The Legend Of Mary Jane Kelly

[Wickerman]

Who's Elizabeth Foster?


South Wales Echo, 12 Nov.

[Wickerman]

Fair enough. I'm going to take a look at the inquest and then respond. Shouldn't take long; it was rather a short one!

Martyn!, that should have been your first port of call, not your last.

[Wickerman]

Star 12 Nov
"It appears from inquiries made at Carmarthen and Swansea, that after leaving the former place for the latter, Kelly, who was then only 17 years of age, entered the service of a Mrs. Rees, who stands committed to the next assizes on a charge of procuring abortion, and who is the daughter of a medical man formerly resident at Carmarthen."

This was published in the Western Mail, 13 Nov.





If I recall, this lead turned out to be a dead end.

[Losmandris]

If Mrs McCarthy is to be believed, Kelly didn’t keep a low profile from her former French employer in Knightsbridge. She called back at her premises to collect her belongings. And it would have been rather strange for the French lady to have handed over a box of costly dresses to a woman who had absconded from her or her associates. It makes more sense to me that Kelly proved hard to control and her West End/French employers passed her down the line to the Breezer’s Hill lot. The Ratcliff Highway brothel keepers were said to have contacts in the West End and on the Continent.

If Mrs Buki was telling the truth and Kelly did indeed have two (presumably front) teeth missing, you have to wonder when she lost them - and how. There are several examples of extreme violence being meted out to women working for the East End brothel keepers. In moving to Spitalfields Kelly may have been trying to keep a low profile from her previous employers in the Highway.

Very good points Mr B!

[mpriestnall]

I'm not seeing the deception, Barnett is only answering questions put to him by the coroner, he isn't telling a story.

The question was: "After she left Cardiff, did she come direct to London?"

Barnett gave a direct answer - 'Yes, she was in a gay house in the west end".

He isn't being vague, he isn't avoiding any questions.

Fair enough. I'm going to take a look at the inquest and then respond. Shouldn't take long; it was rather a short one!

[Joshua Rogan]

That's a good point.

I believe Kelly come from a respectable London working class family, led a conventional life in service and then became estranged from her husband and or family. sometime between say 1885-1887. Something happened to her, perhaps got pregnant outside of marriage or acquired a STD, that caused this estrangement. She found herself out on the streets and ended up crossing paths with the Breezer Hill mob and then eventually Jack.

Star 12 Nov
"It appears from inquiries made at Carmarthen and Swansea, that after leaving the former place for the latter, Kelly, who was then only 17 years of age, entered the service of a Mrs. Rees, who stands committed to the next assizes on a charge of procuring abortion, and who is the daughter of a medical man formerly resident at Carmarthen."

[MrBarnett]

if there was something to be 'in on' I don't think Barnett was. Whoever MJK was I don't think she was the type of person to put up with people prying into her back story. She was clearly covering something up and I would take anything we have on her background with a serious pitch of salt. I agree that details for the last two years is probably as reliable as possible. As for the rest? Though I don't imagine there is some deep dark secret or cover up. It is more than likely she was keeping a low profile from the people who trafficked her to France.

Just to put it out there. Is it possible that Astrakan man is linked somehow to that period of her life?

If Mrs McCarthy is to be believed, Kelly didn’t keep a low profile from her former French employer in Knightsbridge. She called back at her premises to collect her belongings. And it would have been rather strange for the French lady to have handed over a box of costly dresses to a woman who had absconded from her or her associates. It makes more sense to me that Kelly proved hard to control and her West End/French employers passed her down the line to the Breezer’s Hill lot. The Ratcliff Highway brothel keepers were said to have contacts in the West End and on the Continent.

If Mrs Buki was telling the truth and Kelly did indeed have two (presumably front) teeth missing, you have to wonder when she lost them - and how. There are several examples of extreme violence being meted out to women working for the East End brothel keepers. In moving to Spitalfields Kelly may have been trying to keep a low profile from her previous employers in the Highway.

[Losmandris]

if there was something to be 'in on' I don't think Barnett was. Whoever MJK was I don't think she was the type of person to put up with people prying into her back story. She was clearly covering something up and I would take anything we have on her background with a serious pitch of salt. I agree that details for the last two years is probably as reliable as possible. As for the rest? Though I don't imagine there is some deep dark secret or cover up. It is more than likely she was keeping a low profile from the people who trafficked her to France.

Just to put it out there. Is it possible that Astrakan man is linked somehow to that period of her life?

