Hutchinsons statement....

[David Orsam]

David, as yet apart from admitting you do not believe Kennedy & Lewis were different women, and suggesting "she said this, but she really meant that", and Gareth bringing semantics into it now - 'home' might not mean 'her home', and 'staying' could mean 'visiting' (if I understood correctly), etc., you have not as yet presented a viable argument.
Disbelief is not an argument.

If you have something tangible with which to contest what we read about Kennedy then please share it.
True, there are any number of potential errors in the story, but the fact it is possible, does not make it so. They have to be shown to be errors to make the argument.
What is written (the historical record), suggests on a number of fronts, that these women were not the same.

Come on Jon we have two women who had both been accosted in Bethnal Green on the Wednesday night, who were both staying that night at 2 Miller's Court, who both turned up at that address between 2 and 3am, who both recognised the same man who had accosted them in Bethnal Green standing near the Britannia, who both heard a cry of Murder during the night and who both spoke to the police the next day.

And we are supposed to think they are different woman on the basis of what I can only see is a different surname used when speaking to the press?

There is only one sensible conclusion here. Miss Lewis was also Mrs Kennedy

[Sam Flynn]

There's only one press account that suggests Hutchinson was discredited, so the number of accounts is not an issue.

That's not quite the same thing. The Star is quite explicit, to the point of reiterating much of Hutchinson's testimony, and is hence quite deliberate. The Daily News (or whatever it was) report of the couple entering Miller's Court could easily have derived from a simple journalistic error, which is what I suspect might have happened.

[Wickerman]

Jon will be assisted if he finds that Sarah Lewis had a sister who married a man named Kennedy but I don't think he ever will.

Yes, Sarah did have a sister Emily about 2 years older than her, but Lewis described her partner as "friend" or "another woman", not "sister".
So, that doesn't help either.
Besides, that would conflict with the statement by the Gallagher/Keyler's concerning their "married daughter".
The father is a Lewis, not a Gallagher/Keyler.

[Sam Flynn]

You are suggesting a complete sentence describing an activity that never happened just appeared in isolation for some unknown reason.

Can you suggest why such an important piece of evidence was never once picked up by any other newspaper, nor even hinted at in the inquest or the police witness statements?

Well there is a reason, the reason is a fabricated 'error' in order to justify a modern argument that is otherwise indefensible.

Not at all indefensible. The early newspaper reports, from Nichols through to Kelly, often contained mistakes.

[Wickerman]

As to Hutchinson not coming forward. Presently we have a trial in progress in Woodstock where, over a number of years, a 'care-worker' has killed pensioners in different nursing homes using insulin.
Over the years she told at least nine different people that she was a murderer. None of these people came forward to police - not one.

[David Orsam]

Yes, Sarah did have a sister Emily about 2 years older than her, but Lewis described her partner as "friend" or "another woman", not "sister"

Yes and Emily was unmarried in November 1888 but married James William Beckwith in March 1889 at which time she was described as a spinster on the marriage certificate.

So, alas, we do not appear to have found Mrs Kennedy in Sarah's sister.

[David Orsam]

Besides, that would conflict with the statement by the Gallagher/Keyler's concerning their "married daughter".
The father is a Lewis, not a Gallagher/Keyler.

Well exactly Jon! That's my exact point in case you are missing it.

If the press report was accurate and Mrs Kennedy was in Bethnal Green with her sister then her father would have been the same man as Sarah Lewis' father. Hence Sarah Lewis' father was also Gallagher so that she could easily be Mrs Kennedy.

If the press report was not accurate and Mrs Kennedy was not with her sister, but with a companion, then (a) that is exactly what Sarah Lewis said and (b) it surely throws into doubt the idea that Gallagher was Mrs Kennedy's father.

[Sam Flynn]

As to Hutchinson not coming forward. Presently we have a trial in progress in Woodstock where, over a number of years, a 'care-worker' has killed pensioners in different nursing homes using insulin.
Over the years she told at least nine different people that she was a murderer. None of these people came forward to police - not one.

Well, Hutch did... albeit three-and-a-bit days after the event.

