McNaughten's Notes

[Trevor Marriott]

...[B]

In my view the memorandum is NOT a brief for the Home Secretary or anyone else, as it is not addressed as such, nor in a form that would obviosuly serve as such. For instance the factual errors demonstrate that it has not been checked against the files - conclusive evidence IMHO that this was an internal document as an aid to memory - i.e. what it says on the tin, "a memorandum".

Phil

It was obvioulsy destined for someone higher up in the chain of command than he was as it is signed "Your obedient servant"

[Trevor Marriott]

It was obvioulsy destined for someone higher up in the chain of command than he was as it is signed "Your obedient servant"

My apologies was looking at the wrong document just goes to show that even the best can make mistakes

[Phil H]

It was obvioulsy destined for someone higher up in the chain of command than he was as it is signed "Your obedient servant"

It was customary until the late 60s (and even later in some circumstances) to begin all official reports and letters with the words; I have the honour to submit/report etc" and to end "I remain your humble and obedient servant". It was a formula and says nothing about any recipient.

Even the great Duke of wellington end his letter in the same way, once writing:

"I remain, sir, your humble and obedient servant (which you know d**n well, I am not), Wellington." there were few people in Britain in 1850 who were senior in any sense to the Duke.

Phil

[Phil H]

As regards irrregularities, in my limited 52 years on this planet, a name, especially a titled name, helps with everything. Titled people get treated differently. ...Those files were even lent out to private persons in the 1960's, and returned back.

Wholly irrelevant, pointless and baseless speculation. Cite one iota of evidence to support your assertion that the memorandum only appeared on the file in the 60s and I'll listen to you.

But the loic is that MM put the memo on file when he wrote it and it remained there. He had a DIFFERENT, probably earlier draft (given the divergencies) among his own papers, which Lady A copied and which copy Cullen and (I think) Farson saw.

End of story.

Phil

[Phil Carter]

Hello Phil,

Thank you for your opinion. I prefer floccinaucinihilipiliication.
There is no evidence, neither seen nor talked of, a 4th version either. Wholly speculative.

best wishes

Phil

[Phil H]

There is no evidence, neither seen nor talked of, a 4th version either.

I have referred to two, possibly three versions - all soundly based.

No need to create a fourth. Where did you invent that. I suspect this shows precisely how confused you are about the MM memorandum..

Phil

[Jonathan H]

There are three versions of the Macnaghten Report.

A Report, not a memo.

The former is what Sims called it, presumbaly because Mac did. His daughter, decades later, called the unofficial version 'notes' or a 'memorandum' because it seemed so, well, unofficial. The Dowager Aberconway had no idea that it had been shown by her father to literary cronies to disseminate to the public as an allegedly definitive 'Home Office Report'.

Does it matter?

Calling it a memo is an unconcious way of dismissing its importance. Mac was waving this around as if it was the Ripper document, and he publicized its contents -- as a definitive document of state -- to the late Victorian/Edwardian public. Even if Mac was dissembling, it is still important for its enormous impact on the public for the idea of the Ripper as a tormented toff.

One version was written in 1894, in which M. J. Druitt is a minor, hearsay suspect listed amongst other minor suspects -- yet his 'good' family 'believed' he was the murderer, and he was definitely 'sexually insane'.

Another version enters history in 1898, its contents communicated to the Tory worthy, Major Arthur Griffiths, and the Liberal gadfly, George R Sims. In this one Druitt is probably the fiend, of this Mac is pretty sure, whereas now the 'dcotor's' family -- demoted to 'fairly good' -- only 'suspected', and his previous sexual insanity is an unproven allegation.

Both of these versions heavily imply that M. J. Druitt was a suspect in 1888, and that is how Grifftiths and especially Sims understood its import, and communicated it to the public.

Finally, in 1914, Mac freely adapted the document again for his memoir chapter, 'Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper' -- though he falsely claimed to be writing it solely from memory (the only known contribution by Mac to the Ripper saga, his writing of a Report, twice, is never even alluded to).

In this unofficial version the un-named Druitt is almost certainly the fiend but incriminating information only came to police (eg. Mac) 'some years after' he killed himself; that these 'facts' led to a 'conclusion' (eg. Mac's conclusion) which laid to rest a phantom which the Yard (eg. Anderson) had been fruitlessly pursuing.

The so-called 'Donner version', a fourth version, almost certainly never existed. Historical methodology shows that this source is woefully unreliable and discardable; a family member who thinks that Mac could have originally written that Cutbush was a Ripper suspect (the whole point is to debunk that notion), and whose memory is obviously contaminated from reading Cullen, and who produces not a jot of documentary evidence to back up their dodgy claims.

Three versions: 1894, 1898, and 1914.

[Chris]

There are three versions of the Macnaghten Report.

A Report, not a memo.

The MEPO version is untitled, but the title of the Aberconway Version is "Memorandum on articles which appeared in the Sun re JACK THE RIPPER, on 14 Feb 1894 and subsequent dates" [A-Z, p. 327]. I doubt that title is an addition by Lady Aberconway.

