Augustus Robertson Raff?? = August Raffel

[rjpalmer]

Sadly outside the 1881 census I was unable to find any more records about him or his wife Julia. I also checked the British newspaper archives but no mention of him in there either. If anyone else manages to find anything on him that would be greatly appreciated.

It looks like he's living in the East End in 1891, in the home of a watchmaker and his wife, at 112 Campbell Road, Poplar, which is east of Mile-End, and south of Bow Road; he is listed as August Riffel. I cut-off the right-hand side of the sheet, but his birthplace is Mainz, Germany. Julia is nowhere in sight, but at least you know that he may have moved from Liverpool to East London between 1881-1891.

Cheers,

R P

[Astatine211]

Recently I've been going over all the Ripper letters including a supposed confession of identity. What struck me about this confession was how unique the name was, so I set about trying to find who Augustus was.

After various in depth searches of all surnames beginning with Raff such as Raffal, I couldn't find any matches with the first name Augustus or any variations. Then I discovered August Raffel. In the 1881 census he was 24 years old living in Liverpool but that part that caught my eye the most was that he was a butcher.

In 1888 he would be around 30 years of age, still be or at least have the knowledge of a butcher and since he was born in Germany would likely have an foreign appearance and a slight German accent.

Sadly outside the 1881 census I was unable to find any more records about him or his wife Julia. I also checked the British newspaper archives but no mention of him in there either. If anyone else manages to find anything on him that would be greatly appreciated.

I will attach the letter and census record below. The screenshot of the letter is from the book Letters from Hell by Stewart Evans and Keith Skinner, a wonderful resource on correspondences claiming to be from Jack the Ripper, which contains an extensive transcription of the letters. It's a book I highly recommend if you're interested in that part of the case.