The Legend Of Mary Jane Kelly

[erobitha]

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?

[Ms Diddles]

I admit I'm no expert on accent acquisition. But I was wondering, if say, some of her elder siblings plus her parents, spoke with a Welsh accent for example, is it not possible that the London born Kelly might develop a mixed Welsh/London accent that might be hard to place by some people who she met later in life?

I'm suggesting it was the authorities who gave her the fake background rather than being derived from Kelly. If however, she was forced to leave her family (or husband?), and found herself on the streets, for some reason, she might have adopted a minor deception herself, say such as calling herself Kelly or claiming she was Welsh born (to hide from her family/husband maybe?), and the authorities then built on this foundation that she herself initiated.

Martyn

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.

[mpriestnall]

How would she gain an accent if she never lived in Ireland, Wales or Scotland?

I admit I'm no expert on accent acquisition. But I was wondering, if say, some of her elder siblings plus her parents, spoke with a Welsh accent for example, is it not possible that the London born Kelly might develop a mixed Welsh/London accent that might be hard to place by some people who she met later in life?

I'm suggesting it was the authorities who gave her the fake background rather than being derived from Kelly. If however, she was forced to leave her family (or husband?), and found herself on the streets, for some reason, she might have adopted a minor deception herself, say such as calling herself Kelly or claiming she was Welsh born (to hide from her family/husband maybe?), and the authorities then built on this foundation that she herself initiated.

Martyn

[mpriestnall]

Hello Martyn.

Regardless of whether we privately accept or dismiss all or any part of her Legend, when faced with multiple 'Mary Kelly' candidates, it is that very Legend we will all turn to in order to sort the candidates out.

Sure, knowing which elements of a candidate to accept or reject is an interesting call. However, if a Kelly candidate connects to good candidates for JTR and/or Astrakhan, then we can be comfortable we've found the right Kelly, by virtue of a process of a acceptable level of mutual corroboration, so to speak.

Assuming of course there is such connections to find. I'm sure that will be the case.

[Wickerman]

Just for info: I started this thread with the intention of trying to pick apart Kelly's "legend".

Hello Martyn.

Regardless of whether we privately accept or dismiss all or any part of her Legend, when faced with multiple 'Mary Kelly' candidates, it is that very Legend we will all turn to in order to sort the candidates out.

[Wickerman]

Thanks for your thoughts, Wicks.

My take was Kelly was London born, whose parents were Welsh, Irish or even Scottish. This may mean she spoke with a mixed accent, influenced by the locals plus the native accents of her parents.

How would she gain an accent if she never lived in Ireland, Wales or Scotland?

[etenguy]

Right-click on the post number (top-right of post), and click Copy link. Then you can paste the link or create a link with your own text (using the Link option on the edit bar)...

I think this post by Debra Arif from 2014 ...

Thanks NBFN - I'll try that next time.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Hi Trevor

I think the post below by Debra Arif from 2014 (sorry don't know how to link to other threads) adds some useful information about Alice Carroll - making it unlikely this was MJK, I think.

Right-click on the post number (top-right of post), and click Copy link. Then you can paste the link or create a link with your own text (using the Link option on the edit bar)...

I think this post by Debra Arif from 2014 ...

[Trevor Marriott]

"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--

The unconfirmed information I have on Alice Carroll is that as a result of information given by informants and witnesses who were closely connected to the fenian group, five men were subsequently convicted and hanged in 1883. These five were Joe Brady, Michael Fagan, Thomas Caffrey, Dan Curley and Tim Kelly.

Alice Carroll’s specific evidence was against Brady and Kelly, and for giving evidence the authorities gave her the sum of £500 and offered her a new identity. At the time of the trial in 1883, she was 17 years old and therefore would have been twenty-two at the time of the Whitechapel murders. Mary Kelly was supposedly around twenty-five at the time of her murder according to Joseph Barnett.

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

Alice apparently lived with her parents, two brothers and three sisters in Lower Eccles Lane, just off Dorset Street, Dublin. She used to regularly shop for her mother in Hardwick Street where there was a grocery store owned by the McCarthy’s and another store owned by the Hutchinson’s.

Joseph Brady one of the killers, had a girlfriend named Annie Meagher who hated and despised Carroll with a vengeance for giving evidence, which led to his execution. Following which she is quoted as saying to a witness, “The sun has gone from my sky, and the heart has been torn from my body.” She was also claimed to have verbally abused Alice Carroll using words along the lines of, “I hope someday your heart is torn from you as has mine.”

