New Findings on Tumblety

[mklhawley]

Hi all,

In promoting the April 2016 Ripper conference in Baltimore, I have been commenting upon over a dozen new findings on Francis Tumblety. If you are interested in getting the full picture of the Whitechapel murder mystery, this lecture can’t not (I love double negatives) hold your attention and even shift your opinions. Just to tip my hand a bit; the following are a few issues I will be addressing:

1) The actual source for Francis Tumblety being implicated in the Whitechapel crimes; almost to the name of the person.

2) Francis Tumblety’s personal involvement in the sensationalist newspaper reporting about him being a Ripper suspect. You will be surprised.

3) A series of findings (at least a dozen) specific to whether Tumblety was just a minor suspect quickly ignored (other than prosecuting him for gross indecency and indecent assault) or was a major suspect with Scotland Yard investing time, personnel, and money on him. They come from all directions.

4) Nineteenth century bias against homosexuality being the reason why Scotland Yard even considered Tumblety as the killer. We will even make the assumption that Littlechild maintained this bias.

5) Is it true there were no eyewitness accounts matching the description of Tumblety?

6) The real reason why Charles Dunham, the Civil War reptile journalist/agent provocateur, spoke to a New York World Reporter on December 1, 1888, discussing his Civil War experience with Tumblety, even seeing his collection of uterus specimens. Making money? Vindictiveness? Or…

7) Lots more on Dunham and what he claimed to have witnessed.

9) Findings specific to Tumblety being the actual killer. These are interesting.

It’s all evidence-based, and as I said before, it needs experts to review these findings. I hope you can make it.

Sincerely,
Mike

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi all,

In promoting the April 2016 Ripper conference in Baltimore, I have been commenting upon over a dozen new findings on Francis Tumblety. If you are interested in getting the full picture of the Whitechapel murder mystery, this lecture can’t not (I love double negatives) hold your attention and even shift your opinions. Just to tip my hand a bit; the following are a few issues I will be addressing:

1) The actual source for Francis Tumblety being implicated in the Whitechapel crimes; almost to the name of the person.

2) Francis Tumblety’s personal involvement in the sensationalist newspaper reporting about him being a Ripper suspect. You will be surprised.

3) A series of findings (at least a dozen) specific to whether Tumblety was just a minor suspect quickly ignored (other than prosecuting him for gross indecency and indecent assault) or was a major suspect with Scotland Yard investing time, personnel, and money on him. They come from all directions.

4) Nineteenth century bias against homosexuality being the reason why Scotland Yard even considered Tumblety as the killer. We will even make the assumption that Littlechild maintained this bias.

5) Is it true there were no eyewitness accounts matching the description of Tumblety?

6) The real reason why Charles Dunham, the Civil War reptile journalist/agent provocateur, spoke to a New York World Reporter on December 1, 1888, discussing his Civil War experience with Tumblety, even seeing his collection of uterus specimens. Making money? Vindictiveness? Or…

7) Lots more on Dunham and what he claimed to have witnessed.

9) Findings specific to Tumblety being the actual killer. These are interesting.

It’s all evidence-based, and as I said before, it needs experts to review these findings. I hope you can make it.

Sincerely,
Mike

Hi Mike et al.

All this sounds fabulous, Mike! And to remind everyone:

Deadline to sign up for RipperCon is March 15. Complete information on the event is available at RipperCon.com.

Looking forward to welcoming many of you in Baltimore!

Best regards

Chris

[GUT]

G'day Mike

Will this be published somewhere?

[mklhawley]

G'day Mike

Will this be published somewhere?

Hi GUT,

Yes, in a number of places. Joe and I will be presenting some on the forums, Whitechapel Society Journal, and eventually Ripperologist. Also, my book, The Ripper's Haunts, is in the editing process, soon to be published! My publisher's goal is to have it available at RipperCon.

Sincerely,

Mike

[GUT]

Hi GUT,

Yes, in a number of places. Joe and I will be presenting some on the forums, Whitechapel Society Journal, and eventually Ripperologist. Also, my book, The Ripper's Haunts, is in the editing process, soon to be published! My publisher's goal is to have it available at RipperCon.

Sincerely,

Mike

Thanks Mike.

No way I can get to Ripper con, but sounds interesting.

[Columbo]

Hi GUT,

Yes, in a number of places. Joe and I will be presenting some on the forums, Whitechapel Society Journal, and eventually Ripperologist. Also, my book, The Ripper's Haunts, is in the editing process, soon to be published! My publisher's goal is to have it available at RipperCon.

Sincerely,

Mike

Hi Mike,

So for clarification you new info on Tumblety will be in your new book? Will that be available on Amazon and such places?

Columbo

[GUT]

G'day Mike

Did you book get done in time for RipperCon?

[mklhawley]

Hi Mike,

So for clarification you new info on Tumblety will be in your new book? Will that be available on Amazon and such places?

Columbo

Hi Columbo,

Yes, most of the material is in The Ripper's Haunts, plus even more. Sunbury Press pushed to get it done and it was officially published one day early. The Kindle Version and paperback are available on Amazon.

