Who was JTR ? my thoughts.

[George Dixon]

I have been interested in JTR for a long time now, many decades. But I am still unable to come up with a single name, one I can say it is who I believe JTR to be.

Could there be more than one ? perhaps. Mary Kelly springs to mind.

Could he be unknown ? perhaps. Despite a huge investigation the police were unable to actually bring anyone to book.

The "usual suspects ". Of these Kelly would be my number one.

A wild card ? P.C. Richard Brown.

I wish I knew more about Brown. But of course we could say the same about all of them.

There was a Ripper program on the other night. It was with Fred Dinage, not that good and I had seen it before.

There was one piece at the end which rang a cord.The guy said something like this " even if absolute proof were found tomorrow revealing the identity of the Ripper, there would still be people who would never accept it "

So I guess I will just have to keep looking. But would I be able to accept anything that went against my long held views ?

[Rob1n]

They do say that if the definitive answer to the question "Who was Jack the Ripper" were answered, we'd be dissapointed or wouldn't believe it - I'd love to know, it wouldn't be the end of for instance, this site or of the interest, imagine knowing! Imagine knowing who it was, why he did it, what his life was, everything, for the life of me I can't think why it would be so disasterous to know.
I mean, if it was Prince Eddie (we can be sure it wasn't), would the Queen really have to abdicate, what's the big secret, I'm sure they must know - very frustrating anyway I recon it was...?

[Cogidubnus]

I don't honestly believe the majority of us are actually here in the hope of knowing who Jack was...anyone who's studied the matter for any length of time, knows better...Most of us are caught up in tracing the history, family, local and global of a quite amazing period, in many ways the birth of the modern age...we ache for the victims, and caretake their memories (no-one else has ever really been interested...only we much maligned Ripperologists)...

We argue amongst ourselves, and cribb about petty details, but at the same time we wonder at the resilience of all the folk who survived the depredations of LVP life amongst the poor and everyday folk...because fundamentally many of us are here today because THEY endured, and it's a privilege and rare luxury to be able to look back and try to understand much of their lives...many of us have family connections with Whitechapel and the East End...and for us it's a little more personal too...

Cheers

Dave