There's Something Wrong with the Swanson Marginalia

[Trevor Marriott]

Trevor, please take it from me that I have never found Chris anything but honest, objective and lacking in ulterior motives. It is safe to accept anything he says as correct to the best of his knowledge and belief. His aim, like mine, is merely to get at the truth - whatever that may be.

I have clarified that point with him.

If we ever do get to the truth will some be able to handle the truth ?

[Trevor Marriott]

Trevor, please take it from me that I have never found Chris anything but honest, objective and lacking in ulterior motives. It is safe to accept anything he says as correct to the best of his knowledge and belief. His aim, like mine, is merely to get at the truth - whatever that may be.

I have clarified that point with him.

If we ever do get to the truth will some there are those that wont be able to handle it, we may see mysterious disappearances and even a few suicides perhaps !

[Stewart P Evans]

Agree...To A Certain Point.

...
I consider that trying to clarify the authenticity of documents that many have sought to rely on is an important part of the overall investigation and as such i would expect everyone to concur on that point and to want to help for the sake of Ripperology.
But when I keep hearing members here suggest that there is no need to do this or its alreday been done so we must accept, it is incomprehensible. All enquiries shold be carried out diligently and expeditiously especialy where there is a doubt.
Clearly there is a doubt about the marginalia. One such doubt is who authorised and paid for the forensic examination by Dr Davies. Was it Begg and his merry men, The Met Police, James Swanson or was it authorised by Alan McCormick and why cannot that report be released into the public domain ?
Call me old fashioned but all of this together with all the other stuff regarding the memorabilia has awoken my suspicious mind. So if anyone out there can satisfactorily allay my suspicions then please feel free.[/B]

Trevor, I agree with your sentiments to a certain point, i.e. in getting the marginalia and endpaper notes properly assessed, and to ironing out just exactly when and with what Jim Swanson approached the News of the World. This mainly because we do not have full and final answers.

Christopher Davies joined the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory in 1981 and was employed solely as a questioned document examiner. He is a senior document examiner in the London laboratory of the Forensic Science Service. The report is the property of the Forensic Science Service Ltd. (a UK Government owned company). In this sense I imagine that the report was internally requisitioned by the Metropolitan Police (New Scotland Yard) to validate, as far as was possible, an item that was being accepted as an on loan exhibit for the Crime Museum.

[Trevor Marriott]

Trevor, I agree with your sentiments to a certain point, i.e. in getting the marginalia and endpaper notes properly assessed, and to ironing out just exactly when and with what Jim Swanson approached the News of the World. This mainly because we do not have full and final answers.

Christopher Davies joined the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory in 1981 and was employed solely as a questioned document examiner. He is a senior document examiner in the London laboratory of the Forensic Science Service. The report is the property of the Forensic Science Service Ltd. (a UK Government owned company). In this sense I imagine that the report was internally requisitioned by the Metropolitan Police (New Scotland Yard) to validate, as far as was possible, an item that was being accepted as an on loan exhibit for the Crime Museum.

From my understanding with regards to forensic examinations the report would be the property of whoever commissioned it. The forensic science service charge each individual police force for work they do. I will endeavour to speak to them on Monday to clarify.

I am also given to understand that since those reports were compiled more of Swansons handwritng as become available which would make further handwritng tests more conclusive. Coupled with addittional new forensic tests.

I beleive that Alan McCormick was involved in the Davies report. To date he has remained silent despite a number of written request direct to him.

Next week I will be writing back to The Police Commissioner asking for decison to be made with regards to my new requests for new tests on the marginalia to be carried out and for access to the forensic report.

I do not expect any co-operation in this matter as throughout my investigation the met police have deliberatly gone out of their way to be obstructive.

But I dont mind just gives me more power to the elbow when the final day of reckoning comes when they have to stand up in public and answer for their deliberate obstructions.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Trevor,

The very best of luck.

This whole business should have been unequivocally dealt with years ago instead of being slipped quietly through the back door of history.

Regards,

Simon

[Phil Carter]

To backtrack a little..

