Was Montague Druitt Left-handed?

[Tom_Wescott]

I just received a copy of Terry Lynch's 2008 book, Jack the Ripper, the Whitechapel Murderer, and was intrigued by his discussion in the Introduction that his research of extent photos of Druitt have led him to the conclusion that Druitt was left-handed. He mentioned looking at Druitt's tie and seeing that the knot appears to have been tied by a left handed person, and in other photos, Druitt is crossing his legs left over right, etc. I haven't read any further in the book as of yet, but I thought I'd mention this to see if anyone else has given this much thought. Personally, I would say that if Druitt were indeed left-handed, it would be yet another nail in the coffin of his candidacy as Jack the Ripper.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Monty]

I doubt it Tom,

I think he was a right arm bat and bowler at cricket.

Could be wrong though.

Monty

[Jonathan H]

To Tom

You are mis-informed, good friend.

There are no 'nails in Druitt's coffin' in terms of his candidacy as Jack -- not in terms of historical methodology.

You are referring to an old and discredited paradigm, which to keep staggering like a shrieking, raving fiend on its way to a watery demise, has to not only under-interpret certain sources -- critical sources have to be eliminated?

For example, these are the primary sources which secondary sources must ignore some or all (the itchily judicious Paul Begg is a major exception to this critique and a major influence on my thinking. The fact that Begg thinks my theory is an ingenious fancy should give anybody pause):

- the [now two] 1891 sources on MP Farquharson, a near-neighbour of certain Druitts in Dorset, and a member of the Etonian ruling elite with Macnaghten, and exactly what the police chief will assert in 1914: information received 'some years after' the Ripper took his own life.

- stop mentioning that there are two Mac Reports, let alone that 'Aberconway's' certainty about a tormented, English gentleman was disseminated to the public -- anonymously via reliable cronies. That to Edwardians there was no mystery anymore.

- the writings of George Sims, which show that Druitt and his family were deliberately fictionalised rendering the paradigm's stale notion that Mac mistekenly thought Druitt was a doctor a very slender reed, to say the least (in the official version of his Report, Mac silkily did not commit himself to Druitt being a doctor).

- the 1899 'North Country Vicar' who, if he was not talking about Druitt, then it is an amazing coincidence that two semi-fictionalised Ripper suspects who both died 'soon after' the Kelly murder are at logger-heads, and that the cleric's is closer to real Druitt than the one we know is about Druitt?

- the 1913 comments of Macnaghten which show that he was just as certain as Anderson (and perhaps just as mistaken?) about his preferred suspect, calling him 'remarkable' and 'fascinating', that his culpability was a 'secret'. and asserting that he knew exactly who he was (Mac was a cricket tragic and in love with his school days, and Druitt was a county cricketer and part-time school master -- no wonder the police chief is so strangely effusive.)

- the ultimate ignored primary source: the 1914 memoirs of Sir Melville Macnaghten which show that he correctly recalled that Druitt was not a police suspect of the 1888 investigation, was not 'detained' in a mental institution, and that he did not kill himself within hours of the Kelly atrocity (he also hints at 'epileptic mania' symptoms, echoing the Vicar).

Tom, the 'nails' are in the 'coffin' of the old paradigm which claimed -- at its most extreme wing -- that Druitt was clearly a tragic innocent shanghaied into the mystery by an incompetent, callous police chief with a lousy memory.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Monty,

Thanks for that. I figured in all the writings about his cricketing career, it would have been mentioned if he were a southpaw.

Hi Jonathan. The last sentence of post was just for you. LOL. But photographs ARE in fact primary source material in a way, and while Terry Lynch quite possibly - even likely - is wrong in his conclusions, it's the first I'd read of an author even thinking to look for such evidence in a photo, so I thought it worth mentioning.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Fleetwood Mac]

I just received a copy of Terry Lynch's 2008 book, Jack the Ripper, the Whitechapel Murderer, and was intrigued by his discussion in the Introduction that his research of extent photos of Druitt have led him to the conclusion that Druitt was left-handed. He mentioned looking at Druitt's tie and seeing that the knot appears to have been tied by a left handed person, and in other photos, Druitt is crossing his legs left over right, etc. I haven't read any further in the book as of yet, but I thought I'd mention this to see if anyone else has given this much thought. Personally, I would say that if Druitt were indeed left-handed, it would be yet another nail in the coffin of his candidacy as Jack the Ripper.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Tom,

The photo on this very board suggests he may well have been.

I would expect a right handed person to use the left hand as a rest, and have the dominant/right hand free to turn the pages of a book or manage any other task.

Would it not have been recorded in cricket records, i.e. whether left or right arm bowler?

[Bridewell]

Wisden

Would it not have been recorded in cricket records, i.e. whether left or right arm bowler?

It's not recorded on Cricinfo. Has anyone ever been able to check Wisden for the relevant years? Unfortunately the older volumes change hands for well over £1,000 now, so I'm not rushing out to buy one on the off chance.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Robert]

I am not a cricketer but I imagine that many players would have reasonable proficiency with their other hand as far as day-to-day tasks are concerned, if only because at some point they'll get a nasty knock which will force them to make do for a while.

[Bridewell]

Switch Hitting

I am not a cricketer but I imagine that many players would have reasonable proficiency with their other hand as far as day-to-day tasks are concerned, if only because at some point they'll get a nasty knock which will force them to make do for a while.

