Police File: CID 52983

[seanr]

Hi All,

What is really interesting about this entry is the file number 52983, which also appears on Abberline's report into the Kelly murder and Sergeant White's report into the Stride murder.

Regards,

Simon

Simon's comment in the Littlechild thread points out the use of 52983 on a number of documents which we have. The evidence seems to suggest there existed a CID file of correspondence related to the Whitechapel Murders, and from some of the entries we know about from the Special Branch ledgers, the file appears to have contained references to contemporary suspects not previously widely known or discussed.

Simon has previously posted about this file in 2017, https://forum.casebook.org/forum/rip...984#post593984 (I'm glad it wasn't actually your last post). This included a mention (from the Special Branch Ledgers?) which has a blacked out name referring to 'supposed connected with the murders said he intended to go to Ireland 26/12/1888 attending meeting of the I.N.L' with the correspondence 52983. The I.N.L referred to would likely be the Irish National League. Is this more on the supposed Fenian connection?
Another entry from the post mentions an 'alleged suspicious person (surgeon)'. The other looks like it's the beginning of Abberline's 15 page report into the investigation from the 19th of September.

'The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook' has a number of mentions of 52983 as 'Reference to papers' reprinted from official documents. I don't think we have file CID 52983 and it may no longer exist? How much can we reconstruct about the file's contents from the sources we do have? How much do we know about CID 52983?

[seanr]

Well it's very easy and straightforward. 52893 was a standard Metropolitan Police file/correspondence reference (created in early September 1888) for the series of Whitechapel Murders, as shown in the police report in the third image above, and the top two images are cross-references to that file in the margin of a Special Branch register. All very dull really.

The file was dismissed as 'very dull really' when it was mentioned before, which may be true. But there's the Abberline / Goschen letter. This version taken from 'The Conan Doyle Notes - The Secret of Jack the Ripper' which is a work of fiction, but the letter is referenced elsewhere and I'm led to believe it was published as a facisimile in the foreword to Melvyn Fairclough's 'The Ripper and the Royals' in the 1992 Duckworth paperback edition (I don't have this book to check):

With respect reference to your last instruction my interview with J. K. Stephen, Lord Randolph Spencer Churchill Sir W Gull were confirmed. I am sending this report for your personal Attention. No further investigation will be made. I leave this in your hand. I have done our duty. Rest of my report will be sent on. I shall now heed to my burns.

Yours Respectfully

Det. F. G. Abberline

The letter is dismissed elsewhere as a forgery. It might well be, but as described the letter includes the reference 52983, the 'very dull' detail. So, either the forger had the insight to include this detail or lucked out with the inclusion of this particular detail (perhaps copied from one of the existing references). But perhaps the letter is not a forgery? - does an original exist?