William Bury the Whitechapel Murderer ?

[Septic Blue]

I simply say local in the sense that Mile End is "nearish" to Whitechapel (and closer than, say, Blackheath which was where Druitt lived at the time he was suspected of carrying out the murders).

I understand.

Please realize that I was not addressing what might have been specifically your misconception. Rather, I was addressing a very widely held misconception: That Bury's various 'East End' residences qualified him as a 'local'.

Some photographs of Bury's manor: The Parish of Bromley St. Leonard (October 2007)


Figure 1: Derelict Churchyard; Site of the Parish Church of Bromley St. Leonard (Click to View in flickr)

Bury was married in St. Mary's Church, Parish of Bromley St. Leonard; which was built on the site of the medieval Chapel of St. Mary, on the grounds of the Priory of St. Leonard.



St. Mary's Church and its medieval foundations were destroyed during German bombing, in World War II.


Figure 2: Derelict Churchyard; Site of the Parish Church of Bromley St. Leonard (Click to View in flickr)


Figure 3: Derelict Churchyard; Site of the Parish Church of Bromley St. Leonard (Click to View in flickr)


Figure 4: Derelict Churchyard; Site of the Parish Church of Bromley St. Leonard (Click to View in flickr)


Figure 5: Derelict Churchyard; Site of the Parish Church of Bromley St. Leonard (Click to View in flickr)

Approximately one third of St. Mary's Church stood in the immediate foreground (i.e. this side of the hedgerow); …


Figure 6: Blackwall Tunnel; Site of the Parish Church of Bromley St. Leonard (Click to View in flickr)

… while its remaining two thirds stood here (at an elevation of approximately six feet above the highway).


Figure 7: High Street, Parish of Bromley St. Leonard (Click to View in flickr)


Figure 8: 3 Spanby Road, Parish of Bromley St. Leonard ??? (Click to View in flickr)

Today's 3 Spanby Road, at its northern end / east side.


Figure 9: 3 Spanby Road, Parish of Bromley St. Leonard ??? (Click to View in flickr)

What I believe to have been 3 Spanby Road, Parish of Bromley St. Leonard, in 1888; at its southern end / east side (second door from the right).

[Cubitt]

Please realize that I was not addressing what might have been specifically your misconception. Rather, I was addressing a very widely held misconception: That Bury's various 'East End' residences qualified him as a 'local'.

One consequence of this is that there would have been absolutely no need for Bury to venture so far as (West) Whitechapel in order to kill - there were plenty of debauched women on the streets of Bow and Poplar for him to target, had he truly been the Ripper.

You make some great points and the logic makes total sense to me. One of the reasons I leapt on Bury so whole-heartedly because he's the kind of suspect I would expect the criminal to be (i.e. no great conspiracy's, or many accomplices acting together, just a loner lashing out at innocent women).

If it wasn't Bury (and I realise it almost certainly wasn't) then I would expect the real killer to be someone like him, albeit much nearer to the Whitechapel area.

The other reason I liked the look of him was the manner in which he killed his wife. Did many domestic murders of the age involve this type of mutilation, does anyone know?

Btw, Septic Blue many thanks for the photos, they look great!

[johns]

Thanks for those photos SB. Hope you're well my man.

I wish that I had managed to find time to perform the task I set myself 2 years ago when I met you at the Wolverhampton conference.

I had this idea of plotting all the pubs and butcher shops in the East End on a map. My plan never got off the ground due to this damn thing called "real life" and being "self-employed" working a gazillion hours a week just to stay afloat.

Not that it would have proved much I suppose but I was attempting to discover if the 2 largest users of Bury's wares (sawdust) tended to congregate round the Whitechapel area rather than Bury's area. Not that it would have proved much as I say... but it may have been interesting.

[Sam Flynn]

One of the reasons I leapt on Bury so whole-heartedly because he's the kind of suspect I would expect the criminal to be (i.e. no great conspiracy's, or many accomplices acting together, just a loner lashing out at innocent women).

I agree to an extent, Cubitt - in fact, I voted a "2" in the poll which, for me, is quite generous (I'm serious, too!). That said, Bury's offence was that of a domestic murder, which isn't quite the same as what Jack got up to (and I'm not being flippant). There have been many husbands or lovers who have strangled their wives - and quite a few who tried to make the murder look like it was someone else's fault, thoughts about which I'm sure Bury entertained at first, before handing himself in.

Whether he determined to make Ellen's death look like one of the Ripper's we can't know for certain, although a case could be made for the idea. If he did, then his attempt was pretty feeble, with a few pathetic "rips" of no appreciable depth or length, and some stab-wounds. Bearing in mind that this was "post-Kelly", and that Bury had all the time in the world at his disposal to completely dismantle his victim, his tentative pricking of Ellen's corpse was a pretty poor show.

[Septic Blue]

Thanks for those photos SB. Hope you're well my man.

I am, John. And I hope you are doing well.

My apologies for not getting these photos posted any sooner. It has been, after all, the better part of two years since I took them.

I guess I mistakenly Bury-ed them.

[johns]

No probs SB.

Here's a photo of Swaton Road I took a few years ago when I did my walk round Buryland and the Whitechapel area.

The park on the left is where Bury's house used to be.

[Mr Chumley]

More chalk messages

i first read about him some time ago and would have gone for a 7 based on the information presented, but now i have given him a 3 and have similar views to Sam on this one

[Septic Blue]

[ATTACH]6444[/ATTACH]
Figure 5: Derelict Churchyard; Site of the Parish Church of Bromley St. Leonard (Click to View in flickr)

Approximately one third of St. Mary's Church stood in the immediate foreground (i.e. this side of the hedgerow); …

[ATTACH]6445[/ATTACH]
Figure 6: Blackwall Tunnel; Site of the Parish Church of Bromley St. Leonard (Click to View in flickr)

… while its remaining two thirds stood here (at an elevation of approximately six feet above the highway).

