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... and I’m sure it’ll turn out to be nothing but I was wondering if anybody could help me disprove an old family myth.
My granddad, who I never met but by all accounts was a fairly quiet straight-laced chap not prone to making up stories, mentioned a couple of times in his life quite seriously about how his own grandfather had been questioned by the Ripper police after “a man who saw one of the murders” identified him as standing nearby as a possible lookout. Apparently police questioned him but he was released having been found to have had nothing to do with it. My grandad seems to have never doubted his own grandfathers total innocence and we’ve always just assumed it was just routine questioning like likely 100s of men in the area underwent at that time.
One thing, in my opinion, makes this slightly more interesting however. I’ve only recently developed an interest in the Whitechapel murders after some Ancestry research revealed my relatives 19th Century connections to the Whitechapel slum area. Although I’d heard the story about my great great grandfather ever since I was a kid, i’d never given it much thought. But now I’ve read a little bit about the Ripper the line about “a man who saw the murder” identifying him has struck me as particularly intriguing.
I’m sure my imagination is just getting the better of me but by my own admittedly very limited research, i can only see Israel Schwartz as a possible candidate fitting the description of somebody actually witnessing a Ripper murder. What’s more Schwartz says he saw two men - which fits in with my relative supposedly being quizzed and dismissed only as a possible “lookout”, never as the potential killer.
Of course it could have turned a totally different witness who eyeballed my relative and who’d simply been mistaken or lied about “witnessing the murder”. But the Schwartz connection has left me wondering a bit about the two men he says he saw that night.
I assume neither or these two men were ever found or identified let alone questioned which would pour some cold water on my theory that the lookout may have been my great grandfather but does anyone here who knows more than I have any extra info or theories on who they may have been?
I’ve found loads of records of my great grandfather on Ancestry as he sadly spent his last 20 years registering in and out of asylums and workhouses destitute and seemingly in poor health.
My granddad, who I never met but by all accounts was a fairly quiet straight-laced chap not prone to making up stories, mentioned a couple of times in his life quite seriously about how his own grandfather had been questioned by the Ripper police after “a man who saw one of the murders” identified him as standing nearby as a possible lookout. Apparently police questioned him but he was released having been found to have had nothing to do with it. My grandad seems to have never doubted his own grandfathers total innocence and we’ve always just assumed it was just routine questioning like likely 100s of men in the area underwent at that time.
One thing, in my opinion, makes this slightly more interesting however. I’ve only recently developed an interest in the Whitechapel murders after some Ancestry research revealed my relatives 19th Century connections to the Whitechapel slum area. Although I’d heard the story about my great great grandfather ever since I was a kid, i’d never given it much thought. But now I’ve read a little bit about the Ripper the line about “a man who saw the murder” identifying him has struck me as particularly intriguing.
I’m sure my imagination is just getting the better of me but by my own admittedly very limited research, i can only see Israel Schwartz as a possible candidate fitting the description of somebody actually witnessing a Ripper murder. What’s more Schwartz says he saw two men - which fits in with my relative supposedly being quizzed and dismissed only as a possible “lookout”, never as the potential killer.
Of course it could have turned a totally different witness who eyeballed my relative and who’d simply been mistaken or lied about “witnessing the murder”. But the Schwartz connection has left me wondering a bit about the two men he says he saw that night.
I assume neither or these two men were ever found or identified let alone questioned which would pour some cold water on my theory that the lookout may have been my great grandfather but does anyone here who knows more than I have any extra info or theories on who they may have been?
I’ve found loads of records of my great grandfather on Ancestry as he sadly spent his last 20 years registering in and out of asylums and workhouses destitute and seemingly in poor health.
I'm gonna guess (or rather hope) that most of it was bureaucratic, but who knows what nuggets were lost.
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