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cgp100
20th July 2007, 11:04 PM
A further interesting discovery about Aaron's elder brother, Isaac Abrahams, is that as well as running a lucrative tailoring business in the East End of London, he and his wife ran a "Jewish Boarding House" in the seaside resort of Ramsgate. Ramsgate was popular with the Jewish community at the time, owing to the influence of the Jewish city magnate Sir Moses Montefiore, whose country residence had been there.
To be precise, Isaac and Bertha had two boarding houses in succession, the first at 11 York Terrace, West Cliff (from at least 1899, according to the Ramsgate and St Lawrence Directory 1899, online at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb...._directory.htm) (http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb....ectory.htm%29), and later, from 1905, at 25 Albion Place.
The change of address was advertised in the Jewish Chronicle, and the announcement also provides a glimpse of life in the boarding house:
NOTICE OF REMOVAL
[Hebrew] VICTORIA BOARDING HOUSE. [Hebrew]
25, ALBION PLACE, RAMSGATE.
Mrs. ABRAHAMS, late of 11, York Terrace,
has REMOVED to above address, which
house has splendid view of Royal Pavilion
and sea; large dining room, drawing (piano),
and lofty bedrooms; baths, hot and cold; terms
moderate; strictly orthodox.
(Jewish Chronicle, Advertisement, 9 June 1905)
The boarding house was a substantial four-story building in a Georgian terrace, as can be seen from this postcard -
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5...ostcard_78.jpg -
(linked from http://oldramsgate.blogspot.com/2006/07/east-cliff.html, which dates it to about 1920). The building, then known as "Victoria House", can be seen directly above "RAMSGATE" in the caption. The house can be seen in another view of Albion Place from the early 1800s, available here -
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/tol/...the_early_1800 _s.htm
It seems likely that Isaac and Bertha invested some of the profits of the tailoring business, which must have been substantial, in acquiring the boarding houses in Ramsgate (I don't know yet whether they owned the properties or rented them). It's interesting that the advertisements in the Jewish Chronicle (though not the Ramsgate directories) always refer to Mrs Abrahams as the proprietor. If Bertha did run the business herself, it may explain why it was necessary for Isaac to obtain letters of administration after her death.
Isaac and Bertha are commemorated by a monument in Plashet Cemetery. The inscriptions read as follows:
Bertha Abrahams (plot M 10 12; buried 24 November 1914)
Isaac Abrahams (plot M 10 13; buried 4 July 1914)
[Hebrew on both sides of monument]
[Front]
In Loving Memory / OF / BERTHA / BELOVED WIFE OF / ISAAC ABRAHAMS / WHO DIED NOVR 22ND 1914 / IN HER 65TH YEAR /
DEEPLY MOURNED BY HER / SORROWING HUSBAND CHILDREN / GRANDCHILDREN BROTHER / RELATIVES & FRIENDS /
Also of / ISAAC ABRAHAMS / BELOVED HUSBAND OF THE ABOVE / WHO DIED 1ST JULY 1920 / AGED 69 YEARS /
DEEPLY MOURNED BY / HIS SORROWING CHILDREN / GRANDCHILDREN SISTERS / RELATIVES AND FRIENDS /
THEY WERE LOVING AND DEVOTED / IN THEIR LIFETIME AND IN DEATH THEY / ARE NOT DIVIDED /
May their dear souls rest / in Peace
[Bottom right]
HARRIS & SON LTD
[Book on left]
[IN] / TOKE[N] / [O]F LOVE / TO DEAR / MOTHER / FROM HER / SORROWING / CHILDREN /
MARK, / ESTHER, / BOB, / AND RAY. / ALSO / HER / GRANDCHILDREN
Their deaths were also announced, like those of most of Aaron's siblings and siblings-in-law - though unfortunately not like that of Aaron himself - in the Jewish Chronicle:
Abrahams. - On the 22nd of November 1914, Bertha, age
65, the dearly beloved wife of Isaac, 171, Cable-street, E.,
and 25 Albion-place, Ramsgate; and mother
of Mark, of "Rising Sun," 87, Sidney-street, E.;
Esther, of Greenwich; Bob, of 15, Museum-chambers,
Bury-street, W.C.; and Ray, of "Rising Sun", 87, Sidney-street, E.
Deeply mourned by her relatives and friends. May her
dear soul rest in peace. Shiva at "Rising Sun," 87,
Sidney-street, E.
(Jewish Chronicle, Deaths, Nov 27, 1914)
Abrahams. - On Thursday, the 1st of July, Isaac
Abrahams, aged 69, late of Ramsgate, dearly beloved
father of Mark Abrahams, "The Dolphin," 97-99,
Whitechapel-road, E. 1; Esther, of 205, Trafalgar-road,
East Greenwich; Bob, of 92 [or 22?], Charing Cross-road, W.;
Roy [sic], of "The Rising Sun," Sydney-street, E.; also brother Woolf
and sisters Helen Singer, Matilda Cohen, and Bertha
Held. Gone but never forgotten. American papers please
copy.
(Jewish Chronicle, Deaths, July 9, 1920)
Chris Phillips
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cgp100
20th July 2007, 11:11 PM
The information posted above contains a major surprise:
(1) According to the announcement of his death in the Jewish Chronicle, Aaron's elder brother Isaac was survived (in 1920) by a brother named Woolf and
(2) according to both her gravestone and the announcement in the Jewish Chronicle, Aaron's sister Matilda was survived (in 1939) by a brother.
It has been assumed for some time that Woolf Abrahams (d. 1944), the husband of Betsy, was a brother-in-law of Aaron Kozminski.
As far as I know the sum total of the evidence for this assumption is:
(1) he is described in records from 1890-1 as Aaron's "brother" (on one occasion being named as Woolf Kozminski) and
(2) the maiden name of his wife Betsy, according to the birth certificate of their daughter Matilda, was Kosminski (as published by Mark King, in Ripperana no. 11, 1995).
We now know that Aaron's elder brother Isaac, from soon after his arrival in England c. 1871, and Aaron's mother Golda were known by the surname Abrahams.
It seems to me that the almost inescapable conclusion from this evidence is that Woolf Abrahams was not, as has been hitherto assumed, the brother-in-law of Aaron Kozminski, but his brother, and that his wife Betsy was probably a cousin of his - though in any case Kozminski is not an uncommon name in the neighbourhood of Klodawa and Kolo from which these families originated.
This would be consistent with all the evidence I'm aware of, and would also explain one curious feature of Betsy's gravestone and death announcement - that only a single brother is mentioned, whereas we now know that if she had been Aaron's brother, she would have been survived by at least three brothers: Isaac, Aaron and Woolf.
It's clear that the records Rob obtained from Poland do not include all the siblings of Aaron - whether because they were not all registered or whether because they were missed by the person extracting them is unclear.
I would tentatively reconstruct the family as follows (with the children who are missing from the Polish records indicated in [...]):
Pessa, b. 1845, d. bef. 1920
Hinde, b. 1848 ?= Helen, m. ... Singer
Iciek, b. 1851 = Isaac, m. Bertha Cohen
[Matilda, b. c. 1855 = Morris Lubnowski Cohen]
Blimbe, b. 1857 ?= Bertha, m. ... Held
[Woolf, b. c. 1861 = Betsy Kozminski]
Aaron, b. 1865
On this view, the three children referred to in the death record of their father Abram (1874) would be the three who were still unmarried and living at home: Blimbe/Bertha, Woolf and Aaron. Rob is trying to get further clarification from the Polish records.
If Woolf Abrahams was really Aaron's brother, there are obviously some implications concerning the Whitechapel Murders. The most obvious ones concern the Swanson Marginalia, which describe his surveillance at his brother's house in Whitechapel. Only a few months ago, it wasn't thought that Aaron had any brothers - or at least any brothers living in London at or near the time of the murders. Then it was discovered that Isaac Abrahams was his brother, and now it seems that Woolf Abrahams was his brother too.
In a sense, this brings us full circle. It is known that Aaron was living with his brother Woolf up until July 1890. He had come to England with Woolf, and with his sister Matilda and her husband, in 1881. He was much closer in age to Woolf than to Isaac, who was 13-14 years his senior. On the whole it seems likely that the brother referred to by Swanson was Woolf. And in that case, we still don't have a clue where Woolf was living at the time of the murders, or at any time up to May 1890.
Chris Phillips
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robert
20th July 2007, 11:20 PM
Chris, congratulations to you and Rob on this great research, in very difficult genealogical territory.
Robert
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robert
20th July 2007, 11:32 PM
This was the boarding house a few years later (barring re-numbering).
MAY 5th 1934
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cgp100
20th July 2007, 10:52 PM
As Rob House and I have made quite a bit more progress in our ongoing research into Aaron Kozminski's family, we thought it was time to provide an update.
First, the deaths of Woolf Abrahams, assumed to be Aaron's brother-in-law, and his wife Betsy were traced a few months ago. They are both buried at Plashet Cemetery in East London, and their gravestones are enclosed by a common kerbstone together with that of Aaron's mother Golda, who died the same day as Betsy.
The monumental inscriptions are as follows:
Betsy Abrahams (plot N 6 16; buried 23 August 1912)
[Hebrew] / In Loving Memory of / BETSY, / BELOVED WIFE OF / WOOLF ABRAHAMS, / WHO DIED 21ST AUGUST 1912 / AGED 51 YEARS. / DEEPLY MOURNED / BY HER HUSBAND, CHILDREN, / BROTHER, SISTERS, RELATIVES AND FRIENDS. / A LOVING WIFE AND MOTHER DEAR / BELOVED BY ALL LIES BURIED HERE / IN LOVE SHE LIVED IN PEACE SHE DIED / HER LIFE WAS CRAVED BUT GOD DENIED. / May her dear soul rest in peace.
