Another Twomblety Oddity

[Blues]

Ah HA!

Now that's the kind of information that dismisses the b.s.

That seems plausible.

Maybe Tumbletly's interaction with all that led some to speculate on "what else he could be up to" and led to his Ripper status with some at the time.

Don't know, but I would like for someone with the knowledge about that to expand on it. Tumblety surely seems well connected to be able to keep one step ahead of them all the time...Randy ol' fruit that he was.

Thanks c.d.,

Blues

[c.d.]

Hi Blues,

I think Tumblety became a suspect because he was a "doctor" and the police had heard about his uterus collection and an American doctor attempting to by uteri. They had to track down all leads.

Once he gave them the slip they probably went into panic mode that he actually might have been the Ripper and so it is possible that they kept an eye on him in America just in case. I have always believed though that if they were really convinced he were the Ripper that they would have made a very serious attempt to bring him back to London to stand trial extradition laws be damned.

c.d.

[Blues]

Funny thing...

...I just looked back at the "alibi for Tumblety" thread from about 2 years ago and most of what I've said is just a repeat of what was said back then...Kinda sad. I hate to waste my and/or other's time...I know everyone works out and comes to the Ripper info at different times...I really need to watch what has been posted prior before I have a "revelation".

Nothing new under the sun and unfortunately, not much in Ripperdom either.

Any chance of a massive blitz on Home Office records by all of us to find out what's still around?

Thanks c.d.,

Blues

[c.d.]

Hi Blues,

You had legitimate questions and legitimate points to make. And since it is a 120 year old case, the same threads and unfortunately the same arguments tend to get recycled. Still, it is a damn interesting case. Kind of like professional wrestling. You can come back to it after an absence and still pretty much pick up the plot and not have missed much. On the other hand, there is always a chance that somebody will get hit by a chair.

c.d.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Blues.

I don't have the book in front of me...but I'm fairly certain that "Twomblety" was written in correspondence from the "doc" himself...I may be wrong...but I will check in a moment to be certain.

I think you’ll find that Tumblety did not give his name as “Twomblety.” The spelling “Twomblety” comes from two articles first published in the New York World, 25 and 26 November, 1888, which were reprinted in newspapers around North America. As I said, it was the newspapers who got the name wrong.

The rings, amongst other much more expensive jewelry, is completely uncommon and out of place for him...he also didn't have close relationships with his family...

I don’t know how you can say this without any evidence to back it up. No one now living KNOWS what was uncommon and out of place in Tumblety’s life or what actual significance the two rings might have held for him. This is also true for his relationship with his family. Giving me examples from your family does not provide evidence that the same was true for the Tumblety family I’m afraid.

Setting his bail at 300 pounds would have kept almost everyone in jail back then - but not the rich doc. 300 pounds is an obnoxious bail for what he was being accused of - misdemeanors at that. They wanted to keep him in country and couldn't with the bail...

This actually doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Robert Clack has shown that the Magistrate, J L Hannay, who Tumblety appeared before, was not averse to fixing a high bail for men accused of acts of gross indecency. Rob has cited the case of a defendant who was forced to pay two sureties totaling Ł500 and post a bail of Ł300. This man had absolutely nothing to do with the Whitechapel murders yet the combined sum to secure his bail was over double what Tumblety was asked to pay. It appears that rather than trying to keep a Ripper suspect under lock and key Magistrate Hannay was trying to keep Homosexuals off the streets and away from young men.

There is a tremendous amount of evidence against Tumblety that is verifiable... Their asking for handwriting samples from S.F. police… Sending that many Yard men to the States indicates that they knew far more than we know they knew.

There is actually no evidence against Tumblety that is verifiable. Scotland Yard did not ask the San Francisco police for samples of Tumblety’s handwriting. Instead the Chief of the San Francisco Police contacted Scotland Yard and said that he could provide samples if Scotland Yard wanted them. Robert Anderson, however, did tell him to send them but he did not seek them out. Also, sending officers like Inspector Andrews to Canada had nothing to do with Tumblety and the Whitechapel murders but instead seems to have had everything to do with the Parnell Commission and attempts to gather evidence supporting the Times’ case against the Irish leader. Andrews didn’t get anywhere near Tumblety.

…Getting involved with the Fenians...assassinations - here with the incorrect (?) accusation of Lincoln's assassination and with Balfour...the manslaughter of one of his patients...the Irish official murders that he fit the description in...the Yellow Fever conspiracy...

