Alice Carroll, Mary Wilson, and Joe Barnett's Statement

[Sally]

Hi MayBea,

I don't see what the issue is.

I think it's fairly certain that the Barnett who appears as 'married' to Louisa for 23 years in the 1911 census is 'our' Barnett. 23 years puts the start of their relationship in 1888, if we accept that as a true reckoning.

Do their individual claims to be married mean that they were actually officially married? Of course not. Many people who were not officially married stated that they were in the census return. It's a matter of respectability as much as anything. What it doesn't do is confirm that their was ever an official marriage - so we may be wasting our time in looking for one.

I don't know where the identification with Louisa Rowe came from in the first place - I note that a couple of family trees on Ancestry cite her as the wife of 'our' Barnett; however, I don't recall ever seeing any supporting documentation, and it may well amount to a guess based on the only recorded marriage a Joseph Barnett to a Louisa at roughly the right time being that of Joseph Barnett to Louisa Rowe.

When Chris said that the details on the marriage certificate didn't match; he'd have compared the known details regarding Barnett's life that would've been recorded on the marriage certificate; like age, occupation and father's name and occupation. If these details don't match, it isn't the right man.

As mentioned earlier, there is another Joseph an Louisa Barnett who I think I concluded a few years ago were the people married in 1887. As I can no longer find my notes from the time, I can't tell you exactly how I came to that conclusion, so I'll either have to try to retrace my steps or order the marriage certificate myself. The latter might prove easier.

I hope that helps to clarify things.

[MayBea]

Did you read every post of that thread carefully?
Chris says he ordered the certificate and the details do not match to be Joseph and Louisa Rowe first off.

I've read it carefully again and, to me, Chris is saying he still believes that the Joseph who married Louisa could well be the right Joseph and his Kent Joseph is probably wrong.

So I don't see how a Joseph Barnett and Louise Rowe marriage can't be our Joseph Barnett and Louisa Rowe because "the details don't match".

If he's not Joseph of Kent, then we don't know the father or the father's profession. Is Joe's age or job description that far off?

Louise versus Louisa is not that far off. How do we know the only other detail, that doesn't match, is not the date of the marriage which contradicts Joe's statement about his life with Mary?

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=10339&page=4

[Debra A]

Hi Debra



Yes, I couldn't find my notes on this marriage but from memory I think I decided that this Louisa Barnett nee Rowe may have been the one married to the Joseph Barnett, Asylum Attendant from Waterford. They appear in the 1891 census living in Prestwich, Lancashire. This Louisa is from Hackney, which is where the 1887 marriage took place. I haven't seen the marriage certificate, so I can't be certain for the moment.




Well, she is possibly the woman recorded as 'Emily' Barnett on the 1901 Census living on Gravel Lane - you probably remember that I posted on this possibility a few years A Joseph and a Louisa Barnett both appear on several occasions in the Raine Street Infirmary registers from about 1897 onwards - the age is right for both of them (for Louisa compared to the 1911 census). As it does appear that they were living in the immediate vicinity some years prior, we have to account for them in the 1901 census.

The Joseph and 'Emily' Barnett living on Gravel Lane is the only possibility that I'm aware of. Sure, Barnett's age is wrong and so is Louisa's name. On the other hand, the address is nothing more than a stone's throw from where we know Barnett lived out the remainder of his life. The errors could be down to a lax enumerator - not impossible, as anybody who's spent any serious time with pre-1911 census material will know. Age errors are common enough, aren't they? I often think that people didn't always remember how old they were. Names are equally slippery - a lot of people were known by more than one name.

Whatever the case, we have both Barnetts evidenced in the immediate area before 1901; and a Joseph Barnett in the immediate area in 1901. I haven't been able to find any trace of this Joseph and 'Emily' elsewhere, assuming that they are not in fact Joseph and Louisa.

Hi Sally
Thanks for the recap. Yes, I do remember all the interesting Infirmary information you found and posted. I believe I commented at he time that I thought it was a plausible identification-the details other than the 1911 census stuff (which was the starting point of the whole Barnett/Louisa thing) slipped my mind-even though it was me who originally pointed Chris to your Infirmary research.
I was trying to reconcile my mentioning the Clerkenwell barmaid to Chris with his later mentions of Agnes Louisa Rowe. That particular woman was still single in 1891 and 1901. I think Chris actually forgot he had ordered the certificate and seen the marriage was not the correct one and then posted about Agnes Louisa Rowe trying to make sense of the 1887 index entry again some time later.

