Lechmere versus Richardson.

[MrBarnett]

I wonder if John Richardson kept his bayonet on leaving the militia?

You can cut that lark out!

[MrBarnett]

Not specifically called a liar of course but Phillips evidence on the time of death definitely suggested that Richardson was either mistaken or lying (and many, including myself, don’t believe that he could have simply ‘missed’ a body)

He was called to fetch a knife and when he returned with it he said that it wasn’t sharp enough to do the job so he’d borrowed one at the market. So there’s a bit of confusion in that he said that he’d sat down to cut leather from his shoe but then he said that the knife wasn’t sharp enough.

Yes, looking at those steps it’s hard to imagine him missing the body. But people do sometimes overlook stuff that is right under their noses.

As for the knife, perhaps he initially didn’t feel the need to elaborate. ‘I sat down on the step to cut a piece of leather from my boot’ is pretty much the same as saying, ‘I sat down on the step with the intention of cutting a piece of leather from my boot.’

No doubt the ultra efficient cops were able to track down the lender of the sharp knife to corroborate his claim.

[rjpalmer]

I wonder if John Richardson kept his bayonet on leaving the militia?

[rjpalmer]

Yes Gary, I took that entry to read 'Brick Lane'--I never said otherwise.

The Richardsons' connections were to Lambeth, and I don't see that the geography angle is relevant to the case against John. Not all suspects have the same strengths and weaknesses. If I was going to 'fit up' someone using the geographical angle, I'd ditch Richardson and resort to my old friend Alfred Crow.

Crow lived for at time in Baker's Row and grew up in the streets due north of Buck's Row. To use the standard cliche, Crow would have known the area of the Nichols murder 'like the back of his hand.'

Next Crow lived in Ellen's Court, SGE--just around the corner from Dutfield's Yard and closer to the Stride murder scene than Lechmere ever lived. He had siblings who attended the board school where Liz was seen loitering that night.

At the time of the Tabram murder, Crow was living in the very building in George Yard where Martha was found murdered. He stepped over her allegedly dead body, but never felt the need to alert anyone.

Aldgate? Crow was a cab driver and there was a rank of cabs in Aldgate day and night. He would have been familiar with Mitre Square, and --unlike Lechmere--his job kept him out in the streets during the 'killing hours,' 1:00-3:30 a.m.

I've recently discovered that Alfred Crow almost certainly wasn't the bloke who was convicted & imprisoned on Nov 5, 1888, so he has no alibi for the Kelly murder.

The 'evidence of innocence' against him is very bleak indeed.

Crow would spend the last years of his life living in Bethnal Green, but at the turn of the Century he made a still unexplained sojourn in Cardiff, Wales with his young wife. Perhaps Crow had a reason for being interested in Cardiff?

By the way, this may or may not interest you. Crow's father made (I believe) bird cages. Crow himself became a wireworker (he had at least one brother who also shared the occupation) and one census entry for Alfred looks like it reads 'parrots' next to his wire cage making. I believe you have some interest in menageries.

That she read the bible and had toothache?

Actually, I never said anything about Amelia Richardson reading the Bible. I mentioned that she put on such a show in 'kissing the book' on being sworn in that a journalist thought it worthy of note. She then drops an entirely irrelevant allusion to her prayer meetings.

In two different census reports Mrs. Richardson is listed as a 'book folder.' Would it be too radical to suggest that she worked for some religious organization that peddled or handed out religious tracts?

As for the 'toothache,' it was abscessed and kept her in the workhouse infirmary for 9 days where she is listed as homeless in what was the middle of winter. I can't imagine too many people would find wandering the wintery streets of East London in January with an abscessed tooth deserving of your flippancy. The point is, all of her adult children had homes.

The 1901 Census has her in the workhouse again, and there are no less than 4 entries for her being in the workhouse infirmary between Jan 1899 and late 1903. Twice she is listed as homeless, yet, as I say, all her adult children had households in 1901. They weren't castles, of course, but not one of them could find room for Dear Old Mom?

In one instance, Amelia is in the infirmary between 27 July and Oct 30--three full months--for 'jaundice', which must mean liver disease. I suppose a teetotaler can get liver disease; she is elsewhere listed as rheumatic.

