Two Joe Barnetts?

[Prosector]

I have been doing some new research on Joe Barnett. Casebook and The Complete Jack the Ripper A o Z state that, after the events of 1888 he recovered his Billingsgate licence in 1906 and thereafter lived in various addresses in and around Red Lion Street, Shadwell before first his common law wife Louisa died and then he died in 1926. I have come across a previously unreported (or if it has been reported before I have not been aware of it) census form for 1911 which shows Joseph Barnett a porter (Billingsgate) living at 60 Red Lion Street. He appears to be the right age, born in the right place and is shown as having been married for 23 years although he appears to be living alone. If he was married 23 years before the census that would make it 1887 or 88 so, if this is the real Joe, he would have been married at the time of his association with MJK. The census shows that there were no children of the marriage born either alive or dead up to that time.

Other people have said that he was married to a woman called Louise or Louisa or that she was his 'common law wife' (no such thing in English law - simply living with a woman for however long does not make her your wife) but no-one has apparently found a marriage. In searching, I came across a marriage of Joseph Barnett to Louise Rowe in Hackney in 1887 and I have the certificate. However, his occupation is given as musician and his father as Michael Barnett, a coachman so it doesn't look like being him. Then, in the 1891 census there is a Joseph D Barnett living in Mile End with his wife Louisa but this one is a silk merchant. I think that other people have probably come across this couple who appear to have moved around a bit and mistaken them for the real Joe. There are quite a lot of other Barnetts that do not appear to be him living in the Whitechapel area in the years following MJK's death including one whose occupation appears to be fishmonger (although it is almost illegible in the census book) living with his wife called Annie in Keete Street Spitalfields in the 1881 census. Joe's elder brother Daniel described himself as a fishmonger in the 1871 census so this may also have been an accepted term for a fish porter that Joe might have used.

Assuming that the 1911 Joe Barnett is the correct one (and I am almost certain that it is) then it raises the intriguing possibility that he may have been married or living with another woman at the time of his dalliance with MJK. Was the fact that he found it difficult to give her any money because he was dividing what little he was earning between two households? However, I do not think that it makes him any more likely a suspect.

Prosector

[erobitha]

It's interesting, as I have been doing my own research into the area of 'common law' marriages of the Victorian period and the overwhelming evidence suggest that a man and woman living together would have been very rare without marriage coming into play along the line. Marriage was still seen as a sacrosanct reason for a man and woman to reside together, even amongst the poorer classes. "Living in sin" is a thoroughly modern concept, and one that certainly did not exist in the LVP. However, many did give the pretence of marriage. The reality is many may have presented themselves as being married, but simply did so for convenience purposes.

[Prosector]

I totally agree. It is very rare to find a household in the census with a man and a woman of similar ages and who are not related (eg brother and sister) who are not recorded as being married (even if possibly it was a fiction). Which makes me even more curious as to why the Joe Barnett in the 1911 census claimed to have been married for 23 years if he was not.

Prosector

[rjpalmer]

Hi Prosector

There is some interesting discussion about this Joseph Barnett at the link below. Louisa appears to have been in the workhouse on the night of the census:

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/ripper-discussions/suspects/barnett-joseph/2322-barnett-in-1911-census

[Debra A]

Hi Prosector

As RJ has just mentioned, a link to a marriage with a woman named Louisa was made because there was a woman is Saint George in the East Infirmary in 1911 named Louisa Barnett, a similar age to Joseph, she is also listed as married and would explain Joseph being married but no wife appearing on the census with him. Although people keep mentioning the Louise Rowe marriage, it was shown a few years ago that that particular marriage was not the correct one. There's more info on this thread here:

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/ripper-discussions/suspects/barnett-joseph/5566-barnett-in-1901

[Prosector]

