Henry/ Harry Buckley

[MrBarnett]

HI Gary

"I could only find three adult Patrick Buckleys in London on the 1891 census:"

I assume you meant Harry Buckley?

No, I meant Patrick Manning. Silly me!

Thanks for pointing that out, Abby.

[Abby Normal]

No, I meant Patrick Manning. Silly me!

Thanks for pointing that out, Abby.

thanks gary
and good finds.

[seanr]

Here’s another version of the Manning incident:

This is a great find in that it paints in some possible new details. I had assumed from the description of the original incident Henry Buckley must have been caught red-handed. Not so it seems, the arresting officer went and found Henry Buckley after Manning was admitted to hospital. Which suggests two possibilities, either Manning knew the name of his attacker and supplied the details or Manning gave a description of his attacker, the details of the attack and where it happened and from those details the police formed the opinion Henry Buckley was the culprit.
For various reasons I tend to think the latter is more likely as an explanation. Not least of which it may actually give pause to think if the jury at Buckley's trial were correct to conclude the case against him was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Manning was admitted at 10 in the morning, so the attack took place in the morning perhaps around 8 or 9?

And Henry Buckley was in bed after 10am. Possibly worked for McCarthy through the night and slept during the day?

Buckley's address is variously given as 26 and 27 Dorset Street in the census and the newspaper reports, but he was in bed at 39 Dorset Street so perhaps he actually resided at 39?

Buckley was remanded without any evidence. Would the judge be inclined to do so in that error on the strength of a man's reputation with the law?

I do wonder...

I think it’s worth a trip to the London Hospital archives to establish the victim’s occupation and home address. I can’t do it for a week or two, but if no one else gets to it first, I’ll pop along there the week after next.

Did you get an opportunity to check these records?

[FISHY1118]

Local characters like this definitely require more enquiry, rather than the pages and pages of drivel spent on the likes of Sickert, Maybrick, Prince Albert etc.


So let me get this right , a street muscle thug who carried knife, and lived in Dorset st, who probably had half a brain, was the incredibly cleaver and most elusive criminal in all of history know as jack the ripper . Notwithstanding the entire London police force and all of Scotland yards combined efforts couldn't catch this guy who was right under their very noses all the time. Please pleaseeeee tell me he at least he knew how to remove Eddowes kidney and uterus in 5 minutes in the dark. boy oh boy its no wonder theres over 300 jack the ripper .

[seanr]

So let me get this right , a street muscle thug who carried knife, and lived in Dorset st, who probably had half a brain, was the incredibly cleaver and most elusive criminal in all of history know as jack the ripper

A street thug with a knife who lived in Spitalfields/ Whitechapel in 1888 with half a brain, seems to be the most likely description we could ever have of who Jack the Ripper was. It amuses me no end if that proposition itself is thought to be one of the more absurd.

'incredibly cleaver and most elusive criminal' hardly seems to be a description of Jack the Ripper, this was no criminal mastermind. Policing and investigations in the 20th century struggled to find disorganised serial killers, so why should it be a mark of 'incredible cleaverness' to escape a 19th century police investigation? - no fingerprints, no photofits, no forensics, no DNA etc - how were police likely to catch him if they didn't catch him red-handed or have a witness who could directly identify him?

Please pleaseeeee tell me he at least he knew how to remove Eddowes kidney and uterus in 5 minutes in the dark.

Medical evidence given at the inquest was that the injuries would have taken at least 5 minutes not 5 minutes exactly. One has to wonder if in fact the removal of the organs was as careful as tradition suggests. Did anyone have the ability to carefully remove a left kidney in pitch blackness? - Modern medical evidence is such that a 21st century medical practitioner would struggle to complete a clean removal of the organs under theatre conditions.
There must be some doubt that the removal was committed at the scene by the killer or that the killer really did perform superhuman feats of evisceration in a short space of time.
A sort of version of a historic anthropic argument might go that it may be unlikely that brute stabbing wildly in an abdomen might stumble on an organ deep within the abdominal cavity and forcefully remove it, but we know that this might be possible because it may well have happened.
I'd be very careful of interpretation which conclude the Ripper was a surgical genius. If the organ removals were as clean as the modern tradition suggests, there would have been no room for the contemporary medical practitioners to disagree about the extent of the Ripper's anatomical knowledge, yet we know that they did disagree.

[Trevor Marriott]

A street thug with a knife who lived in Spitalfields/ Whitechapel in 1888 with half a brain, seems to be the most likely description we could ever have of who Jack the Ripper was. It amuses me no end if that proposition itself is thought to be one of the more absurd.

'incredibly cleaver and most elusive criminal' hardly seems to be a description of Jack the Ripper, this was no criminal mastermind. Policing and investigations in the 20th century struggled to find disorganised serial killers, so why should it be a mark of 'incredible cleaverness' to escape a 19th century police investigation? - no fingerprints, no photofits, no forensics, no DNA etc - how were police likely to catch him if they didn't catch him red-handed or have a witness who could directly identify him?



