Druitt and Monro

[Fiver]

The late David Andersen had a theory that Druitt was a few days in Chiswick at the Manor House private asylum - where his mother would be placed months later. The Hainsworths added that the Tuke brothers, the physicians who ran the asylum, were friends of the Rev Charles Druitt (letters prove it).

Jon and Chris also added into the mix the newspaper report that police were, at that time, systematically checking both state and private institutions for the mentally ill looking for Jack. On Dec 4, Druitt found this out and, trying to do right by his family who faced ruined if he was caught and identified, he slipped out a door, or window, or gate, and walked into the adjacent Thames.

If Montague Druitt escaped an English asylum on 4 December, how could he have been in a French asylum between 30 November and 14 December?

If Montague Druitt escaped an English asylum on 4 December how did he end up with a second half return for Hammersmith to Charing Cross, dated 1 December in his pocket?

The more you look at the Hainsworth's theory the more flaws you find.

[Fiver]

You are also confusing how you think an historical figure should have acted, morally and professionally, rather than how they did act. You are also naive about Macnaghten's dilemma: Druitt was deceased. The families involved could be reputationally ruined. Macnaghten did not trust Anderson and Swanson to be close-mouthed and as events in 1895 show - with good reason!

The Hainsworth's theory has Isabella Druitt going to Anderson first. Anderson remained closed mouthed and never even suggested Montague Druitt as a suspect.

The Hainsworth's theory has the Druitts going to Macnaghten, even though they already have proven discreet contact in Anderson. Macnaghten then betrays the Druitt family and drags the Druitt family name through the gutter by saying Druitt was the Ripper.

So based on the Hainsworth's theory Anderson acted morally, while Macnaghten was a dishonorable betrayer.

[Wickerman]

. . .

The only reason why Druitt has survived as a person of interest in the case, is because many can't tolerate the idea that questioning a senior police officer is the moral thing to do.

And so because of MM, Druitt can never be quashed as a potential suspect.

But when we combine, Anderson, Swanson, MM, Abberine etc... did they all think the Ripper was the same man?

It's quotes like what we have below that allow us to give some consideration to the words of MM.

The memoirs of naval officer H. L. Fleet refer to a time when he lived in Blackheath, "at the time of the murders", presumably 1888?, where he writes "many people believed that he lived in Blackheath".
Which tends to indicate 'many people' in Blackheath believed the murderer lived among them.
This was long before Mac. wrote his Memorandum, and might suggest these beliefs reached his desk unofficially, as he claimed.

[Wickerman]

To Darryl

But Macnaghten WAS upholding the law - the law of due process. You can't name a person as a murderer when they can never have a trial.

The police will not even investigate a suspicion against a person who is dead. They clearly cannot be interviewed, and cannot defend themselves.

[rjpalmer]

Have you any evidence to dismiss what Skinner and Howells published about The Chummery and Druitt's involvement with the club and his sexuality?

Yes, Trevor.

But maybe it would be more useful if someone who believes this theory would supply the evidence that Druitt was connected to this alleged 'brothel'?

I'll help.

Someone who Druitt later knew--how well, is hard to say, but fairly well--once had his name jotted down in a list of addresses made by Harry Wilson while he was at Cambridge. Harry Wilson was a friend of Prince Eddy and JK Stephen. But haven't you jotted down names and addresses of people you've barely known? Who knows why he did so?

Wilson later kept rooms at The Osiers in Chiswick--which was not a male brothel; it was owned by a highly respectable family.

And there is not a jot of evidence that Druitt knew Wilson or ever went to the Osiers. Nor was he part of the Cambridge clique. It was an entertaining tale that attempted to link Druitt to Prince Eddy and JK Stephen back when the "Royal Conspiracy" was in vogue and JK Stephen was considered a suspect.

One could, of course, rake Skinner and Howells over the coals, and jeer and accuse them of falsehoods, as Fiver is now doing with the Hainsworths, but the book contains a lot of original and very interesting research, so I would rather look at the good in it. I'm more interested in what the efforts of serious researchers might tell us and avoid joining the 'naysayer' mania that has infested this field. While their thesis is (in my view) wrong, there was some good in it.

Anyway, if Druitt was a frequenter of The Osiers he would have gotten off at the correct stop, which I believe was Ravenscourt, and not Hammersmith.

Thanks for your time.

[rjpalmer]

Macnaghten then betrays the Druitt family and drags the Druitt family name through the gutter by saying Druitt was the Ripper.

In an internal memo at Scotland Yard with "CONFIDENTIAL" written at the top? How are the police supposed to communicate internally, with Morse code?

You're being melodramatic.

If Macnaghten showed any indiscretion, it was in allowing Sims and Griffiths access to the memo, though neither man named names.

However, most curiously--and he knew these people whereas you don't--Chief Inspector Littlechild thought that Griffiths got his information, not from Macnaghten, but from Anderson. Rather an interesting footnote, that.

Anyway, the Hainsworths obviously believe that Macnaghten took pains to disguise Druitt's identity.

I'm not convinced, though, that Sims' main informant was Macnaghten. I assume this would count as heresy.

RP

[Darryl Kenyon]

To Darryl

But Macnaghten WAS upholding the law - the law of due process. You can't name a person as a murderer when they can never have a trial.
.
And no, Druitt - Winchester, Oxford, cricket - did not fit a preconceived idea of Macnaghten's as to the killer's identity. You are being misled by Mac again.

In 1977 Christine Eadie and Helen Scott were raped and murdered in what became known as the Worlds End murders . 37 years later Angus Sinclair was found guilty of the murders and he was named as chief suspect in other murders . But not just him, Gordon Hamilton who died in 1996 was named as well. He couldn't defend himself etc 18 years later and the police could have easily said Sinclair and another suspect who we cannot name for legal reasons because he died 18 years ago committed the murders. But they didn't, they named Hamilton.

