The Theory That Will Live On Forever

[Rosella]

Alice Margaret Crook, Joseph Gorman's mother, was born in London on 18th April 1885, and was christened an Anglican, not a Roman Catholic.

Her conception must then have been between 18th July and 11th August 1884. The Duke of Clarence was then in Germany. He had departed for Heidelberg with his German tutor on 18th June and he did not return to England until 18th August.

He could therefore not have been Alice Crook's father, and he was certainly not Joseph Gorman's grandfather.

It is not up to any of us to prove or disprove your theories culled from Stephen Knight's long ago Final Solution that Wasn't. If you believe that Joseph Sickert's story is believable then offer proof. If you believe in the Royal theory then, London Fog, offer proof of a connection between these conspiracists and the Ripper victims.

[MacGuffin]

Hi London Fog,

You misunderstand me. I don't say I know this theory is correct. I have stated more than once that it may not be correct, but it does offer circumstantial evidence as good, if not better than any other theory I have seen. Many posters here want to tell me how wrong I am, and how this theory is nothing but rubbish. The only thing I have to show are the reasons why I believe this theory is possible. I have done that. On the other hand, no one has SHOWN why I'm wrong for believing this possibility. All they can do is tell me how crazy it is, and how crazy I am for considering it. From what I've seen of this basic theory, there is nothing about it that's so impossible. I certainly don't say that Stephen Knight was right about every single thing he said, but I think the basic theory, especially about the Masonic connection, is a strong possibility. There are lots of us here posting, because we like talking about these things. Why is it that certain ones are not allowed their own opinions without ridicule?

The problem is there is no factual evidence, circumstantial, or otherwise regarding any of Knight's theory.
There is nothing that can be proven, not about a masonic connection, a royal connection, or a Sickert connection - it's all speculation that embraces
extreme improbabilities, and requires the reader to assume huge leaps into the realm of the illogical and unsubstantiated.
According to Knight, the only source for all of this was Joesph Gorman, who later recanted the story, then recanted his previous recanting.
It might help to read other forum posts regarding this theory, as nearly every assertion made by Gorman via Knight has been repeatedly refuted previously elsewhere.

As to ridicule, this seems to happen to everyone at some point, and in every theory and/or speculation that's posted. It's just par for the JtR course.

Regards,
MacGuffin

[London Fog]

again I submit to you that positive postulations can be proven, the converse cannot.

Regards,
MacGuffin

Falsehoods can indeed be proved to be falsehoods.

[London Fog]

This is required in nearly every branch of academia, from mathematics through to the sciences, the legal reference was simply an example.
This is an invalid assumption to the extreme.
My reference to peer review is to relay to you that you must prove your theories, we are not required to prove anything.
You are putting forth a theory, you must support your theory with proof of each assertion. Instead, you want others to disprove your theory and assumptions; again I submit to you that positive postulations can be proven, the converse cannot.

Evidence, "circumstantial" or otherwise, must be proven, or it's merely supposition and/or speculation.
There's nothing wrong with speculation, as long as it is presented as such, but when it's presented as evidence, it will always require proof in order to verify it's evidentiary value.

Regards,
MacGuffin

You misunderstand me. I don't say I know this theory is correct. I have stated more than once that it may not be correct, but it does offer circumstantial evidence as good, if not better than any other theory I have seen. Many posters here want to tell me how wrong I am, and how this theory is nothing but rubbish. The only thing I have to show are the reasons why I believe this theory is possible. I have done that. On the other hand, no one has SHOWN why I'm wrong for believing this possibility. All they can do is tell me how crazy it is, and how crazy I am for considering it. From what I've seen of this basic theory, there is nothing about it that's so impossible. I certainly don't say that Stephen Knight was right about every single thing he said, but I think the basic theory, especially about the Masonic connection, is a strong possibility. There are lots of us here posting, because we like talking about these things. Why is it that certain ones are not allowed their own opinions without ridicule?

[MacGuffin]

Only if we're in a court of law, which we're not.

This is required in nearly every branch of academia, from mathematics through to the sciences, the legal reference was simply an example.

You are worried about peer review, and I am concerned with truth.

This is an invalid assumption to the extreme.
My reference to peer review is to relay to you that you must prove your theories, we are not required to prove anything.
You are putting forth a theory, you must support your theory with proof of each assertion. Instead, you want others to disprove your theory and assumptions; again I submit to you that positive postulations can be proven, the converse cannot.

I look and see how the Ripper victims were laid out. I see the word "Jewes" on the wall. I see the Royals as members of the secret society that is tied to both of those things. That is circumstantial evidence, which is just as good as any of the other evidence in any other theory.