Alice Carroll apparently had a hard time in Dublin. The murders and the subsequent executions had caused concern and she felt safer to stay at home with her mother. She was abused constantly on the streets. On one occasion there was an effigy of her burnt near her home. She remained in the family home for a few years after the trial and her last known whereabouts were that she was still in Dublin in 1887 having been arrested for being drunk.

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.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[rjpalmer]

"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--

[mpriestnall]

Just for info: I started this thread with the intention of trying to pick apart Kelly's "legend".

This was in lieu of posting on the recently continued Mary Thomas thread and stating it was waste of time looking for Kelly with Barnett's supplied criteria. I thought that would have been unwelcome as it might seem negative and a bit snarky. I thought a separate thread to pick apart the legend was a more positive idea.

Katrup's questions was useful because it it made me realize that the two local authorities associated with the earlier Kelly, Limerick and Cardiff, both stated they didn't know of Kelly, which is interesting, if not telling.

Martyn

[mpriestnall]

A similar topic was raised on JTRForums a few days ago.

I have been persuaded in recent years that the name Mary Kelly, or Mary Jane Kelly, was not the real name of the victim.
I avoid conspiracy theories like the plague, so this deception in my view was merely a means of one person avoiding being identified, by whom, and for what reason is another matter.

On the very first day of the murder, 9th Nov., witnesses were suggesting the name Mary Jane Kelly was not her real name.
The more time passes, the longer we spend looking for her, the more I feel assured this was more than likely true.
This being the case, every Mary Kelly will turn out to have nothing to do with the case. Even those who might have several brothers in an 1881 census, will more than likely still be around in a 1891 census.
So if the above hypothesis is correct, then what was the real name of the victim?

The name Lizzie Fisher was associated with the victim from very early on. Christopher Scott identified a good number of Lizzie/Elizabeth Fisher's throughout the census forms, but because they were not born in Ireland, he dismissed them.
The problem here is, only one theory is being addressed. That someone named Elizabeth Fisher adopted a fake persona as Mary Kelly, and everything we have learned about Mary must be the biography of an Elizabeth Fisher.
I think there's another way of looking at the same evidence.

One of the stories we are told is that - 'it is not true the victim (MJK) was Welsh, she was born in Ireland'. Another story say's the victim 'could speak Welsh fluently', that she had 'spent some time in Cardiff', that she had a 'cousin in Cardiff' who led her into disreputable ways. These stories of an association with Wales may provide a clue. If we are looking for a 'Lizzie Fisher', maybe we should look in Wales.

It must be said, I found at least three Elizabeth Fisher's in the East End of London. One in Bethnal Green, one in Whitechapel, and another I think it was Southwark.
If the early association of the victim with a Lizzie Fisher was merely a case of mistaken identity, that a real Lizzie Fisher was a local woman, then this name is a dead end.

On the other hand, the real Elizabeth Fisher may have been born and lived in Wales. And, because she gave so many details of her adopted life as Mary Kelly, perhaps she knew a Mary Kelly as a childhood friend. It is a known fact in certain circles that if you intend to adopt a false identity, choose one you know off by heart, if that is possible.
Far less possibility of you forgetting an address, a name or an age you had already told someone. Therefore, in this hypothesis there is a real Mary Kelly, who was born in Ireland, who did move to Wales, who did have seven brothers & one sister. And, as expected in this hypothesis, she is still alive in 1891.

So, who was the victim in Miller's Court?
Was she some Welsh Elizabeth Fisher who had been a childhood friend of the Mary Kelly described above?

Or, perhaps, on a different angle, was the victim the cousin we are told lived in Cardiff, and she adopted the name & identity of her own cousin, and it was she who moved to London.

Thanks for your thoughts, Wicks.

My take was Kelly was London born, whose parents were Welsh, Irish or even Scottish. This may mean she spoke with a mixed accent, influenced by the locals plus the native accents of her parents. This might explain the varying stated origins of Kelly.

Martyn

[mpriestnall]

If you look at the story surrounding Alice Carroll using the name of Mary Kelly then you have a clear motive for her murder

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

I have heard of Alice Caroll and knew that Debra had looked into her but didn't really pay too much attention
of her (Alice not Debra). I'll remedy that now, so thanks for the suggestion.

Martyn

[etenguy]

With the greatest respect to Debra and her research I dont think her results are conclusive enough to totally negate the suggestion.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Indeed, but sufficient to suggest it is unlikely - especially if the descriptions of MJK and Alice Carroll are reasonably accurate.

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi Trevor

I think the post below by Debra Arif from 2014 (sorry don't know how to link to other threads) adds some useful information about Alice Carroll - making it unlikely this was MJK, I think.

With the greatest respect to Debra and her research I dont think her results are conclusive enough to totally negate the suggestion.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk