Druitt and the Home office

[Smoking Joe]

To Jonathan,
"Certain facts leading to a CONCLUSION" and conclusion could be the key word . Thats not to say Druitt couldnt have been suspected earlier.He may well have been,together with many others ,a person the Police might have wished to interview as regards the murders,for any one of a number orf reasons. Any suspicions the Police had at the time didnt need yto have been conclusive.
And of course being looked for by the police,and not knowing how much they knew,and thinking the Police were going to "put the hat on him" would seem a far more likely reason for committing suicide ,than being sacked by Valentine,being Gay, or indeed "feeling like mother since friday".(If of course Druitt was the man)
I think its quite reasonable to assume that Druitt,Ostrog And Kosminski just might,and I say might,have been contemporary suspects on the Polices short list and Macnaughton merely picked his favourite from the three,because of more information that turned up some years later,extra info that turned suspicion into belief.(If only in Macnaughtons opinion perhaps)
The Police,of course didnt shut the investigation down at the beginning of 1889..indeed how could they? If suspicions against Druitt or anyone else for that matter, were only suspicions and nothing more ,then of course the investigations would continue-the alternatives would have been pointless.
None of what Ive written may be correct,Thats ok ,Its not a theory,even in a theory kind of way.Its just trying to keep an open mind and not dismiss possibilities that might exist even after everyone else has said they are not possibilities but instead pure B .S.
REGARDS

[Jonathan H]

We will have to agree to disagree.

I think the bedrock of understading this subsject is that a police chief privately discovered the Ripper's likely identity, but he was long deceased and by his own hand.

What to do about it ...?

[Phil H]

If the Macnaghten Memorandum had ever seen the light of official day [i.e. left his desk drawer and passed up the hierarchical chain of command],

Surely one copy of the MM was ON THE OFFICIAL FILE.

I think there is a misunderstanding here of how British government bureaucracy worked.

Phil

[Mayerling]

If the Macnaghten Memorandum had ever seen the light of official day [i.e. left his desk drawer and passed up the hierarchical chain of command],

Surely one copy of the MM was ON THE OFFICIAL FILE.

I think there is a misunderstanding here of how British government bureaucracy worked.

Phil

Hi Phil,

I have to admit that I do not understand the workings of the inner government bureaucracy in Great Britain, but if it is like that of the U.S. (or more to the point N.Y. State - where I worked for three decades), unless we are going to put something in the official file (old fashioned paper and cardboard file, or more recent "electronic" computer file) it will not see any of our superiors in the agency. Many of us will spend days on a claim or case considering what to write, how to write it, and whether it is worth even mentioning due to confusing issues. Here the suggestion was made that Macnaughten was simply organizing his thoughts in the first memo of 1894, meaning he may never even have sent it ahead. The "Cutbush" inspired memo may have just sat in Sir Melville's desk at the office or his home on Tite Street. Later, he may have referred to it as his memo, but it was not an official memo that had to be sent to the heads of the Yard. Of course, if Sir Melville was given an order by one of those superiors to write up a brief memo for possible guidance as a reference to answering the matter of Mr. Cutbush, he would have had to send it at that point.

Jeff

[Jonathan H]

The problem is rather that Sir Melville Macnaghten is not well understood here as a primary source on the posthumous investigation -- and conclusion -- that Druitt was the Ripper.

In 1891 Mac investigated the deceased Druitt meeting, I theorise, with family members. Glimpses of this, veiled by a fictional overlay, are in Sims in the 1900's, and implied by the chief's own memoirs.

Yet he committed nothing to file and told nobody at Scotland Yard.

Then in 1894, with Cutbush a potential problem (and the Tory/Liberal partisan divide a factor) he experimented with a document, the official version of his 'memo' on file, in which there are all sorts of deceit going on -- and awkward, contradictory deceit at that:

- Druitt was a suspect whilst alive.
- Yet Druitt was a minor suspect, but still better than Cutbush.
- Somebody claimed Druitt was a doctor but this was never verified.
- Ostrog is a genuine medical man and a genuine lunatic -- homicidcal too.
- Cutbush is the nephew/de-facto son of a retired cop.
- Kosminski was sectioned in early 1889.

