The Legend Of Mary Jane Kelly

[MrBarnett]

If you have evidence to show that was the case please feel free to post it otherwise we are left to discuss known facts, and not matters of conjecture

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

You know full well that the suggestion came from a contemporary press report.

Where did you obtain this ‘known fact’ from, Trevor?

“Carroll was described as having bright, golden-red, hair and very pretty blue eyes, as did Kelly.”

[Trevor Marriott]

Duplicate post

[Trevor Marriott]

Wasn’t it the case that she didn’t receive the money until she was ‘of age’ - presumably 21? So we’re talking about her becoming financially independent in April, 1887. How can that be squared with her starting life with Joseph Barnett in Spitalfields at around the same time?

If you have evidence to show that was the case please feel free to post it otherwise we are left to discuss known facts, and not matters of conjecture

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[erobitha]

Indeed. It's also somewhat at odds with her supposedly being romantically involved with a police constable in 1883/4. Some reports claim they were even married, which seems doubtful in the extreme. Then we have Honora Carroll, with whom she is confused, who has a brother in the Royal Irish Constabulary. It's all very weird, and I can't get my head around a Crown witness in one of the most important cases of the decade being run-in for using abusive language.

Here's something to add to the mix.




This constable appears to have been PC William Kelly, 203 D, which might add weight to her being known as 'Kelly,' if one wants to take a walk on the wild side. Yet, even here there is confusion, for later reports out of London claim that Carroll's policeman beau was in F-Division.

There is an Upper Dorset Street in Dublin RJ. Not sure that helps. I know Broadstone too. Both are on North side of Dublin

[rjpalmer]

The description of her as the most troublesome of a group of young women congregating in O’Connell Street is at odds with the idea of her being a quiet respectable girl who kept herself to herself for fear retribution from those of Fenian sympathies.

Indeed. It's also somewhat at odds with her supposedly being romantically involved with a police constable in 1883/4. Some reports claim they were even married, which seems doubtful in the extreme. Then we have Honora Carroll, with whom she is confused, who has a brother in the Royal Irish Constabulary. It's all very weird, and I can't get my head around a Crown witness in one of the most important cases of the decade being run-in for using abusive language.

Here's something to add to the mix.




This constable appears to have been PC William Kelly, 203 D, which might add weight to her being known as 'Kelly,' if one wants to take a walk on the wild side. Yet, even here there is confusion, for later reports out of London claim that Carroll's policeman beau was in F-Division.

[MrBarnett]

Hi Ms Diddles

Thanks for sharing that. Nice to have a case study supporting my "mixed accent theory"!

Martyn

My wife is another example. From an army family, she grew up in Yorkshire, Newcastle, Belfast, London (and Cyprus). Her accent was impossible to pin down when I first knew her. After decades of living in Essex/East London it’s similar to mine now, but she occasionally lapses into a bit of ‘eh up’.

[MrBarnett]

How long would it take for a young woman to spend that kind of money or for her relatives to help spend it? 5 Years is a long time in anyones life

Another intersting snippet is with regards to whether or not John McCarthy her landlord at Millers Court was related to the same McCarthy family who owned the shop near to where she lived in Ireland if he was then bingo the quest to identify Mary Kelly is over.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Wasn’t it the case that she didn’t receive the money until she was ‘of age’ - presumably 21? So we’re talking about her becoming financially independent in April, 1887. How can that be squared with her starting life with Joseph Barnett in Spitalfields at around the same time?

[mpriestnall]

As I'm the proponent of the Mary Thomas theory which Martyn feels is a waste of time, I can assure you whilst it is pain-staking, I do believe I am making headway and producing good evidence is time-consuming. That's the nature of evidence versus theory. I have a theory and I am building my case with evidence. Perhaps that is something to consider? I think theories are never a waste of time. Proving them should not be deemed as such either.

I think there is mileage in Wickerman's suggestion of identity theft.

I believe the woman known to us as Mary Jane Kelly in Miller's Court who was murdered was Welsh.

At some point between 1881-1888 their paths crossed and elements of the real Kelly's story was intertwined with her own. Why? That I have some ideas why, but that should be established later.

