Upon what basis did the Druitt family suspect Montague?

[Roy Corduroy]

No answer. Digging, here's what Andy said four years ago -

I should point out that this story first appeared in a major London daily, The Daily Mail. Unfortunately, we do not have the text of that original article.

That explains it. Absent an answer.

[Jonathan H]

Do you mean me, Roy, being 'absented'?

I don't know, do not claim to know and do not have access to those sources.

[Jonathan H]

Apology

I wish to apologise to Howard Brown for persistently -- if facetiously -- claiming that he banned me for life from his other site.

It was all a computer malfunction initially beyond all human control -- blame Hal!

[Roy Corduroy]

Do you mean me, Roy, being 'absented'? .

It's Ok, Jonathan, you blasted schoolteachers get a lot of days off.

I don't know, do not claim to know and do not have access to those sources

Nor do I. Just the very arcane point, The Daily Mail (London) received the vicar's letter and sent their reporter north. And wrote an article. Although apparently the heavy lifters in research cannot access that Daily Mail article now. We know it was a story but we've never seen it? I guess. The Western Mail and the others then carried the story.

I've re-read your Rip 109 piece about this. Basically you go for Charles Druitt, Andy went for John Henry Lonsdale as the source. I think it could be a little more occluded, the story came out of a nexus of Druitt's connections and took on a life of its own. But yes, it certainly could be about Druitt. As to Macnaghten inveighling the Police Illustrated News piece, I have no idea.

You know the February 1894 Sun articles came out the very same week there was a blockbuster headline grabbing story in all the London papers- an anarchist died from his own bomb exploding at Royal Observatory Park Greenwich. Which may account for the Sun articles not gaining much traction and Macnaghten's memo got 'mothballed.' (Hainsworth)

Roy

[Jonathan H]

No, I have no idea either.

It's just the changes that have been made to the pollce mag version are the ones that would suit what I perceive to be Mac's agenda.

As for the Vicar he may really have been in the north, and not the cleric who took Druit's cobnfession -- if such a confession was made, and if it is about Druitt.

It's just that such a cleric, with no connection to the crimes -- a buffer figure -- would have been taking an enormous risk in terms of dragging in the church, not to mention the eyebrows raised at openly mixing fact and fiction, in other words, you know, lying.

At the very least he would be harming his clerical career.

Plus why would his name identify the murder? Unless it wouodn't, and it is part of the diversion. As in, if they had printed his name it would not have exposed the Druitts.

On the other hand, surely only a family member would stick their neck out for such a bizarre epiitaph.

And how can the Vicar be so certain if he is only passing along somebody else's information?

I theorise it is Vicar Charles in the south and that the persistent reporter riled him up. He responded by saying that the murderer was quite mad and had gone to help fallen women in the East End. eg. an honourable man whose ghastly illness -- allegedly epileptic mania, which also does not exist -- caused them to become his victims.

The Vicar insantly regretted divulging this extra bit, a bit which may have been true of Druitt (who also did not live or work in the East End, but may have gone there for charitable purposes like other Oxonians) and thus added the impeentrable shield he knew Mac-Grffiths-Sims were using:

'... at one time a surgeon'.

How can you stop being a surgeon? Why go from that to only a 'good position'?

Ironically Sims will absorb this detail into his profile too: an ex-surgeon as he too weakened by mental illness (and periodically sectioned) to carry on a medical practice.

The real life Henry Jekyll rarely ventured out, certainly not to play cricket.

[Mayerling]

It's Ok, Jonathan, you blasted schoolteachers get a lot of days off.