In / TOKEN / OF LOVE / FROM / HER DEAR / CHILDREN / BEC[...] / MIL[...] / TILL[...] / ETTIE / JOE / SOLLY / HARRY / [...] SON IN LAW / MORRIS
[B]Woolf Abrahams (plot N 6 17; buried 5 January 1944)
[Hebrew] / In Loving Memory of / WOOLF ABRAHAMS, / WHO DIED 2ND JANUARY 1944, / AGED 82 YEARS. / MOURNED BY HIS SONS, DAUGHTERS, / SONS-IN-LAW, DAUGHTER-IN-LAW, / GRANDCHILDREN, / RELATIVES AND FRIENDS. / May his soul rest in peace.
Golda Abrahams (plot N 6 18; buried 26 August 1912)
[Hebrew] / In Loving Memory of / GOLDA, / WIDOW OF THE LATE / ABRAHAM JOSEPH ABRAHAMS, / WHO DIED 21ST AUGUST 1912, / IN HER 101ST YEAR. / DEEPLY MOURNED / BY HER CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN, /
RELATIVES AND FRIENDS. / May her soul rest in peace.
The deaths of Golda and Betsy were also announced in the Jewish Chronicle, as follows:
Abrahams.- On the 21st of August, at 171 Cable-street, E.,
Golda Abrahams, aged 97, mother of Isaac Abrahams.
Deeply mourned by her sons, daughters, grandchildren
and great-grandchildren. May her soul rest in peace.
(Jewish Chronicle, Deaths, Friday Aug 30, 1912)
(Note that, according to her death certificate, Golda actually died at Tooting Bec Asylum. No doubt it was more acceptable to give the address of her son Isaac in the announcement of her death.)
Abrahams. - On the 21st of August (8th Ellul), after a
long and painful illness, Betsy, beloved wife of Woolf
Abrahams, of 256 Old Ford-road. Deeply mourned by her
broken hearted husband, children, brother, sisters,
and intended son-in-law. God rest her soul in peace.
Amen.
(Jewish Chronicle, Deaths, August 23 1912)
Unfortunately there is no announcement for the death of Woolf Abrahams. But the details from his death certificate are as follows:
No: 376
Died: Second January 1944 105 Nightingale Lane
Name: Woolf Abrahams
Sex: Male
Age: 82 Years
Occupation: formerly a Ladies Tailor (journeyman)
Cause of death: I.a. Cardiovascular degeneration Certified by H. Carlile Sturdy M. D.
Informant: A. Segar present at death 105 Nightingale Lane. S.W.12.
Registered: Third January 1944
Registrar: Hilda C. Smith Registrar
[Registered at Wandsworth, sub-district Balham; index reference 1d 539]
105 Nightingale Lane, S.W.12 was (and still is) a charitable Jewish Old People's Home, formerly known as the Home for Aged Jews.
Note that although Woolf appeared as a master tailor (i.e. self-employed) in the 1891 and 1901, he evidently ended his working career as a journeyman (i.e. an employee).
Chris Phillips
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cgp100
20th July 2007, 10:59 PM
We have also now traced the deaths of Aaron's sister Matilda and her husband Morris Lubnowski Cohen.
I saw their gravestones in Plashet Cemetery a few months ago, but for several reasons it appeared doubtful that they were the right couple. However, those doubts were dispelled by the announcements of their deaths in the Jewish Chronicle.
The monumental inscriptions are as follows:
Morris Cohen (plot P 6 29; buried 2 June 1918)
[Hebrew] / IN LOVING MEMORY / OF / MORRIS / BELOVED HUSBAND OF / MATILDA COHEN / WHO DIED 30TH MAY 1918 / 19TH SIVAN 5678 / AGED 61 / MOURNED BY HIS WIFE / CHILDREN, / GRANDCHILDREN / BROTHER, SISTER, / RELATIVES AND FRIENDS / [Hebrew]
Matilda Cohen (plot P 6 30; buried 21 March 1939)
[Hebrew] / IN LOVING MEMORY / OF / MATILDA / BELOVED WIFE OF THE LATE / MORRIS COHEN / WHO DIED 19TH MARCH 1939 / 29TH ADAR 5699 / AGED 84 / MOURNED BY HER CHILDREN / GRANDCHILDREN, BROTHER, / RELATIVES AND FRIENDS / [Hebrew]
The announcements in the Jewish Chronicle are as follows:
COHEN [LUBNOWSKI].- On the 30th of May, Morris Cohen, the second son of Leah and the late Joseph Cohen,
and the dearly beloved husband of Matilda Cohen. Deeply mourned by his mother, sisters brothers,
his sons Joe and Sam, his daughters Mrs. H. Cohen, Mrs. T. Abrahams, of Cardiff, Mrs. J. Ascher,
of Kendal, Millie, Yetta, and Esther, his sons-in-law, his intended daughter-in-law, his brother and
sisters-in-law, his grandchildren, and all his relatives. Sincerely regretted by a large circle of friends.
Shiva at 5, Ashcroft-road, E. American and African papers please copy.
(Jewish Chronicle, Deaths, 7 June 1918)
COHEN.- On March 19, 1939 (Adar 29), Matilda, widow of the late Maurice Cohen, in her 85th year.
Deeply mourned by her children, Joseph, Bertha (Mrs H. Cohen), Annie (Mrs. T. Abrahams), Samuel,
Jane (Mrs. J. Ascher), Millie, Yetta and Esther, sons-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother, grandchildren,
relatives, and friends. Shiva at 81, Fawnbrake avenue, Herne Hill, S.E.24.
(Jewish Chronicle, Deaths, 24 March 1939)
Note that this confirms that Morris is the same man whose birth registration Rob found at Klodawa, 6 January 1857, as Mosiek Abram Lubnowski, and also confirms that he was a younger brother of the Israel Lubnowski Cohen whose naturalisation application allowed us to track down these families in Poland in the first place.
Originally I was doubtful whether this could be the right couple, firstly because Morris appeared on the 1918 electoral register for 5 Ashcroft Road, for which the qualifying date was 15 July, more than 6 weeks after the date of death on the gravestone. But evidently it's best not to assume that people appearing on these registers were still living at the qualifying dates. For example, Isaac Abrahams appear on the 1921 electoral register for "The Dolphin" in Whitechapel Road, although he had died more than a year before the qualifying date.
The second reason I was initially doubtful about this couple is that Matilda is stated to have been survived by a brother. More on that below.
Chris Phillips
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robhouse
11th June 2007, 04:06 AM
The http://www.measuringworth.com website is very interesting, although I have to admit to being a bit confused by the different types of comparisons. We are essentially trying to understand the "worth" of ?40 a week by modern standards.
It seems the two most relevant comparisons would be retail price index, and the average earnings. For ?40, that translates to ?2968 (retail price index) and ?18,582 (average earnings). My very confused understanding of this is:
Retail Price index - this compares value based on the cost of purchasable goods. More a comparison based on the buying power of money.
Average Earnings - This compares values based on the average wages earned by workers (?) More a comparison of status, relatively speaking.
While we must remember that Isaac earned this amount only during the 3 busiest months of the year, it is still a considerable amount of money. His buying power would be roughly equivalent to making ?3000 a week today, and compared to the average wage of workers, he would be considered VERY well off indeed.
But maybe I am interpreting this incorrectly. Someone please let me know if I am way off in my understanding of this. It seems to be a lot of money.
Rob H
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jdpegg
11th June 2007, 09:59 PM
Hi Rob,
i think what you are suggesting is correct, as far as i understadn it the RPI is used in economics to work out the price of inflation and such, so that means basically what you said appears to be correct,
really good thread btw, thanks to Chris to pointing me to it
Jenni
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cgp100
11th June 2007, 10:42 PM
While we must remember that Isaac earned this amount only during the 3 busiest months of the year, it is still a considerable amount of money. His buying power would be roughly equivalent to making ?3000 a week today, and compared to the average wage of workers, he would be considered VERY well off indeed.
But maybe I am interpreting this incorrectly. Someone please let me know if I am way off in my understanding of this. It seems to be a lot of money.
I must say I have to pinch myself regularly to check that I'm not misinterpreting this.
At the moment I'm reading Fishman's East End Jewish Radicals, which includes some relevant information. He says the peak periods in bespoke tailoring were March-August and October-Christmas. During the other periods the less skilled workers would be laid off. He says ordinary skilled workers in medium-sized shops would average 3 days a week. I assume this is an average over the whole year, taking account of busy and slack periods. So perhaps it would be reasonable to take the average level of activity over the whole year as half of that in the busiest months, during which the employees would presumably be working a full 6 day week. I'm sure this is just a very rough estimate, but it would translate to an annual income for Isaac of ?70-80,000 in today's money.
I think the retail price index is probably the most appropriate basis for comparison. Evidently average earnings have risen a lot more than prices since 1888 (which is why the standard of living is higher). But the rate of rise of average earnings will be dominated by the large number of low earners. The spread between rich and poor was much greater in Victorian times, so the average conversion factor (appropriate for the poor) will give a misleading impression when applied to the rich. So probably that stupendous alternative figure of ?18,500 a week is a bit over the top.
