New Book: The Maybrick Murder and the Diary of Jack the Ripper

[caz]

Timothy Dundas, the horologist who cleaned and repaired this watch in 1992, has sworn an affidavit which states that the 'Ripper scratches' were not in that watch when he worked on it. And in working on it he used the standard watchmaker's magnifying loupes, which show up every scratch and abrasion.

Oh dear lord, not this old chestnut again.

We can either believe the Murphys, who actually sold Albert's watch to him, and said they had used jeweller's rouge on the visible scratch marks, or we can believe Dundas, who was talking about another watch that has no relevance to anything.

The choice you make here is telling, but it tells us nothing whatsoever about the watch in question.

[caz]

Perhaps, or it could be that my own comment was too subtle, and you've misunderstood it.

We never get enough detail from Dodd to know exactly what went on. Usually, he is just paraphrased, or we get indirect quotes or snippets. I agree that there are some seeming contradictions in his accounts, but I don't see how any of them help your theory.

Which theory would that be?

Dodd was proved to be a somewhat unreliable witness right from February 1993, when he gave provably incorrect dates for the electrical work done in his house, so none of his testimony can nail down anyone's theories - or floorboards - beyond reasonable doubt.

Harrison quoted Dodd as telling her that he gutted the place in the 1970s and lifted the floorboards, finding nothing. He also claimed to have done the prep work for the 1992 project---an important detail that is usually ignored, leaving the electricians to have done the work themselves, which I don't think has been proven.

Dodd didn't even remember the correct year when he did this prep work, so that is a pretty important detail that has been ignored in the above statement. What other details might he have misremembered or been mistaken about? It's frustrating for all of us, but there is no point in sweeping this problem under the carpet.

More recently, Dodd admits that some of the floorboards relating to the 1992 job were 'virgin' and had never been lifted. Since these would have predated Maybrick's residency, nothing of interest relating to Maybrick could have been under them. That's what I think he means--they were original and hadn't been tampered with.

Yes, that seemed pretty obvious to me too. But if Dodd knew how to tell the 'virgin' boards from those that may have been lifted at some point previously, either by himself or by others, and knew which boards would need lifting in March 1992, why was he unable to state with any clarity when first asked about the possibility of a find whether or not the boards in question had ever previously come up? It's all so annoyingly vague.

From what I understood from Chris Jones, only a small number of boards needed to be lifted for the wiring project in 1992 and these were against the wall.

One can only guess since there's never enough detail in these statements, but it seems logical to me that Dodd could have lifted the floorboards in the 1970s--what he calls 'gutting the place'--for the overhead wiring on the ground floor--but didn't actually remove the floorboards directly adjacent to the wall because this would require also removing the baseboards--an unpleasant job.

Feldman's film shows that Maybrick's old bedroom has baseboards, and these would overlap the edge of the first floorboard next to the wall.

Thus, pending further information, the 'virgin' floorboards could have been entirely limited to the ones he hadn't previously lifted in the 1970s, which would explain why Dodd doesn't believe the diary could have been found in his house.

Not sure I follow this, because any 'virgin' floorboards identified by Dodd since the 1970s would by definition not have been lifted previously. And once again, if he knew P&R were only going to be lifting a small number of 'virgin' floorboards in March 1992, he'd have said so and been 100% certain that nothing could have been lurking beneath.

Another problem is that since Dodd spoke to Chris Jones, he has said he wouldn't be "surprised" if the diary was found in the house after all, so if Dodd can't rule it out, it all comes back to whether it can be ruled out by identifying the handwriting as Anne Graham's.

Eddie Lyons has denied telling Brian Rawes on 17th July 1992 that he had found something "important" under the floorboards, but he did suggest he may have told him about all the old books in the house. An odd thing to mention to Rawes in passing, for no apparent reason, and it's not clear why Rawes would have advised him to tell the boss about it. But assuming the bit about the books was true, it would be interesting to know where Eddie was when he saw them and if they were all collected by Dodd himself, or whether some were inherited from his father or previous occupiers, and whether he'd have noticed if one was 'liberated'.

[The Baron]

a victim who either didn't exist or whose initials would not have been known?

Another case of no inside information in the Diary.


