Where does Joseph Fleming fit into the equation?

[DVV]

I am familiar with the 'in the context in which it was written then on the balance of probabilities it is likely to be true'.

Good to hear.

And when one witness says : "MJK was very fond of one Joseph Fleming who used to visit her", and another : "MJK was very fond of one Joe who used to visit her", then your balance of probabilities tells you they must refer to two different guys ?

My own balance tells me you're likely to be wrong in both instances.

For the record, Venturney said this "Joe" had often ill-used Mary "because she cohabited with Barnett."

Hardly the behaviour of a brand new suitor, but rather that of somebody who had known her before Barnett.

This also, of course, points to Joseph Fleming.

Therefore, on the balance of probabilities, etc etc etc.

[Lechmere]

DVD
there is a fundamental difference between an official written record that is regularly re-referred to and hear say evidence from unreliable sources.
much different weight should be placed on such different evidence even if the official source contains unusual information.
notwithstanding any new books - any verbal Information about Kelly is unreliable ( should I be more generous and say pending critique of information contained in New books).

[DVV]

We know, Lochmere.

"If it is written, it has to be true."

37 years, 6'7, 11st.

[Sally]

Hang on, Ed - what 'unreliable sources'?

Can you explain who you consider to have been an unreliable source, and why?

Is there any reason to think that Barnett and other witnesses who appeared at the inquest did not act in good faith?

Parts, at least, of Kelly's story are corroborated.

Is the problem not rather that parts of Kelly's story are not? It is entirely plausible that what she relayed to Barnett - and indeed to others, was part fact, part fiction.

But even accepting that some of it may have been invention or emellishment, I see no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Since we cannot know which bits of the tale - as yet uncorroborated - are true, and which are not; surely it would be wise to keep an open mind?

[Lechmere]

DVV
Fleming was a plasterer
Joe was a costermonger
Boyfriend was in building trade
James Evans was a dock labourer

Sally
Without wishing to stray, 'mine' was at one murder scene, walked past the next the same night and can plausibly be put by all the rest.
Fleming...

I agree that Evans/Fleming can't be ruled out as Kelly's ex - no matter how tall he was. I am merely making the point that his status as Kelly’s ex is based on conjecture and it is rash to assume it is the same person. We will probably never know.

'Mine' can be nailed down exactly to a living breathing human being... with now over 100 records in his real name. Over 100 in his real name!

'Mine' appears in the police record (under his unreal name) without a hint that they harboured any suspicion against him and evidence that he was not investigated (he was still referred to as Cross on 18th October - that is from memory)

'Yours' may have been investigated and cleared in 1888 - we don't now as you say. The extant record is silent.
I don't agree that the most likely reason the police wouldn't have found Fleming is that he was living under an alias.
They could have asked around and established that probably. He was a local man that lived locally all his life.
There are numerous alternatives.
One is that they may have not bothered looking too close as other people may have told them that he was long gone.

But if the police happened across Evans/Fleming in 1893 out of the blue (and if he was not eliminated in 1888) it is naive to think that they would have forgotten about him.
Accordingly he would have been checked out. I would have expected there to be a flurry of excitement. A whisper in the press. A surviving note in a file or a reference in someone's memoirs. A mention in the Stone Case Book. But there is nothing. Absolutely nothing.
'Mine' at least appears in Dew’s memoirs albeit with the ignominy of his name being skipped as he was a poorly unremembered faceless nobody.

Would they just have left him there without raising any concerns?
Remember Evans/Fleming was almost released in February 1893. He could have got better and been released at any time. Many patients were released back into the community.

If the character of Fleming wasn’t eliminated from police enquiries in 1888, then it has to be regarded as a blunder that his whereabouts was not established in 1893. And I think we can say beyond reasonable doubt that his detention passed unnoticed.

I am not suggesting Barnett or the others lied – although embellishing in a desire to be over helpful is a common failing.
Let’s face it, Kelly probably wasn’t even called Kelly.
All the accounts – by Barnett, Venturney and McCarthy - are based on what ‘Kelly’ told them.
That is why they are unreliable – they are not to be relied upon. As you say probably part fact part fiction. Unravelling which is which is almost an impossibility.

This is in stark contrast to a black and white official height record written in a medical book that was constantly re-referred to, almost certainly in the presence of the patient.