[Wickerman]

Can you suggest why such an important piece of evidence was never once picked up by any other newspaper, nor even hinted at in the inquest or the police witness statements?

I can't suggest why you keep claiming it was "so important", when the coroner did not pursue any questions about this couple.

Not at all indefensible. The early newspaper reports, from Nichols through to Kelly, often contained mistakes.

Inquest testimony?
Care to come up with a sentence that is wholly erroneous?

Gareth, you have a number of reporters all taking down testimony in shorthand, only the court recorder uses longhand, so the court record contains less information.
How does one reporter introduce a complete sentence that nobody else heard?
Omission is easy to explain, the editors trim the account down to fit the column.

[Sam Flynn]

I can't suggest why you keep claiming it was "so important", when the coroner did not pursue any questions about this couple.

Because this particular couple who entered the court were never actually mentioned by Lewis?

How does one reporter introduce a complete sentence that nobody else heard?
Omission is easy to explain, the editors trim the account down to fit the column.

Because this:

"I also saw a man and a woman who had no hat on and were the worse for drink as I passed up the court" (which is feasibly what might have been said)

... could easily become this:

"I also saw a man and a woman who had no hat on and were the worse for drink pass up the court" (which is what the Daily News wrote)

BTW, is it only the Daily News that attributes the "no hat" statement to Lewis? Elsewhere, it's Mrs Maxwell and Mrs Cox who talk about the hatless Kelly. Interestingly, of course, Mrs Cox is one witness whom we know explicitly mentions a worse-for-drink man and a hatless woman passing up Miller's Court... namely Kelly and Blotchy. Perhaps the Daily News reporter misread his notes, transposed that bit of Cox's testimony and spliced it erroneously into Sarah Lewis's?

[Sam Flynn]

How does one reporter introduce a complete sentence that nobody else heard?
Omission is easy to explain, the editors trim the account down to fit the column.

Editorial omissions sometimes happen accidentally, as famously happened with the "Wicked Bible" of 1631, when the "shalt not" became a "shalt" in the adultery commandment.

[Observer]

Hi Observer

This is a bit complicated, and you must remember that Chris was working at a time when a couple of very important sources weren't yet online. The results he came up with were quite reasonable, given the situation. Also, the main thrust of his article - that he had traced the family of Sarah Lewis - isn't affected by one or two minor genealogical quirks. It will basically depend on whether we believe that this Sarah Lewis was reliable when she told her family that she was THE Sarah Lewis.

I'll give my interpretation, which of course might be wrong.

When I emailed her, Debs at once made the same point as yourself - rather odd to go out in the night leaving a baby. However, I also have the birth cert of Emily Alexandra Lewis, born March 5th 1888, father Thomas Studley Lewis who I think was Sarah's brother. So it's possible to imagine Thomas's wife Caroline minding the baby, and even feeding it.

As I wrote to Debs :

I think they told Emily Alexandra that Sarah was her mother. If the family then told that to Chris, and Chris saw the marriage on Ancestry where she gives her father as Joseph, and the 1911 where Ann is her 'sister' then all would have seemed OK.

I think Caroline was in an asylum in 1891.

It's complicated I know, and I've only mentioned a couple of the ramifications. I have five birth certs altogether. I can't seem to post anything on here - it's always too big or something - but if anyone wants to PM me their email I'll send them.

Chris's article is available here :

http://www.ripperologist.biz/pdf/ripperologist133.pdf

Thanks for that Robert. An excellent article by the late lamented Chris Scott by the way.

Yes complicated to say the least!

It seems as if Sarah Lewis had a child prior to John ,one Emily, who will have been about a year old in November 1888. One wonders where this child was when Sarah Lewis decided to go to the Keylers during the early hours of 9th November 1888. It appears that Sarah Lewis had two young children the night she had an argument with her partner and decided to go and stay with the Keylers. Where was Sarah Lewis's brother and sister in law living when Emily Alexander Lewis was born Robert?

