Vote the Diary

[MayBea]

Weak provenance was a weak argument from the beginning. It's easy to fake, hard to prove, and it proves nothing one way or the other.

Besides, any provenance in the art world without original documentation would be considered weak.

So why wait for something that's not likely to come? That's what hoax theorists are doing.

But I don't see how Anne Graham or Mr. Skinner or anyone else could find documentation to prove a specific provenance. So here's your likeliest provenance scenario(s), weird, strange, unlikely or not, take it and move from there.

[RivkahChaya]

If the hoax was intended to frame Maybrick, I'd say the odds of it being planted in his house are pretty good.

In fact, unless the hoax (just play with me for a moment) only accidentally came to be associated with Maybrick, or was supposed to be a work of acknowledged fiction, is it suprising that it made its way to the house. Someone who went to all the trouble to create it with the express purpose of framing Maybrick is pretty likely, if you ask me, to try to create a false provenance as well.

But, regarding stats and "odds," the odds of anything that did, in fact, happen, are 100%. It is no good specifying an event after it has happened, and then claiming it was unlikely and trying to use that to bolster an argument. The diary, after all, had to end up somewhere. It's like firing a bullet at the side a barn, drawing a target around it, and saying "Wow, what are the odds it would hit right there?"

[caz]

Are you admitting that old hoax theory can have, or include, a Graham provenance?

No, MayBea. I don't think I did that, did I?

Old Hoax theories range in dates from 1889 to 1970. How likely is a post-1889 forgery likely to have been planted, and/or ended up hidden, in the house?

You are mixing up theories with evidence again.

It doesn't matter how likely it is, if the evidence indicates that it came out of that house but does not match James Maybrick's handwriting.

It is what it is.

Love,

Caz
X

[MayBea]

I see the old hoax theory (or any other theory for that matter) as a separate issue from the Battlecrease evidence.

Are you admitting that old hoax theory can have, or include, a Graham provenance?

Old Hoax theories range in dates from 1889 to 1970. How likely is a post-1889 forgery likely to have been planted, and/or ended up hidden, in the house?

[caz]

My understanding of the Old Hoax Theory now is that the workmen gave Barrett the Diary just to get rid of it.

Is that correct or are you reserving your position on motivation until the record is set straight on provenance?

In the meantime, from the pictures you've painted, the only conceivable persons who would have given Michael B the Diary are his mother or his wife....

Hi MayBea,

I see the old hoax theory (or any other theory for that matter) as a separate issue from the Battlecrease evidence.

I hope the record can one day be set straight as far as how it came from the house and when. But the motivation for writing it in the first place is highly unlikely ever to be resolved, unless its author can be identified via the handwriting, which might then shed light on why it was done.

I don't understand what pictures I've painted which would have given you your 'only conceivable persons'.

Love,

Caz
X

[MayBea]

As to the possibility of Mike's mother giving him the Diary, how could this be? And why? What had his mother to do with the Graham family, Battlecrease House, etc., etc?

Sorry, Graham, I meant that as an "only a mother" jab.

But even pinkmoon is suggesting that none of the guys at the pub would have given Mike the journal; he had to have "pinched" it.

In which case, if he didn't steal it, we're back to his wife having it and giving it to him, and pulling the strings.

[pinkmoon]

Hi PM,

I hear what you say, but if as you suggest Mike Barrett pinched the bloody Diary, then who did he pinch it from? The fact that the name of Tony Devereux features in this odd story is, to me at any rate, rather suggestive of some kind of "across a pub table" deal.

It's obvious that (1) he obtained it from somebody and (2) that he never wrote it himself.

Any ideas?

Graham

Hi Graham,I think he pinched it from one of the workmen who drank in the pub the story concerning Tony was used when Tony died so Mr Barrett could then claim ownership of the diary and profit from it this is just my opinion I have no proof of this.

[Graham]

Hi Graham,having met Mr Barrett several times over the years I came to the conclusion that he had not been given the diary but he pinched it I have no proof to back this up its just the opinion I formed after talking to him.The only thing that can connect Mr Barrett to battlecrease is him drinking with the workmen also they is no way Mr Barrett could have forged the diary and nobody would be stupid enough to involve Mr Barrett in any deception because he is totally bonkers.

Hi PM,

I hear what you say, but if as you suggest Mike Barrett pinched the bloody Diary, then who did he pinch it from? The fact that the name of Tony Devereux features in this odd story is, to me at any rate, rather suggestive of some kind of "across a pub table" deal.

It's obvious that (1) he obtained it from somebody and (2) that he never wrote it himself.

Any ideas?