[DVV]

I agree that Evans/Fleming can't be ruled out as Kelly's ex - no matter how tall he was.

No way. He was a dock labourer. Read your post.

[Debra A]

Debra
You raise the prospect that Fleming’s real age would probably have been sent to Stone and hence there was opportunity to amend the incorrect record on his ‘sheet’ in the Stone case book.

It will be instructive to look at what happened.

A Joseph Fleming was detained by the City of London Police as he was found wandering (on Upper Thames Street?) and taken to Bishopsgate Police Station.
From there, on 30th June 1892 he was sent to the City of London Poor Law Union Infirmary which was on Bow Road.
This Joseph Fleming must have given his name as James Evans, his address as the Victoria Home, Commercial Street (which was within the Whitechapel Poor Law Union) and his age as 37. These details were recorded at this stage. However he did not provide evidence of settlement.
He was assessed as being a lunatic and swiftly sent to the City of London Asylum at Stone on 4th July 1892.
His age was again recorded as being 37 in their Case Book.
The costs associated with Evans/Fleming being an inmate at Stone were met by the Common Fund of the City of London Poor Law Union, as he had not provided evidence of ‘settlement’ in Whitechapel or elsewhere.

On 3rd February 1893 Evans/Fleming seemed to be free from his delusions and was recommended for discharge, but he suffered a relapse on 13th February 1893 and his release was cancelled.

Something prompted the City of London Union to investigate Evans/Fleming to establish whether they should be meeting the costs associated with his detention.
Their investigations established that he was born on or about 17th March 1859 in Wellington Street (now Cyprus Street), Bethnal Green, the son of Richard and Henrietta Fleming. His date of baptism and his mother’s address was also known to the City of London Union ‘investigator’, who was probably based at the City of London Union’s Office’s at 61 Bartholomew Close EC1 (near Smithfield Market and St Bart’s Hospital).
On 17th October 1893 the City of London Union formally established that the costs associated with Evans/Fleming should have been chargeable to Bethnal Green as he never had ’settlement’ in the City of London.

Evans/Fleming is listed as a lunatic on the books of Bethnal Green from 17th October 1893, although he remained at the City of London Asylum at Stone until 14th February 1895 when he was transferred to the London County Lunatic Asylum, Claybury which had opened in May 1893.
The Claybury Annual Returns of Lunatics Chargeable to Bethnal Green always listed Evans/Flemings age in conformity with that given on the Stone Case Book. Similarly his year of birth in other Claybury records is given as 1854 which fits with an age of 37 in 1892.
Evans/Fleming was listed in the 1911 census as being 56 (agreeing with the 37 age in 1892) and as a dock labourer (agreeing with his occupation in 1889 when he had been briefly admitted to the Whitechapel Poor Law Union Infirmary under his real name of Joseph Fleming and his correct age).
Evans/Fleming died at Claybury on 28th August 1920 and was listed as being 65 years old. This conforms with his age being thought to be 37 in 1892.

But Evans/Fleming was 32 when he was admitted in 1892. He was 60 when he died, not 65.
He was born in 1859, not 1854.
Evans Fleming can be traced with his birthdate in 1859 in the 1881 census (when he was a plasterer living in lodgings in 61 Crozier Terrace in Homerton) and the 1891 census (when he was a general labourer living in a lodging house in Victoria Park Square in Bethnal Green).

Claybury clearly took their information on Evans/Fleming’s age from the City of London Union. Whether from Stone or from Bartholomew Close or perhaps the Bow Road Infirmary is not clear.
Nevertheless it is certain that Joseph Fleming’s true age as discovered when the City of London Union established that settlement should be with Bethnal Green was never entered against his personal records. Otherwise logically Claybury would have known his true age.

There is no reason to suppose that the details of the City of London Union’s investigation into Evans/Fleming’s settlement would have been passed on to Stone.
The Stone Case Book records do not even mention that settlement had been established to lie with Bethnal Green, although it might be thought that Stone would logically have been informed of the outcome.
The City of London Union would have to pass on the accumulated charges for Evans/Flemings care to Bethnal Green and thereafter submit regular accounts.

In short there is no reason to suppose that Stone was made aware of the incorrect age.
If for some reason they had been sent a copy of the City of London Union’s investigation, then there is no particular reason that they would have amended the age entry in the Case Book.
The age in the investigationwould have been given indirectly, as a date of birth. To realise the age was wrong would require a calculation. That would be easy to miss.

