Montague John Druitt : Whitechapel Murderer ?

[Fleetwood Mac]

DANGEROUS TO OTHERS

Seems to me people are assuming that the killer must have been generally viewed as a dangerous man because he killed people.

Well.....he was able to function in his every day life. His killings occupied a minute proportion of his existence. That is a fact. He was able to function so well that he wasn't caught. That is a fact unless you want to speculate that there was a cover up. So these facts suggest that the man would not have been evidently a dangerous person unless you happened to bump into him at 2 in the morning. Surely an evidently dangerous person and someone who exercises sufficient control to get himself into the required the situation is a contradiction in terms.

I'd suggest were the person committed to an asylum it is more likely than not that he would not have been viewed as dangerous. Though it's more likey still that he was never committed to an asylum. Based on the fact that he went about his daily life for those months without arousing sufficient suspicion to be arrested and charged. Serial killers get caught not because they're viewed as dangerous by the wider public - but because the evidence stacks up against them.

[Jonathan H]

Fido found the Kosminski medical records in 1987.

In the same year Swanson's grandson had the Marginalia published.

Evans found the Littlechild Letter in 1993.

Farson found the unofficial version of the Macnaghten Report in 1959, and Tom Cullen published it in 1965.

Rumbelow published the official version of the Macnaghten Report in 1975.

Palmer had published the extraordinary Tumblety interview in 2007, and the following year Spallek, armed with a vital breakthrough, published the identity of the MP.

But the 'West of England MP' story remains an elusive orphan.

In my opinion it is the Rosetta Stone of the whole mystery, yet it is very difficult to locate who found it and when?

I first saw it here, on the Boards in 2007, when Stewart referred to it as the likely source of Macnaghten's 'private information' and I was just gobsmacked by its implications -- if you could more directly link it to Druitt.

You say, John, it might have been found in the 1970's??

It does not appear in any secondary text until the 'A to Z' [which edition? Not the one I have seen] and in a narrative historical work not until 2009: in Evans and Connell's gem of a book on Reid.

It does not appear in Begg's '--The Facts' [2004], nor Evans and Rumbelow's 'Scotland Yard Investigates' [2006] -- though in the latter masterwork there was arguably no need for it to appear.

[Johnr]

With A Caveat For An Ageing Memory..

Yes, Jonathan, I think you are correct about the 'West of England Member' article being the " Rosetta Stone" of recent Ripper studies.

I would qualify that by saying for those who hold store in Sir Melville Macnaghten's covert writings.

After all, for anyone looking for written confirmation of Montague Druitt's alleged involvement, no recorded link exists except the MM.

The other two suspects he listed left recorded footprints.

So, was a principal aim of the Melville Macnaghten Memorandum, to bring to light- albeit 100 years too late - the over-looked name of a most unlikely candidate?


As to your question about the emergence of the WOEM spore in the 1970's, I might be doing Mr Stewart P.Evans a terrible injustice by suggesting Mr Hermes as the discoverer.

My reason for nominating Hermes is that he was an early Ripperologist, who travelled the country gleaning esoteric tid-bits from regional newspapers. Even provincial newspapers.Some not mentioned in major London dailies.

He shared lots of these with me, and recently I passed them on to Robert L and John Savage and Mr O'Flaherty.

Eric Hermes would complain about the fragile state of the Gloucester Journal copies held in the basement of his local Cheltenham Library.

At the time I was more interested in his residing in the very town, (Cheltenham), where MJD's cousin Lionel, went to school.

I have also checked my 1993 paperback A to Z, you are correct Jonathan, no sign of the WOFM article therein.

In the back of my tin head, I have some inkling of Keith Skinner, another assiduous researcher, prior to the publication of his book(?), being aware of the WOFM article. I might be wrong. If so, apologies all round.

Nonetheless, I will need to know more about MJD's lost years before I will be downright about his innocence or otherwise.

JOHN RUFFELS.

[Jonathan H]

In his 2004 book 'JTR -- The Facts', Paul Begg writes very lucidly and even-handedly about Macnaghten and Druitt, coming to the provisional, reasonable conclusion that the former must have been denied accurate biog. information about the latter -- hence the errors, particularly in the Aberconway version of his Report.

