Something about "George" as in "George St" and George Yard?

[Natalie Severn]

A lot has already been written about why Severin Klosowski chose his new surname of "Chapman-"eg was it because it was the name of his last girlfriend before becoming "George" Chapman-she was a girl who bore the same name as Jack the Ripper"s victim "Annie Chapman" .But why did he choose "George"?
Its now known that several of the East End murder victims of 1888 actually lived at 18 or 19 George Street,off Commercial Street in Spitalfields.
First off we had Emma Smith in April 1888 who had lived at 18 George Street ,a tiny street that ran between Flower and Dean Street and Thrawl Street.
In 1888, Rose Mylett was also living at 18 George Street.Both women did their soliciting in Poplar,close to Dockland.It was where both were last seen alive.
Martha Tabram-August 1888-also lived in George Street,at number 19.Annie Farmer also lived at number 19 George Street and was attacked there on 21 November 1888.
Mary Kelly was another ripper victim who had previously lived in George Street,soon after she moved in with Joseph Barnett.

Famously,Martha Tabram not only lived in a street named "George" Street but was murdered in George Yard just down the road from her lodgings.

And George himself? Well we are told at his 1903 trial that "In 1888 he worked in a Barber shop in the basement of the White Hart public House on Whitechapel High Street -and surprise, surprise, "the pub" is at the corner of " George" Yard

Just some thoughts on why he might have called himself "George".

[lynn cates]

plausible

Hello Natalie. That is altogether plausible. Quite often, an immigrant will choose a name in accordance with the new culture. If immigrant SK had much experience with that name--from streets, etc--what more natural than to adopt it in a subsequent Anglicization?

Well done!

The best.
LC

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Lynn.Yes,it was strange with this particular Georgie Boy that he only adopted the name George after he and Annie Chapman dumped each other.He had tried to run a "menage a trois" with himself,his Polish wife Lucy and Annie but when Lucy found out Annie was pregnant the s hit the proverbial fan and Annie left in a frightful huff.After that things went from bad to worse till he had to accept that Annie couldnt live like that.The end of the story is that when Annie went to try to get some financial help to support her child she is reported to have said "he didnt seem at all interested".Not surprising with a cad like him.
Cheers Lynn,
Norma

[lynn cates]

Hello Natalie. Good for Lucy!

SK was almost doubtless a sociopath. I think he is fruitful material for an abnormal psychology textbook--irrespective of whether he was the ripper.

The best.
LC

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Lynn,
Yes,I agree.And I bet it would have appealed to his warped sense of humour like hanging the American flag upside down in his pubs and performing musical shaves while holding a razor to the throats of his customers ,so to call himself "George" after George Yard could be seen in that vein----where even if he hadnt anything to do with the murder of Martha Tabram, the fact he became a serial killer himself and had worked in George Yard in 1888 may have given him a sense of triumphant "association".And I wouldnt be surprised if he knew some of the inhabitants of George Street too.
Best
Norma

[Sam Flynn]

Well, Georg was - and is - a rather common Polish name. It was also a rather commonplace English name right up till the middle of the last century, and certainly was in Victorian times.

[Sam Flynn]

the fact he became a serial killer himself and had worked in George Yard in 1888

For the umpteenth and final time...

We don't know that, so stop making out it's a fact. It's nothing of the kind.

[Natalie Severn]

For the umpteenth and final time...

We don't know that, so stop making out it's a fact. It's nothing of the kind.

Sam,
What do you mean by this and why are you attacking me with these screaming capitals over it?

For your information, I still have the book,on long loan from the library, entitled," The Trial of George Chapman "by HL Adam -1929 .It contains the VERBATIM transcripts annotated in detail, of George Chapman"s 1903 trial as well as the equally detailed records of his 1902 arrest and subsequent interviews at the Police Station in Southwark.
At both the police station AND in the court where Wolff Levisohn ,a Polish compatriot of Chapman/aka Klosowski ,was UNDER OATH at Chapman"s MURDER TRIAL [ for which Chapman it must be remembered was executed by hanging,Levisohn stated the following:

......"That he had known him SINCE 1888 when Klosowski was working as a barber"s assistant in the basement of the Whitehart public house in Whitechapel High Street-at the corner of "George Yard".


Who are you to dispute ,in 2009, the words of a major witness speaking under oath at Chapman"s trial for murder?What evidence exactly do you possess to the contrary?
If you cant talk to me here in a reasonable way then I will refer it to the admin because I am sick of you making me out to be a liar or something.

