Druitt's room

[GUT]

Jonathan

The first case cited isn't Montie it is probably William who drafted the codicil as a Solicitor.

[Jonathan H]

No worries--I wondered why it seemed unfamiliar.

[Mayerling]

Times (London)
10 March 1881

Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division
(Before the Right Hon. the President and a Special Jury.)
Creek v Butler
Dr. Deane, Q.C., Sir J. Holker, Q.C., and Mr. Searle appeared for the plaintiff; Mr. Inderwick, Q.C., and Mr. Bayford for the defendant.

The hearing of this cause (sic), in which the validity of the last will, dated February 4, 1880, of Mr. John Hilbridge, late of Bournemouth, in the county of Hants, was the subject of controversy between the parties, and the facts of which were reported in the Times of Monday, was continued and concluded today. No light was thrown on the manner in which the spurious and triplicate copies of the original will of the testator, bearing date May, 1873, and the codicil thereto, executed in 1876, came into existence. Mr. Druitt, who acted as solicitor for the testator after Mr. Webb left Bournemouth, stated that when he received instructions to prepare the codicil of September, 1879, he called the testator's attention to the spurious documents pointing out that the signatures of the attesting witnesses, Mr. Webb and Mr. Joy, his clerk, were clearly forgeries, but the testator regarded what purported to be his own signature as genuine, and this also seemed to be the opinion of Mr. Druitt and Mr. Chabot, the expert, who had examined the papers. With regard to the last will, the subject of the action, Miss Butler was confident that that neither Mr. Creek, who prepared the instrument, nor Miss Banger, who attested it with him, was at the testator's house on the evening of the 4tf of February, 1880, when, as they alleged, it was executed; but there was evidence on the other side which went to show that her memory had failed her in the matter, and that she was out when they called. Before the evidence has closed, the jury intimated that they had come to a conclusion in the matter, and counsel accordingly forbore addressing them.

The President, in briefly summing up the case, pointed out that the existence of the spurious documents might be explained on the hypothesis that they were prepared for the purpose of execution by the testator. He himself seemed to admit that his signature to them was genuine, and neither Mr. Druitt nor Mr. Chabot would undertake to say that it was a forgery. That was a thought which had occurred to him, but he did not profess to give it as the true explanation of the mystery.

The jury, without leaving the box, found for the plaintiff on all the issues, and the Court pronounced for the will.'

The 'Times' (London).
13 February 1888

NANKIVELL V THE BOURNEMOUTH COMMISSIONERS
This was the case sent from Quarter Sessions on an appeal from the magistrates at petty session convciting the appellant of making an addition to a house projecting beyond the line of buildings adjoining. It appeared that Dr. Nankivell had a detached villa at the corner of a suburban road at Bournemouth, standing in his own grounds, and he built a stable several feet from the house and 18ft from the road. He was summoned under section 136 of the Public Health Act, 1875, for making "an addition" to his house "beyond the line of adjoining buildings," and the magistrates convicted, and on appeal to Sessions they held that the stable being structurally separated from the house it could not be "an addition to it" within the enactment; but they stated a case for the opinion of the court. A Divisional Court (Mr. Baron Pollock and Mr. Justice Hawkins) sent the case back to be restated on the facts, and it now came back, the Sessions having found that was not an "addition" in fact, and was not "part of a street" within the enactment.

Mr. Bosanquet Q.C. (with Mr. Druitt) appeared for the Commissioners, and admitted that he could not argue the case as now stated.

Mr. Foote and Mr. Greenwood, for the appellant, were not called upon.

The Court affirmed the decision of Quarter Sessions.'

The 'Times' (London)
Thursday, 20 September 1888

Christopher Power, 32, clerk, was indicted for maliciously wounding Peter Black with intent to murder him.

Mr. C.F, Gill conducted the prosecution; Mr. Druitt appeared for the defence.

