The Secret Special Branch Ledgers

[Phil Carter]

Names and games

Never take anything on face value !!!!!!!!

Hello Trevor,

I agree. On this basis, and given that a certain amount of names in those ledgers of the infortmants etc would be false, one can also question any name listed called a suspect or informant, as many of the known people in Whitechapel were known by more than one name. William McGrath, artist, may not actually be the suspect mentioned, but one known by that name. The ledgers do not give this suspect a title.

An indication of the above is the story of one "John Cleary". With thanks to Nick Connell and Stewart Evans, I quote from their excellent book "The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper" (Amberley edition, 2009).

A "John Cleary" entered the editorial offices of the New York Herald and appeared to indicate things about another murdered woman. The police tried in vain to trace "Cleary", who gave a false address, and he turned out to be a newspaper vendor, John Arnold, who then stated he gave the name "Kemp" to the New York Herald, and the address he gave was a former one.
This indicates that names becomes questionable.

So, if this thread, and this controversy about existing/non-existant ledgers tells us anything, I suggest, presumtion of what we are presented to be a certainty will leave us chasing our own tails again.

One thing though. Understandable or not, the false comments of what actually exists and what doesn't exist eminating from this public authority over the years, the never ending passing the buck and the deliberate misleading of genuine researches and historians down the garden path, over many years, must stop. These ledgers refer to Special Branch files, which we are told, are feared to have been lost and are no longer in existance....

I am sorry Scotland Yard, Special Branch. I don't believe a word of what you tell the public about these historical documents any more. The games of hiding things and saying they don't exist have worn thin. Why get rid of the written reports from Special Branch Officers and leave the ledgers they pertain to intact? If a clear out was going to happen, it would ALL have gone. Call me suspicious if you will. I don't believe a word of what this public authority tell us anymore about this stuff.

Therefore, I call their bluff. The ONLY way, in my opinion, for this public authority to regain the faith that researches and historians once had in them, is to come clean with EVERYTHING that they have tucked away. No more excuses, reasons and lies.

Otherwise we will no doubt risk hearing that suddenly, without anyone's knowledge, the whole of the Special Branch historical documents section was (by mistake) transferred to the Ascension Islands and the ship sank due to a very large hurricane. All totally unexpected of course...

best wishes

Phil

[Jonathan H]

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

[caz]

To Caz

I had thought that the reference to Browne about Macnaghte associating the Ripper with a plot against Balfour to be possibly some obscure reference to Tumblety, or somebody connected with the Irish, until I saw the context of this quote, eg. the full page.

Browne is writing about a few sources which are publicly available, not classified ones, and he makes the peculiar remark about Macnaghten because, I think, he is misunderstanding his 1914 memoirs.

Just as Leanard Matters did Browne is taking the last lines of Mac's chapter, 'Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper' literally; that the fiend 'knocked out' a police commissioner and very 'nearly settled the hash' of a secretary of state. This actually refers to Warren and Matthews.

I think Browne has misread it, thought it referred to a real plot, knows that the only plot was against Balfour at the time of the Ripper murders, and thus put two and two together.

Further backing for my theory is that Browne never mentions that Macnaghten had written an internal 1894 Report which identified the Ripper with somebody else -- with three other minor suspects: Druitt, Kosminski and Ostrog, but that he had earlier theorized an Irish suspect, and so on.

Browne seems wholly ignorant about Macnaghten's preference for the Drowned Doctor, or drowned 'Said to be a doctor'. I don't think he ever saw the 1894 version of this Report.

Of course this error is partly because of Macnaghten's chicanery; he never mentions that the suspect was drowned or a doctor in his cagey memoirs -- or explains how they got onto him? He does mention that it was 'some years after' 1888 which further pulls Mac's opinion away from some figure who was plotting against Balfour, which of course in no way resembles what little is known about Montie Druitt.

I’m sorry, Jonathan, I didn’t explain myself clearly enough. My thinking was indeed based on those rather dramatic words of Macnaghten about the ripper knocking out a police commissioner and very nearly settling the hash of a secretary of state. I wondered if Browne was in sarcastic mode and merely meant that when Mac fondly imagined that this wretched killer of a few ‘whores’ had held the political fate of Warren and Matthews in his hands, he appeared to be elevating the ripper - and the supposed impact of his deeds - to the level of political assassin.

When you appear to ‘identify’ someone ‘with’ someone else, you are not necessarily suggesting they are one and the same person. You can be likening one to the other in some way, eg the impact of their behaviour. That’s subtly different from identifying someone as someone else.

