New Ideas and New Research on the Diary

[Lombro2]

I was 100% convinced of that Family Provenance because I tended to give women the benefit of the doubt. Then I researched it to death, going back to Formby and Yapp and the laundry service that fenced items stolen by maids, and couldn't prove it.

Now I know nobody can sit on a Jack the Ripper diary for even five minutes, much less 100 years. At least, not in Liverpool.

[rjpalmer]

Tracing the photograph or photo album after all these years is wildly improbable, but the headstone reads "Chubby, the Dear & Affectionate Little Friend of H & M Pennell."

The 1921 UK Census lists Harriett & Mary Pennell, two spinster sisters, living at 9 Brougham Terrace, Everton, Liverpool.

Mary was a member of the Royal Human Society and ran a cat shelter in Brougham Terrace.

[Scott Nelson]

If I recall, when I originally posted the image Caroline Brown dismissed it as another one of Barrett's lies---speculating that he had seen the donkey photo sometime during his life and just threw it in to his supposedly fictional confession as a bit of useful detail.

Maybe it came from Billy Graham, or one of his parents?

[Lombro2]

So what if the case is square as opposed to (what?) round? Who would add details that are unprovable and who would believe it?

Who would give details of a modern hoax before it's even proven to be a modern hoax? Five pages worth too?!

I'll give you five pages on the feeding and mating habits of the Sasquatch! It'll have lots of details. Then you'll believe!

[rjpalmer]

Hi Markus,

If you're looking for a round nautical compass in a square encasement, you can pick them up on eBay for around $30--fingers included.

Antique Brass Brinton Square Compass Nautical Working Designer For BEST GIFTS | eBay

Just find a rusty nail, scribble a few messages on the inside cover, and you'll be in business.

Cheers.

[rjpalmer]

Why even the need to mention the square part or a donkey picture? That to me is suspicious of someone trying to sell a story.

It's "suspicious" to add detail when confessing? Seriously?

You'd be more convinced if Mike gave no detail and had nothing but hazy memories?

What I think is that real memories sound like fiction to people who believe that fictional diaries sound genuine.

[Lombro2]

There are things that you know are things that you just can't make up. Are you convinced that this is something that you just can't make up?

I know what are things that you can't just make up. They are real things that are beyond anyone's or almost anyone's imagination.

But congratulations on actually researching your theory. Any luck on the square compass? I found a modern "square type compass" for boats. Again it's not something I would consider to be something you just can't make up.

Why even the need to mention the square part or a donkey picture? That to me is suspicious of someone trying to sell a story.

[rjpalmer]

What are the odds that the first and only (?) image of a donkey beside a grave that comes up in Google Images is from Liverpool?

Is this Michael Barrett's Donkey Photo--the one he said was in the "photo album" that he allegedly turned into a Ripper Diary?
A Pet Cemetery

A donkey pauses beside a gravestone at the pet cemetery of an R.S.P.C.A. home for animals in Liverpool. (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images) by Anonymous


A donkey pauses beside a gravestone at the pet cemetery of an... News Photo - Getty Images

Hi Lombro,

Congratulations, but alas, you're seven years, one month, and one day late to the party. I posted this same image back in January 2018:

Acquiring A Victorian Diary - Casebook: Jack the Ripper Forums


I, too, thought it mighty coincidental that Merseyside, of all places, had a pet cemetery where donkeys roamed free, and that the image of a donkey by a grave dated to between the two wars...which is oddly suggestive of Barrett's description of the supposedly imaginary photo album.

If I recall, when I originally posted the image Caroline Brown dismissed it as another one of Barrett's lies---speculating that he had seen the donkey photo sometime during his life and just threw it in to his supposedly fictional confession as a bit of useful detail.

I don't find that very convincing. What would be the point of inventing a photograph of a donkey by a grave that no one would be able to verify or confirm? Would such a ploy have even crossed his mind?

After all, it took a quarter of a century for such a photograph to show up on the internet---was Barrett playing the 'long game'?

Or were these donkeys in the pet cemetery local Liverpool celebrities and showed up in local photo albums in the 1930s and 40s?

(Melvin Harris, skeptical that the Maybrick photo album was necessarily Victorian, said he saw very similar albums, with similar bindings, dating to as late as the 1930s)

Are you still convinced the album was a figment of Barrett's imagination?

Regards,

The Professor or The Madman--take your pick.

[John Wheat]

This has to be about the most pointless thread of them all.

[Lombro2]

DETAILS

Restrictions:
Contact your local office for all commercial or promotional uses. Exclusive licensing is not available for this image.
Credit:
Hulton Deutsch / Contributor
Editorial #:
613495854
Collection:
Corbis Historical
Date created:
January 01, 1937
Upload date:
October 07, 2016

[Lombro2]

What are the odds that the first and only (?) image of a donkey beside a grave that comes up in Google Images is from Liverpool?

Is this Michael Barrett's Donkey Photo--the one he said was in the "photo album" that he allegedly turned into a Ripper Diary?
A Pet Cemetery

A donkey pauses beside a gravestone at the pet cemetery of an R.S.P.C.A. home for animals in Liverpool. (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images) by Anonymous


A donkey pauses beside a gravestone at the pet cemetery of an... News Photo - Getty Images

[Lombro2]

It was a dark and stormy night one wet weekend, Michael Barrett was thinking about the Hitler Diary and how he himself was a frustrated artist just like Adolf. Jack the Ripper, he thought, must be a frustrated artist too.

He also was probably a guy who felt inferior and liked the letter M and rooted for Manchester because Manchester is so manly with a Man Chest. That's why he liked to put Ms all over the place in Whitechapel. He probably had an M in his name too like Monty but not Monty. "Now if I could just find someone with the letter M in his name, I know I can write a Diary of Jack the Ripper."

He looked in all the indexes of his British History books and then remembered Tales of Liverpool which told the story of Florence Maybrick. Her husband was James Maybrick. It says he went to London in 1889 to visit his doctor. That's it! His name has an M and it has a brick like the Wentworth Buildings. He even has a famous artist brother. He's probably jealous of him.

"Oh Anne! Where's that old Victorian photo album you had? You know the one with the picture of the donkey on a grave!"

[Lombro2]

A forger would therefore be implying that Maybrick waited for an appropriate office journal and then used it to create a--shall I say it--Doppelganger.

You really can't make it up. It must be true.

Call it the Double Doppelganger Theory!

[Lombro2]

You and I probably just assumed James ripped the pages out and handed the sheaf of papers to Lowry like that. The author, of course, thought it through…

He removed the items from the original journal, including the business label on the inside cover. And then waited for a suitable alternate journal to stick them in. Before “returning” it.

[Iconoclast]

I thought so too. Imagine my shock when I read it was after.

The Diary does mention Lowry asking for the book “long before” the Kelly murder. It’s before his visit to Michael at the “end of June”.

So he’d have waited about six months before returning the pages and/or the “items” in them.

I put that one on a par with "Which is further west, Carlisle or Edinburgh?".