MJK1 and MJK3

[Simon Wood]

Hi Monty,

What was I doing in 1988?



Regards,

Simon

[Monty]

I know Simon, David Anderson has already told me.

The original cabal.

Monty


PS Nice photo.

[Bridewell]

The fact that I do not understand MJK3, and do not believe that it is genuine, is based partly on what my eyes tell me and it's obvious lack of provenance.

Amanda, what sort of provenance were you expecting? A daily reference in police bulletins? A continuous chain of evidence? Whilst this kind of artefact is fascinating to those of us who have an interest in the field, it ceased long ago to have any relevance to an ongoing police investigation. The one thing that everyone agrees on, even on this forum, is that the person or persons responsible for these murders is/are long dead.

We only have the item referred to as MJK1 because one of the great authorities in the field, Donald Rumbelow, recognised its significance and was able to prevent its destruction. Had he not done so, the photograph now called MJK3 would have been the only surviving photographic record and there would have been nothing with which to compare it. As has already been pointed out, this is not a modern-day crime scene photograph; items were almost certainly moved and it is quite likely that, in order to ascertain time of death via the progress of rigor mortis, an attempt had been made to move the limbs. If MJK3 is a problem for you because it has no provenance prior to around 1977, why do you not have similar concerns about MJK1 whose provenance, if measured by the same yardstick, is only around 15 years better? Several negatives are alluded to as having been taken; these two survive. I see no reason to doubt the authenticity of one because things look slightly different from a different camera angle in the other. Wouldn't that be one of the reasons for taking another photograph?

[Lechmere]

Sorry Bridewell the MJK1 picture was published in a French book in the 1890s.

[Observer]

Wasn't that the Eddowes photograph?

[Cogidubnus]

Yes, in a relatively obscure book, but then lost from sight for how many years?

If someone, somewhere hadn't made the connection, there'd be no provenance for this shot either...in fact, as officially, the MJK picture wasn't released to the French publishers at all, how would we have known?

[Lechmere]

That's totally irrelevant. The MJK1 photo has excellent provenance.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Phil. Isn't the Sept. 17th letter proved a fake by it's own contents and timeline? It's been some years since I thought about it, but that's what I recall concluding.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Amanda Sumner]

Hi Amanda,

Just a little pointer re your initial post.




That is incorrect. The Met police did not take photographs at the Kelly scene, their photographic Department did not exist until 1901. They actually hired private, trusted photographers to take the photos.

Can I ask? Have you read The first Jack the Ripper victim photographs by Rob McLaughlin? It covers a lot on the photos you cite.

I trust you do not doubt the provenance of the external shot of Millers Court, yes? As that image is clearly referred to by Bagster Phillips at Kellys inquest. So we know a photographer was present, at some stage, in and around Miller Court. The description of the broken pane, and the fact it is visible in the shot, along with the boarded up window photo, leads to one logical conclusion.

We also know that photographing the SOC was developing, Bertillon was experimenting with it in France, and both the Met and City police were in close liaison with the French police on such methods.

As far as I'm aware, the matter of the other photographs has not been raised during this discussion on here. MJK2 arrived with other photographs, yes? The mourtuary shots of Nichols, Chapman and Stride were also in that mysterious envelope. So with that in mind, where do you stand on those photos?

Genuine or fake?

Bearing in mind the photo of Chapman in life, as revealed by Neal Shelden, the provenance of which is imppeccable, as it was provided by Chapmans family.

I don't think even Simon would dare to question that.

Monty

Hello Monty,
I think you are being persnickety about who took the original photos. Whether the police had their own camera man or hired a photographer is neither here nor there. The point I was making was that they were not allowing any reporters in, so the only photos taken that day were in control of the police.

No, I have not read Rob Mclaughlin's book. I will put it on my "To Read" list.

As far as the outside shot of the dwelling in Miller's court, yes I'm happy with that. There were many drawings published of the place for the photograph to be recognisable for what it was.
I am aware of the photographs of the other victims, and MJK2, and how they came about and I am happy to leave it to others to determine that they are the real thing. I, personally have no issue with them. MJK2 seems to be a cleaned up version of MJK1, but it is, clearly, the same photograph.

My issue with MJK3 is altogether different.
I find it odd that I cannot relate to any part of the photograph that makes sense. Nothing is consistent with MJK1, in my opinion, but as I've been through all these issues before, there seems little point going over them again. The added fact that it's provenance is dubious, and nonexistent for over 70 years, does support my theory that the photograph is not MJK.
I believe I am right.
There is nothing anatomically recognisable in the photograph except the hand, and even that has it's problems.

Debra commented in her post, earlier, does any of this matter? It does not add or take away the fact that a young woman was butchered to pieces. She certainly has a point.
Does it really matter whether MJK3 is genuine or fake? Does it matter if we don't know anything about it beyond the 1970's? Does it matter that Macnaghton only ever spoke of one picture taken of Mary on her bed? Does it matter if the strictures of provenance can be stretched or ignored? Does it matter that some people doubt the authenticity of this photograph?
If the answers to these questions are all " no", then I don't know what Ripperology is about. Neither do I understand why, if none of these things matter, the diary has not been held up as the solution to the case and everyone accepts Maybrick did it.

