Druitt and Macnaghten

[Johnr]

Good Old Wikipedia Jeffrey!

You are a great biographical sleuth, Jeffrey.
And an excellent summater of the lives and works of the famous. Thanks.
Regarding that Call Book List, I got a bit excited when I saw the name Walter Louden SPOFFORTH.
That name us rather famous in the world of Edwardian Australian Cricket.
And whilst the Inner Temple Spofforth does have a tangible link to the Australian cricketing Spofforth, they are cousins.
The "Demon Bowler" Frederick Robert Spofforth hailed from the same Yorkshire family, and was widely regarded as largely being responsible for Australia clinching the cricket Test Match of 1882 between England and Australia - I think at Lords.
I could imagine Druitt pal-ing up to W.L.Spofforth for good tickets to the Tests, but then I realised Montague Druitt was actually a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club(MCC) so he did not need to ask.
Incidentally, F.R.Spofforth eventually returned to the country of his ancestors, England, and ran a prosperous tea company ( How British!).
And F.R.Spofforth's daughter ended up marrying the son of W.L. Spofforth.
Who says Life is not symetrical?
JOHN RUFFELS.

[Mayerling]

Sir Thomas Marchant Williams (1845-1914)

WILLIAMS , Sir THOMAS MARCHANT ( 1845 - 1914 ), barrister and writer ; b. at Gadlys , Aberdare , the son of a coal-miner . His first school was ‘ Ysgol y Comin ,’ Aberdare , where Dan Isaac Davies (q.v.) was headmaster , and where he became a pupil teacher . In 1864 he entered the Bangor Normal College ; after taking his teacher's certificate he was headmaster of the Amlwch school and afterwards of the Garth school at Bangor . He was also, for a time, on the staff of a school in Yorkshire . On his return to Wales he became one of the first students of the University College of Wales , Aberystwyth , and took the University of London B.A. degree in 1874 . He was appointed an inspector of schools under the London School Board , but decided to study law and was called to the Bar in 1885 , joining the South Wales circuit . In 1900 he was appointed stipendiary magistrate at Merthyr Tydfil , a position which he held till his death. While living in London he took an active part in the revival of the Cymmrodorion Society and the establishment of the National Eisteddfod Association . At the time of his death he was chairman of the Council of the Association . He was also keenly interested in Welsh education. A prolific and caustic writer , he was the author of, amongst other things, The Land of my Fathers ; The Welsh Members of Parliament , 1894 (critical sketches of the Welsh members, with caricatures by Will Morgan ); and Odlau Serch a Bywyd , 1907 , a volume of verse. He will be best remembered as the founder and editor , in 1907 , of The Nationalist , a monthly magazine in which he gave his critical and controversial abilities full play. He was married in 1883 , and knighted in 1904 . He d. at his home, Rhyd-y-felin , near Builth , 27 Oct. 1914 , and was buried in S. John's churchyard, near Builth .
Bibliography:
■Sir Vincent Evans , in (Gŵyl Dewi), 1915 .
Author:
From Welsh Biography Online

[Mayerling]

George Thorne-Drury

This was from WikiServices, not Wikipedia (no biography in detail).

George Thorne-Drury (died 1931)

Was an authority on Caroline and Restoration periods. He wrote a number of articles for the DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY (1901 edition). He also wrote a few books about 17th Century literature. He was appointed Recorder of Dover from 1920 to 1931.

His death was listed in The Times (January 16, 1931) issue 45722 on page 1, col. A. He had died suddenly at his home at 42 Roland-gardens, Dover SW7, on Wednesday, January 14, 1931, and was to be buried at St. Stephen's in Canterbury on Saturday, January 17, 1931.

One interesting coincidence here. In the Wikipedia article on Sir Archibald Bodkin he was appointed to the now vacated position of recorder of Dover on February 9, 1931.

[Mayerling]

Ewald August Esselen

In some ways this is one of the weirdest of the biographies I have located.

The basis for this is from a website for the University of Cape Town dealing with it's Libraries and the manuscripts and archives.