[Stewart P Evans]

But...

The MEPO version is untitled, but the title of the Aberconway Version is "Memorandum on articles which appeared in the Sun re JACK THE RIPPER, on 14 Feb 1894 and subsequent dates" [A-Z, p. 327]. I doubt that title is an addition by Lady Aberconway.

But, of course, we do not know that for sure.

At the top of the first page is typed 'Memorandum on articles which appeared in the Sun re JACK THE RIPPER on 14 Feb 1894 and subsequent dates.' This is followed by a space in which Lady Aberconway has written 'by my father Sir M.M.' This is followed by the typed text beginning, 'The case referred to in the sensational story told in the Sun...'

The official report, handwritten, begins, 'The case referred to in the sensational story told in "the Sun"...' with no title or introduction.

At the draft stage, if that is what the 'Aberconway version' is (and this seems almost certain), then the notes are probably best described as a memorandum (or aide-memoire) for a report to be written from.

That the official version is a report is not really in question as it is on official paper and has been preserved in the Scotland Yard files which indicates it was submitted by Macnaghten. As I have discussed at length, in the past, there seems little doubt that it was a briefing document for the Chief Commissioner, Sir Edward Bradford, in response to the press interest generated in the Sun articles and the possibility of a public inquiry which, in the event, did not happen.

[Chris]

That the official version is a report is not really in question as it is on official paper and has been preserved in the Scotland Yard files which indicates it was submitted by Macnaghten.

I suppose the distinction between a report and a memorandum probably isn't a crucial one in interpreting what the document actually says.

But my point really was that people don't call it a memorandum as "an unconcious way of dismissing its importance," but because one version does have that word in the title.

[Stewart P Evans]

Discussed

I suppose the distinction between a report and a memorandum probably isn't a crucial one in interpreting what the document actually says.

But my point really was that people don't call it a memorandum as "an unconcious way of dismissing its importance," but because one version does have that word in the title.

I agree Chris. I have discussed this document at some length in the new edition of The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper. There is, surely, little doubt that the articles, and Macnaghten's response, were instigated by the indiscretion of Inspector Race, who as a result blotted his copybook and said goodbye to any chance of further promotion.

[Jonathan H]

Thanks Stewart, for your invaluable and judicious input.

As I am trying to get across, when this document's existence was first mentioned as Sims' trump card against Abberline, in 1903, he called it a 'Report' -- in fact a 'Home Office Report', of a definitive character by the 'Commissioner', eg. Mac, his chum.

I argue it is an 1898 rewrite not a draft.

I theorise this because the version the writers saw was so writer-friendly, and the official one in the archive was so govt./Liberal-friendly. That this is too much of a convenient coincidence for my taste -- but I could be wrong.

There is certainly no indication that Griffiths and Sims were informed by Mac that 'Dr. Druitt' is treated quite differently from one version of this document to the other -- in whatever order they were composed.

That it is a draft, which it may be, is nonetheless a theory not an established fact.

This document, the unofficial version, is the source of the Edwardian idea, relentlessly disseminated by Sims, that there was no Jack the Ripper mystery; that it had been solved by the super-efficient police all the way back in 1888.

Thus not a mere memorandum to brief the Commissioner who could brrief the Home Sec.-- it is a Home Office Report; a definitive document of state. To keep calling it what his daughter mistakenly seems to have called it ('by my father ...') is to keep belittling its historical value, if unintentionally.

For this document claimed -- to the public -- that the mystery was solved. Whether Macnaghten was mistaken or Machiavellian, he gave it an importance which we need to analyse to try and work out if the entire thing is just smoke and mirrors?

Repeating his daughter's mistake, today, in a sense lets her father off the hook; rather than hold him accountable for waving around what he must have claimed to his credulous pals, one a fellow officer of the state and the other a mega-famous crime writer (ecumenically a Tory and a Liberal) was a document which had the status of a 'final' Report, a Report to the Home Office -- or at least a reliable copy of a definitive document of state which resided in the Home Office archive.

In fact it's neither ...?

In 1905 somebody told the press that the Home Office knew all about the suicided fiend, that that dept. of state had documents which proved his identity.

Hmmm, I wonder who told that fib?

[Stewart P Evans]