Regards Darryl

[rjpalmer]

Macnaghten then betrays the Druitt family and drags the Druitt family name through the gutter by saying Druitt was the Ripper.

Keith Skinner can correct me if I'm wrong, because I didn't see the broadcast (I wasn't even alive), but I've read that when the Macnaghten memo finally saw the light of day (ie., the Aberconway version) on national television in the late 1950s--long after Druitt's immediate family was dead--even then, his name was blocked out.

Druitt's name was only revealed after Ripper 'sleuths' put two and two together by tracing the bloke whose body was pulled out of the Thames on the last day of 1888.

When Druitt's name was 'dragged through the mud,' Sir Melville Macnaghten had been dead roughly four decades.

[Darryl Kenyon]

If MM was deliberately giving out misinformation about Druitt to protect his family then he was doing the same for Kosminski - Detained in a lunatic asylum , March 1889 , and Ostrog - Homicidal maniac . Or was he just mistaken on the facts of those two [ memory or otherwise ], and if that is the case why can't he just be mistaken on facts about Druitt [ again memory or otherwise ], instead of it being a game of smoke and mirrors

Regards Darryl

[Darryl Kenyon]

Keith Skinner can correct me if I'm wrong, because I didn't see the broadcast (I wasn't even alive), but I've read that when the Macnaghten memo finally saw the light of day (ie., the Aberconway version) on national television in the late 1950s--long after Druitt's immediate family was dead--even then, his name was blocked out.

Druitt's name was only revealed after Ripper 'sleuths' put two and two together by tracing the bloke whose body was pulled out of the Thames on the last day of 1888.

When Druitt's name was 'dragged through the mud,' Sir Melville Macnaghten had been dead roughly four decades.

It was Lady Aberconway who requested that the names of the suspects be blanked out [Druitt or all three ]

Regards Darryl

[rjpalmer]

It was Lady Aberconway who requested that the names of the suspects be blanked out [Druitt or all three ]

Regards Darryl

Yes, that's what I was getting at. Even then, a Macnaghten protected Druitt's name.

[Darryl Kenyon]

Yes, that's what I was getting at. Even then, a Macnaghten protected Druitt's name.

But she insisted on all three of the names not be published , until , I believe 1965

Regards Darryl

[Wickerman]

. . .

It's interesting that he was concerned about turning into his mother; although I don't recall any reports of her being a psychopathic dehumanising post mortem mutilator who targeted reproductive organs and played with them.


I'm guessing that wasn't quite what Druitt meant.

More likely, not being partial to spending the rest of his life behind a locked door (like mother).

[Simon Wood]

There's a lot wrong with the Hot Potato story.
Christopher Monro told Skinner and Howells that Charles Monro “died in 1928,” and in a letter to Colin Kendell wrote that Uncle Charles’s visit took place “a few months before his death…”
Charles Monro died, aged 59, in Lewisham, south London, 21st November 1927. The conversation overheard by Christopher whilst tending the weeds outside his father’s study must therefore have taken place before this date.
If, as he wrote, the incident did happen “a few months before his death” — let's say September 1927 — at around this time Christopher Monro would have been celebrating his sixth birthday.
In a letter to author Colin Kendell, Christopher Monro, unable to provide details of his grandfather’s memorandum to the authors of The Ripper Legacy, wrote—
“All I did succeed in doing for Skinner and Howells was putting them on the track of my first cousin, Dr. James Monro, in Edinburgh, the old hero's (Sir James) eldest grandson.”
[He] sent the two authors on to Dr. James Monro in Edinburgh where they found his [Monro's] papers tucked behind a cupboard.
The Jack the Ripper A-Z [2010] —
“Monro’s grandson, James, (b.1902), clearly recalled his grandfather saying, “The Ripper was never caught, but he should have been.”
But—
James Monro’s eldest grandson, James Ernest Monro was born and died in India, 1902, aged zero.
Make of all this what you will.
The hot potato story becomes as unappetising as yesterday’s mash, revealing itself as little more than a spurious device designed to help promote Druitt as a suspect.

[jmenges]

When Simon writes... "The hot potato story becomes as unappetising as yesterday’s mash, revealing itself as little more than a spurious device designed to help promote Druitt as a suspect" it could leave readers with the impression that Martin and I were inventing or spinning details of conversations simply to promote our theory. Fortunately I have kept all of my correspondence with Christopher Monro and the Monro family from the 1980s and prior to publication of our book we had sent Monro's grandson the chapters on his grandfather for approval.

I've spent some time puzzling over the origins of the "hot potato" remark and found it in The Ripper Legacy where we reproduced part of a letter Christopher Monro had written to us circa 1985. (The exact date of the letter is in my Monro research boxes which I haven't yet reached in my grand clear out!)...

"Now to the point; Whatever my grandfather [James Monro] knew, deduced or conjectured, he apparently set down in a highly private memoranda which at his death in 1920 passed intact to his eldest son. My uncle Charles Monro died in his early sixties about 1929, and a year or two before that he had a conversation with my father (1874-1958) which the latter related to me in India ten years later. The gist of this was that
James Monro's theory [about Jack the Ripper] was a very hot potato, that it had been kept secret even from his wife/widow, who survived until 1931, and that he was very doubtful whether or not to destroy the papers. He did not reveal the identity of the suspect(s?) to my father, who told me that he had made no attempt to ascertain them, and had just said 'Burn the stuff, Charlie, burn it and try to forget it!"

Martin and I interpreted the hearsay evidence of James Monro to try and support our theory. We weren't historians, neither were we dishonest.

Looking back probably one of the best things to come out of our research was the discovery of Monro's unpublished handwritten memoirs and my interview with his granddaughter.

KS