The point of all this is that raising the spectre of Evans/Fleming’s age being misrepresented on his Case Book entry to throw doubt upon the height entry is a non-starter.

The height is something visible every time Evans/Fleming was seen.
We do not know if the correct date of birth was forwarded to Stone (or Claybury).
If it was forwarded, to amend the Case Book entry a calculation would have to be made. The person responsible would have had to have had reason to look at the age in the Case Book and realise it was wrong.
The incorrect age was given as at admission (i.e. 37 in July 1892) which would have required another calculation to establish his rough false date of birth.

If Stone was forwarded the true date of birth that was established as a result of the City of London Union enquiry, then one would guess that at best the document it was written on would have been cross referenced with the Stone Case Book entry once.
This is in stark contrast to the blatant height ‘mistake’ which would have been there for anyone to see every time the Case Book entry was amended and the weight taken.

Comparing the incorrect age and the height record is not comparing like with like.

There is another interesting aspect to this.
When did Henrietta Fleming ‘claim’ her son?

Yes, I know all this. I am the one who posted all this on JTRforums from the orders of removal records in the past and again recentlyshowing the settlement issues and the fact that the asylum Fleming was definitely the son of Henrieta and Richard. I also posted the Flanagan/Fleming alias information.

I said that Feming/Evans date of birth was known to the authorities but I also added that it was because of the specific reason of settlement adjudication. I didn't use this information to argue anything, just to counter your point that Fleming's birthdate was never known.
Letters in the file are addressed to Henrietta Evans originally, later corrected to Fleming.

I personally think the height is a bit suspect. That's all!

[Lechmere]

DVV
I presume you think there was a height restriction on dock labourers?
You have to bear in mind that by the time he was picked up he may well have lost weight.
You must also bear in mind that people at 11 stone and 8 pounds and six feet seven inches in height are not necessarily weaklings.

[Lechmere]

I have been wondering when Henrietta Fleming came forward and claimed her son. How did she find out where he was?

It has been assumed (I think) that when Joseph Fleming was detained in July 1892, she was somehow informed.
But he gave his name as James Evans.

This is what I think was the sequence of events.

In early February 1893 Evans/Fleming was showing signs of getting better.
Just as he was about to be released, on 13th February 1893 he had a severe relapse.

I think that during this lucid moment, he told them his real name and gave them his mother’s details.
She was contacted and came down to Stone to see him. Her name and address were added to his Case Book entry. But he had by now suffered his relapse which resulted in the comment which was added to his Case Book entry:
‘His mother states there has been insanity in the family for 160 years’.

Stone passed on his mother’s details to the City of London Union at their offices at Bartholomew Close. This nudged them into conducting an investigation to see if they could establish where Evans/Fleming had settlement, so they could save money from their own fund.
The City of London Union contacted Henrietta, interviewed her and established that James Evans’s real identity was Joseph Fleming and that he had been born and brought up in Bethnal Green. This led to his removal from the City of London Union and his admission to the parish of Bethnal Green in October 1893.

I think this is in accordance with what we know of when he was called Fleming by the authorities and explains why the City of London Union only established his true settlement by October 1893.

[Lechmere]

Debra
Yes I know that was a distillation what you had established.
I recounted it to put in context for other readers how the various pieces of information on the records were collected.
I put your name at the top as you had highlighted that Fleming's true birth date was known (by another department within the City of London Union), and you will no doubt have noticed that this was seized on by others to suggest that the age given in the Stone Case Book was therefore an obvious and potentially correctable mistake. And you did not correct those assumptions which were based on your post.

You did suggest that Stone would have been informed of Fleming’s actual birthday. I gave reasons why this does not seem to have been the case.

If you will be drawn on these matters, you have also suggested that one reason he was unlikely to have been 6 feet 7 inches tall was that he had boots, a shirt, trousers and a coat when he was detained.
From time to time there would have been outsized poor people and I doubt they would have run around naked.
Why do you think it would have been prohibitively expensive for a man of 6 feet and 7 inches to kit himself out in clothing? Do you think it was impossible to add a bit of material to extend the legs or sleeves? Or for him to wear half mast trousers? Or to cut the toes off his shoes and fashion a rough cap.
If you think about it, being large would provide problems but ones that a tall person would be used to dealing with.