Fishman also notes that the success of such businessmen was often very precarious. He quotes Lloyd Gartner, The Jewish Immigrant in England - "the bridge from the entrepreneur to workman and back was a short one, frequently trodden many times by the same person". He also says that the viability of such small businesses was under threat from "factorisation" over the next few decades. So perhaps this should be borne in mind considering Isaac's move away from the workshop in Goulston Street in the early 1890s, and his eldest son's eventually move into licensed victualling, despite his initial trading as a tailor.
Chris Phillips
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jeffl
12th June 2007, 04:34 PM
Hi rob and Chris
I've been following this thread with some interest over the last few month's. I'm particuarly interested in the claims that Arons brother lived or ran a business in Goulston Street. the place where Cathrine Eddows shawl was discovered and that there may have been a link with the house where Eddows body was discovered in Mitre Square.
If it is not to much trouble is it possible to confirm this information you have discovered. I'm still a little unclear where your saying Aron was living in the Autum of 1888.
Many thanks
Yours Jeff
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cgp100
12th June 2007, 05:29 PM
I'm particuarly interested in the claims that Arons brother lived or ran a business in Goulston Street. the place where Cathrine Eddows shawl was discovered and that there may have been a link with the house where Eddows body was discovered in Mitre Square.
If it is not to much trouble is it possible to confirm this information you have discovered. I'm still a little unclear where your saying Aron was living in the Autum of 1888.
Unfortunately that's still not clear. We know that Aaron's brother Isaac Abrahams was living at 74 Greenfield Street, and that his brother-in-law Morris Lubnowski Cohen was opposite at 16 Greenfield Street. We don't know where his other brother-in-law, Woolf Abrahams was living at that time, but apparently not at either 62 Greenfield Street (his previous address) or 3 Sion Square (his later address).
We know that Aaron later (1890) lived with Woolf, and that later still (1890-1891) he lived with Morris. We also know that the Swanson Marginalia say that he was watched at "his brother's house", which may indicate 74 Greenfield Street. There is also an indication that he may have had another brother-in-law, named Green, still to be tracked down.
It had been suggested in the past that the Isaac Kozminski who lived in Goulston Street in 1891 might be Aaron's elder brother Iciek. The identification of Iciek as Isaac Abrahams, who was living at 74 Greenfield Street in 1891, does at least rule out that possibility.
Chris Phillips
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jeffl
12th June 2007, 05:35 PM
Cheers for that Chris
I'd had beleived that Arons brother was in Goulston Street and was obviously making an erroe hear..thanks for clarifing that piont. Jeff
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cgp100
16th June 2007, 03:23 PM
Although Aaron's brother, Isaac Abrahams, doesn't seem to have left a will himself, he was granted letters of administration for his wife's estate shortly after her death. This would have very unusual at the time, and I don't know why it was considered necessary.
Bertha Abrahams of 171 Cable Street St George's in the East in the County of Middlesex died on the 22nd day of November 1914 at 113 Rutland Street Stepney in the said County intestate
... Letters of Administration ... were granted ... to Isaac Abrahams of 87 Sidney Street Mile End in the said County Tailor the lawful Husband of the said intestate.
Dated the 13th day of January 1915
Gross value of Estate ... ?130.0.4
Bearing in mind that this must represent the value of Bertha's personal effects only, this confirms that Isaac and Bertha were pretty wealthy - www.measuringworth.com (http://www.measuringworth.com/) indicates that it's the equivalent of something like ?7,000 in today's money.
Evidently Isaac moved away from 171 Cable Street, his home for more than 20 years, a few weeks after the death of his wife. I haven't yet been able to discover why Bertha died at 113 Rutland Street.
Chris Phillips
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robhouse
10th June 2007, 08:58 PM
Here is a slightly extended version of the map you posted the other day, with all the sites noted.
Greenfield St:
June 1881-December 1886 Woolf Abrahams resided at Greenfield Street
At numbers 58, 74, 64 and 62.
December 1885-June 1888 Morris Lubnowski resided at 16 Greenfield Street
[At least] 15 June 1886 - 5 April 1891 - Isaac Abrahams living at 74 Greenfield Street.
Dec 1886-Jan1887 - Woolf Abrahams, naturalisation application
Woolf Abrahams of 62 Greenfield Street, an illiterate journeyman tailor, applied for naturalisation. HO 144/187/A45961
July 1889 - No one registered at either 62 Greenfield Street or 3 Sion Square [1890 electoral register.]
July 1889 - Morris Cohen registered at 16 Greenfield Street. [1890 electoral register.]
July 1889 - Isaac Abrahams registered at 74 Greenfield Street. [1890 electoral register.]
4 February 1891 - Aaron re-admitted to Mile End Old Town Workhouse.
From 16 Greenfield Street. [Sugden, p. 401.]
Sion Sq:
Woolf Abrahams at 3 Sion Sq: June-July 1890, at 3 Sion Square; he remained there at least until the 1891 census (5 April)
12 July 1890 - Aaron Kosminski admitted to Mile End Old Town Workhouse
From 3 Sion Square
Plumbers Row:
June 1881 - Dec 1882 - Morris Lubnowski resided at 10 Plummers [sic] Row Whitechapel Middlesex.
(A Morris Cohen appears at 5 Plummers Row in the 1885 electoral
register.)
Morris resided within the UK for a period of 5 years and upwards within the last 8 years
"namely at 10 Plummers [sic] Row Whitechapel Middlesex from June 1881 to December 1882, at 32 Yalford Street Whitechapel aforesaid from December 1882 to December 1885 and at 16 Greenfield Street aforesaid from December 1885 to the present time" (naturalisation application)
Yalford St:
December 1882 - December 1885: Morris Lubnowski resided at 32 Yalford Street
1891 census (5 April) - Israel [Lubnowsky] Cohen at 6 Yalford St
Fieldgate St: Isaac Abrahams lived at various addresses here. And later at the Dolphin on Whitechapel Rd.
Rob H
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robhouse
10th June 2007, 10:52 PM
Isaac Abrahams (born Iciek Kozminski, Aaron's brother) is listed in the Charles Booth notebooks regarding textile trades. (See:http://library-2.lse.ac.uk/archives/...notebooks.html) (http://library-2.lse.ac.uk/archives/...notebooks.html)
"The industry series gathered data concerning trades and industries by questionnaires and interviews of workers, trade union leaders and employers. Statistics, charts and tables were then compiled and later presented in the five published volumes of the survey which are organised by trade in the final edition of Life and Labour of the People in London."
He can be found in the notebook B109. On the cover of this notebook it says "1888, Tailors No. 2", so it is presumed the survey is from 1888, but this is not certain, and I am going to email the website to verify this.
The page for Greenfield St has a heading that reads:
Greenfield Street: "On the right hand side of the street from Commercial Road, the houses have nice garden workshops, but on the other side the workrooms are in the house. A rather superior class of people."
The entry for Isaac is as follows:
Abrahams 74 Greenfield St III.B.1 (According to the classification, this means III (Ladies). B (10-25 Employees). 1 (Best Bespoke)
Grade B Garment C (coats).
Good work. Ladies Coats. First class work. Employs about 14 men. Gets an average of 12/- per coat, of this the men get 6/- & he takes 6/- out of which he pays 1/3 for machining & B.H. making 4/9 profit. Some of the men employ an assistant & the firm can turn out 20 coats a day. In busiest season (May June July) he can make 40 pounds a week.
There is also a number "3" entered which may refer to the number of floors in the building, or perhaps to the number of rooms???
Note on the map posted earlier, Isaac's workshop can be clearly seen. It was in the backyard, a "garden workshop" as referred to in the notebook. This can be seen on the Ordinance map, and on the Goad Fire Insurance map, you can see that there is a skylight in the ceiling. The workshop backs onto the playground of the Settles St school. It is not clear if there would have been a way to get to this playground from the workshop (a window or door perhaps?) Once in the playground, it may have been possible to get into both Greenfield St and/or Settles street by the open spaces that can also be seen on the map, but this is also not certain.
Harry Cox
The Booth Surveys may have in fact provided the cover story which is referred to in city detective Harry Cox's account of performing surveillance on a suspect:
"The Jews in the street soon became aware of our presence. It was impossible to hide ourselves. They became suddenly alarmed, panic stricken, and I can tell you that at nights we ran a considerable risk. We carried our lives in our hands so to speak, and at last we had to partly take the alarmed inhabitants into our confidence, and so throw them off the scent. We told them we were factory inspectors looking for tailors and capmakers who employed boys and girls under age, and pointing out the evils accruing from the sweaters' system asked them to co-operate with us in destroying it."
George Sims
Also, it is intriguing to speculate whether the workshop may have been the "certain premises after nightfall" referred to by Sims. In other words, that perhaps Aaron was sleeping in his brother's tailor shop:
"The first man was a Polish Jew of curious habits and strange disposition, who was the sole occupant of certain premises in Whitechapel after night-fall."
"Low Class?"
Perhaps the most significant new information that this gives us is that Isaac was apparently well-off, and had a respectable business. The sentry refers rather to "A rather superior class of people." While Aaron himself may have been unemployed, and while his other relations may or may not have been considered "low-class", this cannot be said of Isaac.
See images below. The Classification Index is to help explain the entry. "Best Bespoke" is essentially the highest quality, custom made work.
Rob House
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cgp100
10th June 2007, 11:49 PM
And also "First class work" on Rob's part!
