Sickert and the Gateshead murder

[Chris Scott]

I happened to catch an episode last night of a late night UK true crime series called "Nightwatch." This had a lengthy feature on an aspect of the Sickert story which i don't remember hearing before. It tied Sickert specifically to the killing of Jane Beetmoor/Beardmoor in Gateshead.
I don't know how widely this theory has been debated. If any one hasn't heard it I will rewatch the program and try to summarise the theory and "evidence."
Chris

[Mike Covell]

Sickert sure gets around!

I have not seen this one, and have a keen interest in the case. It features in several of my local crime books, and I have amassed a nice collection of newspaper articles on the case.
I know in the early days of the investigation, Inspector Roots (Stephenson's alleged friend) and Dr Philips both made a trip to Gateshead to acertain if there were any links to the Whitechapel murders. On the same day, the local police force in Durham issued a statement along the lines of Waddle/Twaddle was there man! It was around September 25th if I remember rightly.

[Celesta]

Chris,

How did they insert Sickert into the story? In other words, what avenues did they use to get him there and tie him to the murder? It wasn't connected to the Ripper-Royal 'theory', was it?

[Chris Scott]

There is, mercifully, no mention of the Royal Conspiracy theories.
The core of the program boils down to this:

From "Nightwatch"

Sickert and the Gateshead Murder

"Intriguingly, there's a Tyneside link between Walter Sickert and the murder of Jane Beardmoor. It was found by an amateur historian who stumbled across the information while researching the history of the River Tyne police.

Interview with Neil Mearns (Coastguard and former police officer)
"What transpired was we had a situation where there had been at least five murders attributed to the Ripper in London, and between the third and fourth murder and the final murder there was a gap of well over a month. During this period information was received that an Austrian seaman had sailed out of the River Tyne in a Faversham registered brigantine for a French port. It also transpired that the handwriting of the seaman in question, when he had signed articles on board the sailing ship, was said to be identical to the copies of some Ripper letters which two men had actually seen on board the ship, and his description also fitted with that of a witness who had seen the suspected Ripper leaving the scene of one of the murders. The sailor on board the Faversham ship was said to be Austrian. Sickert, in fact, was German. However, it could have been that he was trying to pass himself off as an Austrian instead of being German. Sickert had connections with France - he had been to France before. The ship was, in fact, bound for France. Sickert also had connections with London and with Liverpool. The seaman in question was also said to have been to Liverpool and London before coming to the Tyne and overall there seem to be quite a lot of information, although circumstantial, that seems to link Sickert as possibly being the seaman on board the Faversham registered ship."

Walter Sickert loved the theatre and followed the career of the famous actress, Ellen Terry. Sometimes he followed her tours, and it is believed she was playing on Tyneside around the time of Jane Beardmoor's murder, giving him a motive to travel north.

[Mike Covell]

Interesting stuff and not a freemason or baphamet idol in sight!

I shall have a look for a copy of this, thanks Chris.

[anna]

Hi all,

I caught this last night,too.....but only up to the Sickert bit.....
then I fell asleep..

Mike is quite right......Sickert does seem to be mentioned on everything concerned with the anniversary at the moment!
(One wonders if PC has dipped into her piggy for the privelege)

[Dan Norder]

Cornwell's book had already suggested that Sickert killed Beadmore (and pretty much anyone who was found dead under mysterious circumstances over the space of several decades).

See Alan Sharp's "A Ripper Victim That Wasn't: The Capture of Jane Beadmore's Killer" (free online copy of an article from Ripper Notes #25) for more information.

It sounds like someone read Cornwell's book and ran with it. Considering that they clearly caught the man responsible, there's no reason to think Sickert did it. The rest of that info just sounds like more Cornwellian nonsense, in which wild rumors and bizarre speculation are presented as facts. I wonder if that's part of the "new evidence" in her upcoming new edition, or if it was just a local nut?

[Ally]

So let me see if I am absolutely clear on this.

There was an austrian seaman around at the time. Sickert was a German painter. The ship was going to france, and Sickert had in the past visited France. There is no proof Sickert was in Tyne, but hey, he might have been because an actress he liked was performing there.

And this is what the guy calls "circumstantial" evidence? It doesn't even rise to that level! I think I can see why he's an "ex-cop" if this is an example of his deductive reasoning.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Sickert was born in Munich in 1860 to an English mother and a Danish father who just happened to be working in Germany at the time. The family moved to England in 1868. This hardly makes him German.

Dan's right. It looks like someone read Ms Cornwell and decided that Jane Beetmore was a Ripper victim and that Sickert was the Ripper. Unfortunately to subscribe to this theory you have to disregard William Waddell, the man who was actually convicted and hung for the murder, who left a detailed confession.

Wolf.

[Jon Guy]

The Gateshead murder is an excellent example of a Ripper "copycat" murder.
Anyone who believes that Kelly and McKenzie were copycats should check out the details of the Gateshead case.

I might have missed it, but the programme didn`t even introduce Walter Sickert as a (celebrated) painter / artist.

[Stephen Thomas]

It tied Sickert specifically to the killing of Jane Beetmoor/Beardmoor in Gateshead.

Hi Chris

Patricia Cornwell calls the murdered woman Jane Boatmoor.

She also takes up three pages of her book with a long letter to The Times from AN ELDERLY GENTLEMAN describing how he got into a sticky situation with locals in County Durham who believed him to be JTR. She theorises that Sickert wrote the letter and had indeed been wandering around Geordie minepits at the time Jane B was killed. In fact the letter was written by the Victorian sexual eccentric Arthur Munby and had been reproduced in the book 'Munby, Man of Two Worlds' published in the early 1970s.