If Schwartz Lied ...

[GBinOz]

Unless we have a study on clock discrepancies in the Victorian era to guide us that range of error will be a personal choice.
- Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Second post may be of interest.
https://www.jtrforums.com/forum/the-...ime#post120389

"Without being able to go back with his barrow, and view things ourselves, we also can't be sure if the angle from which he viewed the clock influenced the apparent position of the hands."

Interesting. The original building still stands. If I lived in or near London I would go on site and try to recreate the event. Any volunteers?

Cheers, George

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Dr. Blackwell states he used his watch to note the time of his arrival, so I'm comparing it to his testimony.

I asked what you're comparing Blackwell's time to. Are you comparing Blackwell to Blackwell?

I chose 1 because that's a disputed time, and there are those who argue the searches must have been much sooner, and others who argue they could have started a few minutes later. So, I started at one (which, if you note, would mean Deimshutz's 1 would have to be wrong in the strictest interpretation). And, in the last construction, I didn't actually start at 1, I started at 1:16 and worked backwards from there, and we got to the same thing, searches starting around 1.

I see George has done some sort of recreation of the "pony shy", and came up with about 1m 50 seconds for Deimshutz's actions. Give him a few more seconds to run in side and get a few people, and start the searches, and a discovery time of 12:57-58 seems about right. 2-3 minutes is easily explained by different clocks, so there's nothing implausible about Diemshutz's arrival time, or any of the other testimonies I've mentioned.

1am is the disputed time of arrival, not the beginning of the search. Once this difference is accounted for, Lamb arrives too late for Eagle to reach Leman street by 1:10.

An estimated time of 6 minutes means you have to consider times as short as 2 minutes 2 seconds (let's just call it 2 minutes) and out to past 17! Duration estimations can be way out. In what we worked about above, I think we're in the 2-3 minute range, which is within the expected margin of error. So, there's no problem to address.

So if we use a number at one end of that range, there is no problem to address.

Blackwell's watch is the standard being used here; it can't be ahead of itself. All other clocks can be faster or slower than Blackwell's, but Blackwell's clock is the standard by which all the times I'm talking about are compared.

If 1am is the disputed to time, and we have a PC stating he is at the top of the street at the same time, then it seems fairly sensible to use that time as the standard, rather than a watch being viewed a quarter of an hour later. There is no reason to suppose that Smith's knowledge of the time is less accurate than Blackwell's pocket watch.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Herlock,

I’ll ask everyone this.

Accepting that nothing is certain, fixed or set-in-stone, would you accept this proposition?:

Of all of the various times mentioned by the various Berner Street witnesses the likeliest to have been correct would have been Dr Blackwell’s. I would also include in this point that as a professional man he would have been likely to have attempted to have kept his watch as accurate as possible?

A secondary one would be:

Apart from accusations of dishonesty (completely unfounded imo) would you agree that a man who saw a clock and appeared confident of his ability to tell the time from it would be more likely to have been correct than other witnesses who were estimating based on their last (unrecorded) sighting of a clock?

I see it may be a while before you get this, but nonetheless, I would generally agree that Dr. Blackwell's time is perhaps the best one to use as our standard reference. I say standard reference rather than "correct" to avoid implying that somehow his watch is correct in the absolute sense (i.e. bang on GMT). However, his time of 1:16 was taken for the express purpose of recording the time of his arrival at the scene, and it was based upon him viewing his clock. His assistant, Johnson, also testified that Blackwell arrived at 1:16, which to me implies Johnson probably was asked to record the time as Blackwell read it off his watch and prepared to get to work.

The only other person that I can think of that states they used a clock was Deimshutz. However, his use of the clock was just to inform him with regards to what time it was as he was coming home after work. His purpose, therefore, requires a less precise noting of the time, and it is common for people to read analogue clocks to the nearest 5 minute mark (so things like 12:58-1:02 tend to all get noted as "about 1 o'clock"). When Deimshutz had to recall the time of his arrival, he's going to recall what he noted, not the actual positions of the hands as he saw them at the time. As such, despite his confidence, I think we can only be confident that he saw the clock reading somewhere between 12:58 and 1:02. Without being able to go back with his barrow, and view things ourselves, we also can't be sure if the angle from which he viewed the clock influenced the apparent position of the hands.