The total lecture was about 2.5 hours and Robert Anderson will be making a podcast. Also, I'll be having video excerpts on my website, beginning with the first 17 minutes on the very source for Tumblety being arrested on suspicion.

Also, Joe Chetcuti and I will be posting some of it on the boards, beginning today!


Sincerely,

Mike

[Elamarna]

Hi Mike

just downloaded the kindle edition, hope sales go well.

regards

Steve

[mklhawley]

Hi Mike

just downloaded the kindle edition, hope sales go well.

regards

Steve

Thanks Steve! You'll love who wrote my foreword.

Mike

[Elamarna]

Thanks Steve! You'll love who wrote my foreword.

Mike

for a moment i got worried it could have been a well known Academic Historian, but Stewart will do so much better.

Just started., have to say in advance tum is not in my top 5 at present.

steve

[David Orsam]

This is from Joe Chetcuti.

It is good to hear that the Baltimore Ripper Conference was an enjoyable experience for those in attendance. I'm glad that Mike Hawley successfully made his inaugural talk to a Ripper audience. I'd like to go over two of the topics that Mike touched upon.

The arrest of the medical man at the Euston train station on Saturday Nov 17, 1888 has been chewed over by Ripperologists for many years. The suspected man apparently left his boarding house at 109 Rea Street in Birmingham and took the train to Euston where he was promptly taken into custody by Detective Sergeant Stephen White. Old newspapers have been searched for many years, but nobody has come up with any article that publicly named the arrested medical man. It is known that on Dec 1, 1888 a Canadian Deputy Minister revealed in a private letter that Dr. Tumblety was the train traveler from Birmingham who was nabbed upon his arrival in London. Newspapers such as the New York Sun and the Washington Evening Star spoke of an arrest of Dr. Tumblety that had occurred during the weekend of Nov 17-18, 1888. But those news reports did not specifically link Tumblety's arrest with that of the Birmingham man's arrest.

We can now congratulate Mike Hawley who recently discovered a Canadian newspaper article that originated from a London, England news dispatch sent on Sunday Nov 18, 1888. The article informed its readers that "On the arrival of the Birmingham train" a suspect who the report referred to as Dr. Kumblety, "was arrested on suspicion of being the Whitechapel murderer." This was the first time the arrested Birmingham medical man was identified in newspaper print, and the identification was in agreement with the private letter which was later authored by the Canadian Deputy Minister.

As for the boarding house on Rea Street, I asked a reference librarian to check the 1888 & 1889 Birmingham City Directories. They are stored at the Library of Birmingham. The librarian reported that the address of 109 & 110 Rea Street was listed as a Model Lodging House with John Eades as its superintendent. No names of the tenants were given.

As for Tumblety's whereabouts during Nov 17-18, he was free on bail when the weekend began. Also at that time, he had no intention of facing the music for his alleged indecent assault crimes. David Barrat has shown that Tumblety did not even make an appearance at the Old Bailey to render a plea to the misdemeanor charge against him, despite the fact that he was expected to be at that court on Monday Nov 19th.

If you are going to present the argument that Tumblety could not have been the arrested train commuter from Birmingham, then you will certainly have some mountains to hurdle. Especially if your contention is based upon the notion that, "Tumblety would have been much too busy on that weekend making legal preparations for his imminent court appearance in London." Tumblety's preparation for his court date at the Old Bailey was probably limited to having a brief message sent to his defense counsel, Archibald Bodkin. That message would have amounted to something as simple as, "Do whatever is necessary to get me a postponement." As it turned out, a postponement request was indeed granted without fuss by the court on Nov 20th. Tumblety obviously did not tie himself down with this legal matter on the weekend of Nov 17-18, and he disregarded any prospect of having to make a mandatory appearance at the Old Bailey.

An additional item I'd like to share on this Euston topic comes from the Birmingham Daily Post. (Chris Phillips helped me find it a few years ago.) The Daily Post's article on Nov 19, 1888 hinted that the Euston train station had been under surveillance for a period of time:

"The Press Association believes that police authorities have received some information to the effect that the Whitechapel Murderer is supposed to travel up from Manchester, Birmingham, or some other town in the Midlands for the purpose of committing the crimes. Detectives have been engaged at Willesden and Euston watching the arrival of trains from the Midlands and the north..."

The Daily Colonist of Victoria, British Columbia was the newspaper that printed the London news dispatch that identified the arrested Birmingham man as having been Dr. Kumblety. The date on the Canadian newspaper was Thursday Nov 22, 1888.

Within the hour, I will go over a second topic that Mike presented at the Baltimore Ripper Conference.

[David Orsam]

From Joe.

Inspector William Melville was one of the original members of the Special Branch and he was the subject of a biographical book written by Andrew Cook in 2004. Controversy arose when the book revealed that Melville's eldest son, Captain William John Melville, had given a number of talks on radio station 2YA (Wellington, New Zealand) during the 1930s. Cook had contacted the descendants of Captain Melville, and according to the family:

"(Inspector) William Melville's involvement in the Ripper episode was one of (Captain Melville's) anecdotes (during the radio broadcasts.)"