This important information raises a number of points for discussion, but one of the most immediately significant is the statement that Aaron's brother was making a profit of ?40 a week during the three busiest months of the year.
This made him very wealthy indeed. According to www.measuringworth.com (http://www.measuringworth.com), on the most conservative measure of comparison (the retail price index) this would represent a peak income of nearly ?3,000 a week in 2005. (If, instead, average earnings are used as the standard of comparison, the equivalent would be about ?18,500 a week.)
As Rob points out, Isaac was very far from being one of Anderson's "low-class" Polish Jews. He was evidently an extremely successful entrepreneur. Though the scale of Isaac's income is unexpected, this is consistent with the other evidence we know of - for example, both Aaron's brothers-in-law were respectable artisans/tradesmen, each being at one time self-employed; Isaac's son Mark was later the joint licensee of a large public house in a prominent position on the Whitechapel Road; Isaac and his wife are commemorated by an imposing monument in Plashet Cemetery.
If Anderson really concluded from the failure of the house-to-house search to identify the killer, that he must be a "low-class Polish Jew", whose family was protecting him, then he was deluding himself by seeing the "identification" of Kozminski as a vindication of that conclusion.
Chris Phillips
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Celesta
11th June 2007, 12:28 AM
Chris,
As someone who is new to the Casebook, I am simply dazzled by the quality of the work you have all contributed to this thread. It is a fine example of why I keep coming across references on the net extolling the quality of the Casebook.
As someone, who once made a living by making maps, I tend, very often, to think in terms of maps. I notice that maps crop out here on the Casebook with great frequency. They generally tend to illustrate one category of interest at a time. I believe that it would be a marvelous contribution if someone could pull together the info people in the Casebook have managed to compile, to date, on a map of the area. This would be your base map for the area. Extraneous items could be removed, so as not to distract from what is important to the Casebook. This base map might include such items as pertinent bldgs, police stations, constables's routes, when known, known lodging houses, and other data. It would be color-coded like a geologic map and it would be permanent. If for example, someone wanted to know about lodging houses or work houses, they could look at the map key, find the pertinent color or pattern, then go to the map. It would be quite an undertaking to construct such a map, make no mistake, but it might be highly useful. From this base map, investigators could plot out their info about certain suspects, and or victims, etc. It could be used for whatever angle of research you needed a map for. And like all maps, it can be updated at any time.
Just a thought.
Best Regards, C
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tom_wescott
5th June 2007, 01:31 AM
Chris,
Thanks for that! Where are these streets/houses in relation to some streets/sights the rest of us might be familiar with? And was your colleague in this Rob House or Clack? You know, if you combined the two you'd have a 'clack house' which sounds an awful lot like 'crack house'. Sorry, just thinking out loud.
Yours truly,
Tom Wescott
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Ben
5th June 2007, 01:55 AM
Hi Tom,
Where are these streets/houses in relation to some streets/sights the rest of us might be familiar with?
Cross over Commercial Road from Berner Street, walk a few paces East and take the first left - that's Greenfield Street. Settles Street runs paralell, and where its southern extremity met Commercial Road was a pub, the Bricklayer's Arms, in which Liz Stride was allegedly observed by Best and Gardner.
Best regards,
Ben
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cgp100
5th June 2007, 02:02 AM
And was your colleague in this Rob House or Clack?
It was Rob House.
In addition to what Ben said, at the top left of the map is Whitechapel Road, and Whitechapel Church is just off the map to the left.
Chris Phillips
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robhouse
5th June 2007, 02:14 AM
Well, here's a photo that shows the approximate location of Isaac Abrahams' house (74 Greenfield St)... the arrow points to the spot. This is a wall with a gate that leads to the school that is on Settles St.
Appropriately enough, there was a large red splotch on the wall that looked like a bloodstain.
The Goad map also shows the location of fire hydrants (marked by small circles), and these hydrants can still be found in the same locations on the street (which is interesting, but makes sense, as it's still the same victorian era water system as far as I know).
There are no old buildings left on Greenfield St, but the second photo shows houses the next street over on Settles St, and these are from the same period approximately I think. One of the buildings had a date on it (1892 I think? I forget exactly)... others had no date. But I am thinking these might be similar to the ones that were on Greenfield St. If anyone has any photos of the original buildings on Greenfield St, please post them. Also, it would be great to see some photos of Victorian era Jewish tailor workshops.
Note the school and the school playground that is directly behind #74 Greenfield St. The old Settles St school building is no longer there, but there is now a newer school building on the property, which has a playground on the side. It seems this new school is on the same property as the one in the ordinance map.
74 Greenfield St has a workshop in the back, which can be seen in the map Chris posted, and this workshop backed onto the playground. It is unknown whether the workshop had a door or window that would have allowed a person to go from the workshop to the playground. It also appears that from the playground, there were alleys (marked on the map B.M. 48.5 and 50.4 - I dont know what these markings mean) that led to both Greenfield St and Settles St, but there may have been a wall that prevented a person from travelling from the playground into these streets. It is difficult to tell exactly what is going on in this map, but there is a line (wall? fence?) betwen the word "School" and where it says "B.M. 48.5".
Maybe someone else can figure out what's going on here...
Rob House
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diana
5th June 2007, 06:42 PM
I got out my A to Z and found Greenfield St. If Kosminski was JTR then there is a definite pattern of striking close to home at the beginning and then straying farther and farther away with each victim.
It looks to me like Goulston St. would be right on the way between Mitre Square and Greenfield Street.
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cgp100
5th June 2007, 09:10 PM
I got out my A to Z and found Greenfield St. If Kosminski was JTR then there is a definite pattern of striking close to home at the beginning and then straying farther and farther away with each victim.
Maybe it's worth emphasising that we don't know where Aaron Kozminski lived at the time of the murders. According to the Swanson Marginalia, he was watched at his brother's house by City CID - which seems to point to 74 Greenfield Street - but even if that's 100% accurate we don't know how long after the murders it was.
It's not known where Woolf Abrahams was living at the time of the murders (apparently not at 62 Greenfield Street or 3 Sion Square), and we also have an indication that Aaron may have had a third married sister, as yet untraced.
Chris Phillips
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robhouse
10th June 2007, 07:13 PM
Hello Chris
I found this on the web, a photo of a Jewish tailor's shop in the East End. Something I hadn't noticed before... it seems that there is probably a skylight in the ceiling, running vertically along the length of the shop. I assume this was the primary light source for the shop (it also seems there are additional lights hanging from the ceiling). So this would correspond to the skylight indicated in Isaac's workshop, that you found on the Goad map. So I am wondering if Isaac's workshop might have looked about like this.
Incidentally this is approximately the same number of employees that Isaac would have had... around 14. So this would probably be about the same scale as his operation.
Rob H
EDIT: The image is from here: http://www.jewishmuseum.org.uk/whats...bitions/t7.asp
London East End Tailoring Workshop, c.1913
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cgp100
10th June 2007, 08:33 PM
I found this on the web, a photo of a Jewish tailor's shop in the East End. Something I hadn't noticed before... it seems that there is probably a skylight in the ceiling, running vertically along the length of the shop. I assume this was the primary light source for the shop (it also seems there are additional lights hanging from the ceiling). So this would correspond to the skylight indicated in Isaac's workshop, that you found on the Goad map. So I am wondering if Isaac's workshop might have looked about like this.
Incidentally this is approximately the same number of employees that Isaac would have had... around 14. So this would probably be about the same scale as his operation.
That's a good find - it looks very much like the set-up indicated on the Goad plan, with a ridged skylight running along the length of the workshop.
I wonder if this would be a bit larger than Isaac's workshop, which the map indicates was about the same size as the small terraced house he lived in, which had only three occupied rooms according to the 1891 census.
Chris Phillips
PS The eagle-eyed will have spotted from his posts that Rob has tracked down some interesting information about Isaac's business!
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robhouse
10th June 2007, 08:37 PM
The eagle-eyed will have spotted from his posts that Rob has tracked down some interesting information about Isaac's business!
Yes... and I have just been too lazy and disorganized to post it yet... so I'll try to get to that asap.
Rob H
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Sam Flynn
18th March 2007, 12:25 AM
Hi Don, Chris -
I've also heard it pronounced with the central "o" elided, as the bisyllabic "Great-rex".
(Edit: Added the word "also" for clarity. I'm not saying Chris's suggestion was wrong, as I've heard both pronunciations.)
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Natalie Severn
18th March 2007, 12:29 AM
Can"t help here Don,but have wondered myself how it was pronounced.Thanks Chris and Sam for your suggestions.
Natalie
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chris
18th March 2007, 12:52 AM
Just to add to the confusion
"Incidentally, GREATOREX is the Derbyshire surname with the largest
number of spelling variants. There are 42 in the Wirksworth Parish
Registers! These are:
GRATEREX, GRATERICKS, GRATICKS, GRATOREX, GRATORIX, GRATRICKE, GRATRICKES,
GRATRICKS, GRATRIX, GREATAREX, GREATEREX, GREATERICKS, GREATERIX,
GREATOREAUX, GREATOREX, GREATORIX, GREATORIX-K, GREATRACK, GREATRACKES,
GREATRACKS, GREATRACS, GREATRAX, GREATREX, GREATRICK, GREATRICKE,
GREATRICKES, GREATRICKIS, GREATRICKS, GREATRIX, GREATRIXES, GREATTOREX,
GREATTREX, GRETOREX, GRETORIX, GRETRECKS, GRETREX, GRETRICK, GRETRICKS,
GRETRIX, GRETTERIX, GRETTORIX, GRETTRICKS."
