Farquharson's Theory

[lynn cates]

cliche

Hello Jonathan. Good word, "cliche."

Not unlike, "And murders like that never happened again in London from that day forward."

Cheers.
LC

[Jonathan H]

To Lynn

Yes, I agree.

And I think Simon makes a very good point, though sources are often torturous.

On the other hand, the alternative simpler explanation is that Tory MP MacLean was simply being honest in the 'Western Mail' of Feb 1892, and Macnaghten had nothing to do with that source.

Therefore, the police were watching somebody in 1892 -- though it must have come to nothing -- and the 'West of England' MP was believed, by the police, to be wrong. Because they thought Coles, for one thing, was a 'Jack' murder, and then this extraordinary suspect they were watching 'night and day' was clearly alive and kicking.

Perhaps Mac was privately aghast that Farquharson was named.

But in terms of my theory this would mean, of course, that the source still supports it but from a different angle.

For it would suggest that Macnaghten, alone among anybody at Scotland Yard, believed in the MP's 'remarkable theory' and agreed with his fellow Old Etonian that Coles was not a 'Jack' murder, and that the real murderer was long dead. And that Mac kept it a 'secret' from the Yard, a persistent theme of the sources on this police chief and suspect.

Both of those notions would eventually seep into the minds of his superior, Anderson, and his inferior, Swanson: a prime suspect dead soon after Kelly with Coles, inevitably, knocked out of the canonical list.

In terms of class and connections Mac was the highest 'ranking' officer at the Yard.

[lynn cates]

divide

Hello Jonathan. It could also explain the Druitt/Kosminski divide. That one has always puzzled me.

Cheers.
LC

[jason_c]

To Lynn

Yes, I agree.

And I think Simon makes a very good point, though sources are often torturous.

On the other hand, the alternative simpler explanation is that Tory MP MacLean was simply being honest in the 'Western Mail' of Feb 1892, and Macnaghten had nothing to do with that source.

Therefore, the police were watching somebody in 1892 -- though it must have come to nothing -- and the 'West of England' MP was believed, by the police, to be wrong. Because they thought Coles, for one thing, was a 'Jack' murder, and then this extraordinary suspect they were watching 'night and day' was clearly alive and kicking.

Perhaps Mac was privately aghast that Farquharson was named.

But in terms of my theory this would mean, of course, that the source still supports it but from a different angle.

For it would suggest that Macnaghten, alone among anybody at Scotland Yard, believed in the MP's 'remarkable theory' and agreed with his fellow Old Etonian that Coles was not a 'Jack' murder, and that the real murderer was long dead. And that Mac kept it a 'secret' from the Yard, a persistent theme of the sources on this police chief and suspect.

Both of those notions would eventually seep into the minds of his superior, Anderson, and his inferior, Swanson: a prime suspect dead soon after Kelly with Coles, inevitably, knocked out of the canonical list.

In terms of class and connections Mac was the highest 'ranking' officer at the Yard.

Jonathan,

Would this not be incongruous with MacNaghten sending an official memo to the Home Office in which he names Druitt as his favoured suspect?

From the memorandum alone it suggests MacNaghten was not averse to passing on information to others about Druitt's guilt. Why not send his memo replacing the suspect Druitt with the suspect "Joe Bloggs from Whitechapel" if he wished to hide the name Druitt?

[Jonathan H]

To Jason c

But he didn't send the official version of his Report.

All the Home Office knew about the 'drowned doctor' alleged Super-suspect was what the Whitehall mandarins read in Griffiths and Sims, with the latter wrongly claiming that there was a definitive document of state in the files of that department.

Anybody who bothered to check would have found the cupboard bare?

I think that is an excellent question, Jason. Why would make Macnaghten risk exposing the Druitts if he is trying to conceal them, out of compassion?

Yet if we look at the 'Reports' in context it does make sense, I argue.

In 1891, Macnaghten meets with Farquharson and then the Druitts, or a Druitt, and becomes, like them convinced -- rightly or wrongly -- that Montie is the dead fiend.

About this he does nothing, except I presume tell the MP to shut up! A Ripper from a Tory family, blabbed about by a Tory MP, and now the secret knowledge of a Tory police chief. Macaghten would have to use all his skills as an affable but shrewd player of the game to 'keep everyone satisfied'.

Nothing is committed to file and the desultory police hunt for other suspects continues. Macnaghten is concerned about what to do if there is another arrest because the Druitt story will be a tarbaby for the police, once the truth comes out.

Then in 1894, Inspector Race shafts the Yard by spreading it around about Cutbush. Two different tabloids begin making false claims of a Scotland Yard cover-up about the banged-up jobbing lunatic as 'Jack'.