It's possible that they did tell Emily Alexander her mother was Sarah, and the reason for this seems to be the fact that her natural mother was commuted to an asylum in 1891, and she took the child on. The child John seems to have died sometime after 1891, thus in later life Emily Alexander would not have suspected that John was in fact only 5 moths younger than her, in short a physical impossibility.

One last thing. It seems that Sarah Lewis, and Joseph were married in 1914, this I would suggest was due to the fact that war between Germany and Britain being imminent, Joseph Gothiemer, being of German descent possibly married Sarah Lewis to avoid being interred. He died in 1918, perhaps the war, and it's outcome affected him, who knows, he died at the reasonably young age of 57.

[Robert]

Hi Observer

Yes, Chris was constantly coming up with great things.

John Gotheimer died aged 3.

The elder Emily was Emily Catherine Lewis, born 3rd June 1886. No father indicated.

At the time of Emily Alexandra's birth, Thomas and Caroline were at 58 Appian Rd, Bow.

I'm not sure about fear of internment - Chris says that although Joseph was of German extraction, he was born in Brick Lane.

As an indication of how entwined things were, in the 1939 register Emily Alexandra Church nee Lewis gave her date of birth as 3rd June 1888 - the birth year was hers but the day and month were Emily Catherine's! This is also the date of birth given on her entry in the 1980 death register.

[Wickerman]

Well, Jon, saying that you don't know someone isn't the same as saying that you don't know what someone looks like.

Nevertheless, you might have a point were it not for what we find in the earliest account of the story of Mrs Kennedy in the Evening Post of 9 November 1888:

"She noticed three persons at the corner of the street, near the Britannia public-house. There was a man - a young man, respectably dressed, and with a dark moustache – talking to a woman whom she did not know, and also a female, poorly clad and without any head-gear. The man and woman appeared to be the worse for liquor, and she heard the man ask, “Are you coming?” whereupon the woman, who appeared to be obstinate, turned in an opposite direction to which the man apparently wished her to go....Mrs. Kennedy asserts that the man whom she saw on Friday morning with the woman at the corner of Dorset-street resembled very closely the individual who causes such alarm on the night in question, and that she would recognise him again if confronted with him."

Not a squeak or a hint that the woman she saw was the deceased, Mary Jane Kelly. Yet how could it be possible for her to have left this crucial fact out of her story?

Which leads me to conclude that it was a later assumption by an editor who simply thought that, in the context of the story, the woman who was spoken to by the man must have been Kelly to make sense of it.

David.
It is the next line that we should be interested in:
"....and also a female, poorly clad and without any head-gear."

That is how Kelly is described in other accounts. We have no idea who the first woman mentioned was.

[Wickerman]

Come on Jon we have two women who had both been accosted in Bethnal Green on the Wednesday night, who were both staying that night at 2 Miller's Court, who both turned up at that address between 2 and 3am, who both recognised the same man who had accosted them in Bethnal Green standing near the Britannia, who both heard a cry of Murder during the night and who both spoke to the police the next day.

And we are supposed to think they are different woman on the basis of what I can only see is a different surname used when speaking to the press?

David.
Two women are close friends, they were together on Wednesday night. Therefore, their stories are much the same.
Women still do go out at night in pairs - that's no surprise.

We don't know why Kennedy was out late on Friday morning, work related?
Lewis is upset with her common-law husband, she goes to her friend for consolation, or to seek solace?
Women do seek solace with their best friend - that is common knowledge today - so that's no surprise either.

Both these friends being at the same address, witness the same cry, at the same hour, at the same location - that's no surprise either.

What on earth is so unbelievable about a pair of friends witnessing the same events?

The only differences in their stories are their experiences when they were not together - on their separate journey's to Millers Court.
- Lewis at 2:30 am passed a man & woman outside the Britannia, and a man loitering outside Crossingham's, and another couple who passed up the court.
- Kennedy at 3:00 am passed a man and two women outside the Britannia, and perhaps, a woman talking to two men near the court.

We even have separate addresses provided for both women, regardless how anyone chooses to introduce semantics to question the reading.

I don't see anywhere that you have the basis for an argument.
Yes, I get it, you don't believe it. Fine, but you have nothing tangible with which to contest these stories either.