Relatives

[curious]

Hello Chris. Another edition with new material? Let me know when.

Cheers.
LC

me, too. Me too.

Definitely want to get that.

[Chris Scott]

Richard
Just to be clear
I have been sent two photographs - one (allegedly) of Mary on her own wearing a broad brimmed hat and another of a family group (minus Mary) allegedly taken in the US after the family had emigrated.
At the moment these are only claims and I am not convinced by the supposed provenance of the person who sent them to me.
I have been informed that there are family objections to this material being distributed publicly and no desire to get involved in the whole Ripper "circus"
As I know there was a similar objection from members of Aaron Kosminsky's family to unpublished pictures being used this may be a similar situation.
I am not in a position to make ANY claims for these pictures and would need more corroboration before I could even contemplate endorsing them.
At no stage has the question of the financial value of such material been mentioned and I have not been asked to provide any payment.
I have broached the subject of whether the material could be used if I thought there would be sufficient grounds to do so, but I have been told that, because of family sentiments, it is currently out of the question.
Chris

[Debra A]

The family photograph is a new one on me, Richard. Where can I read about it? Thanks.

[richardnunweek]

Hi.
Its strange does not one agree, that all the other victims have been identified, yet Mary Kelly remains a enigma .
We have no photographic evidence of facial feature, even after her face was reconstructed somewhat and viewed, we have no idea who her family was, even though we know of a brother in the Scots guards, even the battalion he was in.
It all seems rather convenient that no media information given, has enabled any past or present researchers to break through the wall of silence.
Just a quick comment on the alleged photograph showing Mary Kelly with her entire family present.
Observation...Has someone ''just realised'' that it might be the find of all finds, and might hold great financial benefits to the holder....my first impression is 'Here we go again'.
Regards Richard.

[Robert]

If Joe were alive today he'd have his own game show called What Did I Say? We've already had ear and eyes/'air and eyes, and waiting for hours/waiting four hours.

[Debra A]

Kelly would only need to be telling an untruth about ONE item - that is her real name - to make tracing her a virtual impossibility.
If all the rest of the account - born in Limerick, moved to Wales when young, married collier when 16 etc etc - were true, but her name was NOT Mary Jane Kelly or anything near, then where would anyone start to look for her? A needle in a haystack would have nothing on such a hunt.
Also don't forget that Barnett was insistent that her REAL name was Maria Jeanette Kelly and not Mary Jane.
Presumably all the accounts Kelly gave Barnett were verbal and, unless he saw any of the alleged letters sent to Kelly, he may never have seen her name written down. So what if her surname was, for example, Kelley (over 1500 females of this name in the 1881 census) or the less common variants such as Kellie.

This sums it up perfectly for me. All it takes is her surname to be an alias to make her untraceable.

The lower classes regularly used aliases in those days, one only has to browse through the records of women let out on licence from prison to know that it was extremely common.
And Barnett seems to have got it right about Flemming and Morganstone, there being men about with those names in the area that fit with what MJK told him?

[Debra A]

Oh, it wasn't funny Debs, it was a clever guess.
It is rather astonishing that Henry, not only had a second name, John, but a third name Joseph.
But we do now have confirmation of what Barnett said. That her soldier brother Henry was also known as John too (not Johnto).
A good many people prefer to be known by their second name, thats not unusual. But, congrats for guessing his third name.

So who's toasting who?

Regards, Jon S.

Congrats, Jon!

I still can't get the 'John too' becoming 'Jonto' to work for me though, even though we may even be saying it in the same accent?
It must have been a written mistake in that case? Barnett said 'John too' and it was written down as John to (which is where most people confuse words like 'to and too', then and than, of and off; in writing?) later someone making the two separate words into a one word name? Is that what you mean, a two step written mistake?

[Wickerman]

Ha! And people laughed at my 'Johnjoe' nickname idea.

Oh, it wasn't funny Debs, it was a clever guess.
It is rather astonishing that Henry, not only had a second name, John, but a third name Joseph.
But we do now have confirmation of what Barnett said. That her soldier brother Henry was also known as John too (not Johnto).
A good many people prefer to be known by their second name, thats not unusual. But, congrats for guessing his third name.