An 80-year-old woman, sickly and homeless, and none of her children could take her in? A case of 'move along folks--nothing to see here?'

On the other hand, if you find this attempt at novel writing unconvincing, you might begin to appreciate how some might view the efforts to turn Maria Lechmere into a sinister character.

[Herlock Sholmes]

‘Called a liar’? Or was his evidence contradicted.

Why was his behaviour suspicious at the inquest? He volunteered the information about the knife, and the coroner had to do the police’s job for them and ask for it to be produced.

Not specifically called a liar of course but Phillips evidence on the time of death definitely suggested that Richardson was either mistaken or lying (and many, including myself, don’t believe that he could have simply ‘missed’ a body)

He was called to fetch a knife and when he returned with it he said that it wasn’t sharp enough to do the job so he’d borrowed one at the market. So there’s a bit of confusion in that he said that he’d sat down to cut leather from his shoe but then he said that the knife wasn’t sharp enough.

[MrBarnett]

Hi Herlock,

I believe that traditionally it was the woman who chose the location and took the client there. So Polly would have taken CAL to Bucks Row, IF he were guilty, rather than he making that choice.

I agree with your 3:40 time for Paul encountering CAL, and that CAL would have been aware of the police beats within the limits of the variations of their beats. Whether CAL discovered the body at 3:40 or Paul interrupted CAL at 3:40 is the subject of the debate of a question without an answer.

CAL had the luxury of alternative routes to work so, IF he were guilty, after Nichols maybe he avoided the shorter Old Montague route due to Tabram, or maybe he was following along with Paul to find out what Paul thought about what he had seen. We can't ever know so it is all opinion based on conjecture. It is the same with Richardson at Hanbury St.....and Morris at Mitre Square.

Cheers, George

Yes, George, sticking close to Paul to gauge his level of suspicion and hoping not to bump into a PC sling the way seems perfectly plausible. Conjectural, as you say, but that’s the only tool we have.

[MrBarnett]

Hi Herlock,

I believe that traditionally it was the woman who chose the location and took the client there. So Polly would have taken CAL to Bucks Row, IF he were guilty, rather than he making that choice.

I agree with your 3:40 time for Paul encountering CAL, and that CAL would have been aware of the police beats within the limits of the variations of their beats. Whether CAL discovered the body at 3:40 or Paul interrupted CAL at 3:40 is the subject of the debate of a question without an answer.

CAL had the luxury of alternative routes to work so, IF he were guilty, after Nichols maybe he avoided the shorter Old Montague route due to Tabram, or maybe he was following along with Paul to find out what Paul thought about what he had seen. We can't ever know so it is all opinion based on conjecture. It is the same with Richardson at Hanbury St.....and Morris at Mitre Square.

Cheers, George

We mustn’t forget that Polly was new to the area, and having purloined £5 worth of clothes from the Cowdries she may not have been so desperate for cash that she had to resort to prostitution to any great extent. It’s unlikely that she would have been familiar with every dark back street behind the Whitechapel Road.

[MrBarnett]

In 1893 a case-maker named Francis Towler married a woman named Sarah Gilbody at Christchurch, Spitalfields. Sarah’s address was 29, Hanbury Street and I believe she was related to the Richardsons.

I initially read Towler’s address as 40 or 60 Burslem Street and got rather excited because that was the name that James Street SGE was changed to. But I think the name change was later, and the name on the cert may not read ‘Burslem’ at all.

Sorry.

[GBinOz]

Hello George,

My only question would be, why would he pick up a potential victim somewhere and then bring her back to a location that he passed every day?

I think that Lech found the body at around 3.40 but Fish believes it to have been nearer to 3.45. So if he’d met up with Paul at 3.44 then he’s only a minute or so before Neil arrives. Given the possibility that he did, on occasion, run a very few minutes behind time it would seem at least possible that he might have been aware that a Constable passed on his beat around that time. And if he had seen a PC once or twice might he not have considered that that PC might have been running late?

Obviously I’m not claiming anything on this point as a known but given that Lech and Neil were in Bucks Row in such close proximity of time and given the unreliability in regard to timing in those days isn’t there a very reasonable possibility that Lech would have known that a Constable passed sometime around 3.40/3.45?