There is no real evidence that Tumblety had any connection with the Fenian movement and, if he did, what that connection might have been. He was, however, an Irish American who grew up in Western New York, which was a hot bed of Fenian support. Because Littlechild was the Head of the Secret Department, and wrote of a “large dossier concerning [Tumblety] at Scotland Yard,” it has been assumed that this was a Secret Department file. There is no evidence to prove this. There must have been a criminal file on Tumblety at Scotland Yard because of an arrest warrant issued against him for sexual misconduct in early 1874 and the offenses listed against him in 1888.

He was not connected in any way with the assassination of Lincoln other than he may have known Booth and he seems to have hired David Herold, one of the plotters, as his assistant. He had no connection with the assassination of President Garfield nor with the plot to assassinate Balfour. He also had no connection with the Phoenix Park murders, that was supposedly Dr. Hamilton Williams, or Dr. Luke Pryor Blackburn’s Yellow Fever Plot other than he may have used the name Dr. J H Blackburn (although this may be a confusion with his groom Mark A. Blackburn or with the alias “Blackburn” that Herold was supposed to have used).

That Tumblety’s life is fascinating is beyond doubt but evidence that he was a vicious sexual serial killer is entirely lacking.

Wolf.

[caz]

…The rings, amongst other much more expensive jewelry, is completely uncommon and out of place for him...

...Tumblety had a persecution complex yet went out of his way to make himself conspicuous and persecutable. His life is one of lies and deceit from day one. He believed that he was larger than life and beyond the grasp of the lesser beings that tried to sully his reputation and character. And for the most part, he was right - he succeeded.

Hi Blues,

Following on from the ring related posts on another thread, don’t you think it would have been very much in the character you paint - and all too easy - for such a boastful deceiver to have got himself a couple of plain rings and left a final teaser for those who had once connected him with the Whitechapel murders? A kind of “Well, was I or wasn’t I? You tell me” bluff?

Without any more evidence, there is no way you could make the leap to genuine murder trophies from the keepsakes of an attention-seeking fantasist.

...Littlechild was directly below the better minds working the case and was privy to things that the press and we were not.

And there’s the rub, because whatever else Littlechild may have been privy to, he could not have made it any clearer in his famous letter (on which so much seems to hang) that he was not privy, for whatever reason, to anything Tumblety ever did again, following his “Chase me” escapade to avoid the shirt-lifting charges.

Love,

Caz
X

[Blues]

Never thought of that...

...the rings thing that is.

Whenever I finish a book, my mind wanders to the suspect of the book...but I don't hold any serious convictions that Tumblety was the Ripper.

But - he'd have to be pretty interested in the case to have read/known that 2 rings of that specific type were missing from a victim...no?

I don't remember how widely reported that fact was. It's still more interesting than the Maybrick watch though don't ya think?

As far as Littlechild goes - nobody knows just how much he was privy to about Tumblety...his letter only comments on the similarity from Druitt to Tumblety's name - so his letter comments on Tumblety very briefly only to let his friend know that there WAS someone who was a "doctor" that he heard about...there may have been a follow up letter from Sims that is still AWOL that asks for more information from Littlechild...Littlechild then sending a whopper of a letter packed with "other" Tumblety info...

Ah, who knows.

Thanks Caz,

Blues

[aspallek]

He had no connection with the assassination of President Garfield nor with the plot to assassinate Balfour.

Pardon my ignorance but is it definitely established that there was a specific plot to assassinate Balfour? If so, when was the plot uncovered?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Andy,

This is the closest I can place it—

Queen Victoria's Journal - "Osborne [House], 11th August 1888.- A very hot night, but the day (was) cooler than yesterday. Saw Lord Salisbury [the Prime Minister] and talked with him of many things, of Germany, Russia, Ireland, but he was sorry to say the Government had had notice from America of a plot to kill Mr. Balfour, which is terrible, and he has to be watched."

Regards,

Simon

[aspallek]

Thanks, Simon, and yes I do remember that now. I believe Norma had point that out some time ago. Sorry, Nats!

But there is no corroboration for this or other information about a specific plot to assassinate Balfour?

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Hi Andy.

Pardon my ignorance but is it definitely established that there was a specific plot to assassinate Balfour? If so, when was the plot uncovered?

James Monro, who wrote about all this in his memoirs, informed the Home Secretary, Sir Henry Mathews, on the 17th of May, 1888, that there was a plot to murder Arthur Balfour and that the assassins were then in Paris. The Foreign Office was informed and, according to author Andrew Cook, the following was cabled to the British Ambassador in France:

Private and Most secret. Home Office have information that plot to assassinate Mr. Balfour and others is being prepared by the notorious J. P. Walsh who is living under assumed name in Paris at the Hotel d’Industrie 31 Rue Dunkerque. He should be followed. Home Office have agent in Paris who will call at Embassy place himself at Your Excellency’s disposal. Further particulars by next messenger.