It would be interesting to see if this is a policy decision by the Met, perhaps a letter to the Commissioner would not go amiss.

Hello all,

Forgive me for backtracking to your post Stewart (nr. 112), above, but I link this to the following..

Chris, post 123,

I asked for permission from the Forensic Science Service, which holds the copyright. They consulted the author, who had no objection, and consented in principle, but said I should also ask for the consent of the Crime Museum, which commissioned the report. That's what hasn't been forthcoming.

(my emphasis)

and...

Trevor, post 125...

In the intersts of historical accuracy I have recenty written to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner with regards to a number of issues which I feel warrant further tests and examinations being carried out on the marginalia which they now have in their possession in the crime museum.

My letter finished up on the curators desk of the crime museum and he in turn replied by e mail quoting the same forensic report. He stated that to carry out the new foresnsic tests I suggested would be an expensive excercise and would mean that the case would have to be re opened and a team of detectives asssigned.

I explained that there would be no need to assign a team of officers to re open the case. The Met police could recruit me as a "special constable" as i am fully au fait with the case and \i would be happy to assist.

I asked that my reply be sent back to the commissioners officer for further consideration. To date the curator has not acknowleged my reply nor have i had any further communication back from the commissioners office.

(my emphasis)

Rob House, post 132..

If the copyright holder consented, I do not really see why the report cannot be posted...

and...

Simon, post 140...

It's interesting to note that whilst the Swanson marginalia and end-paper notations are being displayed with white-gloved reverence in New Scotland Yard's Crime Museum there remains an official reluctance to make public the report upon which their provenance is based.

Why such reluctance? Are we to understand that the marginalia and endpaper notation have been entered into the historical record without due scientific examination and analysis?

myself, 141...

... Why is there still a reluctance, so many years later, to not release the report by the crime museum, even though it has been given the official ok by those who hold the copyright, and the author, who consented in principal.

and..

Simon, post 165...

If the authenticity of the end-paper notation is inconclusive, then the Crime Museum refusing to make public the report containing the element of doubt–whilst at the same displaying the notation as genuine–presents something of an ethical dilemma.

There have been precipitate calls to enter the marginalia and endpaper notation into the historical record, but to do this would endow them with perhaps undeserved authenticity. The best all-round solution, therefore, is for the Crime Museum to display a simple caveat with Swanson's book.

and finally Chris, post 170...

Actually, if I understand things correctly, the volume containing the annotations is still owned by a member of the Swanson family, who has loaned it to the Crime Museum. Obviously there isn't going to be any scientific testing done without the owner's consent.

Now, a few pertinent points, I feel.

1) If a letter was sent as Stewart suggested, to the Commissioner of the Metroploitan Poilice, and he turned it over to the Crime Museum, where Trevor (who has indeed done exactly this) has been met with silence, surely all this does then come back to whether the owner (the Swanson family) consents, UNLESS, as I previously asked, the volume itself has been accepted as an official historical document.

2) If I read this correctly, and please, forgive me if I do not, the onus then falls upon the authority that accepted and approved the volume as such, to provide the neccessary confirmation of authenticity. Here we look at Stewart's post 183.

3) Then we have to enter the question of what the "policy" of the Metropolitan Police actually is in regards to documents that are clearly of a public interest. Again, I compare this to the problem of the Special Branch Ledgers.
And that is where the word "transparency" comes in as Trevor has posted, above, in his intention as from Monday morning.

Perhaps I have missed the point here, but concerns are bound to be raised if there is any form of stalling or stonewalling from any part in this business?
The actions themselves can raise, after a while, suspicion.

The one question that intruiges me is the 6 year gap between the approach to the NOTW to the publications in the Telegraph. The timing of the revelation in 1987 I find intruiging, as I can see no reason for the gap.

best wishes

Phil

[Chris]

The one question that intruiges me is the 6 year gap between the approach to the NOTW to the publications in the Telegraph. The timing of the revelation in 1987 I find intruiging, as I can see no reason for the gap.