The prosecutor and the prisoner had been in the same employment. The prisoner seemed to have been under the impression that the prosecutor had followed him about, and some time previously to the occurrence he had written two letters to Mr. Black. There was no ground for the impression the prisoner had formed, and the prosecutor believed that he was not in his right mind. On the evening of August 10 the prisoner called at the prosecutor's house and wounded Mr. Black with a knife, which he had held in his hand behind him. Assistance was obtained and the prisoner was arrested, and he denied that he had used the knife.

For the defence the prisoner's landlady was called, and gave evidence to the effect that the prisoner had been strange in his manner.

Dr. Gilbert, the surgeon at Holloway gaol, stated that the prisoner suffered from delusions as to being followed about by people who heard and repeated everything he said, and witness was of opinion that the prisoner was insane and did not know the nature and quality of the act.

Mr. Justice Charles summed up.

The jury found that the prisoner committed the act, but was insane at the time.

Mr. Justice Charles directed the prisoner to be detained as a lunatic during Her Majesty's pleasure.'

Times (London)
Thursday, 29 November 1888
DRUITT, APPELLANT-GOSLING, RESPONDENT.

This case, reserved from Christchurch, Hampshire, raised a question as to joint occupation of a dwellinghouse. The case stated that two claimants of the name of Hake claimed in respect of "a house and land joint." It turned out that they occupied a dwellinghouse, St. Michael's vicarage, and there was no land except the garden. The vicarage was let to both of them (the vicar residing elsewhere), and the value was far over £20, the rateable value being £72; but only one of them was rated. It was contended that the case came within the definition of a £10 qualification, a house being a tenement. It was objected that use of the claimants was already on the overseers' occupiers' list for the same house, and that the alleged joint occupation was in respect of the same house, and that two persons could not have a joint occupation qualification under 30 and 31 Vic., e. 102, a. 3. The Barrister was of that opinion and disallowed the claims. The claimants appealed.

Mr. M.J. Druitt appeared for the appellants and argued on their behalf that both were entitled to be registered, not, indeed, for a "dwellinghouse," but for a house or "tenement," if the value is sufficient. The main objection, he said, was as to the joint occupation of the dwellinghouse, though there were two subsidiary objections-one as to misdescription of the qualification and the other as to one of the claimants being already on the overseers' list of occupiers for the same house. He urged that the claimants came within the definition of the borough household qualifications in the Reform Act, the value being amply sufficient for both claims. {MR JUSTICE MANISTY.-One only of the claimants was rated.} That is not material; the rating of one is sufficient, the rates being paid by either of them; and that is not an objection taken. {LORD COLERIDGE.-What is the objection?} It is difficult to say.

Mr. ROBSON, who appeared for the respondent, said it was certainly difficult to make out from the case as stated. {LORD COLERIDGE.-What objection can you suggest?} It is impossible to rely upon the objection taken as to joint occupation. That qualification exists. {LORD COLERIDGE.-I should say so.} There is no doubt an enactment that no one shall claim is respect of the joint occupation of a dwellinghouse. {LORD COLERIDGE.-The claimants do not claim for a "dwellinghouse."} That is so, no doubt; but section 27 of the Reform Act is repealed.

Mr. DRUITT pointed out that in the 48 Vic., e. 3, a. 5, it was in substance re-enacted. {LORD COLERIDGE.-Subject to the like conditions, i.e. MR. JUSTICE MANISTY.-That would require rating, would it not?} Then in section 7 it is enacted that the borough occupation franchise shall be doomed to be that defined in section 27 of the Reform Act. And that section, coupled with section 29, confers the occupation franchise for the joint occupation. {LORD COLERIDGE.-So it should seem, certainly, what can be said against it?}

Mr. ROBSON said he confessed he hardly knew that anything could be said against it. {LORD COLERIDGE assented and asked what other objections there were?}

Mr. ROBSON urged that one of the claimants being already on the overseers' list of occupiers, both could set claim for the same qualification. {LORD COLERIDGE.-He did not put himself on the list, the overseers put him there; and that does not preclude them from making a joint claim.} There would be duplicate entries for the same qualification. {LORD COLERIDGE.-The Barrister should have struck out the entry in the overseers' list.} There is a misdescription of the qualification. {LORD COLERIDGE.-There is nothing in any of these objections. Appeal dismissed with costs.}

The Case sent to be amended, will, his Lordship said, be taken on Saturday.'

