New Ideas and New Research on the Diary

[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?

[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.

[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 Forbey 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.

[Mike J. G.]

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.

Go on, enlighten me...

[Mike J. G.]

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.

I wonder where that picture was taken...

A recent discovery on a field once owned by the RSPCA in Halewood was the grave of a war horse named Blackie who served in World War 1.

This is a stone's throw from where I work, and the grave was actually found and reported by a groundsman from my workplace who was never credited.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2q0nw256lko.amp

[rjpalmer]

A recent discovery on a field once owned by the RSPCA in Halewood was the grave of a war horse named Blackie who served in World War 1.

Hi Mike.

That's interesting. The article states that the Liverpool Horse's Rest moved to that site in 1937. The photograph is also listed as being taken in 1937.

According to an advertisement in the Post of the R.S.P.C.A., the previous site of the Horse's Rest was in Broadgreen.




The date on the headstone shows that 'Chubby' died in 1929, so instead of this being a 'pet cemetery,' I wonder if this is at the Horse's Rest at Broadgreen, Liverpool?


Mrs. Mary Pennell, who apparently erected the headstone was also associated with the R.S.P.C.A. who ran cat shelters as well as the horse's rest.



It would certainly fit.