The real Mary Kelly may have actually died before our MJK, giving her the comfort to use the name. Or she was alive post-1888 and did not connect the dots. Or she did but never came forward. Or she was abroad.

Park my Thomas theory for one moment. I am convinced the clue is in the Welsh / Irish link. Why did some believe she was Welsh who spoke fluent Welsh - and some believed she was Irish and not Welsh? This muddled version of her history needs unmuddling.

Was there some kind of missionary who dealt with who he thought was Mary Kelly a few years prior in London who absolutely dismissed the Welsh link? But then we have witnesses saying she spoke fluent Welsh / was from Wales closer to the time of her death?

I wish you all the best with Mary Thomas and I total respect anyone putting the time, effort, money and indeed willing to take the risk into research into any and all case related avenues.

Martyn

[mpriestnall]

Hi Martin,

I would concur that it would be absolutely possible for Kelly to have a kind of hybrid accent if surrounded in London by Welsh relatives.

My evidence for this is purely anecdotal and based on a case study of one (!) but when I started primary school in Yorkshire, my slight Scottish accent was commented on by some of the teachers and other kids.

My mum was Scottish.

As I grew up and my friends exerted more influence, I guess the Yorkshire influences prevailed, but I've recently seen an old video of me messing round with a bunch of friends aged around 17.

I was surprised at how Yorkshire I sounded but you could still hear slight Scottish inflections on certain words.

Now after spending nearly three decades north of the border, and a period in Germany, I have a total mongrel of an accent

English people think I sound quite Scottish, Scottish people think I sound very English.

Some people just can't place it and think I'm Irish / Aussie / Canadian, so yeah, to me it's perfectly feasible that Kelly could have a strange hybrid of an accent that was difficult to identify if her folks were Welsh (or Irish) but she'd spent time in London.

Hi Ms Diddles

Thanks for sharing that. Nice to have a case study supporting my "mixed accent theory"!

Martyn

[Trevor Marriott]

Thanks Gary. I didn't realize the 13 Eccles Lane address had been given, which casts a different light on the matter.

Still, the journalist doesn't inspire my complete confidence, because he also wrongly claimed that Alice Carroll had been a matron of the New Ross Work House. This wasn't the same women; the matron's name was Honora Carroll, and the newspaper was forced to reprint a retraction, so it doesn't appear that his information on Carroll was particularly trustworthy. Was he even certain who she was?





I don't find the idea of a journalist publishing deliberate misinformation as strange as you do, but anyway one looks at it, it seems highly unlikely that a woman given a hefty pay-out of 500 pounds would relocate to a slum in London and soon take up the life of a prostitute. It's a curious theory.

How long would it take for a young woman to spend that kind of money or for her relatives to help spend it? 5 Years is a long time in anyones life

Another intersting snippet is with regards to whether or not John McCarthy her landlord at Millers Court was related to the same McCarthy family who owned the shop near to where she lived in Ireland if he was then bingo the quest to identify Mary Kelly is over.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[MrBarnett]

Thanks Gary. I didn't realize the 13 Eccles Lane address had been given, which casts a different light on the matter.

Still, the journalist doesn't inspire my complete confidence, because he also wrongly claimed that Alice Carroll had been a matron of the New Ross Work House. This wasn't the same women; the matron's name was Honora Carroll, and the newspaper was forced to reprint a retraction, so it doesn't appear that his information on Carroll was particularly trustworthy. Was he even certain who she was?





I don't find the idea of a journalist publishing deliberate misinformation as strange as you do, but anyway one looks at it, it seems highly unlikely that a woman given a hefty pay-out of 500 pounds would relocate to a slum in London and soon take up the life of a prostitute. It's a curious theory.

It is a strange story. It makes you wonder what Alice went through on the two occasions she was in jail.

Above is a press report about the offence in December, 1885, which presumably led to the Jan., 1886 imprisonment. Again, the Eccles Street address is mentioned, so it would seem to be the same AC. The description of her as the most troublesome of a group of young women congregating in O’Connell Street is at odds with the idea of her being a quiet respectable girl who kept herself to herself for fear retribution from those of Fenian sympathies.