Medical evidence given at the inquest was that the injuries would have taken at least 5 minutes not 5 minutes exactly. One has to wonder if in fact the removal of the organs was as careful as tradition suggests. Did anyone have the ability to carefully remove a left kidney in pitch blackness? - Modern medical evidence is such that a 21st century medical practitioner would struggle to complete a clean removal of the organs under theatre conditions.
There must be some doubt that the removal was committed at the scene by the killer or that the killer really did perform superhuman feats of evisceration in a short space of time.
A sort of version of a historic anthropic argument might go that it may be unlikely that brute stabbing wildly in an abdomen might stumble on an organ deep within the abdominal cavity and forcefully remove it, but we know that this might be possible because it may well have happened.
I'd be very careful of interpretation which conclude the Ripper was a surgical genius. If the organ removals were as clean as the modern tradition suggests, there would have been no room for the contemporary medical practitioners to disagree about the extent of the Ripper's anatomical knowledge, yet we know that they did disagree.

But you cannot simply hack your way into an abdomen in double quick time in the dark and get lucky enough to find a kidney. The anatomical knowledge is in knowing where to look for it, and how to try remove it

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[seanr]

I can’t say I favour Buckley as the Ripper on the basis of the limited evidence provided. However, I find Billy Maher, one of the next generation of Dorset Street ‘shopmen’, of considerable interest in the Austin case. But that’s another story...

A few musings on the Mary Ann Austin case and Billy Maher.

Mary Ann Austin had recently ceased being a tenant of a McCarthy residence. The lodging house tenants clearly conspired to conceal evidence about the crime. A clear lead to John McCarthy was provided to the police shortly after the crime and not followed upon, marked in the record in an unknown policeman's hand as 'there is nothing in this'. If you believe Billy Austin was involved in this crime, then the lead the police received was very likely a decent one and should have been investigated, but it was not.

Given McCarthy's muscle being involved in the murder of a woman in 1901, a woman who was possibly a prostitute who had recently parted with McCarthy possibly on bad terms (as perhaps Liz Stride had), the police failing to follow up on leads towards John McCarthy and his employees in the investigation of this murder, contemporary accounts of police being bribed by the local lodging house keepers (i.e McCarthy) and Crossingham's residents as witnesses lying to police to cover up the brutal murder, you might just look at all of these things, and think maybe this works as circumstantial evidence to suggest McCarthy and his employees *could* have been more involved than previously thought in other local murders.

And if you did think it made such a circumstantial case of interest (if not by any mean proven beyond a reasonable doubt) if you add into that mix that McCarthy's muscle in 1888 may have fit the description of a man seen with more than one of the women, other sightings relating to the case the police thought significant such as the sighting at Mrs Fiddymont's pub and possibly also fits the description of the man in Ada Wilson's attack. You might just have a little pause for thought.
It may not be beyond a reasonable doubt, but I'd suggest at least it's a stronger case than many put forward (I'm looking at the case against Lewis Caroll and Vincent Van Gogh as examples).

[seanr]

But you cannot simply hack your way into an abdomen in double quick time in the dark and get lucky enough to find a kidney. The anatomical knowledge is in knowing where to look for it, and how to try remove it

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

If you are specifically looking for a kidney, yes. I put it to you, if the killer did remove the organ, they may not have had a specific design in mind for a specific organ. That would be a huge assumption.

[seanr]

Local characters like this definitely require more enquiry, rather than the pages and pages of drivel spent on the likes of Sickert, Maybrick, Prince Albert etc.


So let me get this right , a street muscle thug who carried knife, and lived in Dorset st, who probably had half a brain, was the incredibly cleaver and most elusive criminal in all of history know as jack the ripper . Notwithstanding the entire London police force and all of Scotland yards combined efforts couldn't catch this guy who was right under their very noses all the time. Please pleaseeeee tell me he at least he knew how to remove Eddowes kidney and uterus in 5 minutes in the dark. boy oh boy its no wonder theres over 300 jack the ripper .

And another thing... a good reason for further research into local characters such as Mr Buckley may not be to strengthen the case for them as suspects but to improve our understanding of the time and the context in which these crimes took place. Even if further research into Henry Buckley absolute disproves him as a suspect/ person of interest, we'd still be the richer for the information such research would give us.

[FISHY1118]

Thanks seanr

[MrBarnett]

A few musings on the Mary Ann Austin case and Billy Maher.

Mary Ann Austin had recently ceased being a tenant of a McCarthy residence. The lodging house tenants clearly conspired to conceal evidence about the crime. A clear lead to John McCarthy was provided to the police shortly after the crime and not followed upon, marked in the record in an unknown policeman's hand as 'there is nothing in this'. If you believe Billy Austin was involved in this crime, then the lead the police received was very likely a decent one and should have been investigated, but it was not.

Given McCarthy's muscle being involved in the murder of a woman in 1901, a woman who was possibly a prostitute who had recently parted with McCarthy possibly on bad terms (as perhaps Liz Stride had), the police failing to follow up on leads towards John McCarthy and his employees in the investigation of this murder, contemporary accounts of police being bribed by the local lodging house keepers (i.e McCarthy) and Crossingham's residents as witnesses lying to police to cover up the brutal murder, you might just look at all of these things, and think maybe this works as circumstantial evidence to suggest McCarthy and his employees *could* have been more involved than previously thought in other local murders.

