The Secret Special Branch Ledgers

[Phil Carter]

Hello Simon, Debs,

Very nice finds, between you.Well done

best wishes

Phil

[Simon Wood]

Hi Debra,

It's a pound to a penny that this Hibernian Club, situated in Thomas Street, Whitechapel, would also have aroused the interests of the security services.

The Times, 17th August 1885–



Regards,

Simon

[Phil Carter]

Hello Debs,

Interpration is indeed a wierd thing.. lol.

One thing I did think about in all of this, is that 30,000 entries is an awfullly large amount. If (speculatively) only 1% pertain to the Whitechapel murders, that is 300 entries. How many of those are of real value, is again speculative. However, 300 entries would keep researchers working hard. It may well open up the genre completely.
I believe SPE referred to this "opening up" in one of his books in reference to Special Branch Files (Scotland Yard Investigates).

best wishes

Phil

[Debra A]

Hello Debs,

I was referring to a few things.. the limited number of Special Branch men in 1888, and the following written by Clutterbuck as Simon posted in his first posting..

Hi Phil,
I think I must be interpreting things differently to you, although some of the entries obviously do contain the name of someone connected to SB it's mainly in reference to them either forwarding a file on a certain person or subject, or receiving one. That's just my impression from the limited material we have at present though.

Hi Simon,
I haven't really looked into the 'West End Hibernian Club', I just came across one reference in 1887 in a quick search to see if there was a club of that specific name.

[Trevor Marriott]

Hello Simon,

Indeed there isn't.. and perhaps I am "reading" this wrong.

best wishes

Phil

I think you will find that the last number shown on the right is probably the box number to which the file was subsequently stored in.

Trevor

[Phil Carter]

Hello Simon,

Indeed there isn't.. and perhaps I am "reading" this wrong.

best wishes

Phil

[Simon Wood]

Hi Phil,

I may be wrong, but I can't see any provision across the four columns for the inclusion of a police officer's name.

Hi Debra,

Thanks for the Soho "West London Hibernian Club". It's a new one on me. Any clues as to the club's activities or affiliations?

Regards,

Simon

[Phil Carter]

Hello Debs,

I was referring to a few things.. the limited number of Special Branch men in 1888, and the following written by Clutterbuck as Simon posted in his first posting..

"The last book to be discovered is a bound ledger. It is a massive tome, measuring 27cms by 38cms by 6cms and weighing 4 kilograms. The front cover is embossed with the words "Crime Department Special Branch" and the first page bears a stamp "Criminal Investigation Dept. - Chief Constables Office - SPECIAL", with the hand written date of "20.4.88" inserted into its centre.

"It appears to serve several functions and each page is divided into four columns, each headed respectively: -

"Name (briefly) Subject Reference to Correspondence Folio in Correspondence Register

"At the rear of the book, two pages detail anonymous letters sent to the Branch. A further six pages contain references to extracts from the press, ranging from the radical to the establishment, both from within Great Britain and abroad. However, it is the remainder of the book that contains the most significant research material.

"It is organised into alphabetical cuts, with each letter further divided into sub-cuts headed A, E, I, O, U. At thirty five lines a page there is a minimum of one thousand entries per letter of the alphabet, plus "Mc" and the use of the spare capacity at the back for overflow. Very few pages are not filled completely, giving a total of up to thirty thousand, one line entries.

"A number in the "Reference to Correspondence" column, always in the format of a fraction [e.g. 3622/2], accompanies each one line entry. Another number, usually between one and four hundred e.g . 294 appears in the "Folio in Correspondence Register" column.

"Overall, the ledger appears designed to operate on three levels:-

"i) As a register of correspondence sent to Special Branch by the rest of the Metropolitan Police, other Police Forces, the Home Office, other government departments and members of the
public.

"ii) As an index to the reports submitted by its own officers.

"iii) As a nominal and subject index of people and topics mentioned at i) and ii) above.

"Specific dates are rarely given but by taking an archaeological approach to what entries lie before or after a dated entry, a rough estimate of the possible date of the others can sometimes be inferred."

