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William Magrath

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  • #16
    Jonathan H wrote:
    We may simply be underestimating the agitation and enmity felt by Anglican English towards anybody foreign, Catholic, Irish, and Irish-American, or all of the above.

    Very-very well said. And I also totally agree with this:
    Tom Wescott wrote:
    Sickert's not connected with the case. He's connected with the lore of Jack the Ripper.


    [B]Jonathan H wrote:Walter Sickert [a painting of his hangs here in the Adelaide Art Gallery] was fascinated with the Ripper murders, and told a party-piece story about lodging in the killer's rooms. A tale, I think, lifted from the 1911 novel 'the Lodger'.
    This is a tale many a landlady would have told to impress her lodger in the 1890s. There's a painting by Sickert featuring his own bedroom called Jack the Ripper's room. There's also an excellent essay by Wolf Vanderlinden on casebook discussing Walther Sickert's art and the authors who have suspected him, including Patricia Cornwell, who was everything but the first. http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-artofmurder.html
    Donald McCormick in The Identity of Jack the Ripper (in the 1970 reprint of the book) was the first author to discuss Sickert as a suspect, as documented by Stephen Knight in Jack the Ripper: The final solution (1976), followed by Jean Overton Fuller in Sickert and the Ripper crimes (1990).

    [B]Jonathan H wrote:I suspect Sickert's ghost adores the delusional slander created by Patricia Cornwell. She should have done it as a work of fiction, at which she is very proficient, rather than as an over-reaching work of balderdash. All those millions expended, and yet she does not even know that Abberline, whom she reveres, chose Chapman as the Fiend?!
    Cornwell (who used to be a very good fiction writer for thrillers such as her Scarpetta series, especially the early ones, before the books become serialized) has clearly broken through open doors here. Her sad attempt at scholarship bordering on the slanderous, her lack of experience, sloppyness and manipulation of the facts/results that didn't fit her theory, all make perfect sense when one considers her curriculum. She grew up “white trash“ in North Carolina, aspired to be adopted by Ruth Graham, was so impressed by her college professor that she married him (briefly) at 17, she worked as an intern in a morgue and volunteered at a police station. Then she writes Postmortem, gets rich too quickly through her early Scarpetta books, starts modelling herself after her formidable heroine, gets done I don't know how many face jobs, starts buying spots on the boards of forensic institutions, and she's starting to believe she's the great Kay Scarpetta herself. Wishes to conduct forensic investigation for real, finds a girlfriend who has a PhD from Harvard Medical School, oops, now she wants to solve the Ripper case and to be granted membership into the Harvard private club. I almost feel for the woman, and I can kinda see how it happened this way...!
    Best regards,
    Maria
    Best regards,
    Maria

    Comment


    • #17
      Here are a couple of snaps of the former 57 Bedford Gardens (now numbers 77-79), where William Magrath had a studio in late 1888.

      F. H. W. Sheppard, ed., The Survey of London, vol. 37, p. 80 (1973) (available at British History Online), says of this building, "Of the later houses, the most interesting is No. 77, which was built in 1882–3 by Perry and Company of Bow to the designs of R. Stark Wilkinson to contain ten studios, some with living quarters attached."

      Comparison of the Post Office Directories for 1916 and 1917 confirms that the number of the house was then changed from 57 to 77.

      [Edit: Obviously the white house to the left also contained artists' studios, though on a smaller scale than number 57.]

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      Last edited by Chris; 07-06-2010, 10:28 PM.

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      • #18
        Great pics, Chris. It really gets the imagination going.

        As for Magrath, I personally don't think there was an association with Tumblety. Many men could have been associated with Tumblety so what makes him so special?

        There were two lines about him, one calling him 'suspicious' and the other associating him with the Whitechapel murders. So it seems to me he had personally done something to make himself 'suspicious', though not necessarily of murder. The Whitechapel murder suspicion might have come about as a result of investigation into the first. So could this be the leader of a plot to assassinate Balfour?

        The earliest explanation for this is (once again) Tumblety, but that simply doesn't wash. I think Hainsworth's recent explanation is crazy enough that it might very well be the truth. A brilliant piece of work on Jonathan's part. As much as I want to be convinced by Hainsworth's explanation, something tells me that Magrath MIGHT fit into this mould as well.

        But are we 100% sure that William Magrath the artist and William McGrath the suspect are one and the same?

        Yours truly,

        Tom Wescott

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        • #19
          Originally posted by Tom_Wescott View Post
          But are we 100% sure that William Magrath the artist and William McGrath the suspect are one and the same?
          Well, nothing in this life can be 100% certain. But I don't think there can really be any doubt that they are one and the same.

          Although perhaps I'm biased. Having speculated - on the basis that 57 Bedford Gardens was inhabited by artists - that "William McGrath" of 57 Bedford Gardens might have been William Magrath the artist, I took the successive discoveries (1) that William Magrath was indeed in the British Isles in late 1888, and (2) that William Magrath was actually at that precise address in late 1888, as convincing confirmation of that identification.

          So far, such indications as there are seem to be that Magrath was an Irish nationalist of a rather sentimental kind. Perhaps that, in combination with his frequent journeys between the USA, London and Ireland, would have been enough to arouse the interest of Special Branch. We can only try to find out more.

