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MJ Druitt: Mr Valentine's School

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  • MJ Druitt: Mr Valentine's School

    In your considered opinion, why was poor Mr Druitt fired by George Valentine?
    JustForJolly

    Après moi, le déluge

  • #2
    Originally posted by JustForJolly View Post
    In your considered opinion, why was poor Mr Druitt fired by George Valentine?
    You don't think that's been done to death already on these forums?
    G U T

    There are two ways to be fooled, one is to believe what isn't true, the other is to refuse to believe that which is true.

    Comment


    • #3
      To JustForJolly

      We do not know the answer to that question as a fact. The primary sources are very limited and ambiguous, and therefore capable of multiple interpretations.

      In my opinion--and I am alone here in this particular interpretation--Montague John Druitt was sacked from George Valentine's Blackheath school because he was AWOL.

      He was not dismissed to his face, hence not permitted a face-saving resignation. Because he was not there.

      I base this on his being dismissed from his sporting club on December 21st because they thought he was abroad, eg. he had left word he was suddenly going abroad and had left everybody in he lurch (Valentine's brother was on the sporting club's board.

      Druitt's older brother, William, arrived at the school from Bournemouth on December 30th and discovered that Montie had been sacked, I think because he was unaccountably abroad.

      At that point nobody thought the successful young barrister had gone off to harm himself, or the whole affair would have been treated quite differently. The following day his body surfaced in the Thames, and his dismissal was irrelevant (in fact, somewhat embarrassing for the school as they had dismissed a corpse).

      Confirmation of this interpretation--arguably--has now arrived with Jan Bondeson's finding in 2013 of a remarkable source from the Edwardian Era that is arguably Sir Melville Macnaghten's opinion refracted through a George Sims' crony named Guy Logan. The latter wrote 'The True History of Jack the Ripper' serialized in the 'Illustrated Police News' in 1905.

      This was an openly fictionalized account of the Druitt solution (though of course readers were kept in the dark about whom exactly was being disguised) in which Druitt becomes Mortemer Slade, a middle-aged medical student.

      This source is one of the most important sources on this subject ever discovered as it is broad confirmation of the theory that those in-the-know about Druitt blithely mixed fact and fiction--for public consumption.

      While the DNA over-reach dominates today, it is this source that, I believe, will stand the test of time.

      In this veiled account there is no mention of Blackheath or a school as you would expect, or the disguise would fail. On the other hand, Mortemer tells his landlady that he "has business abroad" as he begins his final phase that will lead to his death in the River Thames.

      Whatever the truth of Druitt's dismissal, it was not considered scandalous by the one source from 1889 that bothers to mention it, nor does that source link it to his self-destruction. Nor did the event have any impact on later primary sources about Druitt being the Ripper. I think because it was inconsequential--he had been sacked due to a misconception, set up by Montie himself, as to his real whereabouts.

      Comment


      • #4
        G'day Jonathan

        In my opinion--and I am alone here in this particular interpretation--Montague John Druitt was sacked from George Valentine's Blackheath school because he was AWOL.

        No you're not alone there, I think it is a highly possible explanation.
        G U T

        There are two ways to be fooled, one is to believe what isn't true, the other is to refuse to believe that which is true.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by GUT View Post
          G'day Jonathan




          No you're not alone there, I think it is a highly possible explanation.
          Hi Jonathan and Gut,

          Actually Jonathan's suggested solution has merit. But the issue suddenly becomes why Montie decided he had to go "AWOL" when he did.

          Jeff

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Mayerling View Post
            Hi Jonathan and Gut,

            Actually Jonathan's suggested solution has merit. But the issue suddenly becomes why Montie decided he had to go "AWOL" when he did.

            Jeff
            G'day Jeff

            That's the biggie. If he WAS Jack the answer might be simple [remorse], if not it might also be simple [mental illness]. But unless/until we can get to the bottom of it it doesn't really help.
            G U T

            There are two ways to be fooled, one is to believe what isn't true, the other is to refuse to believe that which is true.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Jonathan H View Post
              In my opinion--and I am alone here in this particular interpretation--Montague John Druitt was sacked from George Valentine's Blackheath school because he was AWOL.
              I like this Jonathan. The connection to his disappearance from the club works well with this thinking. Do you happen to know that exact day that he became unaccounted for?

              Mike
              huh?

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by The Good Michael View Post
                I like this Jonathan. The connection to his disappearance from the club works well with this thinking. Do you happen to know that exact day that he became unaccounted for?