Full article is at
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Jez
18th March 2007, 01:03 AM
I think I would have a stab with "Grett-rix."
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jc007
18th March 2007, 01:09 AM
a lot of jibberish in there i don't see how any of it can prove or even help back up the case that Aaron Kosminski could of been Jack the Ripper. wouldnt it be better trying to find evidence related to the acutal crimes etc
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Stephen Thomas
18th March 2007, 01:18 AM
jc007
You may well be right.
Chris
Sincere thanks for the above information
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cgp100
18th March 2007, 01:50 AM
a lot of jibberish in there i don't see how any of it can prove or even help back up the case that Aaron Kosminski could of been Jack the Ripper. wouldnt it be better trying to find evidence related to the acutal crimes etc
I think you're missing the point.
None of this is intended to promote Aaron Kozminski as a suspect. It's just additional information about his circumstances. If enough of that kind of information can be collected, it may give us a clearer picture of why Kozminski was suspected in the first place, and enable us to make a more accurate judgment as to the likelihood of his guilt.
If you dismiss factual information about the background of a suspect as "jibberish", your ideas about that suspect are not likely to be well informed.
Chris Phillips
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jc007
18th March 2007, 01:59 AM
I think you're missing the point.
I think your right Chris.
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baron
18th March 2007, 05:58 PM
Chris,
Good work on Kosminski. If nothing else, we are possibly seeing a pattern of Aaron being shuffled from one family to another. This is something I thought might have been happening, and it shows how disturbed he must have been.
It doesn't necessarily boost the Kosminski as ripper theory, but it helps put a few pieces together.
Thanks for this.
Mike
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Natalie Severn
18th March 2007, 06:52 PM
I think its hugely helpful to have this information on this particular Kosminski,who also happened to be incarcerated in a lunatic asylum .A certain Kosminski was after all proposed as a suspect by Macnaghten as well as Robert Anderson,so there must have been some reason for them suspecting him, beyond just that Aaron Kosminski,like their suspect Kosminski,was alleged to have had a "Portnoy" type condition.To gradually be able to piece together some other "movements" than just this "solitary vice"that Anderson found so deeply disturbing could explain the mystery.Clearly the Kosminki namesake Aaron had this in common with the Anderson Suspect in 1888 and was committed like him to a Lunatic Asylum but what else might have been going on for him in the Autumn of 1888? If this was indeed the "Kosminski" that Macnaghten and Anderson meant and that got Anderson in particular so worked up about ---a man who entered an asylum soon after the killings stopped but also" died soon after" if Aaron was the killerthe very first thing that does not fit is that he" died soon after "[entering the bin],-for on the contrary ,Aaron lived a completely harmless life for another 27 years after he entered a Lunatic Asylum.
Best
Natalie
Natalie
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cgp100
28th March 2007, 11:47 PM
A bit more additional information from the birth certificate of Mark Abrahams (Aaron's nephew):
No 344
Born: Nineteenth December 1872 13 Fieldgate Street
Name: Marks [sic] Isaac [sic]
Sex: Boy
Father: Isaac Abrahams
Mother: Betsy Abrahams formerly Cohen
Father's occupation: Tailor
Informant: x The Mark of Isaac Abrahams Father 13 Fieldgate Street Whitechapel
Registered: Eighteenth January 1873
Registrar: Wm Bright Registrar
It may well be that Mark's mother and Isaac's wife, Betsy Cohen, was a member of the same family as the husband of Aaron's sister Matilda, Morris Lubnowski Cohen (himself perhaps a cousin of Aaron and Isaac, since their mother Golda was a Lubnowski).
Chris Phillips
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cgp100
29th April 2007, 01:09 AM
For those who are interested in further information about Isaac Abrahams and about other members of Aaron Kozminski's family, it can be found over on How Brown's site, on the thread entitled "Kozminski's Family":
Chris Phillips
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robhouse
14th May 2007, 04:41 PM
Here is a photo of the Dolphin as it looks now..
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cgp100
5th June 2007, 12:48 AM
With the help of the 1890 Goad insurance plan, Rob and I have located the known addresses of Aaron Kozminski's brother and brothers-in-law around the time of the murders.
They are marked below on Rob's image of the 1894 Ordnance Survey map, as follows:
(1) House at left is 3 Sion Square, home of Woolf Abrahams between at least May 1890 and April 1891.
(2) House on west side of Greenfield Street is 16 Greenfield Street, home of Morris Lubnowski Cohen between at least December 1885 and February 1891.
(3) House opposite it is 74 Greenfield Street, home of Isaac Abrahams between at least June 1886 and April 1891.
(4) House at bottom right is 62 Greenfield Street, home of Woolf Abrahams between at least December 1886 and July 1887.
Chris Phillips
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cgp100
15th March 2007, 11:35 PM
Just to add one point I failed to notice previously, which may be quite significant. When Aaron's brother-in-law Woolf Abrahams applied for naturalisation in December 1886, he listed the addresses he had lived at since June 1881. They were all in Greenfield Street, and were numbers 58, 74, 64 and 62 (he was living at 62 at the time of the application). The second of these is the address Isaac Abrahams lived at, at least between June 1886 and April 1891. It looks as though the two Abrahams families - and perhaps Aaron - lived at the same address during part of the 1880s.
I do appreciate the possibility that Swanson may have merely mechanically signed a dozen of these applications at a sitting, but in the best case scenario, we are still faced with the seeming fact that some day in 1901 Isaac Abraham?s name --however briefly--stared him in the face and he simply didn?t put two & two together and recognize this most auspicious character in his (?) and Anderson?s pet theory. Hmmmm. Not sure I like it.
I'd be only too happy if this new information about Isaac Abrahams told us something significant - either pro or con - about Anderson's and Swanson's beliefs about Kozminski in 1901, but I'm not convinced it's the case.
My idea of the commonness of the name was perhaps coloured by the fact that I'd just realised (and almost been badly misled by) the fact that there were three Mark Abrahamses born in the East End within a year or two of one another, all with fathers named Isaac. I do think the commonness of the name is relevant, just because if I see a reference to a John Smith, I tend not to identify him with any other John Smith just because the name is so common - whereas if I see a reference to Caractacus Potts I immediately jump to a conclusion.
So my feeling was that, even if Swanson remembered the name of Aaron's brother from however many years it was before, he might well have batted the idea aside, thinking "probably not the same man". And then again, even if he did think it might have been the same man, and somehow confirmed it, would the unofficial suspicions of a decade or more earlier have been grounds for interfering with the naturalisation application? And in any case, did Anderson's feelings about "low-class Jews" really attach themselves in practice to Aaron's brother, or were they just a convenient means of retrospectively convincing himself he had seen all along that the killer must have been Jewish?
My feeling is that the real significance of the information about Isaac is the light it may shed on the chronology of things. If we take Swanson's narrative at face value, the putative identification at the "Seaside Home" was followed by the City CID's surveillance of Aaron at his brother's house. If this is accurate (which depends how confused Swanson's memories may have been) this must all almost certainly have predated Aaron's residence with Woolf at 3 Sion Square, which we know ended with his admission to the workhouse on 12 July 1890.
But that terminal date is less than four months after the opening of the Convalescent Police Seaside Home. It seems unlikely to me that the period of surveillance at the brother's house, plus the additional period with Woolf at Sion Square, would have added up to less than four months (Morris stuck it out for more than 6 months before sending Aaron off to Colney Hatch).
So I think the chronology is telling us that - if we believe Swanson - we are probably talking about another "Seaside Home" - perhaps one where the witness could have been a resident?
Chris Phillips
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robhouse
17th March 2007, 03:51 PM
I was thinking that the Dolphin was further east down Whitechapel Road for some reason... probably because I couldn't find Greatorex St on my 1894 ordinance map. Well, it used to be called Great Garden St. Here is a google satellite image of the intersection of Whitechapel Rd and Greatorex St. Chris, I assume the Dolphin is one of these buildings, that I have outlined?
So it is much closer to Greenfield St than I had imagined.
Rob H
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robhouse
17th March 2007, 04:35 PM
And here is a good webpage I found with info and photos of the Mile End Old town Workhouse:
Rob H
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cgp100
17th March 2007, 04:55 PM
Chris, I assume the Dolphin is one of these buildings, that I have outlined?
Yes, it's a squareish building on the corner, so it's the left-hand bit of what you've highlighted.
Chris Phillips
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cgp100
17th March 2007, 06:32 PM
I was thinking that the Dolphin was further east down Whitechapel Road for some reason...
So it is much closer to Greenfield St than I had imagined.
Actually, the relationship between the two is shown quite well on the section of the 1894 Ordnance Survey map on this site:
The Dolphin is marked as "P.H." near the top left. Greenfield Street runs north-south about a third of the way across. I should like to try to pinpoint the addresses more accurately, but Isaac's house was on the east side, somewhere near the "N" of "GREENFIELD", I think, and the house of Morris Cohen, where Aaron later lived, was nearly opposite, on the west side of the road.
Chris Phillips
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Stephen Thomas
17th March 2007, 07:02 PM
Hi
Call me Mr Irrelevant, but does anyone know why Greatorex Street is called that? Greatorex seems a very strange word.
