you.

I do keep my mind open to all reasonable possibilities and if I came across anything to support Anderson's claim I should certainly publish it. I don't claim to know (as you seem to indicate) and always state this, but I do have my opinions. Some people, apparently, don't like me giving my opinion as they feel it carries some sort of influence. However, I am entitled to my own opinion as you are to yours.

All will never be revealed, that is the nature of history. All we can do is to apply our own knowledge, experience and research to the little that is known and try to draw our interpretations and opinions, conclusions if you like, from that.

I am not getting ratty, as you would realise if we sat down together for a one on one chat. But I have been around 'the Ripper block' a few times and I do get tired of addressing the same old points time and time again. So there it is, come and see me some time and I'll give you a signed copy of the book.

[Stephen Thomas]

Thanks for that post, Stewart. Much appreciated.

My best wishes to you, and may I say that the beard really suits you.

And also, while we're conversing, may I say that it would be a shame if the definitive Red Barn Murder book that you have inside you never got written.