Ewald August Esselin:

b. Worcester September 27, 1858 to death at Cape Town on November 4, 1918. He just missed the end of the Great War.

He was an Advocate, Judge and Attorney-General of the Transvaal. He was a politician and founder member of the Volk Party. He also served in the Boer War, but I suspect as a Boer soldier (this was from another website).

The UCT website deals with the Esselen Papers. It says: "Most of the letters are from leading political figures of the late 1800's and early 1900's. Ewald Esselen's diary for January - September 1881 while he acted AS SECRETARY TO PRESIDENT KRUGER has also survived, as has a notebook containing some of his reminiscences."

I capitalized that bit about President Paul Ohm Kruger of the Transvaal Republic. In 1881 the first Boer War ended with a victory by the Boers at Majuba Hill over Sir George Pomeroy (who was killed). I just wonder what made somebody like Monty feel he should befriend somebody who recently was an enemy of the British government.

[Mayerling]

Frank Rohnweger (1859 - 1920)

This is not as curious as Esselen. It is also colonial centered.

Frank Rohnweger's ancester's were German, but his family have been in the British Isles for a few generations. He got an appointment to the British West Africa (now Nigeria) in the 1890s. It was a combination of police chief and magistrate. In 1899 he managed to prevent a collision with the French over the Borgo area that prevented war between the powers (this was shortly after the better known collision in the Sudan between Colonel Marchand and General Kitchener at Fashoda). On advice from local military figures and the governor, Joseph Chamberlain (then Colonial Minister) advised that Rohnweger should be made a Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George for Political Services. However, Rohnweger was a heavy drinker and soon reports of his bouts of the D.T.s surfaced. In 1902 he was allowed to resign with his pension. He retired ("to obscurity") in the then colony of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

This is from a web site on British Colonial History in Africa Research. The article is FRANK ROSNWEGER, CMG, 1859-1920 WAS A LAWYER, A CHIEF JUSTICE OF LAGOS COLONY & A BON VIVANT, by Keith Steward, FRGS.

[Johnr]

So Many Successful Legal Careers...

Thanks for all those,Jeff,
I was not aware of any of them. Except Bodkin ands maybe Pollack.

Sorry for not acknowledging your answere to my question about what Circuit Montague Druitt was on, Maurice.

You say it is mentioned in the A to Z: I have found the mention in the 1991 paperback edition: "....Admitted Inner Temple, 1882;calledto the bar, 1885, attached to Western Circuit".
Well, I think Home Secretary, Henry Mathews also practiced on that circuit. At least in the only list I could locate in Australia, for 1897.
Can anyone confirm the years Montague Druitt is listed on the Western Circuit on the Law Lists from 1885?

JOHN RUFFELS.

[Johnr]

Hmmm Here's an Interesting One...

Frank,
You started this thread by linking the name of Inner Temple successful law exam candidate Druitt, with Lincolns Inn candidate -at the same exam venue- Edward Macnaghten

Well, as Phil says, he would prefer it if we could find a connection to one of Montague's family as the source of "private information" about the Druitt Suspicion.

We all know the name of the "West of England Member" (Farquharson)has been successfully identified one of the three M.P.'s for Dorset, and that he had a theory that JTR was the "son of a surgeon".
That M.P., was about to attempt to win the seat of Bethnal Green in East London(!!) for the Conservatives, but it was already in the hands of a Liberal Member, named EDWARD HARE PICKERSGILL(1850-1911). Unfortunately, Farquharson died in a ship wreck before he could contest Bethnall Green.

Well, here's an interesting one for you: the Wimborne Druitts were linked by marriage to the Hare family of Norfolk!

Edward Hare Pickersgill graduated from the Inner Temple at the exact same exam as Montague Druitt. He is on your list above.

JOHN RUFFELS.

