Druitt a doctor?

[Lechmere]

There you go. Common knowledge in the Edwardian era.

[Jonathan H]

Just not in RipperLand.

[Lechmere]

And forgotten by the Georgian.
Apparently.
Amnesia caused by WWI.

[Jonathan H]

No, not quite.

Rather the Edwardian 'Drowned Doctor' solution became hopelessly split once Macnaghten and Sims passed away in the early 20's.

Plus researchers like LeQueux and Matters discoevered there wasd no Drowned Docot in available records, which of there wasn't as he never literally existed.

Neverthless the 'Doctor' section (now no longer a tormented figure) persisted and flourished, a testimony to the enduring quality of Stevenson's Jekyll-and-Hyde, which Macnaghten and sims had so shamelessly pinched to hide Druitt and his reltaions (plus LeQ and Matters proposed their own doctor 'solutions').

Whereas the 'Drowned' half, the suicide, fell away.

Yet the first part was fictional and the second was real.

Mac's 1914 memoirs had proven to be a flop, in terms of putting the Jack-the-Surgeon genie back in its bottle. Too opaque because he was not about to admit he had deceived people.

Many secondary sources in the late 20th Century and early 21st do not include them at all.

In 1959 Lady Aberconway made her move to preserve her father's legacy as the cop who at least pothumously identified the fiend, and, in the long run, she set in motion mostly, though not entirely, the trashing of his rep by secondary sources.

By the time Druitt was found he was not a doctor and this was thought to be proof that Macnaghten did not really know what he was talking about.

It would prove to be a disastrous misconception.

The ruse that 'Mac' and 'Tatcho' had created, purely for short-term reasons of discretion and cheeky propaganda on behalf of the Yard (rescinded in the memoir) proved far stronger than the killer's true identity when he was finally found.

[GUT]

G'Day Jonathan

Jack the Ripper' had been a member of the 'better classes'; a middle-aged, English physician who had not had patients for over a year due to a progressive mental illness.

MJD was a member of "the better classes", but was not a physician and is not known to have had a progressive mental illness that kept him from work for over a year, in fact was running hearing pretty much up to his death. Indeed the only signs of mental illness we have is his suicde.

The now unemployed doctor, who resided at Blackheath, was so wealthy he did not need to work at all.

Lived at Blackheath, yes but so wealthy he didn't need to work? conversely he had two careers going at once.

He had twice been a voluntary patient in an asylum and been diagnosed as a potential homicidal maniac who--very specifically--desired to savage East End harlots.

Now if we could find evidence that this applied to Montie.

Due to cut-backs in state care under the Tories this ticking 'human bomb' was let out onto the streets and did exactly as he had warned his own doctors he would.

Again nothing known tp support any of this except perhaps the Tories.

The man had no family, only friends, and they feared that the Ripper of 1888 was their pal--now a semi-invalid reculse who was only absent on the same nights as the murders--and though it took until after the Miller's Court atrocity to approach the police, they did so.

Conversely it appears Druitt was close to at least some of his family.

And it seems no family went to police till a couple of years later, re Macnaghten.

As it turned out super-efficient C.I.D. detectives had already zeroed in on their troubled friend and were about to make an arrest when they learned he had vanished. The next time the pals and the police laid eyes on the doctor he was being fished out of the Thames, in early December 1888, having killed himself within an hour of horribly mutilating Mary Jane Kelly's remains.

Could be MJD except he was "pulled out" of the Thames in late December not early.

So how does this source solve anything, all it seems to do is rehash the garbled account by Mac and Sims.

[Lechmere]

GUT
Jonathan was rehearsing the 'veiled' Druitt theory that Macnaghten tantalised the Edwardian populace with. A deliberately obscured account to protect their true identities - to stop the Conservatives from being destroyed as a political force...

[GUT]

G'Day Lechmere

That is really my point a veiled theory isn't solving it, it is merely obscuring things further.

But I also don't really get why the question in the first place "Druitt a Doctor?"

There are only two reasons to look at the issue that I can see:

1. Did he have the knowledge to do the crimes?

I would say that he would have had more knowledge than any except the mad Polish surgeon, if that is what he was. As I can find no evidence that Tumblety conducted surgery.

2. Did he ft the description of a drowned Doctor?

Simply he is the closest we can find. Both Kosminski and Tumblety living a long time after.

[GUT]

Just a thought on the Doctor issue, and perhaps I should start a thread.

I wonder if when Sims wrote to Littlechild he had asked about Montague Druitt, rather than Dr D he would have gotten a different response.

Isn't it possible that Littlechild had heard of Druitt but knew he wasn't a doctor so answered about the only doctor he dd know of, in connection with JtR.

[Jonathan H]

It explains everything.

