One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[erobitha]

I did notice that Sarah Robertson had an aunt and uncle living just around the corner from Batty Street, St. George in the East, in 1851, but I couldn't find them there in the 1860s, so this was evidently a decade before Mudbrick had met her.

Feldman's theory is that Mudbrick would have journeyed through the East End in the 1860s and 70s, to visit in "in-laws" when they were in Mile-End and on Bromley Street, thus making him familiar with the...er...main arteries.

How do you think Samuel Case is related to Charles Case? I'm intrigued.

[rjpalmer]

How do you think Samuel Case is related to Charles Case? I'm intrigued.

Samuel Case? The name doesn't ring any bells. Did I miss something?

You might be interested in knowing that there's a long account of Charles James Case in the Morning Post, 4 November 1854, living at No. 1 Postern Row, Tower Hill.

He was convicted and fined for selling "squibs and rockets" and other fireworks. At trial, he complains of poverty and a large family. He also suffers from "paralysis of the feet."

[caz]

As I've recently pointed out to Ike, the believer has an almost limitless scope for denial, and can come up with the most creative explanations to justify their delusion.

Like coming up with creative ways of making a silk purse out of the sow's ear that is Mike's affidavit of 5th January 1995?

The Barrett hoax believer is incapable of admitting to him/herself that the liar was not making a true confession to make a clean breast of it, for the good of his soul, or he'd have done a proper job of it at his first attempt. He was lying because lying had always been his coping mechanism, and his personal life had now hit rock bottom. He was lashing out at anyone and everyone, rather than blaming himself for his situation. Back in March 1992, he was full of hope and optimism when taking possession of the diary, little thinking it was the diary taking possession of him.

Would a confession from Anne Graham do the trick?

Some here have already signaled that it would not.

Have they really? If Anne Graham were ever to confess that she was complicit in creating the diary, or had lied about how and when Mike obtained it, I think she would do it for the good of her soul, and she would do a proper job of it, once and for all.

We are all still here because Mike made such a hash of it whenever he tried. Nobody in their right mind should have considered his failed attempts as evidence of anything but the fact that Mike wasn't in his right mind.

[MrBarnett]

I did notice that Sarah Robertson had an aunt and uncle living just around the corner from Batty Street, St. George in the East, in 1851, but I couldn't find them there in the 1860s, so this was evidently a decade before Mudbrick had met her.

Feldman's theory is that Mudbrick would have journeyed through the East End in the 1860s and 70s, to visit in "in-laws" when they were in Mile-End and on Bromley Street, thus making him familiar with the...er...main arteries.

’Round the corner’? In Tiger Bay??

Where exactly were they in 1851?

[rjpalmer]

’Round the corner’? In Tiger Bay??

Where exactly were they in 1851?

Christiana Lindsay Robertson's sister was Margaret Knight Robertson, also born in Sunderland, Durham. She moved to London sometime in the 1840s, and you can see that Christiana signed the marriage banns when her sister married Charles Bradshaw in Southwark in 1844. Note that Charles James Case was also present.



It is hard to read, but you can find Charles and Margaret Bradshaw living at No. 6 King's Place, SGE in 1851. There is a transcription error, claiming that Margaret was born in Lancashire, but it is fairly obvious that it actually reads "Durham, Sunderland."




I can't find the couple in 1861; in 1871 Margaret has reverted to her maiden name and is back to living in Southwark.

I wrote "around the corner" because on the previous page in the census No. 10 King's Place comes right after No. 32 Batty Street. I haven't actually seen it on a map, but it is at the Commercial Road end, isn't it?

[caz]

Are you suggesting it wasn’t an exaggeration?

There aren’t 125 missing pages in the diary.

According to Shirley Harrison, there are only 48.

Thus, as you now seem to be realizing, Litherland’s estimate was anything but reliable, because it was based on a very bad approximation by Barrett.

Why blame me for your own flawed premise?

