Inspiration for the Fake 'Diary'

[Kaz]

For me the inspiration doesn't need explaining as much as the provenance, how did Barratt REALLY get his grubby mitts on it? Seems to me you have to call alot of people liars not to believe the explanation.

I also can't believe those scratches aren't actually there, according to my eyes they are anyway...

[ChrisGeorge]

as side question, are you a believer in the diary Chris ?

NO. It's a hoax. Whether an old hoax or a new hoax has still to be determined. My inclination is to think that it was mocked up post-1988. It doesn't even look authentic, I don't think... a clear pastiche of the Ripper letters and other bits and pieces.

Chris

[Jason]

as side question, are you a believer in the diary Chris ?

[Jason]

Well as a fellow Scouser and a historian I would say Liverpool didn't need the Beatles to put it on the map, quite frankly.

The Diary will remain a hoax to those who believe it so, and I believe that includes all leading Ripperologists. As for proving the Diary and the watch conclusively to be fakes, that's proven a bit harder to do, particularly because the scientific tests have been inconclusive.

All the best

Chris

too true of course its always been on the map !

not the old "tests have been inconclusive" argument ? is that still the case ? thought it would have been well disproved by now ? .......bet that annoys the hell out of some folk ! ....

[sleekviper]

Well wouldn't Maybrick be a medical marvel if he were? He had been doing arsenic for years, long term exposure leads to night blindness. Well I guess it could explain never being seen, who could do more than shake their heads at a guy running into walls and lamp posts.

[ChrisGeorge]

i havent read too much about the diary recently.....has it been totally and utterly shafted as a document or is it still 'up in the air' as they say ? .......personally quite liked the idea of JTR being a scouser !! ( as one myself before anyone starts ! ).....putting Liverpool on the map 70 years before the Beatles !

Well as a fellow Scouser and a historian I would say Liverpool didn't need the Beatles to put it on the map, quite frankly.

The Diary will remain a hoax to those who believe it so, and I believe that includes all leading Ripperologists. As for proving the Diary and the watch conclusively to be fakes, that's proven a bit harder to do, particularly because the scientific tests have been inconclusive.

All the best

Chris

[Jason]

i havent read too much about the diary recently.....has it been totally and utterly shafted as a document or is it still 'up in the air' as they say ? .......personally quite liked the idea of JTR being a scouser !! ( as one myself before anyone starts ! ).....putting Liverpool on the map 70 years before the Beatles !

[ChrisGeorge]

I think you may have it.....Stereotypical appearance..Off the scene at the right time.....

Maybrick fits the modern stereotypical view of the Ripper, due to Hollywood's usual conception of the Ripper, even if not the view exactly that people might have had in 1888.



Scene from the Hughes Brothers film From Hell (2001).



Example of the cover of a recent book on the case.

[Steve S]

I think you may have it.....Stereotypical appearance..Off the scene at the right time.....

[ChrisGeorge]

Chicken or egg?.....Did "X" plan the forgery & look around for a suspect...Or did they look at Maybrick and think "He could have been"......?

The latter I think, Steve. It could have been just as simple as noticing the nearness of the dates of the two cases, that Maybrick died at the right time to have been the killer, and such things as the beginning and end of Maybrick's name.... James Maybrick. Also proper Victorian gentleman, fits the stereotype of the Victorian toff in top hat and cloak, somewhat.....

Not that I am an advocate of Maybrick's candidacy.

Best regards

Chris

[Steve S]

Chicken or egg?.....Did "X" plan the forgery & look around for a suspect...Or did they look at Maybrick and think "He could have been"......?

[Scott Nelson]

The first resurgence of Beatlemania came around the centennial of the murders, and the hoaxer wanted to bring Liverpool back into the forefront.

[Jonathan H]

Very interesting, Stewart.

Can I just add that the hoaxer (or hoaxers) did not need to manufacture a suspect whose fate had to explain the cessation of the murders right after Mary Kelly.

That's Druitt-centric, though people think that it was the other way round; that Druitt's death fitted the ending of the murders -- when it didn't.

If the flim flammers had realised this they could have ranged more widely over some notable bods from that era and chosen somebody else who would account for other murders, notably ofcourse Frances Coles -- orginally thought, or speculated to be by factions within Scotland Yard and the press to be the 'final' victim.

For example, what about the gentleman who shot himself on Wimbledon Common in 1891 -- eg. post-Coles -- and was spoken of by a tabloid as possibly being the remorseful fiend?

I am not even sure if this anomic suicide was ever definitively identified, but I bet the hoaxers would not have had the same give-away problem regarding the non-matching hand-writing.

Plus they could squeezed the last dregs out of the Druitt mythos: of the tormented toff.

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Stewart et al.

Interesting discussion here. Coming as I do from Liverpool, I have always thought the Maybrick - Jack the Ripper link to be very contrived. Too good to be true. I am not especially swayed by the comparison with the Kempshall case or Kempshall's Jack the Ripper claim. After all, we know that the newspapers during the murders themselves and for years afterward were constantly full of claims that different individuals were the Ripper and people claiming they were the Ripper (often drunken or imbalanced men). Also in consideration that the Diary itself is almost entirely a straight arrow account that could have been mocked up with existing post-1987 books on the Ripper case, as has often been noted by the late Melvin Harris and others, the hoaxer wouldn't have needed the Kempshall case to devise the Diary and hang the shingle of Jack the Ripper on the unfortunate Maybrick.

Best regards

Chris

[DVV]

No but she went on to deny it and was later deemed to be of unsound mind so any accustaion she made would not have much credibility.

Perhaps one of the reasons why the faker chose Maybrick.

But it could be a suggestive factor in making a new suspect from Liverpool and choosing Maybrick instead.

Certainly so.

There is even a good chance that the faker dug this case first.