Macnaghten realizes that this may trigger the exposure of the dead Ripper in Dorset tale.

Especially if he knows that a clergyman knows the truth and is going to present a veiled version of that story in a few years? Perhaps he will publish early?

Mac prepares a Home Office Report to protect the Yard ahead of the family, if the story spills out of Dorset as it had just a few years before. He downplays Druitt as a minor, hearsay suspect -- along with two other minor ones. All of whom seem to have mentally imploded after the Kelly atrocity, the might-be-a-doctor the closest in timing to the 'awful glut' (none of this was true but all three men).

Yet he also puts it on file that the family were totally convinced of their deceased member's guilt, but an arrest was not made as there was not even the shadow of proof.

Of course, what he does not reveal in either version is that Druitt was an entirely posthumous suspect, unknown to police for years after he took his own life. This Yard-friendly redaction misled Griffiths and Sims in their adaptations of 'Aberconway', and the latter went much further giving the false impression that the doctor was about to be arrested before the fateful plunge into the Thames.

But the Druitt story did not resurface in Dorset.

Macnaghten did not need to risk exposing the family. Breathing easier, he mothballed the Report, just in case it might be needed again. It wasn't.

On the other hand, in 1898, an alternate, quite different version was deployed, via cronies, to disseminate the story he did not spread in 1894: the police were onto this Jekyll-Hyde maniac. This got in just ahead of a Vicar from up North revealing-concealing that the Ripper died shortly after the Kelly murder, and had confessed in word -- rather than deed -- in the immediate aftermath of the 'awful glut'.

The Vicar admitted that he was mixing fact and fiction to protect living people.

Sound familiar?

Unknowingly, Sims, who rudely dismisses the Vicar for having his fiend have plenty of time to confess in the wake of the Millers Ct. horror, was doing exactly the same thing.

Were the Druitts exposed? No, they were slyly hidden. When Leonard Matters, in the late 20's, went looking for the 'drowned doctor' in public records he could not find him. He assumed he did not exist, and was half-right. The wall was not breached.

It's hard to argue with success, even if there close calls along the way.

Mac was prepared to risk their exposure if they were about to be exposed anyhow, to try and put the best gloss on it all for the Yard.

Henry Asquith the Liberal Home Sec. would have said, if the Cutbush matter had kept escalating and required answers in the Commons, that the police had a much better suspect in a London doctor -- un-named of course -- who took his own life in the Thames on Nov. 9th 1888. That might just square the circle; keep the government happy, the tabloids at bay, while concealing the Druitts from their peers in Dorset. Or not ...?

As it was did not come to that.

Mac's machinations mislead people to this day: eg. Druitt was innocent, Macnaghten had a lousy memory, and so on.

[Trevor Marriott]

To Jason c

But he didn't send the official version of his Report.

All the Home Office knew about the 'drowned doctor' alleged Super-suspect was what the Whitehall mandarins read in Griffiths and Sims, with the latter wrongly claiming that there was a definitive document of state in the files of that department.

Anybody who bothered to check would have found the cupboard bare?

I think that is an excellent question, Jason. Why would make Macnaghten risk exposing the Druitts if he is trying to conceal them, out of compassion?

Yet if we look at the 'Reports' in context it does make sense, I argue.

In 1891, Macnaghten meets with Farquharson and then the Druitts, or a Druitt, and becomes, like them convinced -- rightly or wrongly -- that Montie is the dead fiend.

About this he does nothing, except I presume tell the MP to shut up! A Ripper from a Tory family, blabbed about by a Tory MP, and now the secret knowledge of a Tory police chief. Macaghten would have to use all his skills as an affable but shrewd player of the game to 'keep everyone satisfied'.

Nothing is committed to file and the desultory police hunt for other suspects continues. Macnaghten is concerned about what to do if there is another arrest because the Druitt story will be a tarbaby for the police, once the truth comes out.

Then in 1894, Inspector Race shafts the Yard by spreading it around about Cutbush. Two different tabloids begin making false claims of a Scotland Yard cover-up about the banged-up jobbing lunatic as 'Jack'.

Macnaghten realizes that this may trigger the exposure of the dead Ripper in Dorset tale.

Especially if he knows that a clergyman knows the truth and is going to present a veiled version of that story in a few years? Perhaps he will publish early?

Mac prepares a Home Office Report to protect the Yard ahead of the family, if the story spills out of Dorset as it had just a few years before. He downplays Druitt as a minor, hearsay suspect -- along with two other minor ones. All of whom seem to have mentally imploded after the Kelly atrocity, the might-be-a-doctor the closest in timing to the 'awful glut' (none of this was true but all three men).

Yet he also puts it on file that the family were totally convinced of their deceased member's guilt, but an arrest was not made as there was not even the shadow of proof.