Of course, one could argue that Mike’s bad “approximation” shows that he was lying—but that doesn’t really make much sense. The number of missing pages wasn’t a secret—it was published in Shirley’s book and Barrett had ownership of the damned thing for weeks.

According to Robert Smith: 'The full extent of the original scrapbook was 128 pages.'

By January 1995, Mike would have been aware of that, if not when he first took possession of it in March 1992, with 48 of them already missing.

Mike claimed that he bought an album with approximately 125 pages of photographs. Was that really just a 'very bad' approximation, or was he making two very stupid mistakes for the price of one? Was he not trying to suggest that all 128 pages had contained photos, forgetting the reason for removing the first 48 pages, with their tell-tale impressions and glue stains, to leave 80 pristine pages [63 + 17] to use for the diary? How was it possible for him to get this so wrong, if he removed those pages himself?

Meanwhile, I hate to ask this—but you do know how auctions work, don’t you? The final bid isn’t always in perfect harmony with the item’s actual worth. That’s the fun of an auction. Even if we accept Mr. L's estimate of “in excess of a hundred pounds,” (which is now in serious doubt) these specific photos may have generated very little interest at the time and sold for a fraction of that estimate. That is the nature of the beast.

Yes, I know all that. I also know that a reserve price is very often put on any item expected to fetch a decent sum, to prevent it going for a fraction of this amount if there are few bidders. I would imagine Mike Litherland takes this into account whenever he gives an estimate based on a detailed description. If he values an item at well in excess of £100, the seller and auctioneer can always agree between them a reserve price, so the seller doesn't have to accept a highest bid that doesn't even reach, say, £75.

Here again is what Mike claimed:

'This Album was part of lot No.126 which was for auction with a 'brass compass', it looked to me like a 'seaman's Compass', it was round faced with a square encasement, all of which was brass, it was marked on the face, North South, East and West in heavy lettering. I particularly noticed that the compass had no 'fingers'.

When the bidding stated (sic) I noticed another man who was interested in the itmes (sic) he was smartly dressed, I would say in his middle forties, he was interested in the photographs. I noticed that his collar and tie were imaculate and I think he was a Military man.

This man big up to L45 and then I bid L50 and the other man dropped out.'

Does Mike mean he was bidding against this one man from the start, and managed to secure both items for £50, because the seller had not put a higher reserve on them?

Yes, what you say is true. Bill McMahon, the manager of Outhwaite & Litherland, was giving a general estimate of the worth of World War I photos. He wasn’t specifically making a guesstimation based on the vague description in the Barrett/Gray affidavit. Yet, this is not a weakness--it is the beauty of it. His appraisal was made entirely independently of any consideration of the Maybrick Hoax and thus could not have been influenced by his own desires, or to humor his earnest but highly partisan inquisitor. McMahon is clearly the more reliable source, having made his appraisal in 1993—and McMahon was, after all, not only associated with O & L, but a regular contributor to a column in the Liverpool Echo specially set up to discuss the worth of antiques.

He put the price of a similar collection at between 20 and 30 pounds.

I'm sure Mike Litherland will be thrilled with your assessment of his character and motivation, and tendency to be unduly influenced. We already knew what your assessment was of mine, Keith Skinner's and James Johnston's - all of us in on the communication we had with Mike Litherland.

The irony is that your assessment of all our sources of information would presumably be the same, so it would have been preferable from your own point of view to conduct your own investigations. Then you'd have known for certain that your chosen sources would be reliable - and every bit as fair and impartial as the person posing the questions.

That last bit was a joke by the way.

[rjpalmer]

An 1868 map shows Kings Place merely being the buildings on the south side of Commercial Road between Berner Street and Grove Street

[MrBarnett]

Christiana Lindsay Robertson's sister was Margaret Knight Robertson, also born in Sunderland, Durham. She moved to London sometime in the 1840s, and you can see that Christiana signed the marriage banns when her sister married Charles Bradshaw in Southwark in 1844. Note that Charles James Case was also present.