You know the February 1894 Sun articles came out the very same week there was a blockbuster headline grabbing story in all the London papers- an anarchist died from his own bomb exploding at Royal Observatory Park Greenwich. Which may account for the Sun articles not gaining much traction and Macnaghten's memo got 'mothballed.' (Hainsworth)

Roy

Hi Roy,

Interestingly, although beside the point in terms of Montie, the discussion is about a fictionalized version of what happened to him or to the Whitechapel/"White Church" killer in a "fictionalized account. What is interesting is the death by explosive misadventure by the anarchist who tired to blow up the Observatory was the basis for Joseph Conrad's classic novel about anarchists and double agents and police in London, THE SECRET AGENT (1907). It was the basis of an English movie by Alfred Hitchcock called SABOTAGE (1936), and a BBC mini series with David Suchet as the central figure, "Mr. Verloc" about twenty years back.

Jeff

[Jonathan H]

Sorry Roy

I meant to say brilliant point about the attempted bombing of the Observatory by the anarchist distracting helpfully preventing the Cutbush scandal from metasasizing, as perhaps Macnaghten feared it might.

His biggest fear, I think, was that if the locked-up madman story (and alleged police cover-up) really got traction then the Dorset leak about Druitt could happen again.

Perhaps this time bigger too, because there might be an attempt to refute the claims of the tabloid and their alleged suspect-solution, against local scuttlebutt that the fiend, though long dead, was once from that region.

Therefore entirely on his own initiative and without consulting anybody else, Macnaghten composed a document which could cover them against such a contingency.

One in which this process of carefully turning fact into fiction has begun: eg. Druitt, while definitely a sadist, might have been a doctor too (that he was known to police before he killed himself is the biggest deceit), that the masturbating 'Kosminski' was sectioned in early 1889, and that Michael Ostrog is a real doctor and a real, dangerous maniac (what an exquisite revenge; to take two of Ostrog's cons -- a medico and mad -- and write them up as if true).

I believe that the official version for file came first, for this reason. Because the fictionalizing elements are less than the 'Aberconway' version -- the version propagated to the public via his pals from 1898.

In both versions Mac lied about Cutbush and Cutbush being related, and that the older man had practically brought the young, ill man up as his de-facto son.

Yet this lie was never used officially while the cronies did not care about this detail, and did not repeat it.

[Robert]

I am amazed that O'Connor seems not to have raised the matter in Parliament at the time. By a strange quirk (but one that is quite in keeping with the case) 1894 seems to have been the only year when O'Connor didn't speak at all :

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-tp-oconnor/

[caz]

Hi Jonathan,

I have no idea how much or how little truth lies behind the vicar's tale. I would have no problem with it being about Druitt, or with the Daily Mail going to visit a genuine vicar who had taken what he believed to be a genuine confession from the man he also believed was the ripper.

I would simply prefer to see some actual evidence that a real vicar was the source of this story and chose to blab to the Daily Mail, and that he wasn't invented for the purpose of strengthening the idea that the ripper's identity was known, or simply selling more newspapers and magazines, a decade on from the murders.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Mixed messages

Are you suggesting that William Druitt with-held Montie's note for George Valentine? Did he conceal his brother's note for himself? What did it really say?

The Cricket Club would not write in the official minutes that Druitt had gone abroad -- either literally or figuratively -- because they would have known, by then, that they might be dealing with a tragic suicide.

Unless as that 'Acton, Chiswick ...' primary source claims it was after Dec 21st, the date he was dismissed from the club, that the suicide note was found by the older brother -- on Dec 30th.

Which also means that it is more likely that he was dismissed from the school for the same reason; for being unaccountably AWOL abroad.

Which would also fit with the brother arriving so late as Montie was not missing, just overseas -- exact location unknown. It was the lack of contact at Christmas that set off alarm bells.

That's a theory based on painfully limited data.

It is arguably stronger than the older theory -- always a very tenuous one -- because it fits much better the other primary sources: eg. the 'West of England' MP bits, and Macnaghten's various sources by that chief and on his behalf, and the other 1889 primary sources about Druitt's death in which his dismissal from the lesser of his two vocations goes unmentioned, eg. is not linked to his demise (nor is it in the one source which mentions it at all).

