Why Wasn't Druitt Thanked?

[barnflatwyngarde]

I am re-reading Paul Begg's "Jack the Ripper: The Facts", and something he wrote jarred with me.

"On 21 December the minutes of the Blackheath Cricket, Football and Lawn Tennis Company record, "The Honorary Secretary and Treasurer, Mr M J Druitt, having gone abroad, it was resolved that he be and he is thereby removed from the post of Honorary Secretary and Treasurer,"

What is conspicuous here is any absence of thanks for the work Druitt put in on behalf of the Club.

It is common practice that people having served on committees of sports clubs, drama clubs etc are thanked for their efforts.
After all, without the work of these unpaid committee members, there would be no club.

So why wasn't he thanked?

Did the Blackheath Club know that there was real possibility that Druitt's name would soon be associated with some type of scandal.

Something related to his dismissal by George Valentine, or something more sinister perhaps?

I accept that if all committee members of the Blackheath Club when stepping down are not thanked in the minutes, then my query is answered, and that there is nothing of interest here.

[GUT]

I am re-reading Paul Begg's "Jack the Ripper: The Facts", and something he wrote jarred with me.

"On 21 December the minutes of the Blackheath Cricket, Football and Lawn Tennis Company record, "The Honorary Secretary and Treasurer, Mr M J Druitt, having gone abroad, it was resolved that he be and he is thereby removed from the post of Honorary Secretary and Treasurer,"

What is conspicuous here is any absence of thanks for the work Druitt put in on behalf of the Club.

It is common practice that people having served on committees of sports clubs, drama clubs etc are thanked for their efforts.
After all, without the work of these unpaid committee members, there would be no club.

So why wasn't he thanked?

Did the Blackheath Club know that there was real possibility that Druitt's name would soon be associated with some type of scandal.

Something related to his dismissal by George Valentine, or something more sinister perhaps?

I accept that if all committee members of the Blackheath Club when stepping down are not thanked in the minutes, then my query is answered, and that there is nothing of interest here.

Maybe because he didn't step down but went AWOL without letting them know.

Or maybe something more sinister.

[Robert]

Well, note the wording : 'thereby' not 'hereby.'

[barnflatwyngarde]

Well, note the wording : 'thereby' not 'hereby.'

I stand by my initial feeling that the minutes of the meeting relating to Druitt "having gone abroad" feels bitter, with an undercurrent of trying to distance the club from Druitt.

The question is why?

[Robert]

Bitter, yes. Maybe he was in the middle of transacting some business for the club and left them in the lurch. His 'going abroad' would have been the reason for his dismissal - i.e. he either went abroad without notice, or he went abroad despite pleas to remain.

I seem to remember his proposing the purchase of a piece of land to add to the playing fields. I can't remember when he made the proposal, but that might be the sort of thing - being absent and letting a deal fall through.

[jason_c]

I stand by my initial feeling that the minutes of the meeting relating to Druitt "having gone abroad" feels bitter, with an undercurrent of trying to distance the club from Druitt.

The question is why?

I think "gone abroad" is a suitably vague statement that doesn't give too much away. It's the kind of non-informative statement I would expect from a polite society of gentlemen who were in the dark on Druitt's whereabouts; gentlemen who almost certainly still considered Druitt a friend & colleague and were legitimately concerned by his disappearance. I also believe gone abroad is a generic phrase indicating Druitt was simply missing, not that he was abroad abroad.

[Mayerling]

I think "gone abroad" is a suitably vague statement that doesn't give too much away. It's the kind of non-informative statement I would expect from a polite society of gentlemen who were in the dark on Druitt's whereabouts; gentlemen who almost certainly still considered Druitt a friend & colleague and were legitimately concerned by his disappearance. I also believe gone abroad is a generic phrase indicating Druitt was simply missing, not that he was abroad abroad.

Most likely it was. It seems less likely that it would have been hidden knowledge of something more sinister. If it had been we might have more current leads as to Macnaughten's suspicions about Druitt.

Oddly enough it might have been more curious if it had been shorter - sort of a curt, "As the office of treasurer is currently unoccupied, we hereby appoint...." That would have suggested the group did not intend to mention Druitt again (for some reason).

Interesting about the piece of land for a cricket field. I wonder where it was. Did it have some connection to any property owned by Mr. Valentine? If so, and if Druitt's behavior caused Valentine AND the cricket club to lose out on a mutually advantageous deal, could THAT have been the straw that broke the camel's back regarding Druitt's career as a teacher?