Too Much

...
...
As I am trying to get across, when this document's existence was first mentioned as Sims' trump card against Abberline, in 1903, he called it a 'Report' -- in fact a 'Home Office Report', of a definitive character by the 'Commissioner', eg. Mac, his chum.
I argue it is an 1898 rewrite not a draft.
I theorise this because the version the writers saw was so writer-friendly, and the official one in the archive was so govt./Liberal-friendly. That this is too much of a convenient coincidence for my taste -- but I could be wrong.
...
That it is a draft, which it may be, is nonetheless a theory not an established fact.
This document, the unofficial version, is the source of the Edwardian idea, relentlessly disseminated by Sims, that there was no Jack the Ripper mystery; that it had been solved by the super-efficient police all the way back in 1888.
Thus not a mere memorandum to brief the Commissioner who could brrief the Home Sec.-- it is a Home Office Report; a definitive document of state. To keep calling it what his daughter mistakenly seems to have called it ('by my father ...') is to keep belittling its historical value, if unintentionally.
For this document claimed -- to the public -- that the mystery was solved. Whether Macnaghten was mistaken or Machiavellian, he gave it an importance which we need to analyse to try and work out if the entire thing is just smoke and mirrors?
Repeating his daughter's mistake, today, in a sense lets her father off the hook; rather than hold him accountable for waving around what he must have claimed to his credulous pals, one a fellow officer of the state and the other a mega-famous crime writer (ecumenically a Tory and a Liberal) was a document which had the status of a 'final' Report, a Report to the Home Office -- or at least a reliable copy of a definitive document of state which resided in the Home Office archive.
In fact it's neither ...?
In 1905 somebody told the press that the Home Office knew all about the suicided fiend, that that dept. of state had documents which proved his identity.
Hmmm, I wonder who told that fib?

Far too much is read into this document by those espousing suspect theories.

What is patently obvious, in both versions, is the fact that it primarily addresses the question of whether or not Cutbush was the Ripper, and not the actual identity of the murderer and whether his identity was known. It is specifically written in order to dismiss Cutbush. All the indications are that the 'Aberconway version' was Macnaghten's draft of the final, official, version.

And why? Well one of 'Scotland Yard's own' had gone to the press and divulged the belief that he had arrested the veritable 'Jack the Ripper' back in March 1891, a 'fact' that was not acknowledged by his senior officers. Such discord would not be appreciated by the hierarchy and would cause the Commissioner embarrassment.

So the idea that Thomas Cutbush was 'Jack the Ripper' had to be dismissed and this is the reason for the report written by Macnaghten. That he chose information contained therein to impart to his literary cronies Griffiths and Sims was merely a convenience when asked for information on the possible identity of the murderer.

The 'Aberconway version' includes four pages of dismissing Cutbush before any mention of the other suspects, in which Druitt gets a single page (6A).

Apropos of the description of 'memorandum', Macnaghten ends this document with the words '...and has already been dealt with in this memorandum', so there it is, in his own words.

[Jonathan H]

I wish I could one day see this document in its entirely because every single time I get to see a little more, it always backs my argument of 'Case Disguised'.

For example, Mac changed the '13th' to the '14th' so that his cronies could be reminded by 'The Sun', the latter issue writing that the fiend has respectable relatives who could be hurt by press revelations. Hint, hint.

For example, he made Sadler definitely the murderer of Coles, and perhaps another woman, to make sure there were no loose ends -- that it was supposedly definitely the middle-aged Dr. Druitt who killed the earlier victims and nobody else.

For example, the number is Dec. 31st, not Dec. 3rd (the second digit has faded) meaning that when Mac told Sims that the Ripper's body was recovrered in early November his own document told him that this was not true.

By the way my argument, in this instance, is not about Druitt as a 'suspect', as a good suspect, or a poor suspect, or a real suspect at all.

My argument here is that Macnaghten projected an opinion -- his opinion and no other police officer's -- in the form of a Yard-friendly 'shilling shocker' myth onto the public.

That Mac did this and that Druitt was perhaps barely a serious suspect at all, are not mutually exclusive concepts.

To launch this propaganda offensive, affable Mac pretended to the Major and the Playwright that they were accessing, perhaps only verbally from its author, the 'Home Office Report' supposedly proving the Ripper's identity -- and what a great job the police had done.

Thank-you for revealing the finale of the 'Aberconway' version because it backs my argument to the hilt, just as all the counter-indications are that Mac wrote this document second and not first, in fact some years later.

For you see it means that his daughter thought it was a 'memo' because that is what her father had written.

Fair enough.

But we know from other sources, as she did not, that this document has no official status whatsoever -- either as a memo or a report, or an accurate copy of either.

Yet her father pretended to at least Sims that it was a definitive document of state, supposedly the doouble of a report lodged at the Home Office.

In fact, it was not a report but a memo, not an accurate copy of the original as it so different about Druitt, and not a facsimile of a definitive document of state.

[Stewart P Evans]

We do not know...

...
To launch this propaganda offensive, affable Mac pretended to the Major and the Playwright that they were accessing, perhaps only verbally from its author, the 'Home Office Report' supposedly proving the Ripper's identity -- and what a great job the police had done.
...
But we know from other sources, as she did not, that this document has no official status whatsoever -- either as a memo or a report, or an accurate copy of either.
...
Yet her father pretended to at least Sims that it was a definitive document of state, supposedly the doouble of a report lodged at the Home Office.
In fact, it was not a report but a memo, not an accurate copy of the original as it so different about Druitt, and not a facsimile of a definitive document of state.

We do not know that Macnaghten 'pretended' any such thing. However can you make such a definite statement? It's fine to present theories and hypotheses, but please don't present them as fact.