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chris
17th March 2007, 11:35 PM
There is a pic of this corner (Greatorex Street and Whitechapel Road) taken in 1953 at
The origin of the name
(
The definitive work on the family was commenced by Reuben Courtnell Greatorex in the 19th Century. His great-grandfather, William of Wirksworth was also the great-grandfather of Thomas Greatorex, the composer and musician. Reuben lived at 5 Upper Westbourne Terrace, Hyde Park, London Wl and Thomas lived at 70 Norton Street, Portland Place. Norton Street is now re-named Bolsolver Place. There is a letter-dated 01.02.1913 from Sarah Greatorex, sister-in-law of Reuben, stating these prestigious family heads are cousins and both had large families. Sarah lived at 101 Abbey Road, St. John's Wood, London.
Reuben's brother Daniel, was a clergyman and for 40 years was chaplain to the Sailor's Home in Dock Street, whilst being vicar of St. Paul's Whitechapel. A street is named after him-Greatorex Street, Aldgate, London E1, until recently famous for its fish restaurant)
can be found ina history of the name Greatorex at
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Natalie Severn
17th March 2007, 11:42 PM
Thanks for the great link Chris
Natalie
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supe
18th March 2007, 12:00 AM
Chris, Nats, anyone:
I have come across the name Greatorex a few times and always wondered how it is pronounced. Can you help me? Thanks.
Don.
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cgp100
18th March 2007, 12:09 AM
There is a pic of this corner (Greatorex Street and Whitechapel Road) taken in 1953 at
Thanks for this link. And in case anyone missed it, that page has a further link to "Now", though since the "Now" picture was taken there's been a further change - from "Europa Wholesalers" to the "Islamic Bank of Britain". It seems the ground floor changes pretty frequently, but the upper stories remain unaltered.
Chris Phillips
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chris
18th March 2007, 12:18 AM
Hi Don
As far as I am aware the stress is on the first syllable, so the name would be pronounced as if it were "greater wrecks"
Chris
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robert
12th March 2007, 08:45 PM
One point I'd like to raise regarding whether Aaron was shielded by his family : since Isaac was around at the crucial time, I would have thought that it would have been for Isaac, as older brother and head of the family, to arrange for Aaron's two incarcerations. Surely, to leave it to a brother-in-law was a very odd thing to do?
Robert
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Natalie Severn
12th March 2007, 08:52 PM
Just a quick follow up...
I also dont personally see any ominous significance in Swanson and Anderson having signed Isaac's naturalization papers. I was really just pointing out the curious coincidence of it. But apparently this was mainly a formality.
Rob House
It does seem to have been a rather odd" formality" this though,Rob, especially when you consider Robert Anderson"s position in the police hierarchy.
Moreover, if his brother Aaron Kosminski, was indeed Anderson"s "definitely ascertained " Jack the Ripper ,then Isaac,too would ofcourse, have fallen into Anderson"s contemptible "low class Jew" category and was surely hardly worthy to receive such honoured attention from Sir Robert and his devoted assistant Swanson?
Brilliant research though all this.
Best Natalie
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robhouse
12th March 2007, 09:07 PM
I have to admit I am no expert on the Naturalization process or the naturalization documents, and the process followed. I think probably Chris Phillips or Chris Scott could answer this better. Or someone... not me.
Rob H
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jason_connachan
12th March 2007, 09:30 PM
It does seem to have been a rather odd" formality" this though,Rob, especially when you consider Robert Anderson"s position in the police hierarchy.
Moreover, if his brother Aaron Kosminski, was indeed Anderson"s "definitely ascertained " Jack the Ripper ,then Isaac,too would ofcourse, have fallen into Anderson"s contemptible "low class Jew" category and was surely hardly worthy to receive such honoured attention from Sir Robert and his devoted assistant Swanson?
Brilliant research though all this.
Best Natalie
Natalie, "low class jews" perhaps meant low class in 1888. The Jews if anyone have a tendency to climb socially; OR it could be a distinction between working class Whitechapel Jew and a rich Jew of popular stereotype.
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cgp100
12th March 2007, 10:22 PM
Thanks for all the positive comments.
It was nice that everything fitted together so well, and the fact that the research was done in only just over a week illustrates how much easier digitisation and indexing have made our lives. Thanks also to Chris Scott for posting further details of Isaac's daughter-in-law Florence and his sureties.
On the point of Swanson's and Anderson's signatures, I think their involvement was purely formal. I'm not an expert myself, but my impression is that the CID investigation amounted only to visiting the applicant and the sureties, and also checking on the statement about dates of residence (if I remember correctly in one of the cases I looked at a while ago they discovered a discrepancy in the dates).
I doubt Swanson or Anderson would have made the connection between the applicant and Kozminski's brother, even if they remembered his name. There are 37 Isaac Abrahamses in London in the 1901 census index, and Isaac had moved a reasonable distance since the period of the presumed surveillance.
robert
(1) I don't quite understand your comment about Betsy being naturalised before Isaac. I think her description in 1901 would refer to Isaac's pending application. Earlier on some of the children are described as British subjects on the basis that they were born in the UK.
(2) It is interesting that Isaac wasn't named in any of the documents concerning Aaron in 1890 or 1891. My hunch is that by this time Isaac may have found Aaron too difficult to cope with and passed him on to Woolf, as Woolf was later to pass him on to Morris. By the time of Aaron's death, Woolf was probably not in London (I don't think anything is known of him after his appearance in Manchester in the 1901 census), Morris may have been ill himself (apparently he disappears from the electoral register after 1919, though there doesn't seem to be a matching death registration, so he too may have gone into an institution), and Aaron's mother Golda (named as next of kin in 1894) was dead. Hence Isaac's reappearance in the documentation.
Chris Phillips
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robert
13th March 2007, 09:30 AM
Hi Chris
Well, I suppose that's a possible scenario.
Re Betsy, yes, she must have been jumping the gun too. So would she have been naturalised once Isaac was, or would she have had to get her own naturalisation papers?
At some time before Aaron died, Leavesden must have had a letter or letters from one or more members of the family advising of changes of address, or the asylum wouldn't have known where to write to in the event of Aaron's death. These letters were probably binned as soon as Aaron died. Shame.
Robert
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cgp100
13th March 2007, 10:59 AM
Re Betsy, yes, she must have been jumping the gun too. So would she have been naturalised once Isaac was, or would she have had to get her own naturalisation papers?
I'm not sure of the rules, but I think the husband's naturalisation also covered the wife. Which is odd, because while dependent children are named in these applications, the wife never is. You'd think that could lead to confusion later on - if the husband remarried, for example.
Chris Phillips
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rjpalmer
13th March 2007, 01:09 PM
There are 37 Isaac Abrahamses in London in the 1901 census index, and Isaac had moved a reasonable distance since the period of the presumed surveillance.
Chris -- I agree that the fact that the application is signed by a Superintendent and the Assistant Commissioner of the C.I.D. is not, in itself, startling. One of my more recent acquisitions is an application signed by James Monro. Standard procedure. But I don’t think I’m quite yet ready to give up the ghost. I’m still mulling it all over (many thanks) but I don’t see the relevance of the your above statement. 37 is not a great number for a city the size of London, but surely it wouldn’t matter one iota if it was 97 or even 370. It only matters how many ‘Isaac Abrahams’ Swanson would be expected to have known in one lifetime; presumably this would only amount to one: the brother & keeper of the man who the City had under surveillance shortly before the murder of Francis Coles, and who’s trip to the asylum he (Swanson) associated --however erroneously--with the end of the Whitechapel Murders. If Swanson can be believed, Abrahams must have played some fleeting role in this extraordinary identification that was made ‘with great difficulty’ at the Seaside Home--if only as someone who would have had to have been elbowed aside. And it's not like 171 Cable Street is miles away from Greenfield Street; its in the same section of the East End and very close indeed to the murder site of Francis Coles--not that that connection would have necessarily crossed Swanson’s mind as he signed the document.
I do appreciate the possibility that Swanson may have merely mechanically signed a dozen of these applications at a sitting, but in the best case scenario, we are still faced with the seeming fact that some day in 1901 Isaac Abraham’s name --however briefly--stared him in the face and he simply didn’t put two & two together and recognize this most auspicious character in his (?) and Anderson’s pet theory. Hmmmm. Not sure I like it. Some cops have great talents for remembering names. James Monro was said to have had that gift.
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robhouse
11th March 2007, 10:54 PM
Tour de force is the right phrase. This is truly great work Chris. I think this is the most important new discovery in quite a while.
By the way, as the discovery of this Isaac Abrahams is rather new, I am hoping that we can find more documents or info on him. It would be great to find a document that actually listed Aaron, but I suppose that is just wishful thinking.
I do agree though... this certainly seems to suggest that 74 Greenfield St was the likely adress where Aaron was watched by City CID.
Also, I am still a bit confused about the fact that Isaac Abrahams' Naturalization memorial was signed by both Swanson and Anderson... in 1901. Assuming that the thesis is correct, both Swanson and Anderson would have been well aware that Isaac was the brother of their suspect.
Again, congrats, and great work.
Rob House
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rjpalmer
11th March 2007, 11:18 PM
Chris P - Facinating; this has been a difficult nut to crack for many years, and it looks like you got it whooped.
