Seaside Home

[Errata]

I'm still trying to figure out why they felt the need to do the identification outside of London at all. Couldn't they just as easily arrange it in London without making it seem like an identification? Or was sea air a necessary component to their cunning plan?

[Chris]

It's a fair point, but it wasn't the case for the Jewish Convalescent Home. The advertisement below appeared in the Jewish Chronicle of 22 May 1891, and shows that it wasn't open to patients until 28 May.[ATTACH]2194[/ATTACH]

As there's some discussion on jtrforums.com of the possibility that Swanson was referring to the Jewish Convalescent Home, I thought it was just worth posting a reminder that it didn't open until several months after Aaron Kozminski was committed to Colney Hatch. So it wouldn't fit Swanson's narrative as given.

[fido]

Valuable as all this discussion of alternative Seaside Homes is to my "Cohen" theory, I thnik I should point out that from the time that Don Rumbelow and I first saw the marginalia together - (I should say he saw it before me, and was the first Ripperologist approached by the Telegraph) - he told me that 'the Seaside Home' in police parlance always meant the Hove home (I don't know whether its still used of the non-seaside home at Goring. Possibly Morley House was one of the boardins houses where beds were taken as ad hoc convalescent homes before the Convalescent Home Fund (started in 1887) was in a position to use one house for its own purposes (1888) and finally buy the Hove property (1890) I don't know. It seems possible.
Martin F

[Robert]

This service looks pretty good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BpgtWrjbhY

[Victor]

Hi Chris,

Just a small point.
The article you quote suggests that Kosminski was taken to Brighton in a one day cab journey.

Why take a cab when there would have been a perfectly good train service, taking only one or two hours?

Rgds
John

As a Brightonian, the prospect of getting to London by train in a hour or two is conditional upon there being a "perfectly good train service" rather than as a result of there being!

[Chris]

I don't know about the UK, but in the States, grand openings occur sometimes months after something is opened. Sometimes it's because something isn't finished, so showcasing it as a 'Grand Opening' isn't quite appropriate. Yet, the owners still want to bring in business while it is being finished. This occurs in stores and restaurants that I've seen, and happens more than rarely. Why not a convalescent home?

It's a fair point, but it wasn't the case for the Jewish Convalescent Home. The advertisement below appeared in the Jewish Chronicle of 22 May 1891, and shows that it wasn't open to patients until 28 May.

[The Good Michael]

Chris,

I assume that a convalescent home is a for-profit organization. I don't know about the UK, but in the States, grand openings occur sometimes months after something is opened. Sometimes it's because something isn't finished, so showcasing it as a 'Grand Opening' isn't quite appropriate. Yet, the owners still want to bring in business while it is being finished. This occurs in stores and restaurants that I've seen, and happens more than rarely. Why not a convalescent home?

Mike

[Chris]

Was the Jewish convalescent home actually there as the seller says?

Yes and no (but mostly no).

The Jewish Convalescent Home in Hove wasn't opened until May 1891. The consecration service, which took place on 24 May, was reported in the Jewish Chronicle of 29 May. So - unless it was used before it had opened - it couldn't have been used for an identification in February 1891, and Aaron Kozminski couldn't have been identified there and then returned to his brother's house.

[The Good Michael]

Chris,

Was the Jewish convalescent home actually there as the seller says? If so,
the possibility seems... possible?

I'm kind of just sitting back waiting to see what Stewart Evans has to say about this idea.

Nice post, however.

Mike

[John Savage]

Hi Chris,

Just a small point.
The article you quote suggests that Kosminski was taken to Brighton in a one day cab journey.

Why take a cab when there would have been a perfectly good train service, taking only one or two hours?

Rgds
John

[Chris George]

Here is the description. I would be interested to know if anyone finds errors in this statement ... and let me say that I don't necessarily totally buy the scenario that the seller posits -- but I post it for your reaction.

Much of it is lifted from Scott Nelson's dissertation, "An Alternate Kosminski Suspect and Police Witness: Some Perspectives and Points to Ponder", on this site:

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/kosfinal.html

[Edit: Actually, if I understand correctly, in the part that is quoted, Scott was discussing the hypothesis that it was _another_ Kozminski, not Aaron, who was taken to the Seaside Home.]

Thanks, Chris.

[Chris]

Here is the description. I would be interested to know if anyone finds errors in this statement ... and let me say that I don't necessarily totally buy the scenario that the seller posits -- but I post it for your reaction.

Much of it is lifted from Scott Nelson's dissertation, "An Alternate Kosminski Suspect and Police Witness: Some Perspectives and Points to Ponder", on this site:

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/kosfinal.html

[Edit: Actually, if I understand correctly, in the part that is quoted, Scott was discussing the hypothesis that it was _another_ Kozminski, not Aaron, who was taken to the Seaside Home.]

[Chris George]

Hello all

I was stunned that I was the only bidder on the following postcard on ebay, the bidding for which has just closed.

1900's Postcard Hove Brighton

Here is the description. I would be interested to know if anyone finds errors in this statement ... and let me say that I don't necessarily totally buy the scenario that the seller posits -- but I post it for your reaction.

I am planning to use the postcard view in my upcoming book on Jack the Ripper and the Jews.

"1900's Postcard Police Seaside Home Hove Brighton - Jack the ripper - Aaron Kosminski is one of only two suspects (the other being Joseph Barnett) against whom there is real evidence or testimony. The case against Kosminski is stronger than many of us who believe in alternate theories are generally prepared to admit -- it is even stronger than those who suspect Kosminski usually dare to argue. In particular, those who suspect Kosminski elevate the opinions of Dr. Robert Anderson to such Olympian heights that newcomers can get the impression Kosminski is only important as 'Anderson's Suspect.' In fact, Kosminski makes a perfectly respectable suspect whether or not Anderson ever heard his name. The Jewish Convalescent Home (in 1891 directories onwards) in the West Brighton and Hove areas, was otherwise known as the Jewish Children's Convalescent Home, 35 Montgomery Street. Montgomery Street and Claredon Villas. It was less than 200 yards apart of where the Police Seaside Home stood. The Records of the Convalescent Home have not apparently survived, but it is possible that the suspect was taken here first, held overnight, and then taken across to the Police Seaside Home at Claredon Villas. If the workhouse authorities were the ones transporting Kosminski to the Seaside Home, would they then unquestionably hand him over to the police, as has been suggested? With this possibility, we have to ask if the Kosminski suspect was actually incarcerated at this point, because as Swanson maintained, the suspect was taken 'with difficulty' to the identification site. I believe he was arrested, not committed, but this was not the source of the 'difficulty' that Swanson referred to. It is more likely that the police took an ill suspect from his brother's house 60 miles or so to the Jewish Convalescent Home (one-day ride by cab from London). There, he would have been examined the following day by doctors, escorted to the adjacent Seaside Home and then subjected to the identification (likely a one-day event), and returned to London the following day, for a total of three days (February 24-26, 1891). As suggested above, this difficulty may have had something to do with the (separate) transport of the witness as well, especially a witness whom possibly lived on the border of two police jurisdictions in which the crimes occurred."

Best regards

Chris

[Debra A]

There's also this possibility

1892 (228) Select Committee on Belfast Corporation (Lunatic Asylums, etc.) Bill. Report, Proceedings, Evidence, Index

Q&A format

1097. The convalescent home required for Belfast would be a small seaside institution?-
Yes, many of the lunatic asylums in England have convalescent homes attached to them now.

Seemingly, some small seaside convalescent homes were a bridge between the lunatic asylum and a return to home and community for some patients.

[Magpie]

Another link about the Hove Seaside Home:

http://www.npch.org/history2.htm