Inspector William Nixon Race & The SUN

[Howard Brown]

If there is discussion somewhere else relative to Race & the possibility that he was the source for the Sun series of articles on Thomas Cutbush in 1894, please ask the administrator to delete the thread.
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In the latest edition of Stewart P. Evans & Nicholas Connell's work , The Man Who Hunted Jack The Ripper", Amberley, 2009... Mr. E. presents a good argument, in my view, regarding Inspector Race, of Lambeth ( L Division ) as being the source for the series of articles in The Sun on Cutbush ( whose case was in the hands of Race after Cutbush's arrest in 1891 ) as being the Whitechapel Murderer.

If this is true, then the subsequent effort on Melville Macnaghten's part, his memoranda, if you will, can also be or definitely is, a direct result of what Mr. E presents as a consuming desire on Race's part to convince the police department heirarchy that he had resolved the issue of the apprehension of the Ripper....but no one seemed to be convinced.

This telling tales out of class...the probable, if not definite, dissemination of information regarding Cutbush and the particulars to The Sun by Race...in a way makes him a martyr...because consider this:

Imagine if no one from within the Met Police department had gone and...as Race apparently did...approach a newspaper, would any of us have ever heard of the three MM suspects in the first place? I think this is food for thought. There's a good chance that without Race and the Swanson marginalia, which is available to us now by extremely good fortune, we might only have Tumbelty as a police-named suspect with whom the issue of his theorized complicity left unresolved.

Sir Robert Anderson's articles and DSS' marginalia aside for a second here, but had Race not opened up Pandora's Box in 1894...MM would not have had a need or been asked to prepare the ultra important memoranda...the information on Kosminski,Druitt,and Ostrog would not have been prepared ( and remember that the MM was an internal police memo anyway...) and subsequently trickled out inferentially within other individuals works...

Try and think of any musings over suspects from police sources prior to the MM...and then consider Inspector Race's consuming desire to see his name in proverbial lights with the revelations he felt would clear the matter up in an outside source such as The Sun.

Only, unless I am incorrect, until SRA opened up,himself, do we have a police suspect, albeit unnamed at the time in SRA's works, ...and if we had examined the asylum records as assiduously as Mr. Fido had, who didn't find a suspect to fit the scenario which would accomodate all facets of Kosminski-as-Ripper ( which is why Mr. Fido concluded the particulars fit Cohen )..its very possible that unless the Swanson marginalia appeared with the surname of Kosminski....we'd be left with only Tumbelty....who was also found with a degree of good,if not great,fortune by the very same Mr. Evans in the early 1990's....

Funny how this works out.

Race in my view is the single most important catalyst in the development and provision of suspects in the whole Case...and yet by virtue of his consuming desire to share inside information on an individual ( who has a snowball's chance of being anything other than someone infatuated and influenced by the WM in the first place by reading the headlines...kooks are like that you know...) he suffered the consequences of his efforts by being overlooked for promotion despite what has been called an excellent record ( page 117 of TMWHJTR) until his retirement on April Fool's Day, 1898.

Think of all the other officials....SRA,DSS,MM, Abberline,et al...and then compare the unsung and inevitable backfiring of Race's efforts. A whistle blower who may been the individual most responsible for the basis of modern suspect theory, which includes 2 of the top in our collective hunt.

A photo of Walter Nixon Race accompanies the text in this latest excellent addition to any Ripper library by Mr. E....one which many here may not have seen before....on an individual worth keeping in mind with great thanks.

As always, any criticisms of the preceding are welcome.

[Howard Brown]

Day late and a dollar short, but no matter....it appears Mr. Jake Lauukenen had a thread on Inspector Race some time ago ( thanks to Debs for sending the heads up...) with newspaper articles to boot:

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=530

[Cap'n Jack]

And I did write this in 1993:

'And what of the other officers involved in pursuing information about Thomas Cutbush? Inspector William Race actually arrested Cutbush and up till then had been seen as a first-class detective with scores of good arrests to his name. However after the Cutbush affair his career took a sudden downward turn, his expected promotion to superintendent was blocked by his superiors for no apparent cause and instead he was downgraded - because of ill health and depression brought about by his unfair treatment during the Cutbush affair - to be eventually thrown out of the police force with a reduced pension.

Police Constable John McCarthy, the other policeman involved in the Cutbush case, seemed to have fared somewhat better, being promoted to sergeant in the same year that Macnaghten wrote his memorandum about Cutbush. Oddly enough he was transferred at some time, again the record of the date of this transfer in the Scotland Yard files has become ‘illegible’, McCarthy’s rise in the force continued apace after being made a sergeant, four years later he was an inspector, six years later a chief inspector and another six years later a superintendent.

Curious isn’t it that of the three police officers heavily involved in the Cutbush case two should suffer severe bouts of depression leading in one case to suicide and in the other to enforced early retirement while the other one should go on to become some sort of super cop?