Hi Robert,

As far as day-to-day tasks go, yes, but only a player of exceptional talent, such as (in the modern era) Kevin Pietersen would be able to reverse his stance at the crease successfully. The two hands perform wholly different functions - the top hand provides the control and the bottom (dominant) hand gives the power.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Monty]

Hi Robert,

As far as day-to-day tasks go, yes, but only a player of exceptional talent, such as (in the modern era) Kevin Pietersen would be able to reverse his stance at the crease successfully. The two hands perform wholly different functions - the top hand provides the control and the bottom (dominant) hand gives the power.

Regards, Bridewell.

Well, technically speaking, Pieterson is switching stance, not changing hands.

Monty

[curious4]

I just received a copy of Terry Lynch's 2008 book, Jack the Ripper, the Whitechapel Murderer, and was intrigued by his discussion in the Introduction that his research of extent photos of Druitt have led him to the conclusion that Druitt was left-handed. He mentioned looking at Druitt's tie and seeing that the knot appears to have been tied by a left handed person, and in other photos, Druitt is crossing his legs left over right, etc. I haven't read any further in the book as of yet, but I thought I'd mention this to see if anyone else has given this much thought. Personally, I would say that if Druitt were indeed left-handed, it would be yet another nail in the coffin of his candidacy as Jack the Ripper.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Hello Tom and all,

My mother was born in 1922 and was left-handed. She was forced as a child to become (at best) right-handed by the simple expedient of tying her left hand behind her back until she used her right hand for preference, which she did all her life. Being left-handed was frowned upon and was probably even more so in the LVP for all sorts of superstitious and perhaps practical reasons. I think anyone then who was born left-handed would similarly have been forced to use their right hand, so it would have been difficult to tell whether they were lefties or not.


Best wishes,
C4

[Tom_Wescott]

Tom,

The photo on this very board suggests he may well have been.

I would expect a right handed person to use the left hand as a rest, and have the dominant/right hand free to turn the pages of a book or manage any other task.

Hi all. The photo mentioned by Mac here was also mentioned by Lynch, and for the same reasons. However, it strikes me as a 'posed' photo, so out of necessity for camera placement, I imagine Druitt had to pose the way he did. The tying of his tie is what struck me as curious, and I'm not qualified to answer on that, since I can't tie a tie!

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Fleetwood Mac]

Hi all. The photo mentioned by Mac here was also mentioned by Lynch, and for the same reasons. However, it strikes me as a 'posed' photo, so out of necessity for camera placement, I imagine Druitt had to pose the way he did. The tying of his tie is what struck me as curious, and I'm not qualified to answer on that, since I can't tie a tie!

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Tom, I thought that about the posed photo. But, the pose could have been undertaken in any fashion, i.e. table anywhere in the room, so there's no reason to think his pose is unnatural in the sense of left/right hand.

As someone who wears a tie 5 days out of 7, I can say that a right handed person will tie the tie in a certain fashion every day of his life. I haven't seen the knot so can't really say on Druitt, but I'm not quite sure how the tieing of a tie can be stated to have been that of a right or left handed person. You wouldn't be able to discern whether or not I'm right handed from my tie in the morning.

Assuming the photo is Druitt's natural stance, and there's no good reason to think it wasn't, then I would say he was left handed.

The crossing of the legs I don't agree with. I tend to cross my left over my right for the same reason I use my left hand/arm as a rest - for balance.

Probably more important, and something I've just thought of, in the photo Druitt places the book to his left. That is unnatural for a right handed person. Try it.

[Bridewell]

The Placing of Books

Probably more important, and something I've just thought of, in the photo Druitt places the book to his left. That is unnatural for a right handed person. Try it.

I'd have thought it was unnatural for a left-handed person also, because of the way the book opens rather than any consideration of left or right-handedness.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Fleetwood Mac]

I'd have thought it was unnatural for a left-handed person also, because of the way the book opens rather than any consideration of left or right-handedness.

Regards, Bridewell.

I wouldn't have thought so.

When a left handed person writes it is natural to place the paper slightly to the left of him/her; and to the right for a right handed person.

Not the same when reading a book, taking into account your whole balance and comfort?

[mariab]

It's super easy to tie a tie and I've done this on numerous occasions (for some reason, in my early 20es I was wearing mens' ties on shirts for a little while, lol). For a right handed person, when tying a tie, the left hand holds it steady while the right hand wraps the tie around, slips the tie inside of the knot and tights it up, and in my personal experience as a righthanded person this makes the knot of the tie slipping a bit to the left. I don't know the Terry Lynch book, so no clue if Druitt's tie knot has slipped a bit to the right.

I agree with those who said that, were Druitt a "southpaw", it would have been a known and well-reported fact in the cricket press. In the surf/snow community/press it's well-known which surfer/snowbarder is “regular“ and which one is “goofy“. I'm "goofy" (leftfooted) and can recite a long list of surfers/snowboarders past and present who are "goofy" too.
As for cricketer Pieterson being famous for switching stance, it sounds like a much more rare occurrence than in snowboarding/wakeboarding, where it's expected that one rides "switch" at least 30% of the time and features jumps and tricks in "switch mode" frequently, so as to be taken seriously as a freestyler.