Actually, the entirety of St. Mary's Church stood at an elevation of approximately six feet, above what is now a portion of the Blackwall Tunnel.


Figure 1: 'Footprint' of the Parish Church of Bromley St. Leonard (As Depicted in 1894 OS) (Click to View in flickr)
Underlying Aerial Imagery: Copyright Google Earth, 2007
Overlying Plots, Labels and Color-Shadings: Copyright Colin C. Roberts, 2009

I had misplaced this image, which I compiled a couple of years ago, by way of an 1894 OS overlay. Obviously, I had forgotten the extent, to which the memory of the Parish Church of Bromley St. Leonard had been 'erased'.


St. Mary's Church (The Parish Church of Bromley St. Leonard) & How Memorial Gateway, High Street, Parish of Bromley St. Leonard

… as seen from the northwest (i.e. from Bromley High Street)


Figure 2: How Memorial Gateway, High Street, Parish of Bromley St. Leonard (Click to View in flickr)


Figure 3: How Memorial Gateway, High Street, Parish of Bromley St. Leonard (Click to View in flickr)

It would seem likely that Reverend How presided over the Holy Matrimony of Mr. & Mrs. William Bury.


St. Mary's Church (The Parish Church of Bromley St. Leonard)

Another 'St. Mary's Church' stood a mere 350 yards to the northwest; quite literally in the middle of Bow Road, Parish of St. Mary Stratford Bow.


Figure 4: Parish Church of St. Mary Stratford Bow (Click to View in flickr)


Figure 5: Parish Church of St. Mary Stratford Bow (Click to View in flickr)

Farther west, along Bow Road …


Figure 6: Vestry Hall (Bromley), Bow Road, Parish of Bromley St. Leonard (Click to View in flickr)


Vestry Hall (Bromley), Bow Road, Parish of Bromley St. Leonard (left)

And immediately opposite …


Vestry Hall (Bow), Bow Road, Parish of St. Mary Stratford Bow (right)

To the immediate east of Bromley Vestry Hall …


Figure 7: Headquarters, Metropolitan Police Force, K Division ('Bow'), Bow Road, Parish of Bromley St. Leonard (Click to View in flickr)

And to the immediate west of Bromley Vestry Hall …


Figure 8: The 'Bow Bells', Bow Road, Parish of Bromley St. Leonard (Click to View in flickr)

I do not know when the pub came to be known as the 'Bow Bells'; but its name is obviously a play on the notion that the sound of 'Bow Bells' emanates from St. Mary's Church (Bow Road), rather than the Parish Church of St. Mary le Bow, Cheap Ward, City of London.

The confusion that this notion might have generated, is perhaps one of the reasons the term 'Cockney' has come to be used specifically in reference to 'East Enders', rather than all Londoners.

[Suzi]

Hi Colin
There are worse 'suspects' to be honest- but Mr Bury isn't amongst my list of dinner guests to be honest!!! So I randomly went for a 7 !!

Great pics though :-)

[Septic Blue]

[ATTACH]6460[/ATTACH]
St. Mary's Church (The Parish Church of Bromley St. Leonard) & How Memorial Gateway, High Street, Parish of Bromley St. Leonard

I obviously had a little trouble with the above attachment.

Let's have another go!


St. Mary's Church (The Parish Church of Bromley St. Leonard) & How Memorial Gateway, High Street, Parish of Bromley St. Leonard

[Suzi]

Fine now!
Let's hope How doesn't see his 'Memorial Gateway'!!!!!

[Septic Blue]

There are worse 'suspects' to be honest- but Mr Bury isn't amongst my list of dinner guests to be honest!!! So I randomly went for a 7 !!

Bury is probably as viable a suspect as any other!

In light of the demographics that prevailed in the murder 'locale', in 1888; I would guess that the probability of his having been the 'Ripper' would be somewhere in the neighborhood of ~0.0002% (i.e. ~ one in 500,000).

Fine now!
Let's hope How doesn't see his 'Memorial Gateway'!!!!!

[John Wheat]

Or 100 per cent if he was Jack the Ripper. Has anyone come up with a sensible argument as to why William Bury was not Jack the Ripper? The one about his wife's death not being as brutal as some of the other Ripper murders doesn't hold up. Considering he is the only suspect who is proven to have strangled and then mutilated a prostitute must reduce the viability of this argument considerably especially considering some consider Chapman a likely suspect.

[Sam Flynn]

The one about his wife's death not being as brutal as some of the other Ripper murders doesn't hold up.

Doesn't it, John? Why ever not? Bury had all the time and privacy in the world, and he could have gone to town on Ellen's body. Yet a few comparatively minor cuts and stabs is all he could achieve, and these only after whacking her with a poker and strangling her with a rope. To cap it all, he hid her almost intact body in a box. A mutilation murder with fewer Ripper-like characteristics would be difficult to imagine.

[John Wheat]

Coincidences

Sam your wrong in pretty much everything you're saying. Firstly the M.O. used to murder Ellen Bury isn't that dissimilar to that used in by Jack the Ripper. Secondly what about the chalked messages they suggest either that Bury was the Ripper or a copycat killer. And I suppose you regard the fact that the Ripper murders stopped shortly before Bury went to Dundee as pure coincidence, the fact that Bury fits every single psych profile as coincidence and the fact that the case for Bury being the Ripper is a case based on evidence as compared to being based on utter bullshit which applies to just about every single other Ripper suspect as coincidence.