Question about Druitt's occupation

[David Andersen]

Most of the doctors involved in this case were of the opinion that no special surgical knowledge was required to inflict these injuries. Only one doctor dissented.

[Wickerman]

I think both Phillips & Brown both agreed to indications of "anatomical knowledge", but no-one saw any indications of "surgical knowledge".

[pinkmoon]

I think we can all agree our killer knew how to kill quickly and efficiently and could handle a knife would the average man in the street know how to do this?

[miss marple]

Pink Moon,
The average Victorian man was far more familiar with knife usage than the average modern man, it was not just abattoir men and butchers that used knives. Most men carried good penknives. Men of my Grandfathers generation born 1895 could skin rabbits,clean out birds, carve meat, fillet fish etc, they had a more robust diet of liver, lights, sweetmeats etc and were more familiar with an animal carcass, that today's generation that think meet comes in plastic bags.
My grandmother cleaned out chickens. In the fifties you bought the bird whole.

John Richardson used his knife to cut a bit of rubber of his shoe. Knives were useful tools to cut any number of tough materials.
Knives were made of mild steel which needed continuing sharpening. The
itinerant knife grinder pushing his cart around the streets was a common site.
I don't know why people fixate on the ripper knife. He might have had several and would have to get them sharpened.

Miss Marple

[The Good Michael]

Druitt was a gentleman. His family would have had servants to handle knife work. That doesn't mean he didn't like knives and play with them. That's something we don't know. But the idea of a man like Druitt filleting fish, cleaning game, and fixing his boots with a knife, is very unrealistic. Druitt is a very poor candidate with only his name being mentioned as a suspect, and his suicide being any possible link. There's nothing about him that would suggest he knew the ins and outs of the East End, hated prostitutes, and enjoyed taking an organ or two. Yes, we can create a lengthy scenario in which he took time out of his cricket days to kill a girl or two, but there really is no point, is there?

Mike

[David Andersen]

Druitt was not merely named as a suspect. He was named as the most likely suspect. Almost all young 'Gentlemen' were schooled in the hunting, shooting and fishing skills, although none of those skills were evident in any of these cases. You dismiss Druitt too easily.

[pinkmoon]

Druitt was not merely named as a suspect. He was named as the most likely suspect. Almost all young 'Gentlemen' were schooled in the hunting, shooting and fishing skills, although none of those skills were evident in any of these cases. You dismiss Druitt too easily.

Hi David,sir Melville was a well respected police man I can't see him just making something up for the sake of putting pen to paper I think the most interesting thing he writes is that he has little doubt that Druitts family think he is our killer why would an educated family think that?

[David Andersen]

Hi Pinkmoon. Try this:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Harves.../dp/B00LNYU6JW

[Rosella]

As far as a gap year is concerned, Skinner and Howells in 'The Ripper Legacy' have Montague Druitt graduating from New College Oxford, (which he'd attended with the help of a scholarship) in 1880. Aren't graduations from Oxford in mid-year?
The authors have him at Valentine's school in February 1881 (or 'possibly before.') Druitt's father had been forced to retire in 1876, due to failing health. The family may have employed servants but there were younger siblings at home, and I don't think there would have been sufficient money for Montague to have undertaken the 'Grand Tour", which was virtually over by mid-Victorian times anyway.

I think he may have stayed at home during those few months and discussed his future, medicine or the law. He decided on the law and probably took the job schoolmastering at Valentines for income. He was admitted to the Inner Temple in May 1882 and was called to the bar in April 1885. To finance this Druitt seems to have borrowed against the 500 pounds legacy he would get on his father's death.

Druitt snr died that September and divided most of his 16,579 estate between his wife and daughters. A farm was left to the oldest son, William. Montague had the remains of his 500 pounds and presumably his two younger brothers were left a few hundred.

Following this, Druitt took chambers at Kings Walk, but didn't get any clients.
Not uncommon among new barristers. From then on it seems to have been schoolmastering at Valentines and work as a Special Pleader and barrister in the west country.

Montague Druitt left 2,600 pounds, so his law work must have been lucrative in the end, even though 1,083 of that was a posthumous bequest from his mother.

[GUT]

Following this, Druitt took chambers at Kings Walk, but didn't get any clients.

Where does this stupid idea come from any how oh how does it keep coming up. On the contrary he seems to have had a good career in law. He's called to the Bar in '85 accumulates a tidy sum by death. Yes he takes work as a Special Pleader, which could of itself be lucrative we have reports of a couple of cases he is briefed in, and you would have no trouble finding Barristers that you cannot, 125 years later find one case for.

[pinkmoon]

Where does this stupid idea come from any how oh how does it keep coming up. On the contrary he seems to have had a good career in law. He's called to the Bar in '85 accumulates a tidy sum by death. Yes he takes work as a Special Pleader, which could of itself be lucrative we have reports of a couple of cases he is briefed in, and you would have no trouble finding Barristers that you cannot, 125 years later find one case for.

He appears to have worked right up to his death so his suicide was certainly sudden why didn't his brother William try and play the he was working to hard card to try and explain his suicide at the inquest instead of letting it be known of the serious trouble at school and his mother been in asylum .

