Annie and Alice Crook photographs.

[avvie]

Hope this hasn't already been mentioned. I have searched but couldn't find anything!

I'm currently reading Stephen Knight's Jack the Ripper. The Final Solution.
2 photographs have been included which are apparently of Annie Crook and Alice Crook! I have never seen these before. Found the one of supposed Alice online but searching online i cannot find anywhere anything to do with this supposed photo.

Here is the supposed one of Annie and Eddy's daughter, Alice



This is a photo i took using my phone of Annie taken around 1886 (sorry no scanner)



Both photo's as seen in the book



It does say both photo's are from Sickerts Family Photograph collection.

What are people's thoughts on these?

[packers stem]

Hi Avvie,welcome to casebook.
Both photos were provided by Joseph Sickert I believe.
Despite many peoples distrust of old hobo I can't see a reason to doubt they were who he said they were.
He had nothing to gain by making it up, nor knight.
However I've seen many argue that because he was officially a Gorman he's made up all of the background.....because, of course, infidelity has never happened in society and if it's Gorman on the birth certificate then it's carved in stone regardless of his own claims...
In truth, we've no way of knowing. We either take his word for it or we don't but Annie Crook and Alice did exist. May not have lived where knight claimed nor followed the life map he claimed but they did exist

[Rosella]

Joe was quite a fantasist. Who knows if these photos are of Annie and Alice, they could be but coming from such a liar everything is tainted. It's years since I read Knight. Did Joseph also not say that he had a photo of John Netley, the coachman who according to Knight's theory, drove Gull around on his killing spree?

[Vanillaman]

Joseph Sickert

A liar and a fantasist, really Rosella? And what do you base such a ludicrous assumption on? Oh, I get it. You've been listening to these so-called experts who perpetuate the imperialist xenophobic view of Sir Robert Anderson that "No Englishman could have done it". I have been investigating this case since I was 15. I'm now 53 and these alleged experts have stifled any connection to the British royal family ever since. They viciously attacked Stephen Knight after he died so that he couldn't defend himself. What they also distract you from is that the `only' reason why Joseph Sickert retracted his story to Stephen Knight was because Knight questioned how his father, Walter Sickert knew so much, thereby implicating Sickert himself. Stephen Knight himself was an avid researcher and worked for the BBC. He came across the Sickert story when he was approached by an ex policeman. So, if Joseph Sickert wanted to gain anything by fabricating the whole story, why didn't he present himself voluntarily before he even met Stephen Knight? Have you even read Knights book? Be honest!

I have been attacked on this site for being a dissenting voice away from their silly lunatic theory. They bullied and harassed Melvyn Fairclough for his book, "The Ripper and the Royals" and destroyed his career for making an error. They waited until Knight was in his grave to attack him, all because they believe their royal family are squeaky clean and perfect, when they are renowned for the sexual deviance and they won't even speak about Prince Eddy. They denounced and him and wanted him erased from history.

[Ally]

I have been attacked on this site for being a dissenting voice away from their silly lunatic theory.

I'm sorry.. you've been attacked on this site? I just looked over your posting history and it appears to be mostly you insulting people for not agreeing with you including one gem which is just you calling someone else an idiot just because they say Fairclough your idol shouldn't be taken seriously.

Now clearly you are a tad unhinged, but I'm feeling generous so I'll just pat you on the head and recommend you go back on your meds. I think they were helping.

[Sam Flynn]

Stephen Knight himself was an avid researcher and worked for the BBC

He was a journalist who worked on a handful of local newspapers. He did write a couple of books on Jack the Ripper and the Freemasons, which sold extremely well. He appeared in one BBC Horizon documentary which was, I believe, the full extent to which he "worked for the BBC". He was not an ace investigative journalist by any stretch of the imagination.

I might observe that Henry Lincoln and Michael Baigent were avid researchers who worked for the BBC (Lincoln did so frequently), but that doesn't mean that their Holy Blood, Holy Grail was anything other than speculative, albeit fascinating, twaddle.

I've nothing against Knight, Lincoln or Baigent - on the contrary, I loved reading their books and still do. I'm just pointing out that "researchers" and "people who work for the BBC" come in different shapes and sizes, and are as capable of peddling rubbish theories as anyone else.

[PaulB]

I'm not aware that Stephen Knight was attacked visciously after his death, nor that Melvyn Fairclough, who I spoke to only a couple of weeks ago, had his career destroyed. And I think Joseph is too readilly dismissed as a liar and a fabricator as far as his claim to be related to Walter Sickert is concerned, but then I rather liked Joseph and his family.