John Walsh and a man named Roger McKenna were not only followed but also informed by the Special Section D men that they knew all about the plot and that their every move was known. The two men then fled back to America.

Tumblety’s name has been tenuously connected with this plot because Walsh was one of the members of the “Irish Invincibles” who had murdered Lord Frederick Cavendish and his secretary Thomas Henry Burke in Phoenix Park, Dublin. The surgical knives used in the assassination were purchased by a Dr. Hamilton Williams and Nick Warren has theorized that Dr. Williams may have been Tumblety using an alias. In actual fact Tumblety was not Williams nor is there any connection between the quack doctor and Walsh, the Invincibles or the plot against Balfour.

Wolf.

[aspallek]

Hi Wolf,

Now you've fascinated me. I'm not doubting at all what you wrote but could you tell me where this is documented? I'm not aware of any published memoirs of Monro so are we talking about the notes referred to by Howells and Skinner in their book? If so, I don't remember reading about the assassination plot there. Although, some of this sounds familiar from the book Fenian Fire by Christy Campbell, some of which I read a couple of years ago. Does Michael Davitt fit into this anywhere?

Forgive my ignorance. I'm delving into unfamiliar territory here but it touch touch on Druitt due to Douglas Brown's rather mysterious comment re: Macnaghten.

I am assuming the this article http://www.casebook.org/press_report.../18880829.html is referring to exposing the plot to assassinate Balfour?

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Hi Andy.

Yes, this is documented in the “notes,” actually Monro’s unpublished memoirs written in 1903, mentioned in Howells and Skinner. And no, they didn’t mention the Balfour assassination plot for whatever reason. The actions taken against the plotters in Paris are also mentioned in the unpublished memoirs of William Melville, the lead Section D man who scared them off. You can read about Melville in Andrew Cook’s M, MI5’s First Spymaster, but Cook should be read with caution. You can also read about some of this in the A – Z but the authors have muddled it so the information there is untrustworthy.

All that Christy Campbell has to say about the matter can be found in a footnote at the bottom of page 288:
“…There would be a major scare in mid May over a Paris-based plot to assassinate Arthur Balfour.”

It seems unlikely that Davitt had anything to do with the plot as he was anti-terrorism and distanced himself from even the mention of assassination.

The identity of “the leader” of the plot is only conjecture but it seems likely that he was an Irish-American so I don’t see how Druitt enters into this at all (if that’s what you meant). Of course we don’t know what Browne actually saw or what, or who, he meant by his remarks. There was more than one plot against Balfour’s life apparently planned by the Clan na Gael but only the Paris plot has any vague (actually non-existent) connection with the Whitechapel Murders. Tumblety’s name enters into it because of a supposed (also non-existent) connection to Walsh through the “Irish Invincibles.”

Yes, the newspaper article is related to the plot as the story did hit the papers. When the plotters had been put on a boat back to New York Monro leaked the story to the press. Irish Nationalists in America claimed that the whole thing was a British lie and that Walsh was not in France but in Omaha. Monro then contacted the Pinkertons and told them to tell the New York press that if they wanted to interview Walsh and McKenna all they had to do was be at the dock when their ship arrived. The two failed plotters were shocked and angered to find a media circus awaiting them when they stepped off the boat.

Wolf.

[aspallek]

Thanks, Wolf. This is really very interesting to me. The only connection to Druitt that I can see is the strange belief on Browne's part that the leader of this plot is Macnaghten's Ripper suspect.

But here is the interesting thing. Browne actually does give the correct Macnaghten theory in that he mentions the theory related by Sir Basil Thompson in his history of Scotland Yard. Thompson plainly lifted his information straight from Arthur Griffiths, who of course got it from the Aberconway version of Macnaghten's memorandum. So Browne gives the "correct" Macnaghten theory apparently without knowing that it is Macnaghten's and then in the next breath goes on to credit Macnaghten with a heretofore unknown theory that seemingly could not involve Druitt.

This is significant in that if Macnaghten did in fact change his mind late in life, Druitt loses his primary champion (Farquharson notwithstanding). So indeed the question is what did Browne see or to whom did he talk regarding Macnaghten's views?

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Interesting points. I've always assumed that whatever document(s) Browne saw at Scotland Yard they predated Macnaghten's Druitt theory and probably came roughly from around the time of the assassination plot, so sometime in 1888. If true this would suggest that the plot leader theory was superceded by the "private information" received by Macnaghten and not the other way around. To put it another way, if the Druitt information seemed more compelling than the plot leader theory then perhaps the plot leader theory had little to back it up.

Wolf.