M.P. Farquharson-Druitt -- A New Source

[Bridewell]

Instead he was discreetly investigating the following which had leaked from his fellow Old Etonian Henry Farquharson:

The 11 February 1891 edition of 'The Bristol Times and Mirror':

'I give a curious story for what it is worth. There is a West of England member who in private declares that he has solved the mystery of 'Jack the Ripper.' His theory - and he repeats it with so much emphasis that it might almost be called his doctrine - is that 'Jack the Ripper' committed suicide on the night of his last murder. I can't give details, for fear of a libel action; but the story is so circumstantial that a good many people believe it. He states that a man with blood-stained clothes committed suicide on the night of the last murder, and he asserts that the man was the son of a surgeon, who suffered from homicidal mania. I do not know what the police think of the story, but I believe that before long a clean breast will be made, and that the accusation will be sifted thoroughly.'

And after Coles' murder Farquharson did not change his mind, despite another 'Jack' murder and a suspect in custody:

From 'The York Herald' and 'The Yorkshire Herald', Feb 18th 1891:

'The member of Parliament who recently declared that 'Jack the Ripper' had killed himself on the evening of the last murder, adheres to his opinion. Even assuming that the man Saddler [sic] is able to prove his innocence of the murder of Frances Coles, he maintains that the latest crime cannot be the work of the author of the previous series of atrocities, and this view of the matter is steadily growing among those who do not see that there is any good reason to suppose that 'Jack the Ripper' is dead. So far as Saddler is concerned, there is a strong feeling that the evidence will have to be very much strengthened against him by next Tuesday, if he is to be committed for trial. His manner in the Thames Police-court was consistent with any theory.'

Hi Jonathan,

You have repeatedly rebuked me and others for our alleged use of secondary sources. Feel free to do that, but please don't then start quoting secondary sources in support of your own arguments. I'm sure you're now going to tell me that these are not secondary sources but, as they discuss the supposedly "private" views of an unnamed person, I would contend that that is exactly what they are.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Jonathan H]

Seconds

To Dave

Thanks.

I think that is a very pertinent question, eg. Farquharson's reliaility. He comes across as a rather, nasty aristo with a big gob. On the other hand he may have been right about his opponent, he just could not prove it in court (which still makes him a nasty piece of work).

My counter is simply this.

If the MP comes across as potentially unreliable to us, and we know hardly anything, then imagine what he must have come across to Macnaghten, who knew him?

All the more reason for Mac not to rely on just him, or to treat his Ripepr claims as reliable without verification.

Yet I think he came away convinced not by the MP but by the Druitts, or a Druitt.

It's a big call to second-guess the police who were there, though their lack of a consensus needs some kind of explanation.

To Bridewell

I have not 'rebuked' anybody, a very strong word.

I have dissented from the received wisdom in many secondary sources about this subject, and also praised a number for being brilliant but, inevitably, not perfect (Palmer, Begg, Cullen, Evans, Rumbelow, et. al.)

You are confusing two different concepts: second-hand with secondary sources. The latter are soucres by people who did not live during the era under examination.

Macnaghten, Griffiths, Sims, the MP are second-hand sources about Druitt but are primary as they were writing about him at the time of a posthumous investigation -- and the results of that investigation by a senior police figure.

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Jonathan

Playing the devil's advocate I've had this strange thought...could McNaghten have been so devious as to have actually blind-fed Farquharson the nasty Druitt story, so as to have external backing for his "deus ex machina" when subsequently introduced?

Perhaps I'm crediting Mac with too much crookedness, (but I somehow doubt it).

Just an idea...

Dave

[Jonathan H]

To Dave

I'm not sure it is playing 'Devil's Advocate' to examine a limited, ambiguous source from a different angle?

Of course it's possible it's Mac to the MP but I think unlikely.

Macnaghten was known to be close-mouthed, and therefore I don't think he told anyone this tale he did not have to. Why would he tell another member of the ruling elte -- and a minor one at that -- whom he could not trust to be equally close-mouthed?

