Macnaughten Memorandum

[Chris]

I would hope that there will be some real replies to this aspect of Jonathan's fine article.

It does seem strange that there seems to be so little interest in this radical proposal regarding one of the seminal Ripper documents.

[Cap'n Jack]

Personally I think you are all splitting straws with an axe here.
The Macnaghten Memo is so factually flawed in the original that is doesn't really matter if a later draft has additional flaws.
It was fatally flawed at the start, so it doesn't really matter how it ended.

[Chris]

I have not read the Ripperologist article. However given the detail and similarity of the Abberconway version I would think it most unlikely who ever wrote it was working from memory.

Was Not the original taken to India? Wouldn’t the most likely explanation be that the Abberconway is a copy of this version?

I think it's common ground that the surviving Aberconway version is a copy of the original, made after Macnaghten's death, but the question is when that original was written.

Jonathan Hainsworth does suggest the Aberconway version could have been written "perhaps entirely from memory", but I agree that its wording is far too close to that of the official version for that to be the case (unless they were written only days apart). But I think the main thrust of the argument is that various details in the Aberconway version that don't appear at all in the official draft were written several years later from memory, and are therefore unreliable.

One obvious question is whether there is a date on the Aberconway version. Hainsworth says "Whether Macnaghten backdated the adaptation is unclear, but this seems likely as both Tom Cullen and Daniel Farson, reporters who used the document in their Druitt-centric books, date the document to 1894 ..." It doesn't sound as though he has seen the article in the A-Z. From what's said there (p. 272), the Aberconway version isn't dated, but is headed "Memorandum on articles which appeared in the Sun re JACK THE RIPPER ON 14 Feb 1894 and subsequent dates".

I think that in itself casts some doubt on whether it could have been written later, as the official version has (correctly) "13th ... & following dates". It's easy enough to understand how a mistake over the dates of the articles could have been made in a draft, and then corrected, but not so easy to see why Macnaghten, writing years later with the official version in front of him, should have substituted the wrong date for the right one.

[Jeff Leahy]

I have not read the Ripperologist article. However given the detail and similarity of the Abberconway version I would think it most unlikely who ever wrote it was working from memory.

Was Not the original taken to India? Wouldn’t the most likely explanation be that the Abberconway is a copy of this version?

If I’m teaching gran to suck eggs then I apologize in advance.

Pirate

[Chris]

I'd say you just took a plastic teat out of your mouth and are looking for something wholesome to suck.

Thanks for that observation.

But maybe I should have added something along the lines of "If you don't have anything relevant to say, there's no need to say anything".

[Supe]

Chris,

Despite what those not yet weaned themselves may say, it was an interesting article and you posed an impoirtant question. I would hope that there will be some real replies to this aspect of Jonathan's fine article.

Don.

[Cap'n Jack]

I'd say you just took a plastic teat out of your mouth and are looking for something wholesome to suck.

[Chris]

What do people think of Jonathan Hainsworth's suggestion, in the current issue of Ripperologist, that the Aberconway version of the Macnaghten memoranda was written some years after the official version, and that some of the inaccuracies of the former can be explained by the possibility that the details were written from memory some years after Macnaghten had originally been given the information?

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Could someone please tell me when the Macnaghten Memorandum [as seen in PDF format on Casebook] first surfaced; also the present whereabouts of the original?

Many thanks.

Regards.

Simon

[aspallek]

Hi Andy,

Do you know what Farquharson was basing his comments on?

c.d.

Not with certainty but he lived a mere 10 miles from Wimborne and would certainly have known the Druitt family well. What's more he was a fellow Etonian to Melville Macnaghten and John Henry Lonsdale, not in the same class but overlapping. Farquharson was the same age as Druitt and would certainly have traveled in the same company and social settings.

[c.d.]

Hi Andy,

Do you know what Farquharson was basing his comments on?

c.d.

[aspallek]

Well in February 1894 we have Macnaghten stating, in an official report, that Ostrog was a homicidal maniac and a possibility (without proof) for the Whitechapel murders yet here he is in the same year being released from prison and paid compensation. There's no mention of this in the HO report so, presumably, the Home Office weren't aware that the police had him down as homicidal and a Ripper possibility, ergo they never had sight of the memorandum. The other possibility is that the police cleared him of suspicion after February 1894 but before the prison release reports (there is an earlier one also).

Thank-you, Stewart. That makes perfect sense. I have never seen the Macnaghten memorandum as a report to the HO and I don't believe it is. Your apt comment tends to lend confirmation to my thinking.

Hi All,

The Macnaghten memorandum makes less sense to me each time I read it.

In 1891 Macnaghten knew of Ostrog's detention at Banstead Asylum. If there had been a breath of police suspicion at the time that he was the "Ripper", an investigation would have soon cleared him, determining that he was in a French prison throughout the WM—a fact which didn't come to light until after Ostrog had been wrongfully imprisoned on charges of false pretences in April 1894.

This suggests that in 1891 the police held no suspicion against Ostrog being the "Ripper" and no investigation into his whereabouts took place.

So if the police didn't consider Ostrog a potential "Ripper" in 1891 why did Macnaghten have reason to do so in 1894?

Regards,

Simon

Simon, I don't beleive Macnaghten did consider either Ostrog or Kosminski as terribly good suspects. Already in 1891 Druitt's own MP, Henry Richard Farqhuarson, was blabbing in thinly-veiled terms about Druitt being the Ripper. Macnaghten would have been aware of this as we know that the police were contacted regarding Farquharson's claim. Furthermore, there is literary evidence that Macnaghten was drawing at least in part on Farquharson as a source re: Druitt.

Now the question is what was going on in Macnghten's mind between 1891 and 1894 concerning Druitt and why had he said nothing about him?

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

The Macnaghten memorandum makes less sense to me each time I read it.

In 1891 Macnaghten knew of Ostrog's detention at Banstead Asylum. If there had been a breath of police suspicion at the time that he was the "Ripper", an investigation would have soon cleared him, determining that he was in a French prison throughout the WM—a fact which didn't come to light until after Ostrog had been wrongfully imprisoned on charges of false pretences in April 1894.

This suggests that in 1891 the police held no suspicion against Ostrog being the "Ripper" and no investigation into his whereabouts took place.

So if the police didn't consider Ostrog a potential "Ripper" in 1891 why did Macnaghten have reason to do so in 1894?

Regards,

Simon

[Stewart P Evans]

Ostrog

Hell Stewart,
That is a very interesting document. I am wondering what implications you find in it for the Macnaghten memorandum?

Well in February 1894 we have Macnaghten stating, in an official report, that Ostrog was a homicidal maniac and a possibility (without proof) for the Whitechapel murders yet here he is in the same year being released from prison and paid compensation. There's no mention of this in the HO report so, presumably, the Home Office weren't aware that the police had him down as homicidal and a Ripper possibility, ergo they never had sight of the memorandum. The other possibility is that the police cleared him of suspicion after February 1894 but before the prison release reports (there is an earlier one also).

[aspallek]

Hell Stewart,

That is a very interesting document. I am wondering what implications you find in it for the Macnaghten memorandum?