Mary Jane Kelly, From Whitechapel?

[GJWalker]

I don't know whether this particular topic has been discussed before but I don't seem to find anything on the forums about it. I was wondering recently about where exactly Mary Kelly came from because logically she has to be somewhere not only that but there must also be at the very least a shred of documented evidence about her like a birth certificate or census records although we have yet to find it or maybe we have already overlooked it.

Anyway here is my theory, is it at all possible that instead of being from Ireland or Wales she was in fact from London and had always been right under our noses this whole time? or is that just silly? My evidence for this lies in the fact that it is suspiciously hard to find a Mary Jane Kelly in Limerick yet when I searched the records for London and also specifically Whitechapel there seems to be Mary Kellys popping up everywhere with the right age and also large families just like Mary Kelly described she had. Despite this I'm not entirely dismissing the fact that she was Irish or Welsh because I do strongly believe that even if she was from London I'm almost certain that she still had Irish and Welsh heritage and that the more likely scenario in my head would be that she had one parent who was Irish and one who was Welsh. Meaning that she could very easily switch between the two which could explain the discrepancy between witness statements. I would even go as far to say that she could possibly be born in Limerick and yet grew up in London and could of very well had cousins in Cardiff.

Overall, I just think it is a bit suspect that most of her life sounds like a story your Grandparents would tell you. Personally, my own family have quite strong Welsh ties and I have on several occasions been told the age old story of "Your ancestors worked down the coal mines." and "Did you know that your Great Great Uncle died in a mining explosion?" stuff like that. Even if you disagree I would still love your perspective on this since I don't totally believe it myself it's just a thought is all.

[Varqm]

The ripper was big news.If she was from London,or even Wales and Ireland,the relatives would surely come out? Scot guard Johnto did not show up.Unless she was an orphan and made a story up.
She received letters so to speak but it did not come from Barnett's testimony.It is not known to whom the letters were addressed to.She may had friends from Wales or Ireland.
She may have been too proud to tell her real name.
Unless private what did your research show.

[Wickerman]

The situation only looks so mysterious because we have spent a couple of decades looking for a Mary Kelly. Some of us, I'm sure there's more than myself, are resigned to the strong probability the name Mary Kelly was false.
If we knew her real name she would likely have been found by now.

[GJWalker]

You do raise a good point with the relatives being no where to be seen at the time of her death this fact still puzzles me to this day. I always just assumed that as Mrs. Phoenix put it her parents had "discarded" her and so even if she had died and they very well knew about it they might just be that heartless. Alternatively, they could have had completely no idea since her she may have changed her name and her face was pretty mutilated almost too much to identify from a photo.

Of course as you have suggested she could have been an orphan and honestly I was getting my Hope's up with the large family thing since as you have stated "Johnto" never showed. It is entirely possible that she made the brother in the Scots guards thing up and I think that that is highly likely since nobody has ever found a man that fits the description.

On to your third point, the receiving letters is one of the reasons I thought that she could have been from London because no one ever remarked on the stamps and the supposed letters were never retrieved from her room (to my knowledge anyway) giving the impression that for all we know they could have never existed and it was a fault on the witness's behalf. Furthermore, she apparently seems to have friends everywhere including the mysterious acquaintance living in the Elephant and Castle district that Barnett told about and Maurice Lewis who had supposedly known her for longer then she'd actually been there. If there were any letters couldn't they have been from those acquaintances?

Additionally, I know that stating that her real name is Mary Jane Kelly should be taken with a pinch of salt and I don't entirely believe that it was. But what I was saying was her traveling all the way from Cardiff on her own, suddenly getting a job in the West end brothels even though they might have been discriminatory of her Irish or Welsh descent and then having so many connections to both people and places so quick doesn't at all seem likely. So if she were hypothetically to be born in London she would have had old friends to lean on for money as well as the new friends who had only known her by her changed name. And remember a few of the witnesses from 2 years previous were hesitant that that was the same woman maybe because they knew her by a different name perhaps?

In answer to your last question, my research was based upon more of the likelihood that this happened I'm not stating that it's a cold hard fact unless someone finds some evidence. It was also based upon as I've stated previously the number of people with her exact name and age and more importantly the very fact that unlike the more rural areas of Ireland and Wales, London is and always was extremely diverse and so it would have been rather easy to hide if all you did was change your name and make up a fake story.

[DJA]

[Parisi North Humber]

I think looking for a Mary Jane (Jeanette) Kelly born in Limerick that was married at 16 to a Welshman called Davis/Davies is too reliant on believing everything Barnett and her other acquaintances were told by her.

I think most things Mary Jane offered about her history (even down to her name) should be taken with a grain of salt. Too many things do not make sense especially regarding her relatives. One of the last things we hear about her supposed family is from John McCarthy who says that he sent MJK's belongings to her brother, for me this one statement poses so many questions. For instance:
1, Which brother?
2, If McCarthy knew of a relative's name and address why did the police have issues finding any relative?
3, Why would McCarthy know the name and address of one of MJK's relations when even Barnett or her friends did not?
4,. What items were parcelled up and sent by McCarthy? He is on record as stating that all that was in the room in Millers court belonged to him so what are we left with? Just her boots and some of her clothes that were folded on a chair.
5, Why were these items dealt with by McCarthy and not by the police or offered to her common law husband to deal with etc?
6. If McCarthy did in fact post MJK's clothing when did he get them and where from? Was he allowed to pick over the contents of the room or were they given to him by the police? Both scenarios seem strange as the said items had evidentiary value.