More likely that Farquharson has picked it up because of proximity, and Macnaghte shut him down as -- so far is known -- the MP did no repeat this tale to the media (and d ied in 1895).

The original MP article suggests the police do not know about this tale, and the new MP source suggests they still do not as the case against Salder begins to collapse.

Consider that when the Druitt story is rebooted, in 1898, it's on Mac's terms: the Drowned Doctor Super-suspect of Griffths and Sims. This is how Macnaghten wanted those not in-the-know to see the MP tale -- eg. minus the MP.

[Bridewell]

Jonathan,

Having reviewed earlier posts on this thread, I think I owe you an apology, in part at least. I certainly can't, on reflection, justify 'repeatedly'. It was on a different Druitt that you said:

You are repeating a stale paradigm of the secondary sources, not the primary sources, and now arguably redundant.

Is rebuke too strong a word for that? I'm not sure, but I was making a mountain out of a molehill, so I apologise. I certainly don't want to fall out with you as I like this thread.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Cogidubnus]

More likely that Farquharson has picked it up because of proximity, and Macnaghte shut him down as -- so far is known -- the MP did no repeat this tale to the media (and d ied in 1895).

Point well made, and taken accordingly Jonathan

Cheers

Dave

[Jonathan H]

No worries

To Bridewell

Oh, I didn't take it like that and no apology is necessary. I associated the word 'rebuke' with being a rigid pedant, which I do not believe I am.

Of course I could be wrong with my revisionist -- or throwback -- theory, or right that Macnaghten was certain, but he and the family were tragically wrong.

We can never know, only put together provisional theories (strong ones can also be made for other police suspects) the merits and demerits of which are in the eye of the beholder.

[Bridewell]

Jonathan,

Thanks for that. I know I can be a provocative so-and-so at times!

Regards, Bridewell.

[Jonathan H]

For those interested there are some interesting sources on Farquharson -- though not the critical new Ripper one -- and a variation on the usual picture of him from the 1880's.

I myself have a photograph of Farqy when he was a student at Eton.

Here is the thread:

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=14824

The argument of the thread is that because the MP was loose-lipped about an opponent, and lost a libel case then, ipso facto, that takes care of the most important source (actually a set of sources: 'The Bristol Times and Mirror', and 'The York Herald' 1891, and 'The Western Mail' 1892) on Jack the Ripper since the extraordinary Littlechild Letter was discovered by Stewart Evans in 1993.

Farquy was an unsavoury and unreliable toff with a big gob, which I agree he was, but that that means the end of Druitt as a Ripper suspect is a helluva stretch, though not if you are steeped in bias against the 'original' suspect.

It is a theory, for sure, it is just a terribly weak one because it assumes that Macnaghten was so incompetent that he relied entirely on this character, a contemporary of his from school and the Tory Party and the ruling establishment, rather than do an investigation of Druitt himself.

A hands-on, Ripper-obsessive, wannabe Super-cop who projects himself into every notorious crime he can, relies on that twerp, and only him?

Can't you see how unlikely that is. How outside the real world that notion is. Not impossible, and so 'not impossible' will do to bury the best solution (such a claim can also be made for other police suspects).

By 'investigation' I mean the bare minimum: like checking out the articles on the barrister's inexplicable suicide from 1889.

These would have told the police chief that Druitt was found with a season train ticket ('Aberconway': 1894-8), that his brother William was trying to find him after he disappeared (Sims: 1903, 1907) and that he did not kill himself within hours of the final murder (Macnaghten: 1914).

Mac's tale backs Farquharson on some elements, but denies -- in public under his own knighted name -- the critical one of the allegedly incriminating time of murder speedily flowed by self-murder, showing that the MP was getting his info second-hand in Dorset but Mac, arguably, was not.

The usual and by now really stale chestnuts are wheeled out: of Druitt as a troubled homosexual (no evidence what-so-ever) and that he committed suicide at 'the right time'.

Actually nothing could be further from the truth.