It is hard to read, but you can find Charles and Margaret Bradshaw living at No. 6 King's Place, SGE in 1851. There is a transcription error, claiming that Margaret was born in Lancashire, but it is fairly obvious that it actually reads "Durham, Sunderland."




I can't find the couple in 1861; in 1871 Margaret has reverted to her maiden name and is back to living in Southwark.

I wrote "around the corner" because on the previous page in the census No. 10 King's Place comes right after No. 32 Batty Street. I haven't actually seen it on a map, but it is at the Commercial Road end, isn't it?

I don’t think I’d heard of it before you mentioned it. I believe the northern end of Christian Street was originally called King Street and there was a Queens Court off Batty Street - where Thomas Fogarty’s parents lived for a while. I suspect you’re right and Kings Place was probably behind the northern end of Batty Street on the east side.

[MrBarnett]

Well spotted.

Our posts crossed.

It’s annoying when parts of a street are given or retain an alternative name.

[MrBarnett]

I enjoyed the report of James Case being fined for selling fireworks. He handed over £5 to avoid a spell inside, so he wasn’t desperately poor, or at least hadn’t been up to that point. There a few interesting images/maps/plans of Postern Row online. I won’t clutter up this thread with them.

The postern gate at the Tower of London is said to be where the Ratcliff Highway started (or finished).

[caz]

Is it imagined that every businessman with an office in the eastern part of the City of London was familiar with the back streets of Whitechapel and Spitalfields?

Yes, Gary, I had the same question in mind on reading RJ's belief that the real James Maybrick of Liverpool would have been totally familiar with Jack the Ripper's hunting ground well before 1888.

In his determination to find fault with what he believes was Anne Graham's 'novella' in the first person, RJ has managed to make an argument for her choosing her subject well by accident.

Love,

Caz
X

[MrBarnett]

Yes, Gary, I had the same question in mind on reading RJ's belief that the real James Maybrick of Liverpool would have been totally familiar with Jack the Ripper's hunting ground well before 1888.

In his determination to find fault with what he believes was Anne Graham's 'novella' in the first person, RJ has managed to make an argument for her choosing her subject well by accident.

Love,

Caz
X

Things are different these days since Spitalfields has been gentrified and the City has burst its seams. But I can remember when crossing Bishopsgate for instance was like crossing into another country. When I first started work in the City, toffs still walked around wearing top hats during the working week. Petticoat Lane on a Sunday morning was altogether different. The distance in yards between the two areas was inconsequential, it was like the physical City walls had been replaced by an invisible class one. There was a certain amount of mixing inasmuch as that guttersnipes like me had a reason for going into the City but toffs, members of the various exchanges, insurance brokers, solicitors etc. going in the other direction? Extremely rare.

[MrBarnett]

Mark Lane, across the road (or whatever the phrase was) from Whitechapel.

Note the tall titfers.

[MrBarnett]

The next lane off Fenchurch Street was Mincing Lane. In the 70s (that’s 1970s, not 1870s), I worked in Dunster House which filled the gap between the two Lanes.

More tall titfers on their uncle Neds.

[caz]

Things are different these days since Spitalfields has been gentrified and the City has burst its seams. But I can remember when crossing Bishopsgate for instance was like crossing into another country. When I first started work in the City, toffs still walked around wearing top hats during the working week. Petticoat Lane on a Sunday morning was altogether different. The distance in yards between the two areas was inconsequential, it was like the physical City walls had been replaced by an invisible class one. There was a certain amount of mixing inasmuch as that guttersnipes like me had a reason for going into the City but toffs, members of the various exchanges, insurance brokers, solicitors etc. going in the other direction? Extremely rare.

I have similar memories, Gary, from when I worked for Guinness Mahon merchant bank, St Mary at Hill, in the late 1970s. One of those City toffs, who was an auditor there, took me to lunch at Bloom's, in Whitechapel, so I wonder how rare it really was to mix with the 'guttersnipes'?

Love,

Caz
X