Who was the author of the 'Maybrick' diary? Some options.

[Sam Flynn]

Specifically, Chris will speak on “The Maybricks of Liverpool: More George & Ringo than Lennon & McCartney?”

That is such a good title for a talk!

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi all

To remind anyone who doesn't know, Chris Jones will be coming to speak at RipperCon 2018 in Baltimore over the weekend of April 7-8.

Specifically, Chris will speak on “The Maybricks of Liverpool: More George & Ringo than Lennon & McCartney?”

Chris taught for 36 years in secondary schools in Liverpool, served for many years as Head of History in a Merseyside school, and later as Deputy Head Teacher at one of the city's largest comprehensive schools. His now retired from teaching and has formed his own hiking company, Simply Trekking. He spent three weeks in September trekking up to Everest base camp.

In 2007, Jones organized the Trial of James Maybrick at the Liverpool Cricket Club across the street from the former Maybrick mansion, Battlecrease House. Following the success of this event, he wrote the widely acclaimed book The Maybrick A to Z in which he tried to take an objective review of the evidence surrounding Florence Maybrick's 1889 trial for the arsenic murder husband James and also James' alleged links to the Ripper murders. He has continued his research into James and especially Florence, and has given talks on the Maybricks in both Britain and the United States, including in Florence's home town of Mobile, Alabama. He has written several articles about the Maybrick case, most recently a critique of Bruce Robinson's We All Love Jack, in which Robinson made certain doubtful claims with regard to the conduct of Florence's trial. His current research is focused on the claims that the so-called Maybrick Diary was found by electricians working in Battlecrease House on March 9, 1992.

Here are some further notes on the Maybricks and Chris's talk:

For a week in August 1889, the eyes of the world were focused on a sensational trial in Liverpool. A young American, Florence Maybrick, was on trial for the murder of her much older husband, a respected city cotton trader, whom she allegedly killed by means of arsenic poisoning. Finally released from prison in 1904 (but never pardoned), she returned to the U.S. the following year, when she again dominated the front pages of major newspapers.

In 1992, the supposed Diary of Jack the Ripper was "discovered" and overnight it turned James Maybrick into arguably the most controversial of all Ripper suspects. Not considered a suspect at the time of the Whitechapel murders and unmentioned in the famous Macnaghten Memorandum or any other contemporary police document, Maybrick was not linked to the killings until the emergence of the so-called Diary. His credibility as a Ripper suspect is therefore intrinsically bound up with the authenticity of this document—or the lack of it.

In his talk, Jones will look at both Florence and James Maybrick. Was one a manipulative, clever murderer and was the other the most infamous serial killer of all time? Or, are both of them relatively ordinary individuals who have been unjustly accused of crimes they didn’t commit? He will examine the key moments in Florence’s trial and why the jury produced a guilty verdict. He will then address the big question—did Florence really kill James?

Jones will then review the key arguments for and against James being a credible Ripper suspect. He will analyse the new evidence that has recently surfaced that arguably provides some much needed provenance for the Diary. Was James Maybrick really Jack the Ripper or instead an arsenic addict whose name has been cleverly woven into a forged document in an elaborate and clever hoax?

Don’t miss out on RipperCon in Baltimore, April 7-8. Only fifty places available! See information at www.RipperCon.com -- upcoming deadline for registration February 14.

Best regards

Chris

[Varqm]

It has nothing to do with JTR like the Royal conspiracy, but some people
like slimy/sleazy/gossipy stuff,the National Enquirer side of this "field".
But I guess street rules,you leave people alone.

[rjpalmer]

By the way, I never met Mike Barrett. But I think I went much further than any member of the public could reasonably be expected to go: I read Feldman, I read Harrison, I read 'Inside Story,' I watched the video, I read Melvin Harris's reports, and I listened to several hours of Mike's rambling audio tapes. I came away with the decided opinion that Mike was a chameleon. What he said depended entirely on who the audience was.