Like Mr. House, I'm wondering about those naturalization papers. Indeed, does Swanson's signature on "Kosminski's [Abrahams'] naturalization papers present an enigma or even a problem for the Kosminski theory? Part of the naturalization process was a background check by the MEPO gang. Standard procedure, of course. So in one sense, the signatures of Swanson and Anderson are something of an adminstrative technicality. That said, there would have been a background check. In the current case this was evidently done by PS Ernest Baxter--with Swanson signing it afterwards as Superintendent. Yet, if the Robert Anderson of 1901/1910 can be believed, Jack the Ripper had been protected by "his people" --and surely the chief of "these people" would had to have been Isaac Abrahams, Kosminski's brother--which, as you note, was evidently the tenant in the very house being watched 'by the police (City CID) day and night'. Yet we are faced with the astonding fact that Swanson himself allowed the naturalization of a man who had thwarted 'gentile justice'? Or are we to believe that Swanson did not even recognize the name?
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Natalie Severn
12th March 2007, 12:53 AM
Great Research Chris.
Must admit I smell a bit of a rat here with Swanson and Anderson signing this stuff as a sort of jolly duo .Maybe they had seen the light and realised at last that Kosminski and his family had been wrongly suspected-having had their house watched by the police "night and day" must have been a highly unpleasant experience -as must having a sick brother dragged through identity processes- if it did actually happen to Aaron ofcourse.So maybe Anderson tried to make amends by doing something for one member of the family at least ,even -though it seems a bit late in the day if the poor chap had already been in the UK for 30 years!
Maybe Anderson had begun to mellow-he retired in 1901.Dr Bond, his faithful assistant, committed suicide that year and Winston Churchill entered the House of Commons-no doubt ready to give Anderson a run for his money if he opposed him over his growing" Home Rule" sympathies.
Whatever the reason it seems an unusual state of affairs.
Thanks for sharing such helpful material,
Natalie
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robhouse
12th March 2007, 02:35 PM
Just a quick follow up... on Abram Josef Kozminski's death certificate it says "having left after himself a widowed wife Golda and three children". I assumed that "3 children" meant Aaron, Betsy and Matilda, and indicated that the other children (Iciek, Blimbe, and Pessa) had died young. Now that Chris has found Isaac living in London, we must reassess this assumption. I assume that what it meant is that Abram Josef left a wife and 3 "dependant" children... ie. children living at home. Iciek had apparently moved out by tthe time of Abram Josef's death (he would have been about 23 at the time). This also raises the possibility that Blimbe and Pessa survived into adulthood, although I think it would be difficult to find them.
I also dont personally see any ominous significance in Swanson and Anderson having signed Isaac's naturalization papers. I was really just pointing out the curious coincidence of it. But apparently this was mainly a formality. I also don't think we can assume that Isaac was guilty of shielding Aaron from justice... that would be making a large and unsupported assumption.
Rob House
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robert
12th March 2007, 03:35 PM
Chris, this is superb stuff!
Robert
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robert
12th March 2007, 05:03 PM
Chris, it looks from those census details as though Betsy was naturalised before Isaac was, unless she too jumped the gun.
Robert
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chris
12th March 2007, 05:43 PM
Just to add a little minor detail to Chris's great work, here are the details in 1901 of the four men who acted as sureties for Abrahams's naturalisation:
Sureties for Isaac Abrahams
1901 census
40 Tillman Street, St George in the East
Head: Walter Belcher aged 45 born hanney, Berks - Foreman carpenter
Wife: Eliza H Belcher aged 51 born Bermondsey
Sister in Law: Eliza Tally aged 32 born Walworth
Children:
Walter E aged 20 born Battersea - Builder's clerk
Olive Kate aged 15 born Battersea - Dressmaker
Caroline aged 9 born St George E.
56 Cannon Street Road, St George in the East
Head: George Leeder (Widower) aged 47 born walton, Norfolk - Licensed victualler
Children:
Katie aged 23 born Islington - Barmaid
Mary aged 21 born Bethnal Green - Barmaid
Annie aged 20 born Bethnal Green - Dressmaker
Visitor: Mary Ann Brown aged 59 born Norfolk - Livinh on own means
Servants:
Jenny M Hammond aged 32 born London - Barmaid
Beatrice Golding aged 26 born Canterbury - Barmaid
108 St George Street, St George in the East
Head: Henry Whiting aged 61 born Oxford - Laundryman
Wife: Harriet Whiting aged 62 born Henley on Thames - Laundress
daughter:
Emily Ward (Widow) aged 36 born London - Laundress
231 Cable Street, St George in the East
Head: John Gibbs aged 36 born St Georges - Builder
Wife: Rosamond Gibbs aged 34 born St Georges
Child:
John W aged 6 born Stepney
Visitor: Beatrice Newton aged 18 born Mile End - Milliner
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chris
12th March 2007, 06:17 PM
Family of Florence Levy
The marriage certificate of Mark Abrahams and Florence Levy in January 1913 gives Florence's age at that time as 28. Therefore at the time of the 1901 census (12 years prior) she would have been circa 16 years old (depending on when her birthday fell relative to the time of the census). We also know that her father (deceased by the time of the marriage) was named Mark.
In the 1901 census there is only one family that fits these criteria:
2 Cannon Street Road, St George in the East
Head: Mark Levy aged 48 born Poland (Foreign Subject) - Machine buttonhole maker
Wife: Hannah Levy aged 51 born London
Children:
Abraham aged 23 born London - TheologicaL student
Isaac aged 21 born Brixton - Buttonhole machinist
Rosina aged 19 Born Hull, Yorks - Buttonhole machinist
Florence born Hull, Yorks - Buttonhole machinist
Samuel aged 14 born Woolwich
Servant:
Margaret Callum aged 56 born Dublin.
N.B. this is the same road as lived in by one of the four men who acted as sureties for Isaac Abrahams.
This family in 1891 is listed as follows:
81 Ledbury Road, Paddington
Head: Mark Levy aged 38 born Poland - Bootmaker
Wife: Hannah aged 41 born London
Children:
Abraham aged 13 born Brixton
Isaac aged 11 born Brixton
Rosina aged 9 born Hull
Florence aged 7 born London
Samuel aged 4 born London
Lodgers:
Solomon Slotki aged 25 born Poland - tailor
Matilda Slotki aged 18 born Poland
Ann West aged 62 born London - Living on own means
Apprentice:
John Britton aged 18 born London - Apprentice to bootmaking
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robhouse
12th March 2007, 07:04 PM
Nice find Chris. Keep digging. Its good to see that Mark Levy had a son named Isaac and another named Abraham. There are so many Abrahams and Isaacs and Woolfs that it makes your head swim.
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cgp100
11th March 2007, 09:54 PM
1913 Mile End 1c 644
1913
Philpot Street Synagogue
District: Mile End Old Town, London
12 January 1913
Mark Abrahams, 39, Bachelor, Tailor (Journeyman), 171 Cable Street, [son of] Isaac Abrahams, Tailor.
Florence Levy, 28, Spinster, Tailoress, 127 Whitechapel Road, [daughter of] Mark Levy (Deceased), Boot Maker.
Married ... according to the usages of the Jews by Certificate.
[Both signed]
In the Presence of P. Gutmacher, S. Newman
J. Adelman, Minister, J. Kaliski [or Koliski], Secretary.------------------------------------------------------------------------
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cgp100
11th March 2007, 09:56 PM
1881
3A Fieldgate Street
Isaac Abrahams, Head, 29, Tailor, b. Poland
Betsy Do, Wife, 31, b. Do
Esther Do, Daur, 6, Scholar, b. Whitechapel Mdx
Mark Do, Son, 8, Do, b. Mile End Do
Woolf Do, Son, 2, b. Whitechapel Do
[RG 11/444, f. 80, p. 3]
1891
74 Greenfield Street
[1 House, 3 Rooms; no one else at this address]
Isaac Abrahams, Hd, 38, Laides [sic] Tailor [Employer], b. Poland Russia
Bertha [sic] do, Wife, 40, b. Poland Russia
Mark do, Son, 18, Tailor [Employed], b. London British Subject
Esther do, Daughter, 16, b. London Whitechapel (E)
Woolf do, Son, 12, Scholar, b. London British Subject
Rachel do, Daughter, 7, b. London
[RG 12/301, f. 65, p. 21]
1901
171 Cable Street
Isaac Abrahams, Head, M, 49, Tailor [Employer; At home], b. Poland (Naturalised British Subject)
Betsy do, Wife, M, 51, b. do BS
Mark do, Son, 28, Tailor [Worker], b. London Mile End New Town
Woolf do, Son, 22, Tailor-machiner [Worker], b. Whitechapel
Rachel do, Daur, 17, b. Stepney
[RG 13/309, f. 142, p. 1]
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cgp100
11th March 2007, 10:01 PM
Memorial
Isaac Abrahams of 171 Cable Street St Georges in the East in the County of London
... a subject of the Emperor of Russia having been born at Klodorer Koliski in the Empire of Russia on the Third day of May 1852 and being the son of Joseph & Golder Abrahams who were both subjects of the Emperor of Russia ...
resides at 171 Cable St St Georges in the East in the County of London and is of the age of 48 years and is a Tailor.
... a Married man and has one child under age residing with him viz.
Rachel - 17 years of age
... settled place of business is at 171 Cable Street St Georges in the East in the county of London
That your Memorialist has for five years within the period of the eight years last past resided within the United Kingdom, vizt. [standard form]
From October 20th 1893 to present time at 171 Cable Street St Georges in the East in the county of London
7 years 2 months
[Signed] I. Abrahams [very shaky]
Sureties
Walter Belcher 40 Tillman Street St Georges East London Estate Agent ([has known him] 8 years)
George Leeder Licensed Victualler of 56 Cannon Street Road London East (10 years)
Henry Whiting Laundryman of 108 St George Street St Georges East London (9 years)
and John Gibbs Builder of 229-231 Cable Street St Georges East London (7 years)
[All signed] 265 Gresham House Old Broad Street in the City of London 16 January 1901
Before Ernest [Smith] A commissioner for oaths.
