One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[rjpalmer]

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.

Damn, you're a silly soul, Caz. Why keep pulling these stunts?

Gary was obviously responding to Ero's claim that Maybrick would have known Mitre Square because he had an office in Lime Street. Ero further implied that Maybrick would have known 'Whitechapel' because Sarah Richardson's "aunt" had once lived in Mile End Old Town, etc.

Of course, heaven forbid that you would ever challenge the thought process of anyone who believes the diary is genuine--so instead you blame me for Ero's suggestion?

I was merely wondering why if Maybrick had such familiarity with the East End, as Ero suggested, why the narrator of this hot mess had to familiarize himself with the streets surrounding Middlesex Street, since it was less than 0.3 miles from a square that Maybrick allegedly knew so well.

I never once claimed that the real Maybrick would have known these backstreets. You seem to have confused yourself once again. Maybe if you occasionally saw fit to challenge those who believe the Diary is genuine, instead of enabling them, you wouldn't make such mistakes.

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.

What does this comment suppose to mean?

There is utterly no indication that the diary's narrator had ANY knowledge of the real James Maybrick's past association with the City of London. There is NOTHING in the text to suggest this.

Are you trying to imply that the hoaxer had knowledge of the office in Lime Street, and of Gustave Witt, and of Sarah Robertson's living arrangements in London during the 1860s and 70s?

Based on what, exactly?

And if the hoaxer did have such knowledge, why didn't they exploit it? It would have added a great deal of verisimilitude and local colour to the text. Instead, the reader gets nothing but a handful of vagaries from someone who is clearly just trying to bluff their way through by having Maybrick visit his brother Michael in London. His choice of this particular slum came down to nothing more than a whim of 'Whitechapel London/Whitechapel Liverpool."

This was not written by anyone with any real knowledge of Maybrick's life.

What you really seem to be suggesting is that the hoaxer DID have knowledge of Maybrick's earlier life in London--which is why he was chosen as a Ripper suspect---but inexplicably chose not to allude to any of it, which strikes me as an utterly irrational thing for a hoaxer to have done.

On what do you base this strange belief? Are you suggesting that the coincidence is simply too great that a Liverpool businessman would have tried to set himself up in the City of London in his youth?

I'm trying to understand your point, but I'm not entirely sure that you even have one.

[MrBarnett]

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
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Tell me more about the auditor, Caz. Age? Ethnicity?

Can you imagine the partners or senior managers of Guiness popping down the Lane for a bowl of jellied eels?

I once worked at a stockbrokers firm with Sir Rupert Mackeson. I’m guessing oysters were more his sort of thing. :-)

[MrBarnett]

Sir RM was a fairly egalitarian sort of chap, at least on the surface. He’d been in the army and presumably had to mix with all sorts. An Irish lad I worked with used to call him ‘Rupe’ and he didn’t seem to mind.

I didn’t have much to do with him, but I’m reminded of him every time I walk down the beer aisle in ASDA.

I just googled him and found this image, which is exactly how I remember him. There’s no mention of him working at a stockbrokers (Spence, Veitch in Throgmorton Avenue), but this must be the same man. A colourful fella by all accounts.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Mackeson

My point, of course, was not that no auditor ever snagged a beigel at Blooms but that, in my opinion, the vast majority of toffs who worked in the City probably had little or no knowledge of the backstreets of Whitechapel and Spitalfields - let alone SGE. I’d take a lot of convincing that wasn’t the case.

[caz]

Afternoon All,

What I am currently struggling with is RJ's theory that Anne's original idea was for Mike to write a story around James Maybrick being JtR. As far as I can gather - and I know RJ will correct me if I get any of the details wrong - the idea evolved to become a 'novella' Anne ended up writing herself, because she hadn't already appreciated that Mike would not be capable of contributing any more than a bit of Sir Jim's doggerel at most. She didn't intend it for publication, at least not in the form of a fake Victorian diary, and that is what RJ believes their fight was about, when Mike suddenly revealed his cunning plan for her work of fiction, which she had produced in all innocence on the word processor. She was basically duped and, as an abused wife, felt she had no option but to go along with his insane idea for the sake of marital peace.