"A third head of the CID, Sir Melville Macnaghten, appears to identify the Ripper with the leader of a plot to assassinate Mr Balfour at the Irish Office."

I’m more than happy to be corrected if the context clearly doesn’t allow for any such interpretation in this instance.

Love,

Caz
X

[lynn cates]

questions

Hello John. No apologies needed. You couldn't be a light poster if you tried, and have been a serious Ripper man before a good many here were born.

I think that, once Trevor gets in there and has a look about, many of the questions about anarchists/socialists and the Irish question may be answered. And if it all turns out to be mere flatulence, then some of us can begin taking a different tack.

Cheers.
LC

[Johnr]

This Fast-moving Thread....

Because this thread has been logging posts at the rate of knots, I was not aware Lynn (Cates) was posting that most moving account from The Guardian.
As the result, my light-as-air subsequent post seemed like a 'non sequiter'.
You know-- an illogical follow up to the post immediately before it.
Apologies.
Also, apologies to Simon whose grand description opened this very fascinating thread.I forgot to praise your worthwhile revelations. Sorry and Well Done.

Isn't it amazing how hard some Ripperologists are beavering away behind the arras?

I sincerely hope Trevor's appropriate application for access is assented to.

JOHN RUFFELS.

[Chris]

"The Low Back'd Car", as illustrated by William Magrath, is available at the Internet Archive:

http://www.archive.org/details/lowbackdcar00love

[Chris]

If he visited England again in the late 1880s he could have been the Irishman noticed by Special Branch at 57 Bedford Gardens.

Evidently William Magrath was visiting England and Ireland in late 1888, as indicated by the advertisement below, which appeared in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine for December 1889 (available at http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=F9HUAAAAMAAJ), under the title "J. B. Lippincott Company's Monthly Bulletin of New Publications":

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lynn,

Most of Ireland was a hotbed of anti-Balfour sentiment. They didn't call him "Bloody Balfour" for nothing.

Sorry, I know nothing about O'Brien and Doughty.

Regards,

Simon

[Johnr]

On The Lighter Side Of My Official .....

Coincidence. Ain't it peculiar?
Only the other day, I was glancing down the Forum Threads list of policemen connected with this case and recorded against Superintendent Melville's name: Nothing. Niente;Nix: Nuffink!

Now a further coincidence: For as many years as I have been Ripperologising, I have been throwing research discoveries in a bottom drawer against the day I write my magnus opus:" A History Of Foreign Espionage In Australia".

Part of that task involves a study of the state Special Branches.Their establishment; operations and personnel.

Because the Australian Special Branches were established at the encouragement of the Metropolitan Police heirarchy, I am vaguely familiar with names of the U.K. Metropolitan Police Special Branch's principals.

Because I knew William Melville had been a long-serving political policeman, I decided just today to search my bookshelves to see what information I could use to kick-start a Melville thread on Casebook forums!!

So, any beginners out there who want a lead-in to the labyrinthian by-ways of British police history, especially as they apply to Britain's security agencies, it is my suggestion you could do worse than start by reading Professor Christopher Andrew's The Defence Of The Realm: The Authorised History of MI5" ( Allen LanePenguin):London: 2009.

At page 6 it will tell you that Superintendent William Melville head of Special Branch from approx. 1893 to 1903, pretended to retire, with all the press stories praising his past works, then proceeded to secretly run a forerunner of MI5 for another six years from a private office at 25 Victoria Street, Westminster. Using the alias "W.Morgan, General Agent".

When I logged on to Casebook today and read all about The Ledgers and Clutterbuck, Melville and Trevor Marriott I was truly amazed.

Flabbergasted!

Let alone the headless chickens which can assume....

Grand work by Chris, and Phil and Trevor and Stewart.....everybody.

I shall certainly be getting the book.

Thanks to everyone involved in shining a torch on all these bureacratic shennanigins.

JOHN RUFFELS.

[lynn cates]

Balfour

Hello Simon. Funny you should mention Balfour. I found this a week ago in the "Guardian" for November 23, 1887. (I have lightly edited it.) Is it germane? Whatever became of O'Brien and Doughty? Was Limerick a hotbed of anti-Balfour sentiment?