[Observer]

I am now 100 per cent certain that this is a wind up.

[jmenges]

I'm copying over some of what my friend Robert McLaughlin said back in 2008 about the existence of photographic albums (maybe similar to the album pages that turned up in 1988) containing many more photos.

Prior to 1967, Mary Kelly's photo of November 9th had been published on at least three occasions in France. Don Rumbelow found a print of her that year. In 1988 , a second print was returned to Scotland Yard along with the second angle of MJK taken from behind the bed, across her body. The same package also gave us photographs, for the first time, of Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, and Elizabeth Stride, whose faces were only known to us through illustrations. Later Neal Stubbings Shelden would find a picture of Annie Chapman in life with her husband John around the time of their marriage in 1869.

When Rumbelow found the photo of Kelly, the four of Eddowes, and the exterior shot of Millers Court, he was told there was a more complete album of photographs. This has never been located.

Stewart Evans (in 1993 I believe it was) purchased a collection of material belonging to journalist G.R. Sims though dealer Eric Barton. Barton told Evans that a photographic album belonging to Sims was in the collection he originally purchased from Sotheby's in the 1960s. Eric Barton died before he could locate the album for Stewart.

Other sources, including Walter Dew, have said that more pictures were taken of Mary Kelly in Millers Court and even at Shoreditch mortuary. Common sense tells us this as well. It is quite possible they exist somewhere given the photographic finds and recoveries over the last four decades. There is a good chance that Mary Kelly was photographed - as all of the other victims were - after the autopsy, and stitched up, body and face.

There is every reason to believe there are more photographs of Kelly out there - and of the other victims - if we only keep looking.

I think it is foolish to make statements such as "I believe I am right" regarding MJK3 when an entire album, or pieces of another album could very well turn up and have in it the same image. But if we are fortunate for that to occur, I suppose it still will not convince the very few who question it's authenticity.

JM

[Disco Stu]

Any chance you can ask your friend about doing a re-print of his book...

[Cogidubnus]

I'm copying over some of what my friend Robert McLaughlin said back in 2008 about the existence of photographic albums (maybe similar to the album pages that turned up in 1988) containing many more photos.

Whilst I perhaps lack a degree of sympathy for certain posters, I do have to admit that to a certain extent I am personally acting purely out of faith, Robert McLaughlin's book being, in practise, completely unavailable...not just at a price...but simply not there...

All the best

Dave

[Cogidubnus]

Any chance you can ask your friend about doing a re-print of his book...

Ditto

Dave

[Amanda Sumner]

Amanda, what sort of provenance were you expecting? A daily reference in police bulletins? A continuous chain of evidence? Whilst this kind of artefact is fascinating to those of us who have an interest in the field, it ceased long ago to have any relevance to an ongoing police investigation. The one thing that everyone agrees on, even on this forum, is that the person or persons responsible for these murders is/are long dead.

We only have the item referred to as MJK1 because one of the great authorities in the field, Donald Rumbelow, recognised its significance and was able to prevent its destruction. Had he not done so, the photograph now called MJK3 would have been the only surviving photographic record and there would have been nothing with which to compare it. As has already been pointed out, this is not a modern-day crime scene photograph; items were almost certainly moved and it is quite likely that, in order to ascertain time of death via the progress of rigor mortis, an attempt had been made to move the limbs. If MJK3 is a problem for you because it has no provenance prior to around 1977, why do you not have similar concerns about MJK1 whose provenance, if measured by the same yardstick, is only around 15 years better? Several negatives are alluded to as having been taken; these two survive. I see no reason to doubt the authenticity of one because things look slightly different from a different camera angle in the other. Wouldn't that be one of the reasons for taking another photograph?

Hello Bridewell,

No, I was not expecting that kind of provenance but at least a record of it being taken, where it has been all these years and a mention, somewhere, that it had gone missing. We do not, it seems, even know where Millen had got this photograph and one would have thought that his family would have known something more about it, if it was them who sent it, with others, to Scotland yard.
You do not know, and cannot possibly know that an attempt was made to move limbs. It would have been virtually impossible to have done so without breaking joints, if Mary had been dead for a good twelve hours by the mid afternoon. Touching the body and noting discolouring and body temperature would have been sufficient to have given an estimated time of death.
I agree that it was not a crime scene by today's standards, and things were touched and moved around, I'm sure, but taking a photograph of Mary as she lay there, one would expect to have seen her in the same position on the other side.
I'm afraid I do know my anatomy and I can not recognise anything on that picture that is human, except the hand.
Neither do I find one single consistency between the two photographs.

As far as MJK1 goes, by the time, that photograph went missing, other copies had been made, I believe. Even before it was found, it's existence had been known. Unlike MJK3, that no one knew existed until 1988.

Regards,

Amanda