All lies.

Yet he also placed on file that the Druitt family believed in their late member's culpability because he was a sexual maniac.

This Report for the Home Office was never sent.

It was filed at Scotland Yard but was seemingly an unknown document until 1966, and only then because the so-called 'draft' had surfaced in 1959 and it's salient sections published by Cullen in 1965.

The alternate version, of which we have only a copy due to Macnaghten's daughter making one, is both more in line with other sources by Mac and on his behalf -- Druitt was his leading suspect -- but also contains even grosser distortions (dumped in the 1914 memoirs).

- Druitt is definitely a middle-aged doctor, suspected at the time he went into the Thames.
- 'Dr.' Druitt appears to have lived with family at Blackheath.
- Ostrog carries surgical knives and hates women.
- By late 1894 Ostrog had been completely cleared of the Ripper crimes and Mac arguably knew this (Sims, 1907).
- Kosminski was perhaps seen by a beat cop near a victim.

this version was hustled to cronies as a definitive document of state in 1898, when it was first adapted by Major Griffiths.

In 1903, Sims called it a 'Home Office Report' when it is not even an accurate copy of the original.

How could Mac have placed the first version in the Scotland Yard file at such risk to his career.

Because it is a risk.

Either way it is a risk because either he knew it was full of deceit or he was so incompetent -- which would be very out of character -- that he should have been sacked for such errors.

Either he knew what he was risking, or he was a fool because he did not know what he was risking.

I think he knew and calculated that the greater risk was for Scotland Yard to be caught with its pants down if the whole Druitt saga erupted out of Dorset and they had bugger all on file about him (a file which would self-servingly claim he had been checked out but the evidence against him was non-existent. Since the leak would claim the family's knowledge of Montie's sexual mania Mac had that revelation covered for the Yard.)

By 1898, Mac made the momentous decision to leak the Druitt tale himself but on his own terms, either with a draft or a rewrite of that official report, one which would suit writers, eg. a scoop.

Griffiths was never that convinced whereas Sims became a true convert.

The linchpin was the allaged 'Home Office Report', when no such Report about Druitt or the Ripper was lodged at that governmental department.

This is conscious deceit on Mac's part, so why not the rest.

The Druitt family were turned into 'friends' in Griffiths and Sims to protect their identity (and avoid a libel suit, one which would be based on the insinuation that they had shielded the murderer).

Since the family were protected by this fiction, why not Montie as a Henry Jekyllish figure?

[Phil H]

In the British Civil Service, before the days of any sort of computers, photocopiers or even type-writers and carbon copies (pretty much the service I joined in the early 1970s) the official file was THE key artifact.

Systems might change from department to department, but the file was sacrosanct - it contained the STORY and all the background information. They would be kept in registries and there were careful procedures for handling them and access - especially sensitive material.

The file was MUCH MORE than an archive, it was a working, living document all the time that it was open. In those days there would be a minute sheet on the left of the file (inside the cover) where each enclosure would be numbered and the basic information given . This made it more difficult to remove an enclosure once attached to the file.

Documents, in my day, were circulated for the first time, ON the file - attached to its cover, so that the context could be seen. In the Foreign Office in the late 1800s (a period I once researched) a new document was circulate in its own jacket (cardboard cover) staring with the lowest desk officer and ending with the top civil servant (the Permenent Sectretary). Each annotated the cover with comments and the front cover was then detached and put in the file with the document, so that the whole story was present in the official file. The Queen or King (after 1901) sometimes made comments on the face of the document.

In the Home Office in the Ripper period, documents often include directions as to senior officials who should see them - something still often done today, and of course, we know that Swanson was to see ALL papers etc in the crucial period.

If a letter, brief, paper, or memorandum (something that had a specific meaning) were included in the file it was there to be seen by all who asked for the file. In my view it would not have been kept in MM's office (if it were at times the registry would know of it) all the time, nor was anything on the file secret from those with a right of access.