None of the other stated times include a statement about referencing a clock specifically. Spooner at some point I think references leaving a pub when it closed. We've taken that to mean 12:00. While the pubs may be required to close at 12:00, I'm not sure if that meant everyone out at 12:00 or last orders at 12:00. If last orders were to be served by 12:00, then Spooner could very well have left 10-15 minutes (or more) after 12:00. When he's recreating his time estimates, if he benchmarked to 12:00 because he knows that when the pubs closed, and didn't factor in finishing their last drinks, etc, he could very well be off in his subsequent calculations.

While we can be pretty sure that the police PCs would have a clock at some point in their beats which they used to ensure they were patrolling at regulation speed, and to update themselves with regards to the time (particularly around closing time, when there would be the expectation for increased trouble I'm sure), none of them have stated where that clock was, or how often they checked it (every round would be my guess, but a PC familiar with their route might not check every round, particularly if nothing much was going on).

So, in my view, the most reliable statement of time, with regards to it being what the clock actually read, and where the person was when they read it, is Dr. Blackwell's watch. All other times, even those based upon clocks, will likely differ by some margin of error from BST (Blackwell Standard Time). If we use BST to reconstruct the "time" of the events, then we can compare a witnesses stated time, or their estimation of an interval, to BST. If a stated time falls within a range considered acceptable due to "clock sync error" (and I think +-10 minutes would be fair, though some may be more conservative and prefer a +-5 range of error; that's a personal choice. Unless we have a study on clock discrepancies in the Victorian era to guide us that range of error will be a personal choice. I would advise making a choice before examining things, though, as otherwise one will tend to make a personal choice that best suits their theory rather than choose a theory guided by their belief in clock-sync errors).

If we can work backwards from Dr. Blackwell's arrival time, working out "travel times" based upon distances people moved and average speeds (walking is about 3.2 mph, a PC on the beat is around 2.5 mph, and someone running is 6.1 mph; pony and cart is around 4mph I believe). That allows us to estimate people's arrival and departure times but of course there will be an error range for those estimates as well. With those arrival and departure times estimated, we can also look at any statements people made about durations (i.e. X arrived Y minutes after Z). If we've been able to estimate, in BST, X's and Z's arrival times, then we can compare the estimated interval (Y) with our reconstruction's interval. Knowing that interval estimations tend to overestimate the duration of shorter intervals, and are highly variable, we can use the Table I posted, which draws in information from a study that was examining the reliability of eye witness type estimations of event durations and was the most related to the types of things we're doing that I could find. If the reconstructed interval falls within the range associated with the stated estimate Y, then our reconstruction would be viewed as consistent with the testimony.

As we work further and further backwards in time though, we drift further and further from our reliable benchmarked time, and we introduce error with each and every estimation. At some point, those errors will have compounded enough that we reach the limit of how far back we can get. I'm not sure where that point will be, but I'm hoping we can work a bit further back than Deimshutz's arrival (which, in BST, looks to be around 12:58; a trivial difference of 2 minutes from his stated 1 o'clock, absorbed even by a conservative +-5 minute clock desync criterion).

We've got FrankO's very nice presentation of the time line in terms of the likely sequence of events. We've got Dr. Blackwell's precise recording of his point of arrival at the scene, and we've got some information about the ranges of errors associated with people's estimation of temporal durations. I'm hopeful that a reasonable reconstruction can be created. It won't be "the truth", but we can never know that, but I think it will be one that fits the vast majority of the statements (meaning within acceptable ranges of error). We have enough witnesses and sources of information that themselves conflict that we should expect some of the statements not to fit, but there shouldn't be too many of them if our reconstruction is sufficiently accurate to be a good description.

- Jeff

[Scott Nelson]

Blackwell -- yes.

Man who saw clock -- yes.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I’ll ask everyone this.

Accepting that nothing is certain, fixed or set-in-stone, would you accept this proposition?:

Of all of the various times mentioned by the various Berner Street witnesses the likeliest to have been correct would have been Dr Blackwell’s. I would also include in this point that as a professional man he would have been likely to have attempted to have kept his watch as accurate as possible?

A secondary one would be:

Apart from accusations of dishonesty (completely unfounded imo) would you agree that a man who saw a clock and appeared confident of his ability to tell the time from it would be more likely to have been correct than other witnesses who were estimating based on their last (unrecorded) sighting of a clock?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

Not Eagle, Gilleman.

