Proof of Tumblety's Misogyny

[Lechmere]

Siobhan
I've seen deeper valleys in Ireland.
Alba is the usage for Scotland - derived from the probable earlier Celtic term for all of Britain.

[The Good Michael]

I

I disagree with Michael’s point, where he kind of suggested that all Irish Americans hate the English.

I did not! I was referring to the 19th century and said that all Irish hated the English...and that in America the animosity lingered perhaps longer than it did in Ireland, into the 1990s, but I wasn't talking about an ongoing group hatred.

Mike

[Siobhan Patricia Mulcahy]

Hi Lechmere,
The Celtic word "Albion" refers to Scotland not England.
The valleys you refer to? I think they're in Wales not Ireland.
We may have valleys here in the green sod but I've never come across any deeper than a few feet.

[mklhawley]

I'm just posting to see if Ed will try and post after it.

[Lechmere]

I am aware that discussion of Tumblety’s alleged Fenianism is off topic – after all we are supposed to be looking (in vain) for proof of his misogyny.
However putting to one side the pretentious psycho-babble, wild conjecture about my supposed pet hates, and disbelief that I could have any legitimate reason for posting on this thread I will come to the one substantive point made:

With this kind of evidence connecting Tumblety to the Irish Nationalist cause, Scotland Yard would have been idiots not to investigate, hence a file on him in Special Branch.

What kind of evidence? It has to pre-date 1888 remember.

In 1866 Tumblety said:
‘The chronicles of Ireland will furnish many instances of undue harshness exercised during troubled times, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, but I challenge the record to produce such a flagrant abuse of power’.
Is this evidence of Fenian sympathy?
I would suggest that even here Tumblety pulled his punches.
He describes ‘undue harshness’, but gives an excuse – ‘troubled times’.
The ‘flagrant abuse of power’ that Tumblety characterised as being worse than anything seen in Ireland, was his arrest for suspicion of involvement in the Lincoln assassination!
So his arrest was worse than any British oppression in Ireland.

The only other pre-1888 evidence is that in 1871 Tumblety stayed at a New York hotel managed by a Fenian.

What of the other evidence? To recap…

If it is true that Tumblety was asked to stand against D’Arcy McGee in the 1857 legislative election, then it would have been as a Conservative candidate. There was competition for the Irish vote in Montreal. It was a three member seat.

The Conservative candidates were:
John Rose (elected) – Scottish
Henry Starnes – French Canadian (he gave Tumblety a testimonial)
George Etienne Cartier - French Canadian (he was elected for a different seat that he also contested)

The Radical Reform or Rouge candidates were:
Thomas D’Arcy McGee (elected) - Irish
Luther Hamilton Holton – English descent
Antoine-Aimé Dorion (elected) - French Canadian

It seems likely that the Conservatives wanted an Irish candidate to counter the popularity of D’Arcy McGee – and this may have been behind their approach to Tumblety. The parties tried to have ethnically balanced candidates to appeal to the various communities.
Whatever the case, Fenianism or anti-British sentiment played no part in the campaign on either side in this contest.

Then we have Tumblety’s defence lawyers in the abortive abortion case in the autumn of 1857: Bernard Devlin and Lewis Thomas Drummond.
Like Tumblety they were Catholics born in Ireland, who had then migrated across the Atlantic.
Devlin was a radical – he supported D’Arcy McGee in 1857 but later turned against him when D’Arcy McGee became a Conservative.
Drummond was a life-long Conservative.
It seems likely that they acted for Tumblety in 1857 for professional reasons and perhaps out of good fellowship based on their similar backgrounds. Political considerations must have been absent as they were from different political camps!
Certainly it cannot be said that Tumblety was helped by two Fenian lawyers. This simply is not true.

I disagree with Michael’s point, where he kind of suggested that all Irish Americans hate the English.
Certainly some people of Irish descent retain a misty eyed Fenianism which grows the further they live in time and space from Erin’s valleys.
It is not just in Boston or New York. The same thing is seen in County Kilburn.
But I am certain that most just got on with their lives, barely looking backwards.
As we have seen D’Arcy McGee and Drummond became pillars of the Imperial establishment in Canada.
I am reminded of the different attitudes of President Kennedy and President Reagan to their Irish ancestry. The Kennedy’s were very anti British, whereas Reagan tied to pass himself off as a WASP.

I think Tumblety was far too selfish to be genuinely interested in the Irish cause.
The evidence shows that he craved acceptance from the British establishment. His writing dripped with glowing references to Albion and even visited Ireland in company with Lord Headley – an Irish peer, landowner and member of the Protestant Ascendancy.
When it suited him he put on the blarney – to ingratiate himself with any significant Irish local community.
I think that his enforced flight from Britain following his arrested for Gross Indecency angered him.
It also became useful for him to blame the British Police’s interest in him (supposedly as Jack the Ripper) on his Irishness.
Hence for a while after 1889 we see him becoming much more outspoken. This would have also given him popularity with the more advanced branch of the Irish polity.