In terms of briefs etc, no senior (even middle-ranking) civil servent requires an instruction to right a brief (a summary of events perhaps suggesting policy lines that might be taken, say with the press or in the House of Commons). It is part of the job of those officials to use their initiative and provide for their superiors and Ministers advice and the material they may need to draw on.

Any civil servant would at once recognise the Memorandum for what it is - the basis (not I think the final form) of a note which could be drawn on quickly were the Minister to require lines to take. The issue of Cutbush - to which the memorandum clearly links its contents - had been raised in the press and thus might be raised in the House. MM was doing what he should do - setting out his thoughts in a coherent useable way.

It is possible that MM thought he might be away if/when the Cutbush issue came up, but his Memorandum (in the strict meaning of that word) put on file his thoughts which could then be drawn on quickly and readily by his staff in case of need.

The line to take, from the Memoradum would clearly have been -" There are, in the opinion of the police, at least three suspects, more likely than Cutbush to have committed the so-called Whitechapel murders."

Had the Minister wished to know the identities of the three suspects (none of them properly said to be a main suspect) then the information was there.

Files were usable documents, often consulted and by no means a way of hoarding away documents which were not meant to be seen by other officials. There is no reason to doubt that that was the case with the Macnaughton memorandum.

Phil

[Jonathan H]

Nothing of what you wrote contradicts what I did.

In fact, it backs it up.

Sir M took a risk by filing information he knew to be full of holes.

But he put it on fle, officially, that Druitt was a sexual maniac, and might only have been a doctor.

There is no evidence that anybody consulted the official version, not until 1966 and that wss Robin Odell for a book.

The unofficial version was called a 'Home Office Report' by Sims in 1903. It was allegedly definitive.

In 1910 Sims calls it that too.

Therefore, Mac never corrected him that it was a non-identical copy of a document lodged at the Yard not the Home Office.

Of course he didn't.

[Phil H]

Nothing of what you wrote contradicts what I did.

I wasn't aware that I was responding to or commenting on anything you had written, Jonathan.

My post related to an earlier exchange, with mayerling and others:

If the Macnaghten Memorandum had ever seen the light of official day [i.e. left his desk drawer and passed up the hierarchical chain of command],

Surely one copy of the MM was ON THE OFFICIAL FILE.

I think there is a misunderstanding here of how British government bureaucracy worked.

As I don't read your posts, Jonathan, I would not know what you had said.

Phil

[mklhawley]

So, the definition of confirmation bias is mentally emphasizing evidence pleasing to you and ignoring contradictory evidence. It's a battle we all have.

Sincerely,
Mike

[Mayerling]

Hi Phil,

Thank you for explaining the British Civil Service method at the Home Office (and presumably the other Government Departments) to me and the others.

I just want to clarify the New York State Civil Service method, so it does not appear we hide things (which you did not suggest - I reread my earlier explanation).

I worked from October 1981 to last October 11, 2012 at the Crime Victims Board, and then the successor agency of the N.Y. S. Office of Victim Services. No matter what type of file we were using, it had to have the following in it:

1) a claim form filled out by the claimant, who either was the crime victim him or herself, or the widow, or child, or parent (and later the funeral home director) regarding the homicide victim.

2) a copy of the police report of the crime.

3) any medical bills or funeral bills/expenses (expenses included flowers).

4) any medical reports where there were issues on the medical expenses (whether or not they were connected to the crime), or about those deaths which were not considered by the police to be homicides (people who may have died suddenly, but not by malicious or negligent acts of violence).

5) proof of payment of medical bills or funeral expenses (this included medical and burial insurance policy statements, but also bills showing if the claimant/family member actually paid the bill.

6) employment questionaire (filled out properly by the victim's employer) to show how much time was lost by an injured victim from his/her job, or to help ascertain the loss of support amount.

7) depending on the current standards of the agency, we would need a completed financial affidavit if the expenses were over $5,000.00. That was the amount as of last October 2012.

