Jacob The Ripper?

[tji]

Hi all

While trying to verify the information I have on Caroline Solomons I came across a problem, it seems that she may be 2 different people.

The information we have collected on Joseph Levy's wife was she was named as Catherine/Caroline Brynah Solomons who married Joseph Levy on 3 Sep 1848, her father was named Abraham. She was born abt 1819.

While looking this info up I have found accounts of 2 different women who make up this info, with a few differences.

First one is a birth record
Name - Caroline Solomons
Hebrew name - Keila
Address - New Street Bishopgate
Fathers name - Abraham
fathers Hebrew Abraham b Yecheil.

Second one is marriage
Family name - Solomons
Forename - Catherine
Hebrew name - Brynah
Date - 3 sep 1848
Fathers Hebrew name - Isaac
husband - Joseph Levy

How possible is it that these are still the same person?
How likely is it that the same person would have different Hebrew names?

If it helps we do know that the woman who married Joseph called herself Caroline in all the census reports (1851 - 1888) besides for 1871 when she went by the name Catherine.

Also Joseph Levy's father's name was Isaac so could this just be a simple mistake.

Tj

[Errata]

Hi all

While trying to verify the information I have on Caroline Solomons I came across a problem, it seems that she may be 2 different people.

The information we have collected on Joseph Levy's wife was she was named as Catherine/Caroline Brynah Solomons who married Joseph Levy on 3 Sep 1848, her father was named Abraham. She was born abt 1819.

While looking this info up I have found accounts of 2 different women who make up this info, with a few differences.

First one is a birth record
Name - Caroline Solomons
Hebrew name - Keila
Address - New Street Bishopgate
Fathers name - Abraham
fathers Hebrew Abraham b Yecheil.

Second one is marriage
Family name - Solomons
Forename - Catherine
Hebrew name - Brynah
Date - 3 sep 1848
Fathers Hebrew name - Isaac
husband - Joseph Levy

How possible is it that these are still the same person?
How likely is it that the same person would have different Hebrew names?

If it helps we do know that the woman who married Joseph called herself Caroline in all the census reports (1851 - 1888) besides for 1871 when she went by the name Catherine.

Also Joseph Levy's father's name was Isaac so could this just be a simple mistake.

Tj

Whatever source you have that gives Hebrew names, I'm impressed. Hebrew names are kinda funny. I have two (Margalit Tikvah), my sister has two. But we aren't that common. One of our Hebrew names is sort of a virtue, The other is a traditional name. In various records I am referred to as Margalit Tikvah, Margalit, or Tikvah. When people ask me, I say it's Tikvah. Margalit is a name, Tikvah means "Hope". It would however be very unusual for a man to have to different Hebrew names that are both names. Also, Hebrew names are generally for people who don't already have one. Abraham does not need a Hebrew name. He has one already. Certainly they would not give him the Hebrew name of Issac. He would likely be given a virtue type name, like Ariel (lion of G-d).
Brynah is a name. Like all names it has a meaning I'm sure, but it's a name. Keila is a place name, and a virtue type name. It's possible one woman went by both names. The caveat to this is, the rights of passage that usually allow for, or require a name change were not available to women at this time. Also, if she adopted a new name, I would have expected the reverse, that Brynah would be her birth name and she would change it to Keila. So I don't know. It's possible. I don't think it would be super likely, or common, but it's possible.

[Rubyretro]

If you read the thread under Catherine eddowes 'eddowes....direction to death ?' I think that it's not certain at all that the man seen by Joseph Levy (and Harris and Lawende), was Jack .

If not, then there was no question of Joseph having to testify against his cousin.

[tji]

Hi Errata

Thanks for that information, it does give me a better understanding now, however I am tempted at the moment to say that we have two seperate people mistakenly confused as one, unfortunatley I have nothing concrete at the moment to say I am right, just my hunch and a little info.
Can I ask, was it normal for Catherine and Caroline to be confused as the same name, as a lot of women I have researched trying to find 'my' Catherine seem to interchange the name at will?

I was thinking that Isaac had been a mistake but maybe her father's name was Isaac and we have been quoted Abraham from the mistaken Catherine, could explain why I can't find her in 1841.

I will just have to keep looking

Hi Ruby

Thanks for the heads up but while it was definitely a bonus linking Joseph the witness to Jacob as cousins, I don't think it takes the case away from Jacob as a JTR suspect without it.


