Plausibility of Kosminski

[Phil H]

Harry

I'm no expert on this, but my understanding is that the Seaside Home existed as an institution separately from the premises it occupied. It also moved location on a number of occasions.

Some records exist and there is (I seem to recall) even a mention of two "special" visitors being accommodated at the Home in the right period - though no way of knowing whether this was "Kosminski" and an attendant.

But questions have been asked about WHY a suspect would be taken to such an unconventional place to an identification, and why (given the apparent circumstances - a perhaps mentally challenged individual taken to the seaside with difficulty) the Seaside Home might have been chosen.

In turn, questions have been asked (that might resolve the issue ) whether Swanson misremembered or mis-wrote Seamens' Home for seaside Home, as the former was involved in the case of Coles' alleged murderer.

[Sorry if any of that appears vague, I don't have my sources with me.]

Phil

[PaulB]

Swanson described it as 'the Seaside Home'. Donald Rumbelow, when he first saw the marginalia back in 1987, stated that policemen writing c.1910, as policemen today, called one place and one place only 'the Seaside Home', namely the Convalescent Police Seaside Home in Hove. It is generally accepted that this was the place meant, and I particularly point out the word "the" and the capitalisation of "S" and "H" in Seaside Home as strongly indicators that a specific, recognisable place was intended. Others have argued that the words could have meant any of the other convalescent homes used by the police, none of which were used exclusively by the police, but I think Swanson would have specified it if it was something like Mrs Figgis's boarding house at Clacton or whatever, or if it was a seaside home for postmen, jews, or whatever.

[Phil H]

But Paul, did not the Hove Seaside home move its actual premises in the early years of its existence, or am I misremembering something?

Phil

[PaulB]

But Paul, did not the Hove Seaside home move its actual premises in the early years of its existence, or am I misremembering something?

Phil

Yes,it did. But the original building would have been where the identification took place. The first Convalescent Police Seaside Home opened at 51 Clarendon Villas, West Brighton, in March 1890. In 1893, a purpose-built police seaside home was opened, and subsequently the establishment moved to other addresses.

[The Good Michael]

Paul,

Do you know if the Seaside Home was for convalescence of officers recovering from illnesses and injuries, much like those soldiers used in WWI, or was it for aged and infirm policemen as a retirement home? And, could family of police officers use it? Trying to get a handle on who could have been there to receive the suspect is crazy nuts. It makes me wonder if either Swanson or Anderson was there for some reason and insisted on being involved in whatever process was going on. One thing that makes sense is that the idea of using the Seaside Home for purposes of questioning or suspect detection is almost to crazy NOT to be true. It smacks of truth in its sheer outlandishness.

Mike

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

In 1891 the Police Convalescent Home at 51 Clarendon Villas, Hove, was also the Southern Counties Police Orphanage [see Kelly Directory 1890/1891]. It had accommodation for sixteen people.



1891 Census [5th April], seven weeks after Aaron Kosminski's incarceration at Colney Hatch.

Police Convalescent Home
51 Clarendon Villas
Country: Sussex
Civil District: Hove
Ecc District: Brighton

Mary M.P. Griffen, Head, Lives by Own Means, 33, Born Portsea, Hampshire

Fanny March, Widow, 57, Born Ssx [Sussex] Biddlecombe

James H. Archer, Visitor, Scholar, 10, Born Brighton

James H. Cousens, Visitor, Scholar, 6, Born Leic[ester]

Letitice Roper, Servant, 41, Weeks, Ryde, Isle of Wight

Eliza Inman, Servant, 14, London, Bow

James M. Hay, Boarder, 42, Police Inspector, Kent

Henry R. Hatch, Boarder, 47, Police Constable, Mdx [Middlesex] Southall

Frederic Child, Boarder, Police Constable, 20 (?), Bucks, Beaconsfield.

It's hard to imagine the Metropolitan Police bringing history's most infamous murderer to a small house in Hove tenanted by women and children.

Regards,

Simon

PS. Grateful thanks to whomever found the above photo.

[Phil H]

One thing that makes sense is that the idea of using the Seaside Home for purposes of questioning or suspect detection is almost to crazy NOT to be true. It smacks of truth in its sheer outlandishness.