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          • #20
            Chris,

            Do you personally see any validity to the idea that Magrath was involved in a plot to assassinate Balfour or do you agree with Hainsworth that the 'Balfour Plot' was more or less a red herring?

            Also, can we pinpoint the time that the references to Magrath were made in the ledger?

            Yours truly,

            Tom Wescott

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            • #21
              Originally posted by Tom_Wescott View Post
              Do you personally see any validity to the idea that Magrath was involved in a plot to assassinate Balfour or do you agree with Hainsworth that the 'Balfour Plot' was more or less a red herring?
              I don't really know much about the "Balfour Plot" story, but it certainly seems difficult to reconcile with Macnaghten's other writings. And if Magrath had really been believed to be "the leader of a plot to assassinate Mr Balfour", I find it very difficult to believe that there would only have been these two references to him in the ledger.

              Originally posted by Tom_Wescott View Post
              Also, can we pinpoint the time that the references to Magrath were made in the ledger?
              I don't think we can, except that it would presumably have been before he left for America, around 12 December 1888. As far as we know he didn't return to the British Isles until June 1890.

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              • #22
                Here is a self-portrait, painted by William Magrath in 1873 (from David Bernard Dearinger, Paintings and Sculpture in the Collection of the National Academy of Design: 1826-1925, p. 376 (2004)).

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                • #23
                  And here is the photograph of William Magrath in old age which accompanied his obituary in the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society in 1918, the text of which I posted above:

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                  • #24
                    Grey hair in your beard making you look and feel old? Try Just for Men! They'll never tell with Just for Men Gel!!!

                    I'll get my coat...

                    Zodiac.
                    And thus I clothe my naked villainy
                    With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ;
                    And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

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                    • #25
                      Douglas Browne

                      Originally posted by Chris View Post
                      I don't really know much about the "Balfour Plot" story, but it certainly seems difficult to reconcile with Macnaghten's other writings. And if Magrath had really been believed to be "the leader of a plot to assassinate Mr Balfour", I find it very difficult to believe that there would only have been these two references to him in the ledger.
                      ...
                      Chris, I don't think it's a question of the 'Balfour plot' story being difficult 'to reconcile with Macnaghten's other writing, this has to be read in context.

                      There is no doubt that Macnaghten's personal preference with regard to a Ripper suspect was Druitt. However, the reference to Macnaghten identifying the Ripper with 'the leader of a plot to assassinate Mr. Balfour at the Irish Office' comes from the 1956 book The Rise of Scotland Yard by Douglas G. Browne. The full extract is shown below. Browne had unique access to the official files at New Scotland Yard when writing this history and saw documents some of which are now missing.

                      Now this does not mean that Macnaghten claimed that the 'leader of the plot to assassinate Mr. Balfour' as his personal belief. What it means is that in some official document, now apparently missing but seen by Browne in the early 1950s, bore something written by Macnaghten that made this basic statement from some official source. It doesn't mean he was stating a personal preference or belief.

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                      SPE

                      Treat me gently I'm a newbie.

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                      • #26
                        Hi All,

                        If Macnaghten was correct, the closest we can place "Jack" and Balfour in anything approaching a possible assassination context is on 9th November 1888, the day of the Millers Court murder, when the Chief Secretary for Ireland was a guest of honour at the Guildhall dinner for the new Lord Mayor of London.

                        Regards,

                        Simon
                        Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by Chris View Post
                          Here is a self-portrait, painted by William Magrath in 1873 (from David Bernard Dearinger, Paintings and Sculpture in the Collection of the National Academy of Design: 1826-1925, p. 376 (2004)).

                          [ATTACH]9617[/ATTACH]
                          Thanks for tracking down and posting those portraits, Chris.

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                          • #28
                            Many thanks for posting the extract, Stewart.

                            To me, the relevant words here would be the annoyingly vague 'appears' followed by 'with':

                            Macnaghten appears to identify the ripper with... [the leader of a political assassination plot]

                            This is quite different in meaning from, say:

                            "Mac entertained a theory that the leader of this plot was also the ripper"

                            or:

                            "Mac apparently identified the ripper as the leader..."

                            It actually reads to me, in the context of all the weird, wonderful and diverse theories that had been individually embraced, more like an old-fashioned way of saying:

                            "Mac seems to have likened the ripper to..."

                            Love,

                            Caz
                            X
                            Last edited by caz; 07-09-2010, 03:37 PM.
                            "Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious." Peter Ustinov


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                            • #29
                              Hi All,

                              I'm playing a long shot, but could this be our man?

                              This is from the Thomas A. Larcom photographs collection in the New York Public Library Digital Gallery "of some of the more serious offenders confined under Penal and Reformatory Discipline in Mountjoy Cellular Prison, Dublin", between 1857 and 1866.

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                              The title page bears the latin inscription "Nemo adeo ferus est, ut non mitescere possit". [No one is so wild that he cannot become gentle].

                              Regards,

                              Simon
                              Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Simon -

                                Very interesting... well the artist Magrath would have been about the right age I guess... Between 1857 and 1866 he would have been age 19-28. Still, the guy in the photo does not really look much like the painted self portrait (in my opinion.) But it is certainly interesting. I wonder if Magrath was a common name in Ireland at the time?

                                RH

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