But would that have been sufficient for the clumsy Montie to commit suicide?

Jeff

[barnflatwyngarde]

"Interesting about the piece of land for a cricket field. I wonder where it was."

Mayerling, the land was an acre behind the main stand.
Presumably the main stand is that of the Blackheath Club Druitt was a member of.

MJD proposed purchasing the land at a meeting of the board on 19th November 1888.

This was 10 days after the death of Mary Kelly.

[Mayerling]

"Interesting about the piece of land for a cricket field. I wonder where it was."

Mayerling, the land was an acre behind the main stand.
Presumably the main stand is that of the Blackheath Club Druitt was a member of.

MJD proposed purchasing the land at a meeting of the board on 19th November 1888.

This was 10 days after the death of Mary Kelly.

Ah yes, nothing quite like real estate deals to make one forget possibly turning a living, breathing woman into hacked up meat!

[barnflatwyngarde]

Ah yes, nothing quite like real estate deals to make one forget possibly turning a living, breathing woman into hacked up meat!

That is one of the best posts I've seen on this forum.

And oh so (sadly) topical.

[Jonathan H]

Sacked for being AWOL

Montague Druitt was sacked from the sporting club because he had left word he was going abroad and had not returned -- and had not sent some kind of message of explanation for still being absent (which he could not do being secretly deceased by his own hand).

This sacking by the club happened on December 21st 1888. If the brother William, had arrived earlier than that date he would have found the note(s) alluding to suicide (or so he later testified). If that had happened before Dec 21st the club would hardly have sacked a man believed be to be in a state of mental torment, possibly having killed himself.

It is more likely that the school, like the club, sacked Druitt because he was AWOL without explanation. That this double dismissal happened at about the same time (the headmaster's brother sat on the club's committee). Whereas had Druitt been sacked to his face, the discreet fiction of a "resignation" would have been proffered.

Once the club discovered that Druitt had done away with himself the members did express appropriate condolences in the minutes of the subsequent meeting.

One of the foundation stones of so-called "Ripperology" is that Montague Druitt was sacked, presumably to his face, on Nov 30th 1888, and that due to being depressed over this humiliating professional setback he took his own life the next day.

In fact the pertinent local, newspaper account says that the sacking (or the older brother's arrival at the Blackheath school looking for his missing sibling) happened on December 30th 1888. Perhaps, as has been theorised for decades, the reporter got the date wrong (after all, he incompetently does not even include the name of the deceased in his article covering this brief inquest into a tragic drowning).

The theory over the date, however, hardened in secondary sources long ago into a fact: Druitt was definitely sacked whilst alive on November 30th 1888. A number of secondary sources that know better -- that it is a theory based on an ambiguous source -- bury this inconvenience in their footnotes, if they bother to mention it at all.

Since it is the older brother who reveals his late brother's dismissal at the inquest, and since we can infer from other sources that he secretly believed -- rightly or wrongly -- Montague to be the fiend, he is a source to be treated with scepticism. On the other hand, William Druitt may have mentioned that at the school he discovered that his brother had been sacked from the club, and the reporter mistook this detail for dismissal from the school. Certainly no other newspaper account mentions this aspect, or at least considered it important enough to mention.

Certainly William is hardly going to mention anything scandalous at the inquest since nobody attended with any knowledge of his late brother's life except himself, and nothing scandalous is reported or suggested. Being AWOL without explanation would qualify as "serious trouble" but the inquest would move along, because it was an insignificant detail -- he was sacked because he was an unknown suicide.

Guy Logan's serial "The True History of Jack the Ripper" is a vital primary source, though also a turgid/tabloid account, regarding the Druitt solution. It was composed for readers of the "Illustrated Police News" of 1905, and the killer is called Mortemer Slade. Logan's account openly declares itself to be a mixture of fact and fiction in order to hide and thus protect the killer's respectable relations. Druitt's fictional alter ego leaves word with his landlady that he has business abroad, but is really going off to commit suicide. .

[Mayerling]

Thanks Jonathan for the clear explanation about the dating and the dismissal from the club.

Jeff

[barnflatwyngarde]

Montague Druitt was sacked from the sporting club because he had left word he was going abroad and had not returned -- and had not sent some kind of message of explanation for still being absent (which he could not do being secretly deceased by his own hand).

