Swanson's notes on Stride's murder

[Hunter]

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I don't understand what you are asking. Perhaps it's your sentence structure?

[The Station Cat]

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I don't understand what you are asking. Perhaps it's your sentence structure?

Hunter, you're quite correct my previous thread was complete gibberish, please ignore it.

What I was trying to say was................

What is interesting about all Swamson's notes in the margins of the various books he wrote in and may have been overlooked?

Does suggest to me anyway that, the theory that the police knew who the ripper was and hushed it up for whatever reason, would appear to have no credence otherwise why would Swanson make such notes in the first place, if you see what I mean?

Does that make better sense now?

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Why has everybody blithely ignored Post #67?

Happy Christmas,

Simon

[Pcdunn]

Hi folks,

One little minor thing. The marginal notes in Chief Inspector Swanson's Oct. 19 report were not written by Swanson. It is understood that they were written by Permanent Under Secretary Godfrey Lushington.

Where did you find out that Lushington wrote it? Was it much later than contemporary to the report's origin? (I think it would likely be near to the time of the original investigation.)

As to why posters here ignored it, I don't know-- maybe because Swanson's name is better known than Lushington's?

[The Station Cat]

Lushington or Swanson, the fact remains if the police (and thus the powers that be) knew who Jack was then there would be no need to write anything in the margins of anyone's book(s)?


Unless of course it was a cunning plan, to take future Ripperologists off the scent..........................

[Abby Normal]

Lushington or Swanson, the fact remains if the police (and thus the powers that be) knew who Jack was then there would be no need to write anything in the margins of anyone's book(s)?


Unless of course it was a cunning plan, to take future Ripperologists off the scent..........................

Exactly. The police didn’t know who Jack the Ripper was as exemplified by the fact that when they did much later give there theories on who it was they all had different suspects and that also as late 1896 they still didn’t know per the winters coming letter.

[Hunter]

Where did you find out that Lushington wrote it? Was it much later than contemporary to the report's origin? (I think it would likely be near to the time of the original investigation.)

Hi Pat,
In a nutshell, both Phillip Sugden, in his book "The Complete JTR", and Stewart Evans here on these boards have surmised that Lushington wrote the marginalia in Swanson's Oct.19 report. It's not 100% certain (which is why I wrote "it is understood") because Lushington did not sign or initial the marginalia, but it is a reasonable deduction based upon research and examination.

For one thing, the handwriting is almost certainly not Swanson's based on style. And it would be redundant and sloppy for Swanson to make annotations in his own official report when he could just write another one. It would also be confusing. Part of the text reads "I understand the inspector..." which of course means Swanson. So why would he write in the 3rd person on his own document?

Another thing is how Sugden reached the conclusion that Lushington wrote this marginalia. It is found in his footnotes which refers to a cover sheet submitted by Warren on Oct. 24 to the Home Office along with Swanson's report. It was received by the HO on the 25th and initialed by both Lushington and Matthews. It would stand to reason that in his capacity as Permanent Undersecretary of State he would peruse the document, add statements or questions in the margins for his boss to consider and then pass it on to Matthews who apparently did just that.

Lastly, there is a following document on the same subject (Lipski/Jewish subject) that is in Lushington's hand and initialed by him. I'm fairly certain that Stewart probably examined this as well when he and Skinner transcribed these papers for their book "The Ultimate JTR."

For further interest, here is a link to a relevant thread:

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=1670

Hope this helps and I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

[Hunter]

What I was trying to say was................

What is interesting about all Swamson's notes in the margins of the various books he wrote in and may have been overlooked?

Does suggest to me anyway that, the theory that the police knew who the ripper was and hushed it up for whatever reason, would appear to have no credence otherwise why would Swanson make such notes in the first place, if you see what I mean?

Does that make better sense now?

Hi Station Cat,

I think so... Let me answer with an explanation and -- if I may be indulged -- an unqualified opinion.

Swanson wrote in the margins of his books to either clarify or elucidate something written in the text -- usually concerning events or people he was directly involved with. There is a pattern there and I have little doubt that he was directly involved in this identification attempt and was probably in charge of it, given the fact that he remained in charge of the Whitechapel Murders investigation all the way through, and was the Met officer coordinating with the City CID during the height of the murders. Apparently this was a joint effort by both.

I also believe he is the officer who reported the results of that arrangement to his immediate superior, Robert Anderson, but as one who would "never tell tales out of school" kept this ID and his opinions on it out of the public vein. Of course, Anderson didn't. When his book came out, Swanson recalled this episode and extensively fleshed it out in his marginalia as he did other incidents in other books. He was probably impressed that his old "master" placed enough significance on this event that it may have nabbed the infamous Jack the Ripper. Somehow, in these later years Swanson felt vindicated for what had to be the most difficult and extensive case of his life. That other policemen (especially City CID) didn't publicly mention this ID attempt could be that, like Swanson, they chose not to publicly mention it, that it was a closed operation with limited officials involved, and/or at least they considered it of less significance than Anderson or Swanson did.

[Pcdunn]

Hunter, thank you for your response to my previous post and for answering my question. Very helpful and illuminating.