Of course, what he does not reveal in either version is that Druitt was an entirely posthumous suspect, unknown to police for years after he took his own life. This Yard-friendly redaction misled Griffiths and Sims in their adaptations of 'Aberconway', and the latter went much further giving the false impression that the doctor was about to be arrested before the fateful plunge into the Thames.

But the Druitt story did not resurface in Dorset.

Macnaghten did not need to risk exposing the family. Breathing easier, he mothballed the Report, just in case it might be needed again. It wasn't.

On the other hand, in 1898, an alternate, quite different version was deployed, via cronies, to disseminate the story he did not spread in 1894: the police were onto this Jekyll-Hyde maniac. This got in just ahead of a Vicar from up North revealing-concealing that the Ripper died shortly after the Kelly murder, and had confessed in word -- rather than deed -- in the immediate aftermath of the 'awful glut'.

The Vicar admitted that he was mixing fact and fiction to protect living people.

Sound familiar?

Unknowingly, Sims, who rudely dismisses the Vicar for having his fiend have plenty of time to confess in the wake of the Millers Ct. horror, was doing exactly the same thing.

Were the Druitts exposed? No, they were slyly hidden. When Leonard Matters, in the late 20's, went looking for the 'drowned doctor' in public records he could not find him. He assumed he did not exist, and was half-right. The wall was not breached.

It's hard to argue with success, even if there close calls along the way.

Mac was prepared to risk their exposure if they were about to be exposed anyhow, to try and put the best gloss on it all for the Yard.

Henry Asquith the Liberal Home Sec. would have said, if the Cutbush matter had kept escalating and required answers in the Commons, that the police had a much better suspect in a London doctor -- un-named of course -- who took his own life in the Thames on Nov. 9th 1888. That might just square the circle; keep the government happy, the tabloids at bay, while concealing the Druitts from their peers in Dorset. Or not ...?

As it was did not come to that.

Mac's machinations mislead people to this day: eg. Druitt was innocent, Macnaghten had a lousy memory, and so on.

You are full of wild speculative theories perhaps you would like to offer another one as to why Simms never challenged Littlechild about Kosminski. Cutbush or Ostrog all appear as suspects named by MM. That should have been bread and butter stuff to a reporter.

We are not privvy to the letter sent to Littlechild to which he replied but certainly there was no mention of Kosminski or Ostrog or even Cutbush. Simms refers to a Dr D you suggest that this is Druitt. Littlechild states he has "never heard of a Dr D. Now I would have thought that by this time 1913 if Druitt was a real suspect wouldt you have thought someone like Littlechild would have known about any real live suspects, after all entries appear in The SB registers naming likely suspects and one direct from the pen of Littlechild himself.

I would suggest it was because all of them had been eliminated from suspicion long before then ?

[Jonathan H]

To Trevor,

I'm sorry, I don't quite follow?

I'll do what I can.

I think that 1913 Littlechild's letter to Sims was a shocker for the famous writer.

Macnaghten had for years hustled to his widely-read, Left-wing chum the notion that the 'police' were on the verge of arresting 'Jack', the 'demented doctor' who killed himself soon after Millers Ct.

Now Littlechild writes that, yes, there was a doctor being hunted, and he did -- perhaps -- kill himself, and the murders did stop (no, they didn't) but he was an American, and he was actually arrested and placed in a cell for a while. If this is not whom you mean, if it really is 'D' for somebody else, I've never heard of him? Griffiths got his information from Anderson (wrong, again) and he 'only thought he knew' so this other doctor must be just his fancy, but nobody important -- if he existed.

Perhaps for the first time, Sims was being confronted with Macnaghten misleading him.

But Mac could so easily wriggle out of it by saying oh, Tumblety, he didn't kill himself. It is Littlechild who is mixing up T with D. Plus, Anderson's chief suspect was a harmless Pole, who was never 'confronted' with any witness.

In 1915, Sims praises Mac's memoirs and is still repeating the 'drowned doctor' mythos as if it is entirely real.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

In February 1894, what discovery made by the Sun newspaper precipitated the Macnaghten Memorandum?

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

To Simon

I'm not with you?

On Feb 13th 'The Sun' began its alleged expose of the real fiend supposedly languishing in a mental institution, and on the 23rd Macnaghten wrote the official version of his Report dismissing its claims about [the un-named] Thomas Cutbush.

When exactly the 'Aberconway' version was written is subject to debate as it is not dated, and was later claimed to be a copy of a definitive Home Office Report. And it's not. It may have been a draft version of the official document which Mac rejected -- but kept -- or it is the official version rewritten, and more than that reconceived in 1898 to satisfy the needs of two writers on crime, and beyond them the wider public.