Hi Debra and RJ - thank you for those replies and (yet again!) I find that I am re-exploring well-trodden ground. It does look likely that the 1911 Joe Barnett, who had been discovered well before I came across him, is the correct one and it looks perfectly reasonable that the Louisa in the workhouse is his wife. I am particularly struck by the fact that they both stated that they had been married 23 years and had no children which I think is more than a coincidence if they were not a couple. That being the case, it still looks as if Joe married in either late 1887 or the first half of 1888 which means that he may have been running two women at the time of his teaming up with MJK. No wonder he was hard up. However there are other possibilities and I was struck by one in the 1891 census born Whitechapel, occupation Traveller married to Julia and living at 50 Mile End Road. There is the Wheeling Register report of 19th November 1888 (quoted in the A to Z) of Joe living with a 'notorious Whitechapel character' who testified at the inquest. I think this is quite likely to be Julia Venturini (or Venturney as she has been called in the past) who, as we know, later moved into MJK's room in Miller's Court. Did Joe shack up with her on a longer term basis after that? If so, he wasn't the only one. Once again, please forgive me if I'm turning over old ground.

Two other small points about Joe. In the 1871 census he is described as a scholar (aged 13) which means he was still officially attending school. In the 1811 census I was especially struck by the handwriting of his signature (at a time when many people signed with a cross) and we know that he read the newspapers to MJK (although she was also well educated). Also, the Wheeling Register report suggests that he was very drunk at the time of the interview and he is described as a 'drunken brute' which doesn't completely accord with many other contemporary accounts of Joe Barnett.

Whichever way you look at it, I think that MJK was not Joe Barnett's only partner in the latter half of 1888 which does put a slightly different complexion on the whole thing although I still do not think that Joe murdered her or any of the other victims although it does put him slightly more in the frame.
Prosector

[rjpalmer]

As an aside, one point needs to be cleared up.

In many of these Joseph Barnett threads you will see reference to a newspaper report, first reprinted by Chris Scott, from the Wheeling Register claiming that Joe Barnett was drunk at the Kelly inquest...and...more relevant to the question at hand...soon hooked up with one of the female witnesses, evidently a denizen of Miller's Court. This is the woman that some researchers believe 'our' Barnett married.

But The Wheeling Register was just a small-town paper in far-off Ohio. They had no correspondent in London.

The real source for this story is The Sun (New York City), which did have a correspondent in London. The Sun's correspondent was also responsible for the story that one Whitechapel witness (often claimed to be George Hutchinson, but perhaps wrongly) was paid a substantial amount of money to follow a Police Inspector around the East End in search of the murderer. It also heavily implies that the witness was a liar who made up his account, and this is used to discredit George Hutchinson. (Personally, I think the story is more likely to have been a reference to Mathew Packer, but take it as you will). You can see a similarity between the two stories: the drunken and brutish schmucks of the East End are rogues who cannot be trusted.

Anyway, here's the point. This correspondent for The Sun was the young Arthur Brisbane, a few years out of college. He wrote what was, in effect, a gossip column from London, intended for American readers. Since he was writing in 1888-89, he made several gossipy statements about the Whitechapel Murders, and this is what was being reprinted in the Wheeling Register and a few other papers.

Arthur Brisbane, later returned to America and worked for William Randolph Hearst, among others. He's been called the "King of Yellow Journalism." One story claims that his sensation reporting even directly led to the Spanish American war.

A fairly recent book by David R. Spencer, The Yellow Journalism, has this to say about Brisbane.

"[Brisbane] had cut his teeth in [Charles] Dana’s London bureau, where he had the good fortune, for a journalist at least, of being present when Jack the Ripper was terrorizing Whitechapel. Brisbane devoted himself to the Ripper tale, often sending back reports so exaggerated and colorful that his New York editors found them to be stomach-turning. As Brisbane himself once noted, he knew that “murder, mayhem, and mystery” sold newspapers. When Pulitzer, his second major employer, complained that his precious journal was turning into a Victorian scandal sheet, Brisbane retaliated by trotting out the circulation figures and the increased advertising revenues."

