Can Mary-Jane Kelly ever be found?!

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Norma/Nats,



Alas, no.

Phillips believed Chapman's killer had surgical skill. Unfortunately, there was no second opinion as there was in subsequent autopsises. Phillips believed that Eddowes (who nearly everyone believes was killed by "the Ripper") was killed by an unskilled immitator. Therefore, it is no more logical to argue that Phillips believed "The Ripper" had surgical skill than it is to argue that he believed the "The Ripper" had no skill. In the Eddowes case, Phillips' belief that her mutilations evinced little skill was shared by the majority of doctors who examined the corpse, and even Brown stated that the murderer could have gained experience just by cutting up animals (which is different to "surgical skill").

Meanwhile, back on topic....

You are seriously out of step here Ben,with the consensus of most of the doctors who had "viewed " victims of Jack the Ripper-as was Dr Bond.
Robert Anderson had called Dr Bond in after his protracted absence abroad- Anderson returned on 4th October after all four of the murders had been committed .Anderson called him in for the very first time on the Mary Kelly murder and Dr Bond presented his "highly speculative , portrait "profile" of the Ripper the very next day-November 10th. Dr Bond envisages the Ripper as a "quiet,middle aged,respectably dressed man"--- from an over protective family!
You are also seriously out of step with almost all the current ,MAJOR , WRItER"s on the Ripper investigation-see Paul Begg,Jack the Ripper ,"The Definitive History" page 245.
Norma

I know its off topic, but I think you touched on some relevant semantics Ben. Surgical skill is indeed more advanced than mere Anatomical Knowledge, but neither is "uninformed" as to the physiology of internal structures and organs.

Just because one hasnt performed surgery, it doesnt equate to a lack of technical understanding of where internal organs are, or to what they are attached.

I think many people dismiss potential "knowledge" on the grounds that the cuts were not professionally done. Knowing what to do doesnt require a good cutting technique, and in 4 "Canon" cases, neatness was not paramount anyway.

.....and Im not so sure Kate was a Ripper victim. Its hard to dismiss the Irish connection,...the aliases Kate used in her last 24 hours, and the location where she dies...as Nats has mentioned, Mitre Square and Fenians do have some history. Now add 3 detectives searching city alleys and streets near Mitre that night, before a city kill has been made....and the Aldgate PO Robbery perhaps that very night....suggested by some press as having Irish activist roots.

Cheers Ben.

[Ben]

Hi Norma/Nats,

Dr Phillips and Dr Brown had certainly seen hints of skill and knowledge here and there amidst the murderous attacks and believed the Ripper exhibited both surgical and anatomical skill

Alas, no.

Phillips believed Chapman's killer had surgical skill. Unfortunately, there was no second opinion as there was in subsequent autopsises. Phillips believed that Eddowes (who nearly everyone believes was killed by "the Ripper") was killed by an unskilled immitator. Therefore, it is no more logical to argue that Phillips believed "The Ripper" had surgical skill than it is to argue that he believed the "The Ripper" had no skill. In the Eddowes case, Phillips' belief that her mutilations evinced little skill was shared by the majority of doctors who examined the corpse, and even Brown stated that the murderer could have gained experience just by cutting up animals (which is different to "surgical skill").

Meanwhile, back on topic....

Hi Debs,
Well I have heard that there were Royal Ulster Constabulary in Millers Court .That could mean all sorts of things.But your tale of the mix up doesnt surprise me-----everything one touches to do with Mary Kelly seems contradictory!

Norma

Hi Natalie,

As Simon originally pointed out to me, not only Irish Constabulary, but also Members of Parliment and a Senior Post Office Official vistited that court on I believe Tuesday morning.

With the mix of Ripper investigation officers who had Fenian hunting experience, some under Abberline in his "posse", the Members of Parliment only in the first week of a reconvened session, and a Post Office Official....someone else with no obvious link to the crime or the location, one has to wonder if the investigation in that room was solely about Jack the Ripper.

Parliment. Irish Police. Post Office. Anyone else perhaps hear "Double Event night" in that mix? Post Office Robbery....suggested executed by Irish activists, possibly in connection with a planned assassination of Lord Balfour that Fall.

Whats small enough to have to sieve ashes, then re-sieve, in case something was missed? Surely Abberline and Reid and others didnt expect to find the missing heart in the ashes Saturday morning, after they had been sieved the day before.

Would traces of stamps, or currency be worth sieving for? Were currency plates taken from the Post Office that night? We know stamps were.

ps...thanks on the missionary inquiry, I hadnt confused Barnardo and Mary with the lodging house kitchen story and Liz, but I had thought the Irish Times mentioned the missionary by name. Ill see if I can find what I believe is a reference.