[rjpalmer]

Melvin Harris never spoke of a 'Nest of Forgers.' This was actually Keith Skinner's phrase---a somewhat obvious attempt to make Harris's claim seem as ridiculous as possible. Sorry Keith, but that's how I see it. That many people still refer to a 'Nest of Forgers' proves the effectiveness of this feathery ruse, but, to my mind, it does not actually resolve whether or not Harris uncovered the truth.

Now, while I can appreciate that some might be skeptical, what Harris was actually quoted as saying (in the Evening Standard) was that there were 3 people involved in the hoax. One was Mike Barrett, the other two were not named, but information "leaked," and it was widely assumed that one was the alleged "penman," Gerard Kane, a friend of Tony Devereux's.

There was, in fact, considerable similarity between Kane's handwriting and that in the Diary, particularly in the odd way he made the letter 'K,' with a sort of quirky dog-legged hook. His 'T's were also rather interesting. Yet, as with many handwriting abnormalities, this hooked K was intermittent. An article by Harris showing 7 or 8 examples of this hook was published in "Ripper Notes" back around 2002 or so, but when discussed in the "Inside Story," the 3 authors chose to use another page from the Diary where the hook was not evident, and then claimed there was no such similarity. Keith and Caz both post here, so they can explain their reasoning for switching the textual examples used, but --in my opinion---it seemed to me they were avoiding the ones Harris had pointed out, thus trying to quickly dismiss the possibility, without fully exploring it. So, as I said earlier, the possibility of Kane's involvement or non-involvement was never resolved to my satisfaction, and probably never will be.

The new 'floorboards' provenance, meanwhile, could just as easily be called "the Nest of Liars," because one of its chief ingredients is that Mike Barrett, Eddie Lyons, Anne Graham, Paul Dodd, and possibly others, are all lying about what was or wasn't found under the floorboards in March,1992. It boggles the mind.

To answer Chris Jones: Back around 2002 I conducted the very experiment you describe in your post. I sat down with a blank sheet of paper and listed every verifiable Maybrickian "fact" in the Diary: Bobo, "Bunny," a new source of arsenic, the Grand National, etc. etc. There is a great deal of repetition in the Diary's text and there are only about 40 or 45 Maybrickian "facts." The rest is window dressing. I then studied the standard works on the Maybrick Case and soon found that ALL of these 'facts' could be found in Bernard Ryan's "Poisoned Life." Except one. Ryan does not, in fact, mention the fast speed of the Grand National, so this would have to be found elsewhere. "Nothing the matter with my health" was there, as you note, and also the suggestive phrase about Maybrick 'frequently visiting his club." Barrett later named "the Ryan book" as a source for the Diary during a taped conversation, which, along with other things, convinced me that Mike had inside knowledge. Along with his purchase of a blank Diary, his lying about the word processor, his use of an alias, his amazing unearthing of the Crashaw citation, the police inventory list, the failure of the ink solubility test, his ownership of Liverpool Tales, etc., EVERYTHING pointed to the Diary as having been written in 1991-1992 and Barrett knowing all about it. I dismissed McNeil's ion migration test as an obtuse and eccentric experiment not repeatable by other scientists, and repeatability, is, of course, the backbone of science. No, we will probably never know whether it was Kane or whether it was Anne who helped Mike, but is this really so very important in your mind? Paul Begg's "3" questions can be answered with complete confidence: When? 1991-92. Who? Mike Barrett & his accomplice. Why? Financial gain. Barret made aprox £25,000 in royalties the first year or so, before it crashed and burned.

[Chris Jones]

James Maybrick

Hi "Spider". I know you have some very interesting views on this subject, thought-provoking and well researched. When you will be airing these ideas publically? I think they will add another dimension to this old debate.

[John Wheat]

and all you do, other then when your posting erroneous arguments, when you try to make an argument at all, is respond with inane one or two sentence posts trying to be witty.

and I'm going all right. there are now three threads going on right now about the diary. yay! I'm starting to think this is really just all kind of wind up to keep this thing going, when it should have been put out of its misery a long time ago.

its actually quite sad really, but the diary defenders and all theyve written in support of it will be as Phillip Sugden so eloquently put it- stuck like flies in amber forever for all the world to see.

