the diary

[pinkmoon]

Hi Pinky,

I wouldn't argue with that.

Oddly, some people seem terrified by the thought that the diary was written a long time ago - even though it wouldn't make the content any more likely to reflect the truth.

I can see some amateur author way back when having a little dark fun with the idea of James Maybrick (who was basically a nobody before his death made the name infamous) having been England's most wanted.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi caz,I think the diary was written by someone close to the Maybrick household with a view to make some money after Florence was hung.Like I said before when you do a basic time line of event's you can see how Mr Barrett came to have the diary in his possession.

[Kaz]

Hi caz,I think the diary was written by someone close to the Maybrick household with a view to make some money after Florence was hung.Like I said before when you do a basic time line of event's you can see how Mr Barrett came to have the diary in his possession.

Why are you so sure it came out of the house via some electricians but so sure it didn't go through anne and her father?

Seems to me you're taring lots of people with the same brush you tar mike with?

[pinkmoon]

Why are you so sure it came out of the house via some electricians but so sure it didn't go through anne and her father?

Seems to me you're taring lots of people with the same brush you tar mike with?

Hi kaz,If it had come via Mrs barret and her father there wouldn't have been any real excuse for any lies.If Mr Barrett had come to own the diary by dubious means then to profit from this he has to have ownership hence the story saying he got it from his mate Tony.The workmen drinking in the saddlers pub is the only direct link to Mr Barrett and battlecrease house that is where I think the diary came into his possession or the idea of a diary came from.Due to the amount of lies told regarding the diary if we are told a true story about its origins we will never believe it .

[Graham]

Kaz,

I don't know if you've read Paul Feldman's book, but in it he specifically states that an electrician, possibly two electricians, told him they found something of interest in a skip and took it to Liverpool University for examination. Feldman contacted the University who confirmed this story, but according to him they did not identify what the object actually was, and he says he never followed it up with his usual energy.

Feldman had nailed his professional colours to the mast of the 'Diary' coming down via the Graham family, as he had convinced himself that Billy Graham was a descendant of Florence Maybrick. This was all grist to the mill for the film he was already planning. Feldman never satisfactorily proved that the Diary came to Anne via her father, and neither did he satisfactorily prove that Billy Graham was descended from Florence Maybrick. His book is a very enjoyable read, all the same.

Graham

[pinkmoon]

Kaz,

I don't know if you've read Paul Feldman's book, but in it he specifically states that an electrician, possibly two electricians, told him they found something of interest in a skip and took it to Liverpool University for examination. Feldman contacted the University who confirmed this story, but according to him they did not identify what the object actually was, and he says he never followed it up with his usual energy.

Feldman had nailed his professional colours to the mast of the 'Diary' coming down via the Graham family, as he had convinced himself that Billy Graham was a descendant of Florence Maybrick. This was all grist to the mill for the film he was already planning. Feldman never satisfactorily proved that the Diary came to Anne via her father, and neither did he satisfactorily prove that Billy Graham was descended from Florence Maybrick. His book is a very enjoyable read, all the same.

Graham

Hi Graham,,I think Mr Feldman decided that Mrs Barrett was a maybrick desendent and that clouded his judgement things a lot closer to home were not investigated properly .like I said before I don't think we will ever know the truth because of the amount of lies that have been told.I personelly think that the publishers of the diary book shouldn't have entertained it untill the truth about where it came from was established they were to botherd about making a fast buck.

[Sparky]

I stumbled upon this forum last week and skipped through a few posts and thought I could add something.
My brother was one of three electricians working for Portus and Rhodes on Battlecrease Mansion. Whilst working there at the time he was not aware of a diary being found but he did witness some odd behaviour of the other two.
He would see them talking and they would go quiet when he approached.
He saw them talking in the van and they quickly put something under the seat when he went over. He got a lift into town but had to wait in the van when they stopped at the university and one of them took a package in. He told him it was something to do with his mothers dog had died and he was getting something tested.
A couple of years I later worked with with one of them and asked if he remembered working with my brother on that house, which he did, but then when I mentioned about the stories of a book being found he said he knew nothing of it and what I was telling him was all news to him, which I found a bit strange.
I never met the third electrcian.

[Kaz]

I stumbled upon this forum last week and skipped through a few posts and thought I could add something.
My brother was one of three electricians working for Portus and Rhodes on Battlecrease Mansion. Whilst working there at the time he was not aware of a diary being found but he did witness some odd behaviour of the other two.
He would see them talking and they would go quiet when he approached.
He saw them talking in the van and they quickly put something under the seat when he went over. He got a lift into town but had to wait in the van when they stopped at the university and one of them took a package in. He told him it was something to do with his mothers dog had died and he was getting something tested.
A couple of years I later worked with with one of them and asked if he remembered working with my brother on that house, which he did, but then when I mentioned about the stories of a book being found he said he knew nothing of it and what I was telling him was all news to him, which I found a bit strange.
I never met the third electrcian.

Interesting stuff, hopefully someone will pick up your lead, this avenue of investigation has never been fully followed up (as far as I can see). Odd how they didn't let your brother in on their little secret? Was he new the company or something?

