Littlechild - Whitechapel Murders Find

[mklhawley]

Greetings all,

I discovered the following article in The Sun, November 1, 1888, page 4. Besides the Littlechild Letter of 1913, is this the only other connection between Chief Inspector Littlechild from Special Irish Branch and the Whitechapel murder investigation? Has anyone seen this before?




Sincerely,

Mike

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Mike

This is new to me. I would agree that there doesn't seem to be anything else to show any involvement of Littlechild in the investigation of the Whitechapel murders, and this short article makes clear he was not involved in the investigation. Thanks for making us aware of it, Mike.

Chris

[Jonathan H]

Dear Mike

Great find! Just after I had posted that other significant sources will turn up, or rather be found through diligent and tedious ploughing.

Of course what it actually shows is Littlechild's involvement in the Whitechapel investigation -- no surprise considering his authoritative letter to Sims in 1913.

[Phil Carter]

Hi Mike

This is new to me. I would agree that there doesn't seem to be anything else to show any involvement of Littlechild in the investigation of the Whitechapel murders, and this short article makes clear he was not involved in the investigation. Thanks for making us aware of it, Mike.

Chris

Hello Chris,

I don't think that one snippet of an article from one newspaper can seal the fate of Littlechild vis a vis the Whitechapel investigation.. for as we know Special Branch were involved, as entries in the SB ledgers seem to clearly indicate.

Thanks Mike, nice find :-)

best wishes

Phil

[ChrisGeorge]

hawk·shaw (hôk′s̸hô′)

noun

☆ Informal a detective
Origin: after a character in The Ticket of Leave Man, a play by Tom Taylor (1817-80), Eng dramatis.

http://www.yourdictionary.com/hawkshaw

[mklhawley]

Thanks,

Interestingly, it states the the fame of Littlechild has been tarnished by ridicule due to the Whitechapel murders, which means there must have been earlier dialogue -publically or privately- about Littlechild's involvement with the Whitechapel murder investigation.

Mike

[ChrisGeorge]

Thanks,

Interestingly, it states the the fame of Littlechild has been tarnished by ridicule due to the Whitechapel murders, which means there must have been earlier dialogue -publically or privately- about Littlechild's involvement with the Whitechapel murder investigation.

Mike

Hi Mike

That would appear to be a fair deduction. It will be interesting to see if we could find anything further in terms of criticism of Littlechild around this date. Good work, Mike.

Chris

[lynn cates]

confession

Hello Mike. This is quite interesting. I am reading Campbell's book--"Fenian Fire"--for the 3rd time. He notes that the bomber, Thomas Callan, made a full confession to Littlechild. But, oddly, the confession is missing from the file and a cover letter notes that Sir Robert Anderson took charge of it.

Do you, or does anyone, know if that statement was found amongst SRA's private correspondence? It would be interesting to read since Callan almost certainly would have mentioned Frank Millen and his involvement in the dynamite plot.

Cheers.
LC

[Monty]

The following is an extract of an Email issued by Phil Carter on behalf of Trevor Marriott in relation to the Special Branch files.

"The specific entries referred to were as follows...-

Under a specific entry titled “Jack the Ripper” the entry reads “The name given to Wilson at Bushmills

Under a second entry relating to a file submitted by “Chief Inspector Littlechild” the entry reads “Suspect O`Brien & the Whitechapel Murders”

In addition I obtained from a confidential source details of another entry which is purported to be in the register this entry reads “R Churchill- Perpetrator of the Whitechapel Murders”

O'Brien.

Monty

[mklhawley]

Hi Lynn,

I do not, and I agree that this information would be very interesting.

Hi Monty,

I would be very interested in knowing the date of entries. This would be quite significant.

Mike

[Monty]

Indeed Mike,

I'm surprised Trevor and Phil didn't pick up on the entry as they posted it.

I do hope they aren't holding anything back....that would be poor form considering their accusations.

Monty

[Simon Wood]

Hi Mike,

During the LVP Scotland Yard had something of a reputation for cooking up non-existent dynamite outrages which they could cleverly foil at the eleventh hour. A prime example is the Jubilee Plot.

The last paragraph of The Sun article neatly sums up the situation.

Regards,

Simon

[PaulB]

Which specific cases did they have in mind in November 1888?

[ChrisGeorge]

The following is an extract of an Email issued by Phil Carter on behalf of Trevor Marriott in relation to the Special Branch files.

"The specific entries referred to were as follows...-

Under a specific entry titled “Jack the Ripper” the entry reads “The name given to Wilson at Bushmills

Under a second entry relating to a file submitted by “Chief Inspector Littlechild” the entry reads “Suspect O`Brien & the Whitechapel Murders”

In addition I obtained from a confidential source details of another entry which is purported to be in the register this entry reads “R Churchill- Perpetrator of the Whitechapel Murders”

O'Brien.

Monty

Hi Monty

Although we may never know for sure I have the hunch that the involvement of Special Branch in the Whitechapel murders was only tangential, that Special Branch men heard of leads to the murderer through their work in combatting and monitoring the Fenians. This could have been how Littlechild knew about Tumblety as being a suspicious character. Considering that the Whitechapel murders generated thousands of leads about who the Whitechapel murderer could have been, it would be surprising if there wasn't something about the murders in the Special Branch files. Although any speculation about what that information was is probably useless since as Trevor Marriott remarked in his talk at the recent Whitechapel Society conference, the actual files with the information have seemingly been destroyed. What is left is a ledger that only summarizes the information and gives tantalizing leads that go nowhere.

Best regards

Chris

[mklhawley]

Hi Mike,

During the LVP Scotland Yard had something of a reputation for cooking up non-existent dynamite outrages which they could cleverly foil at the eleventh hour. A prime example is the Jubilee Plot.

The last paragraph of The Sun article neatly sums up the situation.

Regards,

Simon

...and Anderson was involved.