[Sally]

Hi Debra

Chris says he ordered the certificate and the details do not match to be Joseph and Louisa Rowe first off.

Yes, I couldn't find my notes on this marriage but from memory I think I decided that this Louisa Barnett nee Rowe may have been the one married to the Joseph Barnett, Asylum Attendant from Waterford. They appear in the 1891 census living in Prestwich, Lancashire. This Louisa is from Hackney, which is where the 1887 marriage took place. I haven't seen the marriage certificate, so I can't be certain for the moment.

It's a puzzle - as far as I remember no one has yet found Louis Barnett b 1856 according to the 1911 census on the 1891 and 1901 census-Could they have split up and she used her maiden name in 1891 and 1901?

[/QUOTE]

Well, she is possibly the woman recorded as 'Emily' Barnett on the 1901 Census living on Gravel Lane - you probably remember that I posted on this possibility a few years A Joseph and a Louisa Barnett both appear on several occasions in the Raine Street Infirmary registers from about 1897 onwards - the age is right for both of them (for Louisa compared to the 1911 census). As it does appear that they were living in the immediate vicinity some years prior, we have to account for them in the 1901 census.

The Joseph and 'Emily' Barnett living on Gravel Lane is the only possibility that I'm aware of. Sure, Barnett's age is wrong and so is Louisa's name. On the other hand, the address is nothing more than a stone's throw from where we know Barnett lived out the remainder of his life. The errors could be down to a lax enumerator - not impossible, as anybody who's spent any serious time with pre-1911 census material will know. Age errors are common enough, aren't they? I often think that people didn't always remember how old they were. Names are equally slippery - a lot of people were known by more than one name.

Whatever the case, we have both Barnetts evidenced in the immediate area before 1901; and a Joseph Barnett in the immediate area in 1901. I haven't been able to find any trace of this Joseph and 'Emily' elsewhere, assuming that they are not in fact Joseph and Louisa.

[Debra A]

Did you read every post of that thread carefully?
Chris says he ordered the certificate and the details do not match to be Joseph and Louisa Rowe first off.

What piques my interest is this - there is no indication whatever that Joe and this Louisa, whoever she was, ever actually married. There was a marriage late in 1887 in Hackney between a Joseph Barnett and a Louise Rowe, but this is not them. For a start the wife's name is Louise and not Louisa but apart from that I got the certificate and the details simply do not match.

Also, and I only mention this to clarify things more-The details of Agnes Louisa Rowe Chris posted about at the end of the thread are in fact the details of the Clerkenwell barmaid I posted asking about in post #14 but Chris obviously didn't see or reply about at the time. I also note in post #18-the Louisa Rowe, barmaid I highlighted in #14 was still Louisa Rowe, single, b Clerkenwell in in 1891 (and 1901 too.)

Unfortunately Chris never revealed the exact details from the certificate that made him conclude it wasn't the right marriage.

It's a puzzle - as far as I remember no one has yet found Louis Barnett b 1856 according to the 1911 census on the 1891 and 1901 census-Could they have split up and she used her maiden name in 1891 and 1901?

[MayBea]

Oh! In his last post on the jtrforums thread, Chris Scott said that Joe Barnett, the one IDed in 1911, was indeed married to an Agnes Louisa Rowe.

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=10339&page=4

So we can no longer assume that the Joseph Barnett/Louise Rowe marriage in 1887 is a coincidence. It's them!

That post was last year. Unfortunately, Chris is not with us anymore.

Can anyone elaborate further in his stead? Any proof that we have the wrong Joe Barnett?

[MayBea]

From what I've read on the Ripper boards, Joe Barnett, I.D.ed in the 1911 census, claimed to have been married to a Louisa for 23 years. A Louisa/Agnes Louisa, in the workhouse, also says she was married for 23 years. That would put us in 1887.

There just happens to be a marriage in the Marriage Index for 1887 that matches between a Joseph Barnett and a Louise Rowe, but this can't be them, because the information on the certificate doesn't match, details unknown. Joe and Louisa didn't actually get officially married.

Have I got this right? We are assuming this is a coincidence even though there is only one other Joseph Barnett/Louisa/Louise marriage, I can find, in the Index in over a hundred years in London.

[Debra A]

Thanks, Sally.

[Sally]

It's been a while since I looked at this, but I seem to think that this isn't 'our' Barnett - I may be wrong. I probably have some notes somewhere from when I was looking for Barnett before 1906.

I know that the identification appears on an Ancestry family tree (one, at least) but there appears to be no supporting documentation - unless it has actually been demonstrated that the marriage in 1887 between Joseph Barnett and Louise/a Rowe was that of the Joseph Barnett we're after, I don't think it's safe to assume.