[Frank]

That's really interesting!
Do I understand you correct that you think that Edward Hare Pickersgill (via family connection to the Druitts) could be the source of the 'private information'?
They were both important men in London, and a M.P. talking about the Ripper crimes to the Assistant Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police is conceivable.
How was the exact connection between the Wimborne Druitts and the Hare family of Norfolk (who married whom)?


Best regards,
Frank

P.S. I don't understand exactly what Farquharson has to do with it, despite the fact that he had the idea/theory that JTR was the "son of a surgeon" and attempted to run for Pickerhill's seat.

[Johnr]

Just Advancing Possible Scenarios At This Stage

Sorry Frank,

I was just tossing the Pickersgill name in the pool as another interesting name to conjure with. From the list of MJD's law graduate colleagues.

The symmetry of Farquharson being about to move from a Dorset Conservative seat in parliament, to challenge Pickersgill's successful occupation of the seat of Bethnal Green (East London) made for interesting
possibilities:

(a) Presumeably, Farquharson's candidate for JTR was Montague Druitt, "son of a surgeon";
(b)Farquharson would have had contact -good or bad- with political rival-to-be, Mr Pickersgill;
(c) This rival, actually went through the Inns of Court (legal studies) at the same Temple, the same time, and - I think - also went to Winchester College, as did Druitt.

In view of several newspapers talking of Farquharson telling all and sundry (yet avoiding naming his suspect in the press),who he thought was Jack the Ripper, I am sure his theory would have been part of the information Pickersgill's staff would have learned about him.

One wonders if Pickersgill then spoke to the police about it.

Another thought, East End M.P., Montague Williams, was one of the first to announce publicly that JTR was dead!

JOHN RUFFELS.

[Jonathan H]

I think that the counter-argument is stronger than what is being theorised here as to the source of Macnaghten's 'private information'.

That is that the Druitt family, not the Macnaghtens, 'believed' that their tragically departed member was the fiend -- an extraordinary and, one supposes, appalling and excruciating notion.

Macnaghten's un-identified source about the Druitt family's terrible fear was probably the Tory MP -- and fellow upper crust gentleman and fellow Etonian -- Henry Farquharson. The latter knew the Druitts as consitutents, and also as fellow members of the 'better classes' -- and as fellow members of the Conservative Party [whether Montie was actually a member is unknown but he killed himself right after winning a civil suit on behalf of the Tories].

My theory is that Macnaghten did not reveal Farquharson's identity in the official version of his Report, nor in the significantly different unofficial version he showed Major Griffiths [and perhaps George Sims], or in his 1914 memoirs for reasons of discretion.

In 1894, Macnaghten mentioning Farquharson would have meant giving the game away that the police had no knowledge of Druitt until years later [which both versions of the Report veil], that it was stumbled upon by a loose-lipped politician [eg. not by CID's efforts] and that, for the Liberal Home Sec. H H Asquith of 1894, the revelation that a Tory backbencher was the source about a suspect, also from a Tory family, might be too tempting an opportunity for partisan mischief.

The idea of Druitt's name emerging from his legal world falls, I think, into a trap set by Macnaghten himself; that this self-drowned suspect became known to Scotland Yard -- as the Ripper -- at the time of the official investigation between the 1888 murders and the murder of Frances Coles in early 1891.

Whereas, the whole thrust of Macnaghten's memoir chapter, 'Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper' is to admit that Druitt [here un-named and utterly unrecoverable] was not known until years, and years, of fruitless investigations had passed -- in which the police were unknowingly pursuing a phantom.

Macnaghten is explicit about this. That he uselessly rifled through a myriad of hoax Ripper letters, because the suicided suspect was as yet unknown. That he went down to Whitehchapel and met sympathetically with poor harlots -- but did not reassure them that the Ripper was deceased because this was as yet unkknown. He also makes it clear -- in a way he does not in his Repor(s) -- that the police and public and press were 'agog' over any Whitehchapel slaying right through to 1891.

The police and government, Macnaghten writes, were clueless against this 'protean' madman; that is a formidable criminal who could assume multiple identities including that of a 'Simon Pure', ordinary-seeming, Christian gentleman you could pass in the street and not be any the wiser as to the beastiality which lay beneath.