For example, when Macnaghten wrote doctor it was part of a myriad of bits of disinformation, not just an isolated 'error' (even in the filed version he committed himself to Druitt being definitely a sexual maniac, not to necessarily being a physician)

Druitt is the Drowned Doctor and he is veiled. That's not a theory, that's a fact.

The question is: was it accidental or was it deliberate.

No, Sims did not mention Druitt's name to Littlechild.

[GUT]

G'Day Jonathan

No, Sims did not mention Druitt's name to Littlechild.

What though of the possibility that had he done so Littlechild would have known who he was talking about?

.

[Jonathan H]

When I wrote of the 'Drowned Doctor'/Edwardian solution I did not comment on it being veiled.

The question was: what was this solution? Between 1898 and 1817 this was it. It is a matter of debate how and why it came about.

I wrote a quick summary of the salient features of what a lot of Edwardians believed because George Sims was held in such high regard (in fact, his rep as a crime expert had never been higher because of the significant part he had played in the Adolf Beck exoneration of 1904. This is partly why Anderson gained no traction with his tale of Jack the Jew: it relied on a single witness when Beck had been wrongfully convicted on the testimony of over a dozen sincere and sincerely mistaken eyewitnesses who had met and talked with the man in their own parlors. The 'Marginalia' tries to get around this by having the suspect, in effect, confess to his crimes by his guilt-ridden pantomime).

Jack Littlechild had never heard of Montague Druitt, and there was no reason why he would have.

On the other hand, somebody in authority told Littlechild that Dr. Tumblety was 'believed' to have killed himself in France.

This is an element borrowed from the Druitt story, and therefore probably came from Macnaghten (the latter writes very affectionately about the former head of the Irish desk in his memoirs).

Macnaghten also established the handy myth of the police knowing that Kelly was the final victim at the time of her murder.

Tumblety's alleged suicide is a much more satisfying ending for the American scoundrel who jumped his bail and caused Scotland Yard some palpitations. It also neatly air-brushed out Inspector Walter Andrews' overseas trip to do a background check on this major Ripper suspect in Canada.

Tom Divall claimed in in his 1930 memoir that Macnaghten told him that the Ripper murders ceased at the same time a suspect fled to the States and died there in an asylum.

That's awfully close: like an early draft of the Drowned Doctor.

To Bridewell

Others are not as reasonable as your good self. On the other site (this was not Howard's fault) essentially I was told not to post about Druitt--even on a Druitt site.

Then, a while later, was published 'The True History of Jack the Ripper' (1905) by Guy Logan. And the reaction to a primary source that confirmed much of what I had been arguing for several years?

Predictably ... nothing.

[Lechmere]

Jonathan
You were told not to post about Druitt on a Druitt thread on the other site?
You've got to ignore such things. I do.
Theorists are forever telling me not to discuss their theories!

I see that you believe Andrews trip to Canada was Tumblety related.
Don't you think that it's odd that Littlechild thought Tumblety died soon after going to France?
Don't you think Littlechild would have known that one of his Scotland Yard colleagues was sent to Canada to enquire into a man who he was told was dead?
But when do you think Littlechild was told that Tumblety was dead? After Macaghten heard about Druitt? Which was some years after Tumblety had fled to the USA? Doesn't really add up.
And what about the theory that the Scotland Yard Tumblety file was Special Branch and Feinian related? Surely if that was the case then Littlechild would have been monitoring Tumblety himself and not relying on Macnaghten or anyone outside SB for information.
But in any case Macnaghten wasn't appointed until June 1889 and all this Tumblety stuff happened in November and December 1888.

[Jonathan H]

Thanks Lechmere

In my opinion Macnaghten ran into Jack Littlechild at some police renuion in the 1900's and discovered that the latter's memory had faded about Andrews' trip (which I think turned up nothing useful about Dr. T anyway).

Exploiting this, Macnaghten told him that Tumblety remained a likely suspect because he vanished just after Kelly was murdered, and then added the satisfying finale that he had probably taken his iown life in France.

Littlechild remained sceptical about this aspect partly because he mistakenly thought this was something Mac had read in a file authorised by Anderson, a notoriously egocentric braggart.

I furthermore think that Macnaghten pulled this party-trick with Abberline (John Sanders drowned himself) with George Kebbell (Grant died soon after, in prison) with Anderson and/or Swanson (Kosminski the self-abuser died soon after being 'safely caged') and with Tom Divall (the Ripper died in an asylum in the States). Divall named Mac as telling him this.

I think also that Littlchild's anti-homsexual fixation and his role in the downfall of Oscar Wilde (a Macnaghten family friend) set up him up for a revenge prank by the police chief, of little more substance than what an immature schoolboy might play at.

[Lechmere]

Macnaghten was an utter rogue

[pinkmoon]

If Druitt hadn't been named by sir Melville would he stand up as a good suspect by himself?.