Did Klosowski practise as an abortionist in Hastings??

[Natalie Severn]

Tonight I attended a talk on a book about the Victorian artists ,"The Pre-Raphaelites"and their muses.The author ,referring to Lizzie Siddal in particular, who was once their favourite model ,said Lizzie made several mysterious and rather lengthy visits to Hastings in her youth .Having researched Lizzie Siddal extensively, the author came to the conclusion that as Hastings was known in Victorian times as the place to go to get an abortion"Lizzie had quite likely gone there to obtain an abortion.
Klosowski had trained as a "barber surgeon" in Poland but when he came to England he was only allowed to practice as a barber.However,it was known that in Victorian times , some barbers would still practise aspects of "surgery",most often healing wounds of one kind or another which was why they had and some still do have, a barber"s red and white pole outside their shops,signifying a bandage .Amongst these would be found illegal abortionists,and it is interesting to note that very early on in Klosowski"s murder trial of 1903,the witness Wolff Levisohn,a fellow Pole and also a barber surgeon or "feldscher" by training,claimed Klosowski had told him during the period between 1888 and 1890 that previously he had worked at the Praga Hospital in Warsaw as an assistant surgeon.Levisohn reported s,"I talked to the accused about medicine,[some time between 1888 and 1890] and he asked me if I could get him a certain medicine,but I said No,I did not want to get twelve years."

During Victorian times abortions were often obtained through procuring illegal substances-we have just such a case happening when another ripper suspect Francis Tumblety was arrested in 1857 in Montreal, Canada, for selling a local prostitute a bottle of pills and a liquid that he allegedly said would abort her pregnancy.
On his arrest Klosowski was found to have kept a little book in Polish which contained "500 Prescriptions for Diseases and Complaints"- and part of his Polish medical training had been in the science needed to become an apothecary.
He had lived in Hastings for about a year in 1897 ,and had tried to strike up an affair with a local girl ,unbeknown to his wife.Around the same time he had called into a chemist shop there
and bought some poison to kill his wife,just before they returned to London,where she died.

[Debra A]

Hi Norma,

Did Lizzie marry the artist Rossetti?

Debs

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Debs,
She did indeed!
Norma
x

[Natalie Severn]

Another bit of information about Klosowski"s stay in Hastings,is from witness [at his murder trial],Mrs Harriet Greenaway.She said that Mary Spink,the wife he gave poison to while in Hastings,had shown her Klosowski aka Chapman"s "black bag".She said Mrs Chapman [aka Mary Spink] had shown it to her "secretly" but she did not see what was in it.Clearly Mary Spink thought the bag to have a special significance and she may well have known what was in it.

[adamkle]

On his arrest Klosowski was found to have kept a little book in Polish which contained "500 Prescriptions for Diseases and Complaints"

Have you ever seen the original Polish title of this book? I would try to find it and check what's inside...

[Natalie Severn]

Have you ever seen the original Polish title of this book? I would try to find it and check what's inside...

Hi Adam,
No I havent seen the original Polish title but at Chapman/Klosowski"s murder trial,a Joseph Betrikowski of Kennington Park Road was provided to translate.Of the little book he stated that the name "S.Klosowski" was written on the back and front .On the front also ,under his name was written 54 Cranbrook Street,Green Street,which is an address about a mile North of West India Docks . Chapman probably arrived from Poland in the uk some time in 1887.
When asked what the "prescriptions" were for,Betrikowski said he had translated them and they were for 500 household prescriptions.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Adam,
No I havent seen the original Polish title but at Chapman/Klosowski"s murder trial,a Joseph Betrikowski of Kennington Park Road was provided to translate.Of the little book he stated that the name "S.Klosowski" was written on the back and front .On the front also ,under his name was written 54 Cranbrook Street,Green Street,which is an address about a mile North of West India Docks .

...and in a rather "immigrant-free" part of the East End.

Chapman probably arrived from Poland in the uk some time in 1887.

There's no "probably" about it, Nats, and the official view at the time was that he'd arrived in 1888 - which tallies with the testimony of most of the witnesses who knew, and lived with, Klosowski.

[Natalie Severn]

...and in a rather "immigrant-free" part of the East
End.

I dont understand the point you are making here Sam.


There's no "probably" about it, Nats, and the official view at the time was that he'd arrived in 1888 - which tallies with the testimony of most of the witnesses who knew, and lived with, Klosowski.