'The West of England MP' story emerged a few days before Coles was killed, which matches Macnaghten's bombshell memoir admission -- quite different from the 'Drowned Doctor' yarn he had been feeding his literary cronies -- that this suspect, the only one Macnaghten thinks worth mentioning, was essentially unknown until 'some years after'.

These two sources fit hand-in-glove.

Of course, the Druitt family [or family member?] may have been completely wrong about Montie's culpability, setting in motion a tragic slander which unfortunately bedazzled both Farqhuarson and Macnaghten; poor Druitt being the Ur-source for the indestructible image of 'Jack the Ripper' as an English gentleman complete with top hat, opera claok and medical bag.

[Frank]

I think it was never doubted in this thread that the Druitt family and not the Macnaghtens 'believed' that their tragically departed member was the fiend.

The intention of this thread (at least when I started it) was to show (or to find out) which connections there could have been between the two families. When I read the two names of Montague John Druitt and Edward Charles Macnaghten, I just wondered if this Macnaghten could be related to Sir Melville. I thought it could be possible that Montague and Edward knew each other, and maybe Montague introduces Edward to some of his relatives. That's how Edward could have known about the Druitts' suspicions and could have told them to Sir Melville.
When I started this thread I wasn't aware of the Farquharson story, and maybe this is a better explanation.

[Jonathan H]

To Frank

It's possible your notion here, about a Ripper-rumour connection between Druitt and the Macnaghten clan is correct and Farquharson's 'son of a surgeon' is a coincidence.

Furthermore, an echo of what might be the origin of the claim about Druitt as the Ripper coming from his legal world rather than his family sphere, is that in the 1900's George Sims will write -- in semi-fictional form -- about how the 'doctor' was missing from where he 'resided' and his 'friends' were very anxious about their chum, even feared that he was no less than the fiend. That they were in touch with the relevant authorities.

Well, according to the primary sources on Druitt his Blackheath school was not looking for him, but there was consternation and confusion at his legal chambers, which was how brother William was alerted.

Yet I still think that the timing of the 'West of England MP' story matches too perfectly the claim of Mac in his memoirs; of information received about probably Druitt 'some years after'.

That these two sources fit better than anything else we have, for now.

The MP's belief in Druitt's guilt was his 'doctrine' which strongly echoes Macnaghten's first known public comments on the Ripper case, upon his retirement in 1913, in which he claimed that he knew 'this remarkable man' very well. It also fits the unofficial version of his 1894 Report in which he strongly plumps for Druitt as the fiend.

Even the detail that [the un-named] Montie Druitt took his own life the night of the last murder is one of the few details about [the also un-named] Druitt which Macnaghten supplies in his 1914 memoirs -- and it is completely out by about three weeks.

It is so wrong that it lends credence to the conventional wisdom that the Druitt family, and then Farquharson and Macnaghten made a ghastly mistake. That in the aftermath of the tragic, perhaps wholly inexplicable suicide, a histrionic suspicion festered amongst the family, or one member.

That the brother, William, who seems to have dissembled at the inquest, had found 'blood-stained clothes' in his late sibling's digs, and later misremembered the Kelly murder as happening at the same moment as the Thames drowning. Perhaps William knew his fellow bachelor brother had a nasty side; that he liked to hurt harlots ['He was a sexual maniac' -- Mac, 1894] and William put two and two together.

But it was still a mistake, one that Macnaghten never verified as a mistake because he was a Sherlock wannabe who steered well clear of the family, fearing a libel action, or even checking the obituaries.

That would make Macnaghten very careless, even incompetent.

Consequently, Macnaghten consistently argued, both in private and in public
-- and via Griffiths and Sims -- that what was done to Kelly was so abominable that no human mind could subsequently function after this 'awful glut', even for one more day except to drag its vile husk to the river and jump in.

If that is the critical detail that the Druitts, Farquharson, Macnaghten, Griffiths and Sims placed so much confidence in as the 'evidence' against Druitt then they were all building a 'doctrine' on sand.