What is not clear is how RJ thinks Mike managed to coerce Anne [or persuaded a third party] to transfer her novella by hand into the old photo album he had just obtained from an auction sale and doctored for the purpose, in time for him to take it to London on 13th April 1992 and pass it off as a genuine historical document. According to RJ's theory, Anne put herself through this charade, while consoling herself with the hope that Doreen would take one look and send Mike packing. One wonders if he was the type to give up after an initial rejection, and would not have tried every other possible avenue to foist his wife's work of fiction onto the public, in the form of this obvious fake, and complete her humiliation.

I'd like RJ to explain how Mike knew that Anne had not written an intentionally fictional treatment, based loosely on the murders and the Maybricks, but not meant to be factually accurate. What would have made Mike think she had researched both cases as well and as carefully as she could have done in the early 1990s, and had then stuck as closely as possible with the historical records, so that he could hope to pass off the result as the genuine thoughts of JM/JtR? If Anne had really wanted to stop him, without the risk of further abuse, all she had to do was to tell him it was just a work of fiction, which would fool nobody, no matter how it was packaged. How would Mike have known the difference, if he had little to no input with the writing?

And then we have Mike's research notes... How do they fit into RJ's 'novella' theory?

Maybe if RJ could put some flesh on the bones, we could judge the overall plausibility of his theory.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Tell me more about the auditor, Caz. Age? Ethnicity?

Can you imagine the partners or senior managers of Guiness popping down the Lane for a bowl of jellied eels?

I once worked at a stockbrokers firm with Sir Rupert Mackeson. I’m guessing oysters were more his sort of thing. :-)

Maybe not jellied eels - although personally I used to love 'em when I lived up there. But pie mash, yes indeed.

I was 23 and between my first and second marriages, while my golf-loving auditor was 29 when he raved about Bloom's and took me there for lunch. He was white, lived in Dulwich, and was one of the best dressed chaps I ever went out with. Not sure why his ethnicity is important, but he was not Jewish if that's what you meant.

Love,

Caz
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[MrBarnett]

Maybe not jellied eels - although personally I used to love 'em when I lived up there. But pie mash, yes indeed.

I was 23 and between my first and second marriages, while my golf-loving auditor was 29 when he raved about Bloom's and took me there for lunch. He was white, lived in Dulwich, and was one of the best dressed chaps I ever went out with. Not sure why his ethnicity is important, but he was not Jewish if that's what you meant.

Love,

Caz
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Well, I’ve seen Prince Charles in the Queen Vic and the Rovers Return, so I suppose I could also imagine top-hatted toffs at Cooks or Manzes. But I doubt their contribution to the cashflow of such establishments would have bought much more than an annual bag of chips.

Yes, I was wondering if your auditor might have been Jewish. Blooms was quite well-known, of course. If you were to tell me that he took you for a pint in the Roebuck or the Dog and Truck in Back Church Lane afterwards, I might have to reconsider my position.

Anyway, what am I doing sticking my nose in a Maybrick thread? A subject about which I know virtually nothing.

Apologies for the diversion.

Before I go, a note from our sponsor (don’t hit me!):

[erobitha]

Well, I’ve seen Prince Charles in the Queen Vic and the Rovers Return, so I suppose I could also imagine top-hatted toffs at Cooks or Manzes. But I doubt their contribution to the cashflow of such establishments would have bought much more than an annual bag of chips.

Yes, I was wondering if your auditor might have been Jewish. Blooms was quite well-known, of course. If you were to tell me that he took you for a pint in the Roebuck or the Dog and Truck in Back Church Lane afterwards, I might have to reconsider my position.

Anyway, what am I doing sticking my nose in a Maybrick thread? A subject about which I know virtually nothing.

Apologies for the diversion.