Times (London)
Friday, 30 November 1888

DRUITT, APPELLANT--GOSLING, REPSONDENT.--In this case, which was heard on Tuesday before Lord Coleridge, Mr. Justice Hawkins, and Mr. Justice Manisty, the appellant was successful, and the Revising Barrister's decision reversed.'

Almost certainly Druitt took his own life the next day, after his greatest and most significant legal success; convincing the Lord Chief Justice (a Liberal), on appeal, that a Tory voter had been disenfranchised.

Sorry for repeating all of the above but I do have a few minor (I admit minor) bits to add.

In the 1881 case (that is probably concerning William Druitt), Sir John Holker was one of the leading barristers of that period, having served as Attorney General and Solicitor General. A Tory he had hoped to be Lord Chancellor, but Disraeli did not appoint him. His health was failing, so Gladstone appointed him to a Judgship. He only served a few months dying in 1882.

The writing expert, Charles Chabot, also died in 1882. Like Holker there is an entry for Chabot in the original Dictionary of National Biography. Chabot had a high reputation for his abilities. Yet I have to tell you that in one of the excellent collections on old murders and trials by Jack Smith-Hughes, he states that reading Chabot's testimony in one case made him think of one of the sanctimonious humbugs played by Alistair Sim.

I have not quite traced Mr. Bosanquet, the leader for Druitt in the case of Nanevelle v. Bournemouth Commissioners. He appears though to be from a distinguished Huguenot family that was active I banking and the law for over a century. There were four members of the family (including one whom I think was this gentleman's possible father) in the original D.N.B.

That malicious wounding case from September 1888 is rather intriguing to me. Note that it is within ten days of the "Double Event", and the case deals with a murderous assault, and a question of the sanity of the attacker. The attacker is trying to disprove his guilt and deny any insanity. Druitt is defending him - and loses. I wonder how he felt about the case, given it's circumstances. Note too that the defendant is called a "clerk". This could be a person working in a store, but it could also be a person working in an office - even a lawyer's office. Finally, shades of "the Lodger", the landlady of the defendant appears to talk about his odd behavior. Very intriguing case, isn't it.

Jeff

[Robert]

Hi Jeff

Power's Broadmoor census return shows him as a clerk in an engineer's office.

[GUT]

G'day Jeff

I'm not sure that Montie did loose that one, [purely from the newsreport] it may be ether way. I am also not sure why you say Power was denying insanity, it actually appears that insanity was his defence [again purely from the news report] I have not been able to locate the case in any Law Journals, but that is no surprise, given it is a first instance hearing, rather than an appeal.

[Roy Corduroy]

Druitt may have been needed, on site or by mail, to agree to a new and part-time schedule in order to construct the next timetable, reassure the parents of the boys, and perhaps other matters, and, instead, he had pulled up stumps (though leaving his possessions) and left word he had gone abroad. No word from him after days and weeks (because he was in fact deceased all along, having hidden his own corpse in the river miles away at Chiswick--a ploy that would fail) causing him to be dismissed from his sporting club and his school-mastering job.

Okay thanks Jonathan. Montague Druitt, considered an ongoing faculty member was missing and incommunicado. And dismissed after a month of this. On Dec 30. This is highly original, of course. You are to be credited for thinking outside the box.

Okay, absent any knowledge of when the school terms started and stopped, of which I have zero knowledge, except a wild guess the students were let out for Christmas, then it doesn't matter as much whether he was (a) dismissed Nov 30, at the end of a term (Was it the end of a term, where does it say that?) or (b) at Dec 30 after a month of not being there. Term or no term. Christmas or not. It doesn't matter because we have no knowledge of the terms.

edit: Maybe Dec 30 was the end of a term and he missed the whole last month of it. I have no idea.

I hope I'm not going backwards here and the school terms were already established and discussed years, even decades ago, 'before the crash' or whatever. Nobody's sayin.