We will have to agree to disagree.

Hi Jonathan,

This is my current take on Druitt’s dismissal from the school and disappearance, for what it’s worth. I am flexible, however, and allow for other possibilities if there is evidence or a good argument to support them.

I was able to have a chat with the author John Leighton on Saturday at the Whitechapel Society meeting, and I asked him for his interpretation of the reference in the cricket club’s minutes to Druitt ‘having gone abroad’.

John reminded me that it was well known at that time for well-to-do gay men to take themselves off abroad if they wanted to avoid scandal and/or prosecution. He thought that the reference was probably made in that connection, but agreed that it didn’t have to mean literally abroad. It could have been either a euphemism or a presumption, if it was based on the ‘serious trouble at the school’ which got Druitt dismissed, and the fact that his whereabouts were unknown at that time. Clearly, if he had been caught in some homosexual act, for instance, given the order of the boot and promptly disappeared from all his usual haunts, a sniffy reference to him ‘having gone abroad’ would have hinted at the nature of his disgrace and why he was no longer around, without the need to spell it out, and would also explain why he was formally dismissed from the cricket club in his absence.

If the ‘serious’ trouble had merely consisted of Druitt being absent from the school without explanation or excuse, Valentine could have appointed someone else to perform his duties, and likewise the cricket club, until they knew more, but they surely would not have formally dismissed the poor devil if he could have met with some accident somewhere (or if they had any inkling at that point that he may be dead by his own hand - something I am not claiming because I simply don't know when either of the suicide notes was first opened).

Equally, I can see no possible reason for Druitt telling anyone he was taking off abroad if a) it wasn’t true; b) he left notes for his brother and his employer suggesting he intended to kill himself, which was true; and c) with no further explanation it was tantamount to saying “You guessed it, I’m a raving homosexual and I’m fleeing from scandal and prosecution”.

Whether or not there would have been any truth in it, why would Druitt have wanted to leave such an impression? Better, I grant you, than saying "I'm Jack the Ripper", but then you believe he confessed as much to a trusted family member.

Love,

Caz
X

[Jonathan H]

To Caz

The reason this is such an excuciatingly unlikely sub-theory by many, including Leighton -- who by the way needs it to make his ludicrous Royal Watergate plus sexual perversion theory have any legs -- is that such a club would not have put into its minutes that a potential suicide was abroad, even if it meant he was scandalously gay.

The club must have known they were dealing with a potential tragedy -- unless they didn't?

The old paradign cannot hold.

You cannot have William Druitt arriving before the cricket club date of minutes, find the suicide note, and then the school head not tell his brother at the club that Druitt was a potential tragedy.

Whereas if the 'Action, Chiswick ...' primary source is accepted on the dating, Dec 30th, then it does make match the minutes: eg. that nobody, for weeks, was looking for Druitt because he had left a message at his places of work/accomodation that he had suddenly gone abroad -- and weighted down his own body never to be found, which failed.

The same primary source does not link his dismissal with his self-murder, and does not even imply that it was due to a sexual scandal.

The simplest solutuon is he was sacked from the school for the same reason as he was from the club -- coincidentally by siblings -- because he was AWOL.

Initially Druitt was not mysteriously missing but 'gone abroad'.

When the leak comes out of Dorset in 1891 it is not that Druitt killed himself because he was gay, but because he was a tormented multiple murderer(or thought he was).

Macnaghten committed to file that Druitt gained erotic pleasure from ultra-violence. Since the family and the police chief 'believed' that this was by mutilating women then it has nothing to do with being gay, a modernist, secondary source notion imposed upon the primary sources who are all saying something quite different if you put them all together.

[caz]

To Caz

The reason this is such an excuciatingly unlikely sub-theory by many, including Leighton -- who by the way needs it to make his ludicrous Royal Watergate plus sexual perversion theory have any legs -- is that such a club would not have put into its minutes that a potential suicide was abroad, even if it meant he was scandalously gay.