This sacking by the club happened on December 21st 1888. If the brother William, had arrived earlier than that date he would have found the note(s) alluding to suicide (or so he later testified). If that had happened before Dec 21st the club would hardly have sacked a man believed be to be in a state of mental torment, possibly having killed himself.

It is more likely that the school, like the club, sacked Druitt because he was AWOL without explanation. That this double dismissal happened at about the same time (the headmaster's brother sat on the club's committee). Whereas had Druitt been sacked to his face, the discreet fiction of a "resignation" would have been proffered.

Once the club discovered that Druitt had done away with himself the members did express appropriate condolences in the minutes of the subsequent meeting.

One of the foundation stones of so-called "Ripperology" is that Montague Druitt was sacked, presumably to his face, on Nov 30th 1888, and that due to being depressed over this humiliating professional setback he took his own life the next day.

In fact the pertinent local, newspaper account says that the sacking (or the older brother's arrival at the Blackheath school looking for his missing sibling) happened on December 30th 1888. Perhaps, as has been theorised for decades, the reporter got the date wrong (after all, he incompetently does not even include the name of the deceased in his article covering this brief inquest into a tragic drowning).

The theory over the date, however, hardened in secondary sources long ago into a fact: Druitt was definitely sacked whilst alive on November 30th 1888. A number of secondary sources that know better -- that it is a theory based on an ambiguous source -- bury this inconvenience in their footnotes, if they bother to mention it at all.

Since it is the older brother who reveals his late brother's dismissal at the inquest, and since we can infer from other sources that he secretly believed -- rightly or wrongly -- Montague to be the fiend, he is a source to be treated with scepticism. On the other hand, William Druitt may have mentioned that at the school he discovered that his brother had been sacked from the club, and the reporter mistook this detail for dismissal from the school. Certainly no other newspaper account mentions this aspect, or at least considered it important enough to mention.

Certainly William is hardly going to mention anything scandalous at the inquest since nobody attended with any knowledge of his late brother's life except himself, and nothing scandalous is reported or suggested. Being AWOL without explanation would qualify as "serious trouble" but the inquest would move along, because it was an insignificant detail -- he was sacked because he was an unknown suicide.

Guy Logan's serial "The True History of Jack the Ripper" is a vital primary source, though also a turgid/tabloid account, regarding the Druitt solution. It was composed for readers of the "Illustrated Police News" of 1905, and the killer is called Mortemer Slade. Logan's account openly declares itself to be a mixture of fact and fiction in order to hide and thus protect the killer's respectable relations. Druitt's fictional alter ego leaves word with his landlady that he has business abroad, but is really going off to commit suicide. .

"Montague Druitt was sacked from the sporting club because he had left word he was going abroad and had not returned -- and had not sent some kind of message of explanation for still being absent (which he could not do being secretly deceased by his own hand)."

Jonathan,
Is there any evidence that MJD told anyone that he was going abroad?
I am not aware of any.

Paul Begg expresses the view that we have to consider the possibility that the reference in the club minutes referring to MJD going abroad is a euphemism.

A euphemism for what exactly is open to individual interpretation.

[Jonathan H]

Of course ambiguous and incomplete sources allow for multiple, even opposing interpretations.

But not all interpretations are of the same weight or probability.

The tired old line, that Druitt was sacked for being gay and the club was euphemistically referring to his disgrace, is weak and untenable -- and frankly always was.

The sources I showed you is all there is. except Macnaghten in his 1914 memoir referring to the un-named Druitt being "absented" from his home at the time of the murders; a cryptic and deflective reference to Druitt being AWOL after the Kelly murder (deflective because a person is not absent if they are simply going out for the evening, if they are not a prisoner).

Begg is brilliant and thought-provoking on Druitt in his 2006 book -- and he also wonders if Druitt really did leave word he had gone abroad -- but other sources have been found since the publication of that excellent book which arguably render his interpretation of this suspect quite redundant (and redundant about Anderson, Swanson and "Kosminski" as well).

I stand by what I wrote. The club was not being euphemistic, because they would not have been had they known their AWOL member was perhaps in some kind of terrible mental state, perhaps self-harming -- perhaps a suicide.

I think the Logan source confirms this from 1905, seventeen years later. It is a glimpse into what really happened: Druitt left [false] word with the school, and probably his legal chambers, that he was headed overseas. The brother was not searching for him until the day before the body turned up in the Thames. Something or somebody changed William Druitt's mind that his brother had hightailed it to, say, Paris.

[barnflatwyngarde]

Thanks for this Jonathan.

You make some good points.

Cheers!