Did McCarthy invent this whole story, if so why?

I have so many questions sadly no answers.

Helen x

[DJA]

Where did you get that information from?

[Parisi North Humber]

Hi DJA, wat that question directed at me?

Helen x

[erobitha]

My theory and still joining the dots with evidence...

I have a candidate called Mary Thomas who at 17 was arrested in a brothel in Newport, Wales for theft. Her family were from Carmarthen and her father I believed worked in the tin plate mine there. At 16 James Davies died in an explosion at Risca, a few miles from Newport. The woman who signed James Davies' death certificate as his mother was 'Hannah Marie Thomas'. I do not believe that was his mother's name and I believe Mary Thomas convinced someone else to pretend they were his mother.

They were not married, but I do believe they eloped together and possible were engaged She probably felt she could not return home after his death and found her way to Newport. I believe she then travelled to Cardiff where she got into some trouble for lancery and was arrested. Her cousin Henry Thomas had already signed up to the Scots Guards by this stage. She then made her way to London - probably sometime around 1883 / 1884.

From this point on I believe she was in employ of the Maundrell Sisters at the French Gay House in Kensington. I think she was relieved of her duties because of her penchant for theft. From here her life escalated back down the food chain. Onto the Ratcliffe Highway and then Whitechapel. It is here she became involved with Barnett.

I believe McCarthy was a pimp (amongst many other things) and allowed women to stay in rooms alone if they worked off their rents. Mary Jane Kelly was not the only one staying on her own in a room in Miller's Court.

This the skeleton of my theory and I have a few documents to support certain elements, but it needs much more work.

She changed her name because she did not want her family finding her. There may have been a child involved along the way.

[Parisi North Humber]

If it was then just what I've read in casebook. That supposedly one of the McCarthy clan parceled up MJK's belongings and posted them to a relative of hers. If true it poses my above questions if it's not true (which I believe) then it just adds another layer of misinformation on an already questionable life story. Either way it adds to the difficulty of trying to find the real MJK on the scant and/or unreliable information handed to us. As I said, to me the parceled up belongings story doesn't make sense however it does highlight the difficulty in believing everything posited as a fact (or given known) surrounding her life and death.

Helen x

[Wickerman]

I think looking for a Mary Jane (Jeanette) Kelly born in Limerick that was married at 16 to a Welshman called Davis/Davies is too reliant on believing everything Barnett and her other acquaintances were told by her.

I think most things Mary Jane offered about her history (even down to her name) should be taken with a grain of salt...

That could be true, but how can you/we expect to find anyone if we throw the only evidence away we have?
We are obliged to accept something of what we are told.
Like, when she relates to her family members, that is very mundane, as opposed to the trip to France, which may be fanciful.
We can't hope to find the real 'Mary Kelly' if we throw her entire story out.

Too many things do not make sense especially regarding her relatives. One of the last things we hear about her supposed family is from John McCarthy who says that he sent MJK's belongings to her brother, for me this one statement poses so many questions. For instance:
1, Which brother?
2, If McCarthy knew of a relative's name and address why did the police have issues finding any relative?
3, Why would McCarthy know the name and address of one of MJK's relations when even Barnett or her friends did not?
4,. What items were parcelled up and sent by McCarthy? He is on record as stating that all that was in the room in Millers court belonged to him so what are we left with? Just her boots and some of her clothes that were folded on a chair.
5, Why were these items dealt with by McCarthy and not by the police or offered to her common law husband to deal with etc?
6. If McCarthy did in fact post MJK's clothing when did he get them and where from? Was he allowed to pick over the contents of the room or were they given to him by the police? Both scenarios seem strange as the said items had evidentiary value.

I've never heard that, and apparently Dave hasn't either.

Did McCarthy invent this whole story, if so why?

Someone must have?

I have so many questions sadly no answers.

Helen x

Here's something else you can ponder over.
If, as seems likely, the name Mary Kelly was not her real name, then if we look for a Mary Kelly, we will not find her dead, but in 1888/9 she will be found alive - right?
That only stands to reason, because it was not the real name of the victim.
So, seeing as how we have found several Mary Kelly's, all alive through that period, and because of that we have dismissed them, then we might have truly found the Mary Kelly that the victim was impersonating, we just didn't know it.

So, if the victim was impersonating a Mary Kelly, whom she knew well enough to know the names of her brothers & sisters, and some of their family history, then doesn't it stand to reason that the victim must have been a close friend or perhaps relative of the Mary Kelly that we found?

This line of reasoning is obviously a shot in the dark, but at present, what other choices are left?

[jmenges]

Fiona Kendall-Lane stated that her great-grandmother (McCarthy's wife) sent a parcel of Kelly's belongings to a brother serving in an Irish brigade in Ireland.

JM

[DJA]

She also purported to know the identity of Jack the Ripper.

[jmenges]

And I think she also said she had a photo of Mary Kelly.

JM

[DJA]

She did not hang around here for long when questioned.