Before I go, a note from our sponsor (don’t hit me!):

I find this absolute commitment to to this idea that "no city toff" would venture eastward five minutes, even when their common-in-law wife was from there, because it was a gulf apart socially - rather bizarre.

Your logic as a result must also rule out candidates such as Druitt, Sickert, Cream and anyone with a vague notion of being slightly more above the class of commoner.

Yet Sickert was placed within a couple of miles of the double event I believe by Keith Skinner. I guess Sickert wasn't sticking to your very prescriptive view of the English class system.

[rjpalmer]

What I find amusing is that every step of the way we were told by the diary 'team' that Bongo Barrett's startling ability to appear literate could be explained by Anne Graham's willingness to help him.

Paul Felman noticed Barrett's research notes were "too literate" for Mike. The explanation? Anne Graham 'tied them up.'

The typescript? 'Mike was hopeless at typing' so Anne Graham stepped in.

Mike's published interviews, etc? Anne Graham, we are told, acted as the helpful ghost cowriter.

It was even Anne's father who apparently fronted the money for the Amstrad.

Yet, when it comes to creating the Maybrick Diary, the idea of Anne helping Barrett is suddenly unthinkable.

What I am currently struggling with is RJ's theory that Anne's original idea was for Mike to write a story around James Maybrick being JtR.

I'm afraid you'll have to struggle on your own, Caz.

Do you notice anything about the statement in bold?

It was Anne herself who said that she wanted Mike to write a story about Maybrick as Jack the Ripper. Or are you forgetting that?

It is not my 'theory'--it was what Anne herself said in her 'confession' to Paul Feldman.

And, if you recall, Anne's account was accepted as true by Paul Felman and Shirley Harrison, and was given the moral support of Keith Skinner in a letter to The Ripperologist. It was explored as possibly true by Paul Begg in "The Facts' and in your own book, Ripper Diary.

The idea was looked on as plausible then, back when people believed her story. Why is it suddenly untenable now?

Anyway, I have no plan to defend what you are calling my 'theory.'

Take it or leave it. As far as I am concerned, the only person's opinion worth hearing about the matter is Anne Graham's.

Was she indirectly telling us what actually happened, or am I misreading her?

[caz]

Are you trying to imply that the hoaxer had knowledge of the office in Lime Street, and of Gustave Witt, and of Sarah Robertson's living arrangements in London during the 1860s and 70s?

Based on what, exactly?

Based on nothing, because that's not what I was trying to imply.

Your argument with ero was petty and pointless, but it's up to him if he wants to fight his corner. But if you didn't think the real Maybrick had been familiar with the ripper's hunting ground since the 1860s, then the diary's 'Sir Jim' is excused for having to familiarise himself with those streets in 1888. Similarly, if Gary is right about the area having seen considerable changes by then.

What you really seem to be suggesting is that the hoaxer DID have knowledge of Maybrick's earlier life in London--which is why he was chosen as a Ripper suspect---but inexplicably chose not to allude to any of it, which strikes me as an utterly irrational thing for a hoaxer to have done.

Nope. Perhaps you could direct me to where I was suggesting any such thing.

The rest of your post is similarly bewildering.

Presumably you have a hoaxer in mind who was at least attempting to mimic someone writing for themselves in their own personal diary. I don't necessarily buy that, because it has always read to me like more of a darkly comic spoof. But if it's meant to read like the real JM's private thought processes in the present, why would it be inexplicable if the hoaxer didn't allude to the kind of biographical details which the diarist would have had in his head anyway and not needed to commit to paper?

Would it have been more realistic if 'Sir Jim' had written down all sorts of names, addresses and dates, which he would have been expected to know anyway, in a journal for his own personal use?

Why not stick to explaining how any of this makes it more likely that the diary is a Barrett creation?

[rjpalmer]

Nope. Perhaps you could direct me to where I was suggesting any such thing.

Certainly. If you weren't implying it, what did you mean by this?

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 [sic] 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.

I've asked you to explain this last bit, and you still haven't.

