Hanbury Street to Blackheath in 6 hours?

[Sam Flynn]

I can't imagine where that is coming from, Gareth. I repeated the searches several times and always got the same results I posted above.

I wish I'd kept the darned screen-shot now, Andy! As it is, I can't help feeling I'm going mad

[Chris]

I wish I'd kept the darned screen-shot now, Andy! As it is, I can't help feeling I'm going mad

I shouldn't worry too much. The first time I asked Google Maps for London Bridge it claimed it was somewhere in Arizona ...

[Roma]

Another question : let's assume that Monty could go from Blackheath to London, come back and play cricket, how did he succeed in going out of Valentine's school (the place he resides, right ?) and then coming back there without being heard or seen ?

[aspallek]

There is an assumption sometimes made that Druitt was required to be present in the school overnight as part of his job. There is no evidence for this whatsoever, however. Especially on a Friday night he may have been at liberty to come and go as he pleased. At any rate, he could easily have excused himself by saying that he was off to visit his Uncle Robert at Kensington to spend Friday night there.

Furthermore, I suspect that a young unmarried man spending all Friday night in London and returning to his suburban home Saturday morning would not have been an unusual occurrence.

[JJ Plant]

Druitt’s putative itinerary from Hanbury Street to Eliot Place on 08/09/1888.

There is a tendency in this discussion to assume that Druitt would have travelled via London Bridge. This can be traced to Sugden. An alternative would have been via the East London Line, boarding at either Shoreditch or Whitechapel stations and travelling to New Cross or New Cross Gate. This is quite a short trip, but the TFL website is not giving good estimated travel times at present because of works to the line. However, http://www.tom-carden.co.uk/p5/tube_...e_grid/applet/ gives an indication of 11 minutes for Whitechapel to New Cross.

From New Cross the walk time to Eliot Place is given by google as “about 50 minutes”. It is up quite steep gradients to the top of Shooters Hill.The most direct route would have taken him along what is now the A2, Shooters Hill Road, which would certainly have offered a range of omnibuses and cabs, which he might have taken if his appearance was not then such as to attract suspicious notice (eg blood-splattered).

Potentially then, Druitt’s journey time could have been substantially under an hour.

So, does anybody have access to information about the time for start of service on the East London Line in 1888?

Chapman was last seen shortly after 5:30am with a man, potentially the killer, by the witness Long, who relied for his timing on the brewery clock having rung.. If the inquest report is correct in stating that the cutting of Chapman would have required an hour if conducted surgically, then the killer might not have begun his journey away from Hanbury St until about 6:30 am (leaving aside the question of whether it would have been safe for him to spend an hour in what would have been growing daylight). His walk to Shoreditch Station would have been about 5 minutes, or to Whitechapel 9. The route to Whitechapel might well be via Bucks Row, close to the Nichols murder location of a few days previous. Allowing some margin of time for evasive or cautious behaviour, he could have been on a train before 7am, at New Cross by 7:30am, and even if he walked home, he could have been there by 8:30am, leaving three hours for “all he had to do”.

So IF the East London Line was working that day, the idea that Druitt would not have had time to get from Hanbury St to the cricket ground would not stand up.

BTW – none of the foregoing need be taken as supporting Druitt as suspect.

[Chris]

JJ Plant

Yes - I should have made it clear that I was choosing London Bridge only as a simple option that could be used for illustration without inviting endless discussion of tube and railway timetables.

There are a number of other routes that could have been used.

One other possibility is that Druitt could have walked to Liverpool Street, then travelled three stops to Monument on the Circle Line and walked across London Bridge to get his train. This would depend on the Circle Line trains running early enough, but they do today. Based on current timetables, the total time walking and travelling by train would be well under an hour for this journey, though there would also be waiting time both at Liverpool Street and London Bridge.

One other point is that Chapman's body was discovered at about 6a.m., so the killer must have been gone by then.

In any case, the "bottom line" is that however Druitt might have made the journey, it would have left him with several hours to do everything he needed to do after getting home.

[aspallek]

Cannon Street would actually have be the closest station to 29 Hanbury Street but only very slightly closer than London Bridge. London Bridge would have the advantage of catching the same train a little later, giving him more time, possibly enough time to catch the first train of the morning.

There was no "Circle Line" per se in 1888. However the "circle" of track was completed in 1884 with both District and Metropolitan trains operating on it. There was no continuous service completely around the circle. In order to get from Liverpool Street Station (the Tube station then was called Bishopsgate Station) to Cannon Street Station, Druitt would have had to change trains, probably at Altgate. Obviously, this would be impractical as the walking distance from 29 Hanbury Street to Cannon Street Station was a mere 25 minutes, 29 minutes to London Bridge Station. There is no need to speculate on his traveling on the underground since the walk is short.