The club must have known they were dealing with a potential tragedy -- unless they didn't?

Initially Druitt was not mysteriously missing but 'gone abroad'.

Hi Jonathan,

John Leighton’s theory has nothing to do with the fact that well-to-do gay men are known to have ‘gone abroad’ in those days to avoid scandal and prosecution. They would not have broadcast the fact they were going, nor given the reason, but it would have been understood by those who knew the nature of the trouble.

The school and the cricket club would have known that as an active barrister and schoolmaster, Druitt would not suddenly have upped and left the country during term time for any trivial reason. If they believed he had done so, but didn’t have a clue why, he would have been just as ‘mysteriously’ abroad as he was ‘mysteriously’ missing.

I agree that if this was the case, the Valentine brothers arguably had no idea, when the cricket club minutes were taken, that Druitt may have killed himself. There would have been no mystery and no cause to formally dismiss him from school or club, if they had known about the suicide notes, explaining his absence. But even though they would not have found out until later, Druitt himself could not have known if the notes would be found after five hours, five days or five weeks, or if his body would ever be recovered. So he would not have written them at all if he had wanted to leave the alternative impression that he was ‘mysteriously’ buggering off to foreign parts.

What you keep failing to address is why the heck he would have told anyone a lie like that in any case. It would automatically have been assumed he was having to flee something scandalous and/or illegal, in the absence of a better explanation. Instead, he chose to hint discreetly in the note to his brother at fears of “going like mother”.

Equally, I can’t see him being dismissed merely for being absent, if, for all they knew, he could have met with some accident. Nobody at the school or club expressed any concern about his reasons for taking off like that, which suggests they knew precisely why he had gone, if not where. On balance, his formal dismissal from both establishments (together with a presumption that he had suddenly needed to go abroad) only really makes sense if the ‘serious trouble at the school’ was what got him fired and prompted his disappearing act, ie it involved behaviour that was in some way shameful, scandalous and/or illegal.

No mystery for the Valentine brothers if Druitt had already committed professional and social suicide and there was no way back for him; no surprise that he could no longer show his face at the cricket club; no concern for his welfare or whereabouts (the other side of the world would be good for all concerned); and crucially no alarm raised about his not so mysterious disappearance, given that a man in his position may have been forced to decide between going away/abroad, killing himself or facing the music with his family, his associates in the legal profession and at the cricket club, and possibly even the police.

No mystery why the alarm was only raised when William was informed that his brother had been inexplicably absent from his chambers, where nobody knew about the ‘serious trouble’ at the school or his dismissal, and evidently did worry that he had met with some accident.

No mystery why nobody was ever persuaded to elaborate about this serious trouble or connect it directly with Druitt’s suicide. The whole point would have been to play down the events, from the nature of the trouble that got him sacked from the school and his consequent vanishing act, to the final indignity of being fished out of the river. Much better to leave it as a suicide while of unsound mind, than to drag up the specific reasons for his recent firing, if they would have caused a scandal for the school, the family and everyone concerned, which the unhappy Druitt had killed himself to avoid.

If he had simply been dismissed for being absent without leave, before anyone could have known he was suicidal, there would have been no problem openly and publicly connecting all the dots. In fact, I suggest it was this very Victorian reticence on the matter (all quite usual and ‘proper’ for the age) which, coupled with the timing of Druitt chucking himself in the Thames in the immediate wake of the Autumn of Terror, allowed the rumours to grow that those who knew him best were keeping the secret to end all secrets about him.

Love,

Caz
X　

[Jonathan H]

The Old Paradigm will not budge an in inch, will it.

I suppose it can't, can it. The implications of doing so are too terrifying

So, back to square one: Druitt was a gay man who committed suicide because he was sacked to his face because of scandal.

This is a construct of secondary sources for which there is no evidnce in the primary sources.

It hangs from the slenderest of threads: Mac did not know about Montie, but we do.

