The Theory That Will Live On Forever

[Wickerman]

And I think that can be explained

I look forward to the day you choose to share that explanation Jeff.

[Jonathan H]

No, Jeff.

That's quite wrong.

The cops may have thought they knew, but were mistaken.

after all, no suspect was accorded due process, which is hardly infallible either.

Macnaghten wrote a report, a non-identical twin version of which was used for a public relations campaign. That campaign was adamant that the Polish suspect was weak compared to the drowned Englishman (in 1907, Sims will claim that an American suspect is the strongest after the drowned man).

What you are missing is that there was not just one police chief who said it was likely solved, but two.

This is one of the failings of of modern so-called Ripeprology. That only Anderson claimed such certainty.

Not so.

I quite understand why you and others are mortally threatened by this unwelcome revisionist take.

An over-relaince on Macnaghten's report(s) has led many researchers to underestimate--even ignore--the press accounts of 1913 regarding Macnaghten's retirement press conference and/or his 1914 memoirs.

He claimed it was solved, by him alone, and that Jack was a 'Simon Pure' who took his own life after a breakdown.

In 1910 the same police chief via Sims ridiculed Anderson's claim that the Jewish suspect was protected by his fellow members of the Faith.

Yet could Anderson have been right and Macnaghten wrong?

Sure, anything is possible, but the extant sources show that of the two police chiefs one was better informed than the other about the details of each other's Jacks, and it is Macnaghten not Anderson.

You write that the Crawford letter is definitely connected to Aaron Kosminski. That's not so. It is a theory. It might be right, but it is more likely not to be when measured agaisnt other contemporaneous sources.

[London Fog]

London Fog, do you mean, when you quote Joseph Sickert, Joseph Gorman, the third child (out of five) of William Gorman and his wife Alice née Crook? The Joseph who asserted to Stephen Knight that he was the painter Walter Sickert's illegitimate son?

The same Joseph Sickert who told the News of the World in May 1984 about the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe attempting to kill him.
'Ripper Haunted My Life...He drove his car at me, I had to dive clear.'

That's the one. Now my question to you is, do you have proof he was a Gorman?

[London Fog]

The Royal Theory is a hoax, a modern one at that, inspired initally by a cranky doctor.

Stewart Evans wrote a very good dissertation on it, reprinted on this site.

I would add that Dr. Stowell may have gained his cranky notion from a 1930 article that quoted Macnaghten claiming that the Ripper was the scion of a noble family.

Druitt was no more noble than he was a doctor.

After Odell's demolition of the Druitt theory in 1966, pop culture was ready for the rubbish that Druitt was a decoy in some kind of grander conspiracy. The culture of Watergate made this possible in 1973, and the Royal 'connection' remains embedded in popular culture this this day.

In reality a police chief of the day, Macnaghten, had announced in 1913 that the case was solved, albeit posthumously.

In his memoir the following year the same ex-chief consolidated the claim that the Ripper was a suicide and that this information had come to him alone several years after the suspect had killed himself.

The conceited, poorly informed--with an even poorer memory--Sir Robert Anderson was just a minor sideshow, elevated by secondary sources into a definitive solution. The Swanson 'Marginalia' arguably confirmed this opinion.

You say Macnaghten claimed that the Ripper was the scion of a noble family. But YOU claim that notion to be a modern one, brough about by Watergate. Who are we to believe, you or Macnaghten?

Everyone has a theory, or belief in one. NONE of us know for sure.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Sunday Times, 18th June 1978—

Regarding Stephen Knight's book, Joseph Sickert [Gorman] said, “It was a hoax; I made it all up” and, it was “a whopping fib.”

Regards,

Simon

[GUT]

Hi All,

Sunday Times, 18th June 1978—

Regarding Stephen Knight's book, Joseph Sickert [Gorman] said, “It was a hoax; I made it all up” and, it was “a whopping fib.”

