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

[sleekviper]

She might have been a victim of abuse that included repeated head trauma. Repeated brain injury individuals can develop dementia months or years after the trauma took place. If she showed signs of TB in 1889-ish, then the results of the trauma later in 1890, they may have been confused how the dementia came into play. In that situation the TB was not the cause of her death, it was the brain damage, but in 1890 they would assume the TB was the leading cause. Once the dementia started showing in 1890, her lifespan would be 8 to 10 years.

[Debra A]

Normally, I'd agree with you Debra - I'd say it was most unusual for someone to last eight years with that co-diagnosis. However, the death certificate does state 'cause of death phthisis Dementia'. If she was already suffering from some type of unspecified mental illness on admission, then contracted TB at a later date, I'd be surprised if the physicians of that period would necessarily feel that her symptoms were suddenly as a result of the disease. There may have been an acute change in her symptoms around the time she contracted TB, I suppose.

Thanks for your thoughts MsWeatherwax.
The death certificate lists the cause of death as Phthisis and the word dementia is written directly underneath and certified underneath that [meaning the death was certified of course] perhaps I was misleading in the way I wrote the cause of death down. I presumed they were two separate things when I looked at it.

[MsWeatherwax]

Normally, I'd agree with you Debra - I'd say it was most unusual for someone to last eight years with that co-diagnosis. However, the death certificate does state 'cause of death phthisis Dementia'. If she was already suffering from some type of unspecified mental illness on admission, then contracted TB at a later date, I'd be surprised if the physicians of that period would necessarily feel that her symptoms were suddenly as a result of the disease. There may have been an acute change in her symptoms around the time she contracted TB, I suppose.

[Debra A]

Debra, her cause of death looks like it was late stage consumption, and paranoia dementia. She probably was agitated, aggressive, angry, confused, and suffering hallucinations. At the same time she would have been coughing up blood with the infectious tuberculosis microbes. If she could understand the problem of spreading tuberculosis it would have been one thing, but it seems she couldn't, and that made her dangerous.

Thanks for the feedback, sleekviper. You may be right.
I was thinking along the lines that Alice entered the workhouse and was immediately committed and sent to the asylum where she at some point later contracted phthisis.
The Master's report in the Board of Guardians Minute Books note she was committed as a dangerous lunatic back in Aug 1890 and her death was recorded in April 1898.
That seems like a long interval of dementia caused by phthisis? How long would that kind of stage last generally?

[sleekviper]

Debra, her cause of death looks like it was late stage consumption, and paranoia dementia. She probably was agitated, aggressive, angry, confused, and suffering hallucinations. At the same time she would have been coughing up blood with the infectious tuberculosis microbes. If she could understand the problem of spreading tuberculosis it would have been one thing, but it seems she couldn't, and that made her dangerous.

[GUT]

Great work, as always Debra!

It's these little discoveries of people lost in history that make these sites so fascinating.

She amazes me over and over again.

[Paddy]

There is a Joseph Barnett in the 1888 electoral rolls not sure if it was him though
Cant seem to upload but he was living at 79 Plumbers Row.

Also I have often wondered if Joseph used his brother Dans name to work as a fish porter and got the sack as he was found out?

Another possibility is that he used the name Joseph Kelly sometimes (didn't John McCarthy call him this once? )

Pat......

[Debra A]

Great work, as always Debra!

It's these little discoveries of people lost in history that make these sites so fascinating.

Thanks, Dusty.

Alice's life turned out to have quite a tragic ending at a young age itself and I am still interested in why she ended up committed as a 'dangerous' lunatic by 1890.

[drstrange169]

Great work, as always Debra!

It's these little discoveries of people lost in history that make these sites so fascinating.

[Debra A]

Alice Carroll was a 16 year old witness in the Phoenix Park Murders in Dublin in 1882 and then disappeared from the records. It is believed she went into a "witness protection" program and relocated. Some say she was relocated to London and given the name Mary Jane Kelly.

http://fanning-wrighttree.blogspot.ca/2012/06/jack-ripper-fanning-connection.html

Mary Jane Wilson was a 27 year old mother of two in Liverpool in 1881. She had a mysterious son nicknamed Jack who was registered in Liverpool in October of 1887. Her maiden name was Kelly and she disappears from the records after 1887.

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=14196&page=3

These stories conflict with Joseph Barnett's statement but are these differences enough to rule out either of these women?

I think I may have finally discovered what happened to Alice Carroll after the last documented mention of her name in the Dublin newspapers in September 1887.

If my research is correct it puts an end to the speculation that Mary Jane Kelly who died in Miller's Court was a resettled Alice Carroll.

We know that Alice was born on the 28th April 1866 at 64 Eccles Lane in Dublin to Patrick Carroll and his wife Mary, nee White.