In short, it might be worth taking some of these "Whitechapel" claims with a pinch of salt. Here's the original 'Barnett' blurb, from The Sun. Keep in mind that it is in the middle of a very long article, nearly three full columns, that goes on to discuss other matters, including politics, members of the aristocracy, etc. all in a similar gossipy vein.

[Prosector]

RJ When I was doing research for my book a few years ago I read pretty much every bit of journalism about the Ripper murders at the time and since and I was struck by how much better and more vivid that produced by the Americans was than by their British contemporaries. The New York Sun in particular unearthed much more background about MJK than most of the British papers. Although it was not written until 2 years later, the piece written by Katherine Watkins, a Canadian woman journalist which has featured on Casebook before was particularly good. She wrote that a woman called Lottie who had been a friend of MJK was living in the room where the blood stains were still visible. There has been Casebook speculation as to who this Lottie was. I believe that she was Charlotte Venturini, the younger of Julia Venturini (or Venturney)'s two daughters. In the 1871 census for Fulham, Julia gives her occupation as 'Professional.' Prostitution was not illegal at that time and many women openly gave that or 'prostitute' in the census (soliciting, living off immoral earnings or keeping a disorderly house were illegal but not prostitution itself). Charlotte died of severe TB in 1895 and the other daughter, Rosina, spent much of her life in the Dartford Asylum and died there of congenital syphilis in 1903. It is also possible that it might have been Lottie Owen who was married to Harry Owen a dock labourer as they both appear in the 1891 census for 26 Dorset Street but I think Lottie Venturini is more likely as her mother lived in the room opposite MJK and, for the same reason I think that Joe Barnett may well have ended up with Julia Venturini after MJK's death.
Prosector

[Debra A]

Hi Debra and RJ - thank you for those replies and (yet again!) I find that I am re-exploring well-trodden ground. It does look likely that the 1911 Joe Barnett, who had been discovered well before I came across him, is the correct one and it looks perfectly reasonable that the Louisa in the workhouse is his wife. I am particularly struck by the fact that they both stated that they had been married 23 years and had no children which I think is more than a coincidence if they were not a couple. That being the case, it still looks as if Joe married in either late 1887 or the first half of 1888 which means that he may have been running two women at the time of his teaming up with MJK. No wonder he was hard up. However there are other possibilities and I was struck by one in the 1891 census born Whitechapel, occupation Traveller married to Julia and living at 50 Mile End Road. There is the Wheeling Register report of 19th November 1888 (quoted in the A to Z) of Joe living with a 'notorious Whitechapel character' who testified at the inquest. I think this is quite likely to be Julia Venturini (or Venturney as she has been called in the past) who, as we know, later moved into MJK's room in Miller's Court. Did Joe shack up with her on a longer term basis after that? If so, he wasn't the only one. Once again, please forgive me if I'm turning over old ground.

Two other small points about Joe. In the 1871 census he is described as a scholar (aged 13) which means he was still officially attending school. In the 1811 census I was especially struck by the handwriting of his signature (at a time when many people signed with a cross) and we know that he read the newspapers to MJK (although she was also well educated). Also, the Wheeling Register report suggests that he was very drunk at the time of the interview and he is described as a 'drunken brute' which doesn't completely accord with many other contemporary accounts of Joe Barnett.

Whichever way you look at it, I think that MJK was not Joe Barnett's only partner in the latter half of 1888 which does put a slightly different complexion on the whole thing although I still do not think that Joe murdered her or any of the other victims although it does put him slightly more in the frame.
Prosector

I must admit to going down a similar route! With the Wheeling Resister 'gossip' in mind I did follow a Louisa Allbrook, born in Spitalfields with the idea that she may have been Lizzie Allbrook, friend of MJK but also fulfilling the wife Louisa role for Barnett.It didn't pan out but I feel what's the harm in that kind of research.