Other station options for rail service to Blackheath would be Ludgate Hill (now disused) or St. Paul's (disused, not the same as today's St. Paul's station on the Central Line) on the London, Dover, and Chatham Railway. However, these stations are more distant than Cannon Street and rail service began later in the morning and served "Blackheath Hill," a station more distant from Eliot Place. Clearly, this was not a viable option.

Therefore, it would have been a simple matter for Druitt to commit the murder and be at Eliot Place shortly after 8 am. He conceivably could have been there by 7 am if he was able to catch the first train of the morning at London Bridge. This train would have departed Cannon Street at 6:40 and would have arrived at London Bridge a few minutes later.

Please see this post, in which I have laid things out: http://forum.casebook.org/showpost.p...1&postcount=26

[Chris]

There was no "Circle Line" per se in 1888. However the "circle" of track was completed in 1884 with both District and Metropolitan trains operating on it. There was no continuous service completely around the circle.

Are you sure about that?

Weinreb and Hibbert, London Encyclopaedia, say (p. 160):
"The two companies had originally been expected to amalgamate but relations between them deteriorated, partly over the division of receipts from the Circle, and partly because of personal animosity between the chairmen of the two companies. It was City interests that finally forced them to complete the Circle and the last link, between Mansion House and Aldgate, was opened in 1884. The Metropolitan and the District both worked their trains all round the Circle."

Of course, as you say, the question is academic because there was so much time to spare.

[aspallek]

I'll stand corrected then. From the source I was looking at that did not appear to be the case. But as you say, it is academic since there was ample time to spare and it still would probably be impractical to attempt to travel this short distance by underground rail even if servce began by that early hour.

[Chris]

I'll stand corrected then. From the source I was looking at that did not appear to be the case. But as you say, it is academic since there was ample time to spare and it still would probably be impractical to attempt to travel this short distance by underground rail even if servce began by that early hour.

Unless I particularly wanted the walk I would take the Underground if I was going from Hanbury Street to London Bridge at a normal time of the day. The only snag would be that trains would probably be pretty infrequent early in the morning.

[aspallek]

Also that in Victorian times a 25 minute walk would be nothing. I will try to do more research into frequency of underground train times in the early morning in 1888. Remember that he still would have to walk to Bishopsgate Station (Liverpool Street) and this would take the better part of 10 minutes I should think. Then he would have to wait for a train. I think walking direct to Cannon Street or London Bridge would be more practical.

[JJ Plant]

1888 Underground timetables

I have been in touch with the London Transport Museum. They have a timetable for the first half of 1888 in their catalogue, and have added my request for details on start times and frequencies to the worklist for a panel of volunteers who are allowed access. They say I should have a response "in a few weeks". I will post here whatever I get.

[peterk]

druitt

Hi All,
First time posting - so be gentle!
Now, if sportsmen of yesteryear were anything like they are today- Druitt missing a match on the very morning of a ripper murder would have earned him a lot of ribbing and the nickname "Jack the Ripper"! If he had done it I reckon he would have felt obliged turn up no matter how tired or disinclined for the sake of appearances at least.
However, surely anyone planning a night of debauchery would choose one with no commitments next day? Or was the cricket match intended to be a clever alibi?

I still think Maybrick did it ...;-)

Cheers
Pete

[aspallek]

I have been in touch with the London Transport Museum. They have a timetable for the first half of 1888 in their catalogue, and have added my request for details on start times and frequencies to the worklist for a panel of volunteers who are allowed access. They say I should have a response "in a few weeks". I will post here whatever I get.

That is a good idea certainly. The times I posted above were from a reliable source and are for January 1889, so they are about as current as one can hope for.

A few years ago I checked with the London Transport Museum regarding service and ticketing between Charing Cross and Hammersmith in 1888. They were most helpful. They did say, however, that their collections did not include suburban rail services. That would come under the National Rail Museum at York.

Hi All,
First time posting - so be gentle!
Now, if sportsmen of yesteryear were anything like they are today- Druitt missing a match on the very morning of a ripper murder would have earned him a lot of ribbing and the nickname "Jack the Ripper"! If he had done it I reckon he would have felt obliged turn up no matter how tired or disinclined for the sake of appearances at least.
However, surely anyone planning a night of debauchery would choose one with no commitments next day? Or was the cricket match intended to be a clever alibi?

A rather poor alibi since it places him 6 miles from the crime within a few hours of its commission.