Question about Druitt's occupation

[miss marple]

Rosella's post is very good and has an understanding of the social standing of the Druitts and how the finances were organised.
All this talk of Grand tour is nonsense, there are people posting who don't understand the context of what they discuss.
The Grand Tour was an aristocratic event. In the 18th century Aristocratic sons were send with a companion to tour Greece, Italy,and sometimes the Middle East, to improve their cultural knowledge and bring back artifacts to enrich their stately homes.
It was very expensive and usually took about a year or longer.
This had died out by the railway age.
The Druitts were upper middle class, the professional class that produced lawyers and doctors. They were educated but had to work for a living.
They were not Gentry or Aristocrats with inherited wealth.
Rosella supposition makes the most sense, in that it is possible that Druitt spend a few months at home supporting his family while deciding on his future.He would have been expected to stay at home.

Miss Marple

[Jonathan H]

Scion of Nobility?

A journalist, F. W. Memory, claimed in 'The Daily Mail' May 3rd 1930 that Sir Melville Macnaghten, by then deceased for nearly a decade, had confided in him that the real Ripper had been a "scion of nobility".

As you say Montague Druitt was from the upper middle classes and not a nobleman. He had to work (two jobs in fact).

Macnaghten was arguably being disingenuous: Druitt was no more an aristocrat than he was a ... surgeon.

[Robert]

That Druitt fellow? Not much to tell. Middle-class. Provincial. Barrister and schoolmaster. Damn country churning them out now. But knew his place. Insanity in family but not enough to make him an aristocrat.

[Jonathan H]

The exact Macnaghten quote is that he supposedly said the Ripper was the "scion of a noble family".

In 1904 and 1905 Sims told [two different] reporters that the the Ripper was a mad doctor from a very important and prominent family based in London.

In Guy Logan's "The True History of Jack the Ripper" serialized in 1905, the Druitt figure--renamed Mortemer Slade--is from an aristocratic family in Yorkshire.

I think the cranky Dr. Stowell read that quote about Macnaghten and decided to make his party-piece that the noble family was the Windsors, and eventually unleashed upon us the first draft of the Royal Watergate myth.

My argument is that Macnaghten and Sims knew that Druitt was neither a doctor nor from the nobility.

[David Andersen]

It should not be forgotten that Montague Druitts sporting subscriptions alone, to the numerous clubs and associations to which he was a member, would have added up to a tidy sum.

[Roy Corduroy]

Found on the body of Montague Druitt " two cheques on the London and Provincial Bank (one for £50 and the other for £16), "

As has been pointed out, there was a branch of the London and Provincial Bank in Blackheath. William Fisher was branch manager at the time. Other branches of the L & PB:

Walthamstow: Usk, Mon: Pembroke Dock: Waltham Green, S.W: Sussex Place, Queen's Gate, SW: Surbiton: Gosport: Woolwich: 163 High St, Stoke Newington: High Street Kingsland: Tenby: Enfield, N: Pontypridd, Glamorgamshire: 6 Commerce Terrace, Tottenham: Pontypool: Lewisham Rd, SE: Ruthin, North Wales: Twickenham: Builth: Eye, Suffolk: and the main office was Bank Buildings, Lothbury, EC

From the Journal of the Institute of Bankers, Vol 6, 1885

[Roy Corduroy]

Blank (1882)



Paid

[GUT]

G'day Roy

Do you happen to know if L&P issued cheques in more than two colours or is that a printing issue that we appear to have pink and blue.

[GUT]

Just doing some work on the family's finances 16,500l would today, depending on the formula you applied, be worth between 1.5 and 8 Million pound.

The family didn't need Montie to stay home and look after the younger kids.

Now it may be that he was already at Valentine's school, the earliest record we have of hime there is early '81 but he may have started at the beginning of the school year, virtually straight out of Uni.

He might also have been in London looking for a job, or observing legal practice. Or traveling. Or spending time in Winborne Minster with family and friends before starting work.

[Jonathan H]

These cheques were likely from William's firm, for the outstanding work his younger brother had done on the civil case about a disenfranchised Liberal voter that had been won on appeal before the Liberal Chief Justice.

The reason for this line of thinking is that the earliest newspaper reports about the finding of his water-logged body say that "friends" at Bournemouth have been contacted--which quickly became his brother in the next article.

Yet P. C. Moulson apparently testified that no papers were found on the rotting, well-dressed corpse. How did they know to contact William Druitt?

Perhaps from the cheques.

[GUT]

These cheques were likely from William's firm, for the outstanding work his younger brother had done on the civil case about a disenfranchised Liberal voter that had been won on appeal before the Liberal Chief Justice.

The reason for this line of thinking is that the earliest newspaper reports about the finding of his water-logged body say that "friends" at Bournemouth have been contacted--which quickly became his brother in the next article.

Yet P. C. Moulson apparently testified that no papers were found on the rotting, well-dressed corpse. How did they know to contact William Druitt?

Perhaps from the cheques.

G'day Jonathan

With that I am in agreement. 50l sounds spot on for a brief fee which would make 16l a refresher.

[Roy Corduroy]

G'day Roy
Do you happen to know if L&P issued cheques in more than two colours or is that a printing issue that we appear to have pink and blue.

Gut, as you see, the blue was from 1882, the color changed at some point later, the pink was paid in 1895.

These cheques were likely from William's firm, for the outstanding work his younger brother had done on the civil case about a disenfranchised Liberal voter that had been won on appeal before the Liberal Chief Justice.

The reason for this line of thinking is that the earliest newspaper reports about the finding of his water-logged body say that "friends" at Bournemouth have been contacted--which quickly became his brother in the next article.

Yet P. C. Moulson apparently testified that no papers were found on the rotting, well-dressed corpse. How did they know to contact William Druitt?

Perhaps from the cheques.

Hi Jonathan, so you suggest William Druitt's firm banked at a London and Provincial branch. Did you have one in mind, from the list of branches in Post 36.

Roy

[GUT]

G'day Roy

Thanks re the colour.

Re William banking in London, his firm would have had a London Agent [all regional solicitors were required to] and the agent would have maintained a bank account for the regional solicitor to pay filing fees and at times to pay counsel.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

Why not severance cheques from Valentine's school, drawn on the Blackheath branch?

Police trace printed cheque number back to the school. Mr. Valentine tells them of William Druitt, Montie's next of kin in an emergency.

I'm still amazed that the handwritten sections of the cheques [payee and amount] survived a month in the choppy waters of the Thames and/or that the paper hadn't turned to mush.

The train ticket, printed on the cheapest of thin pulp card, also enjoyed a remarkable underwater survival.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

To Roy

No, I have not.

To Simon

Of course that is possible.

But it does not seem probable simply because there is no reference to Blackheath in those very first 1889 newspaper sources.

Since he reportedly had no papers how did they know about Bournemouth, or a brother there? That quickly? Unless the cheques were from his sibling's firm.

I do not think that Montague could have carried severance cheques from the school, because I subscribe to the theory that he was not sacked to his face--not sacked until perhaps as late as Dec 30th 1888.