However, as he grew older and the dust settled, his desire to ingratiate himself with the British establishment reasserted itself

Dec. 27th 1899.
Viscount Galway,
London. England.

I have taken the liberty of enclosing a portion of the New York Herald of Dec. 23rd, which I think indicates the intense interest the people of the United States take in the South African war.
In expressing the hope that the British may soon triumph, and in assuring your Grace of cordial good will in your new career, I voice the sentiment of the vast majority of people in this country, who are heart & soul with their kith and kin across the sea, in this war.

Respectfully
Francis Tumblety M.D.

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

It's about putting the idea of hatred in others' minds. That's my objection.

As for Tumblety: All Irish hated the English and in America it seemed to last longer. Local bars in my hometown were always collecting money for the IRA even when the activity was on the wane into the 1990s. And of course Ireland is synonymous with rebel music in the American minds. I'm sure Tumblety was looked at for Fenian activity, but I don't think he was involved except as a way to boost his image in certain circles and as perhaps a donor of money for similar reasons. This is the kind of man he seems to be. Certainly a charlatan and guilty of bad and illegal medical practice, but a threat to England? In the minds of Special Branch perhaps, in reality, doubtful.

Mike

Nice post. Although, anyone can be a realistic threat if they realise it. But I tend to agree with this assessment of Tumblety. Think he was out for number one, and number one only. Maybe the potential threat he could've been was cause for concern type of thing.

[mklhawley]

I say white, so you say black, tirelessly.

Everyone else, other than your pals, sees what you're doing, and maybe they do too, but are protecting you. Pat the Good Michael on the back. With this kind of evidence connecting Tumblety to the Irish Nationalist cause, Scotland Yard would have been idiots not to investigate, hence a file on him in Special Branch. Oh yah, Littlechild worked there! You do realize I'm keeping material away from you for obvious reasons, don't you? Your deconstruction-reconstruction young earth creationist-style method of arguing is certianly apparent.

It's clearly evident that you're trying to swamp the Tumblety threads through exhaustive persistence, backed up by one or two pals. Don't you have a job?

I say again, why on earth would Ed have such interest in Tumblety at this particular time?

__________________
Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open. -Sir James Dewar

[The Good Michael]

Michael - those sorts of childish remarks are like water off a ducks back.
I have nothing whatsoever against Stewart Evans although we have clashed a few times (on internet discussion boards which aren't 'real life') and I disagree with some of the conclusions he draws -but not all - and many items and documents he puts up really valuable.
I don't think he should be immune from criticism or that his opinions should be accepted uncritically. I know this is an unpopular stance in some quarters - and as one of my aims is to popularise 'Ripperology' (I personally hate that term) being at odds with a big fish isn't helpful - but my nature is to probe and dig and find weaknesses in arguments. Hopefully politely.

Mike
Tumblety was a rich Irish America.
In 1888 could he have been identified as a politically active Irish nationalist agitator perhaps funder?
He stayed at a hotel owned by a Fenian?
Is that all we are left with?
Apart from the 1890 article?
That is why I say it us not likely that the Scotland Yard dossier concerned anything other than details about Tumblety's sexual antics.

It's about putting the idea of hatred in others' minds. That's my objection.

As for Tumblety: All Irish hated the English and in America it seemed to last longer. Local bars in my hometown were always collecting money for the IRA even when the activity was on the wane into the 1990s. And of course Ireland is synonymous with rebel music in the American minds. I'm sure Tumblety was looked at for Fenian activity, but I don't think he was involved except as a way to boost his image in certain circles and as perhaps a donor of money for similar reasons. This is the kind of man he seems to be. Certainly a charlatan and guilty of bad and illegal medical practice, but a threat to England? In the minds of Special Branch perhaps, in reality, doubtful.

Mike

[mklhawley]

I say white, so you say black, tirelessly.

Everyone else, other than your pals, sees what you're doing, and maybe they do too, but are protecting you. Pat the Good Michael on the back. With this kind of evidence connecting Tumblety to the Irish Nationalist cause, Scotland Yard would have been idiots not to investigate, hence a file on him in Special Branch. Oh yah, Littlechild worked there! You do realize I'm keeping material away from you for obvious reasons, don't you? Your deconstruction-reconstruction young earth creationist-style method of arguing is certianly apparent.

It's clearly evident that you're trying to swamp the Tumblety threads through exhaustive persistence, backed up by one or two pals. Don't you have a job?

I say again, why on earth would Ed have such interest in Tumblety at this particular time?

[Lechmere]

Michael - those sorts of childish remarks are like water off a ducks back.
I have nothing whatsoever against Stewart Evans although we have clashed a few times (on internet discussion boards which aren't 'real life') and I disagree with some of the conclusions he draws -but not all - and many items and documents he puts up really valuable.
I don't think he should be immune from criticism or that his opinions should be accepted uncritically. I know this is an unpopular stance in some quarters - and as one of my aims is to popularise 'Ripperology' (I personally hate that term) being at odds with a big fish isn't helpful - but my nature is to probe and dig and find weaknesses in arguments. Hopefully politely.