I'm getting off the diary merry go round-but do have fun.

Your not wrong Abby it's clearly a modern forgery.

[Abby Normal]

Yeah, well then go Mr. Normal. You don't have anything useful to add to the discussion. All you do is quote an entire post, then add a one or two sentence reply.

and all you do, other then when your posting erroneous arguments, when you try to make an argument at all, is respond with inane one or two sentence posts trying to be witty.

and I'm going all right. there are now three threads going on right now about the diary. yay! I'm starting to think this is really just all kind of wind up to keep this thing going, when it should have been put out of its misery a long time ago.

its actually quite sad really, but the diary defenders and all theyve written in support of it will be as Phillip Sugden so eloquently put it- stuck like flies in amber forever for all the world to see.

I'm getting off the diary merry go round-but do have fun.

[John Wheat]

Ya know what? This is a bunch of huge stinking buffalo ****. Why do we bother?I feel sorry for him mike Barrett actually reading all this . Airing this poor sad sacks dirty laundry gets us where?

Sad.

I’m out.

Why should anyone feel sad for someone who invented a hoax diary to make some cash? He' s essentially profiting of some horrible murders which makes him scum in my book.

[Sam Flynn]

I'll opt for an old forgery. George Grossmith as penman with help from Harry Jackson Wells Dam.

... with a little help from Robert Lees, or some other clairvoyant who could foresee mid/later 20th century idiomatic usages of certain words and phrases.

[Graham]

I wonder just how close to the truth Melvin Harris actually was. We've certainly not moved on very much from the days when he spoke of the 'nest of forgers', have we?

Graham

[DirectorDave]

To get back to the topic, particularly that it is a forgery of the 20th century: who wrote it, if handwriting analysis apparently does NOT match either Mr or Mrs Barrett, or their friend Tony D.?

Why do we need Tony Deveraux involved at all?

The daughter, the sister who burned the photographs? The writing looks female.

Are we to assume they had a fourth, unknown accomplice who did the copying of the text into the photo album turned "diary"? If so, why did that person stay "mum" all these years?

We are still at 3 we don't need Tony, if it was a family member who done the writing it would explain their silence...it's a big deal Ripperology to them I'd imagine they just want to forget the whole thing.

And why does the Diary begin in mid-sentence, with some pages removed?

To hide the fact it was a photo album, they would have to be pretty daft to start the narrative at the point the pages are removed...of course you start writing mid-sentence.

Those are pretty straw man questions that have multiple, plausible explanations.

[GUT]

To get back to the topic, particularly that it is a forgery of the 20th century: who wrote it, if handwriting analysis apparently does NOT match either Mr or Mrs Barrett, or their friend Tony D.?

Are we to assume they had a fourth, unknown accomplice who did the copying of the text into the photo album turned "diary"? If so, why did that person stay "mum" all these years?

How big a conspiracy of forgers was this supposed to be, anyway?

And why does the Diary begin in mid-sentence, with some pages removed?

But doesn’t match Maybrick writing either.

[Pcdunn]

To get back to the topic, particularly that it is a forgery of the 20th century: who wrote it, if handwriting analysis apparently does NOT match either Mr or Mrs Barrett, or their friend Tony D.?

Are we to assume they had a fourth, unknown accomplice who did the copying of the text into the photo album turned "diary"? If so, why did that person stay "mum" all these years?

How big a conspiracy of forgers was this supposed to be, anyway?

And why does the Diary begin in mid-sentence, with some pages removed?

[DirectorDave]

The Mike Barrett photo album was authored in the living room with the word processor.

The writing was probably done by a female, perhaps a family member.

Old bottle of ink...inks that age unusable? Like an old tin of paint remove the dried skin and there is still usable paint inside.

Barrett was a published writer, in days when becoming a writer took more than self publishing an e-book on Amazon.

Old photo album, cut out the front pages with a so nice and sharp craft knif and get to work right away.

Nothing complicated, it's a fake...humanity has a propensity for fake texts that purport to provide answers.