Best regards all.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Simon,
That isnt a name which I have heard before but presumably Dr Phillip"s report was intended for Matthews,theHome Secretary.Matthews had a fraught relationship with Warren and may have been needing to assert his authority over the Commissioner of Police by scrutinising all reports of the murders and how they were being handled.I cant remember exactly when Warren resigned but it was sometime in November 1888 when things had got very difficult for him .
On the other hand we do have that cryptic remark from Home Office, Secretary of State,Mr Matthews to his private secretary ,Rugles-Brice-emerging around this time-
"Stimulate the police about the Whitechapel murders.Monro might be willing to give a hint to the CID if necessary".
Now that remark presumably relates to Ireland and the Irish issues connected with espionage and the British secret service work, since Monro had been relegated to work solely as Head of Irish [espionage] work after his resignation in August 1888.
So it brings us back to what was actually found in that room in Millers Court.Did they find a weapon there such as a surgical knife that gave a hint of being like the 12 London surgical knives purchased by a man calling himself a doctor for the Phoenix Park stabbings of 1882? I know of no such find but there have been rumours of weapons being found there.
Its interesting that one of Dr Bond"s reports made just after the Millers Court murder on 10th November 1888,contains a "profile" of the man most likely to have committed the murders-viz he talks of a "quiet respectably dressed, middle aged man,whose family may have suspected him " etc.Mind I have always been sceptical of Dr Bond since reading of his strange visit to the mortuary with Robert Anderson over Rose Mylett"s death.His profile seems very speculative and he is at variance with other doctors such as Dr Phillips who had actually "viewed" in the flesh, several of the victims-whereas Dr Bond "viewed " only the very killer-crazy injuries sustained on the corpse of Mary Kelly.Dr Phillips and Dr Brown had certainly seen hints of skill and knowledge here and there amidst the murderous attacks and believed the Ripper exhibited both surgical and anatomical skill at certain moments of mutilation in certain of the victims---especially Annie Chapman where he may have been less rushed.

Difficult to know what ideas were floating around!

Best
Norma

[Simon Wood]

Hi Norma,

Regarding our chances of ever finding Kelly, here's a little intrigue you may enjoy.

ECHO 10-11-88

"Dr. G.B. Phillips, the divisional surgeon of the H Division, whose reticence is justified by an assurance he gave of secrecy, has copious notes of the result of the post-mortem examination, and with nearly every conclusion at which he has arrived. Dr. Thomas Bond, of Westminster, a well-known expert on crimes of violence, agrees. Dr. Phillips has only vaguely indicated to the local police the result of his investigations, but a report on the question has, it has been asserted, been jointly made by him and Dr. Bond, and submitted to Sir Charles Warren."

To whom might Doctor Phillips give an assurance of secrecy?

DAILY TELEGRAPH 10-11-88

"During the course of last evening Dr. G.B. Phillips visited the House of Commons, where he had a conference with the Under-secretary of the Home Office, Mr. [C.B.] Stuart-Wortley."

Regards,

Simon

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Debs,
Well I have heard that there were Royal Ulster Constabulary in Millers Court .That could mean all sorts of things.But your tale of the mix up doesnt surprise me-----everything one touches to do with Mary Kelly seems contradictory!

Chris,Thanks for the name- James Evans.I hope then that his research was as
thorough as your own because Joseph Fleming may yet end up being useful in the quest for Mary Kelly.
Cheers
Norma

[Debra A]

Hi Nats,
They seemed to have scoured Wales and although it was widely reported that the Met police were in contact with police in Limerick City to conduct investigation, there is a retraction in a few papers after this statement, saying that the Limerick police had telegraphed to say that the Met Police had done no such thing, and the two forces were not in communication....confusing!
The Fleming link is intriguing and we've 'talked' before on a possible link between the Fenian bomber and Mary's Joe Fleming. Fleming the dynamitard did have a sister living in Southwark c 1887/88 but I haven't managed to trace her definitely yet.

Hi Michael
I think he was to do with the The London City Mission ,an organisation established in the 1830's, there were a number of missionaries in the London City Mission, Billingsgate Market had it's own city missionary as did most areas. I believe they did work with people like Barnado etc though whilst 'saving' people.

[Sam Flynn]

Wasnt that missionary Barnardo Chris?

You're possibly thinking about Barnardo's alleged encounter with Liz Stride, Mike.

Wasnt that missionary Barnardo Chris? Or was it Charington..acting as a crusader? I think he was named wasnt he...in the Irish Times coverage? Maybe Im remembering it incorrectly.

Best regards.