A perspective that I have often pondered.

Aside from a scribal or memory mistake for Seamens' Home (which at a stroke puts a new light on what is described), Swanson must have been thinking of something SO unique and SO memorable that it would neither be invented nor a mistake.

Phil

[fido]

The Hove Seaside Home indeed opened its doors a couple of years after the murders stopped - (I'm writing from memory, so forgive my imprecision). It is my belief, as it is, I think Don's and Stewart's, that any identification made at that time would be worthless. (Obviously I think the use of the old witness, who I think Phil Sugden established to be Lawende, in 1894 or -5 was idiotic, and noting that the press declared that Swanson thought the original Ripper was dead, and so would hardly have been impressed by the ID attempt, I infer that Anderson was probably of the same mind).
Unfortunately, no Jewish asylum inmate young and fit enough to have been the Ripper had died in that time other than Aaron Davis Cohen. Hence an obvious reason for my putting him in the frame, and wondering how on earth Kosminski (with another 20 years to live and no record of serious violence) ever got there.
But back to the Seaside Home. The Police Convalescent Fund had been the most widely supported charity for several year prior to 1888, and until the custom-fitted Hove home was purchased, its funds were used to send convalescent officers to recuperate in ad hoc hired accommodation on the south coast. Any officer recuperating in one of these might have been recollected inaccurately in 1910 as having been in "the Seaside Home". This is, of course, purely speculative, as is the alternative suggestion that the misrecollection involved Sadler's presence inthe Seaman's Home, though in the latter case it is puzzling that Swanson should also have misremembered that the suspect was taken there "with difficulty": wording which suggests some distinctly memorable occurrence.
Taking the suspect to thee Seaskide Home, in any case, suggests a witness who was a convalescing policeman - but this at once comes up against the objection that we don't know of any Jewish police officers at that time (and as late as 1960 I met a former Jewish Metropolitan CID sergeant who had resigned on realizing that he knew of no Jewish officer with a higher rank than sergeant, despite the acquisition of law degrees and commendations that might have made promotion likely), and it seems doubly improbable that a serving officer would have gone back on an identification that top brass like Anderson clearly wanted confirrmed.
These things are real and unsolved problems which should be of huge interest to historians in their own right. It is downright silly to assert that we can cut the Gordian knot by simply saying Anderson, Swanson and Macnaghten all got it wrong so we can disregard them entirely. They are, as Stewart and Paul keep saying, people who were there and saw and knew things we don't know, and there isn't a shred of evidence to suggest that any of them made up fancy stories to amuse themselves or bolster their reputations, though all of them obviously misremembered, and Anderson at least was quite capable of half-truths and silence when his pension was at risk - which it cerainly wasn't over the Ripper case.
I am very taken by the suggestion of two (or even more) ID parades being confused. We know the police relied a lot of ID: we also know that we are only aware of the Ripper case IDs we do know of thanks to newspaper reporting. The files have gone. We know from the Harriet Buswell case that they clung tenaciously and stupidly to witness IDs, even when their case had been blown out of the water to the extent that the Foreign Office had to apologize to the Kaiser for the way they harrassed (and continued to believe in the gult of) an innocent German citizen. With respect to this last point, the recorded continuous and pretty obviously misplaced suspicion of Sadler is relevant.
But all these fascinating mysteries don't mean that we can discount the fact that something or things lay behind the misrecollections. And with three senior officers, two engaged on the case and the third with access to the files, all pointing a finger in one direction it is quite absurd to call Kosminski or the Polish jew an uncorrroborated suspect. He is one of the most positively corroborated suspects we know of - only a vaguely unnamed "doctor suspect" comes close.
Martin F

[Phil H]

I enjoyed that, Martin, very much.

A lot of meat to take in, but eloquently put. Thank you.

Phil

[PaulB]

One thing that makes sense is that the idea of using the Seaside Home for purposes of questioning or suspect detection is almost to crazy NOT to be true. It smacks of truth in its sheer outlandishness.

A perspective that I have often pondered.

Aside from a scribal or memory mistake for Seamens' Home (which at a stroke puts a new light on what is described), Swanson must have been thinking of something SO unique and SO memorable that it would neither be invented nor a mistake.