What are you so anxious to deny and why?

[Natalie Severn]

Well, Georg was - and is - a rather common Polish name. It was also a rather commonplace English name right up till the middle of the last century, and certainly was in Victorian times.

It wasnt his real name which was Severin.

[m_w_r]

I still have the book,on long loan from the library, entitled," The Trial of George Chapman "by HL Adam -1929 .It contains the VERBATIM transcripts annotated in detail, of George Chapman"s 1903 trial as well as the equally detailed records of his 1902 arrest and subsequent interviews at the Police Station in Southwark.

Hi Norma,

I have an observation to make here about the accuracy of the "VERBATIM transcripts" in the Notable British Trials series.

In Trial of Samuel Herbert Dougal (ed. F. Tennyson Jesse, Edinburgh, 1928), one of the key witnesses at the trial is, apparently, Thomas Henry Gurrin, a handwriting examiner, who testified to the suspicious nature of a raft of letters sent in the name of one Camille Cecile Holland. These, indeed, were forgeries, and the creations of Dougal, who was draining Miss Holland's bank account after having killed her and buried her in a ditch. Other witnesses - arguably less schooled in the discipline than Gurrin, and with obvious axes to grind - saw a greater or lesser number of forgeries amid the dozens of documents submitted in evidence, but Gurrin's contribution was that of the professional, and undoubtedly did much to convince the jury of Dougal's guilt. There was only one problem - Gurrin was never at the trial.

In the NBT edition, Gurrin's evidence is presented as if it was elicited, in the normal way, through examination and cross-examination at the Assizes. In fact, contemporary press reports make it clear that Gurrin never appeared at the trial, and his "evidence" (again, as presented in the NBT edition) is in fact that he gave at the petty sessions at Saffron Walden Police Court. It is possible that a deposition was read out, detailing Gurrin's evidence at the committal hearings, but the newspapers do not make this clear. The interpolation of this entirely separate evidence into the trial "transcript" - done knowingly and carefully, with the defence barrister, who had not represented Dougal at the petty sessions, apparently jousting with Gurrin in cross-examination - illustrates the risk of inaccuracy in the NBT "transcripts". The fact that Jesse mistakes the names of some witnesses in her introduction also suggests that the compilation of the "transcript" and the appendices was not the task of the "editor" of the book - more likely, the bulk of the work was undertaken by a jobbing editor at Hodge's, the publishers. Jesse, whom I greatly admire, was only paid to provide the introduction, and had no "editorial" role in the fuller sense of the word.

Apply these real editorial conditions to Trial of George Chapman, and the idea of a "verbatim" transcript begins to wear a bit thin. Actually, a better place to go for an idea of what might have been said in court would obviously be the surviving documents. Here, however, we see that the judge, whose records these are, believed that Levisohn and Klosowski had met in the Whitechapel Road.



The White Hart, as you know, is on Whitechapel High Street, not Whitechapel Road. This puts the White Hart out of the running ... unless you think that there is some sort of mistake in this record ... and if you do, why can you conceive of such a mistake occurring here, in an original, contemporary document, and not elsewhere, such as a non-contemporary book - or, indeed, in the memories of the fallible humans who provide evidence at trials? In the end, there is a balance of probabilities here, and the balance of probabilities ought to be evidence-driven.

Just food for thought, I hope.

Regards,

Mark

[Natalie Severn]

Thankyou Mark for this valuable handwritten letter.As I am in North Wales at the moment and not in London until Thursday next,I do not have immediate access to the transcripts recorded in Adam"s book.I take your points but I have seen Levisohn"s wording recorded twice in the book,once under the Police interrogation proceedings in 1902 and once-at least,under the March 1903 Murder trial accounts.
In one of these there is specific mention I believe,by not one, but several witnesses who knew him or met him when" he used to work in a barber shop under a public house on the Whitechapel Road."

To clear up the issue of which Whitechapel road they were referring to:

"Whitechapel High Street" was "then" and "still is" sometimes called The Whitechapel Road-----there being no other such named street in Whitechapel. This is a case of common local usage when people refer to the Whitechapel Road rather than Whitechapel High Street.

