Socialism in the East End

[DJA]

George Herbert Duckworth,his brother and James Kenneth Stephen purportedly abused Virginia Woolf when she was very young.
Woolf's mental health issues may have been a result.
George Savage,Henry Gawen Sutton's son in law treated her in 1904.
Virginia's "close friend",Vita Sackville-West's family had owned Knole House. HG Sutton resided on the property from 1876 with his wife,one of three daughters and a maid.

JK Stephen was PAV's tutor and cough,cough, companion.
Treated by Sir William Gull for mental health issues.

Small world.

[seanr]

The Nafzgher and the Gehringer families were related, it seems. In relation to the City of Norwich pub, there are two family names recorded. Frederick Gehringer (and there were at least two people with the name Frederick Gehringer, a father and a son) and John Nafzger. https://pubshistory.com/LondonPubs/S...orthSt61.shtml

John Nafzgher is mentioned from the post office directory for the years 1884 and 1891. So, John seems like to be living at the pub during the time of the Autumn of Terror, so maybe it was John who was questioned by the police as part of their inquiries into the murders.

[jerryd]

The Nafzgher and the Gehringer families were related, it seems. In relation to the City of Norwich pub, there are two family names recorded. Frederick Gehringer (and there were at least two people with the name Frederick Gehringer, a father and a son) and John Nafzger. https://pubshistory.com/LondonPubs/S...orthSt61.shtml

John Nafzgher is mentioned from the post office directory for the years 1884 and 1891. So, John seems like to be living at the pub during the time of the Autumn of Terror, so maybe it was John who was questioned by the police as part of their inquiries into the murders.

Hi Sean,

See 2nd post here. https://www.ancestry.com/boards/thre...ames.naffziger

[seanr]

The City of Norwich pub was at 61 Wentworth Street in 1888. It moved to 111 Wentworth Street around 1899, it's not clear (to me) if the Gehringer family still owned the pub at the time of the move.

The site looks like it was later an M Bloom and Son deli going by this print of the location: http://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/04/...st/img_0014-9/ (and the comment from Mike Harris there, who is most likely the grandson of Arthur Harris recorded as landlord of the pub from 1909).

If John Nafziger was living at the City of Norwich in 1888, he would certainly have been questioned at least a little, the pub was within the area where the police made door to door enquiries.

For those interested in geographic profiling, research was done in the past on a potential suspect named John Simmonds, who gave his address as 60 Wentworth Street, the common lodging house next to The City of Norwich. 60 Wentworth Street was judged to be in the 95th percentile of possible Ripper base locations. This research is available on a previous Casebook thread: https://forum.casebook.org/forum/rip...-illness/page2
The City of Norwish pub was very close to both George Yard buildings and Castle Alley.

[Joshua Rogan]

The City of Norwich pub was at 61 Wentworth Street in 1888. It moved to 111 Wentworth Street around 1899, it's not clear (to me) if the Gehringer family still owned the pub at the time of the move.

Curious...I wonder if Gehringer (or the name at least) is any relation to Walter Ringer (or Wringer), one-time landlord of the Britannia? Walter, strangely enough, was apparently born in Norwich.
All of which puts me in mind of a thread (that I cannot currently locate) about a letter sent from a Dorset Street address claiming that Jack would soon kill two "Norwich women"...was this perhaps a warning from McCarthy to a rival?

[DJA]

Walter Ringer seems to come from Norfolk. Possibly Bagthorpe.

His widow was a local from Rotherhithe.

[Joshua Rogan]

Thanks Dave, my mistake. I was confusing Walter with Sam Piddymont (surely a relation of Mrs Fiddymont?) of the Market Tavern in Brushfield St, who was born in Norwich.
As you say, Ringer was born in Norfolk, but nowhere near Norwich it seems. Although as it happens Elizabeth Larke - the wife of a previous landlord of the Britannia - does seem to have been a Norwich woman.
.

[DJA]

Norwich is in Norfolk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg

[Joshua Rogan]

Well done sergeant.

https://youtu.be/OXltf7oUOBI

[seanr]

Curious...I wonder if Gehringer (or the name at least) is any relation to Walter Ringer (or Wringer), one-time landlord of the Britannia? Walter, strangely enough, was apparently born in Norwich.
All of which puts me in mind of a thread (that I cannot currently locate) about a letter sent from a Dorset Street address claiming that Jack would soon kill two "Norwich women"...was this perhaps a warning from McCarthy to a rival?