Evidence, "circumstantial" or otherwise, must be proven, or it's merely supposition and/or speculation.
There's nothing wrong with speculation, as long as it is presented as such, but when it's presented as evidence, it will always require proof in order to verify it's evidentiary value.

Regards,
MacGuffin

[London Fog]

So you can't see how Gull having suffered a stroke a few months before rules him out.

If that simple fact eludes you then it is pointless you have obviously made up your mind and are not open to reason or logic.

A man that had suffered a stroke would not be able to SIT in a carriage and use a knife? That's what the theory states. I really don't think you know the theory.

[GUT]

So you can't see how Gull having suffered a stroke a few months before rules him out.

If that simple fact eludes you then it is pointless you have obviously made up your mind and are not open to reason or logic.

[London Fog]

Hi Jeff,

One of Eddy's affairs worth checking out is Lydia Manton.

The poor girl was enciente at the time of her excruciating death.

Regards,

Simon

Do you believe that actually happened, or are you just fascinated with the Royal family?

[London Fog]

Hi London Fog,


The onus of proof lies upon the theorist, much akin to the "burden of proof" requirements in a court of law.
When one submits a theory to peer review, one is required to prove each point, step by step, ie: It is not necessary to prove that Joseph Gorman was, as you say, a "Gorman", the necessity is in proving he was a "Sickert".
Positive postulations can be proven, the converse cannot, otherwise it's simply speculation.

Regards,
Macguffin

Only if we're in a court of law, which we're not. You are worried about peer review, and I am concerned with truth. I look and see how the Ripper victims were laid out. I see the word "Jewes" on the wall. I see the Royals as members of the secret society that is tied to both of those things. That is circumstantial evidence, which is just as good as any of the other evidence in any other theory.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jeff,

One of Eddy's affairs worth checking out is Lydia Manton.

The poor girl was enciente at the time of her excruciating death.

Regards,

Simon

[MacGuffin]

Hi London Fog,

The only thing not stacked is proof. Would you like to throw some proof on the pile? I'm ready to call the theory wrong, all I need is proof.

The onus of proof lies upon the theorist, much akin to the "burden of proof" requirements in a court of law.
When one submits a theory to peer review, one is required to prove each point, step by step, ie: It is not necessary to prove that Joseph Gorman was, as you say, a "Gorman", the necessity is in proving he was a "Sickert".
Positive postulations can be proven, the converse cannot, otherwise it's simply speculation.

Regards,
Macguffin

[London Fog]

I have an interesting book in my home by Jan Bondeson. My copy is a paperback. It is called "The Great Pretenders" and was published by W.W. Norton & Co., in New York and London in 2004. Bondeson (who writes in The Ripperologist frequently) researched at least eight cases of missing heirs to titles, particularly royal titles, like King Louis XVII of France and Kasper Hauser (who some thought was the legitimate heir to the throne of Baden). The book does show a fascination throughout the world with Royal lives (or in the cases of the Tichborne Claimant and the Duke of Portland/Thomas Druce Case a fascination with high profile aristocracy) that pervades the world. Despite living now beyond 2014 we still have it - how many people still wonder where the Earl of Lucan is today.

A number of the cases Bondeson wrote of were 18th Century mysteries of secret marriages involving George III with such figures as Hannah Lightfoot. Anyone studying King George knows that in normal circumstances he was a pillar of moral rectitude - due to his devotion to trying to set an example for his people. Unfortunately he was also subject to fits of insanity (whether or not due to porphyria) and in these situations his rectitude did go out the window. His sons, starting with his oldest, hardly showed the same concern about moral rectitude, and were determined to enjoy their positions. Although beyond the scope of Bondeson's book here, one of them, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (and later King Ernest I of Hanover after 1837) was widely disliked and suspected of killing his servant De Sellis in 1810 in what was whispered to be a homosexual attack. I bring this out to show that homicides linked by whisper campaigns to the Royals were not a new phenomenon in 1888 or after.

Queen Victoria copied her grandfather George III in trying to present herself as a pillar of moral strength, and got pilloried for it by scandal mongers in her own reign - as "the Empress Brown" because of what many sneered at as her secretly being married to John Brown, her Scottish servant, in the 1870s. Her heir, Bertie, the Prince of Wales, did as much to enjoy his privileges as heir to the throne as George, Prince of Wales (and later Prince Regent and George IV) did regarding his father's example. Bertie would have affairs with Lady Mordaunt, Jennie Jerome, Lily Langtree, Daisy, Countess of Warwick, and finally Alice Keppel, and probably others in his lifetime, and in both the Mordaunt and Tranby Croft cases would have to give testimony in law courts (something that had never happened before or since). The public was shocked and pained (though not as pained as Victoria). The public also enjoyed the scandals.