By the way, you have mentioned that you have seen military service records where heights are recorded in inches only as well as feet and inches, with mistakes such as one man being recorded as being 55 feet tall.
Are you able to illustrate any of the examples or give details of what sort of records these are?

[Sally]

Ed -

I agree that Evans/Fleming can't be ruled out as Kelly's ex - no matter how tall he was.

His height is indeed irrelevant to his status as Kelly's ex.

'Mine' can be nailed down exactly to a living breathing human being... with now over 100 records in his real name. Over 100 in his real name!

Yep - he was pretty well documented, that's for sure.

'Yours' may have been investigated and cleared in 1888 - we don't now as you say. The extant record is silent.
I don't agree that the most likely reason the police wouldn't have found Fleming is that he was living under an alias.

Quite right, he may have been exonerated in 1888 - we will never know. However, givn the known fact that he used an alias, it is reasonable to speculate that he may have done so at other points in his life.

I realise that some may be concerned that he was secretly Hutchinson. Of course, if that were so, Fleming begins to look very suspicious indeed. But again, that is speculation.

On balance, I am not convinced that they were one and the same, for reasons that I won't go into here.

They could have asked around and established that probably. He was a local man that lived locally all his life.

Lots and lots of people in Whitechapel. If a person wanted to disappear; particularly if they adopted an alias to do it, it wouldn't have been so difficult.

Let’s face it, Kelly probably wasn’t even called Kelly.

Well, clearly she was - at least from the time she told Barnett she came to London; because people - real people - who knew her then knew her as Mary Kelly.

Prior to that, who knows?

[Lechmere]

61 Bartholomew Close EC1.
The Offices of the City of London Poor Law Union.

[Colin Roberts]

So the expectation - in this hypothetical instance - would be that 1 in 200 adult male East Enders would stand taller than 6' 6".

And such a projection is based upon a standard deviation of four inches. Reduce the standard deviation and Fleming's z-score becomes even more extreme. In other words there were very few 6' 7" men to be found in the late-Victorian East End.

A mean height of 5' 6", and a standard deviation of 3" would probably be more accurate, but my intention was simply to address Jon's utterly fallacious assertions:

Stats are no use unless you are looking at general features like the colour of his hair or eyes, etc.

No-one denies the height being discussed is out of the ordinary, and anyone who knows the value of stats already knows that stats are only useful when discussing 'the ordinary'.
An exception never shows up in statistics, only the average. So lets dispense with the pretense that stats can be an indicator in this argument.

To the detriment of statistics nationwide, James Bradshaw existed, but the stats say he couldn't.

Particularly:

An exception never shows up in statistics, only the average.

…

…, James Bradshaw existed, but the stats say he couldn't.

These comments are mind-boggling!

In actuality, the shortcoming of the (relatively simple) hypothetical statistical analysis that I have presented, is not that it leaves no room for deviation from the estimated mean, as Jon would seem to believe, but that it allows for any and all mathematical possibilities; e.g. heights of 1,000 feet or more, as well as negative 1,000 feet or less.

---

If we were to assume a mean height of 5' 6", and a standard deviation of 3", then the expectation would be that approximately 1 in 33,333, i.e. 3 in 100,000 adult males in 1888's East End stood taller than 6' 6".

If we take into account the Registration Districts of Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, Mile End Old Town, St. George in the East, Stepney and Poplar, and throw in the City of London and Parish of St. Luke, for good measure, we are looking at something on the order of ~200,000 adult males, in accordance with the Census of England and Wales, 1891.

From this we might gather that between five and seven adult males stood taller than 6' 6", in 1888's East End.

But, judging from the news media attention that certain 6' 6" (+) giants seem to have received in the latter stages of the Victorian era, I would think that we could safely assume that no more than three to five adult males stood as tall a 6' 7", in London's East End of the late 1880's.

Could Joseph Fleming have been one of the three-to-five, assuming of course that there actually were any? Well, someone had to be!

But then …

[DVV]

I think that during this lucid moment, he told them his real name and gave them his mother’s details.

I'm afraid that's impossible.

See Debs post #577 : Letters in the file are addressed to Henrietta Evans originally, later corrected to Fleming.

[Lechmere]

It would be interesting to see the dates on those letters.
So DVV, how do your think the City of London Union knew who to write to?