Another Joe.

[lynn cates]

comment

Hello David. I agree. It seems that, if the 6 feet 7 inches were correct, it would certainly have elicited at least one passing comment.

Cheers.
LC

[Mrs. Fiddymont]

Hi all,
regarding the issue of height. Perhaps this has already been mentioned but I was going through some files for soldiers yesterday and noticed that in most cases the height of the soldiers in their official files was recorded in inches alone, like this:

[ATTACH]13153[/ATTACH]

It wouldn't be that much of a stretch to think that someone accidently copied over 67 inches, recorded for a man's height, as 6 ft7 in, would it?

Now that is absolutely brilliant!! I would never, ever have thought of that--a simple, elegant solution--I salute you!

Yes, a man standing 6'7" would most certainly have caught everyone's attention, even today it's extremely tall, back in 1888 I'm surprised he wasn't shanghaied into a circus sideshow!

I once briefly dated a man whose height (no mistake here! ) was 6'9". Trust me--he got noticed!!

[DVV]

Obviously so, Lynn.
Such a blank is almost unthinkable from the medics, and moreso as they're insistent that he was healthy and never mentioned the remarkable thinness. Add to this the silence of Kelly and Fleming must have been 5'7 in all likelihood.

[DVV]

Hello Mrs Fiddymont

Yes, a man standing 6'7" would most certainly have caught everyone's attention, even today it's extremely tall, back in 1888 I'm surprised he wasn't shanghaied into a circus sideshow!

I once briefly dated a man whose height (no mistake here! ) was 6'9". Trust me--he got noticed!!

You're right, common sense prompted us to take this uncommon but un-commented height cautiously, since the publication of the Stone records, and Debs just offered us the possible explanation of a likely mistake.

[Debra A]

Now that is absolutely brilliant!! I would never, ever have thought of that--a simple, elegant solution--I salute you!

Yes, a man standing 6'7" would most certainly have caught everyone's attention, even today it's extremely tall, back in 1888 I'm surprised he wasn't shanghaied into a circus sideshow!

I once briefly dated a man whose height (no mistake here! ) was 6'9". Trust me--he got noticed!!

Thanks Mrs F! No one has ever appreciated one of my ideas as much!

[DVV]

Debs, find a Stone form with a height expressed in inches and I'll faint in the arms of Mrs Fiddymont.
You've been decisive on Fleming. The 1872 case was already a splendid find.

[Lechmere]

The logical reason no one mentioned that the supposed Joe Fleming with the supposed Kelly connection wasn't tall was because it was not the same person - rather than clutching at unfounded 'elegant' explanations, that is the most likely outcome.
Incidentally 6 feet 7 inches tall is tall but it does not qualify for freak show status - there is some over egging going on here.

[Debra A]

Debs, find a Stone form with a height expressed in inches and I'll faint in the arms of Mrs Fiddymont.
You've been decisive on Fleming. The 1872 case was already a splendid find.

I don't want to be the possible bearer of bad news here, David. At the time I found the 1872 case, I believed (from the birth records etc.) that there was no other Joseph Flemming of the right age and connected to Bethnal Green in London.
Now I know we are definitely dealing with two different men here, one of them baptised Edward Joseph Fleming, who later dropped the name Edward and became Joseph Fleming. Both of these men born c 1859 and in Bethnal Green (claimed in their census entries) I can't be so sure it's the asylum JF, alias James Evans who was in trouble with police in 72.
- In fact,since studying the workhosue records for Waterloo Rd Bethnal Green, where this [Edward] Joseph felming spent the majority of his adult life, a couple of the entries show that this man was sent to prison at least twice in the 80s.
Of course, that doesn't prove he was the 72 criminal, but it shows he was not a stranger to crime, whereas we don't know if JF alias James Evans was someone who had been in trouble with police before?

[DVV]

I don't want to be the possible bearer of bad news here, David. At the time I found the 1872 case, I believed (from the birth records etc.) that there was no other Joseph Flemming of the right age and connected to Bethnal Green in London.
Now I know we are definitely dealing with two different men here, one of them baptised Edward Joseph Fleming, who later dropped the name Edward and became Joseph Fleming. Both of these men born c 1859 and in Bethnal Green (claimed in their census entries) I can't be so sure it's the asylum JF, alias James Evans who was in trouble with police in 72.
- In fact,since studying the workhosue records for Waterloo Rd Bethnal Green, where this [Edward] Joseph felming spent the majority of his adult life, a couple of the entries show that this man was sent to prison at least twice in the 80s.
Of course, that doesn't prove he was the 72 criminal, but it shows he was not a stranger to crime, whereas we don't know if JF alias James Evans was someone who had been in trouble with police before?

Hi Debs, that's more interesting than sad, thanks again.

If I'm correct the 1872 case is known by a press report, written by a journalist apparently present at the trial. Don't you think he would have said "Edward", if ithe guy was Edward Joseph ?

[lynn cates]

manna-fold benefit

Hello Debs.

"No one has ever appreciated one of my ideas as much!"

Don't be so sure. Actually, many of us appreciate ALL your research. Manna, you know.

Cheers.
LC

[Lechmere]

"Don't you think he would have said "Edward", if ithe guy was Edward Joseph ?"

Err, not if he called himself Joesph

[DVV]

But that you don't know, Lechmere.

He could also call himself Eddy, but still the journalist and the court would have used Edward.

[Debra A]

But that you don't know, Lechmere.

He could also call himself Eddy, but still the journalist and the court would have used Edward.

Sorry, David. I have to agree with Lechmere here.
If he never used the name Edward again after his baptism (and the 1861 census onward and the extensive workhouse records show that he probably didn't) then when arrested, tried and convicted it would have been under the name Joseph Fleming if that's what he was commonly known as..(he could have given any name he chose to)
That's why we have people like Le Grand convicted at the Old Bailey under the name George Jackson, even though he gave his real name as Charles Granday and confessed Jackson was a false name at the trial. Jackson was the name on the police charge sheet and he was tried and convicted under that name. He is also shown in prison records with that name and the 1911 census.

Lynn, thanks so much. I try.

[Lechmere]

Yes and that's surely why he was called Evans in the asylum records even though he was very quickly 'exposed' as being Joe Fleming - and as such if he had been the same one and had a shred if suspicion been on his shoulders, he would gave been nabbed there and then - 6 foot 7 or not

[DVV]

Using an alias and being called Joseph when you're born Edward Joseph are two completely different things, my friends.