Here's the clipping about the letter that was found by Chris Scott and posted at jtrforums (I hope redistributing the image isn't considered bad form).


The article was published on November the 2nd, one week before Mary Kelly's murder.

Kelly was murdered on the following Thursday night/ early hours of Friday morning.

The two piers in Yarmouth are called the Britannia pier and the Wellington pier. The pub at the bottom of Dorset Street was called the Britannia and the Duke of Wellington was a pub near Dorset Street, on the corner of Brune Street and Toynbee Street. It was the Duke of Wellington where McCarthy made his speech denouncing the Daily Mail's 'Worst Street in London' article a few years later. It seems safe to assume 'The Duke of Wellington' was a pub McCarthy consider friendly to him.

14 Dorset Street was, I think, a common lodging house which the witness at the Mary Kellly inquest, Caroline Maxwell gives as her address.

'The City of Norwich' was the pub belonging to the Frederick Gehringer. 'Norwich women' could mean women associated with the pub over the city itself.

It's possible it could be a coded threat. It'd be odd to use one's real address when sending a letter like this. So perhaps the threat is directed at, rather than coming from Dorset Street. It'd be a strange way to make such a threat though, to threaten someone in London by sending a coded letter to the Head-Constable of Yarmouth. It is an interesting set of coincidences.

[seanr]

The Chief Constable of Great Yarmouth at the time was Mr. William Bogdon, http://british-police-history.uk/sho...ab=0&nav=alpha

[seanr]

I made contact with Dave Hill from the MyHeritage post. He strikes me as a very nice and kindly man and who dignified my enquiries with a reply.

He accepts that Frederick Gehringer, also sometimes known as Adam Frederick Gehringer, was some sort of crime lord. Turns out Dave was one of the sources for Fiona Rules' book on Dorset Street.

He gave more details on the relative of Frederick Gehringer who was questioned by the police. The story was passed to him by his mother, Ivy Nafzger was born in 1913 (so I assume the story was passed onto her from an elder relative).
Intriguingly, the story is that it was a female relative who worked behind the bar of a pub. The story doesn't say which pub, but the family did own 'The City of Norwich'. She was questioned only about one of the murders. Again, which one is not passed on.

Martha Tabram's murder was almost right outside the door of the pub. The attack on Emma Smith was just around the corner and the murder of Alice Mackenzie was a short walk away from the pub. It seems plausible it was in relation to one of these, most likely Martha Tabram as it was so close.

I'm intrigued that it was a female relative, in that I'm not aware of a woman who questioned in relation to any of these crimes. It also seems to me, this suggests the police enquiry at one time took quite a different approach to the one generally discussed - I'd assume a woman was questioned as a potential accomplice rather than as the perpetrator of the crime.

If it wasn't one of the crimes committed near to the pub (assuming the relative was working at the City of Norfolk), I'm even more intrigued as to why the woman was questioned.

Anyone have any clues who the female relative of Gehringer was, who was questioned in relation to one of the murders? Is it one of the witnesses already generally known to us?

[jerryd]

Thanks Sean,

The staff at a pub (unnamed) next door to the Cambridge Music Hall were questioned as to the whereabouts of Alice McKenzie earlier in the evening. The City of Norwich seems to me to fit the bill. See the testimony of George Dixon (blind boy) during the McKenzie inquest.

Also. in this book, Spitalfields: The History of a Nation in a Handful of Streets

by Dan Cruickshank it states,

"Booth dismissed the Little Pearl Street district as a 'thoroughly vicious quarter' partly because the presence of the Cambridge Music Hall on Commercial Street makes it a focusing point for prostitutes."

[jerryd]

Also, George Dixon, the same blind boy, was found by a policeman investigating the Tabram murder, at 29, Star Street. Martha Tabram lived at 4, Star Street shortly before her murder.

[DJA]

Jacob Isenschmid,an early suspect in Annie Chapman's murder "was known to a publican named Gehringer of Wentworth Street" according to Abberline.
Paul Begg and our own John Bennett.