That perhaps Macnaghten confused the 3rd missing medical student, Saunders, with Druitt?

Whatever happened, by the time he wrote the official version of his Report in 1894, Mac clearly knew little about M J Druitt except bits and pieces cobbled perhaps from news clippings and PC Moulsen's report which, together, describe the drowned man as fortyish, and being found with a season train pass.

Or else, why the basic errors?

Unfortunately, Begg seems to have been unaware of the 'West of England MP' story of Feb 1tth 1891 in 'The Bristol Times and Mirror'.

The 2008 identification of this MP [by Andy Spallek] as a near-neighbor of the Druitts AND a high school contemporary of Macnaghten's, arguably weakens Begg's line of argument to the point of rendering it very unlikely.

In my opinion that leaves three possibilities as to why Druitt began morphing into an untraceable 'shilling shocker' figure for Edwardians.

1. Macnaghten over-rated his excellent memory and should have kept a notebook, a deficiency he cheerfully concedes in the preface of his 1914 memoirs.

Within three years of learning the Druitt story, Macnaghten's memory began to fuse 'son of a surgeon' into maybe a doctor himself. Within four years of the official version, when it came to showing Griffiths the Druitt-driven rewrite, the father and son had merged, in his mind, into a middle-aged physician.

By 1907, what he fed Sims was further misremembered and exaggerated. For example, Druitt's mother had been in an asylum -- this was shifted across to the son. Druitt had been unemployed from one of his jobs, for a few days, became an affluent doctor unemployed for years. The train ticket was blown up into a reclusive Ripper who idles his time away on public transport. In his memoirs, Macnaghten made an effort to remember correctly, and so denied that the suspect had ever been in an asylum -- or the subject of police interest between 1888 and 1891.

2. Macnaghten knew everything, and remembered everything.

In 1891, he cut a deal with the Druitt family to never reveal their Montie's identity that he could be recognized by their peers. In the official version of his Report he buried that Druitt was a young barrister, and that the police had never heard of him in connection with the Whitechapel murders. In the unofficial version, created for literary cronies, he further disguised Druitt as Jekyll-Hyde, and Sims was later fed even more fictitious details. Mac enhanced the Yard's rep whilst simultaneously protecting it from a libel suit: the perfect fix.

Upon retiring he destroyed Druitt's confession, or some kind of incriminating documentary evidence handed over by the family. In his memoirs, the following year, Macnaghten tried to -- up to a point -- set the record straight, but it was too late and too subtle.

So successful was this shell-game that it fools people to this very day.

This site is a testimony to how clever a Brer Fox Macnaghten was as even with the name exposed the 'errors' mislead people into thinking that Druitt, actually Jack the Ripper, is no longer a viable suspect.

3. The real chief suspect was Dr Francis Tumblety.

Macnagten ruthlessly exploited a nothing suspect, Druitt, as a Trojan Horse to propagate to the Edwardian audience the essential identity of the real chief suspect: a middle-aged, Gentile, medico chased but not caught by police in 1888.

Why?

Because Mac was mortified and offended at the way the vain Anderson was denying the primacy of Tumblety in favor of a poor, mad, Jew who was almost certainly innocent.

But Mac could not point directly at Tumblety as he was such an embarrassing suspect for the Yard. Thus 'the 'Drowned Doctor' Super-suspect, who never literally existed and whom Anderson never acknowledged, was Mac's cunning myth used to needle his ex-boss, and to enhance the Yard's rep.

It brilliantly inverted the Tumblety fumble into a near triumph. Mac's memoirs further get the Yard off the hook by claiming that hard evidence about this vague suspect arrived too late; after he had killed himself.


Of these three possibilities I believe that the weight of the meager evidence makes No. 2 the most likely.

Therefore, the identification of Macnaghten's probable source of the 'private inf.', Henry Farquharson, arguably solves the mystery -- historically speaking.

It was not 'Jack's' identity which was unknown by 1891. It WAS known -- but way too late. The dilemma was what to do about that identification of a man who could never be brought to earthly justice?

One option Macnaghten had was to do nothing at all about it.