Cheers, George

Of course. Forgot him.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for that wealth of information. You are to this forum what the Oracle of Delphi was to the ancient Greeks.

A schizophrenic drug induced babbler of incoherent ramblings? hmmm, you may have something there! ha ha

Without questioning the results of the study in any way, I have to confess to some surprise at seeing an estimate of 20 minutes could actually range from 9 to 48 minutes. If we were able to gather all times and apply corrections for errors and to convert to GMT, which of course we are not, we would probably arrive at a timeline that nobody anticipated.

I know. I think we all like to believe we're really good at things, but once you actually start testing human memory for things like this, we're a dumb as a bag of rocks. To be fair, most of the estimates are at least in the right ball park. I do suspect the distribution has a pretty long tail for the over estimations. If we used those ranges, seriously, almost everything would overlap, and the room to shift things around would be so large we could create an entire time line that looked nothing like the numbers people said, but still fit within the margins of error. The best we can do is reconstruct what we can based upon the averages, and then any bits left over need to be fitted in, see if the time our recreation "time allotted" falls in the acceptable range of a person's estimated duration.

As you are no doubt aware, there were some differences between Blackwell's surgery clock and his pocket watch, as well as the newspaper reports:-

Daily Telegraph:
Mr. Edward Johnson: I live at 100, Commercial-road, and am assistant to Drs. Kaye and Blackwell. On Sunday morning last, at a few minutes past one o'clock, I received a call from Constable 436 H.
Mr. Frederick William Blackwell deposed: I reside at No. 100, Commercial-road, and am a physician and surgeon. On Sunday morning last, at ten minutes past one o'clock, I was called to Berner-street by a policeman. My assistant, Mr. Johnston, went back with the constable, and I followed immediately I was dressed. I consulted my watch on my arrival, and it was 1.16 a.m.

Times:-
Edward Johnston said:- I live at 100, Commercial-road, and am assistant to Drs. Kay and Blackwell. About five or ten minutes past 1 on Sunday morning, I received a call from constable 436 H.
Mr. Frederick William Blackwell said, - I live at 100, Commercial-road, and am a surgeon. At 10 minutes past 1 on Sunday morning I was called to 40, Berner-street. I was called by a policeman, and my assistant, Mr. Johnson, went back with him. I followed immediately I had dressed. I consulted my watch on my arrival, and it was just 1:10.

But I concede that regardless of the time benchmark adopted, there are going to be contradictions.

Yes. While the Times has 1:10 for his arrival, Johnson testifies that Blackwell arrived at 1:16, and given the DT has Dr.B. testifying he arrived at 1:16 as well, I'm asuming the Times 1:10 is an error.

You said "So, that means we have to have Diemshutz arrive, check the body, and get people to start things. Those events would require some time. If you think those probably could be done in a minute then according to Dr. Blackwell's watch, that would suggest Diemshutz arrives at 12:59. If you think those events would take 2 minutes, then 12:58. If you think those things took 15 minutes, then 12:45."
FWIW I actually did a re-enactment of pony shie to searchers exiting the gate at it came up as 1 minute and fifty seconds.

Oh, that's worth a lot. I think that makes perfect sense. That would place Deimshutz's arrival at 1:58 BST (Blackwell Standard Time )

You said "I've chosen a very narrow clock de-sync window, not because I think that's accurate (the real window is probably larger), but because we're dealing with such small differences in times when comparing various theories that if we were to accurately represent the error ranges of all of these measures I rather suspect we would end up with a clock range error closer to 20 minutes wide (+- 10 minutes)"
I am some what gratified with this comment. When I made a similar suggestion it was not well received.

Cheers, George

Yah, frustration can kick in. Generally we want to think in definite statements - they said 6 minutes so it has to be 360 seconds exactly! The idea that maybe only 3 minutes went by, or maybe it really was 15, is hard for some to accept. But both of those times are inside the acceptable range. We're dealing with probabilities, and what looks definite is really a range, whether the person testifying states a range or not. Even clock times produce a range once you start dealing with multiple clocks. That's why I'm trying to work backwards, using BST, and then seeing if stated clock times look reasonable given they're from a different clock.