It's fully lovely (if you are of a resentful and jealous nature) to look at one's so-called "Social betters" and find they have clay feet and do dirty things - like most people. I might add this is a universal attitude. Note my use of "Mayerling" as a nickname here - because the next major mysterious scandal after Whitechapel in chronological order was "the Mayerling suicide pact (?)" of January 1889. I just happened to pick on that tragedy from Austria-Hungary. I could have used the term "Boulanger" and chose the French would-be dictator who loused up his nearly pulled coup against the Third Republic, and took off with his mistress. Or I could have called myself "Johann Orth" after Rudolph's cousin, who vanished in some shipwreck with his girlfriend and servants in South America in 1890. If I wanted to I could have chosen to call myself "Mad Ludwig" after the tragic Bavarian King who died in 1886 under murky circumstances, or even "Old I Want My Pa!" after President Grover Cleveland. As I said this is a universal attitude.

Is it fair? Can there be something to it, in any of these incidents? There is always some factor that comes out, though hardly raising them beyond a personal flaw or tragedy in the figures involved. I hardly can say we should drop any consideration of these theories - and here I return to the Royal Conspiracy theory - because they have their adherents.

Personally I don't believe Dr. Stowell knew what he was talking about, and Joseph Sickert (which was the name he admitted later was made up) was a liar. That said, I have looked at the Duke of Clarence and Avondale and he strikes me as a singularly stupid individual who might have gotten over his head in a sexual relationship of any kind, but was not likely to have known how to get out of it. Dr. Gull (already involved in one famous Victorian crime - as a consultant to the dying Charles Bravo in "the Balham Mystery" of 1876) had suffered from a stroke in 1887 - I can't imagine him of being of much use.* Netley is one of those figures who gained back some historical image from sudden curiosity about him, but nothing (aside that he was a coachman, who was killed in an accident in 1901) is of much interest. As for Walter Sickert - he loved talking about crimes: Osbert Sitwell mentions this. There is even some evidence that Sickert talked about Jack the Ripper to Max Beerbohm and Sir William Rothenstein. That does not mean he was in the case up to his neck, and dropped hints of Mary Kelly's physical appearance in his paintings.

[*It still surprises me that while everyone looks at old Gull as the surgeon responsible for the murders and mutilations, they fail to notice a currently important surgeon who really enjoyed talking about crime - and made a comment about the acquittal of Adelaide Bartlett in 1886. This was the surgeon Sir James Paget, who was not suffering from any stroke in 1888, and lived until 1899. But nobody looks closely at Paget!]

In conclusion I can only add that there is no chance, even if some middle or lower class suspect is proven to be the Ripper, that this "Royal Theory" will ever really die. It will be stretched by it's affectionate lovers to include the new facts and impose that the killer secretly in the pay of the Royal Conspirators, who chose his victims intentionally.

Jeff (still listed as "Mayerling", so there! )

In your long post, I saw not one bit of proof against the theory. Once again, all I see is someone stating how wrong it has to be. You can talk about people's fascination with Royals all night long, but that doesn't show any proof that the Royals weren't involved in the JTR case. I don't know that the Royals were involved, and you don't know that they weren't. That is the bottom line, no matter how much say otherwise. What I'm asking of you is to show me where I'm wrong. Don't TELL me, SHOW me. Can you?

[Mayerling]

Why this is such an attractive false theory

I have an interesting book in my home by Jan Bondeson. My copy is a paperback. It is called "The Great Pretenders" and was published by W.W. Norton & Co., in New York and London in 2004. Bondeson (who writes in The Ripperologist frequently) researched at least eight cases of missing heirs to titles, particularly royal titles, like King Louis XVII of France and Kasper Hauser (who some thought was the legitimate heir to the throne of Baden). The book does show a fascination throughout the world with Royal lives (or in the cases of the Tichborne Claimant and the Duke of Portland/Thomas Druce Case a fascination with high profile aristocracy) that pervades the world. Despite living now beyond 2014 we still have it - how many people still wonder where the Earl of Lucan is today.

