City PC Thompson?

[aspallek]

No derailment at all! Yes, that is what I always thought likely. However, if the "Mitre Court" detail is correct it could not be Lawende as that is not where his sighting took place. Rob's revelation here is rather significant.

[Mascara & Paranoia]

For example, what about the PC sighting on Berner Street by PC Smith I believe it was?

Sorry to derail a little, but since it's been brought up, that's what I always assumed the 'City PC witness' thing stemmed from; a bit of confusion with the Doube Event's, well, events, and mixing PC Smith up with Lawende and inadvertently fabricating the mysterious City PC.

[aspallek]

The conflation may have begun with Sims:

"The first murder was committed on Aug.31, and the last on Nov. 9 - the night of Lord Mayor's day - therefore, five times during three months did the Ripper rise from his orgy of blood, and walk through the streets of London to his home without by his appearance attracting the attention of one single witness who could be called upon to give evidence of any value.

One man only, a policeman, saw him leaving the place in which he had just accomplished a fiendish deed, but failed, owing to the darkness, to get a good view of him. A little later the policeman stumbled over the lifeless body of the victim."

The second paragraph clearly appears to be referring to Thompson-Coles, however Sims does not include Coles as a Ripper victim as the first paragraph indicates. Elsewhere, Sims lists the Macnaghten five as the only genuine Ripper murders.

[Chris Scott]

Hi Chris
I should have made it clear that the Kosminski connection was purely in connection to the Polish Jew reference in the alleged Mitre Court sighting, listed as a retelling of the three McNaghten suspects

[aspallek]

Many thanks, Chris Scott. You are quite right. How I missed the significance of the phrase "as I have already said" I don't know. Ernest Thompson was neither a City PC (per Macnaghten's witness) nor was he a PC in 1888. Thus I will now have to agree that you are correct in that Sir Basil believed Ernest Thompson was the Mitre Court PC witness.

1. Sir Basil reads in Griffiths of a Mitre Court PC-witness.
2. Sir Basil knows of only one PC sighting of the murderer, that being Ernest Thompson's connected to the Coles murder.
3. Sir Basil assumes Thompson to be Griffith's (in actuality Macnaghten's) PC-witness.
4. Sir Basil apparently assumes Mitre Court to be near Swallow Gardens.

This begs more than a few questions, however. For example, what about the PC sighting on Berner Street by PC Smith I believe it was? Clearly Sir Basil believes Stride to be a Ripper Victim.

Also, Sir Basil indicates that there were five Ripper murders with a possible sixth. The sixth must be Coles. But the fact that he considers the Thompson sighting to be a firm Ripper-sighting would imply that Sir Basil really believes Coles to be a genuine victim. This would eliminate the "drowned doctor" (Druitt-like) suspect, yet Sir Basil dutifully lists him among the suspects. There appears to be massive confusion and conflation going on.

The one very significant detail here, however, is that there may indeed have been a sighting in Mitre Court and that this specific information had to come from a non-Aberconway source since the Macnaghten-Aberconway memo says only "near Mitre Square." That is , unless this is just a weird goof that coincidently happens to make sense geographically.

edit -- On page 335 Sir Basil says that "in the beginning of 1889" there was another murder of the Ripper kind but that the police considered it to be a copy-cat killing. Indeed, Sir Basil states that it was the "belief" of the police that the Druitt-like suspect was the Ripper. Earlier (p. 190), Sir Basil had implied that the police suspected the Druitt-like suspect while he was still alive but there was insufficient evidence to detain him. This information he seems to be carried over from Sims or from Sims's source. Perhaps the "early 1889" murder is a conflation of McKenzie (July 1889) with Coles (February, i.e. "early", 1891).

[Chris]

If the author really believed that the two incidents he referred to were one and the same, the implications are:
1) Mitre Court was at or in the vicinity of Swallow Gardens
2) The man seen by Thompson was Kosminski
We know the first to be false and there is no evidence to support the second.

We do know the man seen by Thompson could not have been Aaron Kozminski, as he had been committed to Colney Hatch six days before the murder of Frances Coles.

[Chris Scott]

Hi Andy
Many thanks for this interesting thread
In The Story of Scotland Yard there certainly seems to be confusion as to the location of the allegedly unique sighting.
In the pages you kindly posted there are two references by the author which share two characteristics:
1) Both are referred to as being unique in being a sighting of the killer by a police officer
2) Both involve a police officer named Thompson

The first is worded as follows:
"One was a Polish Jew reported by Police Constable Thompson, the one police officer who caught sight of the man in Mitre Court"
The second runs:
"In one case only, as I have already said, did a policeman have sight of the criminal. A young officer named Thompson was patrolling Chambers Street when a man came running our of Swallow Gardens towards him."