Regards,

Simon

Yep, but London Fog doesn't seem to realise this, maybe he's in a fog.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Joseph Sickert retracted his retraction in 1991. In a foreword to “The Ripper and the Royals” by Melvyn Fairclough, he wrote—

“Some years ago I agreed to cooperate with the journalist Stephen Knight by recounting to him my family history, which involved the story of the Ripper murders of 1888. I told him a good deal of what I had heard from my father, Walter Sickert. But during the course of our cooperation I began to realise that he was misinterpreting the material, and we quarrelled. I decided not to give him the whole story, and though his book Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution (1976) was broadly on the right lines it was not only wrong on many points but missed out on many vital details.

“It has always been a regret to me that the story has not been presented properly, and I am grateful to Melvyn Fairclough for agreeing to set the record straight. His book has my blessing. My sole purpose in cooperating with him here is to vindicate the reputation of my family—not only of my father, but of my mother and grandmother, and of my grandfather, the Duke of Clarence.”

Which all goes to prove that you can't polish a turd.

Regards,

Simon

[GUT]

So which lie is really a lie.

[Simon Wood]

It was one steaming pile of BS heaped upon another.

[GUT]

It was one steaming pile of BS heaped upon another.

Sounds like a good description to this little black duck.

[London Fog]

Hi All,

Sunday Times, 18th June 1978—

Regarding Stephen Knight's book, Joseph Sickert [Gorman] said, “It was a hoax; I made it all up” and, it was “a whopping fib.”

Regards,

Simon

Have you read the book? Joseph Sickert/Gorman claimed in his story to Stephen Knight that there were more than one man that did the work of "Jack The Ripper." None of them, according to Joseph, was Walter Sickert, who was said to be Joseph's biological father. When Stephen Knight put his own thoughts into what Joseph had told him, he (Stephen) said he didn't believe that one of the named perpetrators (Anderson) was actually in on the murders. Instead, Stephen named Walter Sickert in Anderson's place. This was apparently not what Joseph counted on. What if someone named your father as a murderer. Even IF he wasn't your real father, but you believed him to be your father, you wouldn't want that to happen. Why else would Joseph go to such great lengths, and use such detail in his story, and then just turn around and say he was just fibbing? I believe there's a good chance that Joseph was actually told those things. Maybe they were true, maybe they were false, but I think he did hear those things. Now consider that Walter Sickert, in his last days, started believing that he was Jack The Ripper. What might he have told a guy named Joseph, son or not? Also consider that the Ripper victims were laid out in Masonic ritual fashion, and that the word JEWES, on the wall, also had a Masonic connection. These, and other things about the Ripper case are made clear by the Masonic theory that so many like to call rubbish. Those people, however, don't have any proof of their own.

[London Fog]

Yep, but London Fog doesn't seem to realise this, maybe he's in a fog.

Ah yes, the old standby. When you can't prove someone wrong, just hit him with personal attacks. That should do it.

[London Fog]

So which lie is really a lie.

Well now that's the point, Isn't it. You are so ready to believe the retraction, but the explanation of why he retracted is in question. It comes from the same guy, so if you can't believe one, then how can you believe the other. The reason he gives is valid.

[Simon Wood]

Hi London Fog,

Thirty-nine years ago in 1976 I demolished Stephen Knight's book fact by phony fact.

It's a matter of record.

Any current belief in the Sickert/Gorman/Knight story is just an exercise in self-delusion.

Regards,

Simon

[London Fog]

Hi London Fog,

Thirty-nine years ago in 1976 I demolished Stephen Knight's book fact by phony fact.

It's a matter of record.

Any current belief in the Sickert/Gorman/Knight story is just an exercise in self-delusion.

Regards,

Simon

127 years ago, in 1888, someone/s demolished at least five women on the Streets of London. He, or they, laid out the bodies in a Masonic fashion. Then he, they, or someone, wrote a message on a wall that had a Masonic connection. Do you know what else had a Masonic connection at the time? The Royal family. Be careful what you "demolish," because if it's not actually dead, it can come back and get you.