So who's toasting who?

Regards, Jon S.

[lynn cates]

another

Hello Chris. Another edition with new material? Let me know when.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

corroboration

Hello Miss Marple. Problem is that NONE of Barnett's story (presumably derived from MJK) has been corroborated. And this from Chris' book. He has investigated all this in painstaking detail.

Cheers.
LC

[Chris Scott]

Chris, this is interesting,I am very curious to know how she ticks most of the boxes, is all this in your book? Is your book availible yet for sale?

Would love to buy a copy.

Miss Marple

Miss M
By "ticks the most boxes" I merely meant that in the research for the Kelly book, this woman fulfilled more of the broad features of the orthodox account of MJK's like than any other woman of the name of Mary Kelly I had seen in the records.
Here is the relevant section from the book:-
"Searching under the full given name - Mary Jane Kelly - for the Welsh census, we find only 2 entries, girls of 26 and 18, both listed as born in Wales. Using the abbreviated form of the name - Mary J. Kelly - also produces two results, aged 1 and 11, again both born in Wales. If we dispense with the middle name entirely - using just Mary Kelly - we find 69 matches. However, of these, those listed as born in Ireland reduce this number to 17 matches. Of these, only two are young girls - Mary A Kelly aged 3 and Mary Ann Kelly aged 7. The Mary A Kelly lived in Aberdare, Glamorgan. Her parents, both Irish born, were Nicholas Kelly, a coal miner, and Joanna Kelly. No siblings are listed. The Mary Ann Kelly listed is altogether more interesting. The household details for 1871 read as follows:
Address: 48 Mumforth Street, Flint, Wales.
Head: John Kelly aged 36 born Wicklow, Ireland - Labourer
Wife: Ellen Kelly aged 30 born Dublin, Ireland
Children:
Elizabeth aged 10 born Wicklow, Ireland
Mary Ann aged 7 born Wicklow, Ireland
Patrick aged 4 born Portelley, Carnarvonshire
John aged 11 months born Flint.
This census information is intriguing. The 7 year old Mary Kelly listed here was born in Ireland but the age and place of birth of her younger brother, Patrick, shows that at some time between 1863-64 (the time of Mary's birth) and 1866-67 (the time of Patrick's birth) the family not only moved from Ireland to Wales, but specifically to Carnarvonshire, as indicated by the younger brother's place of birth. At some stage between then and April 1871 they moved to Flint where the then youngest child was born. Of course, the main objection to even a tentative identification with this young girl is her middle name - she is Mary Ann and not Mary Jane.
........

The 1881 census:
According to the orthodox account of Kelly's life as related, principally, by Barnett, Kelly married at the age of 16. Thus, by the time of the 1881 census we would expect her to be married to Davis or Davies. Indeed, the census fell about the time when we would have expected the death of her husband. The chronology outlined in Barnett's account suggests Kelly was born in 1863; so if she married when she was 16, this would place this event some time around 1879. Her husband allegedly died two three years after they were married, which would take us to 1881 or 1882.

The most interesting entry in the 1871 census was the Kelly family living in Flint. This same family is listed in 1881 still living in Flint, albeit at a different address. All family members are still listed living together, including the "Mary Ann Kelly" whose age is now given as 16 years old. The full listing for 1881 is as follows:
Church Street, Flint, Wales
Head: John Kelly aged 43 born Ireland - General labourer
Wife: Ellen Kelly aged 40 born Ireland
Children:
Elizabeth aged 20 born Ireland - Domestic servant
Mary Ann aged 16 born Ireland
Patrick aged 14 born Carnarvon
John aged 11 born Flint
The one year discrepancy in Mary Ann's age (she is listed as 7 in 1871) is not at all unusual in census records - indeed many more extreme examples have been found where individuals appear to age very rapidly or to defy time! However, if the age given in 1881 is correct - 16 years old - this means at the time of the Miller's Court murder this individual would have been 23 or 24 years old, depending when in the year her birthday fell.