Why couldn't Anne have chosen Maybrick-as-Ripper 'well by accident'?

You seem to be implying some flaw in my thinking-- but now you seem to be shy about stating what that flaw is.

I'm merely trying to understand your point, or even determine if you have one.

The hoaxer gives no hint that Maybrick had any prior familiarity with the "Ripper's hunting ground" --quite the contrary--- so why couldn't Anne or anyone else have chosen Maybrick by "accident"?

I would think that the obvious implication of your comment is that this 'accident' was hard to swallow. That it was worthy of mockery.

If not, what was your point?

The thing is, it seems to me that you were actually echoing the same thought that Ike had already expressed a few posts earlier in this thread.

The similarity of thought is striking.

Hi Ero b,

Just read your blog - nice piece of work, young man!

Imagine a scenario where Anne Barrett just for jolly wouldn't you writes a creative piece on James Maybrick (that quintessential Liverpool Lad) and turns him (all mad and inspired and utterly stupidly) into the world's most infamous unsolved murderer - the butcher of Whitechapel - and then you come along thirty years later and show that the thirty year old James ploughed a just-for-jolly wouldn't he furrow down the east end of that there Landarn, right at the very jam tart of Jack's wicked crimes. Would that not jolly well cork you?

Ike (and he can correct me) seems to be suggesting that this is a "bridge too far."

Isn't that what you also meant?

If, as you are now saying, you never meant to imply any such knowledge was required to write the diary, then we can now happily agree that the hoaxer's choice of Maybrick as a suspect WAS entirely independent of any previous association Maybrick may have had with the East End. And anyone who did know of Maybrick's apparent association with the East End in the 1860s would necessarily have known about Lime Street and Sarah Robertson, etc.--which the hoaxer does not demonstrate.

In other words, that the choice of Maybrick was just a coincidence, and the two of us really having nothing to argue about.

Do I have it correct, now? That we do, in fact, agree?

Whoever wrote the diary--Graham or otherwise--shows no knowledge of these earlier events. Maybrick the diarist merely writes that he frequently visits the capitol and has a brother living there. All that info was easily available in books about the Maybrick case.

That, coupled with Maybrick's death in 1889 and his drug habit, was reason enough for a Liverpool hoaxer to have picked Maybrick as suspect around the time of the 1988 centennial.

Why did someone choose Lewis Carroll, Walter Sickert, H.H. Holmes, Vincent Van Gough, or any other of the bad suspects named in the 20th Century?

If we found out that Lewis Carroll had visited Mitre Square in 1870, would Richard Wallace's theory suddenly seem more complex and worthy of respect?

[rjpalmer]

I find this absolute commitment to to this idea that "no city toff" would venture eastward five minutes, even when their common-in-law wife was from there, because it was a gulf apart socially - rather bizarre.

As you know, the document that connects Maybrick to Sarah Robertson and thus to the East End is Thomas David Conconi's 1868 will, where he names his stepdaughter as Sarah Maybrick, the wife of James. Sarah worked and evidently lived in Fenchurch Street, not very far from Maybrick's office in Lime Street.

Assuming the Sarah Robertson connection is kosher, and I think it is based on what I've seen (I haven't actually seen Conconi's will and am trusting that its contents have been accurately reported), Maybrick would have traveled up the Whitechapel Road to visit the family--probably on top of an omnibus or in a cab. He may have walked the street occasionally for all we know. Sarah is already calling herself 'Maybrick' in 1866, and is named as such in the 1868 will, so one assumes they were still on good terms.

In 1866 the Conconi family lived at No. 43 Bancroft, which was off the Mile-End Road. In traveling from The City, Maybrick would have taken the Whitechapel Road to get there. By 1871, the family had moved to 55 Bromley Street, Stepney. By 1876 they were in Sydenham.

The thing is, the more we learn about the real James Maybrick, the more obvious it is that the diarist doesn't demonstrate any knowledge whatsoever about him other than the standard bits that were reported at Florrie's trial and regurgitated in later books on the case.

Why this doesn't bother you, and why Caz thinks it isn't consistent with a modern fake, is beyond my poor powers of comprehension. The diary friendly have long argued or implied that the narrator has more knowledge that is actually demonstrated in the text.

[erobitha]

As you know, the document that connects Maybrick to Sarah Robertson and thus to the East End is Thomas David Conconi's 1868 will, where he names his stepdaughter as Sarah Maybrick, the wife of James. Sarah worked and evidently lived in Fenchurch Street, not very far from Maybrick's office in Lime Street.

Assuming the Sarah Robertson connection is kosher, and I think it is based on what I've seen (I haven't actually seen Conconi's will and am trusting that its contents have been accurately reported), Maybrick would have traveled up the Whitechapel Road to visit the family--probably on top of an omnibus or in a cab. He may have walked the street occasionally for all we know. Sarah is already calling herself 'Maybrick' in 1866, and is named as such in the 1868 will, so one assumes they were still on good terms.

In 1866 the Conconi family lived at No. 43 Bancroft, which was off the Mile-End Road. In traveling from The City, Maybrick would have taken the Whitechapel Road to get there. By 1871, the family had moved to 55 Bromley Street, Stepney. By 1876 they were in Sydenham.

The thing is, the more we learn about the real James Maybrick, the more obvious it is that the diarist doesn't demonstrate any knowledge whatsoever about him other than the standard bits that were reported at Florrie's trial and regurgitated in later books on the case.

Why this doesn't bother you, and why Caz thinks it isn't consistent with a modern fake, is beyond my poor powers of comprehension. The diary friendly have long argued or implied that the narrator has more knowledge that is actually demonstrated in the text.

As I think you already know RJ, I have my own theories on the diary which do not necessarily chime with others. In fact I’d wager very few find my theory credible but I stand by it.

You seem to think that without the diary there is no case to answer for Maybrick. But you always skip over the watch.

Neither artefact do we know how they came to be. Perhaps that should be a goal we all aim for.

[rjpalmer]

But you always skip over the watch.

How can the watch be genuine if the Diary is a modern fake?

Albert Johnson claimed he discovered the etchings accidently shortly after news of the diary was first reported in April 1993.

[erobitha]

How can the watch be genuine if the Diary is a modern fake?

Albert Johnson claimed he discovered the etchings accidently shortly after news of the diary was first reported in April 1993.

And its impossible the watch existed before the diary? The only explanation is the watch exists because of the diary?

Hypothetically, if it is proven the diary and watch came from the same place at the same time, would that weaken Maybrick's candidacy or strengthen it?

[caz]

Well, I’ve seen Prince Charles in the Queen Vic and the Rovers Return, so I suppose I could also imagine top-hatted toffs at Cooks or Manzes. But I doubt their contribution to the cashflow of such establishments would have bought much more than an annual bag of chips.

Yes, I was wondering if your auditor might have been Jewish. Blooms was quite well-known, of course. If you were to tell me that he took you for a pint in the Roebuck or the Dog and Truck in Back Church Lane afterwards, I might have to reconsider my position.

Morning Gary,

Quite right, he didn't take me for a pint afterwards, but to be fair we had to work in the afternoon and took a black cab back to St Mary at Hill.

But when we talk about events within living memory, such as the 1970s, our attitudes towards the class divide will inevitably be coloured by our own individual experiences and perspectives.

For instance, my second husband was born in Deptford, and his lovely mum, born in the twenties, was in service at the same age as my mum was when she was being educated at St. Paul's School in Hammersmith and being taught music by "Gussie", aka Gustav Holst. I was dragged up nearer geographically to the council estates of Wandsworth than the leafy avenues of Wimbledon, but I was equally at home in either environment. Class, social and financial status, levels of education, ethnicity - none was ever an issue for me as a child, so maybe I never saw the divide that you evidently did.

For whatever reason, our backgrounds have made us poles apart politically, considering how differently we each react to Boris Johnson's shenanigans.

Love,

Caz
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