CID Report
Isaac Abrahams Tailor
The declaration of residence have [sic] been enquired into and the sureties are respectable persons householders and British born subjects.
I have seen the applicant who is a respectable man he states he has resided in this country for the past 30 years, intends to remain permanently and wishes to enjoy the rights and priveleges [sic] of a British subject.
The sureties speak well of applicant as a respectable man and I see no reason to doubt their statements.
Ernest Baxter [?]P S
D. S. Swanson Superintendent
Cover sheet dated 19th February 1901 and signed R. Anderson.
7 June 1901. Isaac Abrahams
Agent Mr J. Cantor 211, Old Ford Road, E.
Certif Regd & returned 19 June '01
[HO 144/617/B35582]
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cgp100
11th March 2007, 10:05 PM
Admission and discharge registers of the Jews' Free School, London Metropolitan Archives
(online at http://tinyurl.com/rw7gb)
Number / Date of admission / Name / Parent or Guardian / Address / Date of birth / Leaving date
21053 / 15 6 [86] / Abrahams Woolf / Abrahams Isaac / 74 Greenfield St / 12 77
[LMA/4046/C/01/001; file 4/118]
13265 / 23 8 86 / [Abrahams] Esther / Abrahams Isaac / 74 Greenfield St / 14 8 74 / 3/87
[LMA/4046/C/01/004; file 3/104]
[NB There is also an entry for the admission, 5 November 1878, of a Mark, son of Isaac Abrahams, of 6 Little Somerset Street, born 24 April 1872. Despite appearances this must be a different Mark, as he and his father appear at 6 Somerset Street in the 1881 census.]
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Graham
11th March 2007, 10:17 PM
Chris,
Something of a tour de force, I'd say. Very interesting and very well done.
Cheers,
Graham
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chris
11th March 2007, 10:32 PM
Amazing research, exemplary and so informative.
Many thanks indeed for sharing this
Chris
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Kozminski's Brother (recovered thread)
This one will take some doing.... Please bear with me while it's getting posted.
This is G o o g l e's cache of http://forum.casebook.org/archive/index.php/t-3902.html as retrieved on 9 Feb 2008 09:26:22 GMT.
G o o g l e's cache is the snapshot that we took of the page as we crawled the web.
Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Forums > Ripper Discussions > Suspects > Kosminsky, Aaron > Kozminski's Brother
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cgp100
11th March 2007, 09:51 PM
One of the puzzles posed by the Swanson Marginalia concerns the reference to the City CID watching Kozminski by day and night following his return from the Seaside Home to "his brother's house in Whitechapel".
It has usually been assumed that this actually refers to one of Aaron Kozminski's brothers-in-law - either Woolf Abrahams, the husband of his sister Betsy, or Morris Lubnowski Cohen, the husband of his sister Matilda.[1] But this leaves unexplained a puzzling reference that suggests Aaron did have a brother in London at the time of his death in 1919.
As a result of Rob House's discovery of the records of the births of Aaron and his siblings at Klodawa in Poland, it has been possible to clear up the mystery. The records indicate that Aaron Kozminski did indeed have a brother who was living in the East End of London at the time of the Whitechapel Murders.
There are three indications that Aaron Kozminski had a brother:
(1) There is a record of the birth of Iciek, son of Abraham Joseph Kozminski and Golda, in April/May 1851 at Klodawa in the county of Kalisz, Poland.[2]
(2) Aaron's monumental inscription implies that he was survived by a brother and at least two sisters.[3]
(3) A note concerning Aaron's funeral, apparently among the records of Leavesden Asylum, is signed by a member of his family whose address is given as "The Dolphin", Whitechapel E, London. The signature has been read as "H. W. Abrahams" and the relationship to Aaron as "brothers".[4]
There is nothing in the first two of these to suggest that Aaron had a brother in England. The third reference is enigmatic, and it has been suggested that it also may relate to Aaron's brother-in-law, Woolf Abrahams.
"The Dolphin" was a public house at 97-99 Whitechapel Road, a short distance to the north of Greenfield Street and Sion Square where Aaron's brothers-in-law had earlier lived.[5] The electoral register for Autumn 1919 lists three voters: Florence, Isaac and Mark Abrahams.[4] Mark Abrahams was listed as publican in 1918-1922 (together with Edward Cecil Moore from 1919 onwards), and is perhaps the same man who was at the "Princess of Wales", 17 Copley St, Stepney, in 1916-1917.[6]
The electoral register shows that Isaac and Mark were qualified to vote through residence/occupation, Florence was qualified through her husband's occupation.[7] At that time, the franchise extended to married women aged 30 and more.
The FreeBMD index of civil registration records contains only one marriage of a woman named Florence to an Isaac or Mark Abrahams in the South of England. This is the marriage of Mark Abrahams, a journeyman tailor aged 39 of 171 Cable Street, the son of Isaac Abrahams, a tailor, to Florence Levy, a tailoress aged 28 of 127 Whitechapel Road (only a few doors away from the "Dolphin"), the daughter of a deceased boot maker named Mark Levy. The marriage took place on 12 January 1913 at Philpot Street Synagogue.[8]
So it appears that the family living at the "Dolphin" in 1919 were a husband and wife, Mark and Florence Abrahams, together with the husband's father, Isaac.
The family of Isaac Abrahams was easily found in the 1881, 1891 and 1901 censuses, particularly as he was already at 171 Cable Street by 1901.[9] Both Isaac and his wife Betsy (called Bertha in 1891) had been born in Poland - Isaac in 1851-1853 - but had apparently been in London since about 1872-1873 when Mark, the eldest of their four recorded children, was born. In 1891 they had lived at 74 Greenfield Street - the same street in which Aaron's brothers-in-law had lived in the 1880s - and in 1881 at 3A Fieldgate Street (at the north end of Greenfield Street). In 1901, Isaac described himself as a naturalised British subject.
It turns out that Isaac was jumping the gun, as at the date of the census he had applied for naturalisation, but the process was not complete. Despite some minor discrepancies, the details given on his application make it clear that he was Aaron Kozminski's elder brother, born Iciek Kozminski at Klodawa in 1851.[10]
So it seems that Isaac came to England ten years or more before Aaron's sisters (and, presumably, Aaron himself), apparently leaving Poland before their father's death in 1874, and adopting the more English-sounding surname of Abrahams. Of course, this is the same surname that their mother Golda adopted when she later came to England. It also seems that the signature on the document concerning Aaron's funeral, previously read as "H. W. Abrahams", must really be Isaac's, and the relationship given must simply be "brother".
Finally, the admission and discharge registers of the Jews' Free School show that two of Isaac Abrahams's children - Woolf and Esther - were admitted as pupils there in 1886.[11] The address given is 74 Greenfield Street, the same house in which Isaac lived in April 1891. So almost certainly this is where he was living in Autumn 1888, and - if Swanson's annotations are to be taken at face value - the house where Kozminski was watched by the City CID.
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Many thanks to Philip Hutchinson for supplying the text of Aaron's monumental inscription.
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NOTES
[1] There is a reference to a brother "Wolf Kozminski" of 3 Sion Square on the order for Aaron's reception into Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, dated February 1891 [LMA StBG/ME/107/8, no 1558]. From this, it was originally assumed that Aaron did have a brother named Woolf, but it seems clear this was a confused reference to Woolf Abrahams, who lived at 3 Sion Square at least between May 1890 and April 1891. Woolf had previously lived at 62 Greenfield Street, at least between December 1886 and July 1887, but it is not known where he lived in the Autumn of 1888. Morris Lubnowski Cohen lived at 16 Greenfield Street from December 1885 until early 1891.
[2] Robert House, "The Kozminski File", Ripperologist no 65 (March 2006).
[3] The reference to a brother and sisters is mentioned by Paul Begg, The Facts, p. 506 (2004).
The inscription is no longer legible, but according to the narration of "Who was Jack the Ripper?", a TV documentary in the London Weekend Television "Crime Monthly series", broadcast 10 August 1990, the inscription read "Aaron Kosminski who died the 24th of March 1919. Deeply missed by his brother, sisters, relatives and friends. May his dear soul rest in peace."
[4] Scott Nelson, "Kosminski's Relatives", Ripperologist no 39 (February 2002)
Paul Begg, The Facts, pp. 376, 509 (2004).
[5] "The Dolphin" was on the north side of Whitechapel Road, and immediately to the east of its junction with Greatorex Street. The building survives - and retains the fitting from which the sign would have hung - but the ground floor is now occupied by the Islamic Bank of Britain.
[6] Post Office Directories of London, 1915-1923. Abrahams succeeded John George Wilcox who was listed at the "Princess of Wales" in 1915, and Louis Brager who was listed at the "Dolphin" in 1917. Moore and Abrahams were succeeded at the "Dolphin" by Hyman Isbitsky in 1923.
[7] LMA LCC/PER/B/1607, district M.
[8] See transcript of marriage entry in following post.
[9] See transcript of census entries in following post.
[10] See transcript of naturalisation papers in following post.
Evidently because he had adopted the surname Abrahams, he called his parents Abrahams, and dropped his father's first name Abraham, calling him only Joseph. There is also a discrepancy of a year and a few days in the stated date of birth.
[11] See transcript of admission entries in following post.------------------------------------------------------------------------
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