8) any amounts of social security and insurance coverage that was deducted from the loss of earnings or loss of support for the claimant (including social security payments made not only to claimant but to children of claimant in loss of support cases).

9) we also considered storage issues if claimants had to move - if the victim was killed by a gang or by criminals who threatened the family. The victim's moving expenses (up to $2,500.00) and any warehouse expenses were considered if proper proof was presented.

Now that is basically what we had in terms of a paper basis for each claim. We also had to take notes on the cases. Notes regarding calls to the police, the medical people, the insurance companies, the funeral homes, the employer (to ascertain if victim got sick leave or not and what type of sick leave - this effected loss of earnings). We also had to speak to the Claimant. Indeed, anytime the claimant called we had to put the call down in our notes. This was to prove we spoke to Claimant (later on, if the Claimant yelled we never returned the calls the notes would prove we spoke to them). If our supervisors had to put in a note on anything of relevance they learned, they would put that in our notes too (this in particular when we had electric computer files).

But we did not make a habit of writing memos. The reason was that we were aware that we had to maintain a look of total neutrality in handling each case, no matter what we thought of the particular claimant. If one writes a note one had to avoid comments of a negative image on the claimant (or any other party we spoke to: "Det. Fitz - fitz spoke as though he were asleep."). For legal reasons these comments had to be removed, because if they were seen by the Claimant or his/her attorney they might have repercussions.

In the 3 decades I was there, maybe once or twice I wrote (typed) a total memorandum out, because on those cases I felt some point of mine had to be carefully spelled out. Otherwise, I would speak to my supervisor regarding any serious problem that arose, and followed the supervisor's suggestion.

Anyway, that is the method we followed at my job. Not quite as intense as Macnaughten and the memo with his three candidates, but it had moments of tension and even drama.

Jeff

[Phil H]

Mayerling, that was very interesting.

I think though it might be useful to make clear distinction between two or three types of files. This is not to say either/any is less important. It just deoends on the work you are doing.

I was brought up/trained to consider two or three distinct types of files:

a) policy files;

b) case files;

c) administrative files.

I think that, by that definition, I was talking about type (a) and you about type (b).

A case file will include all the papers on an individual transaction, claim, or issue. It might cross with th administrative type (c) for instance if it is an individuals personnel file with all the papers relating to their career.

Type (a) is more general in content - less official routine and more communications between departments or sections within the department often at senior level. Political (briefs to Ministers, lines to take, sensitive discussions etc), policy - the approach to be taken and strategic issues would be the main concerns. So the debate about offering a reward for information re JtR would have been such a file.

Senior officers would not, I think usually see types b or c (except in specific circumstances) but would be mainly concerned with type a.

But that is (or was) UK practice. It might well differ elsewhere and has certianly changed in recent years with the use of IT.

Thanks for the insights, Mayerling.

Phil

[Mayerling]

You're welcome Phil.

Jeff

[Cogidubnus]

In the British Civil Service, before the days of any sort of computers, photocopiers or even type-writers and carbon copies (pretty much the service I joined in the early 1970s) the official file was THE key artifact.

Systems might change from department to department, but the file was sacrosanct - it contained the STORY and all the background information. They would be kept in registries and there were careful procedures for handling them and access - especially sensitive material.

The file was MUCH MORE than an archive, it was a working, living document all the time that it was open. In those days there would be a minute sheet on the left of the file (inside the cover) where each enclosure would be numbered and the basic information given . This made it more difficult to remove an enclosure once attached to the file.

Documents, in my day, were circulated for the first time, ON the file - attached to its cover, so that the context could be seen. In the Foreign Office in the late 1800s (a period I once researched) a new document was circulate in its own jacket (cardboard cover) staring with the lowest desk officer and ending with the top civil servant (the Permenent Sectretary). Each annotated the cover with comments and the front cover was then detached and put in the file with the document, so that the whole story was present in the official file. The Queen or King (after 1901) sometimes made comments on the face of the document.