Tj

[Errata]

Hi Errata

Thanks for that information, it does give me a better understanding now, however I am tempted at the moment to say that we have two seperate people mistakenly confused as one, unfortunatley I have nothing concrete at the moment to say I am right, just my hunch and a little info.
Can I ask, was it normal for Catherine and Caroline to be confused as the same name, as a lot of women I have researched trying to find 'my' Catherine seem to interchange the name at will?

It's not abnormal for Caroline and Catherine to be used interchangeably. But it is also not uncommon for a person (especially a woman) to come to prefer a different name. Or to use a middle name. For any number of reasons.

My hunch is that it is two separate people. I don't suppose death records would be available for comparison?

[tji]

Hi all

First one is a birth record
Name - Caroline Solomons
Hebrew name - Keila
Address - New Street Bishopgate
Fathers name - Abraham
fathers Hebrew Abraham b Yecheil.

I have managed to find the above Caroline Solomons born in New Street Bishopgate, father Abraham Solomons, she had quite a few brothers and sisters born at the same address with the same fathers name -:

Berta Jun 11 1823 -
Julius May 5 1830 -
Jeanette Jun 13 1831 -
Sarah Aug 30 1833-1928
Adelaide Sep 5 1834 -1923
Frederika Jan 31 1837 - 1927 (classed as Fredrick and male in the 1851 census)
Sigismund Dec 31 1836
Leopold 1841 - 1915.
Emma 1845 -

This is the Caroline that married Julius Henry Fiedler on 12 Oct 1842. They had 9 children, 3 with the same names as her brothers and sisters. She died 16 Aug 1897 and was buried Willesden Jewish Burial Ground Middlesex.

Tj

[tji]

Hi all

This is the information we had on Catherine Solomons (besides the fathers name - different sites had a different name


Family name - Solomons
Forename - Catherine
Hebrew name - Brynah
Date - 3 sep 1848
Fathers Hebrew name - Isaac
husband - Joseph Levy

However Chris Phillips has kindly sent me new information that he has collected (this man works wonders ).

The new information is as follows

1848 Great Synagogoue Chambers.. parish St James Duke's Place.. City of London
Third day of September 1848
Name Joseph Levy/full/Bachelor/Butcher/4 Little Middlesex Street Whitechapel/Isaac Levy Deceased
Catherine Solomons/full/Widow/----/4 Little Middlesex Street Whitechapel/Abraham Solomons Deceased.
Great synagogue chambers...Jewish religion...D Wertheimer
Joseph Levy
Mark of Catherine Solomons
Mark Marks
Hyam Jonas (both common witnesses)
Simeon Oppenheim Secy ofthe Great synagogue Duke's Place.

So thanks to Chris there are now a few questions we have answered. She has classed herself as a Widow, so it seems she was married previously, either to someone called Solomons or she took her maiden name back for some reason. Also her father was called Abraham not Isaac.

Tj

[Errata]

So thanks to Chris there are now a few questions we have answered. She has classed herself as a Widow, so it seems she was married previously, either to someone called Solomons or she took her maiden name back for some reason. Also her father was called Abraham not Isaac.

Tj

Good that you got it sorted out. The only reason she would retake her maiden name in this day and age was if her dead husband was not Jewish. Which is not out of the question, but it is highly improbably that she would be remarried in a synagogue were that the case.

[Jimi]

Can Anybody Tell Me ????

Hi All
I would like to ask anybody with more info./knowledge than me (and i know there are many) if they can answer a set of questions about Jacobs conviction in 1886.
Jacob was sentenced to 12 months hard labour in Holloway prison but was sent to the Essex County Asylum. Why?
Am i right in thinking that because Jacob was sentenced to Holloway by a judge in a court of law, it would take another judge to overule that sentence and commit him to an asylum?
At no stage during the court trial was Jacob accused of being simple or slow or dim witted or insane, in fact it was made obvious that he colluded with Sampsons workers to steal, yet he ends up in an asylum. Is it possible that asylum was an easier option than prison?
Any observations would be greatly appreciated.
Keep Well
Jimi

[Chris]

Am i right in thinking that because Jacob was sentenced to Holloway by a judge in a court of law, it would take another judge to overule that sentence and commit him to an asylum?

