an Addy for Severin

[Natalie Severn]

THe evidence is NOT pointing that way at all Sam
I have been right through every address and matched it with what people have said under oath in court testimony or to the police.
As Klosowski he stays with Mr and Mrs Radin as an "assistant " at their barber shop in 70 West India Dock Road for five months most likely in the early part of 1888.
Then he is seen by Levisohn in 1888 working as an assistant barber in Whitechapel High Street/George Yard.
Before the end of the year 1888 his address is being entered in the Post Office Directory of 1889 as being 126 Cable Street,
then we are told he moves to Greenfield Street in 1890
then >2 Teaksbury Buildings--here up to census returns of early April 1891.

He sails to New York/New Jersey Spring/early Summer 1891 to June 1892
America with Lucy.

Returns June or early July 1892 to Scarborough Street [just to the West of Leman Street].

He then moved five miles North to Tottenham working in Haddin"s Barbers Shop in West Green Road,
then renting his own premises via William Lenion Bray in 518 High Road Tottenham for several months.
He moved again, albeit very briefly ,in 1895 to another shop he opened opposite Bruce Grove Station,Tottenham where both Levisohn and Annie Chapman saw him there.

This is the very last time he calls himself Severin Klosowski-Jan 1895.

This was when his business failed,his partner Annie Chapman had been ousted by the reappearance of Lucy Baderski/Mrs Klosowski who had stayed there as a "threesome" with Severin and Annie Chapman,who was by then pregnant and moved out and left him with his ex and his failing business .
But Lucy and he soon split up after Stanislaus Rauch,saw them last together-in City Road,a little South West of Tottenham ,which can only have been after these failed ventures with Barbers Shops in Tottenham,because we next see him taking up a position

in Leytonstone as GEORGE CHAPMAN where he works and lives at William Wenzel"s ,who has a barbers shop
in 1895 in Church Lane, Leytonstone.After a few months----we are still in 1895,he meets Mary Isabella Spink,said by some to be of "intemperate habits" and he moves from his digs at Church Lane to her digs at Forest Road Leyton, where he is caught kissing her and cuddling her on the stairway and is forced into a [bogus] marriage with her in October 1895.
He is in Hastings with soon after 1896 where ,still as Mr and Mrs Chapman,they stay ,

until returning to the Prince of Wales public House off City Road,a couple of miles West of Whitechapel , London,
in the Autumn of 1897.he "marries" Bessie Taylor lives at The Prince of Wales for a few months then

in August 1898 move to Bishops Stortford to The Grapes Public House

until May 1899,then back to London to the Monument public house ,Southwark ,where Bessie was murdered by Chapman-she died on February 13 1900.
He then stayed at The Monument ALONE until he appoints 18 year old Maud Marsh as a barmaid there in August 1901.He "marries" her in September 1901 .

They move to The Crown Public House Southwark after Chapman had tried to burn down "THe Monument" for its Insurance money .Maud Marsh is murdered by poison in October 1902.


Those are his addresses----compiled especially for you,Sam-------and you can see here that the only slot that can have existed for the Cranbrook St address is PRIOR to West India Dock Road.And by the way and most importantly here Cranbrook St is almost EXACTLY ONE MILE FROM WEST INDIA DOCK ROAD,----and a mile and a quarter from where he would have docked on arrival[not 4 miles as suggested].The most logical understanding of this information is that after he had found an initial lodging house,he looked round for work and found it with the Radins-----and then moved in with them.

I hope this helps to situate him better.

Sam,
I have brought this timeline up again for you to look at more closely.Perhaps it will be easier for you to just show me on it where the gaps exist and I will fill them in tomorrow.

[Natalie Severn]

Sam,
Are you being serious here?
Either you cant work maps or you are deliberately pretending not to be able to measure the distance between Cranbrook St .and docklands.
Cranbrook Street is barely ONE MILE from the docks!A twenty minute walk at most.


Moreover, instead of making sweeping statements about "huge gaps" can you just point out where exactly these " gaps" exist for you and I will point you to the page in the Adam"s book where you will be able to trace his movements and so fill in these gaps ......as I tried to explain above.
Once you piece together the various witness testimonies and view them alongside one another you can easily work out where he was living at any one time.

[Sam Flynn]

Those are his addresses----compiled especially for you,Sam

Thank you, Nats.

and you can see here that the only slot that can have existed for the Cranbrook St address is PRIOR to West India Dock Road.