Phil

Unfortunately, no identification actually took place in a Seaman's Home. Thomas Sadler allegedly sold a knife to a man named Duncan Cambell in one, so there we're no just looking at a slip in writing Seaside Home instead of Seamans Home, but of setting an identification where one never actually took place, and confusing a Gentile sailor with a Jewish suspect, and, of course, a positive identification with a negative one. And at no time when writing it or when looking at it afterwards (assuming he ever did) having alarm bells going off in his head that he'd messed up.

[Phil H]

I am in no doubt Paul, in my own mind, that Swanson meant what he wrote. But others have raised the spectre of an alternative so I thought it only fair to refer to it. And it would, as you say, put a VERY different complexion on things.

On the other hand, as I know only too well from work, I can make mistakes and then be blind to them even when perusing a draft as my team have been known to point out!

Phil

[PaulB]

Paul,

Do you know if the Seaside Home was for convalescence of officers recovering from illnesses and injuries, much like those soldiers used in WWI, or was it for aged and infirm policemen as a retirement home? And, could family of police officers use it? Trying to get a handle on who could have been there to receive the suspect is crazy nuts. It makes me wonder if either Swanson or Anderson was there for some reason and insisted on being involved in whatever process was going on. One thing that makes sense is that the idea of using the Seaside Home for purposes of questioning or suspect detection is almost to crazy NOT to be true. It smacks of truth in its sheer outlandishness.

Mike

Hi Mike
I believe it was for policemen recovering from injuries and otherwise sustained whilst on duty. The need for one was realised by Miss Gurney when she met a policeman who had discharged himself from a conalescent home when he discovered that in the same ward/room was a criminal he'd put away some time previously and who was not feeling too hospitable towards him.

[PaulB]

I am in no doubt Paul, in my own mind, that Swanson meant what he wrote. But others have raised the spectre of an alternative so I thought it only fair to refer to it. And it would, as you say, put a VERY different complexion on things.

On the other hand, as I know only too well from work, I can make mistakes and then be blind to them even when perusing a draft as my team have been known to point out!

Phil

Oh, yes, I'm not challenging the hypothesis, just pointing out that it's a tad more complicated than confusing two identifications or attributing one identification to someone else.

[Phil H]

...it's a tad more complicated than confusing two identifications or attributing one identification to someone else.

A trap I probably fell into myself. I'm grateful you were there to provide a correction.

Phil

[Phil Carter]

Swanson described it as 'the Seaside Home'. Donald Rumbelow, when he first saw the marginalia back in 1987, stated that policemen writing c.1910, as policemen today, called one place and one place only 'the Seaside Home', namely the Convalescent Police Seaside Home in Hove. It is generally accepted that this was the place meant,

- quote from posting by Paul


Hello all,

Whilst showing absolutely NO disrespect to Don Rumbelow... there is no proof of this identification is there? There were a number of different Seaside Home's in the area. Some of them Jewish Seaside Homes. To state that it is generally accepted.. well.. I'll say again..without proof it cannot be accepted as fact. It is surmise, opinion and conjecture, imho. (with all respect to Paul's post)

Hello Simon,

Great posting.. thanks for the photo. The comment is very interesting too. Women and children there.. and "Jack the Ripper" is turning up... now, that would be the gossip of Brighton. Perhaps with all those London Policemen attending with this mad loony in tow, perhaps a Doctor in attendance from the loony bin too.. You would have thought something would have been noticed by someone...but of course, this is conjecture. Illogical too perhaps that such a visit would go completely unnoticed, and never commented upon by anyone...ever. Not even known oral tradition from any policeman's family... except... Swanson, apparently.. who we don't even know was in attendance at this supposed get together or not.
I really must try to believe in some of this.. after all.. impeccable source material that is beyond question. He was involved at the time.. impeccable.

Err.. so was Reid.. involved at the time.. so was Abberline.. etc etc etc.

Swanson who can't get his "facts" right in his jottings either.. so how are we to believe that he DID get it right when referring to an un-named Seaside Home of no known or proven location? After all, we mustn't be selective must we.

Perhaps his memory came and went as he wrote. Bit like Kosminski's supposed visit. He just came and went too.


kindly

Phil


Source: The Swanson Marginalia