I am glad he did not choose that option.

[Johnr]

About Dr Tumblety and THE MM..

I'm getting your drift now thanks Jonathan.

I do, however, have difficulty assimilating a tall (broad?), -no not a tall broad- American in a wide slouch hat with a huge moustache, approaching several of the less alluring prostitutes in Londons East.

What witness descriptions approach a description of Tumbleweed?

Secondly, Jonathan, have you considered the public statement in mid 1889, by local East End Member, Samuel Montague, that the Ripper was dead and there would be no more murders?

Could he have been chatting with West of England Member ( for West Dorset), Farquharson. Who himself, was negotiating to move to the seat of Bethnal Green?

And if so, how does that fit in with your Macnaghten -as-Macchievelli scenario?

JOHN RUFFELS.

[Jonathan H]

I don't mean that Tumblety actually was the Ripper, just that Macnaghten may have thought he was the best suspect, rightly or wrongly.

On balance, it is more likely that he thought Druitt was the Ripper, but he used the Tumblety fumble to redact the drowned barrister back into the 1888 investigation: a middle-aged, sexually-deviant, under-employed, affluent, medico, with 'pals' and no family, chased by police, 'believed' to have suicided.

I say 'redact' because in his memoirs he came close to admitting that this was not true, that the un-named Druitt was not a contemporaneous suspect.

The only witness description worth anything is Lawende. That is how it appears at this great distance, and that is how it appeared to Scotland Yard at the time, who used this witness, and no other, to identify two suspects -- that we know of.

Lawende's description matches Tumblety in only one detail though it is significant -- that the suspect looked like a Gentile. In every other detail: age, height, moustache-size it does not match at all.

On the other hand, Mac claimed in his memoirs that this sighting [by a non-existent policeman] was 'unsatisfying'.

Speculation in 1889, or anytime, that the Ripper was dead counts for little from our point of view without more specific details. The 1891 MP story has the regions the Druitts came from, and the crucial detail that the suspect was the 'son of a surgeon'. In his 1914 memoirs Macnaghten admits that it was 'some years after' that 'certain facts' turned up about the un-named Druitt. This matches perfectly with the MP story of Feb 11th 1891.

Thanks to Macnaghten, the un-named Montie Druitt would not be again correctly decribed as a surgeon's son until 1965.

[John Savage]

Hello John Ruffels,

It would not surprise me if Mr.Hermes had found the "West of England MP" story many years ago.

In some books the story is attributed to the Western Mail, and for many years I thought this to be the only newspaper to have carried the story, until about four years ago when I was trawling the Hull newspapers in my local library I came across a very similar story. I duly posted the details on these boards but it was lost after a crash at Casebook. The story I found gave it's source as a Nottingham newspaper, but I now believe that similar reports where published in other regional newspapers, anyway it caused a bit of a stir at the time.

Here is what I found:

[Jonathan H]

Andy Spallek, in his very fine 2008 piece for 'Ripperologist', which i urge people to read in 'Dissertations', called 'The West of England MP -- Identified' which completely overturned some people's thinking about Druitt [well ... mine] covered this sort of variation of the piece from 'The Bristol Times and Mirror' of Feb 11th, 1891.

The line in the latter is 'son of a surgeon'.

In this version just posted it is has been mangled into the awkward, almost incoherent: 'son of a father who suffered from homicidal mania'. As Spallek speculated the libel laws were so formidable -- which the article itself fearfully alludes too -- that other newspapers sabotaged this point because they may have felt that it might trigger an action by the family.

Which lead to my argument that Macnaghten, via Griffiths and Sims and their respective publishers, would not have propagated the 'Drowned Dcotor' story unless he and they were secure in the knowledge that the un-named Druitt was so fictionalized that they all were snugly shielded from a libel suit.

[Roy Corduroy]

It's not ruled out that the Earl of Crawford's note to Anderson concerned a Druitt family member, as was Stephen Ryder's original premise.

Nonwithstanding that it could be about a Kosminski. Or anyone.

Roy

[Jonathan H]

To Roy, yes the Crawford Letter might be referring to Druitt.