If we want to create a timeline, we have to choose one clock as the standard. My preference is Blackwell, because his time records his arrival time, so we know where he was at that time, and what he had just completed (his journey there). After that, we just keep working backwards as best we can.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Hi NBFN,

So what are you comparing Blackwell's time to? If Diemschitz has nothing to do with it, why did you chose 1am as the starting point for the search, and not say, 12:55 or 1:05?

Dr. Blackwell states he used his watch to note the time of his arrival, so I'm comparing it to his testimony. Johnson also states that Dr. Blackwell arrived at 1:16. Johnson being Blackwell's assistant may have been the one to write the notes while Blackwell dictated, so Johnson probably wrote down the time Blackwell told him after consulting his watch. Obviously I don't know for a fact that happened, but it would be the type of thing an assistant might be asked to do.

I chose 1 because that's a disputed time, and there are those who argue the searches must have been much sooner, and others who argue they could have started a few minutes later. So, I started at one (which, if you note, would mean Deimshutz's 1 would have to be wrong in the strictest interpretation). And, in the last construction, I didn't actually start at 1, I started at 1:16 and worked backwards from there, and we got to the same thing, searches starting around 1.

I see George has done some sort of recreation of the "pony shy", and came up with about 1m 50 seconds for Deimshutz's actions. Give him a few more seconds to run in side and get a few people, and start the searches, and a discovery time of 12:57-58 seems about right. 2-3 minutes is easily explained by different clocks, so there's nothing implausible about Diemshutz's arrival time, or any of the other testimonies I've mentioned.

The round trip from the yard to Lamb and back, assumes that Eagle did just that, but this ignores Spooner's ~6 minutes of subjective time, prior to Lamb's arrival. So that would have the search starting at between about 12:58 and 12:59:30.

An estimated time of 6 minutes means you have to consider times as short as 2 minutes 2 seconds (let's just call it 2 minutes) and out to past 17! Duration estimations can be way out. In what we worked about above, I think we're in the 2-3 minute range, which is within the expected margin of error. So, there's no problem to address.

So I would say as early as 12:56, and even that is assuming Blackwell's watch is not ahead of time.

Blackwell's watch is the standard being used here; it can't be ahead of itself. All other clocks can be faster or slower than Blackwell's, but Blackwell's clock is the standard by which all the times I'm talking about are compared.

I'm only interested in what we suppose Blackwell's watch read. I assume that the police would have used clocks that were known to be kept to an accurate time. The discrepancy between Smith's testimony and the calculated time(s) of Lamb's arrival, suggest that Blackwell's watch was not reading the correct time.

We know Blackwell's watch read 1:16 when he arrived at the crime scene. When I say "Deimshutz's arrival at 1:57-8" I mean by Blackwell's watch. Deimshutz's testimony of 1 o'clock is based upon a different clock, so his stated time is not Blackwell Time. But, such a discrepancy may just reflect Deimshutz's clock and Blackwell's clock are out of synch, by roughly 2 or 3 minutes.

- Jeff

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Hi Jeff,

I just had another look at Smith's beat as addressed here: https://www.casebook.org/dissertatio...iths-beat.html

From Smith's account at the inquest, his beat started at the intersection of Commercial and Gower's Walk and headed east along Commercial Road to Christian St. But for time purposes his beat started at the corner of Commercial and Berner. I think this is a strong pointer to the Harris clock being his time benchmark.

Cheers, George

Hi George,

Reasonable line of thinking regarding the Harris clock. It's probably worth keeping in mind that the reason any of this was being mentioned was because of an incident on Berner St, and Smith's relation to it, so he's using Berner St as the focal point, more specifically his sighting of Stride at 12:35 being the 'start point' for the purposes of the inquest. Just my opinion.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

My impression is that Smith was stating how long it usually took him to complete his round, which would vary according to any disturbances he may have had to address, or anything unusual that he may have had to investigate. When Frank and I, and I seem to remember you were involved, were trying to work out how Smith patrolled the internal streets of his beat, the conclusion was that he walked down Berner St, turned around at Fairclough, and return back up Berner St, so to complete this he probably was in Berner St for about five minutes. When he said 12:30-12:35, he wasn't talking about a point time but a total time in the street.

I am in no doubt that when he spotted all the commotion, Smith didn't check the Harris clock as it was on the opposite side of Berner St, and I'm sure he would have run straight to the yard. But it makes sense to me that Lamb and Smith would have been using the same clock as their time benchmark. So I believe Lamb would have checked the clock at least on his way east towards the fixed point if not on the way back as well after the alarm was raised.