"William O'Brien's life was dear to every Irishman, except the
coercionists but dear as his life was to the people of Ireland, it
ought to be dearer to Balfour. God help Balfour, soul and body, if
anything happened to William O'Brien. (Loud cheers.) Without
becoming irreverent, he would say that the curse of God would
speedily descend on Balfour's head, and the fate of Castlereagb,
who cut his own throat, would be nothing to the fate that would
occur to Balfour. They said the wish was father to the thought,
and he himself pleaded guilty to the wish if anything happened to
William O'Brien."
The city of Limerick was last week proclaimed under the
four sections of the Crimes Act which related to preliminary
inquiries, the summary jurisdiction Of resident magistrates,
special juries, and removal of trials. This step has been taken
with the view of dealing with speakers who incite the people to
break the law, rather than with other forms of crime, from
which the district is at present very free.
Mr. Davitt, who was last week at Limerick raising money for
a Celtic cross in memory of the " Manchester martyrs," insisted
that Mr. O'Brien, having made a heroic protest against being
treated as a common felon, should not risk his life by refusing
whatever might be necessary in the way of food and clothing.
He should, he said, rest satisfied with doing all a man of honour
and principle was called on to do, without sacrificing his life to
gratify Mr. Balfour's mean and cowardly desire for' vengeance.
At this meeting Mr. Davitt gave some account of the form of
Home Rule which he desired. "It was," he said—
" The Irish Nationalists, and not English parties, who should
formulate a Constitution which had to undo the evil effects of
English misgovernment in Ireland. The scheme of a single Chamber
with two orders and with separate voting power which was contained
in Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill was unsatisfactory and unworkable.
The retention of Irish members in an English Parliament
when Irish questions were not discussed there would be building up
materials for future obstruction with a vengeance. A dual order,
such as was proposed in Mr. Gladstone's Bill, would only ensure perpetual
obstruction and prolong the contest with the class of
ascendancy, and he sincerely hoped that this part of the Bill was as
dead as the system of land purchase which marked with failure its
twin measure of Home Rule. It would be impossible to safeguard
the rights of the minority without violating the rights of constitutional
government; but there was not a Catholic or Nationalist in
Ireland who would not, nevertheless, give the Protestants the fullest
representation their numbers entitled them to. In a legislature of
300 members by a system of scrutin de liste there would be seventy-five
members to represent them."
On Sunday Mr. Davitt spoke at a meeting, at Stepaside, a few
miles from Dublin. He professed to feel great confidence in
the progress of the movement for Home Rule ; but the effect of
the Crimes Act and the apathy of the farmers were evidently
troubling him. Referring to the doings of Messrs. Pyne, Cox,
and Gilhooly, he said he did not think a hide-and-seek policy
was very dignified. If some were inclined to give the police a
run for it through the country, the Irish people would not misinterpret
their meaning. He was, however, anxious that the
people of Great Britain, America, and Europe should learn that
the Nationalists, instead of running away from coercion, would
willingly meet any consequences that they might incur from
their love of liberty.
Mr. Pyne, who has taken refuge in the old tower of Lisfarny
Castle to prevent the execution of the warrant for his arrest,
was on Sunday visited by several National League contingents,
headed by bands. He was let down by a rope from a height of
80ft. to within about 15ft. of the ground, and listened to
addresses read to him. After expressing his determination to
offer the utmost resistance to the police he was hauled up again.
It is said that the Crown does not intend proceeding in the
case against the Lord Mayor for publishing reports of meetings
of suppressed branches of the League, which was remitted by
the superior court to the magistrates, as an entry on the record
of the police-court that the case was " dismissed," would raise
serious if not fatal obstacles to its further prosecution. Fresh
proceedings, however, will be instituted, not only against the
Nation, but against other papers that are offending in a similar
way.
Mr. Henry Doughty, who calls himself the London working
men's delegate to Ireland, was on Friday last sentenced to a
month's imprisonment for inciting people to adopt the Plan of
Campaign and to join the League in a proclaimed district.
Mr. Doughty on hearing the sentence rose, and, waving his hat
in the air, shouted " God save Ireland." The cry was taken up
by the people in court, a number of soldiers belonging to the
Leinster regiment being especially demonstrative. The magistrate
immediately sentenced a countryman who was arrested in
the act of observing for O'Brien to a week's imprisonment, and
the tumult subsided. Mr. Doughty was subsequently removed
to the gaol at Limerick, care being taken to prevent anything
like a disturbance on the way."

Thanks!

The best.
LC

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

"A third head of the CID, Sir Melville Macnaghten, appears to identify the Ripper with the leader of a plot to assassinate Mr Balfour at the Irish Office." Douglas G. Browne, The Rise of Scotland Yard (1956).

Arthur Balfour was Chief Secretary for Ireland from 7th March 1887 to 9th November 1891.

"Jack the Ripper" was in operation from 31st August to 9th November 1888.

Melville Macnaghten joined the Metropolitan Police in June 1889.