In the Home Office in the Ripper period, documents often include directions as to senior officials who should see them - something still often done today, and of course, we know that Swanson was to see ALL papers etc in the crucial period.

If a letter, brief, paper, or memorandum (something that had a specific meaning) were included in the file it was there to be seen by all who asked for the file. In my view it would not have been kept in MM's office (if it were at times the registry would know of it) all the time, nor was anything on the file secret from those with a right of access.

In terms of briefs etc, no senior (even middle-ranking) civil servent requires an instruction to right a brief (a summary of events perhaps suggesting policy lines that might be taken, say with the press or in the House of Commons). It is part of the job of those officials to use their initiative and provide for their superiors and Ministers advice and the material they may need to draw on.

Any civil servant would at once recognise the Memorandum for what it is - the basis (not I think the final form) of a note which could be drawn on quickly were the Minister to require lines to take. The issue of Cutbush - to which the memorandum clearly links its contents - had been raised in the press and thus might be raised in the House. MM was doing what he should do - setting out his thoughts in a coherent useable way.

It is possible that MM thought he might be away if/when the Cutbush issue came up, but his Memorandum (in the strict meaning of that word) put on file his thoughts which could then be drawn on quickly and readily by his staff in case of need.

The line to take, from the Memoradum would clearly have been -" There are, in the opinion of the police, at least three suspects, more likely than Cutbush to have committed the so-called Whitechapel murders."

Had the Minister wished to know the identities of the three suspects (none of them properly said to be a main suspect) then the information was there.

Files were usable documents, often consulted and by no means a way of hoarding away documents which were not meant to be seen by other officials. There is no reason to doubt that that was the case with the Macnaughton memorandum.

Phil

Hi Phil

Your experience as a Civil Servant in the early 70's echoes exactly my own in the EO grade from 1972 onwards...the recording of material and total cross-referencing was exactly as you stated...there were in fact whole sections of workers totally dedicated to recording the movements, temporary or otherwise, of files...sometimes they were even, most originally, in sections labelled "Movements"!

Movements were always recorded on file fronts and at least duplicated/triplicated in origination/destination records in relevant offices.

Within files permanent notes were always pinned (note they were PINNED, not clipped, not tagged nor stapled or otherwise fastened), pin left high, right low on the inside left cover...transient notes (up to seven years old unless older was otherwise decreed by a senior officer) were green india tagged on the right hand side - oldest records lowest, most recent at the top, unless there was a cautionary note...this would ALWAYS be moved so as to be uppermost on the right.

Active files were "tagged" as B/F (Brought forward) on a weekly basis in a four week cycle, so that a coloured filing tag, protruding above the edge of a shelf, alerted a Clerical Assistant to pick out all files of a certain vintage, to bring to the attention of a higher ranking officer...

Although file-weeding (right hand side only) was generally carried out selectively on a seven year cycle, there were obvious exceptions, one of the more innocent of which, in my time, was Post-War-Credits, for which the records were separately maintained/cross-referenced from 1939 until nearly all the remaining PWCs were paid off by 1973/74...I believe abbreviated (concard) records are maintained to this day because there are still potentially outstanding claims...

Nearly forty subsequent years in the private sector haven't cured me of the habits accumulated in my early days! To say that British Civil Service records were thorough, is something of an understatement!

All the best

Dave

[Phil H]

Gosh, Dave, your post brought back many memories.

An anecdote re the newest enclosures always being at the TOP of the file.

In 1976 I was asked to put together a "history" of the RAF Museum from the policy files bringing the key papers into a narrative which would be easier to access than a multitude of individual but related subject files.

As this was meant to be read chronologically and was based on copies of original papers, I organised it as a book, front to back. I was quickly reprimanded by my severe spinster boss (for whom I had great affection) who was very much an old-style, wartime civil servant. This was an OFFICIAL FILE and thus the rule applied - order from the back. Reason: it would cause confusion in anyone who read it. Rules was rules in them days!