The 'Times' (London).
13 February 1888
NANKIVELL V THE BOURNEMOUTH COMMISSIONERS
Mr. Bosanquet Q.C. (with Mr. Druitt) appeared for the Commissioners,
-----------------------------------------------------
The 'Times' (London)
Thursday, 20 September 1888
Christopher Power, 32, clerk, was indicted for maliciously wounding Peter Black with intent to murder him.
Mr. C.F, Gill conducted the prosecution; Mr. Druitt appeared for the defence.
---------------------------------------------------
Times (London)
Thursday, 29 November 1888
DRUITT, APPELLANT-GOSLING, RESPONDENT.
Times (London)
Friday, 30 November 1888
DRUITT, APPELLANT--GOSLING, REPSONDENT.--

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Anyone please. In what courthouse, and/or City and/or County did each of these three (3) judicial hearings above in Feb, Sept & Nov 1888 take place.

Roy

[Mayerling]

G'day Jeff

I'm not sure that Montie did loose that one, [purely from the newsreport] it may be ether way. I am also not sure why you say Power was denying insanity, it actually appears that insanity was his defence [again purely from the news report] I have not been able to locate the case in any Law Journals, but that is no surprise, given it is a first instance hearing, rather than an appeal.

I have misread it GUT, as now it seems you are right, he was claiming he was insane. Still it is odd that an attempt on the life of someone (by stabbing no less) ending in an insanity decision, occupies Montague Druitt ten days before the next Ripper murder date. And his mind does have to consider the issue of insane asylums as well.

Jeff

[GUT]

The 'Times' (London).
13 February 1888
NANKIVELL V THE BOURNEMOUTH COMMISSIONERS
Mr. Bosanquet Q.C. (with Mr. Druitt) appeared for the Commissioners,
-----------------------------------------------------
The 'Times' (London)
Thursday, 20 September 1888
Christopher Power, 32, clerk, was indicted for maliciously wounding Peter Black with intent to murder him.
Mr. C.F, Gill conducted the prosecution; Mr. Druitt appeared for the defence.
---------------------------------------------------
Times (London)
Thursday, 29 November 1888
DRUITT, APPELLANT-GOSLING, RESPONDENT.
Times (London)
Friday, 30 November 1888
DRUITT, APPELLANT--GOSLING, REPSONDENT.--

----------------------------------------------------------
Anyone please. In what courthouse, and/or City and/or County did each of these three (3) judicial hearings above in Feb, Sept & Nov 1888 take place.

Roy

G'day Roy

The 1st case listed [NANKIVELL V THE BOURNEMOUTH COMMISSIONERS] would have almost certainly taken place in Bournemouth, it had been heard, gone on appeal and sent back for re determination.

The 2nd case, R v Power could have been almost anywhere, however as I haven't been able to find it in ant papers that I would expect to cover the Western Circuit but it's in the "London Times" so I would favour it having been heard in London.

The final case, that unfortunately we don't have a name [other than that the appellants were Messers Hake]for would almost certainly have been in London, it was an appeal, it would have been heard at first instance in Christchurch, and appears to have been heard here before the Court of appeal [The High Court I think most likely].

Hope that helps a little.

[GUT]

I have misread it GUT, as now it seems you are right, he was claiming he was insane. Still it is odd that an attempt on the life of someone (by stabbing no less) ending in an insanity decision, occupies Montague Druitt ten days before the next Ripper murder date. And his mind does have to consider the issue of insane asylums as well.

Jeff

Won't argue with that.

I also wonder if I would have gone with an insanity defence, as it probably lead to a longer incarceration. But there may have been no real alternative.

[Robert]

Power lived in Hackney, and the attack was in Kilburn, so the trial would have been held in London.

[Bridewell]

Power lived in Hackney, and the attack was in Kilburn, so the trial would have been held in London.

The Old Bailey?

http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=def1-827-18880917&div=t18880917-827#highlight

[GUT]

The Old Bailey?

http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/brows...-827#highlight

OK notice the spelling in the Old Bailey account was this Montie?

