Relatives

[Debra A]

Hello Debs. I'll say. "The Echo" had Mary and her young son on their way to buy milk when the contratemps occurred.

Cheers.
LC

Probably for his cocopops, Lynn.
Sorry..

[mariab]

I thought that the idea about a boy sometimes staying over with MJK generated from the (uncorroborated?) report that there were boy's clothes found in her room? And if so, maybe she was about to sell them/mend them/whatnot?

[miss marple]

The 'boy' is newspaper gossip. No one from Joe Barnett to Julia Venturney, Maria Harvey, Elizabeth Prater,Sarah Lewis, Mary Ann Cox, John McCarthy, Mrs 'Carthy of Breezers Hill, etc. mentioned a child.There was no child living with her, just her and Joe.
Everything we supposedly know about her life has not included a child at any point.

Miss Marple

[richardnunweek]

Hi Miss Marple,
It was reported in 'The star' as a comment from Barnett that she had a boy of six or seven living with her.'
That of course can be misinterpreted , but unless he mentioned 'just that' it would apply a deliberate misquote .
That along with all the other 'Obvious' misquotes, regarding a child, would suggest that a lot of people were talking about the wrong person... but Joseph Barnett hardly.
Regards Richard.

[Chris Scott]

From "Will the Real Mary Kelly...?"

2) Mary Jane Kelly had a son.
The story that Kelly had a young son living with her is both very early in origin and also becomes incredibly detailed very quickly. The outline of the story is that Kelly had a young son, whose age seems to vary from seven to eleven years old, living with her. On the night of the murder a man came to her room and she sent the child to stay with a neighbour. For once we have a quoted source for the earliest occurrence of this story. On the 9th of November, the day of the murder, an account appeared in The Star which specifically says that the details were told to the Star reporter by the inhabitants of the lodging houses in Dorset Street. This includes the first mention of Kelly's child:
"But from the startled inhabitants of the lodging-houses in Dorset-street a Star man got a few details. The victim is a woman who went by the name of Mary Jane and she lived in the room in which she has been murdered, with a man and her little son - about 10 or 11 years old."
The fuller version of the story of the boy appeared in the Times of the following day, 10th November:
"Another account gives the following details: Kelly had a little boy, aged about 6 or 7 years living with her, and latterly she had been in narrow straits, so much so that she is reported to have stated to a companion that she would make away with herself, as she could not bear to see her boy starving. There are conflicting statements as to when the woman was last seen alive, but that upon which most reliance appears to be placed is that of a young woman, an associate of the deceased, who states that at about half-past 10 o'clock on Thursday night she met the murdered woman at the corner of Dorset-street, who said to her that she had no money and, if she could not get any, would never go out any more but would do away with herself. Soon afterwards they parted, and a man, who is described as respectably dressed, came up, and spoke to the murdered woman Kelly and offered her some money. The man then accompanied the woman to her lodgings, which are on the second floor, and the little boy was removed from the room and taken to a neighbour's house. Nothing more was seen of the woman until yesterday morning, when it is stated that the little boy was sent back into the house, and the report goes, he was sent out subsequently on an errand by the man who was in the house with his mother. There is no direct confirmation of this statement."

The oddest mention of Kelly having a child comes from the Star of the 10th of November. After leaving Kelly, Barnett went to live at Buller's Lodging House, 25 New Street. The Star reporter tracked Barnett down to a public house near his lodgings and interviewed him. This interview appears to quote Barnett as confirming that Kelly had a child:
"JOE BARNETT'S STATEMENT.
In a public-house close by Buller's the reporter succeeded later on in finding Barnett, who is an Irishman by parentage and a Londoner by birth. He had lived with her for a year and a half, he said, and should not have left her except for her violent habits. She was a Limerick woman by birth, he says, but had lived in Dublin for some time. She went by the name of Mary Jane, but her real name was Marie Jeanette. He knew nothing about her proceedings since he left her, except that his brother met her on the Thursday evening and spoke to her. He himself had been taken by the police down to Dorset-street, and had been kept there for two hours and a half. He saw the body by peeping through the window.
To our reporter Barnett said he and the deceased were very happy and comfortable together until another woman came to sleep in their room, to which he strongly objected. Finally, after the woman had been there two or three nights he quarrelled with the woman whom he called his wife and left her. The next day, however, he returned and gave Kelly money. He called several other days and gave her money when he had it. On Thursday night he visited her between half-past seven and eight, and told her he was sorry he had no money to give her. He saw nothing more of her. She used occasionally to go to the Elephant and Castle district to visit a friend who was in the same position of life as herself. Kelly had a little boy, aged about six or seven years, living with her."