[Wickerman]

OK, but it's the absent of these kind of details from Barnett I'm questioning. I'm saying her irish/welsh backstory is completely fake, and Barnett avoided the details of how she come to London because they, being recent and concrete in nature, were too easy for journalists etc to investigate and prove they were made up. Hence their omission.

Do you think Barnett may have omitted the details because they related to an illegal/immoral way of life for Kelly and would have reflected badly on her?

I'm not seeing the deception, Barnett is only answering questions put to him by the coroner, he isn't telling a story.

The question was: "After she left Cardiff, did she come direct to London?"

Barnett gave a direct answer - 'Yes, she was in a gay house in the west end".

He isn't being vague, he isn't avoiding any questions.

[erobitha]

I think we have to be very cautious about the language in which the press accounts of these stories have come down to us. The original Cockney will have been tidied up to make it understandable to a non-Cockney readership. Was the word ‘fluent’ actually used? Was Kelly actually described as ‘an excellent scholar and an artist of no mean degree’ by Mrs McCarthy? I have my doubts. And in any case, how would someone who was not themselves a fluent Welsh speaker be able to tell if Kelly was fluent?

I reckon a few ‘bora das’ etc would have been sufficient to give her the rep of being a Welsh speaker among Eastenders with no Welsh connections.

Again a feasible point.

[erobitha]

I agree with your point about the pragmatism of one's language.

How good is the evidence that she spoke fluent Welsh and as opposed to speaking English with a welsh accent?

Could she not have a London accent with enough of a welsh twang to be occasionally mistaken to be welsh?

This is feasible.

[MrBarnett]

OK, but it's the absent of these kind of details from Barnett I'm questioning. I'm saying her irish/welsh backstory is completely fake, and Barnett avoided the details of how she come to London because they, being recent and concrete in nature, were too easy for journalists etc to investigate and prove they were made up. Hence their omission.

Do you think Barnett may have omitted the details because they related to an illegal/immoral way of life for Kelly and would have reflected badly on her?

Barnett didn’t try to hide the sordid truth of Kelly’s past, did he? And he mentioned the West End and French episodes.

If the press had been able to ID Morganstone and Buki as Morgenstern and Boekee, they might have got a clue as to the ID of the French lady - her address at least. M&B may have left the Highway by then, but Mrs ‘Phoenix’s’ address was known. And for some reason she seems to have wanted her family connection to Kelly to be known.

[MrBarnett]

I agree with your point about the pragmatism of one's language.

How good is the evidence that she spoke fluent Welsh and as opposed to speaking English with a welsh accent?

Could she not have a London accent with enough of a welsh twang to be occasionally mistaken to be welsh?

I think we have to be very cautious about the language in which the press accounts of these stories have come down to us. The original Cockney will have been tidied up to make it understandable to a non-Cockney readership. Was the word ‘fluent’ actually used? Was Kelly actually described as ‘an excellent scholar and an artist of no mean degree’ by Mrs McCarthy? I have my doubts. And in any case, how would someone who was not themselves a fluent Welsh speaker be able to tell if Kelly was fluent?

I reckon a few ‘bora das’ etc would have been sufficient to give her the rep of being a Welsh speaker among Eastenders with no Welsh connections.

[mpriestnall]

Sorry, I posted my ‘what do you make’ before I’d read yours. But my post perhaps goes some way to answering your question?

Provincial - and Continental - women were being lured into vice in London all the time I believe. In Kelly’s case, if it was true that it had been her cousin in Cardiff who introduced her to prostitution, maybe someone in Wales recognise her potential to work in the more lucrative West End and trafficked her, knowingly or unknowingly, there.

OK, but it's the absent of these kind of details from Barnett I'm questioning. I'm saying her irish/welsh backstory is completely fake, and Barnett avoided the details of how she come to London because they, being recent and concrete in nature, were too easy for journalists etc to investigate and prove they were made up. Hence their omission.

Do you think Barnett may have omitted the details because they related to an illegal/immoral way of life for Kelly and would have reflected badly on her?

[mpriestnall]

I was born in Ireland but grew up in London. I very much have a London accent. My parents are Irish. Their parents are Irish. There are very few in that group who can speak Irish fluently. A few can speak some words. I know about three phrases. Language is pragmatic to your immediate surroundings generally.

Why would a London girl be able to speak fluent Welsh unless she lived there for a formative part of her life?

I agree with your point about the pragmatism of one's language.

How good is the evidence that she spoke fluent Welsh and as opposed to speaking English with a welsh accent?

Could she not have a London accent with enough of a welsh twang to be occasionally mistaken to be welsh?