I found two contemporary published references to anticipated assassination attempts on Balfour.

Flesherton [Ontario] Advance, October 1887—

" . . . In the possession of Hawkins the police found a newspaper cutting announcing that Mr Balfour, the Irish Chief Secretary, was to address an open-air demonstration of Conservatives in Birmingham on November 2nd. It is believed a plot exists to attempt Mr Balfour's murder on that occasion. The Chief Secretary is, therefore, being closely guarded night and day."

Arthur James Balfour: The Man and His Work, by Bernard Alderson, 1903—

" . . . On the occasion of his [Balfour's] visit to Manchester, in December 1887, to address a great meeting of his constituents in the Free Trade Hall, the police arrangements were of a character without precedent in that city. Not only was a considerable force of men kept on duty near the door of the hall, but the approaches by several streets were protected by double lines of barriers for some hundreds of yards along the centre of the roadway. These precautions were not rendered necessary by the mere magnitude of the crowds, but were due to the authorities having received warning that an attempt might be made on the life of Mr Balfour during his stay in Manchester, and it was even deemed necessary not only to guard his progress through the streets, but that he should sleep in the civic residence at the Town Hall . . ."

But all this was a year before Jack was even a twinkle in his creator's eye.

Closer to home, on 17th May 1888, James Monro informed the Home Secretary, Sir Henry Matthews, that there was a plot to murder Arthur Balfour. And on 11th August 1888 Queen Victoria wrote in her journal, " . . . Lord Salisbury [the Prime Minister] . . . was sorry to say the Government had had notice from America of a plot to kill Mr. Balfour, which is terrible, and he has to be watched."

As it is unlikely that Millers Court had any connection with earlier murders of a similar nature, it is worth mentioning that on 9th November 1888 Arthur James Balfour was one of the leading dignitaries at the Guildhall banquet for the new Lord Mayor of London.

If this is the JtR connection, a planned assassination attempt on this day would have been quite a close call and, if true, makes you wonder how Macnaghten wrote his 1894 memorandum with a straight face.

Regards,

Simon

[Chris]

Never take anything on face value !!!!!!!!

I think we have radically different approaches to research, so it's probably fruitless to prolong the discussion.

For my part, I am going to take 57 Bedford Gardens to mean 57 Bedford Gardens, unless someone can show me a much stronger reason to think otherwise than the one you've suggested.

[Jonathan H]

To Caz

I had thought that the reference to Browne about Macnaghte associating the Ripper with a plot against Balfour to be possibly some obscure reference to Tumblety, or somebody connected with the Irish, until I saw the context of this quote, eg. the full page.

Browne is writing about a few sources which are publicly available, not classified ones, and he makes the peculiar remark about Macnaghten because, I think, he is misunderstanding his 1914 memoirs.

Just as Leanard Matters did Browne is taking the last lines of Mac's chapter, 'Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper' literally; that the fiend 'knocked out' a police commissioner and very 'nearly settled the hash' of a secretary of state. This actually refers to Warren and Matthews.

I think Browne has misread it, thought it referred to a real plot, knows that the only plot was against Balfour at the time of the Ripper murders, and thus put two and two together.

Further backing for my theory is that Browne never mentions that Macnaghten had written an internal 1894 Report which identified the Ripper with somebody else -- with three other minor suspects: Druitt, Kosminski and Ostrog, but that he had earlier theorized an Irish suspect, and so on.

Browne seems wholly ignorant about Macnaghten's preference for the Drowned Doctor, or drowned 'Said to be a doctor'. I don't think he ever saw the 1894 version of this Report.

Of course this error is partly because of Macnaghten's chicanery; he never mentions that the suspect was drowned or a doctor in his cagey memoirs -- or explains how they got onto him? He does mention that it was 'some years after' 1888 which further pulls Mac's opinion away from some figure who was plotting against Balfour, which of course in no way resembles what little is known about Montie Druitt.

[Trevor Marriott]

But even if it was still in existence in 1888, that Bedford Gardens had only 6 houses in it, and the Register gives the address as 57 Bedford Gardens.

Surely that has to be taken at face value unless there's a compelling reason to suspect an error.

Never take anything on face value !!!!!!!!

[Chris]

Because there was another Bedford Gardens which was probably in existence in 1888 and nearer to Whitechapel than Kensington. 7 miles to Kensington- 4 miles to Lambeth.

But even if it was still in existence in 1888, that Bedford Gardens had only 6 houses in it, and the Register gives the address as 57 Bedford Gardens.

Surely that has to be taken at face value unless there's a compelling reason to suspect an error.