I think it is telling that the author uses the phrase "as I have already said," as this makes it clear, in my opinion, that both mentions relate to the same incident as there is only one claimed occasion on which a police officer saw the supposed killer. The incident in which Ernest Thompson came upon the body of Frances Coles is well reported and well attested. If the author really believed that the two incidents he referred to were one and the same, the implications are:
1) Mitre Court was at or in the vicinity of Swallow Gardens
2) The man seen by Thompson was Kosminski
We know the first to be false and there is no evidence to support the second.

I would suggest that what we are witnessing here is the garbling or conflating of reports which led to confusion, perhaps comparable with the very early reports of the murder of an unnamed woman in late 1887, the so called Fairy Fay murder. The alleged location of this murder (the corner of Osborn and Wentworth Streets) makes it highly probable in my opinion is that this is a fallacious and garbled version of the murder of Emma Smith four months later.

How an alleged sighting near the site of Eddowes's murder became attached to a real incident in the murder of Coles we will probably never know. The wording used by the author ("As I have already said") make it clear, in my opinion, that he thought both versions referred to the same event, and that the Thompson mentioned in connection with the Mitre Court report is, in fact, Ernest Thompson who found the dying Frances Coles.

[aspallek]

http://collage.cityoflondon.gov.uk/collage/app?service=external/SearchResults&sp=Zmitre+court

The "Mitre Court, Fleet Street" is the one off King's Bench Walk, which now seems to be irrelevant.

I don't know, Scott. I'll have to look into it.

[Scott Nelson]

And what about the two witnesses in the "Orange Market", long thought to have been a confusion of Lawende and Levy on Duke Street?

[aspallek]

Here are the relevant pages from Sir Basil Thompson's The Story of Scotland Yard (1936):

[aspallek]

Hi Rob,

That is highly interesting. It may reveal something about the source(s) used by Arthur Griffiths.

The sequence goes like this:

1. Macnaghten says witness was a "City PC" near Mitre Square.

2. Griffiths says witness was a "police-constable" in Mitre Court.

3. Sims says witness was a "policeman" in Mitre Court

4. Sir Basil Thompson says witness was a "Police Constable Thompson" in Mitre Court.
Now, I have always assumed Griffiths wrote his bit with Aberconway before him, or at least a document with the some content as Aberconway. There are two possibilities here.

A. Griffitths simply goofed and conflated "Miller's Court" with "Mitre Square," as Simon reasonably suggested.

B. Griffiths knew and was revealing more specific information than that which Macnaghten provided in Aberconway. In other words, Griffiths knew from a non-Aberconway source that this sighting took place not just "near Mitre Square" but in the adjacent Mitre Court.

Now (A) is the simpler explanation and the simpler explanation is usually correct. However, a number of factors mitigate toward (B):

i. Griffiths is unlikely to make such an error when copying from a document. He gets the other facts "correct."

ii. Writing after Griffiths, and probably with Griffiths in front of them, both Sims and Sir Basil blindly follow him in his "error" when they should know better. Indeed, elsewhere in the same article, Sims correctly identifies the murder spot as Mitre Square.

iii. In Aberconway, Macnaghten says the sighting took place not "in" but "near" Mitre Square, but gets no more specific than this. Well, Rob's "Mitre Court" is certainly "near" Mitre Square.

This added detail suggests to me that there may well have been a "sighting" in Mitre Court, that is "someone" sighted "someone." Whether this was "PC Thompson" or a "City PC" or a citizen who morphed into a PC in confused reports I don't know. Also, exactly who was sighted I don't know.

This is all very interesting and suggests to me that Griffiths had more than merely a copy of Aberconway in front of him as he was writing.

[Rob Clack]

This is the Goads Map from 1939 showing Mitre Court. The name change occurred in 1938. There's no mention of Mitre Court on the 1887 Goads so there's little chance of knowing exactly when it was known as Mitre Court. My guess would be 1886 when the warehouses were built, but that's just a guess.



Rob

[Monty]

Andy,

Interesting.

Cant find your City PC Thompson.

Have found this though...

The policeman who got a glimpse of Jack in Mitre Court said, when some time afterwards he saw the Pole, that he was the height and build of the man he had seen on the night of the murder.

My Weekly Crime Museum by George R Simms in LLoyds Weekly dated September 22nd 1907.

See attachment.

http://www.casebook.org/images/sims922.gif

Seems to be a well used story.

Cheers
Monty

[aspallek]

Ineteresting Rob. The Mirte Court I know of is adjacent to King's Bench Walk.

It was Griffiths who first made the "switch" from Mitre Square to Mitre Court. It seems that Sims and Sir Basil blindly followed.

Still seeking a City PC Thompson in 1888 if he exists.

[Rob Clack]

The passage that connected Mitre Square to St James Place was at one time called Mitre Court. I can't confirm yet whether this was the case in 1888. It became Mitre Passage sometime in the 1930s.

Rob