I don't think the timing of the revelation is particularly strange. From information posted by Stewart in the past, Jim Swanson contacted Charles Nevin after seeing a review of Martin Fido's book by Colin Wilson, and also an earlier article by Nevin.

[Phil Carter]

I don't think the timing of the revelation is particularly strange. From information posted by Stewart in the past, Jim Swanson contacted Charles Nevin after seeing a review of Martin Fido's book by Colin Wilson, and also an earlier article by Nevin.

Hello Chris,

In most circs, I would agree, but when a person sells a "story" to the press, the story normally "does the rounds" if not at first accepted.. so why stop at just one attempt and one rejection?

best wishes

Phil

[Chris]

In most circs, I would agree, but when a person sells a "story" to the press, the story normally "does the rounds" if not at first accepted.. so why stop at just one attempt and one rejection?

According to previous accounts, once he had sold the rights to the News of the World, Jim Swanson didn't feel he could approach anyone else. When he eventually did so after the appearance of Martin Fido's book, he contacted the News of the World for permission and apparently even offered to repay their fee.

[Trevor Marriott]

According to previous accounts, once he had sold the rights to the News of the World, Jim Swanson didn't feel he could approach anyone else. When he eventually did so after the appearance of Martin Fido's book, he contacted the News of the World for permission and apparently even offered to repay their fee.

If that be correct then why did they not print such hot property ?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Trevor,

There isn't a newspaper in the known universe that would have turned down the "definitive" identification of Jack the Ripper by the police officer who had been in charge of the case.

Regards,

Simon

[Errata]

Hi Trevor,

There isn't a newspaper in the known universe that would have turned down the "definitive" identification of Jack the Ripper by the police officer who had been in charge of the case.

Regards,

Simon

Isn't there some sort of "two separate sources" rule in journalism? Without that you are kind of stuck with one of those biographical puff pieces about a man trying to redeem an ancestor.

[Chris]

In assessing the story's newsworthiness, perhaps it's worth bearing in mind what was actually new in the marginalia.

Not the claim that a Polish Jew had been identified as the Ripper, which had been published by Anderson in 1910 (that is, by a more senior figure than Swanson, and phrased in far more definite terms). Not the name "Kosminski," which had been published by Cullen in 1965 (so that "Kosminski" was already well known as one of the three leading suspects named in the Macnaghten memorandum).

The main thing is probably that it makes the connection between these two well-known suspects, which unaccountably no one had done before. That is very interesting to Ripperologists, but I can well imagine that a tabloid journalist intently seeking a new revelation for his readers might glance through a couple of Ripper bestsellers, find the essential details already in print, and conclude "there's nothing new in this."

[Simon Wood]

Hi Chris,

A 1981 journalist may well have concluded that "there's nothing new in this", but that is hardly the point. Here was the "definitive" identification of Jack the Ripper by the police officer who had been in charge of the case, the solution to a mystery which had baffled the world for almost 100 years. It was a scoop, an exclusive which, handled properly, would have earned the newspaper a fortune on the wire services. Yet we are asked to believe that they stuffed it in a drawer, forgot about it and let the Ripper industry go on its merry way.

To my mind, a far more rational explanation is that in 1981 the endpaper notation had yet to be written.

Regards,

Simon

[Chris]

Here was the "definitive" identification of Jack the Ripper by the police officer who had been in charge of the case, the solution to a mystery which had baffled the world for almost 100 years.

But there had been so many definitive identifications and final solutions, including quite recently the truly sensational ones involving royal conspiracies and masonic cover-ups.

Some marginal notes confirming in rather ambivalent terms a really definitive claim by the head of the CID that had been published 70 years before - and adding a name that was already well known to Ripperologists and some rather incomprehensible details about seaside homes and workhouses - could well have seemed tame by comparison with what the press had been publishing in the 1970s.

But regardless of what the reason may or may not have been, we know that Jim Swanson showed Charles Nevin a note from the News of the World about the marginalia. How is that to be explained, if the story about the News of the World was an invention?