Id also add the the point that no matter how regulated beats were it could never be the case that Neill or another PC arrived at that spot at exactly the same time every day. And so even a couple of minutes earlier would increase the chances of Lechmere over the years seeing a PC on his beat in Bucks Row.

Hi Herlock,

I believe that traditionally it was the woman who chose the location and took the client there. So Polly would have taken CAL to Bucks Row, IF he were guilty, rather than he making that choice.

I agree with your 3:40 time for Paul encountering CAL, and that CAL would have been aware of the police beats within the limits of the variations of their beats. Whether CAL discovered the body at 3:40 or Paul interrupted CAL at 3:40 is the subject of the debate of a question without an answer.

CAL had the luxury of alternative routes to work so, IF he were guilty, after Nichols maybe he avoided the shorter Old Montague route due to Tabram, or maybe he was following along with Paul to find out what Paul thought about what he had seen. We can't ever know so it is all opinion based on conjecture. It is the same with Richardson at Hanbury St.....and Morris at Mitre Square.

Cheers, George

[MrBarnett]

If your only exposure to the morals and social distinctions of working class Eastenders is through research into the WM you are likely to get a rather skewed view of things. Time and again I hear it suggested that using false names and engaging in multiple unofficial ‘marriages’ was the norm. It wasn’t. Working class Eastenders were as ‘respectable’ as their circumstances allowed, and for the vast majority of them that meant long-term monogamous relationships sanctioned by the church and the law and the use of the names they were born with or which they adopted upon marriage.

[MrBarnett]

Well we have a man called a liar by a Doctor and then by a Police Inspector and who’s behaviour in regard to a knife at an Inquest was strange/suspicious to say the least. Where do we have anything like this for Lech?

‘Called a liar’? Or was his evidence contradicted.

Why was his behaviour suspicious at the inquest? He volunteered the information about the knife, and the coroner had to do the police’s job for them and ask for it to be produced.

[MrBarnett]

I'll take a gander.

I think you’ll find it interesting. Apologies for the rambling nature of the thread and the pathetic attempts at humour.

This is one of the early posts on the thread, on which RJ must have based his despicable comments about ‘slut shaming’ etc.


In his will, Edward Bolton Clive left £100 to his steward, Thomas Brown, and £200 to his butler, Thomas Roulson. The remainder of his servants of over two year's service received legacies to the equivalent of one year's salary apiece - noblesse oblige indeed!

Thomas Roulson served the Clive family for 35 years. Of course, we don't know exactly what went on above or below stairs in the Clive household, but on the face of it Maria's upbringing was about as far as you can imagine from her subsequent life in the East End.

What did the Herefordshire butler's daughter make of her rough English/Irish Cockney neighbours in Tiger Bay? What advice would she have given to her adolescent son about the bad streets, bad houses, bad men and, above all, the bad women he passed on a daily basis?


Is wondering whether a woman from an extremely respectable background might have warned her adolescent son about the prostitutes who were their neighbours an absurd idea? Does it constitute ‘slut shaming’?

[Herlock Sholmes]

If only we knew their shoe sizes, it’d be case closed.

;-)

Well we have a man called a liar by a Doctor and then by a Police Inspector and who’s behaviour in regard to a knife at an Inquest was strange/suspicious to say the least. Where do we have anything like this for Lech?

[MrBarnett]

Maria Lechmere (she was never legally married to Cross or Forsdike) had two sisters, Caroline and Harriet. The three of them were equal beneficiaries under their father’s will. The 1891 census recorded Caroline and Harriet as women of independent means living together in Hereford, while Maria was selling catsmeat in the Ratcliff Highway.

Back in 1861, Maria was living in ‘Tiger Bay’ with her toy boy police constable who lied about his age when they ‘married’. For comparison, Caroline was living at The Court, Monnington-on-Wye and her husband was at the Rectory working as a butler. (Image below: Top, The Court; bottom, the Rectory.)

More interesting than toothache?

[erobitha]

That she read the bible and had toothache?

Have you read this:

https://www.jtrforums.com/forum/motives-and-reasons/-4-product-of-environment/28472-maria-louisa-roulson-aka-old-ma-lechmere

Or this:

https://www.jtrforums.com/forum/the-victims/mary-ann-polly-nichols/578565-interesting-lechmere-trivia

I'll take a gander.