Can Mary-Jane Kelly ever be found?!

[j.r-ahde]

Hello you all!

There were some threads of this kind. But I thought, it's worth to start a totally new one.

So; many of us have tried to pick the needle from the haystack of Mary Jane Kellies of (mostly Western) Ireland, Wales and London.

The best results being "yes, but..."s.

If Mary Jane Kelly was a pseudonyme - which I find these days the most probable choice - no-one can ever track her down.

But if it was her real name, then...?

All the best
Jukka

[Sam Flynn]

Mary "Ballina" (salvaged from Google cache)

Did Kelly run away to the circus?

There is a 17 year-old "Mary Ballina", born in Cardiff, visiting an address housing what appears to be a troupe of strolling players in Bristol in the 1881 England Census. Her occupation is given as "Actress/Comedian".

Some unverified stories stated that Kelly was an artist of no mean degree - but there's no indication which of the "arts" was meant. There are also the rumours of connections with the stage, and Mary's fondness for singing Irish songs.

There's also Barnett's comment about the gentleman taking Kelly to France and her "not liking the part". I've always taken this to mean "the part" of France where she ended up, but could it possibly mean that she was lured there with a promise of a "part" on the stage?

Note that "Mary Ballina" was almost certainly a stage name - she doesn't crop up in any other census, and the surname is also unique in Britain as far as I've been able to ascertain.

There is a village called Ballina located some 20 miles from the city of Limerick.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Sam!

Even a mathematician of a mean degree (yes, me! ) finds "Mary Ballina" being a very, very could-have-been.

Being 17 in 1881, she would have been 24 in 1888. So, pretty close to MJK's estimated age of 25.

Ballina in Limerick makes it even more possible.

My impression was, that MJK had a kind of sense of humour too!

Still, there is and probably will be the traditional MJK "yes, but..."

If someone could find a poster of the group of players, maybe there is Mary Ballina. Possibly red-haired, but not mentioned by name...

All the best
Jukka

[Jon Guy]

Surely, our most likely way of tracing Kelly, is through the mining explosion in Wales that "killed her husband Davis" ?

As with Stride,and her husband going down with the boat on the Thames story, the incident could be true, and may provide a foothold on Kelly`s past ?

[Sam Flynn]

If someone could find a poster of the group of players, maybe there is Mary Ballina.

What an interesting thought, Jukka! Sadly, she was only visiting them at the time. Perhaps she was just passing through (Bristol being a natural stopping-off point on the way from Cardiff to London) en route to the West End, perhaps? We can but dream...

[Sam Flynn]

Surely, our most likely way of tracing Kelly, is through the mining explosion in Wales that "killed her husband Davis"?

God knows, we've tried, Jon! Sadly, although the casualties of most of the mining disasters in Wales were meticulously documented, we've found no clear candidate for "Davies" amongst them. I've conjectured in the past that "Davies" might have died above-ground (e.g. when a detonator blew up in his hand, or was run over by a dram), or in a mining accident that didn't involve a disaster down 't pit (e.g. he was the sole casualty of a minor explosion underground).

[Jon Guy]

Hi Sam

Is there a "researchers list" of all the Welsh mining accidents that meet our timeline ?

If so, rather than tie ourselves down looking for a Davies/Davis link, can we check what information we have of these mining towns or villages looking for a John, Henry and Mary etc ?

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Sam

Is there a "researchers list" of all the Welsh mining accidents that meet our timeline ?

Hi Jon - there's a book containing copious lists of the deceased, much of which are reproduced here: http://www.welshcoalmines.co.uk/DisastersList.htm

They've been discussed previously on Casebook (try Googling "penygraig inurl:casebook" as a good starter), but we've come up against brick walls each time.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello you all!

The mining incident possibly took place in MJK's stage of life. But not necessarily the way she told it. Davis/Davies could have been, for example, a former boy-friend of hers. And if she turned his first-name "Dave" into "Davies", then it's the same circle as with MJK's real or "real" name!

Anyway, talking about the possibility of Mary Ballina being Mary Jane Kelly, the following things could match:

1. Being an actress, she had got used to pretend.

-Thus, the clever cover-up, that we can never solve, was a role to misslead people.