Not at all - there are HUGE gaps in the witness testimony in the 1890s, comprising months (if not years) on end, where we don't know where he lived.

Again, what's more likely - that he emigrated to London and headed inland for some 4 miles to a largely non-immigrant area, or that he stayed near the Docks to find accommodation and employment with people who spoke his mother tongue?

[Natalie Severn]

-I forgot to mention that Mary Spink died on Christmas Day 1897 in The Prince Albert Public House,off City Road after a long illness which was caused by being poisoned by Chapman.Chapman moved Bessie Taylor into the pub shortly afterwards.

[Natalie Severn]

For pity's sake, Nats! Cranbrook Street was - and is - four miles from the Docks where Severin would have disembarked. What's more likely: that he headed immediately inland to a predominantly immigrant-free neighbourhood, or that he'd have stayed close to the Docks with a Polish-speaking family who could offer him work and lodgings?

This is getting very, very silly.

THe evidence is NOT pointing that way at all Sam
I have been right through every address and matched it with what people have said under oath in court testimony or to the police.
As Klosowski he stays with Mr and Mrs Radin as an "assistant " at their barber shop in 70 West India Dock Road for five months most likely in the early part of 1888.
Then he is seen by Levisohn in 1888 working as an assistant barber in Whitechapel High Street/George Yard.
Before the end of the year 1888 his address is being entered in the Post Office Directory of 1889 as being 126 Cable Street,
then we are told he moves to Greenfield Street in 1890
then >2 Teaksbury Buildings--here up to census returns of early April 1891.

He sails to New York/New Jersey Spring/early Summer 1891 to June 1892
America with Lucy.

Returns June or early July 1892 to Scarborough Street [just to the West of Leman Street].

He then moved five miles North to Tottenham working in Haddin"s Barbers Shop in West Green Road,
then renting his own premises via William Lenion Bray in 518 High Road Tottenham for several months.
He moved again, albeit very briefly ,in 1895 to another shop he opened opposite Bruce Grove Station,Tottenham where both Levisohn and Annie Chapman saw him there.

This is the very last time he calls himself Severin Klosowski-Jan 1895.

This was when his business failed,his partner Annie Chapman had been ousted by the reappearance of Lucy Baderski/Mrs Klosowski who had stayed there as a "threesome" with Severin and Annie Chapman,who was by then pregnant and moved out and left him with his ex and his failing business .
But Lucy and he soon split up after Stanislaus Rauch,saw them last together-in City Road,a little South West of Tottenham ,which can only have been after these failed ventures with Barbers Shops in Tottenham,because we next see him taking up a position

in Leytonstone as GEORGE CHAPMAN where he works and lives at William Wenzel"s ,who has a barbers shop
in 1895 in Church Lane, Leytonstone.After a few months----we are still in 1895,he meets Mary Isabella Spink,said by some to be of "intemperate habits" and he moves from his digs at Church Lane to her digs at Forest Road Leyton, where he is caught kissing her and cuddling her on the stairway and is forced into a [bogus] marriage with her in October 1895.
He is in Hastings with soon after 1896 where ,still as Mr and Mrs Chapman,they stay ,

until returning to the Prince of Wales public House off City Road,a couple of miles West of Whitechapel , London,
in the Autumn of 1897.he "marries" Bessie Taylor lives at The Prince of Wales for a few months then

in August 1898 move to Bishops Stortford to The Grapes Public House

until May 1899,then back to London to the Monument public house ,Southwark ,where Bessie was murdered by Chapman-she died on February 13 1900.
He then stayed at The Monument ALONE until he appoints 18 year old Maud Marsh as a barmaid there in August 1901.He "marries" her in September 1901 .

They move to The Crown Public House Southwark after Chapman had tried to burn down "THe Monument" for its Insurance money .Maud Marsh is murdered by poison in October 1902.


Those are his addresses----compiled especially for you,Sam-------and you can see here that the only slot that can have existed for the Cranbrook St address is PRIOR to West India Dock Road.And by the way and most importantly here Cranbrook St is almost EXACTLY ONE MILE FROM WEST INDIA DOCK ROAD,----and a mile and a quarter from where he would have docked on arrival[not 4 miles as suggested].The most logical understanding of this information is that after he had found an initial lodging house,he looked round for work and found it with the Radins-----and then moved in with them.

I hope this helps to situate him better.

[Sam Flynn]

For pity's sake, Nats! Cranbrook Street was - and is - four miles from the Docks where Severin would have disembarked. What's more likely: that he headed immediately inland to a predominantly immigrant-free neighbourhood, or that he'd have stayed close to the Docks with a Polish-speaking family who could offer him work and lodgings?