Graham

[pinkmoon]

Hi MB,

as I understand it (from Pinkmoon and possibly others) the men who worked at Battlecrease were boozing pals of Tony Devereux and it was to him they gave the Diary (if you accept the Battlecrease provenance theory, that is).
Why they should do so is unknown to me. It is a possibility (and only that) that Devereux himself hadn't got a clue what to do the the Diary either, and probably didn't care a toss about it. As Mike Barrett was also a sometime drinking companion of Devereux's, and had (possibly) some local reputation as a man of letters (Scouse-style, that is, as a result of his writing kids' stories), then Devereux handed the Diary to Barrett with probably a deep sigh of relief. Devereux's daughters were absolutely adamant that they had never seen the Diary in their father's house, nor had he ever referred to it.

As to the possibility of Mike's mother giving him the Diary, how could this be? And why? What had his mother to do with the Graham family, Battlecrease House, etc., etc?

Anne says she gave the Diary to Devereux to pass on, at her specific instruction, to Mike, but this to me has always sounded lame. As has her claim to have stored the Diary behind a cupboard for years and years. Why should she suddenly reveal it when she did? Feldman was never able to establish a family-tree which proved that Anne was descended from Florence Maybrick, and until someone can do what he was unable to, I can't accept that Anne was thus descended. Feldman went to great lengths, both financially and geographically, to try to establish this family link, and couldn't, even though he desperately wanted and needed to, because of his ambition to produce a movie based on Maybrick being the Ripper.

There is also a further possibility that the Diary could have been abstracted from Battlecrease at some time well in the past - it is on record that items were removed from Battlecrease during and after James Maybrick's last illness.

To be absolutely honest, unless Keith Skinner (or someone else) presents rock-solid 'proof' of a Battlecrease provenance for the Diary, I don't think we'll ever be able to establish its true origin. But I for one am prepared to accept that it was not produced in the late 1980's or early 1990's, but is much older. I always think, reference the modern hoax theory, of Melvyn Harris's well-known and now-hackneyed expression "a nest of forgers", to which he was never able to add names - with one exception, I believe, but even then he was unable to establish a definite link (and was probably lucky he didn't get sued). Caz knows much more than I about this particular aspect - she knows much more than I about the whole Diary business fullstop.

Anyway, what the hell.....

Graham

Hi Graham,having met Mr Barrett several times over the years I came to the conclusion that he had not been given the diary but he pinched it I have no proof to back this up its just the opinion I formed after talking to him.The only thing that can connect Mr Barrett to battlecrease is him drinking with the workmen also they is no way Mr Barrett could have forged the diary and nobody would be stupid enough to involve Mr Barrett in any deception because he is totally bonkers.

[Graham]

My understanding of the Old Hoax Theory now is that the workmen gave Barrett the Diary just to get rid of it.

Is that correct or are you reserving your position on motivation until the record is set straight on provenance?

In the meantime, from the pictures you've painted, the only conceivable persons who would have given Michael B the Diary are his mother or his wife....

Hi MB,

as I understand it (from Pinkmoon and possibly others) the men who worked at Battlecrease were boozing pals of Tony Devereux and it was to him they gave the Diary (if you accept the Battlecrease provenance theory, that is).
Why they should do so is unknown to me. It is a possibility (and only that) that Devereux himself hadn't got a clue what to do the the Diary either, and probably didn't care a toss about it. As Mike Barrett was also a sometime drinking companion of Devereux's, and had (possibly) some local reputation as a man of letters (Scouse-style, that is, as a result of his writing kids' stories), then Devereux handed the Diary to Barrett with probably a deep sigh of relief. Devereux's daughters were absolutely adamant that they had never seen the Diary in their father's house, nor had he ever referred to it.

As to the possibility of Mike's mother giving him the Diary, how could this be? And why? What had his mother to do with the Graham family, Battlecrease House, etc., etc?

Anne says she gave the Diary to Devereux to pass on, at her specific instruction, to Mike, but this to me has always sounded lame. As has her claim to have stored the Diary behind a cupboard for years and years. Why should she suddenly reveal it when she did? Feldman was never able to establish a family-tree which proved that Anne was descended from Florence Maybrick, and until someone can do what he was unable to, I can't accept that Anne was thus descended. Feldman went to great lengths, both financially and geographically, to try to establish this family link, and couldn't, even though he desperately wanted and needed to, because of his ambition to produce a movie based on Maybrick being the Ripper.

There is also a further possibility that the Diary could have been abstracted from Battlecrease at some time well in the past - it is on record that items were removed from Battlecrease during and after James Maybrick's last illness.