Cook wrote that these broadcasts commenced on 24 August 1937. But a query directed to the New Zealand National Library proved that no such broadcast took place on that date. A few Casebook threads popped up on this subject matter in 2005 & 2008, and some serious questions developed about whether or not Captain Melville actually did make these broadcasts.

Roger Palmer looked thoroughly into the case, and in February 2012, he privately shared his findings with 10 other Ripperologists. With the help of Chris Phillips, Roger got in touch with Andrew Cook, and this led to the contacting of Cook's assistant in New Zealand. Fortunately, the assistant still had Cook's original notes on her computer disk and the notes stated that these radio broadcasts occurred sometime between "1936 and 1938".

Roger focused his attention on that time period and found two broadcasts on radio station 2YA that were conducted by Captain William Melville. Roger then looked into the years 1933-35 and found seven additional broadcasts by Captain Melville on that same radio station. Here were the broadcasts as advertised in the Evening Post, a Wellington newspaper:

21 July, 1933, 8:40 P.M. -- "Scotland Yard Celebrities." by Captain W. J. Melville. 20 minute talk.

5 December, 1933, 8:40 P.M. -- "Chief Constable Wensley, O.B.E., of the C.I.D. Scotland Yard." by Captain W. J. Melville. 20 minute lecturette.

28 February, 1935, 8:40 P.M. -- "More Scotland Yard Personalities." by Captain W. J. Melville. 20 minutes.

13 December 1938, 8:40 P.M. -- "Superintendent Froest Gets His Man." by Captain W. J. Melville. 20 minutes.

Those four broadcasts were related to police matters. The following five broadcasts dealt with other topics.

2 December, 1933, 8:39 P.M. -- "The Secret Service." Captain W.J. Melville, approx. 20 minutes.

5 March, 1935, 8:40 P.M. -- "Heroes of the British Secret Service." by Captain W. J. Melville. 20 minutes.

15 July, 1935, 8:40 P.M., "Steinhauer, The Kaiser's Master Spy." by Captain W.J. Melville. 20 minutes.

19 July, 1935, 8:40 P.M., "Aerial Espionage." by Captain W. J. Melville. 20 minutes.

26 April, 1938, 8:40 P.M., "With the Australians in Palestine." by Captain W. J. Melville. 20 minutes.

Roger told us back in 2012 that Captain Melville seemed "to have been very well-informed about his father's career." Although Cook's footnote was inaccurate about the broadcasts commencing on 24 August 1937, Roger pointed out that Cook's "original notes were generally well-informed, and, indeed two of the broadcasts even took place during the time-frame he was given. The Melville family's claim that one of the anecdotes dealt with Inspector Melville's involvement with the Ripper case cannot yet be dismissed."

I asked Roger last autumn if it would be ok for Mike Hawley to share some of this information at the Ripper Conference in Baltimore, and Roger gave his approval. This information fit in well with Mike's talk on Francis Tumblety. That is because it had been printed in The Sunday Times and wikipedia that Inspector Melville detained a fleeing Dr. Tumblety in Le Havre. The account concluded with the French authorities securing the release of the Ripper suspect.

Roger has shown that the recollections of the Melville family should be taken seriously. The family was correct about Captain Melville's broadcasted lectures, the exact radio station that aired them, and the general time period of when these broadcasts were made. I'm happy to hear that after a number of years, this information was publicly presented by Mike Hawley in Baltimore.

[Elamarna]

Book read. well done!

Hi Mike, well book read, will need to reread later this week.

First impressions:

Good research, well written.

Have to say not entirely convinced, but that’s always going to be the case.

Will say however it has pushed the good Doctor from around No 10 on my list to about equal 6 or 7.

congratulations, very well done.

respectfully

Steve

[mklhawley]

Hi all,

For the first issue Joe has address, some claim that Deputy Minister Smith had read Ottawa newspapers (He was in Ottawa in Nov/Dec 1888) and combined the story of Tumblety being arrested on suspicion with the Euston arrest. First, the Daily Colonist newspaper was out of British Columbia, a newspaper Smith would not have seen.

Second, NO ONE knew the initial arrest date of gross indecency was November 7, 1888 (ALL press reports stated on or about Nov 16, especially the New York World). …except Canadian Deputy Minister of Marine, William Smith:

“…He is the man who was arrested in London three weeks ago as the Whitechapel murderer. He had been living in Birmingham and used to come up to London on Saturday nights. The police have always had their eyes on him every place he went and finally the Birmingham Police telegraphed to the London Police that he had left for London, and on his arrival he was nabbed accordingly.” – Letter dated December 1, 1888, from William Smith, the Deputy Minister of Marine in Ottawa to his colleague James Barber in Saint John.

If Smith merely reported what he had read to Barber, why didn't he use the publically reported November 16 date, but instead he got it right.

Sincerely,

Mike