Walsh, Inspector John

[Chris]

The memoirs of Inspector John Walsh were serialised in Thomson's Weekly News between 11 May and 28 September 1907, following his retirement. Walsh had been born around 1858 in Mallow, county Cork (1901 census). He joined the Metropolitan Police Force in 1878 and was transferred to Scotland Yard in 1883. After he retired, he established an "international bureau for investigation" (as he described it) at John Street, Adelphi. Apparently he died in 1917.

On 15 April 1907 the Times published this short article on his career:


I have made a zip file (38MB) containing Walsh's memoirs from TWN, together with a few other newspaper articles published after his retirement. If anyone would like a copy, they should send me a private message. The contents of the serialised memoirs are listed below; six instalments deal with anarchists, and one with Irish nationalists.

11 May 1907
[Introductory article]

18 May 1907
The Arrest of Francois, the Anarchist.

15 May 1907
Desperate Struggle with Anarchist.

1 June 1907
The True Story of the Greenwich Park Bomb.

8 June 1907
HOW WE RAIDED A FAMOUS ANARCHIST CLUB.

15 June 1907
HOW I ARRESTED PACCINI, THE NOTED ANARCHIST.

22 June 1907
HOW ANARCHIST PLOTS WERE DISCOVERED.

29 June 1907
ADVENTURES IN THE SEVEN DIALS.

6 July 1907
A TERRIBLE TRAGEDY OF THE ROOKERIES.

13 July 1907
AN EXCITING CHASE AFTER NOTORIOUS GANG.

20 July 1907
DODGES OF THE "RACING MOB."

27 July 1907
THE EXPLOITS OF RACECOURSE THIEVES.

3 August 1907
RAIDING A COINERS' DEN.

10 August 1907
BANK ROBBERS' DARING COUP.

17 August 1907
WORLD'S MOST SCIENTIFIC BURGLAR.

24 August 1907
HOW RICH MEN ARE FLEECED.

31 August 1907
HOW THE "CATCH-'EM-ALIVE" GANG WAS BROKEN UP.

7 September 1907
HOW I ARRESTED TYNAN, THE INVINCIBLE.

14 September 1907
EXCITING STORIES OF BANK ROBBERIES.

21 September 1907
A SENSATIONAL PICTURE ROBBERY.

28 September 1907
THE MASTER CRIMINAL.

[Chris]

Below are a likeness of John Walsh from the introductory article in Thomson's Weekly News and the photograph on which it was apparently based (from the Ohio Plain Dealer of 30 June 1907).

[lynn cates]

Autonomie

Hello Chris. Lovely work.

Wasn't Walsh the chap who helped Melville in his raid on the Autonomie Club? If I recall properly, he was able to obtain the password and arrest the man in charge and take his place. Then all the other anarchist blokes wandered into the trap and meekly submitted.

Cheers.
LC

[Chris]

As far as I can see there is only one reference in John Walsh's memoirs to the Whitechapel Murders, and that is a very tangential one. In the opening episode he recounts the arrest of the French anarchist Jean Pierre Francois in a small market in Poplar in 1893 (actually 1892) and the intervention of some hostile stall-holders:



Interestingly, the same incident had been recalled in Patrick McIntyre's memoirs, published in Reynolds Newspaper in 1895, though without any mention of the Ripper ruse. According to Walsh's version in Thomson's Weekly News, when they were planning the arrest of Francois in a local pub, one of his colleagues (named in American articles as McIntyre) succumbed to a fit of cowardice, saying "Look here ... Let's have one more together; we may never meet again." (By the time Walsh's accounts were published, McIntyre had been dead for nearly five years.)

[Chris]

Wasn't Walsh the chap who helped Melville in his raid on the Autonomie Club? If I recall properly, he was able to obtain the password and arrest the man in charge and take his place. Then all the other anarchist blokes wandered into the trap and meekly submitted.

Yes - this is the "FAMOUS ANARCHIST CLUB" in the fourth instalment.

[lynn cates]

McIntyre

Hello Chris. Thanks.

Say, is that McIntyre the SB chap who was demoted (sacked?) and subsequently took it out on SB? I think he had some nasty things to say about Melville and which Bernard Porter cautions must be taken cum grano salis.

Are his memoirs available online perchance?

(Oh dear, where the devil did that horrid smilie come from? Must have clicked the wrong button. Ghastly thing!!)

Cheers.
LC

[Chris]

Say, is that McIntyre the SB chap who was demoted (sacked?) and subsequently took it out on SB? I think he had some nasty things to say about Melville and which Bernard Porter cautions must be taken cum grano salis.

Are his memoirs available online perchance?

Yes, it is the same McIntyre. Anderson in particularly seems to have been his bete noire. I did make a zip file of his memoirs last year; I'll PM you the URL for it.

http://forum.casebook.org/showpost.php?p=140915&postcount=5

[lynn cates]

moustache

Hello Chris. Thanks for this.

Bernard Porter has a lovely photo of McIntyre with a quasi-Tumblety moustache.

Cheers.
LC