It is just that the weight of the other sources; Druitt's sympathetic obits, the 1891 MP story, and the 1914 Macnaghten memoirs, arguably all point towards this suspect being completely unknown to Scotland Yard until years after he was beyond the reach of justice.

That this was the real 'mystery' of Jack the Ripper which Macnaghten made efforts to conceal from the public, via his Report(s), and George Sims, until he fessed up from the safety of retirement. That the killer was an omnipotent madman who stopped because he killed himself, and not because of any police investigation.

Nobody paid much attention then to "Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper", and hardly anybody does now.

In nothing that has survived does Anderson refer to Druitt in any form, and yet the Crawford Letter was addressed to him and found amongst his papers.

After all, why would a Druitt family member be contacting the Yard -- and why through an Earl -- to draw attention to a member who is already deceased? The Crawford Letter strongly suggests an ongoing, living suspect-threat.

Anderson's suspect is most likely to have been Aaron Kosminski. If this letter is significant -- and it may not be -- then it is more likely to have been from a low-class family member, like a Kosminski, naively trying to get assistance from the upper classes.

[Johnr]

Moving The West Of England's Member To His Own Thread

Hello Jonathan, John Savage et al,

I wonder if anyone would mind if I took Jonathan's query about when "The West Of England Member" article first surfaced, to a thread of its very own?

After all, that is an interesting, if not quite vital question.

Whoever unearthed it deserves some accolades. And if someone were trying to locate this discussion in ten years time ... they would never find it buried in this thread.

I have a part answer for John Savage, but not for Jonathan.

JOHN RUFFELS.

[Johnr]

Who First Discovered The "West Of England Member" Article?

. But the 'West of England MP' story remains an elusive orphan.

In my opinion it is the Rosetta Stone of the whole mystery, yet it is very difficult to locate who found it and when?

I first saw it here, on the Boards in 2007, when Stewart referred to it as the likely source of Macnaghten's 'private information' and I was just gobsmacked by its implications -- if you could more directly link it to Druitt.

You say, John, it might have been found in the 1970's??

It does not appear in any secondary text until the 'A to Z' [which edition? Not the one I have seen] and in a narrative historical work not until 2009: in Evans and Connell's gem of a book on Reid.

It does not appear in Begg's '--The Facts' [2004], nor Evans and Rumbelow's 'Scotland Yard Investigates' [2006] -- though in the latter masterwork there was arguably no need for it to appear.

On the "Was Montague Druitt Jack the Ripper? " thread, Jonathan H raised the above question.

So as not to lose it in the other germane discussions and mayhem on that thread, I thought I would scoop it out and plonk it here .

I had thought a Ripperologist from the 1970's, Eric Hermes, might have located it originally, as his forte was quarrying in obscure provincial newspapers. Seeing he hailed from the West Counrty himself I felt he would be the likely candidate.

John Savage thought so too. I was wrong. I have been right back through Hermes' correspondence to me from those times: Nothing.

And I was also incorrect about it being in the 1993 A to Z.

Then I thought, was it one of the Chrises? Chris who produces absolutely every fresh newspaper article or Census entry you've ever wanted... or Chris Philips who did some sterling textual detective work on Druitt a couple of years back?

Can anybody throw a glimmer on this one?

The only clue I can add is that I mentioned it in a post as far back as November 25 2003. And I was not its discoverer.


JOHN RUFFELS.

[nugnug]

Fit Up A Deadman

i think this a case of cant catch the killer so try and pin it on a deadman.


its the perfect fit up when you think of it he wont put up a defence give an albie or even deny doing it.

its brillant im suprised the police never think of doing that nowdays.

[DirectorDave]

A 2 for me.....I really doubt Monty was JtR....but in truth he is the suspect I find most fascinating.

I still hold out hope that one day we will find something to prove he was innocent.

[MrTwibbs]

i think this a case of cant catch the killer so try and pin it on a deadman.


its the perfect fit up when you think of it he wont put up a defence give an albie or even deny doing it.

its brillant im suprised the police never think of doing that nowdays.

I agree with you
Monty and others are great scapegoats
The reason the police don't think of it much now is because times have changed. They now have to contend with DNA and that joe public is not as gullable as it was back then.