After looking at a fewl possible marriages for women named Alice Carroll in Dublin, I managed to find a marriage for an Alice Carroll in Dublin whose father was named Patrick:

1887
Marriages solemnized at Register Office City of Dublin
Entry 222
On 8th oct 1887
Groom -Frederick James Smith, full age, batchelor, corpral 4th Dragoons, residence Royal Barracks, father Robert Smith, worker
on stock exchange
Bride -Alice Mary Carroll, full age, spinster, living 28 Barrack St, father Patrick Carroll labourer.

Unfortunately the age of the Alice Carroll in this marriage was not given, although she was 21 or over as 'full age' means.
Alice Carroll of Phoenix Park fame would have turned 21 on 28th April 1887, so no dicrepancy so far.

The next record for who I believe is the same woman given her name, age and status as married to a soldier is from the Dublin workhouse records:

Alice Smith, 24, [b 1866] married wife of a soldier, Roman Catholic, resident ECity (?) Brown's Cottages, admitted 9th April 1890, discharged 13th Aug 90
to RL Asylum[ Richmond Lunatic asylum]

Dublin workhouse 1890, South Dublin Union
Workhouse number 4457
Description So Dublin Poor Law Union Admission + Discharge BG 79/G 69
Piece Workhouse admission and discharge records, v. G book 69 (24 December 1889, no. 2201) - v. G book 73 (22 November 1892, no. 4040)



There is also just one other workhouse entry for this same woman the following year in 1891:

Alice Smith, 25. married, no occupation, Roman Catholic, resident Richmond S Asylum, admitted 20 July 1891, died 4th April 1898
[b 1866]

So Dublin Poor Law Union Admission + Discharge BG 79/G 69
Piece Workhouse admission and discharge records, v. G book 69 (24 December 1889, no. 2201) - v. G book 73 (22 November 1892, no. 4040)

I was then able to locate the death certificate for Alice Smith in April 1898 aged 31:

South Dublin
Deaths Registered 1898
44 G April 3rd 1898 workhouse, Alice Smith from Richmond Lunatic Asylum, female, married, 31 years, cause of death pthisis
Dementia Certified. Registered 9th April 1898
The informant was an official who informed on all the deaths on that particular page.

The Oct 1887 marriage would explain why Alice appears to have 'disappeared' after Sept 1887 as some have suggested because her name no longer appeared in the newspapers as Alice Carroll.

[GUT]

According to Casebook MJK victim page April 8 1887. Being Good Friday and April 8 1887 was indeed Good Friday. So I have to accept that date.

[Wickerman]

... and Joe and Mary were together, [according to Joe] From Easter, April '87...

Are you sure that wasn't April '88?

[GUT]

Maybe Joe was married but sowing his wild oats with Mary?

But this Joe married in '87 ( can't read the date) and Joe and Mary were together, [according to Joe] From Easter, April '87, so it seems unlikely that it was this Joe in any event.

In fact I would doubt any Joe who married in 1887.

[Brenda]

.

Maybe Joe was married but sowing his wild oats with Mary?

[Sally]

Louisa Rowe

Craig -

Thanks for posting the marriage certificate.

This Louisa Rowe was born in Hackney at some point between 1865 and 67 (there are a couple of possible candidates in the bmd). Her father was John Rowe, her mother Alice Rowe. She had younger siblings called Emma and Franklin. In the 1871 census, the family was living at 58, Slingsby Cottages, Hackney. Her father John is listed simply as a ‘Writer’.
In the 1881 census, John is living with his family, minus Louisa, at 15, Morning Lane, Hackney. He is listed as a Sign Writer; as he is in the 1901 census, by which time he was living in Camberwell with his wife Alice.

An entry for a Louisa Rowe, a 15 year old domestic servant living at 76, Powerscroft Road, Hackney in the 1881 census may be the same Louisa Rowe as above.

There is an entry in the 1891 census for a Louisa Barnett, born in Hackney* in 1867 and married to a Joseph Barnett, born 1859 in Waterford, Ireland – then working as an asylum attendant in Prestwich, Lancashire. It is possible that these Barnetts are the same individuals listed on the 1887 marriage certificate. Their ages in 1891, and Louisa’s place of birth are compatible with the details on the marriage certificate, and from what can be determined for her census records.


If this Joseph Barnett originate in Ireland, there is no guarantee that he had lived in England for very long in 1887 - he could have migrated at any point - and there is no guarantee that he brought any other family members with him.

Further digging might reveal more information - but at any rate, thie Louisa can be accounted for in the record and there is no indication at all that she was the same Louisa Barnett married to Kelly's Joe.

* The transcription cites her birthplace as ‘Hackney, Lancashire’ but of course this is an error. The actual census return cites her birthplace as ‘London Hackney’.