The timing of Druitt's sucide was extremely inconvenient because it meant that the police had been chasing a 'ghost' (Mac: 1914) for over two years after the fiend was safely deceased. It would mean that the final murder was not Coles, or McKenzie, or Mylett, or even the Pinchin St. Torso but as far back as 1888! eg. the murder of Mary Kelly.

Druitt was such a tar-baby from so many different angles, that if Mac could have got Druitt posthumously off the hook he likely would have, and yet he could not and did not.

When Mac writes in the official version 'from private info' it is not Farquharson he means, as I interpret the line, but the family -- yet distanced to appear to be hearsay with elements of the tale unconfirmed: was he a doctor? Was he from a good family? Did his body lie upwards of a month in the Thames? (Mac: 1894)

It doesn't really work, and it was never sent.

His memoirs are more candid, though only up to a point.

My God, if an [authenticated] primary source ever turns up showing that the Druitts, or a Druitt believed Montie to be the fiend there is going to be such a phuking meltdown amongst some of the brethren.

[Phil Carter]

Hello Jonathan,

"Aberconway 1894-1898"

just a small, insignificant point that some may find a tad confusing- no critique meant, please-

How do you equate the date for attributing this version with Lady Aberconway's own words to Dan Farson, recollected in his book, that she had written out this version after her father had died 30 odd years later? Did she or didnt she do that?

Because in light of Major Griffiths' 1898 book, where the words are extremely similar, she must have been telling fibs to Farson...unless either the Griffiths words came before the Aberconway version or the third version, the "Donner version", first mentioned way after Griffiths' book, upon which there is no proof of existance pre Griffiths, was the copy Lady Aberconway transcribed from?

The Donner version's very existance is in doubt because it hasnt been seen for 60years and even then the proof is thin. I believe, if I understood Maria correctly, that she believes this version to be locked away somewhere in some archive or another. Perhaps she will explain/confirm/deny?

Best wishes

Phil

[Jonathan H]

I don't really know what you are talking about, Phil?

'Aberconway' is the modern nickname for the alternate version of Mac's Report to the Home Office, which he never sent. This is the version he disseminated to the public via accomodating pals who wrote about true crime.

Lady Christabel Aberconway had her secretary type out a copy to preserve it, but she herself wrote the pages involving the suspects due to a sense of propriety and discretion (in itself the giveaway about her father's true 'Drowned Doctor' machinations) and in her own handwriting.

This document, now at last fully published for the ordinary punter, matches what Griffiths wrote in his 1898 adaptation (with 'family' turned into 'friends' for the same reasons of discretion), and elements of Sims' writings, though the latter also had semi-fictional material, presumably from Mac, which is not in either version.

'Aberconway' also matches, though with significant differences, the filed version, the salient sections of which were first published in 1966 by Robin Odell in response to Tom Cullen publishing the salient sections from the so-called 'draft' version the year before.

Logic strongly suggests that the 'Donner' version never existed as it allegedly lists Cutbush as a Ripper suspect, when the whole thrust of both versions is to debunk this tabloid-driven claim.

The reason the 'Donner' version, an obviously apocryphal story, is keenly embraced by some secondary sources is that it fits the creaking paradigm of a fumbling, callous Mac who does not what he's writing about.

[caz]

My sole reservations here are about Farquharson, and arise out of his conduct in the 1892 elections wherein he openly accused his main opponent of homosexuality whilst at school (which ended up with him being on the wrong end of a libel case - whether in the least justified or not, a continued lack of judgement is indicated by rocking the boat as he did - this being no Oscar Wilde case), plus the allegations of brutality against the kennel lads as quoted in the dissertation by Andrew Spallek...

(I'm not even mentioning the 125 Newfoundland Dogs which we'll put down to a rich man's eccentricity!)

I get the feeling Farquharson's a bit of a brute who wouldn't let common sense or judgement get in the way of spreading a nasty and malicious piece of gossip he'd been fed...(especially, and here I of course speculate, if it was suggested that Druitt had been dismissed for offences against purity)...Sorry Jonathan I have to ask myself, how well does all the rest stand up if Farquharson's credibility is removed?