Mrs Radin is the ONLY person who was at his trial to give evidence as well as being in the UK and knowing Chapman---as Klosowski,"ABOUT" 15 years before".Nobody else,none of the Baderski relatives , began to arrive in the UK until Summer 1889 so could not have given evidence for or against his time of arrival here.
So the evidence on which the "suggestion" was based---and a "suggestion" is all it amounts to, Sam, since there is nobody else to corroborate it ,that is apart from Wolff Levisohn who himself did not meet Klosowski until 1888 so wouldnt have known his exact date of arrival.But again he and Mrs Radin are the only ones who knew him in 1888 and gave evidence at his trial.

[Sam Flynn]

Mrs Radin is the ONLY person who was at his trial to give evidence as well as being in the UK and knowing Chapman.

Stanislaus Baderski, Klosowski's brother-in-law, also testified, as did Mrs Stanislaus Rauch (nee Baderska), Klosowski's sister-in-law. The latter arrived in England in 1890, and reports seeing Klosowski for the first time in a pub that was almost certainly the White Hart. Stanislaus Baderski's testimony points to Klosowski's time-table being later than Levisohn's. We also have the testimony of George Sterman (or Schumann - can't remember offhand) who actually worked with Klosowski, and his timeline, too, militates against Levisohn's story... or HL Adam's telling of it.

Put your faith in Wolf Levisohn if you must, Nats, but he's pretty much on his own. Furthermore, it's his word against those of four others who had far more contact with Klosowski than our melodramatic travelling hair-appliance salesman ever did.

[Natalie Severn]

Oh Sam, you really are scratching about like mad at the moment.

1] If Stanislaus wasnt even in the country in 1888 how could he possibly have known when Klosowski/Chapman started working in the WHITE HART pub?

2]Wolff Levisohn states after stating he met him working in the basement of the White Hart in 1888:

Wolff Levisohn [under oath at the murder trial]:

.........UNTIL 1889 the accused was an assistant to a hairdresser at this shop [ie the barber shop in the basement of the White Hart].AFTER 1889 he became the proprietor of the shop.
This actually tallies with how the Baderski"s remember seeing him there.viz
Mrs Stanislaus Rauch[previously Baderski]:I Only came over about 13 years ago [ie in about 1890]At that time my sister Lucy was married.Her married name was Lucy Klosowski.

I MET HER HUSBAND IN A PUBLIC HOUSE IN WHITECHAPEL ROAD.....

[Sam Flynn]

Oh Sam, you really are scratching about like mad at the moment.

I don't do that sort of thing.

1] If Stanislaus wasnt even in the country in 1888 how could he possibly have known when Klosowski/Chapman started working in the WHITE HART pub?

Since when wasn't Stanislaus Baderski not in the country in 1888? He was Lucie Baderski's brother, and it was she whom Klosowski married in 1889 - and Stanislaus Baderski knew him prior to that. It was his (and Lucie's) sister, "Mrs Stanislaus Rauch", who arrived later, in 1890, when she met Klosowski at the White Hart.

Wolff Levisohn [under oath at the murder trial]

What you should have written was:

Wolff Levisohn [who was a travelling salesman with intermittent contact with Klosowski, unlike his everyday workmates and in-laws]


"Think on", as they say up north.

[Natalie Severn]

re:Stanislaus Baderski

Think on yourself .......
from the Trial transcripts of 1903

Stanislaus Baderski:a witness for the prosecution on 16th March 1903

.....I come from Poland,and I have known the accused for THIRTEEN YEARS......


His statement here is uneqivocal----.He has only KNOWN Chapman for 13 years ie since 1890 so I repeat he could not have KNOWN ,nor did he ever claim to know ,where Chapman was living in 1888.

[protohistorian]

It is not inconceivable, on page 69 of The Trial of George Chapman , Adam relates the following coming in the testimony William Henry Davidson, " I think he did have some other poisons, but they would not come under schedule I." Without knowing what these other poisons are, we could assume reasonably that they would be not be capable of causing death in a human adult, but very easily capable of chemically terminating a pregnancy. Respectfully Dave

[Natalie Severn]

That is what I believe Klosowski was about.It cant be proved,but its quite likely to have been the case since some barber/surgeon shops in London were known to operate sidelines such as clinics where women went to get help to procure a "miscarriage".

Best
Norma