Further than that, it does appear from the sources that are still available, that Inspector Race was actually being penalised by his superiors for having cleared the man named Colicott - who you will remember as the young man originally arrested for stabbing women with a knife but subsequently cleared of the attacks made by Cutbush - which then cleared the way for Race to arrest Thomas Cutbush. Macnaghten glosses this fact over quite neatly in his memorandum by claiming that Colicott was discharged ‘owing to faulty identification’, which in police terms really means he was the wrong man.

One instinctively feels from what Macnaghten writes that he desperately wanted Colicott to be the ‘right’ man for the crimes and Cutbush to be the ‘wrong’ man, and this could be the clue behind Inspector Race’s sudden fall from grace. He had, it seems - in a completely honest fashion cleared the suspect Colicott and in doing so unwittingly broken the ‘Unwritten Rule of the Service‘.

[Cap'n Jack]

This part account from an OB trial shows the type of determined character Inspector Race was:

'WILLIAM RACE (Inspector.) I have drawn these plans of the premises and roads—they are correct.

EDWIN SOLE . I am a bootmaker, of 60, Burton Street, Ratcliffe—at 12.30 a in on May 19th, I went to bed after seeing my house and shop were locked up—I have a cellar-flap outside my shop, and one inside; a person could go through the cellar-flap outside and come up through the other one inside the shop, if the flaps were forced open—about three a.m. I heard a disturbance, as if someone was forcing the door—I got out of bed and looked out at the window, and saw Carey standing at the court opposite—I knew him before—he ran over to two other persons, whom I do not recognise, and then the three ran away; one of them was about the same size as Carey, and one was a bit shorter—I went downstairs, and found that the door was forced partly open, and the look broken; a bolt at the top of the door prevented it from being completely forced—the outside cellar-flap had been partly forced, and partly placed back—an iron shutter was broken off—I gave information to the police.

WILLIAM RACE (Re-examined.) At 4.30 on this morning I was called by the prosecutor to his house—I found the shutters and the door had been tampered with; the door was much injured, bat the bolt prevented an entry—the lock had been forced and broken—the cellar-flap had been lifted, and entry effected, and the flap leading into the shop had

See original
been forced, but a post over it had stopped entry—from inquiries, I ascertained the premises where certain men had gone, and I went to Caroline Court—while breaking open an empty house there someone drew my attention to No. 7—I saw Carey's mother, and asked her where her son was—it was only a two-roomed house, and the prisoners must have heard—she said, "He is here in bed"—I asked her to admit me to the house—after some delay I threatened to break in—subsequently Carey came to the door and opened it—he was partly dressed—he said, "What do you want?"—I said, "I want you," and told him the charge—he had no boots or stockings on—he said, "I will come with you"—I said, "Not yet; I will wait till you are ready"—I pushed him into the house; he tried to escape—we found Thompson up the chimney, with his feet in the fireplace, and directed him to come down—he came down, covered with soot—we found Anderson in a coal-cellar, in a recess partly under the floor—we took them to the station, leaving a constable in charge of the place—coming back, we found Cronin secreted in the bottom of an old chest of drawers—I don't know how he got in; we had a lot of difficulty to get him out—we took him to the station—they were told they would be charged; they made no answer—Cronin pretended to be drunk after we found him—they were all perfectly sober—this jemmy was handed to me by a constable—I have compared it with marks on the door and shutter and cellar-flap; it corresponds exactly—Carey said, "You can prove it."

[Howard Brown]

Curious isn’t it that of the three police officers heavily involved in the Cutbush case two should suffer severe bouts of depression leading in one case to suicide and in the other to enforced early retirement while the other one should go on to become some sort of super cop? -Capt. Jack


Curious,perhaps...and perhaps only a curiousity, at best, but the simplest way of putting one's proverbial tit in the ringer and diminishing the natural respect concomitant to superior performance on the job as in the case of Race is to divulge information during an investigation to outside sources.

My point in my original post is that while I think we should all be happy Race bucked the system, it was the reason to him not being promoted ( which you and Jake independently presented quite some time ago, each in a slightly different way) and it was very understandable why that was so.

Race, and this is just my spin on the issue, dropped a ball of twine which kept unraveling and I am interested in whether others see developments which transpired down the road...the SRA remarks...even the Sims to Littlechild letter which brought about Tumblety to our good fortune...as being the inevitable result of an official bucking the system by someone who has benefitted us all today, if not necessarily in his own day.

[Cap'n Jack]

My spin is even simpler. Race thought Cutbush was Jack the Ripper, and wanted him put away before he could harm anyone else. He achieved his strange purpose, and the rest of the Met spent years trying to limit the damage to its savaged reputation.

[Natalie Severn]

but do YOU think Thomas Cutbush was the ripper Cap"n Jack?

[Cap'n Jack]

Nice to see you Nats... I certainly have an inclination.

[Natalie Severn]

Nice to see you Nats... I certainly have an inclination.

he is certainly a very serious suspect in my view------and nice to see you too Cap"n!

[Cap'n Jack]

Thanks Nats, as I've often said Thomas is the only suspect who has stood the test of time, since 1993 now, and still not a researcher or writer has been able to dismiss him for any good or valid reason. I myself have shot down at least twenty Ripper suspects in the last few years, and me good ol' cannons are still loaded with plenty of grape shot. And as you'll know I'd shoot Thomas as soon as smile at a fine maiden if there was good cause and a false flag on his mast.