[GUT]

I don't think there would have been sufficient money for Montague to have undertaken the 'Grand Tour", which was virtually over by mid-Victorian times anyway.

Not enough money! five years later daddy leaves an estate of 16,500l when a school master earned between 100 and 2oo a year, there was plenty of money.

[Jonathan H]

Based on only basic data, Montague Druitt had every thing to live for, e.g. as a successful barrister.

To the 1889 primary sources his suicide is shockingly inexplicable. The brother introduced a possible explanation: an inherited mental weakness.

Then in 1891 the family's terrible secret as to why he really killed himself leaked in Dorset and the local Tory MP began telling people in London, which in turn leaked to the press.

Howard Brown found this recently in the ‘Nottingham Evening Post’ of March 5th 1891:

‘The discharge of Sadler to-day ought really to force the West Country Member, who believes that he can point to the author of the Whitechapel murders, to put his evidence before the police authorities. The man he suspects is dead, but as the police authorities believe the last murder to be the work of Jack the Ripper it would be of immense advantage in tracking the real murderer to have all the facts before them.’

In 1913 Sir Melville Macnaghten will claim that the story "came to him", and in 1914 write that the truth was not known "until some years after" he joined the Force. He will call his chapter on the case "Laying the Ghost ..."meaning laying to rest a phantom who haunted the police as they did not know that the Ripper was long deceased and that all subsequent Whitechapel murders were not by the same hand.

[Rosella]

The fact is that the days of the Grand Tour were long over by the time Montague Druitt was a young man. The Napoleonic Wars disrupted them and such tours of the Continent never regained popularity. Yes, he could have gone abroad for some months but what evidence is there for that?

Montague Druitt's father was finished as a surgeon by 1876, due to ill-health. Therefore, for nearly ten years before his death he wasn't earning an income and was probably reliant on investments. He had younger children to support.

Just because his estate was worth over 16,000 pounds doesn't mean it was lying there in cash in the bank. It could well have been tied up in agricultural holdings.

The family was a comfortably off middle-class one. That doesn't mean that Druitt snr would have been quite happy to see a younger son of his idling away his time in Paris or Rome for months, whatever the cultural benefits.

It is clear that the vast bulk of the estate Montague's father left was divided up in a way that benefited Mrs Druitt and the unmarried daughters, who were financially vulnerable. Therefore the younger sons got very thin slices of the pie in comparison.

I already stated in my post that Druitt earned money practising the law in the west country. However the failure rate for young barristers without a private income in Victorian England was quite high.

If Montague Druitt felt that confident of his ability to earn a fortune at the bar then he would have thrown over the schoolmastering he was undertaking at what was basically a London 'crammer' and concentrated solely on the law.

[GUT]

The fact is that the days of the Grand Tour were long over by the time Montague Druitt was a young man. The Napoleonic Wars disrupted them and such tours of the Continent never regained popularity. Yes, he could have gone abroad for some months but what evidence is there for that?

That's funny gap years still happen, and I know that members of my famly certainly had them in the 1870's, were they called a Grand Tour or otherwise they happened. In fact for all we know he could have come to Australia to spend time wth Uncle Thomas.

Montague Druitt's father was finished as a surgeon by 1876, due to ill-health. Therefore, for nearly ten years before his death he wasn't earning an income and was probably reliant on investments. He had younger children to support.

Which is nothing more or less than a guess.

Just because his estate was worth over 16,000 pounds doesn't mean it was lying there in cash in the bank. It could well have been tied up in agricultural holdings.

What in agricultural holdings that were producing no income.

The family was a comfortably off middle-class one. That doesn't mean that Druitt snr would have been quite happy to see a younger son of his idling away his time in Paris or Rome for months, whatever the cultural benefits.

Comfortable, middle-class well connected and well established. Possibly keeping up appearances [which is also nothing more than a guess].

It is clear that the vast bulk of the estate Montague's father left was divided up in a way that benefited Mrs Druitt and the unmarried daughters, who were financially vulnerable. Therefore the younger sons got very thin slices of the pie in comparison.

The bulk of the estate to the wife and eldest son was the norm.

I already stated in my post that Druitt earned money practising the law in the west country. However the failure rate for young barristers without a private income in Victorian England was quite high.

As it has been pretty much forever the point is that Montie appears, based on the reports we have of his cases and the size of his estate was making a good fist of it.

He had been teaching about 7 years, he had been at the bar about 3, inherited little from his father [having had it advanced so he could eat his diners as a student at law] yet still left an estate equivalent to close to 5 years his teaching salary.

Also we don't know what if anything he inherited from other family.

If Montague Druitt felt that confident of his ability to earn a fortune at the bar then he would have thrown over the schoolmastering he was undertaking at what was basically a London 'crammer' and concentrated solely on the law.

What is the relevance of his level of confidence, the evidence is that he was making a good fist of life at the bar. He may also have enjoyed his teaching, especially if he was teaching sports. It is also possible that he started out with a plan and was sticking with it.