The counter-argument is that it is the reporter, or the MP, who has made the mistake in 1891, not the family.

That the Druitts, from which the belief originated, would hardly forget the correct date of their own member's horrible death, and would have no reason to link the timing with the worst yet Ripper atrocity if such coincidental timing did not already exist -- which it did not.

After all, both William and Montie were in court on Nov 30th enjoying success in a civil case for the Tory Party and would surely have read and discussed, several weeks before, the latest murder in Whitechapel -- surely William would recall chatting with a completely coherent and functional sibling days and weeks after Kelly?

[Frank]

Hello Jonathan,

I accept your argumentation, and the point about the wrong date of Druitt's suicide is a strong one. The story about Farquharson only came to my knowledge after starting this thread. Where the mistake about Druitt's suicide date came from, I think, will be impossible to find out. I do not think that it was his family. I do not think that it was an error by the reporter, because Sir Melville was talking of 'private information' and in my understanding this means that he would have talked to Farquharson personally. Sir Melville tells us, that Druitt's body was found in the Thames on 31 December, having been in the water upward of a month, which could be an attempt to bring the statement of Farquharson and the results of the inquest to an agreement.

Best regards,
Frank

[Jonathan H]

To Frank

Oh I totally agree.

I subscribe to the theory that Macnaghten was not an incompetent, and that Druitt was the fiend.

That the upper class police chief met with his upper class, Etonian contemporary, Farquharson, perhaps at one of their gentlemans' clubs, and got the whole story -- and advised the MP to keep his mouth shut.

I think it most likely that Macnaghten did meet with the Druitt brother and assured him that Montie's true identity, in terms of both the Liberal Party and the general public, would never come out.

That 'upwards of a month' and 'I joined the Force six moths after the Ripper killed himself' (Dec 1st 1888 to June 1st 1889) are oblique acknowledgements by Macnaghten that Druitt did not kill himself on the night of Kellly's murder. As was his changing the date of when the body was fished out of the Thames from Dec 31st in the official version, which is correct, to Dec 3rd in the unofficial version -- the one which was shown to his literary cronies/mouthpieces.

From 1903 George Sims will write that the body was found about a month after the last murder. I argue that this is gentlemanly sleight-of-hand by Mac to shield the Druitt family -- and a complete success.

The 'West of England MP' story makes fearful reference to the libel laws, and the repeating of this story by other papers awkwardly obscured even that the suicided suspect was a surgeon's son -- probably for the same fearful reason. Yet less than eight years later the 'Drowned Doctor' was being confidently disseminated to the public, and later Sims will provide even more detail with nobody seemingly worried about libel action.

I theorise because the profile was known by Macnaghten to be mostly fictitious and therefore harmless -- in fact Druitt has been fused with the contemporaneous suspect Dr Tumblety, the point that Littlechild is making to Sims in 1913.

[Mayerling]

Bodkin and MacNaghten

I was mulling over the wonderful chance that the future Sir Archibald Bodkin, Director of Public Prosecutions (including those of George Chapman and George Joseph Smith) was a fellow member of Inner Temple with Monty, and was admitted to the bar at the same time. It looks promising on the surface - and only on the surface. The flaw in it is chronology. When Sir Meville wrote that memorandum he would have had very little contact or notice of Bodkin.

The memorandum that mentioned the three suspects, and emphasized Monty as Sir Meville's favorite candidate, came out during the brouhaha about Thomas Cutbush in 1894. The Wikipedia article shows that in 1894 Bodkin was busy bulding up a reputation in several areas of the law at that time, and might have been developing a promising reputation (he was a real workaholic) but he was still not a major legal figure like he became. A decade or so later he would have been better known to Sir Melville. Somewhere about 1907 (if the memorandum dated from then) Sir Melville might have takled to Bodkin about his knowledge of Monty.

This does not mean that Bodkin may not know what happened or of any rumors. But if so, he probably kept them to himself.