The simple way to find out for sure would be to get hold of the marriage certificate, easy enough to do.

[MayBea]

Maybe Debra can answer this:

What's the latest on the "Joe Barnett" and Louisa Rowe marriage in the third quarter of 1887? Is this our Joe Barnett?

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=10339

Third quarter would be July, August, September, and September is when Mary Jane Wilson gave birth.

[MayBea]

Mary Wilson's son, William John, was 5 foot 6, according to his army records.

The most reliable description of Mary Kelly is that she was 5 foot 7, big and stout.

Ex-Inspector George West, formerly of Birkenhead, sent a tip to London about a Mary Jane Kelly in Birkenhead whose mother was "big and stout". I take it he only knew the mother.

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=7913&page=4

Whether or not Birkenhead Mary Kelly and Mary Wilson are the same person, I don't even think this Mary Kelly can be eliminated just because this ID was based on a newspaper report that the real Mary Kelly was begging with a child in London and living with her mother, which is essentially incorrect.

[markmorey5]

Inspector Dew I think it was described Mary Kelly as being blonde but her nickname was ginger which points us to red, but I think she may have have been strawberry blonde like Nicole Kidman whose hair colour varies according to the degree of light. Red-heads usually have unusually fair skin which can freckle in the sun, but given Britain doesn't have much sun then it usually stays clear and fair.

Kelly's other nicknames were Fair Emma which is about her complexion, and Black Mary on account of her behaviour when drunk.

While double-checking Kelly's description because sometimes these things can take on a life of their own, such as the folded clothes becoming folded neatly, I came across an interesting possible anomaly in regards to Kelly's murder. I don't know how true this is but the Ripper mutilated his victims from their left so her turned their heads to the right except one, who he placed things to her right so her head was turned to the left. So this may mean that he didn't want them to be 'seeing' him. But Mary Kelly was mutilated from her left and her head was turned to the left and she would have 'seen' her murderer leave the room.

There are a few anomalies with Kelly's murder and this may be another.

[Debra A]

The soft-copy newspaper reports of the time have Maurice Lewis mixing up 'Dan' with Mary Kelly's partner who was formerly Joe Barnett, and we have to assume that 'Dan' was Joe's brother Daniel. We also know that Maurice Lewis gave different accounts of seeing Mary Kelly on the 9th to different newspapers. So on that basis it may be that Maurice Lewis was seeking his five minutes of fame. As far as seeing Mary Kelly drinking with 'Dan', he may have been relaying information relayed to him in order to seek his fame. If so then he wasn't the only one, such as the grape seller whose story was embellished many times.

Lewis's description of Kelly is at odds with a number of others including Prater and Pheonix, both of whom we do know knew Mary Kelly.

He may have been mistaking MJK for Julia.
I don't recall Prater or Mrs Phoenix describing a specific hair colour?

[markmorey5]

Yes-we all know all this. I was talking about Maurice Lewis's specific mention that he saw MJK the night before her death, drinking with Dan Barnett and Julia. Joseph Barnett himself confirmed this was correct-that MJK had been drinking with his brother.

The soft-copy newspaper reports of the time have Maurice Lewis mixing up 'Dan' with Mary Kelly's partner who was formerly Joe Barnett, and we have to assume that 'Dan' was Joe's brother Daniel. We also know that Maurice Lewis gave different accounts of seeing Mary Kelly on the 9th to different newspapers. So on that basis it may be that Maurice Lewis was seeking his five minutes of fame. As far as seeing Mary Kelly drinking with 'Dan', he may have been relaying information relayed to him in order to seek his fame. If so then he wasn't the only one, such as the grape seller whose story was embellished many times.

Lewis's description of Kelly is at odds with a number of others including Prater and Pheonix, both of whom we do know knew Mary Kelly.

[Debra A]

Thanks, Brenda. I thought so too.

There is a Police News sketch of Mary with a cleft chin, and I think there might be a cleft in the crime scene photo.

Debra's reconstruction of Mary's face seems to have a cleft or dimple on a rounded chin.

That's a blast from he past!-the picture should be landscape, I meant her to be laying on the left cheek. It was more to show positioning of her head as I saw it in relation to her hairline and nothing to do with actual features of her face-which were obliterated. Making assumptions about the size of MJK's chin would be a mistake IMHO-all we see in that photograph apart from the hairline and postition of her ear is a mangled mass of flesh, especially around the area where there would have been chin definition.