new information: Arthur Mac Donald and the MJK scene photo

[Stewart P Evans]

Glass plate negatives...

CAN they get quality prints off of the old glass plates? I remember someone tried with some old Mathew Brady glass plates and the results were poor. Glass warping and all that.

I have a large amount of old glass plate negatives and have had excellent high quality prints made from them. The glass is too thick to warp. The only problem encountered with some is where there has been a chemical reaction, probably because they weren't properly fixed, and there is brown discolouration around the edges.

[mariab]

Thank you so much for posting some of the front matter from the Lamoureux thesis, Mr. Evans.
I see that Adrien Storck collaborated with a G. Masson publishing house/distributor(?) for Paris. The chances that any depository of this exists in Paris are nil, or even under 0!
Lamoureux' reflections in the intro of his thesis appear quite a bit pedestrial, to be honest. Mac Donald's text (of which I've read the original manuscript, in English, plus his long article on the assailant of President Roosevelt) was much more comprehensive and sophisticated. I'm willing to go out on a limb and bet that Lamoureux' thesis is about 100 pages long, tops? No wonder that Lacassagne wrote his own book in 1899 (which I haven't read yet).

Mr. Evans, do you perhaps have information about when Arthur Mac Donald contacted the HO for the first time, prior to Sept. 26, 1892?

[Stewart P Evans]

Kelly Photograph

Here is the Kelly photograph as published by Lacassagne in 1899.

[Stewart P Evans]

Robert McLaughlin

I should just like to say here that the groundbreaking work on Lamoureux and Lacassagne was conducted many years ago by Robert McLaughlin and credit must go to him for this. His excellent 2005 book The First Jack the Ripper Victim Photographs is the standard work on the subject and no serious Ripper researcher should be without a copy.

[mariab]

what info the French had about MJK and Eddowes in situ

A couple thoughts pertaining to the attachment in Mr. Evans' post #60:

Most plausibly Mac Donald also obtained medical reports for MJK and Eddowes from Dr. Bond or from someone else, which very strongly speaks for the possibility that Dr. Bond or “someone else“ was the providor of also the MJK1 scene photograph, and later the Eddowes scene (morgue?) photograph.

For Eddowes, Lamoureux's text reads more or less like a verbatim translation of Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown's report as posted on casebook in the section Victims.
I've checked Simon Wood's translation of Mac Donald discussing Eddowes in Le criminel type dans les formes graves de criminalité {see post #1 in the thread: Mac Donald in 1893, http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=4146} and it fits almost verbatim with what Lamoureux writes in French {as attached in SPE's post #60 in the current thread}. Not too hard to figure out how come Lamoureux, Mac Donald, and Dr. Gordon Brown's report contain the identical text...

Simon Wood's translation of Mac Donald's Le criminel type dans les formes graves de criminalité :
Sixth victim. {AKA Eddowes} - Another murder was committed September 30, 1888. The medical expert said: "It was more than two hours, the body was on its back, head turned toward the left shoulder, arms on sides, clothes statements, the very face disfigured, her left leg removed, right leg bent on the thigh and knee, the upper part of the dress had been torn off in a small area, the abdomen was found, and all the intestines were outside and placed on the shoulder right there had a piece completely detached from the trunk and left arm. The lobule of right ear was cut obliquely in his thick, no sign of blood beneath dela half of the body. The corpse was certainly there for only a few minutes, thirty or forty, the face was much mutilated, her throat cut transversely in a stretch of six or seven inches, not to bruise the scalp. The sternocleidomastoid muscle was divided mastoid and the cricoid cartilage was severed at its middle portion below the vocal cords. The large vessels on the left side of the neck were cut to the bone, because the knife had left a mark on the vertebral cartilage, the internal jugular vein had been opened in the body of an inch and a half.

For MJK I don't have time to check right now if Lamoureux' and Mac Donald's text fit the doctor's report, but I'll try checking it out later tonight.

[mariab]

By comparing what SPE just posted here from Lamoureux' thesis vs. Simon Wood's translation of Mac Donald's book Le criminel type dans les formes graves de criminalité (Simon Wood's translation is available in the thread cited in my previous post #65), it's interesting to note that Mac Donald lists Eddowes as the SIXTH Ripper victim, whereas Lamoureux lists Eddowes as the FOURTH Ripper victim.
I asssume that Mac Donald includes Tabram and perhaps Emma Smith? Seems like Mac Donald was much more acquainted with the case, which fits with him having gone to London, having talked to Dr. Bond or someone else, and having obtained the MJK scene photo.

[sleekviper]

Thanks Stewart! Where is Lydd? Light has went from a spot on the wall, to two floor boards, and someone from Lydd has signed it. I don't know, maybe just me.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Thanks Stewart! Where is Lydd? Light has went from a spot on the wall, to two floor boards, and someone from Lydd has signed it. I don't know, maybe just me.

It's Lyon, not Lydd. The photo is signed by B. Delaye, who was a French photographer who prepared photographs for the French publisher Storck.

Wolf.

[sleekviper]

Oh! Well thank you Wolf!

[Errata]

Is it just me or does that photo look different? Not like it's a different photo, but something about the quality of it. Better contrast maybe? Somehow it seems more... realistic? Less doll like?

I could be making this up in my head.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Hi Maria.

Most plausibly Mac Donald also obtained medical reports for MJK and Eddowes from Dr. Bond or from someone else, which very strongly speaks for the possibility that Dr. Bond or “someone else“ was the providor of also the MJK1 scene photograph, and later the Eddowes scene (morgue?) photograph.

None of MacDonald’s reports on the Whitechapel victims seems to come from any official source, certainly not from Dr. Bond. MacDonald’s information seems to come from newspaper reports (some of the information about the Kelly murder, for example, is wrong but did appear in the newspapers and Dr. Brown’s “report” comes from his inquest testimony which was widely reported) and I can confirm that that seems to be standard with the other cases he writes about.

Wolf.

[Rob Clack]

I have been doing some research into the the victims photographs of the Whitechapel Murders. Which will be published soon, so I wont go into to much detail at the moment.

There are no known surviving negatives of any of the victims.
Don Rumbelow found the glass plate negative of the exterior of Millers Court, which he found around 1966/67. This negative has since gone missing.

Of all the photos that are held at the National Archives and by the City of London Police, only the photographs of Martha Tabram and Francis Coles are original prints. The original print of Alice McKenzie is missing and a copy made in 1980 is in the NA files.
The photographs of the Macnaghten five are in my opinion all copies and are not originals. The Elizabeth Stride photo is missing.

The photographs Don Rumbelow found in the 1960s. The four Eddowes photographs are copies that were made in 1950. And I believe the Kelly photograph also dates from 1950 as well.

Rob

[Phil Carter]

Hello Rob,

I look forward to the research postings. Thank for for the update.
Without pre-empting it the announced postings, and if you can explain, why 1950 in the Eddowes case and the Kelly case? If not, I will wait patiently for the results.

Many thanks

kindly

Phil

[Rob Clack]

Hi Phil,

That was what was on the back of the copies me and Neil saw when we had a look at them. The originals apparently were in pretty poor condition so copies were made and the originals thrown away.

Rob

[Phil Carter]

Hello Rob,

Many thanks for the reply. Most appreciated.

kindly

Phil