'Johnto'

[Bridewell]

Nicknames like Dark Annie or Fair Emma don’t really count because they were probably just names created by and informally used by others.

"Fair Emma" was a nickname given to Emma Hamilton. Perhaps there was a facial resemblance there? All things are possible - if unlikely.

[Bridewell]

I wonder, too, just in passing, if the brother Henry/Johnto might have been a brother-in-law rather than a brother.

[Bridewell]

Hi Debs.

My uncle was called Jack by everybody, yet only when he died in 1977 did I find out his real christian name was William.
His father - my grandfather, was a John Joseph, and the eldest son was William John, his brother - my father was Edward Leo.
Both sons went in the army but because there was another William in my uncle's squad, or company, or whatever they call it, he became known among his buddies as Jack, being the colloquial for John, which he wasn't too struck on.
So I see a close parallel here, my uncle was known as "John too, like his father", except he adopted the colloquial being Jack.
At home (his parents family) he was still William.

Nicknames need have no direct relation to a real name. My grandfather's name was Ranald but everyone, even family, called him Tony. His WWI memoir explains that his parents originally intended to call him Mark; then someone suggested it should be Mark Anthony. The Mark was dropped in favour of Ranald but Tony lingered on as a nickname! In the police all officers named Harris are called Bomber and all Whites are Chalkie so just perhaps Johntoo was named after another (perhaps famous) Johnto who had the same surname as he did. (Sorry that's a bit convoluted but I guess it's another outside possibility).

[MrBarnett]

Chava, your theory about EWD telling the real MJK her story and then having it appropriated is not inconceivable but, being a scientist, I always prefer to take the least complicated explanation. And you're dead right about all of these women using a huge variety of names. EWD called herself Elizabeth Weston Jones and Mary Jane Weston as well as (possibly) Marie Jeanette Davies (or Davis) and Mary Jane Kelly. Not surprising if you are trying to evade people such as irate husbands and landlords and madams to whom you owe money.

Prosector,

Is it really the case that the victims used a huge variety of names? Women living out of wedlock quite often assumed the surnames of their partners, we see that with Eddowes. How many names did the Miller’s Court victim use? Only one it seems while in London. Nicknames like Dark Annie or Fair Emma don’t really count because they were probably just names created by and informally used by others.


I’m not sure whether the alias of Annie Fitzgerald has been confirmed as being used by Stride when she was charged with drunkenness.


Alice McKenzie is a bit of an exception here. But even she seems to have ultimately merely tweaked her married name of Kinsey via McKensey to McKenzie MacKenzie. Prior to that she used a number of other names, but some of those, possibly all of them, were either the names of her partners or names mistakenly given by others.

Gary

[Prosector]

Chava, your theory about EWD telling the real MJK her story and then having it appropriated is not inconceivable but, being a scientist, I always prefer to take the least complicated explanation. And you're dead right about all of these women using a huge variety of names. EWD called herself Elizabeth Weston Jones and Mary Jane Weston as well as (possibly) Marie Jeanette Davies (or Davis) and Mary Jane Kelly. Not surprising if you are trying to evade people such as irate husbands and landlords and madams to whom you owe money.

[Chava]

Has it been established that Stride used the Annie Fitzgerald alias?

If you include a few misspellings, Alice ‘McKenzie’ racked up 17/18 surnames.

I'm sure she did.

[MrBarnett]

Catherine Eddowes/Conway/Kelly/Mary Ann Kelly
Liz Stride/Annie Fitzgerald
Annie Chapman aka Sievey or Sieffey

Polly Nichols doesn't seem to have used any aliases.
Annie Chapman called herself--more likely was called--after her partner's occupation.

But Eddowes & Stride did use aliases.

Has it been established that Stride used the Annie Fitzgerald alias?

If you include a few misspellings, Alice ‘McKenzie’ racked up 17/18 surnames.

[Chava]

Hi Chava,

Which women do you have in mind who used names like confetti.

Gary

Catherine Eddowes/Conway/Kelly/Mary Ann Kelly
Liz Stride/Annie Fitzgerald
Annie Chapman aka Sievey or Sieffey

Polly Nichols doesn't seem to have used any aliases.
Annie Chapman called herself--more likely was called--after her partner's occupation.

But Eddowes & Stride did use aliases.

[MrBarnett]

I understand that.

But these women made up stories all the time. And passed names around like confetti. For which I don't blame them at all. I have a 'suppose' for you. Suppose 'Mary Jane Kelly' met Elizabeth Weston Davies over a glass of gin in the 10 Bells or wherever. Elizabeth tells Mary Jane her story. Mary Jane thinks 'that's glamorous! I can make some hay with that tale' and appropriates it for her own. Perhaps incorporating some elements of her own life to keep it easy to remember.
Now if I was a novelist I could see a novel in which Mad Mr Davies looks everywhere for his Elizabeth. Hears about Mary Jane. Bursts in on her only to discover he's killed the wrong woman. Takes her apart in his rage and obsession for daring to pose as his wife...

But for me that's just a novel.