Was there are Drewitt at the Bar in London at the time?

[Jonathan H]

Druitt got Power off, in the sense that the insanity defense was successful.

If the pertinent members of the Druitt family, the MP, the police Chief, the famous writer and the Vicar, are all correct and Montie was the fiend then it is extraordinary tho think of him defending a man on the basis of madness while the jury were suitably impressed by this young, handsome, athletic and articulate Englishman--who also had a secret life as a maniacal serial killer in the East End of all places.

On another matter, the timing of when Macnaghten knew, or believed he knew that Druitt was the Ripper, is arguably before the date March 1st 1891 (in the wake of the MP leak on Feb 11th) as this is when Sims/Dagonet suddenly reverses himself about really looking like the killer according to a coffee-stall owner. Sims, however, has to completely revise a tale he had treated in 1889 as a joke, e.g. then the book was a collection of his poems and it was in the wake of a single murder (Alice McKenzie) not the double event of 1888.

"Mustard and Cress" in "The Referee"of March 1, 1891:

'... As a matter of fact, a year or two ago my portrait (the portrait outside the early cheap edition of "The Social Kaleidoscope") was taken to Scotland-yard by a man, and the police were informed that it was an exact likeness of the murderer. The way I got mixed up in the matter was this. An hour or two after the double murder had been committed on the night of September 30, 1888, a man of strange and wild appearance stopped at a coffee-stall. The coffee-stall keeper (knowing nothing then of the night's tragedy) began to talk about the Whitechapel murder. "I dare say we shall soon hear of another," he said. "Very likely," replied the wild-looking stranger; "perhaps you may hear of two to-morrow morning." He finished his coffee, and as he put the cup down the stall-keeper noticed that his cuffs were blood-stained.

The next morning - or rather, later on that morning - the news of the double murder in Whitechapel fell upon the startled ears of the coffee-stall keeper. "Good Lord!" he exclaimed; "why, that chap last night knew it. He must have been Jack himself!"

Walking along he came to a bookseller's and newsagent's. He looked at the placards, and then his eye suddenly rested on a book in the newsagent's window. Outside that book was a portrait. "Christopher Columbus!" exclaimed the coffee-stall keeper; "why that's the very image of him!" The book was "The Social Kaleidoscope." The astonished stall-keeper bought it, and, later on, when telling his adventures to the police, he produced the book and showed the portrait. Not only was this portrait of me shown to the police, but it was taken by the purchaser to the editor of the New York Herald (London edition), and afterwards to Dr. Forbes Winslow.

The matter came to my knowledge through the courtesy of the Herald editor, and Dr. Forbes Winslow also communicated with me, and I investigated the facts. The coffee-stall keeper, who was interviewed, was perfectly candid and straightforward, and at once explained that he didn't for a moment mean to say that I was his blood-stained customer on the night of the murders. All he meant was that his customer's features were very like mine ...'

Whilst that picture on the cover of the book about the Social Question does bear resemblance to the high school pictures of Druitt--because the chubby Sims was, as he admitted in an interview in 1904, atypically thinner of face due to illness--his own picture of himself as a teenager is an even stronger likeness. Howard Brown put this up on the other site (though you need tpo scroll down to see Montie directly compared with Sims):

http://jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=22556

If Macnaghten was obsessed with concealment why would his chum be broadcasting that he looked like the real killer?

My theory is that Mac was not sure if he could contain the "West of England" MP story that was doing the rounds of London. It was partly insurance to give the impression that the 'police' were onto this suspect in 1888, or something along those lines. As it was the leak was successfully plugged (except for the MP being briefly named in 1892) and Sims did not return to this notion until 1902.

[GUT]

I don't think that Druitt [or Drewitt] gets a lot of credit for the Power verdict.

The victim says "He's a nutter"

The landlady says "He was crazy"

The prison doctor says "He's a looney"

I suspect that my Great Grandma may have got an insanity verdict on that one.

[Jonathan H]

Point taken, I'll move it to its own thread.