Your post strongly underlies my view that knowing HOW the files were used and their importance in 1888 and later Home Office and Scotland Yard is very important if one is correctly to understand how the system worked and not to make misjudgements.

I am sure Stewart Evans and Keith Skinner are masters of this, as well (in the former case) of wider police procedures.

When I was researching Anglo-Dutch relations 1870-1914 in the old Public Records Office in Chancery Lane (forerunner of todays National Archives at Kew) I was delving into the Foreign Office files. To understand them, there was a booklet (alas long since lost) which set out how the files were created and used. [Edited to add: The booklet was essential because the files, in a way, were not understandable without an awareness of how the jigsaw fitted together. This is why, without ALL the Whitechapel murder files we only get part of the picture in several ways. ]

Booking in a paper (a despatch from an enbassy maybe) which would be entered into a register); then it was placed in a "docket" and circulated; then docket cover and original paper were put on the relevant file. So to find a particular paper you needed the register AND the files... I am reminded of Trevor Marriott's Special Branch registers which would have worked in a similar way - you found the name of an individual in the register then called for the relevant file. Complicated, but as you say, "thorough".

Regards,

Phil

[Roy Corduroy]

Henry Matthews

Good morning Mayerling, I was wondering if you would care to follow up. In other words, put some meat on the bones of the things below. Because for some of them, I don't understand exactly what Henry Matthews did wrong.

By the way, has anyone noticed how clumsy and oafish a Home Secretary Mathews was? Everyone concentrates on one of two events in his services of five years in the office (1887-1892), but there were more:

Jef, which are the one or two events everyone concentrates on that demonstrate his clumsiness and oafishness and why?

1887- Expose of police corruption allegations in London;

What did Matthews and the Home Office (HO) do wrong? Was it in how this was handled afterwards, or should he have been pro-active and snuffed out corruption before it became public knowledge?

Arrest of Miss Cass for being a prostitute (she wasn't);

How is this his fault?

Trafalgar Square riots (handled too roughly);

Again, what did HO do wrong? Did they not anticipate the rough treatment and head it off at the pass, or is it how it was handled afterward?

Israel Lipski reprieve fiasco;

I thought Matthews stood his ground. I didn't know this was a fiasco. Please explain.

heavy involvement in "Parnellism and Crime" parliamentary investigation (see 1889).

What did do Matthews wrong? Why was it wrong?

1888 - Regent's Park gang war leads to killing of innocent bystander;

Ho is at fault because ___________ ?

Whitechapel Murders and resignation of Warren.

Blame the HO because ___________?

etc etc.

1889 - Maybrick Poisoning Affair (mental health of Justice Stephen brushed under the table - Florence conviction upheld! and she is given a reprieve); Pigott forgeries (supported by Scotland Yard) blow up at parliamentary investigation of "Parnellism and Crime"; mishandling of "Cleveland Street" Sodomy Case, and prosecution of editor Parkes.

1890 - Davies Murder case (see above).

1891-92 - Belated discovery of bodies of Maria Deeming and her four children in early 1892, only after word from Melbourne that Fred Deeming had murdered his second wife and buried her body in the house - Maria and the children had last been seen in Rainhill near Liverpool in summer of 1891; Similarly botched discovery of the murderer of four prostitutes (first pair considered natural deaths) despite suspicious letters of blackmail to prominent persons - Finally investigation works after last two victims poisoned together in April 1892, and leads to Dr. Thomas Neill Cream.

For each of the above, please explain exactly what Matthews and the HO did wrong. Why it was wrong, what should have been done instead, please.

I don't think I can remember any other Home Secretary at the center of so many botched cases. Lord Salisbury really must have been desperate when he put Mathews in his cabinet.

Jeff

Which specific Home Secretary(s) are you comparing him to? What did the other(s) do better?

At your convenience, please reply Jeff. I am not trying to put the spotlight on you, because in fact I've noticed people on the boards are critical of Henry Matthews. And I may not fully understand the various complaints and would like to be better informed. So yes, anyone and everyone who has an opinion on any of this, your replies would be most helpful.

Roy