Smith, P.C. William

[Chris]

The following information in the A-Z (pp. 479, 480) was new to me.

Someone has evidently traced some of Smith's descendants. It seems that on his retirement in 1910 he emigrated to Canada with his family. He died in 1951. A photograph of him (and his wife?) in old age is included. There are two interesting statements:
(1) "According to his family, he was very disillusioned and bitter over the way he was treated in the Ripper case."
(2) He "would not be drawn to talk about the case, but eventually opened up and his son formed the impression that there had been a royal connection and some kind of cover-up, which had left a bad taste in his father's mouth."

[Tom_Wescott]

Did this come from Bell and Clack? New to me as well.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Chris]

Did this come from Bell and Clack? New to me as well.

The only source indication is a reference to Gavin Bromley's article, "Smith's Beat," at the end of the entry, but I don't think it comes from there.

[Tom_Wescott]

I've read 'Smith's Beat' and would have remembered that PC Smith favored a royal conspiracy theory.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Chris]

To my mind it prompts two questions:
(1) In what way had Smith been treated in the Ripper case that caused him to become disillusioned and bitter?
(2) Considering he died in 1951 according to the A-Z, could he really have given his son the impression that there was a royal connection and a cover-up?

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

How would a lowly PC have learned anything about a royal cover-up unless, of course, he had an advance copy of Stephen Knight's book? The story sounds even more unlikely than Stride being a "Ripper" victim.

Regards,

Simon

[Tom_Wescott]

Whatever their source is for the information that he led his son to believe there was a royal connection and cover-up, I'd be curious to know if this is DOCUMENTED prior to the emergence of Joseph Gorman. If so, it might be worth some chin-scratching. If not, we have no choice but to write it off as band wagon jumping, ala Nigel Morland.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[packers stem]

This isn't the first time a serving bobbys family have mentioned this is it.There's the Freda Thompson's great grandfather one.
If things were happening which they felt was alien to their ways and hampering their investigations would not word have spread amongst them.
If they indeed suspected they were 'not in the loop' then if they had to come up with a good reason for a conspiracy then the royals would probably be the easiest scapegoat.
No smoke without fire and the ripper murders had more smoke than a coal fired power station.

[mariab]

Chris wrote:
1) In what way had Smith been treated in the Ripper case that caused him to become disillusioned and bitter?
Obviously he might have felt a bit pushed around/ passed over by Le Grand's and Batchelor's very decisive, active involvement as VC, particularly pertaining to their ordering the “witness“ Packer up and around for days.

Chris wrote:
(2) Considering he died in 1951 according to the A-Z, could he really have given his son the impression that there was a royal connection and a cover-up?
Something tells me that the son simply read the Stephen Knight book after his father's death, and experienced memory lapsus. It happens all the time. (My parents, for instance, have exaggerated/re-invented numerous occurrences from when I was a kid. Even recently I marvelled at a fully embellished/ semi-invented story, which had hardly anything in common with what really happened.)

[Rob Clack]

Did this come from Bell and Clack? New to me as well.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

It wasn't me or Neil. The photograph of P.C Smith in old age is credited to the 'Evans and Skinner Crime Archive' so maybe the information came from either Stewart Evans or Keith Skinner?

Rob

[packers stem]

Hi Maria
In all fairness this is what really winds me up about the case.
Can anyone really confuse what their father has told them before his death with something written in a book 25 years after his death unless a complete imbecile.

[Adam Went]

Well if was alive until 1951, he must have been quite old when he died, so do we know at what point he was supposed to have given this information to his son? Was he still sharp and alert in his old age or did the mind start to go? As has already been said, pretty unlikely that "just a PC" would have more knowledge on the case than any of the higher ranked police officials who came up with their various theories decades afterwards.

Shades of Joseph Gorman Sickert here, me thinks....

Cheers,
Adam.

[Supe]

Just to back-track a bit. I edited Gavin's article and there was nothing in the article or anything in our discussion about it to indicate he had any knowledge of this anecdote. If the A to Z referenced it I would think it was only because of its detailed discussion of Smith and his beat.

As for Packers Stem comment, this sort of "memory quirk" happens all too often. Maybe the son remembered rightly in this case, but "memory embellishments," shall I say, often occur.

Don.

[mariab]

Adam Went:
Shades of Joseph Gorman Sickert here, me thinks....
Totally, that's what I was thinking too.
To Supe and Packer's stem (love the moniker, by the way):
I see people retelling stories in the most ridiculously unreliable fashion all the time. Just a few days ago on a phone call with my mom she was reminiscing about when she once called the cops (which she did) about a vendor allegedly selling “angel dust“ outside of my school, and then she went on insisting that “my entire class“ was getting rid of their “stuck“ in the school's toilets. Which most definitely didn't happen, as I was there. My mom probably watched the movie Class or whatever after-school special on TV, and 20 years later she comes up with this “testimony“. I'd even go and wager that between parents and offspring the miscommunications are much more pronounced than between mere strangers!

[Chris]

To be fair, it does say that his son "formed the impression," and not that he had explicitly told his son that. I suppose if he had said he was unhappy about the investigation, and his son later read about royal conspiracies and cover-ups, there might have been an element of putting two and two together.

Incidentally, I made some notes from Smith's pension record a few years ago (in MEPO 21/39). He resigned on 25 April 1910, aged 47, having served 27 years, 37 days. Height 5 foot 9 and a half; hair dark turning grey; eyes blue; complexion fresh; born at Milton, Oxford, 14th September 1862; joined at Great Scotland Yard, 19th March 1883. On appointment joined P Division; transferred to C 30.7.83, to A 29.3.86, and to H 25.6.86. Married; next of kin wife Alice; intends to reside 78 Dunsloe Avenue, Phillip Lane, Tottenham, which is his present address.

In the 1901 census he was at 18 Denmark Street, St George's in the East, a Metropolitan Police Constable, with his wife Alice (31) and children William (6) and Alice (8), all born Stepney.

In fact he must have emigrated at least a year after resigning from the force, as the family seems to have been still in Tottenham at the date of the 1911 census - wife Alice Maud (42) and children Alice Maud (18), William George Henry (16), Jessie Mary Eliza (9) and Albert Edward (0).