The Secret Special Branch Ledgers

[Hamrammr]

As an American, I don't fully understand British addresses, although I'm starting to catch on. Geography is not an interest of mine and doesn't come naturally to me. So is Kensington a town, road, or both?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Hi Tom,

Kensington could be described as a borough (of which there are a multitude in London). I think (I'm a Londoner but no historian) that all the boroughs used to be small towns/villages until they were swallowed up by the growing city. Then there's the 'City of London' (aka The Square Mile) which has it's own police force. This is where the problems with jurisdiction arose during the Whitchapel Murders. I won't say any more in case I'm digging a very deep hole for myself. But hope this explains a little more what Kensington is, i.e. an area of London.

Peter Ackroyd's A Biography of London is apparently very good if you want to read about the formation and history of the city. Full of fascinating tidbits like the origin of the names of some of the areas like Spitalfields (From Hospital Fields) and Houndsditch from a place where dog carcasses used to be thrown over the old city wall... Can't remember why, possibly as biological warfare to ward off attackers.

Hope this helps!

Dean

[Chris]

My memory isn't what it was.. great reminder.

It helps if you're subjected to the torture-chamber on a regular basis, and are forced continually to try to calculate the shortest escape route.

[Phil Carter]

Thanks Chris,

My memory isn't what it was.. great reminder.

best wishes

Phil

[Trevor Marriott]

Thanks for that, Chris. I didn't have time to research the various addresses that came up and are reported in my Le Grand essay, but I remember Kensington and Kennington being amongst them.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

So now you will try to have us believe that McGragth was really Le Grand in disguise

[Chris]

If you look at a map of the London underground, for example, look for a station called Vauxhall. Thats Kennington, or nearabouts. That is near to/ bordering upon/now included within the same borough as Chris says. (forgive me Chris, its been a while I was down that way, borough changes etc) You will find Kensington near Chelsea, (not the football club called Chelsea, which is in Fulham, another football club..) The English like to make things difficult..lol

Or even better, Kennington has its own tube station, where the two branches of the Northern Line join up south of the river. And Kensington has several - South, High St, West, Olympia, and some more not including the K-word:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/standard-tube-map.pdf

[Phil Carter]

Hello Tom,

If you look at a map of the London underground, for example, look for a station called Vauxhall. Thats Kennington, or nearabouts. That is near to/ bordering upon/now included within the same borough as Chris says. (forgive me Chris, its been a while I was down that way, borough changes etc) You will find Kensington near Chelsea, (not the football club called Chelsea, which is in Fulham, another football club..) The English like to make things difficult..lol

best wishes

Phil

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

If McGrath/Magrath was the Ripper I want him to have lived at Kensington Gore.

It seems only fitting.

Regards,

Simon

[Tom_Wescott]

Thanks for that, Chris. I didn't have time to research the various addresses that came up and are reported in my Le Grand essay, but I remember Kensington and Kennington being amongst them.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Chris]

As an American, I don't fully understand British addresses, although I'm starting to catch on. Geography is not an interest of mine and doesn't come naturally to me. So is Kensington a town, road, or both?

It's a district of London - in the western part of Inner London - known for Kensington Palace, Kensington Gardens, a number of major museums and Imperial College, Britain's premier academic institution. There isn't a road named "Kensington" as far as I know.

As Phil says, Kennington is another district - in Lambeth borough, south of the river - probably best known for a cricket ground.

[Tom_Wescott]

As an American, I don't fully understand British addresses, although I'm starting to catch on. Geography is not an interest of mine and doesn't come naturally to me. So is Kensington a town, road, or both?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Chris]

Passenger ship records show that Magrath sailed home to the US from England in December of 1888. He was a frequent visitor to Ireland and England c 87-1892, spending long periods of time in both countries.

Many thanks for posting this information, which is obviously extremely helpful in clarifying William Magrath's movements around the relevant time. Thank you also for injecting a badly needed dose of good sense into the discussion.

The problem i have is that when people do this and come back and state things that are not factually correct. Chris has clearly stated that he was in London which is not proven. It says he spent time in London and Ireland it mentions studio work. How do we know he did not have a studio in Ireland.?

No, I did not state that. I stated that William Magrath "was visiting England and Ireland in late 1888", which I believe is no more than is implied by any reasonable interpretation of the Lippincott's advertisement. Thankfully the information found by Debs has confirmed that, in terms of the timing, that interpretation was correct.

[Phil Carter]

Hello Tom,

Two different areas in London. No typo.

best wishes

Phil

[Tom_Wescott]

Kensington

Pardon my ignorance, but is Kensington a town, a road, or both? I was confused about this while writing my Le Grand article, and this McGrath business refreshes my curiosity. Also, was there a town/road called Kennington? I would see one destination referred to in some places as Kensington and in others as Kennington and I didn't know if that was a typo and so just went with what I thought was likely, but for all I know there was no Kennington at all.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[caz]

Dear Caz

You could be right, but I think the balance of probabilities is that since Macnaghten nowhere mentions Balfour [nobody does] that this is a mistaken element introduced by Browne, and because the latter seems to be wholly ignorant of Mac's preference for a chief suspect identified 'some years after' he killed himself. Which means Browne did not read the Mac Memoirs very carefully, but then nobody does that either ...

Love Jonathan X

Hi Jonathan,

I give up. I don't know how to express any better what I was getting at. Suffice to say, I was not suggesting that Macnaghten ever had Balfour - or any political assassination plot - on his mind when imagining that the ripper case had had the power to topple the likes of Warren and Matthews. Quite the opposite in fact.

Oh go on then, I'll try this one more time.

Browne's comment was saying - to me - that Mac was giving a common murderer far more influence than he had in reality over the powers that be. In Browne's view, it would have taken someone more on a par with the leader of a plot to assassinate Balfour to inflict the kind of political damage that Mac seemed to attribute to Jack.

I'll try another analogy. If you [Mac] said that the ripper caused my morbidly obese great grandmother from the Outer Hebrides to have a heart attack when reading about him in the papers, I [Browne] could say that you seemed to be identifying the fiend with great granny’s favourite “sudden death” suet pudding. I would be the one bringing up pudding and neither of us would have suet pudding down as a possible ripper suspect.

Mind you, it doesn’t seem to take much to start balls like this rolling.

Love,

Caz
X

[Debra A]

If someone can prove to me he was in london between August and November then so be it thats factually correct and not what someone beleives to be correct

You yourself Trevor know how hard it is to prove the whereabouts of a person at any exact given time, just going by the scant historical records, after all, you never managed it with Feigenbaum did you? You just believe it to be correct that he was the ripper and in London in the Autumn of 1888.

The very closest we can say with Magrath is that he was in England in 1888 when he sailed from there back to the United States. He didn't sail from Ireland.