William Grant/Grainger

[Harry D]

Your comments are just spiteful.

Seems to me that you and Rob are the only ones bandying about insults and accusations.

[Craig H]

What do we know about this guy? I find him as compelling a person of interest as other named suspects like Kelly and Bury, given that we know he wasn't averse to putting a knife to women, even if the events we know of didn't end in murder. I find it strange nobody's put out a suspect book featuring this character, for instance.

Hi Defective Detective,

I just came across your name in looking at previous posts on Grainger and now realise you knew all the background on him - sorry for the "Grainger 101 summary" !

The bit I don't get is how Kebbell and Winslow Forbes talk about Grainger / Grant previously being a medical student at Bartholomews and his family in Ireland were wealthy. When they quote Grainger, he also seems articulate.

Seems a disconnect with what we know of his past.

Do you think he was making that up ?

Do you know if there are still records of medical students at Bartholomews in1889 ? Possible to find if he was there ?

Craig

[Debra A]

Hi DD and Craig

I doubt that he had ever been a medical student myself.
I discovered Grant/Grainger several times in Cork prison records. In those
Grant/Grainger is always described as a sailor, apart from after his release from prison in England in the 1900's- when he is then describes as a clerk.

Grainger appeared in court in Cork nearly every year from 1879 to 1892 and then again in the early 1900s up to 1909, sometimes a couple of times in each year.
Also, none of those court or prison sentences coincide with any of the Whitechapel murders. In 1888 Grainger was in prison in Cork from 19th April to 22nd April.

To look at it another way-of all the places Grainger was known to definitely frequent and we have discovered records for-Cork workhouse, Fulham workhouse, Cork Militia training camp and Cork prison ( there's over 20 entries for him in the prison records)-although a well documented regular to all these places and obvious traveler between Cork and London in later years, he can't be shown to be in any of those institutions at the time of the 1888 murders.

Don't know if that helps but I find it interesting.

[Craig H]

Hi Debra

Yes – I think you’re right about the medical student piece is not right.

I did some searching on Grainger’s family.

His siblings
• Richard Henry was a sailmaker,
• Catherine married a a Sergeant at Westmoreland Fort
• George (married) was likely at Royal Sailors Home, Portsmouth, England in 1891 Census
• Hester (married 1892)
• Benjamin died at 14 y.o

His father (also William) was a labourer and then his father Richard was a hatter. All in Cork city.

Can’t see a medical slant.

Also, he would have been around 29 y.o if he was a medical student in 1889 – seems old.

Craig

[Defective Detective]

Just brainstorming a bit here, but is it possible that he had some slight medical training in connection with his role as a sailor? I don't know anything about how the medical needs of shipboard sailors were met in the period, but I'm thinking of the controversy around Klosowski's status as a feldscher as a point of comparison. Could Grant/Grainger have been, I don't know, an assistant surgeon on a ship, where presumably his training wouldn't qualify him to serve as a doctor on land?

[Craig H]

Yes - that makes sense. People often embellish something that actually happened, so maybe he helped the ship's doctor. I read somewhere here that he had an unusual knife.

Has anyone found any records of him as a sailor - either for navy or other ?

[Abby Normal]

To Rob

Thanks for your support.

Unlike recent efforts which have been undeniably fun and sensational, like this new Midsomer Murders-type scenario of the killer covering his tracks with four earlier homicides -- wow two on the same night, that will fool 'em! -- and then, in about a month, the Robinson book accusing the brother of the guy who never wrote a diary, I'm not sure that my tome will get any oxygen with a fairly un-sexy claim that, you know, its not a mystery, it was solved at the time, and the solution was broadly shared with the public.

Very spookily to see Grant (I'm looking at him now) because, for me, it is to see Druitt as if he had reached middle-age.

Hi JH
Whatever you may think of Prosectors theory of the killer at the least he has a legitimate claim to have IDed who Mary Kelly is.

I think it's a tad unfair that you take a pot shot at his ideas when you apparently have a book coming out too, and a theory about the killer IMHO is at least as unlikely and "out there".

Also, Prosectors practical knowledge of the medical field on his posts has been enlightening and appreciated on here by many. And much needed.

Which is more than I can say for your ad nauseum posts on your " theory."
Sorry.

[Defective Detective]

Yes - that makes sense. People often embellish something that actually happened, so maybe he helped the ship's doctor. I read somewhere here that he had an unusual knife.

Yes, that was my thinking also. Say Grant/Grainger takes a position as a doctor's assistant on a ship, and learns some very basic medical procedures - triage, lancing boils, yanking teeth, that sort of thing. He and his family are proud of it, and over time he talks himself up as having been a master surgeon.

Of course, if we allow for the sake of speculation that he was Jack The Ripper, maybe he did pick up a thing or two by process of osmosis. That might explain the apparently varying level of anatomical knowledge displayed in the Ripper crimes - he may not have been as familiar with surgical procedures as he thought he was.

Of course, he could just as easily have been a potato peeler or a poop deck swabber.

[Craig H]

The world needs more poop deck swabbers !

[Wickerman]

But where was Grant/Grainger in the latter half of 1888?

[Craig H]

Hi Jon

My understanding is there is no record of where he was in latter half of 1888, but we do know he wasn't in a prison or institution.

Do you know if there are digital records of passengers between Ireland and England around that time ? I can find records from Ireland to Canada, US, Australia, etc but not to England.

Craig

[Wickerman]

Hi Craig.

On memory, no I can't recall.
It sounds like you are searching Irish records, it could be that shipping between UK and Eire was UK based, so not Irish records, ...just guessing.

[Jonathan H]

To Abby Normal

Stop apologizing and for God's sake get some help!

You suffer from a strange masochistic disorder; one that compels you to diligently and meticulously read the posts, "ad nauseum", of a researcher-writer whom you completely despise and whose "theory" you utterly reject.

People who come up with extraordinary revisionist theories that involve playing sleuth at this considerable distance need to back them up with extraordinary evidence. It has already been conceded that there isn't any.

And it's not my "theory" that you so loathe, it was the theory of a contemporaneous police chief whom I am arguing is a reliable primary source.

Feel like vomiting yet?

[Craig H]

Jonathan

Your comments are inappropriate.

This is a thread to discuss Grainger. Use another forum to vent your frustrations.

Craig

[Craig H]

Hi Craig.

On memory, no I can't recall.
It sounds like you are searching Irish records, it could be that shipping between UK and Eire was UK based, so not Irish records, ...just guessing.

Just following on from Wickerman's suggestion .....

Does anyone have Ancestry subscription to check UK Incoming Passenger Lists for 1888 (+/- 5 years) for William Grainger travelling from Cork to London ?

http://search.ancestry.com.au/search/db.aspx?dbid=1518

This could help determine if Grainger / Grant was in London

Craig