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Chris,
I knew of the City missionary story.Its very interesting and does seem to point to her coming from Limerick.But maybe she had altered her name,used a c/o McCarthy or even Mary McCarthy for mail.Funny her folk were never contacted that we know of if she had received these letters from Ireland
Must go out now-will return to it later.
Best
Norma

[Chris Scott]

Hi Norma
Many thanks for the notes
The name Joe Fleming adopted (for whatever reason) was James Evans but I must emphasis that this research on Evans was done by Mark King and not by me

One source that has always interested me is the City Missionary. This from "Will the Real Mary Kelly..." may help

There are also a number of references to Kelly having a Welsh connection, one unnamed young woman even asserting that she spoke Welsh. One of the most interesting references to Kelly's Welsh background appears in a press article in the Daily News of the 12th of November, 1888. An interview was carried out with an unnamed City missionary, and he had this to say about his acquaintance with Kelly:

"I knew the poor girl who has just been killed, and to look at, at all events, she was one of the smartest, nicest looking women in the neighbourhood. We have had her at some of our meetings, and a companion of hers was one we rescued. I know that she has been in correspondence with her mother. It is not true, as it has been stated, that she is a Welshwoman. She is of Irish parentage, and her mother, I believe, lives in Limerick. I used to hear a good deal about the letters from her mother there. You would not have supposed if you had met her in the street that she belonged to the miserable class she did, as she was always neatly and decently dressed and looked quite nice and respectable."

Again, this does not prove a Limerick connection, only that this information came from Kelly and not from Barnett's imagination. It is not clear if the letters from Kelly's mother were shown to the missionary or their contents just described, but it does add some weight to the Irish connection.

[Natalie Severn]

Debs,
Thanks for this, it really shows that quite extensive searches were made by reporters to locate her family.The first thing that springs to mind is why couldnt they trace her,if her name and age are right? We are told she looked older than the age she told Barnett-24/5.Nearer 30 according to her landlord McCarthy.But we are not told McCarthy had any difficulty over her name "Kelly". I think its understandable,if Mary had been on the game since 18 as has been suggested,as well as being a heavy drinker ,frequently very late in bed----it was after 1 when she was last seen by her neighbour.She may have looked older.
But McCarthy claimed he had seen letters addressed to her from Ireland---surely they didnt have just her first name on them? So did they have her real name on them?
There is the possibility that she gave his name to her folk-ie McCarthy,as several have commented that she sometimes went by the name of McCarthy.But ofcourse that doesnt mean her name was McCarthy.They must have just let her use it for posting purposes.
So if she wasnt named Kelly,why did she conceal her real name from everyone who knew her in Whitechapel including Joe Barnett?
Once again I am wondering whether Mary was related to any of the Fenians-----a number of them blew themselves up in dynamite attacks that went wrong so hubbie Davies could have been one of these-not killed in a mining disaster at all but a scotched dynamite attack.
When Inspector Abberline arrested "James Gilbert" in the Tower of London in 1885 over a bombing outrage, further enquiries revealed he had digs in Mitre Square with a man named Burton and that "Gilbert"s " real name was Cunningham.How did they find this out? His landlady found letters with his real name on them from his mother who lived in Skiberdeen,County Cork.I wonder if Mary harked from some pocket of Ireland such as this because thats were quite a few of them harked from?I have always found it strange none of her family came to her funeral.All the other victims had relatives who came except the Swedish Liz Stride ofcourse.
In an earlier dynamite explosion in the same year,a man named John Fleming had been blown up along with two others when the dynamite went off too soon and accidently killed all three.
The Irish Mrs Phoenix-previously named McCarthy---[ was Phoenix her real name or did she adopt it from the Phoenix Park assassination by any chance? ] was related to Kelly"s Breezer Park landlord -yet another Mr John McCarthy.Mrs Phoenix had known Kelly the three years previously ,when she lodged in her brother -in -laws house--- the other McCarthy,unrelated to the Dorset St ones- in Breezers Hill. The press association discoveredfrom her that Mary went from Breezers Hill to live with a man named Joseph Fleming,a plasterer from Bethnal Green who Chris Scott has traced.Joe Fleming later changed his name-I forget what to-but it was prior to his entrance to the Loony Bin. I wonder whether he was related to the dynamitard Fleming who blew himself by accident with the other two dynamitards in February 1885?


Anyway,they clearly put out quite a few searches for Mary,none of them yielding much information

[Debra A]

The reporter was obviously manipulating the facts to back up the identification he had made.

[Chris Scott]

"The name KELLY is familiar enough in Llanelly"

Kellys in Llanelly in 1881

42 Nern Road, Llanelly
Head: Julia Kelly aged 60 born Ireland
Daughters:
Abbey Kelly aged 22 born Llanelly
Margaret Brewer (Married) aged 20 born Llanelly

Ciliwrfa Row, Llanelly
Lodging House
Boarders:
John Kelly aged 49 born Ireland - Pedlar / Costermonger
Mary Kelly aged 45 born Ireland - Pedlar