This is getting very, very silly.

[Natalie Severn]

Having now drawn up a complete list of all his addresses,with details of witnesses referring to seeing him at them I am more and more convinced that 54 Cranbrook Street was in fact his very FIRST address in the UK,possibly dating back to soon after his last papers found from in Poland dated end of February 1887.So probably dating back to the March or April of that year[ 1887].
In his little book, written in Polish, entitled " 500 Prescriptions for Diseases and Complaints",he has written ,at the front, S.Klosowski. This was found in THe Crown in 1902 by Inspector Godley.But by this time he was known as George Chapman .
I dont believe he would have written his name like this after January 1895,which is the last time he is known as having used the name Klosowski.
I have all his addresses and their dates up to and including October 1895 by which time he is known to William Wenzel,of 7 Church Lane ,Leytonstone as "George Chapman" who had come from Tottenham,where his barber business at Bruce Grove Railway Station ,"hadnt done very well".So I now have all his addresses except this Cranbrook St one,which suggests he wrote his name and new address in his Polish Book,in this gap ie after arriving from Poland and starting work in Mrs Radin"s barber shop in West India Dock Road.

[Sam Flynn]

Whatever Wolf Levisohn said has absolutely no bearing on the logic of what I put forward, Nats - in fact, it doesn't contradict it in any way, for where was Klosowski during the years after 1890 where Levisohn lost sight of him, and the "dark ages" between his documented relationships? (I bet you a pound to a penny that part of the answer is "Cranbrook Street".)

Inasmuch as Levisohn's testimony IS relevant, did he not say that Klosowski was able to speak a little English in the 1890s, before which he spoke Polish and Yiddish?

Cranbrook Street was predominantly English, and four miles away from the Docks. There is no way that a newly-landed Polish-speaking immigrant was going to head there as soon as he was off the ship. On the contrary, it makes eminent sense that he'd make a bee-line for lodgings near the Docks, where he could understand his fellow-lodgers and maximise his chances of finding work. Enter Abraham Radin.

[Natalie Severn]

I don't - for the reasons I've already given. Here's another one:

He seems to have worked his way gradually north, starting at the docks (where one might expect an immigrant to start), thence to Cable Street, Whitechapel High Street, and on to Greenfield Street. Cranbrook Street is well north of the docks.

If I were to hazard a guess at a date for his tenure in Cranbrook Street, I'd put it at around 1893/94, when he might have picked up enough English to survive in a predominantly non-immigrant neighbourhood.

Good reasoning Sam but it isnt tallying with the timeline of addresses I have been able to work out so far.

Its pretty clear from Wolff Levisohn"s testimony ,that he was in Whitechapel High Street first in 1888 on the corner of George Yard working there first as an "assistant hairdresser" ---THEN he became proprietor of a barber shop in Cable Street.This is the sequence Levisohn states.It is after these events that he also became proprietor of the Whitechapel High Street/George Yard Barber Shop.

[Sam Flynn]

This makes me think he stayed there BEFORE he stayed with Mrs Radin at 70 West India Dock Road.

I don't - for the reasons I've already given. Here's another one:

He seems to have worked his way gradually north, starting at the docks (where one might expect an immigrant to start), thence to Cable Street, Whitechapel High Street, and on to Greenfield Street. Cranbrook Street is well north of the docks.

If I were to hazard a guess at a date for his tenure in Cranbrook Street, I'd put it at around 1893/94, when he might have picked up enough English to survive in a predominantly non-immigrant neighbourhood.

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Sam,
My own reasoning rests a]on my own experiences and b on the addresses referred to in the testimony of witnesses throughout his trial.
When I returned from living in Canada [many years ago] I wrote my address in a large dictionary I had acquired and a few other books I owned then.I moved several times afterwards but didnt change the address in them again.
In The Trial of George Chapman,his London addresses are noted pretty much throughout as witnesses appear in the box.They are given by Mrs Radin,1888 ,Mr Baderski,1889 Wolf Levisohn,1888 and others afterwards,the address of the lodging house where he got into trouble for kissing Mrs Spink on the landing 1895, addresses follow for his short time in Hastings ,then for his return to The Prince of Wales Pub in City Road and The Monument and The Crown in Southwark in 1897/8/9-1902.
The only address that seems to be missing is

54 Cranbrook Street, Mile End.

This makes me think he stayed there BEFORE he stayed with Mrs Radin at 70 West India Dock Road,the earliest address given out at the trial.So from the time of his stay with the Radins ,probably in early 1888, up to 1903,we can trace his addresses ------BUT --- 54 Cranbrook Street doesnt figure!So it looks to me like this was his first address.