[Natalie Severn]

I agree with you about Thomas Cutbush up to a point.There are some difficulties for me regarding him waving his knife about in Kennington in 1891 -it seems rather gauche and out of synch for the ripper to have suddenly started to engage in random stabbings on busy streets in daylight.But he did carry out " knife attacks" on women in the streets and this could have been a new development.

[Howard Brown]

Here is some information on Inspector Race:

William Nixon Race
b. March Quarter 1855 Auckland - Vol.10A/Page111
m. June Quarter 1875 Stockton - Vol.10A/Page200 (Georgina Esther Gornall)
d. March Quarter 1932 Pewsey - Vol.5A/Page212 (Age 76)

1881 Census: 68 Hargwyne Street, Lambeth, Surry, England
William A. Race-26-b.Sunderland, Durham, England-Police constable
Georgina E. Race-wife-27-Auckland, Durham, England
Arthur A.-son-4-Auckland, Durham, England
Jane E. M.-daughter-Auckland, Durham, England

Arthur Nelson Race
b. June Quarter 1876 Auckland-Vol.10A/Page243
d. June Quarter 1897 Stepney-Vol.1C/Page239 (Age 20)

Jane Edith N. Race
b. March Quarter Auckland-Vol.10A/Page190
m. September Quarter 1909 Bridgend-Vol.11A/Page1427 (Thomas Jenkins or Percy Edward Cook)

Courtesy,Nina Brown.
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I wasn't sure where to place the above...so perhaps it can be moved to an appropriate spot.

Nats....Race seems to have clammed up on the matter which compelled him to such a degree in 1894. He had every opportunity and especially after retiring to elaborate without the worry of losing his job or being censored...and nothing from Race has surfaced on the matter.............34 years after his retirement....

It occurs to me that perhaps he overcame his original belief in Cutbush's possible complicity and, as a result, thats why we hear nothing following his retirement.

[Robert]

How, it's possible Race did say something, but it hasn't yet been discovered. One day maybe - in, say, the year 3025 - all newspapers will be searchable online. But till then, I think there will be many secrets hidden away.

[Natalie Severn]

Howard,
Lets stay with Macnaghten here for a minute: when one of the most senior-if not THE most senior officer in Scotland Yard goes to the trouble of trashing the claims of the Sun just a few days after it had pointed the finger at Thomas Cutbush as the Ripper-----something tells me "Macnaghten doth protest too much".
In his very lengthy now famous memoranda, following hot on the heels of "the Sun"s sensational claims" Macnaghten adds that in his view there were three men " more likely than Thomas Cutbush- who-he is careful to point out -" was a NEPHEW of the late SUPT EXECUTIVE of SCOTLAND YARD.
That is the more than likely reason for any" ensuing silence" about Thomas Cutbush .......and its in Macnaghten"s very same 1894 memoranda that HE,Macnaghten,concurrently begins the assassination of Inspector Race"s career ----ie by ever so subtly drawing attention to the knife of Thomas Cutbush which he states Race had wrongly held onto for "three years" [when he should have returned it to the Prisoner"s Property Store].
Hmmmn!.......like Macnaghten never ever "hung onto" any" Ripper memorabilia" -like a room brim full of it- actually- which friends like Sims were treated to the sight of quite regularly !
Cheers
Norma

[Howard Brown]

Dear Nats:


Wasn't Macnaghten more or less given the task of preparing the memoranda as a response in case anyone else pursued it after Race's original commentary appeared in The Sun ?

If so, he was just following orders and regardless of what he wrote or indeed felt...it was his job to provide the MM for the department. The memoranda was never used publicly...and had it not been discovered decades later, we would not be in any position to state that he was protesting too much or even at all....specifically since it was not for public dissemination...much like Race's commentary which appeared in print.

How do we reconcile the fact that the MM was not for dissemination to the public, yet hear, from time to time, that his prepared response was to diminish the Cutbush story and argument as to THC's possible complicity in the crime ?



Take the MM out of the picture,Nats....and look at something else that happened after Race's disclosure....because someone from Scotland Yard DID comment on the substance of Race's claims as follows....

In SPE's latest book, TMWHJTR, on page 114....we will find an article from the Morning Leader ( Feb. 16,1894)...in fact a response of sorts to comments made by Race which appeared three days earlier in the Morning Leader on the individual ( Cutbush) in Dartmoor( actually Broadmoor).

In this response, a head SY official stated that he had heard of the claims....that there was a large basis of truth in it...and that it was about three years old. He ( whomever he was) also said he was as familiar with the claims as he was with the facial features of his ten year old child...which tend to make me think he and perhaps others at SY completely disregarded Race's conclusions on Cutbush considering the flippant or casual reply to the paper's reporter.

Race, on the other hand, goes on to say " I never said I had secured the Whitechapel murderer..." in the same February 16th article.... yet assures the reporter that he felt that until his facts were controverted, he would still continue to believe in their truth.

So...it had been countered,Nats...and not in a overly aggressive fashion...and in fact,rather dismissively, I would think.

How about you?