Maybe Pinkmoon knows more than he lets on?

[pinkmoon]

Interesting stuff, hopefully someone will pick up your lead, this avenue of investigation has never been fully followed up (as far as I can see). Odd how they didn't let your brother in on their little secret? Was he new the company or something?

Maybe Pinkmoon knows more than he lets on?

You have to take my word for it that I don't know the true story of the diary what I will say meeting Mr Barrett face to face has led me to form my own theories however I have no proof and I don't think we will ever know the truth.

[MayBea]

How hard is it to get a DNA test for Mrs. Barrett/Graham or her daughter to find out if she is part American Revolutionary like Winston Churchill, not to mention Prince Harry and his girlfriend?

http://www.easternbiotech.com/tracin...na-testing.php

For 200 dollars, you can do it yourself. If either's part American, then who else but Florence Maybrick would the ancestor be?

[MayBea]

Correction: According to the 'revolutionary' science of mtDNA, Harry and Cressida Bonas are related to Georgiana Spencer-Churchill, sister of Randolph, so she's related on Winston's father's side, so not the American side.

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.co...-05/1178380453

[Dictionary Brown]

I thought about this carefully, and it seems to me that the following are the basic possibilities:

1. Maybrick wrote it and he was the Ripper
2. Maybrick wrote it but was fantasizing about being the Ripper
3. The Ripper wrote it, but was trying to implicate Maybrick
4. Contemporary forgers wrote it to provide legal help to Florence / ruin James' reputation
5. Contemporary forgers wrote it for money
6. Contemporary forgers wrote it as a prank
7. Contemporary forgers wrote it as a creative exercise
8. Modern forgers wrote it for money
9. Modern forgers wrote it as a prank
10. Modern forgers wrote it as a creative exercise

I believe after 22 years of survival of both the diary and the watch, a modern hoax can be ruled out for the time being, thereby eliminating 8, 9, and 10. I think #'s 2 and 3 are highly unlikely. #2 is dismissed because Maybrick couldn't have possibly known that the Ripper murders would cease after his death unless he truly was JTR. #3: why would the Ripper waste his time trying to frame someone else and give them historical credit instead of taking credit for his own crimes or simply leaving them in mystery? If you take any of the letters as legit, it certainly seems the Ripper enjoyed his notoriety and had an outsized ego.

As for #4, it seems difficult to understand how the diary could have helped Florence that much, since the end of the diary seems to raise the distinct possibility of her guilt. Even if it says the deceased had requested the lethal dose, and was Jack the Ripper to boot, the diary still seems to be of questionable legal help. Just because your victim is Jack the Ripper, doesn't make murder legal.

Furthermore, 4 and 5 raise the question of why the diary wasn't brought forward during Florence's trial or immediately afterward. 4 and 5 are unlikely in my opinion, but still possible. Maybe the forger(s) had an accident that put them out of commission, and the diary later simply got lost in the shuffle.

Also, if the diary was created by a contemporary to posthumously embarrass James Maybrick, it's hard for me to see why there would be any attempt to make him sympathetic or remorseful. It's a creative touch I could expect to see from a talented modern forger, but difficult to believe that it came from a small circle of contemporaries and was intended for a utilitarian goal.

An old forgery would seem to indicate that the forgers had an intimate knowledge of Maybrick and his household. It seems that that circle of people would be relatively small and fairly easy for researchers to identify compared to a planet full of possible modern forgers. Now, in that circle of Maybrick associates with the inclination to create the diary, I personally believe the chances that one of them would have an imagination as powerful as the one the diary writer would appear to have had would seem to be small.

Put another way, the chances of a modern forger emerging from the entire English speaking world over decades seems reasonably high. The chances of a contemporary forger with the same creative skill emerging from the circle of Maybrick family and friends in a matter of months or years seems rather small. In my personal opinion, of course.

So, that would leave me with 1 (the real deal), 6 (contemporary prank), and 7 (contemporary creative exercise).

If it was written as a prank, I would expect the forger only went so far as to disguise their own handwriting with no real attempt to match James Maybrick's. That would explain the handwriting discrepancy. Still, 63 pages seems an awful long way for a joke.

#7 seems unlikely, to me, but not impossible. Who can say if a Maybrick friend of the family or family member was or was not inspired by both Maybrick and JTR to write some speculative fiction just for fun? Since under this particular scenario the writing would be intended for no one else's eyes but the writer's own, it seems that it should be possible to find another example of similar casual and undisguised handwriting. I believe that if the forger was creating the diary as a private amusement, there should be many other examples of his or her writing out there. Especially if this writer was so dedicated to this fantasy as to actually scratch a confession inside a watch for the sole purpose of supporting his or her own private fiction! I believe such an individual must have left behind other creative works or was known as a writer. Again, one would think that such a person and their handwriting would be discover-able among the circle of Maybrick family and friends.

[GUT]

4 6 8 9 and 10 are in my opinion the only ones that can hold up.

[pinkmoon]

4 and 5 for me.

[GUT]

4 and 5 for me.

G'day Pinkmoon

But how were contemporary forgers going to make $$ modern ones I can see

[Magpie]

4 and possibly an element of 7