A number of the cases Bondeson wrote of were 18th Century mysteries of secret marriages involving George III with such figures as Hannah Lightfoot. Anyone studying King George knows that in normal circumstances he was a pillar of moral rectitude - due to his devotion to trying to set an example for his people. Unfortunately he was also subject to fits of insanity (whether or not due to porphyria) and in these situations his rectitude did go out the window. His sons, starting with his oldest, hardly showed the same concern about moral rectitude, and were determined to enjoy their positions. Although beyond the scope of Bondeson's book here, one of them, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (and later King Ernest I of Hanover after 1837) was widely disliked and suspected of killing his servant De Sellis in 1810 in what was whispered to be a homosexual attack. I bring this out to show that homicides linked by whisper campaigns to the Royals were not a new phenomenon in 1888 or after.

Queen Victoria copied her grandfather George III in trying to present herself as a pillar of moral strength, and got pilloried for it by scandal mongers in her own reign - as "the Empress Brown" because of what many sneered at as her secretly being married to John Brown, her Scottish servant, in the 1870s. Her heir, Bertie, the Prince of Wales, did as much to enjoy his privileges as heir to the throne as George, Prince of Wales (and later Prince Regent and George IV) did regarding his father's example. Bertie would have affairs with Lady Mordaunt, Jennie Jerome, Lily Langtree, Daisy, Countess of Warwick, and finally Alice Keppel, and probably others in his lifetime, and in both the Mordaunt and Tranby Croft cases would have to give testimony in law courts (something that had never happened before or since). The public was shocked and pained (though not as pained as Victoria). The public also enjoyed the scandals.

It's fully lovely (if you are of a resentful and jealous nature) to look at one's so-called "Social betters" and find they have clay feet and do dirty things - like most people. I might add this is a universal attitude. Note my use of "Mayerling" as a nickname here - because the next major mysterious scandal after Whitechapel in chronological order was "the Mayerling suicide pact (?)" of January 1889. I just happened to pick on that tragedy from Austria-Hungary. I could have used the term "Boulanger" and chose the French would-be dictator who loused up his nearly pulled coup against the Third Republic, and took off with his mistress. Or I could have called myself "Johann Orth" after Rudolph's cousin, who vanished in some shipwreck with his girlfriend and servants in South America in 1890. If I wanted to I could have chosen to call myself "Mad Ludwig" after the tragic Bavarian King who died in 1886 under murky circumstances, or even "Old I Want My Pa!" after President Grover Cleveland. As I said this is a universal attitude.

Is it fair? Can there be something to it, in any of these incidents? There is always some factor that comes out, though hardly raising them beyond a personal flaw or tragedy in the figures involved. I hardly can say we should drop any consideration of these theories - and here I return to the Royal Conspiracy theory - because they have their adherents.

Personally I don't believe Dr. Stowell knew what he was talking about, and Joseph Sickert (which was the name he admitted later was made up) was a liar. That said, I have looked at the Duke of Clarence and Avondale and he strikes me as a singularly stupid individual who might have gotten over his head in a sexual relationship of any kind, but was not likely to have known how to get out of it. Dr. Gull (already involved in one famous Victorian crime - as a consultant to the dying Charles Bravo in "the Balham Mystery" of 1876) had suffered from a stroke in 1887 - I can't imagine him of being of much use.* Netley is one of those figures who gained back some historical image from sudden curiosity about him, but nothing (aside that he was a coachman, who was killed in an accident in 1901) is of much interest. As for Walter Sickert - he loved talking about crimes: Osbert Sitwell mentions this. There is even some evidence that Sickert talked about Jack the Ripper to Max Beerbohm and Sir William Rothenstein. That does not mean he was in the case up to his neck, and dropped hints of Mary Kelly's physical appearance in his paintings.

[*It still surprises me that while everyone looks at old Gull as the surgeon responsible for the murders and mutilations, they fail to notice a currently important surgeon who really enjoyed talking about crime - and made a comment about the acquittal of Adelaide Bartlett in 1886. This was the surgeon Sir James Paget, who was not suffering from any stroke in 1888, and lived until 1899. But nobody looks closely at Paget!]

In conclusion I can only add that there is no chance, even if some middle or lower class suspect is proven to be the Ripper, that this "Royal Theory" will ever really die. It will be stretched by it's affectionate lovers to include the new facts and impose that the killer secretly in the pay of the Royal Conspirators, who chose his victims intentionally.

Jeff (still listed as "Mayerling", so there! )

[London Fog]

Hi Simon Wood,


As we in the South are fond of saying:
"Never knew it could be stacked so high without a catalyst!"

The only thing not stacked is proof. Would you like to throw some proof on the pile? I'm ready to call the theory wrong, all I need is proof.

[MacGuffin]

Hi Simon Wood,

It was one steaming pile of BS heaped upon another.

As we in the South are fond of saying:
"Never knew it could be stacked so high without a catalyst!"