[Sam Flynn]

Carried over from "Change of MO" thread

Importantly too,there seems to have been an even earlier address than Mrs Radin"s at 70 West India Dock Road, it being 54 Cranbrook Street

Unfortunately, there's no suggestion this was an earlier address, Nats - in fact, it seems rather unlikely. As I mentioned above, census searches show that Cranbrook Street had a significantly "British" population, and would hardly have been the first port of call for an immigrant Pole. It's also about 4 miles north of the docks.

For info, here's a piccy of Cranbrook Street, taken I know not when - but well after Severin's time, no doubt:

[Natalie Severn]

Sam,
Thanks a lot for posting this information.I am making enquiries about the address currently.
Cheers
Norma
xx

[Sam Flynn]

Cranbrook Street

Thanks Dave.This is interesting but when and where did John Emsley find such information? Also does he say when it was-what year and month?

The "500 Ways to Poison Your Wife" book (only joking!) was actually mentioned in HL Adam's book The Trial of George Chapman, Nats, along with other personal effects found after Klosowski's arrest. No dates are given in connection with the book, nor any context by which one might conclude that Klosowski's sojourn in Cranbrook Street predated his staying with Abraham and Ethel Radin near the Docks.

For information, the area in which Cranbrook Street is located was designated by Booth as inhabited by people exhibiting "poverty and chronic want" (dark blue) in his surveys. Here's the relevant bit of his 1888/89 map:



Unfortunately, Cranbrook Street itself (and many of the others) hadn't been "coloured in" by Booth, but a census survey confirms that it was populated by people in comparatively lowly professions:

1881 Census Return for 54, Cranbrook St, Bethnal Green
George Page (Head), 40, b. Surrey. Packing Case Maker
Mary Page (Wife), 39, b. Shoreditch
Emma (Daur), 13, b. Bethnal Green. Scholar
Harriett (Daur), 7, b. Bethnal Green. Scholar
Lizzie (Daur), 2, b. Bethnal Green
Jane (Daur), 4, b. Bethnal Green
John Mignol (Lodger), 22, b. Bethnal Green. Boot Maker
Ellen Mignol (Wife), 22, b. Bethnal Green. Boot Fitter
Ellen (Daur), 2, b. Bethnal Green
Mary (Mother [of lodger], 52, b. Bethnal Green. Laundress
Joseph Mignol (Boarder), 18, b. Bethnal Green. Boot Maker
Ellen Brown (Lodger), 34, b. Haggerston. Fancy Trimmings Hand
Ellen Brown (Daur), 15, b. Bethnal Green. Fancy Trimmings Hand
George Brown (Son), 12, b. Bethnal Green. Scholar

Neighbours - Labourers, Boot makers, Washer-woman, Wheelwright, Grocer, Charwoman, Hawker, Paste-filler, Brush Maker, Sailor. All have English surnames, majority born in Bethnal Green.

1891 Census Return for 54, Cranbrook St, Bethnal Green
William Newman (Head), 40, b. Bethnal Green. Size Maker (glue)
Louisa Newman (Wife), 40, b. Bethnal Green
Albert V (Son), 15, b. Shoreditch. Stamp Perforator
Rose A (Daur), 13, b. St Lukes. Domestic Servant
Jessie F (Daur), 11, b. St Lukes. Scholar
Priscilla B (Daur), 9, b. Bethnal Green
Ernest P (Son), 4, b. Bethnal Green
Alice L (Daur), 4, b. Bethnal Green
Emily M (Daur), 2, b. Bethnal Green
Edith G (Daur), 8 months, b. Bethnal Green

Neighbours - Boot finishers, Shoemakers, Boot Machinists, Needlewoman, Hawkers, Box Makers. All have English surnames, overwhelming majority born in or around Bethnal Green.

Cranbrook Street doesn't seem to have been a particularly "immigrant" area at all, which strongly suggests that it wasn't Severin's first port of call after disembarking in London. Indeed, the more logical place for that would have been his first known address, namely West India Dock Road.

[Sam Flynn]

So we all assume together then ?

The only assumption is that he arrived in London in 1887 - none of the witness testimony in any way supports this.