A couple of years ago Debra Arif posted an excerpt from Sir Alexander Wood Renton's "The law of and practice in lunacy" (1896) which contains a very helpful summary of how these things worked:

http://forum.casebook.org/showpost.php?p=87549&postcount=333

It includes the following:
"The practice of the Home Office was (1) to send to Broadmoor all Queen's pleasure lunatics charged with a serious crime, and all female convicts becoming insane while under sentence of penal servitude; (2) to remove to and retain at Woking convict prison all insane male convicts under sentence of penal servitude until within a few weeks of the expiry of their sentence, when they were removed to Broadmoor; (3) to remove to the nearest county or borough asylum all other insane prisoners; (4) to remove and retain at Parkhurst or Dartmoor Prisons weak minded convicts who had not been shown to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State to be unfit for penal discipline, and require special treatment.
...
Under the Prisons Act 1877, the Secretary of state generally adopted, as regards lunatic prisoners other than convicts, the course formerly taken by visiting justices viz. if a lunatic prisoner was in what formerly was a borough prison, he was removed to a borough asylum, and if he was in what formerly was a county prison, he was removed to a county asylum."

[Chris]

This is just to fill in the later history of Jacob's widow Sarah.

As Tracy has posted, Sarah was living at 7 New Street, St Botolph Aldgate at the date of the 1901 census, with 7 children.

In 1911, she was living in a five-roomed house at 8 Graces Alley, St Georges in the East, with the three youngest surviving children. She was stated to have borne nine children, two of whom were dead. No occupation was given for her.

She died on 3 February 1925, aged 67; her death was registered at Mile End and she was buried at East Ham Cemetery on 5 February. Notices of her death appeared in the Jewish Chronicle of 6 February, naming her (Abrahams) brothers and sisters and her own children.

Her monumental inscription described her as the "widow of Jacob Levy," and the JC death notices as the "widow/relict of the late Jack Levy."

[Jimi]

Hi Chris

First I must apologise for taking so long to answer you, I have been laid low with a terrible sinus infection and have only lately been able to look at a screen without wincing.

Thanks for looking up that information for me. And many thanks to the princess of the people Debra for the help she has given Tj and I over the last weeks.

The puzzle I keep coming up with is the fact that Jacob was sent to prison for 12 month hard labour, no mention of him being insane, in fact according to the court transcript he got good character references. Why was he suddenly declared insane and sent to Essex insane asylum instead?
To me it doesn't seem the norm, something must have occurred for them to change the sentence.

Keep well
Jimi

[Errata]

My problem is, i can think of 100 reasons why he might be taken out of gen. pop. prison and put in an asylum, what I cant figure out is why he would have been put in Warley asylum (I'm guessing it was Warley. Essex had two at the time, but Warley was the pauper asylum in Essex)

I mean, it's 25 miles away from the prison, which is not an inconsiderable distance. And there were closer asylums. So it seems to me that the reason he was placed in an asylum might have a lot to do with why he was placed in Warley. I don't know if Warley took certain kinds of cases, or if he had family that arranged the move, but I imagine if you find the answer to one, you find the answer to the other.

[Chris]

The puzzle I keep coming up with is the fact that Jacob was sent to prison for 12 month hard labour, no mention of him being insane, in fact according to the court transcript he got good character references. Why was he suddenly declared insane and sent to Essex insane asylum instead?
To me it doesn't seem the norm, something must have occurred for them to change the sentence.

I can only guess that after he had started his sentence his behaviour suggested that he was mentally ill and the prison authorities had him examined and removed to the asylum.

It may be that there is some documentation among the Home Office records - or at least a reference to the transfer in the registers of correspondence. Is anything more known about when he was transferred to the asylum, or where the information about this was found in the first place?

[Debra A]

Hi Jimi,
I would go with what Chris says too.
"By the Criminal Lunatics Act, 1884, 47 & 48 Vict. c. 64, it is provided: Where it appears to any two members of a visiting committee of a prison that a prisoner therein, not under sentence of death, is insane, they shall call to their assistance two legally qualified medical practitioners, and such members and practitioners shall examine the prisoner, and may certify in writing that he is insane."

Text from Jack the Ripper A Suspect Guide
by Christopher J. Morley.

"In 1886 he[Jacob levy] was committed to the Essex County asylum after complaining of hearing strange noises and saying that he felt compelled to do acts that his conscience could not stand, he also felt that if he was not restrained, he will do acts of violence to someone. "