The Baron

[The Baron]

What I don't understand, ero, is the level of hostility shown by people who appear scared to scratch the surface [no pun intended but gratefully received] in case they might find something solid beneath

Did you scratch the surface Caz?! Did you find anything solid beneath after some 20 years defending the Diary?!

'One off instance' , the 'Aunt' reference, 'Bumbling Buffoon', where those your findings?!


The Baron

[caz]

Have I ever 'defended' the diary as a Maybrick creation, Baron?

If I have been defending anything, it's the practice of sticking with the known facts and admitting where facts are lacking. What cannot be defended is lazily repeating other people's errors from years ago, such as the Dundas itch and the lady's watch scratch, which then have to be corrected again, time after time. When will this indefensible habit ever stop? Is the truth so unimportant - or is it undesirable?

We were chatting with an old friend at the weekend, who is an electrician by trade with decades of experience working in old houses, either on his own or as part of a crew. Knowing of my interest in Jack the Ripper, but knowing nothing about the subject himself, he had recently seen Don Rumbelow's book in a charity shop and decided to read it. He knew nothing about the diary or Maybrick because - believe it or not - I choose not to bore people to tears with any of it away from this place unless they specifically ask.

Our friend was talking about all the properties he had personally converted or "done up" over the years, including the beautiful house he now lives in with his fiancée. He showed us lots of plans and photographs from his various projects. Without giving him any information at all, I thought I would ask some general questions about floorboards in Victorian houses and the practicalities of getting underneath to do the wiring for a storage heater to be installed in a room on an upper floor. He said that typically the electrician assigned to the job would have an apprentice with him and maybe a couple of mates helping out, and they would always look for what he called a "trap", which was there to avoid the need for electricians or gas fitters to lift any floorboards. This trap could be anywhere in the room, and the wiring would then be run up to it from wherever the fuse board was situated. They would only lift an old floorboard if there was no trap, but would always look for one which had previously been lifted as it made life much easier. Still unprompted, he had a dig at plumbers for not doing the same. He then let us into a private joke about plumbers being called electricians with their brains removed.

I did then ask if something could be hidden from sight down one of these traps, or in a space beneath a previously lifted floorboard, and only found when someone needed access to the void and could see into the whole space. He still didn't know what I was getting at and didn't ask, as he was just enjoying giving us a free lesson, but he didn't hesitate in saying it was entirely possible, mentioning something about the joists which I didn't really understand.

I then explained briefly that in 1992, someone in Liverpool had called London about a diary which identifies a man called James Maybrick as the ripper, and on the same day an electrician who used the same pub had been working in James Maybrick's former house in another part of Liverpool. If you can't guess our friends' reaction, you've probably been exposed to Barrett fever, which can give you lifelong immunity from connecting dots.

[The Baron]

Have I ever 'defended' the diary as a Maybrick creation, Baron?

If I have been defending anything, it's the practice of sticking with the known facts and admitting where facts are lacking. What cannot be defended is lazily repeating other people's errors from years ago, such as the Dundas itch and the lady's watch scratch, which then have to be corrected again, time after time. When will this indefensible habit ever stop? Is the truth so unimportant - or is it undesirable?

We were chatting with an old friend at the weekend, who is an electrician by trade with decades of experience working in old houses, either on his own or as part of a crew. Knowing of my interest in Jack the Ripper, but knowing nothing about the subject himself, he had recently seen Don Rumbelow's book in a charity shop and decided to read it. He knew nothing about the diary or Maybrick because - believe it or not - I choose not to bore people to tears with any of it away from this place unless they specifically ask.

Our friend was talking about all the properties he had personally converted or "done up" over the years, including the beautiful house he now lives in with his fiancée. He showed us lots of plans and photographs from his various projects. Without giving him any information at all, I thought I would ask some general questions about floorboards in Victorian houses and the practicalities of getting underneath to do the wiring for a storage heater to be installed in a room on an upper floor. He said that typically the electrician assigned to the job would have an apprentice with him and maybe a couple of mates helping out, and they would always look for what he called a "trap", which was there to avoid the need for electricians or gas fitters to lift any floorboards. This trap could be anywhere in the room, and the wiring would then be run up to it from wherever the fuse board was situated. They would only lift an old floorboard if there was no trap, but would always look for one which had previously been lifted as it made life much easier. Still unprompted, he had a dig at plumbers for not doing the same. He then let us into a private joke about plumbers being called electricians with their brains removed.