However, we must not at this early stage become fixated on one individual. In the Barnett account, there is no indication of either where the rest of the Kelly family were living when Mary got married - there is no certainty that they would have stayed in the Carmarthen or Carnarvon area after their initial move from Ireland - or where Mary and the mysterious Davis set up home after their marriage. The account only tells us that after her husband's death in an explosion Kelly went to live in Cardiff and spent some time in the infirmary there. So, depending on whether or not we believe the Barnett account and its chronology, by April 1881 we could be looking for Mary Kelly or Mary Davies (or Davis)."

the book is certainly available from Amazon but I am still trying to get the second edition into print.
The second edition includes material relating to the asylum records for Joseph Fleming and has new material by the young writers Corey Browning and Justin Dombrowski.
I am also still trying to get permission to use the photographs that were sent to me which show, allegedly, Mary Kelly alive and a group photo of her 4 brothers, her sister and parents.
Chris

[Chris Scott]

Kelly would only need to be telling an untruth about ONE item - that is her real name - to make tracing her a virtual impossibility.
If all the rest of the account - born in Limerick, moved to Wales when young, married collier when 16 etc etc - were true, but her name was NOT Mary Jane Kelly or anything near, then where would anyone start to look for her? A needle in a haystack would have nothing on such a hunt.
Also don't forget that Barnett was insistent that her REAL name was Maria Jeanette Kelly and not Mary Jane.
Presumably all the accounts Kelly gave Barnett were verbal and, unless he saw any of the alleged letters sent to Kelly, he may never have seen her name written down. So what if her surname was, for example, Kelley (over 1500 females of this name in the 1881 census) or the less common variants such as Kellie.

[miss marple]

I don't think she told as many lies as people think. Because she cant be found, people are obsessed with the idea she was a liar. She may have exaggerated some things, but the story she tells backs up with historical facts.
Firstly her birthplace, most Irish people are sentimental about their roots and several people not just Joe Barnett, mention that she came from Limerick.
I also believe she was in her mid twenties, Elizabeth Prater thought she was 23 and fair as a lily.Not one of her friends or Joe Barnett believed she was older than 25. With the lifestyle she had , had she been 35 it would have showed.
The birth records of Limerick confirm the many Kellys living there. In 1864 there were 5 Mary Kellys born in Limerick, my favourite is Mary Kelly of Castletown parents John Kelly and Mary McCarthy.
Irish immigration to Wales started after the potato famine, by 1861 there were thirty thousand Irish in Wales, six counties including Limerick supplied half the Irish immigrants, who most settled around the South Wales coal and steel towns of Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, and Merthyr.
She may have lived with or married a collior called Davies there were many Davis's killed in mining accidents in the 1870s 80s.
She seemed to have been a prostitute from the age of 16, for a good looking girl to arrive in London and work in a West End brothel was a fate common to many girls, also many British girls were shipped over to France to work in brothels, there is plenty of historical evidence for this. Unlike the other victims I would call her a professional prostitute, apart from when she lived off Barnett.
The incident when she went to collect dresses from a woman in Knightsbridge suggests she had been in hock to a dressmaker who supplied girls in brothels with finery, which they then had to work to pay off, this kept the girls in constant debt. If Mary ran away from a brothel she may have felt she was entitled to the dresses and was feisty enough to go back and have a row about it.
Reading through the lines she was a probably a binge drinker who got a bit argumentative when pissed.
She was still young, strong and attractive, and had got used to the lifestyle of selling her body and boozing. Her family had probably disowned her which is why no one came forward or they may not have known.
It is very hard to tell complete lies unless you are a physcopath, most people have an affection for the truth and would embroider rather than change it.

Miss Marple

[curious4]

mary kelly

Hello,

In view of all the lies she told, is it not possible that Mary Kelly also lied about her age and could have been nearer 35 than 25? At least a couple of the victims looked younger than they were, despite their hard lives. Perhaps the search
should be widened by a few years?

Best wishes,
C4

[miss marple]

Chris, this is interesting,I am very curious to know how she ticks most of the boxes, is all this in your book? Is your book availible yet for sale?

Would love to buy a copy.

Miss Marple