With regards to the actual "naming of the public house" although I will need sight of the book but I am pretty certain that the White Hart Public House is referred to in it by name.
Moreover Inspector Abberline in a recorded conversation with a journalist from the Pall Mall Gazette of 1903,stated categorically that Chapman had actually " lived /and or worked in George Yard" when Martha Tabram was murdered in 1888 . Inspector Godley ,who arrested Chapman,would appear in his later recorded statements on the case, to confirm Abberline"s understanding of this.
I know that Chapman,aka Klosowski ,lived in Tewksbury Buildings with his wife Lucy.This was just alongside "The White Hart Public House on Whitechapel High Street " and is recorded in the 1891 census.
However, Stanilaus Baderski,Lucy"s brother, specifically refers to meeting him in the year 1890 "in a barber shop UNDERNEATH a pub on the Whitechapel Road" which as far as I can see can ONLY be the Whitehart Pub.
Anyway if you are anxious to disprove this widespread and historical understanding of the case ie about this barber shop under a pub on the Whitechapel Road , then I suggest it is up to you ,via the Post Office Directories of 1888 or some other official address record,to find
this because it was referred to by several witnesses ,not just Wolff Levisohn.

Further to explain why Inspector Abberline, for goodness sake, would have this address in George Yard so fixed in his consciousness as to state ,unequivocally, to a journalist from the Pall Mall Gazette in 1903 that "CHAPMAN WAS THERE "there" being the same George Yard on the "Whitechapel Road " that has the Whitehart Public House on its corner and had a barber shop underneath it in 1888 ?


Thankyou again for posting this information for us,

Best wishes

Norma

[Natalie Severn]

The following is from Mark"s post on the previous page to this:

", however, we see that the judge, whose records these are, believed that Levisohn and Klosowski had met in the Whitechapel Road.



The White Hart, as you know, is on Whitechapel High Street, not Whitechapel Road. This puts the White Hart out of the running ... unless you think that there is some sort of mistake in this record ... and if you do, why can you conceive of such a mistake occurring here, in an original, contemporary document, and not elsewhere, such as a non-contemporary book - or, indeed, in the memories of the fallible humans who provide evidence at trials? In the end, there is a balance of probabilities here, and the balance of probabilities ought to be evidence-driven."[/QUOTE]
[end of quote]


Dear Mark,
I cannot accept that any other pub than the ""Whitehart Public House on "Whitechapel High Street " was meant by Wolff Levisohn when he stated the following when he was called as a major witness at the trial of George Chapman/ aka Klosowski in 1903:

from 201 of Adam"s book, "The Trial of George Chapman"---Court proceedings:

Wolff Levisohn witness....

"I met the accused in a shop under the WHITEHART PUBLIC HOUSE,

89, HIGH STREET,WHITECHAPEL in 1888

Regards

[Sam Flynn]

[ATTACH]7176[/ATTACH]

In the end, there is a balance of probabilities here, and the balance of probabilities ought to be evidence-driven.

Many thanks for that, Mark. Another interesting point - evidentially speaking - is that we have, from HL Adam and other sources, heard that Levisohn knew Klosowski as "Ludwig Zagowski". However, the judge wrote "Ludovic GAVOTSKY", which is rather different from "Zagowski", I think. Mind you, the judge also wrote that Levisohn stated Klosowski was based at a hospital in a suburb of Moscow, when he clearly meant Warsaw.

Hard to know what to believe, really...

[Natalie Severn]

Oh -so its the judge thats the buffoon now is it Sam? Makes a change from Dr Phillips and Wolff Levisohn at least.
Talk about rewriting the scripts!

[m_w_r]

"Whitechapel High Street" was "then" and "still is" sometimes called The Whitechapel Road-----there being no other such named street in Whitechapel. This is a case of common local usage when people refer to the Whitechapel Road rather than Whitechapel High Street.

Hi Norma,

Just to clear this matter up - I live in Whitechapel, and I know where Whitechapel High Street is, and I know where Whitechapel Road is, and they are two different (albeit joined) roads. All I see in the Klosowski case notes is a confusion on (presumably, and let's be generous) the judge's part, and not anything more sinister. I have no doubt that the White Hart referred to is the extant public house on the corner of what is now Gunthorpe Street, either. But it goes to show that, as I know from grim experience, humans make mistakes. If old Mr Justice Grantham can do it - for we have supposed that it was he - I don't see why old Wolfie Levisohn's immune. In fact, one might, if one were being historically responsible, take the view that Levisohn is rather isolated in his testimony, at least in the context of the dovetailing evidence provided by George Sherman, Stanislaus Baderski and Stanislava Rauch. They don't firmly place Klosowski in the White Hart, let alone George Yard, in 1888, leaving Levisohn somewhat as a lone voice.

I'm pushed for time at the moment, but I'd like to be able to come back with something a bit fuller on this in the near future.

Regards,

Mark