(my emphasis)


If I am interpreting this correctly, this indicates that the officers themselves are named in this ledger. Also what person reported what to whom, or where.

best wishes

Phil

[mariab]

Debra, I think that Phil Carter meant that the exact same police officers were involved in the Fenian cases, the socialist cases, and the Whitechapel murders at the same time, and that information on all of this might have ended up in a “mixup“ in the SB ledgers.
Thanks to your tip I'm looking forward to reading more Ripper Notes online – at a later point, after taking care of some urgent work-related stuff which comes first.

[Debra A]

You're welcome, Maria. I hadn't realised just how many issues of Ripper Notes are available through google books, and in full text too.

Simon, there was a also a 'West london Hibernian Club' at
Richmond Building, Dean Street, Soho in 1887.

I totally agree with the spelling issues Phil. No one can be ruled in or out on account of the spelling of the name in the ledgers. I don't understand your comment about the limited number of police officers being involved in the investigations though, sorry. These are just index entries, how do we know who investigated what and when?

[mariab]

Thank you so much for posting the link for Ripper Notes #24 online, Debra! I had no idea that these were available to read online, I only have Ripper Notes #25-#27 available at home, and it will absolutely save me some considerable time and money (which both are an issue with me right now) reading the rest online!
I'll most definitely re-read Wolf Vanderlinden's On the trail of Tumblety? Inspector Andrews' Trip to Toronto Part 2 before Examiner 4 comes out next weekend, as it looks like R.J. Palmer's research on Walter Andrews and Tumblety has corrected some of the information we used to have. I assume that the concluding Part 3 of R.J. Palmer's article is about to appear in Examiner 4?

[Phil Carter]

Hello Debs, Maria, Simon. Lynn, all,

Thanks for the input. Very nice work. There does not seem to be much doubt about the involvement of the SB and the Nationalist Irish of the day. Clearly, there was a heavy undercover operation going on simultanious with the operation looking into socialists and of course, the Whitechapel murders. The point is that a limited number of police officers were engaged and no doubt involved in all three cases at the same time.
Also, it is to be noted, that spelling errors, such as those pointed out in the above threads by Simon and Debs, and interpretations of names listed in the ledgers will have to be carefully checked and re-checked should we ever have the possibility of seeing the complete list of entries amounting to a quantity of some 30,000 or so. Correct identification of said people may be of great import to the overall understanding of who did what and where, I'd wager.

best wishes

Phil

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

On the same ledger page as Dr. Tanner and J.T. Kerby is an entry regarding the "West London Hibernian Club"

It may be connected with the following–

In March 1887 charges of malversation [misconduct in public office] were levelled at the Corporation of London. It was charged that in 1884 a Special Committee had spent large sums of money for the purpose of preventing a Bill passing in parliament. It set up a bogus political movement and held bogus conferences and meetings hosted by hired lecturers and attended by hired audiences for the purpose of manufacturing fictitious public opinion.

In defending itself the Corporation of London gave details of its expenditure. Attached is an example, from Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, Second Volume of Session, 1887.



Although Lisson Grove is today NW1, in 1902 Charles Booth referred to it as being part of West London.

Regards,

Simon

[Debra A]

On the same page as the entry highlighted by Phil are another two other identifiable entries, both relating to the same man.

J.T. Kerby, alleged to be a Scotland yard detective
J.T. Kerby, alleged alias of a Scotland yard detective

In 1889 J.T. Kirby, a Canadian Private Detective living in Montreal, was hired by the Times to gather evidence in the US against Parnell.

There are several newspaper reports of the story and claims in the press that Kirby was a Scotland Yard detective. A good summary of the story, included in the article 'On the trail of Tumblety? Inspector Andrews' Trip to Toronto Part 2' by Wolf Vanderlinden, appeared in Ripper Notes: Death in London's East End, page 40. A preview is available online here

[lynn cates]

well done

Hello Phil and Simon. Good work, as always.

Cheers.
LC