Hi Chava,

Which women do you have in mind who used names like confetti.

Gary

[Chava]

You may well be right and yet somewhere in London at around that time there was a young Welsh prostitute who had spent time in a gay house in the West End (and may have left some dresses there) and who was married to a rather eccentric man who had taken her to France but who had not been married to a man called Davies who was killed in a pit explosion but who had used the story of being a widow (called Jones rather than Davies) at the time of her own marriage (who knows what she told her new husband about Mr Jones). She may not have been the same girl who lived in Millers Court but she was around somewhere and an older man was looking for her. I would be delighted if someone could definitively find Elizabeth Weston Davies (aka Jones, aka Craig) because I have spent half my life looking for her.

I understand that.

But these women made up stories all the time. And passed names around like confetti. For which I don't blame them at all. I have a 'suppose' for you. Suppose 'Mary Jane Kelly' met Elizabeth Weston Davies over a glass of gin in the 10 Bells or wherever. Elizabeth tells Mary Jane her story. Mary Jane thinks 'that's glamorous! I can make some hay with that tale' and appropriates it for her own. Perhaps incorporating some elements of her own life to keep it easy to remember.
Now if I was a novelist I could see a novel in which Mad Mr Davies looks everywhere for his Elizabeth. Hears about Mary Jane. Bursts in on her only to discover he's killed the wrong woman. Takes her apart in his rage and obsession for daring to pose as his wife...

But for me that's just a novel.

[Scott Nelson]

Whatever happened to the Henry Johnstone inquiry?

[Prosector]

But they were older by quite a lot. And they'd had documentable events like marriages and births ergo had husbands and kids who could come forward to identify. The only exception was Long Liz Stride. Who told porkies about the Princess Alice in order to make herself seem more sympathetic and pitiable. I honestly don't believe a word that comes out of Mary Jane Kelly's mouth. I don't believe the 'gay house in the West End'. I don't believe the trip to France. I don't believe the tragic young love killed in a mining disaster--which comes under the heading of Princess Alice to me. She was making up stuff to sound interesting to the punters. She may well have been trying to avoid trouble by changing her name. Or she might just have felt that if she had to, say, do a flit from the landlord she owed money to, having a generic name like Mary Jane Kelly might make it that bit harder to find her. It definitely sounds like she was Irish born. She may well have spent time in Wales.
Er..that's it.
The only way we'll get her is by DNA. But it doesn't sound like that's ever going to happen.

You may well be right and yet somewhere in London at around that time there was a young Welsh prostitute who had spent time in a gay house in the West End (and may have left some dresses there) and who was married to a rather eccentric man who had taken her to France but who had not been married to a man called Davies who was killed in a pit explosion but who had used the story of being a widow (called Jones rather than Davies) at the time of her own marriage (who knows what she told her new husband about Mr Jones). She may not have been the same girl who lived in Millers Court but she was around somewhere and an older man was looking for her. I would be delighted if someone could definitively find Elizabeth Weston Davies (aka Jones, aka Craig) because I have spent half my life looking for her.

[MrBarnett]

The report in the South Wales Daily News does not attribute the bit about Mrs M'Carthy saying that MJK paid her 2s for a bed for the night to Julia Vanturney. It is a separate report in the same article, presumably from Mrs M'Carthy herself.

Personally I think that Huchinson was a self-serving publicist after a few shillings from the press men. Hardly likely to put himself forward if he was the killer surely?

I think 2s was about the going rate for a room and a girl in the Ratcliff Highway st the time. The punter would probably also have been expected to fork out for alcohol for the house.

There was a fair bit of to-ing and fro-ing between Pennington Street/Breezers Hill and elsewhere as and when the brothel-keepers wives had/lost children.

[Chava]

Yet all the other victims had family members who did reveal themselves.

But they were older by quite a lot. And they'd had documentable events like marriages and births ergo had husbands and kids who could come forward to identify. The only exception was Long Liz Stride. Who told porkies about the Princess Alice in order to make herself seem more sympathetic and pitiable. I honestly don't believe a word that comes out of Mary Jane Kelly's mouth. I don't believe the 'gay house in the West End'. I don't believe the trip to France. I don't believe the tragic young love killed in a mining disaster--which comes under the heading of Princess Alice to me. She was making up stuff to sound interesting to the punters. She may well have been trying to avoid trouble by changing her name. Or she might just have felt that if she had to, say, do a flit from the landlord she owed money to, having a generic name like Mary Jane Kelly might make it that bit harder to find her. It definitely sounds like she was Irish born. She may well have spent time in Wales.
Er..that's it.
The only way we'll get her is by DNA. But it doesn't sound like that's ever going to happen.

[Prosector]

The report in the South Wales Daily News does not attribute the bit about Mrs M'Carthy saying that MJK paid her 2s for a bed for the night to Julia Vanturney. It is a separate report in the same article, presumably from Mrs M'Carthy herself.

Personally I think that Huchinson was a self-serving publicist after a few shillings from the press men. Hardly likely to put himself forward if he was the killer surely?