                Mike
                G'day Mike

                Jonathan and I disagree a little on this issue, but on 30 November there is a new report that he was in Court on Tuesday [which would be 27 Nov], there is another report which at one time I considered to indicate that he was scheduled to be in Court on 1 Dec [I'm a bit unequivocal on this now] he date of death is given as 4 Dec, which seems to tie in with William having been told he hadn't been seen for a week on 11.

                One report actually says last seen alive on [from memory] 4 Dec.
                G U T

                There are two ways to be fooled, one is to believe what isn't true, the other is to refuse to believe that which is true.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Thanks people.

                  I think that Druitt killed himself on Dec 1st 1888, having confessed to being the Ripper a few days previous. His grave, erroneously, placed his self-murder three days later.

                  Preferring death to being sectioned for the rest of his life in an asylum he took his own life but tried to make it appear as if he might have absconded abroad forever (e.g. weighting his own body). This is what the summary of his suicide letter alludes to and is, again, confirmed by Guy Logan's disguised fiction of 1905 (in which Mortemer Slade thinks to himself that he'd rather end it all than go back into institutionalized care).

                  I also think at some point in the new year of 1889 the person to whom Druitt had confessed came forward and told the older brother who scrambled to save Montie, but also to save his extended family from impending ruin.

                  Mission accomplished.

                  Consider that if you were a grown-up graduate of the Valentine School and you regularly read the "Mustard and Cress" column in "The Referee" by Dagonet (George Sims), as many, many did.

                  You would have been struck by a couple of coincidences regarding somebody you once knew, at least professionally, and the greatest criminal in the annals of crime.

                  'Jack the Ripper' killed himself the same way as poor Mr. Druitt, your sporty Classics master, and at about the same time (if you read "Pearson's Weekly" in July 1915 you would have discovered another coincidence: the killer lived in Blackheath too).

                  But there the similarities ended--thank goodness!

                  Mr. Druitt killed himself in early December--in Chiswick of all places?--whereas 'Jack' did so in the early hours of November 9th at London's Embankment.

                  The part-time teacher was a young, successful, full-time barrister, whereas the fiend had been a middle-aged, unemployed, super-rich surgeon (who no longer practiced).

                  And another important difference was that the Ripper's mind was cracked open like a boiled egg by what he did in Miller's Ct.; he had no time and no capacity to confess anything to anybody.

                  Whereas poor Mr. Druitt had three weeks to confer with whomever he desired about whatever was distressing him. Presumably he did not or he might have got some help. If he had confessed anything criminal surely whomever he told would not have hesitated to go to the police (outside his own lawyer or unless they felt torn by a sacred vow).

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    By saying that his brother had got into "serious trouble " at the school and was sacked william Druitt gave the inquest the impression that the sacking might have played a large part in his suicide.If Monty had got into "serious trouble" why even mention it and cause the family embarrassment also why let it be known that their mother was in the asylum unless he wanted to distract from the real reason Monty killed himself.
                    Three things in life that don't stay hidden for to long ones the sun ones the moon and the other is the truth

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      So he wasn't touching up boys, then?

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Harry D View Post
                        So he wasn't touching up boys, then?
                        If he was would Mr Valentine pay him? I doubt it also would William even mention the school to the inquest I very much doubt it.
                        Three things in life that don't stay hidden for to long ones the sun ones the moon and the other is the truth

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Harry D View Post
                          So he wasn't touching up boys, then?
                          Well there's no evidence that he was.
                          G U T

                          There are two ways to be fooled, one is to believe what isn't true, the other is to refuse to believe that which is true.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            No, not according to the primary sources that we have, limited as they are.

                            If he had been he would have been sacked to his face, eg. resigned, and it would all have been covered up. The very fact that the words 'serious trouble' were given any oxygen at all shows that it was serious but not scandalous. Just as he had been sacked from the sporting club for a very serious reason, not allowed to resogn--he had absconded abroad.

                            Contrary to the entirely modernist notions of Druitt as a tragic gay man or an evil molestor of his studnets, the primary sources inform us that he was murdering poor prostitutes in the East End.

                            This is likely to have been true, but can never be known as an absolute,

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              You know I was thinking overnight [sleep is rare with my condition] but if MJD was sacked for going AWOL, doesn't that fit with the report by William that he was dismissed for serious trouble on 30 December.

                              I know that most people say that it is a mistake and should say 30 November. But if it was for going AWOL that fits.

                              It might also fit with the "Cricket Club" sacking hm on 21 Dec.
                              G U T

                              There are two ways to be fooled, one is to believe what isn't true, the other is to refuse to believe that which is true.

                              Comment

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