I did then ask if something could be hidden from sight down one of these traps, or in a space beneath a previously lifted floorboard, and only found when someone needed access to the void and could see into the whole space. He still didn't know what I was getting at and didn't ask, as he was just enjoying giving us a free lesson, but he didn't hesitate in saying it was entirely possible, mentioning something about the joists which I didn't really understand.

I then explained briefly that in 1992, someone in Liverpool had called London about a diary which identifies a man called James Maybrick as the ripper, and on the same day an electrician who used the same pub had been working in James Maybrick's former house in another part of Liverpool. If you can't guess our friends' reaction, you've probably been exposed to Barrett fever, which can give you lifelong immunity from connecting dots.

Since English is not my mother tongue, I realy enjoy your writing style Caz, I value how you are always in a beautiful controle of your temper and your gently flowing sentences.

The ideas and opinions behind them though are totally different story.

But I don't care if it is the Diary or the Watch that excites you, just keep writing.



The Baron

[caz]

I just showed my latest post - as it is - to my better half and asked him to tell me honestly if he thought I had misrepresented anything. He said it was "spot on".

And I didn't even need to bribe or coerce him! Off for cocktails.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Since English is not my mother tongue, I realy enjoy your writing style Caz, I value how you are always in a beautiful controle of your temper and your gently flowing sentences.

The ideas and opinions behind them though are totally different story.

But I don't care if it is the Diary or the Watch that excites you, just keep writing.



The Baron

How kind!

Love,

Caz
XX

[rjpalmer]

If I have been defending anything, it's the practice of sticking with the known facts and admitting where facts are lacking.

Hi Caz.

In that same spirit, would it be possible for you to respond to the question I posed to you on the Maybrick Diary Typescript 1992 (KS Ver.) thread over three months ago?


This won't interest the forum at large --only the two or three people still interested in the Maybrick Hoax--but you wrote:

"If he [Mike Barrett] went round to Jenny's expecting to find a volume 2, he failed to take anything to his solicitor that afternoon. In fact, there is no record of Mike attending the offices that day, nor at any time between 25th August 1994 and 9th January 1995, although numerous telephone calls were logged."

However, as I pointed out, we now have a cassette tape of Mike Barrett and Alan Gray visiting Mike's solicitor in real time--a cassette dated 6 December 1994 (not 6 November as Iconoclast states) which obviously falls within the same span that you mentioned when there was 'no record' of Mike having been there.

Should we now 'stick to the fact' that the records of when Barrett did and did not visit his solicitor must for some reason be incomplete?

And does this cast doubt on the twenty-year-old claim that Barrett had never lodged the book with his solicitor?

--whenever you get the time.

Thanks.

[caz]

Hi Caz.

In that same spirit, would it be possible for you to respond to the question I posed to you on the Maybrick Diary Typescript 1992 (KS Ver.) thread over three months ago?


This won't interest the forum at large --only the two or three people still interested in the Maybrick Hoax--but you wrote:

"If he [Mike Barrett] went round to Jenny's expecting to find a volume 2, he failed to take anything to his solicitor that afternoon. In fact, there is no record of Mike attending the offices that day, nor at any time between 25th August 1994 and 9th January 1995, although numerous telephone calls were logged."

However, as I pointed out, we now have a cassette tape of Mike Barrett and Alan Gray visiting Mike's solicitor in real time--a cassette dated 6 December 1994 (not 6 November as Iconoclast states) which obviously falls within the same span that you mentioned when there was 'no record' of Mike having been there.

Should we now 'stick to the fact' that the records of when Barrett did and did not visit his solicitor must for some reason be incomplete?

And does this cast doubt on the twenty-year-old claim that Barrett had never lodged the book with his solicitor?

--whenever you get the time.

Thanks.

I may get round to revisiting that thread one day. I didn't know Palmer had posed a question to me there and I had my reasons for staying away, connected with the particularly unpleasant language aimed at me in one post and also the fact that it was veering away from the topic of the typescript, which we were not supposed to do.