Mike
Tumblety was a rich Irish America.
In 1888 could he have been identified as a politically active Irish nationalist agitator perhaps funder?
He stayed at a hotel owned by a Fenian?
Is that all we are left with?
Apart from the 1890 article?
That is why I say it us not likely that the Scotland Yard dossier concerned anything other than details about Tumblety's sexual antics.

[The Good Michael]

You really hate Stewart don't you Ed.

Why would you say such a thing? To plant such an idea on these boards is irresponsible and immature. You owe an apology to Ed.

Mike

[mklhawley]

You really hate Stewart don't you Ed.


The primary mission of Special Branch was to combat illegal Irish Nationalist activities in England and even in the US, and Tumblety was a wealthy Irish-American with sympathies to the Irish Nationalist ever earlier than 1871. At this time, though, Francis Tumblety roomed at the Northern Hotel on Cortland Street in New York, which was a hotel managed by Irish Nationalist and Fenian sympathizer Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa.

In the Brooklyn Eagle, April 27, 1890, it states,

He [Tumblety] was last heard of a couple of years ago in New York, where for a time he was under suspicion on account of his supposed connection with the advance branch of the Irish national party.


Really, get over it.

[Lechmere]

The three passages under the heading ‘Dr Tumblety as an Orator’, with regular applause, come from his 1893 book and recount what are almost certainly fictitious events.
However Tumblety does express very pro-Irish and anti-English sentiments.
The trouble is these remarks were penned by him after Littlechild had lost track off him and believed it likely he was dead – so these supposed opinions of Tumblety’s cannot have led to any expansion of that dossier.

Tumblety did not express any anti English sentiments prior to his arrest for Gross Indecency.
Thereafter he tried to imply that he was arrested (as Jack the Ripper) because he was Irish and/or American (depending on his audience).
He would also have been angered that he was deprived of being able to visit his favourite London playground and hob nob with the British Ascendency.
Tumblety was known for engaging in exaggerated prose aimed at those who annoyed him.
In this case ‘England’.

Those passages should be read with this in mind.

[Lechmere]

It amuses me how those with an agenda tend to try and write Tumblety off as a mere con man at the same time forgetting how many con men have figured amongst the worst murderers. There is no way that Tumblety would have been written off by Littlechild as not worth being looked at as an Irish sympathizer.

I commented on Tumblety as a con man with respect to evaluating whether or not he genuinely held any strong political opinions.
I have not discussed the whether or not being a con man made him more or less likely to be a murderer.

However I have totally demolished the claims made that the identity of Tumblety’s 1857 lawyers and his supposed nomination to fight the Canadian 1857 election can be used as any sort of evidence that he was a Fenian or supporter of extreme Irish viewpoints.

[Lechmere]

There’s a bit more that can be said about Tumblety’s abortive 1857 election bid.
He said ‘it is intimated that it is my intention to offer myself at the ensuing election as a candidate to represent the suffrages of the people in opposition to D’Arcy McGee.’
Tumblety was proposed as a candidate against D’Arcy McGee.

Michael McCulloch wrote a paper in 1993 entitled ‘Dr. Tumblety, the Indian Herb Doctor": Politics, Professionalism, and Abortion in Mid-Nineteenth- Century Montreal’.
He identified Tumbletys defence lawyers in the abortive abortion case in the autumn of 1857 as being Bernard Devlin and Lewis Thomas Drummond.
McCulloch states that Devlin ‘played a part in securing for Thomas D'Arcy McGee, the ex-rebel of 1848, the support of the Irish voters and in arranging his alliance with the anglo-rouges in the election of 1857-58.’
In other words Tumblety’s defence lawyer was actually a backer of Tumblety’s possible 1857 political opponent D’Arcy McGee.
There is a big difference between being a politician who represented Irish interests as Devlin did and a troublesome Fenian – although it is true his opponents later accused him of being secretly well disposed towards Fenianism.

Drummond had been a member of the Liberal-Conservative Government of the province of Lower Canada and represented what was then a Protestant English township on the local legislature. Certainly no Fenian. He wasn’t even very good art harnessing the support of Irish voters in Canada. If in doubt, check him out!

http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio.php?id_nbr=5491

Incidentally D’Arcy McGee in his younger days had supported radical Irish groups and described himself as a ‘Traitor to the British Government’ and advocated that Canada should be annexed to the United States. However by the 1857 election (when he was backed by Devlin) his opinions had completely changed and he advocated a united Canadian Kingdom ruled by one of Queen Victoria’s younger sons!
D’Arcy McGee’s defeated opponents in 1857 were Conservatives.
If Tumblety was going to stand against D’Arcy McGee in 1857, then logically he was going to stand as a Conservative. The Canadian Tories were actually on good terms with the Catholic Church and certain sections of the Irish community.

If you look at the list of Canadian worthies who Tumblety claimed gave him testimonials you might notice:
Hon Hy. Sternes, Mayor of Montreal.
This is actually Henry Starnes, the Conservative Mayor of Montreal from 1856-58 and 1866-68.
In the 1857 general election he was defeated by D’Arcy Magee for the seat Tumblety claimed he was offered.