All the best

Dave

Hi Dave,

This is what I was getting at, when Jonathan appeared convinced that 'gents' (like Farqui or Mac) would not have suspected, or tried to finger, a fellow 'gent' for these crimes unless they had no choice but to concede that the evidence was very compelling indeed.

I just don't think we know enough about the two 'gents' here to say that they couldn't both have happily suspected a fellow gent whose alleged sexual perversions hit a personal nerve and were considered sufficiently depraved and disgusting. Add the suicide before the end of '88 and it could well have tipped the balance for Mac, as opposed to a low class Polish Jew called Kosminski, whose 'homicidal tendencies' were rather more nebulous than the 'private info' that came directly to Mac's ears from some trusted source.

I'm not saying that Jonathan's theory cannot be right, and that Mac could not have found himself with overwhelming reasons to be certain of Druitt's guilt. All I'm saying is that the theory might be better off without the argument that it would have been totally against the grain for Mac to favour or finger a 'gent' like Druitt for the murders. I believe he was simply going with his best instincts, based on what he knew about Druitt's character (or thought he knew ) compared with the various other suspects.

Love,

Caz
X

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Dave,

This is what I was getting at, when Jonathan appeared convinced that 'gents' (like Farqui or Mac) would not have suspected, or tried to finger, a fellow 'gent' for these crimes unless they had no choice but to concede that the evidence was very compelling indeed.

I just don't think we know enough about the two 'gents' here to say that they couldn't both have happily suspected a fellow gent whose alleged sexual perversions hit a personal nerve and were considered sufficiently depraved and disgusting. Add the suicide before the end of '88 and it could well have tipped the balance for Mac, as opposed to a low class Polish Jew called Kosminski, whose 'homicidal tendencies' were rather more nebulous than the 'private info' that came directly to Mac's ears from some trusted source.

I'm not saying that Jonathan's theory cannot be right, and that Mac could not have found himself with overwhelming reasons to be certain of Druitt's guilt. All I'm saying is that the theory might be better off without the argument that it would have been totally against the grain for Mac to favour or finger a 'gent' like Druitt for the murders. I believe he was simply going with his best instincts, based on what he knew about Druitt's character (or thought he knew ) compared with the various other suspects.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz

I agree with you. Jonathan posits this chummy scenario wherein Sir Melville Macnaghten got together with West Dorset MP Richard Henry Farquharson and then did his own investigation of Druitt and found out that there was proof that Druitt was indeed the murderer. But there's no proof that any of that took place. It might have been more that Druitt died at the right time, with a shadow over his reputation because of his dismissal from Mr. Valentine's school at Blackheath, that there was insanity running in the family, and that he was the son of a surgeon. Which is more or less the same rap sheet recites in Machnaghten's famous 1894 memorandum, with all its inaccuracies, such as that Druitt was "said to be a doctor", and in which Druitt is only one of several oddly assorted suspects which were supposedly better than Thomas Hayne Cutbush. Farquharson died aboard ship coming back from India in spring 1895, so when precisely did Macnaghten get together with the West Dorset MP, if he did so? The certainty in Macnaghten's mind that Druitt was the murderer seems to have occurred some time after he wrote the memorandum, which does not make sense if, as Jonathan would have us believe, his conversation with the MP and his supposed "investigation" convinced him that Druitt was the killer.

Best regards

Chris

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Melville Macnaghten [whose appointment as Assistant Chief Constable had originally been agreed by 22nd March 1888] did not finally join the Metropolitan Police until fifteen months later, on 1st June 1889, but he had been firmly established in London since at least 1887 and, thus, throughout the Whitechapel murders.

Could he, therefore, have had a deeper knowledge of events than his memoirs would otherwise lead us to believe?

Regards,

Simon

[Robert]

Hi Simon

Perhaps, but when I envisaged ex-Supt Cutbush popping round to the station to have a cup of tea with old colleagues and find out the latest state of play on whatever was happening at the time, Stewart told me that the dividing line between police and public was very strict. You were either a member of the Force, or you weren't, and the fact that you had been a member, didn't count. So presumably a "Not Yet" would be in the same position?