[Ally]

Now Paul, don't go letting facts get in the way of a good outraged victim scenario. Where's your appreciating for a good dramatic story of the downtrodden underdog rising up against the oppressive masses and the nefarious cabals out to silence them through any means necessary? I mean we haven't had one of those since ... yesterday.

[Sam Flynn]

I wasn't aware that he had an unsuccessful career at the BBC. Can you direct me to the evidence of this please?

You might check out Stephen Knight's credits on IMDB (the Internet Movie Database), online "tributes" and Wikipedia entries. Between them, the only reference to a BBC connection I could find was the one Horizon programme, in which he was a participant. Far from being a "BBC man", he seems to have spent most of his career on the staff of local newspapers in Ilford and Hornchurch, with a brief stint at the London Evening Standard.

[PaulB]

I'm sorry, Ally. I wasn't thinking.

[Vanillaman]

A fool trying to be clever is cringingly embarrassing (Ally)

Hmm! Interesting that nobody has actually addressed what was said. So much for constructive criticism and the hope of learning something. Instead, all I get is the usual deviations to insults and abuse, which speaks for itself (not to mention what it says about the integrity of this site) so I won't waste my time on trolls. However, I am grateful for the reference to Stephen Knight, although his career at the BBC or the BBC itself is irrelevant. I wasn't aware that he was not an ace investigative journalist "by any stretch of the imagination".... Can you direct me to the evidence of this please?

As for the attacks on Knight and Fairclough... believing that just because you aren't aware of it makes it untrue is defined as `arrogance'. I would suggest doing some research yourself.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Vanillaman,

I had a face-to-face meeting with Stephen Knight about a year or so after the publication of his book.

His story wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.

I knew it, and he knew it.

But that hadn't stopped him from earning a colossal amount of money from a gullible public, always ready and willing to believe the latest old cobblers about Jack the Ripper.

Regards,

Simon

[PaulB]

Hmm! Interesting that nobody has actually addressed what was said. So much for constructive criticism and the hope of learning something. Instead, all I get is the usual deviations to insults and abuse, which speaks for itself (not to mention what it says about the integrity of this site) so I won't waste my time on trolls. However, I am grateful for the reference to Stephen Knight, although his career at the BBC or the BBC itself is irrelevant. I wasn't aware that he was not an ace investigative journalist "by any stretch of the imagination".... Can you direct me to the evidence of this please?

As for the attacks on Knight and Fairclough... believing that just because you aren't aware of it makes it untrue is defined as `arrogance'. I would suggest doing some research yourself.

Your claim to have been ‘attacked’ on this site was investigated and disputed by admin; your assertion that Stephen Knight was ‘viciously attacked’ and that Melvyn Fairclough’s career was ‘destroyed’ were questioned; it was made clear that Stephen was not an investigative journalist for the BBC, as you sort of implied; and I agreed that Joseph’s story shouldn’t be too readily dismissed. All in all, that seems to have been addressing what you said in your post.

I see that you were not aware that Stephen wasn’t an ace investigative journalist. I suppose that unawareness defines you as being arrogant, which is a conclusion some may already have reached from reading your posts.

I regret that I never had the opportunity to meet and talk with Stephen Knight, but I have met and talked with several people who did and knew him reasonably well, such as Richard Whittington-Egan and Donald Rumbelow, and also with people like Simon Wood, whose researches and article in Bloodhound were the first to treat Knight’s story seriously and actually investigate it. I have read Stephen’s book many times since it was published and I have been through his surviving research papers. I met Melvyn Fairclough and discussed The Ripper and the Royals with him before it was published and had the pleasure of working with him on another project for about a year. And I have met and talked with Joseph Sickert and his family on numerous occasions, in fact Joseph phoned me for a chat several times. I think that qualifies as ‘doing some research’.

[miss marple]

I agree with Simon Wood.
I knew a very close friend of Stephen Knight's who knew him for many years and Stephen did not believe in his own theory.
The more one examines the theory, it fall apart anyway.Annie Crook was not a Catholic.
Gull was over seventy and had suffered strokes, and much much more as most ripperologists know.

Miss Marple

[Sam Flynn]

I wasn't aware that he was not an ace investigative journalist "by any stretch of the imagination".... Can you direct me to the evidence of this please?

His CV alone is evidence enough - a little over a decade working on local newspapers doesn't elevate anyone into the same bracket as, say, a John Pilger or a Carl Bernstein.