-If she really was Mary Ballina and had run away from home, she definitely had a very good reason for her cover-up. Especially ending up the way she was in the East End.

-Besides, she would have been a minor, while running away from home.

2. The song she sang could have been a tribute to her "bygone happy days" from her music hall career.

All the best
Jukka

[Tron]

Sam, the list seems to contain mining disasters with 5 or more fatalities only. We do not know how many people died during the incident, maybe he died in a freak accident?

Of course her ex might not have been the topic of daily conversation so Barnett could have simply mixed things up.

[CraigInTwinCities]

Well, we can all go back to writing novels or playing videogames or downloading porn... Ripperology is dead. RIP, Rippoerologist, Ripper Notes and Whitechapel Society Journal, et. al. ...

Karen Trenouth has solved the case, so time to pack it all up, the rest of us:

http://ripperexpert.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3DDCF1E06DA4D1CC!139.entry

Darn.... There goes a 120+ year obsession....























I mean... she wouldn't blog it if it weren't true, right?

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Craig!

A new final solution!

I'll say this again;

And President Kennedy was gunned down by King-Kong!

All the best
Jukka

[Chris Scott]

Hi Jon G
You wrote:
Surely, our most likely way of tracing Kelly, is through the mining explosion in Wales that "killed her husband Davis" ?

As with Stride,and her husband going down with the boat on the Thames story, the incident could be true, and may provide a foothold on Kelly`s past ?

Unfortunately, the Stride story of the Princess Alice does not bear scrutiny and was almost certainly an invention.

With regard to the version of Kelly's life that has come down to us via the accounts of Barnett et al., the problem is one of the degree of invention. I think we can say with some certainty that the name Mary Jane Kelly was an invented or assumed name, as the amount of alleged detail in the account and the number of researchers who have sought her out make the complete lack of any verifiable trace an impossibility.
An example of this is her alleged marriage. Barnett was insistent on certain points which would, if true, make this event relatively easy to trace:
1) Kelly was her maiden name
2) She married at the age of 16
3) She married a man named Davis/Davies (later stated as Davies)
4) She was legally married
There is no traceable record that fulfils all these criteria.
The logical reasons for this are that one, some or all of the above alleged facts are invention. If the whole story is invented then, from a researcher's point of view it leads, of course, nowhere.
Other permutations are possible.
For example, the woman's real name may not have been Mary Jane Kelly, but all the other facts relating to the marriage may be true.
Or, if Kelly was lying or mistaken about her age, then the whole assumed chronology may be at fault. If it assumed that Kelly was born circe 1863, then she would have been married about 1879 and widowed in 1881 or 1882 (the surviving account says she was married two or three years). After being widowed she allegedly moved to Cardiff and finaly moved to London some time about 1884.
Of course, if Kelly was not 25 years of age or thereabouts at the time of her death, then the above chronology is, from a researcher's point of view, useless.
Will we ever find Kelly's identity definitively? In my opinion, in the absence of further (currently unknown) evidence, the answer would have to be "no."
Whether such evidence will appear in the course of time, is, of course, an unanswerable question.
regards
Chris Scott

[Sam Flynn]

Lateral thinking alert!

I just put a "Kelly's origins" post over on Howard's site, and thought I'd put the relevant bits here:

There are two places in South Wales, called "Cwmafan" and "Cwmafon" (colloquially pronounced "K'marv'un"), both of which might have been confused as "Caernarfon/Carmarthen" by Joe Barnett. Both Cwmafan and Cwmafon had - and to an extent, still have - strong connections with the iron, steel and coal industries.

Cwmafan is a village outside Port Talbot, Glamorgan - I was at school with a number of 4th-generation Irish children from there or thereabouts - and there were, and are, a number of important iron and steel businesses in the area. One or two coal-mines, too, but not on an epic scale.

Cwmafon is near Blaenafon in Gwent, not far from either Newport or Cardiff. Interestingly, a fatal accident at Cwmafon pit in June 1879 claimed the lives of 6 coal-miners. I've not been able to find out their names, but it's a fair bet there was at least one "Davies/Davis" amongst them!

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Sam!

The next question cannot be avoided;

Any Kellies in Cwmafon at about 1879?!

All the best
Jukka