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It seems to me that we've always accepted Kelly's account of herself perhaps a little too happily. Supposing she lied about her age/looked younger than she was. A 25-year-old woman is fresher on the market than a 34-year-old woman. So I went looking at the facts of her life--as she told them--to see what would happen if we moved the dates a little.
She says she married at 16 years of age to a miner called Davies.
If she was, say 25+/- in 1888, then she was born in 1863 and married in 1879+/-. But suppose she was shaving off a few years? Say 5 years+/-. So I went looking a little further back. In September of 1873, Mary Jane Kelly gets married in Newport Monmouthshire. In September 1873, John Davies gets married in Newport Monmouthshire. I can't find a Welsh-born Mary Jane Kelly in 1857, but there is one in 1858, born in Swansea. She was legally old enough to marry then, as the age for women was 12 until 1929, when it became 16. So this could be the MJK I'm chasing and maybe she lived to a ripe old age. But Swansea is a long, long way from Newport, and I'd be surprised if it was her marrying there.
There are a few John Davies of more-or-less the right age, although perhaps a little old for Kelly as they were in their 30s, dying at around this time. Three in 1874. But the one that attracts my attention is the death of John Davies aged 27 in Bedwelty, which is not very far from Newport. He died in December 1874. And Bedwellty is in the heart of the Welsh mining country. As well, Bedwellty Pits had three major accidents, where 5 or more men died, in the course of 16 years between 1865 and 1880. So that's only the bigtime disasters. I have checked as far as I can, and there are a lot of young men dying in Bedwellty over the course of that time and I'll bet almost all of them died in mining accidents or as the result of accidents. The mines would have been where the huge majority of them worked, and those mines sound dangerous as hell. I'll bet John Davies of Bedwellty died down the mine.
I wonder if it's possible that this is Kelly and her long-lost young love...
She says she married at 16 years of age to a miner called Davies.
If she was, say 25+/- in 1888, then she was born in 1863 and married in 1879+/-. But suppose she was shaving off a few years? Say 5 years+/-. So I went looking a little further back. In September of 1873, Mary Jane Kelly gets married in Newport Monmouthshire. In September 1873, John Davies gets married in Newport Monmouthshire. I can't find a Welsh-born Mary Jane Kelly in 1857, but there is one in 1858, born in Swansea. She was legally old enough to marry then, as the age for women was 12 until 1929, when it became 16. So this could be the MJK I'm chasing and maybe she lived to a ripe old age. But Swansea is a long, long way from Newport, and I'd be surprised if it was her marrying there.
There are a few John Davies of more-or-less the right age, although perhaps a little old for Kelly as they were in their 30s, dying at around this time. Three in 1874. But the one that attracts my attention is the death of John Davies aged 27 in Bedwelty, which is not very far from Newport. He died in December 1874. And Bedwellty is in the heart of the Welsh mining country. As well, Bedwellty Pits had three major accidents, where 5 or more men died, in the course of 16 years between 1865 and 1880. So that's only the bigtime disasters. I have checked as far as I can, and there are a lot of young men dying in Bedwellty over the course of that time and I'll bet almost all of them died in mining accidents or as the result of accidents. The mines would have been where the huge majority of them worked, and those mines sound dangerous as hell. I'll bet John Davies of Bedwellty died down the mine.
I wonder if it's possible that this is Kelly and her long-lost young love...
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