And if you did think it made such a circumstantial case of interest (if not by any mean proven beyond a reasonable doubt) if you add into that mix that McCarthy's muscle in 1888 may have fit the description of a man seen with more than one of the women, other sightings relating to the case the police thought significant such as the sighting at Mrs Fiddymont's pub and possibly also fits the description of the man in Ada Wilson's attack. You might just have a little pause for thought.
It may not be beyond a reasonable doubt, but I'd suggest at least it's a stronger case than many put forward (I'm looking at the case against Lewis Caroll and Vincent Van Gogh as examples).

Billy Maher was Ann McCarthy’s* minder and Austin was attacked at Crossingham’s. John McCarthy doesn’t necessarily come into it. The lead was to a McCarthy, not necessarily the grocer of 27, Dorset Street.

*William Crossingham’s daughter by his first wife who married John McCarthy’s brother, Daniel.

You may recall that Maher had carried out an attack on Margaret Sullivan, stabbing her in the head and side a few years previously at Crossingham’s. Margaret Sullivan would become William Crossingham’s wife and Ann McCarthy’s stepmother. She outlived Crossingham by a few months and having inherited her husband’s money, passed it on almost entirely to her natural children, with Ann receiving a pittance in comparison. While she was on her deathbed, Margaret’s will was changed to describe Ann as her stepdaughter: presumably from ‘daughter’. I suspect Margaret’s daughter, Matilda, may have been behind that change, Margaret being too ill to sign the amendment herself and it being done by a 14-year-old servant girl.

Billy Maher admitted to shooting a man who had insulted Ann McCarthy in the face. No charges were preferred.

The charges against Maher for the Margaret Sullivan Sullivan attack were dropped.

Maher stabbed a promising Spitalfields boxer to death in the hop fields of Kent. He claimed it was an accident and although the medical evidence suggested otherwise, he was acquitted.

Ben Leeson reckoned Maher’s name came up in conversation on a daily basis at Leman Street station.

Inspector Divall, who investigated the Austin murder, believed the staff and residents of 35, Dorset Street were covering up for a ‘well-known local character’. Maher lived in Paternoster Row, a few steps from the door of Crossingham’s. No one one fits Divall’s description better.

[Trevor Marriott]

If you are specifically looking for a kidney, yes. I put it to you, if the killer did remove the organ, they may not have had a specific design in mind for a specific organ. That would be a huge assumption.

Then there were different organs that would have been more accessible to him than the kidney, which I would suggest is the most difficult organ to locate and then to remove especially in near darkness

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[seanr]

Another quick point about Billy Maher and Mary Ann Austin.

The argument for Billy Maher as the man seen with/ who attacked Mary, rests on Mary herself and the witness Maria Moore giving an accurate description of the man, but not giving a name (at least before Maria Moore changed her story and implicated Mary Ann Austin's husband). Both Mary Ann Austin and Maria Moore would have known Billy Maher by sight.

If one believes Mary Ann Austin and Maria Moore behaved in this way, one might perhaps accept that this could lend credibility to the idea that Mary Ann Cox behaved similarly.

[MrBarnett]

Another quick point about Billy Maher and Mary Ann Austin.

The argument for Billy Maher as the man seen with/ who attacked Mary, rests on Mary herself and the witness Maria Moore giving an accurate description of the man, but not giving a name (at least before Maria Moore changed her story and implicated Mary Ann Austin's husband). Both Mary Ann Austin and Maria Moore would have known Billy Maher by sight.

If one believes Mary Ann Austin and Maria Moore behaved in this way, one might perhaps accept that this could lend credibility to the idea that Mary Ann Cox behaved similarly.

And a quick response.

The police were certainly of the opinion that the attacker was a ‘well known’ local.

Despite all his acts of violence, Maher was never convicted of a serious offence. Witnesses and victims had a habit of backing away from prosecuting their cases against him.

The Moores, Daniel Sullivan and the regulars at Crossinghams would have known Maher well, Austin was a relative newcomer, although it seems she had links to the East End from before she married. The descriptions given were pretty general and would have described Maher and hundreds of other locals.

I should add that Divall asked for a PC to be stationed more or less outside Maher’s door to prevent witnesses from being threatened.

Apologies for the diversion from Buckley.

[MrBarnett]

In Buckley we have a local man, probably working as ‘muscle’ for John McCarthy, who on one occasion we know of allegedly used a knife on an outsider who had dealings with a local prostitute.

The reality may be more complicated, but at first glance what we have here is Buckley in his role as the unofficial ‘law’ in Dorset Street protecting one of his employer’s assets (tenant? more?).

From that to being the Ripper and carving up MJK on his employer’s property is a huge jump. Violent thugs would have been a penny in the East End at the time, but stabbing a man perceived as being a threat to your employer’s interests is a world away from murdering and mutilating a series of women.

My reason for mentioning Billy Maher is that a case can be made for the attack on Mary Austin being for him ‘just another day at the office’.