To be absolutely honest, unless Keith Skinner (or someone else) presents rock-solid 'proof' of a Battlecrease provenance for the Diary, I don't think we'll ever be able to establish its true origin. But I for one am prepared to accept that it was not produced in the late 1980's or early 1990's, but is much older. I always think, reference the modern hoax theory, of Melvyn Harris's well-known and now-hackneyed expression "a nest of forgers", to which he was never able to add names - with one exception, I believe, but even then he was unable to establish a definite link (and was probably lucky he didn't get sued). Caz knows much more than I about this particular aspect - she knows much more than I about the whole Diary business fullstop.

Anyway, what the hell.....

Graham

[MayBea]

My understanding of the Old Hoax Theory now is that the workmen gave Barrett the Diary just to get rid of it.

Is that correct or are you reserving your position on motivation until the record is set straight on provenance?

In the meantime, from the pictures you've painted, the only conceivable persons who would have given Michael B the Diary are his mother or his wife....

[caz]

I said they could talk their heads off if they told the truth.

Hi GUT,

But that surely depends on what they know to be the truth, and whether it would have done them a bit of good to tell it. For example, if Anne and Mike both believed the diary could have been genuine, and therefore worth a small fortune, when they met with Doreen Montgomery in London, they'd have been idiots not to tell the truth, if it had innocently been passed down the family, in ignorance of its true significance. However, if Mike had got the thing from Christ knows where, they were never going to say so, for obvious reasons.

Clearly Mike hasn't always told the truth, "I forged it" "I didn't forge it" as just one example.

You don't say. Mike wouldn't know the truth from a bar of soap. When anyone starts a sentence with: "To be perfectly honest..." or ends it with: "...and that's the God's honest truth", I tend to get sore misgivings. (Yes, I've tried cream but it doesn't work.)

Love,

Caz
X

[GUT]

G'day Caz

Mike has talked his head off, but steadfastly rejects the 'in the family' and Battlecrease provenances, and was totally unable to support any of his bogus forgery claims back in the day. While he may know or suspect it came out of the Maybrick house, and may believe it is genuine, neither he nor Anne would have been in any position to know.

I said they could talk their heads off if they told the truth.

Clearly Mike hasn't always told the truth, "I forged it" "I didn't forge it" as just one example.

My post also needs to be read in context, it was in response to one that said they could not talk as the police were investigating, I was saying that they could talk all they wanted f they had been and continued to tell the truth.

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Livia

Adamant Mr Dodd may have been about the floorboards and nothing found beneath them, but then why did he agree to let Paul Feldman broker a deal with Mike Barrett for 5% of any profit Barrett made from the diary? Mr Dodd
must have put some degree of credence in the diary's authenticity, otherwise why would a headmaster of a local school allow himself to become embroiled in a hoax?

Same reason anyone would have - to make a useful contribution to his retirement fund. If someone offers you a perfectly legal way to profit from something associated with your house, without perjuring yourself or your conscience, do you turn it down flat, or accept it with reservations?

I'd suggest it would take either very strong reasons or a very principled person indeed to do the former.

All the best

Dave

[Livia]

Doesn't the Edith Formby provenance become the most likely? We do know the Diary was in the Grahams' hands and we have no better way to understand how the journal itself got there.

An unbiased, un-credited person named Albert Turnbull found this tip for Shirley Harrison, and it was corroborated by a letter Florence's mother wrote which said articles, allegedly including a diary, were stolen from Battlecrease during the Trial and put up for underground sale.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=5lDd...page&q&f=false

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=14290&page=6

Hi MayBea,

Not the Graham's hands, the Barrett's.

Edith Formby was 14 years old at the time of the trial, Alice
Yapp was 28. Yapp left Liverpool for Shropshire immediately
after the trial. In 1891, she's living in Rosebery Square in
London. In 1892, her daughter, Marjorie Murrin is born in
London. She is living with Edward Murrin, whose first wife
is still alive. They marry in 1904, a few years after Murrin's
wife died. From 1901 through 1931, she lives at 63 Meridian
St South Hackney. There's no evidence that she ever returned
to Liverpool.

Unfortunately, Mr Turnbull does not give a source for his
information.

The other diaries were offered for sale to Stuart Cumberland
and were a set of three and were written by Florence covering
her girlhood, adolescence and married life.



Hi Dave,

Adamant Mr Dodd may have been about the floorboards
and nothing found beneath them, but then why did he
agree to let Paul Feldman broker a deal with Mike Barrett
for 5% of any profit Barrett made from the diary? Mr Dodd
must have put some degree of credence in the diary's
authenticity, otherwise why would a headmaster of a
local school allow himself to become embroiled in a hoax?

Liv