[rjpalmer]

The 1887 press report that identified the AC charged with abusive language as the Phoenix Park witness gave her address as 13, Eccles Lane and said she had no occupation. This same woman - same name, age, address and lack of occupation - had been imprisoned in 1886 for the same offence. The Coombe lady had numerous convictions.

Unless there were two AC’s of the same age living in Eccles Lane and the reporter got them muddled up, it seems probable that the 1887 woman was indeed the Phoenix Park witness. The idea that a journalist would play a ‘joke’ by identifying the wrong woman seems highly unlikely.

Gary

Thanks Gary. I didn't realize the 13 Eccles Lane address had been given, which casts a different light on the matter.

Still, the journalist doesn't inspire my complete confidence, because he also wrongly claimed that Alice Carroll had been a matron of the New Ross Work House. This wasn't the same women; the matron's name was Honora Carroll, and the newspaper was forced to reprint a retraction, so it doesn't appear that his information on Carroll was particularly trustworthy. Was he even certain who she was?





I don't find the idea of a journalist publishing deliberate misinformation as strange as you do, but anyway one looks at it, it seems highly unlikely that a woman given a hefty pay-out of 500 pounds would relocate to a slum in London and soon take up the life of a prostitute. It's a curious theory.

[rjpalmer]

On another note, a second witness who gave evidence in the trial James Carey was also hunted down by the Fenians and shot on board a ship heading for South Africa so the Fenians were clearly out to seek revenge on those who gave evidence.

Perhaps, but it should be noted that this has been disputed by historians. Carey was indeed shot dead on shipboard, but it has been suggested that O'Donnell wasn't actually on board the ship to assassinate him, but learned of his identity accidently, or even that this was an unrelated dispute, milked it for all it was worth in order to portray the Irish Invincibles as having a lot longer reach than they actually had.

[Observer]

Had Mary Kelly ever set foot in Ireland? At least once in my opinion, for she had certainly kissed the Blarney Stone.

[MrBarnett]

"Alice was reportedly in Dublin as late as September 1887 when she was fined for using abusive language. The newspaper reports mention that this is the same Alice Carroll involved in the 1883 trial."

The newspaper report does indeed say this, but I've wondered whether it is accurate.

As far as one can judge from her testimony, Alice Carroll was a respectable and reasonable person. It was even reported that she was going steady with a constable on the Dublin Police Force.

While this doesn't make it impossible that she was later fined for using abusive language, it seems a little out of character, and I wonder if some journalist & wag, noting the woman's name, wasn't pulling our legs. The Irish look down on informers, to say the least, and he might have found it amusing to report that this was the same Alice Carroll of Phoenix Park infamy.

Of course, I have no proof of this, but it might be noted that there appears to have been another Alice Carroll, born around 1868, (two years later than 'our' Alice) who is listed in Mountjoy Prison in 1899. (A women's prison in Dublin). It gives her age as 31, born in The Coombe, which is district in Central Dublin, but one I **don't think** would encompass Eccles Lane, St. Michan's Parish. So it looks like there may have been two Alice Carrolls, roughly the same age, bouncing around Central Dublin in the 1880s.

Just a guess--

RJ,

There were at least three Alice Carrolls who fell foul of the law in Dublin in the 1880s. Two of them, your Coombe example and one from Eccles Lane, had been born in 1866. The other was younger, so we can ignore her.

The two 1866 candidates were different heights and weights, one (Coombe) was a ‘dealer’ and the other (Eccles Lane) had no occupation. Clearly different women.

The 1887 press report that identified the AC charged with abusive language as the Phoenix Park witness gave her address as 13, Eccles Lane and said she had no occupation. This same woman - same name, age, address and lack of occupation - had been imprisoned in 1886 for the same offence. The Coombe lady had numerous convictions.

Unless there were two AC’s of the same age living in Eccles Lane and the reporter got them muddled up, it seems probable that the 1887 woman was indeed the Phoenix Park witness. The idea that a journalist would play a ‘joke’ by identifying the wrong woman seems highly unlikely.

Gary