The real explanation, based on the little we have, is that the school and the cricket club sacked him because he was AWOL, eg abraod and they had things to do which could not proceed without word from him and so he had to be replaced.

The brother arrived at the school on the day before his body surfaced and found evidence that the had gone off to take his own life, or at least that is what he testified to at the inquest which neither Valentine attended.

Nothing in the primary sources suggests scandal, or that his dismissal was the cause of his suicide.

Rather William supplied a note which suggested that his brother feared entering the asylum system like his mother (people who write lucid notes are not yet mad like his mother was) and preferred death.

Or so William claimed.

Other primary sources (Dorset 1891; Macnaghten 1894; Mac 1913; Mac 1914) shows that the reason William was so frantic was because his brother was the Ripper, or at least believed he was -- and the family agreed.

[caz]

The Old Paradigm will not budge an in inch, will it.

I suppose it can't, can it. The implications of doing so are too terrifying

Sorry, Jonathan, you've lost me. I just try to make sense out of what we've got, rather than get rid of inconvenient evidence like the suicide notes and invent Druitt telling people instead that he was buggering off 'abraod' [sic] in mid-term for no good reason, when he was actually going to commit suicide, and in his own country.

Love,

Caz
X

[Mayerling]

The Old Paradigm will not budge an in inch, will it.

I suppose it can't, can it. The implications of doing so are too terrifying

So, back to square one: Druitt was a gay man who committed suicide because he was sacked to his face because of scandal.

This is a construct of secondary sources for which there is no evidnce in the primary sources.

It hangs from the slenderest of threads: Mac did not know about Montie, but we do.


Nothing in the primary sources suggests scandal, or that his dismissal was the cause of his suicide.

William supplied a note which suggested that his brother feared entering the asylum system like his mother (people who write lucid notes are not yet mad like his mother was) and preferred death.

Or so William claimed.

Other primary sources (Dorset 1891; Macnaghten 1894; Mac 1913; Mac 1914) shows that the reason William was so frantic was because his brother was the Ripper, or at least believed he was -- and the family agreed.

Hi Jonathan,

I am willing to assume at this time a line of connection between Montie's dismissal, and his suicide. But I still have problems.

We have to assume that William really had that information from Montie that he feared he was becoming insane like his mother.

We have to assume that the dismissal was due to some homosexual event (or pederastic event) at Valentine's School.

We even have to assume we really know more than Sir Melville did in 1894.

I'm not knocking these assumptions. In fact they have some strength to them as they seem to be leading to the suicide. But how are we to really know why Montie was sacked? Basically it is due to the reticence of Victorians regarding sexual misconduct (i.e. homosexual) that was considered perverted or sick. Yeah they had that style of behavior, unless you were like the Marquess of Queensbury in the matter of Oscar Wilde and his son Lord Alfred Douglas, and then you actually were open in your comments. I feel that had Valentine's school had such an incident the parents of the boy involved would not have been so willing to be reticent.

Could Valentine have had an inkiling of a Ripper connection? If so, why not report it to the police (unless he feared for the safety of his students)? Instead he is giving checks and cash to Montie and terminating his contract!

I also have a problem about William's behavior at the inquest and after. At the time of the suicide William and his family may have wondered about Montie's suicide and whether it was connected to the events of that past autumn, but within a year the police, and executioner James Berry, would be looking at William Bury as a likely suspect for being Jack the Ripper. In a few years other killers (Mrs. Pearcey, Deeming, Cream) would be suggested as well. I'm not suggesting they are better candidates than Montie (hardly that at all), but if other candidates were popping up, including notorious ones, if the Druitts were normal than any suspicions towards Montie would have been reduced to just momentary disquieting rumors.

I will say that research has given us more information than Sir Melville Macnaghten had, but this is only surface reaction. In reality, we are still grasping at straws on Montie, for all the additional points we have learned of him.

Jeff