Apart from the question of Kelly’s child, this statements contains other matters of interest:
1) Barnett’s assertion that Kelly had lived in Dublin fits with the area of Ireland from which the family Mary Ann Kelly, of Flint, was listed as originating.
2) In this account there is yet another motive quoted by Barnett for leaving Kelly, namely her violent habits.
3) He specifically says that his brother had met and spoken with Kelly on Thursday evening, the 8th. This fits the assertion of Maurice Lewis that he saw Kelly with “Danny,” presumably Daniel Barnett.
4) We do not have a definite time for Barnett going to the police from the lodging house in which he was staying. However, his assertion that he saw the body by peeping through the window suggests this may have been before the door was forced at 1.30 p.m.

What are we to make of this? There is no definite record of Kelly having a child. But, there again, as we have seen, there is no definite record of Kelly doing anything! In the light of Kelly's colourful past and her time spent on the streets it is by no means beyond the bounds of possibility that at some stage she had fallen pregnant or had even given birth to a child. However, there is not one shred of evidence from the inquest or any statement by a witness that Kelly had a child living with her at the time of her death or shortly before. The attribution of the statement to Barnett that this had been the case could be the result of some creative journalism, appending a supposed item of information which had appeared in the press to Barnett's words to give them a spurious legitimacy.

[miss marple]

I think it is creative journalism. If a child existed where was it? None of the gossipy neighbours mentioned the child, or worrying about him after Mary's death. Where was this child when Joe moved out?
Vanished in a puff of smoke.
I presume Joe would have supported this child along with Mary,but never mentions supporting the two of them, and no where in the witness statement is a child mentioned,he complained about women staying in Mary's room, but not a child. Also Mary could not have entertained punters with a 9 to 11 year old boy present.

I believe we place too much reliance on press reports. The 19th century press went far beyond the News of the World in speculation and downright lies.
Having just read Judith Flanders book the Invention of Murder, I was shocked at the appalling lies and slanders published in newspapers in the 19th cfentury, with no sense of shame.There was no press council to regulate them, they made things up, anything to spice up a story.

If the first mention of this child was on the morning after the murder in the press, I rest my case.

Miss Marple


I

[lynn cates]

third time, charming

Hello Chris. Thanks for the excerpt. And this is PRECISELY why I have begun a third go at your book.

Cheers.
LC

[miss marple]

Mary Ann Kelly of Flint is not a Mary Jane Kelly, I remember years ago looking at all the Welsh Kellys in the census and not seeing a connection.
Everyone who talked about her mentions the Limerick connection, that she was born in Limerick.
So Chris ,what do have Kellys who came from Dublin to do with Mary Jane?

Miss Maple

[Chris Scott]

Mary Ann Kelly of Flint is not a Mary Jane Kelly, I remember years ago looking at all the Welsh Kellys in the census and not seeing a connection.
Everyone who talked about her mentions the Limerick connection, that she was born in Limerick.
So Chris ,what do have Kellys who came from Dublin to do with Mary Jane?

Miss Maple

Hi Miss M
This comes from quoting just a section:-)
This relates back to the census work earlier in the book. I was not arguing that the Flint Mary Kelly WAS the Millers Court victim but only that of all the women of the name Mary Kelly traced in the Welsh census records, she ticked the most boxes of agreement with the alleged facts about the Mary Kelly killed by the Whitechapel killer.
Chris

[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

[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]

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

[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.

[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

[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