Perhaps a new thread would be in order, if Palmer wants to start one on whether Mr Bark-Jones's records were more likely to have been incomplete, contrary to what we were told when we visited the offices for Inside Story, or whether Mike - being Mike - more likely entered the main building, leaving an unsuspecting Alan Gray waiting outside on Dale Street, but never intended to go up to his solicitor's office on this occasion, hanging around instead for a short while before emerging onto the street with the tatty old book he'd had on him all along.

I suspect Palmer can guess where I'm putting my thruppence - and I'll take the risk of being accused of insider betting.

[Newbie]

I'd like to repost something from the archives. I'll later add some commentary.

--

Michael V. Sheehan
Posted on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - 12:42 pm:
________________________________________

Hello All, I'm a new poster to the boards and a collector of antique watches especially English watches.

I believe that the basic questions regarding this watch have never been asked.

1. Is the watch a genuine or a composite artifact?

There are many "antique" watches reassembled from a movement and case that were never previously associated. Does the serial number on the movement, dustcover (if still extant) and case match?

The serial number of the case is stamped at the 6 o'clock position in the photo and appears to be 1288 or 1266. If the serial numbers do not match, then the watch was assembled from parts of several different watches. Unless the watchmaker's name is stamped on the case (unusual but not unheard of) we will never know who the maker is. If the watch and case are integral, the next question is:

2. What do we know about the maker?

The maker is unlisted in Vol.1 of Watchmakers & Clockmakers of the World by G.H. Baillie which means that he was not active before 1825. Vol. 2, of the same work, by Brian Loomes (2nd. ed.) which continues and supplements Baillie has three listings for watchmakers named Verity.

Henry Verity of Lancaster who was also a jeweler.
William Verity of Hunslet (Leeds)
William Verity of Rothwell (near Leeds)

We know the beginning dates of business for each of the makers listed above from Loomes. Henry V. 1869; William V. of Hunslet 1866; and William V. of Rothwell circa 1850. I have not seen the hallmark on the watch (it's not in the photo available to me) but I trust that it was diligently researched and that the date 1847/8 is correct. This would mean (assuming there is only one hallmark on the watch case and, if several, that they agree) that the watch could only have come from the shop of William Verity of Rothwell near Leeds.

3. What can the maker tell us about who bought the watch.

Verity is not a well-known or important maker. He is a regional maker producing products for his locality and it is very unlikely that his products would have any currency outside his local area.
Anyone buying a good watch, i.e. one appropriate for the upper-middle class, would be buying from northern makers such as Jos. Johnson or Tobias.

If Shirley Harris is correct (!), it was bought for or by a woman (see The Mammoth Book of JTR Carrol & Graff N.Y. 2001; p. 220) Assuming it was bought new, it was purchased when James was 10 yrs old so, if it belonged to James Maybrick, it would have been purchased by his family and handed down as an heirloom. He had no sisters, therefore it is likely it was bought by or for Susannah Maybrick, James' mother. This begs the question, Why would the Maybricks living in Liverpool go all the way to Rothwell to buy a watch? There were certainly an abundance of watchmakers in Liverpool and a watch, being a luxury for James parents, would be something meant to last. It would have been bought new and serviced regularly to keep it in working order. Hence the markings.

Hi RJ,

why could the watch not have come into Maybrick's possession second hand ..... assuming it ever was in his possession.

Manchester is intimately linked with Liverpool through the textile industries. Maybrick as a cotton merchant goes to Manchester,
where he finds the watch at a pawn shop .... the former owner coming from the next door neighbor Leeds.

Or Maybrick simply could have had business deals to attend to with textile manufacturers in Leeds.

In any case, it seemed to come to Liverpool in some manner.

[erobitha]

Hi RJ,

why could the watch not have come into Maybrick's possession second hand ..... assuming it ever was in his possession.

Manchester is intimately linked with Liverpool through the textile industries. Maybrick as a cotton merchant goes to Manchester,
where he finds the watch at a pawn shop .... the former owner coming from the next door neighbor Leeds.

Or Maybrick simply could have had business deals to attend to with textile manufacturers in Leeds.

In any case, it seemed to come to Liverpool in some manner.

I do actually go into this very subject on my own blog.

https://jayhartley.com/verifying-verity/