Frank's timeline is in an almost permanent tab on my computer. His point "19, P.C. Lamb arrives, followed by PC 426 H", indicates to me that Lamb had told PC 426 H (Ayliffe) that he had a minute or two before his release time of one o'clock. Herlock disagrees with me here insisting that the fixed point PC had to be released by the supervising Sergeant, but I would think that if that Sergeant were there to release him the Sergeant would have come to the yard as well when th alarm was raised. The fact that the fixed point PC was following Lamb indicates to me that he was called by Eagle and Koze before or at one o'clock. This would support Johnson's testimony that Ayliffe arrived a few minutes after one o'clock. Smith testified: When I came to the spot two constables had already arrived. The gates at the side of the club were not then closed. I do not remember that I passed any person on my way down. I saw that the woman was dead, and I went to the police-station for the ambulance, leaving the other constables in charge of the body. Dr. Blackwell's assistant arrived just as I was going away. This seems to confirm that there was a disparity between police time and Blackwell's pocket watch time, IMO about 7 minutes.

If we allow two minutes from pony shy to search parties departure, and four minutes for a sequential search and apply that to a Lamb call time of 12:59, we have Diemshitz turning into Berner at about 12:53. That would, I should think, qualify as about one o'clock as he originally said. It also would not unduly disturb times by Mortimer (adjusted), Letchford and Schwartz. I used Google maps to determine that when Diemshitz said he saw the clock he would have been in the middle of Commercial Road nearly 15 metres from the clock. Apart from my doubt that he could have seen the clock from there past the palister facade, I also wonder why he would have, while trying to cross a major thoroughfare in the dark, felt the need to know the time when he was less than a minute from home. Your speculation on his mental processing seems more likely.

I still believe that all the time differences, including those of Koze and Hosch, can be resolved with clock sync adjustments. With so many witnesses sourcing their estimates from so many different clocks, there would be many sync corrections to make.

Cheers, George

Hi George,

There's many ways to interpret things. But, on the whole, I think most of the minor discrepancies can be, as you say, mopped up in clock sync error and errors of time and duration estimations. There will always be a few oddities, sometimes reflecting nothing more than the idiosyncratic way someone spoke - and their intension just isn't clear to us and we misinterpret what they meant. Or, personally accepting less of the responsibility, maybe they misspoke, or misremembered or were otherwise simply mistaken, etc. Generally, though, I think it will be possible to come up with a recreation of the events that satisfies the majority of the statements we have, and there will be one or two bits that are just way off. Given how many people we have, many estimating times, etc, sooner or later one of them is bound to be way off the mark, that's kind of expected - ask enough people, sooner or later one of them will make a larger than usual error.

I don't know whose clock you're referring to with regards to Deimshutz though. I've been basing things on Dr. Blackwells 1:16 reading upon his arrival, and using that as the benchmark, I would place Deimshutz more around 12:58 type thing, but there's no need to quibble over 5 minutes. I do think Smith's times are out of sync with Dr. Blackwell's watch, but that's not surprising, but with regards to the "Blackwell Standard Time", I would place Smith's arrival around 1:05 or 1:06 type thing. To the extent our times differ would probably reflect different clocks.

- Jeff

[NotBlamedForNothing]

My impression is that Smith was stating how long it usually took him to complete his round, which would vary according to any disturbances he may have had to address, or anything unusual that he may have had to investigate. When Frank and I, and I seem to remember you were involved, were trying to work out how Smith patrolled the internal streets of his beat, the conclusion was that he walked down Berner St, turned around at Fairclough, and return back up Berner St, so to complete this he probably was in Berner St for about five minutes. When he said 12:30-12:35, he wasn't talking about a point time but a total time in the street.

I think it was concluded that a beat constable would never do that - go down a street (or up), and then immediately turn around and traverse it in the opposite direction. It would be better to do the return leg at a later stage, to spread out the surveillance of that street.

The upshot of this is that Stride and companion did not suddenly appear, but may have already been on the street for a few minutes or more. That could mean she were on the street at 12:30, which is rather interesting.

I am in no doubt that when he spotted all the commotion, Smith didn't check the Harris clock as it was on the opposite side of Berner St, and I'm sure he would have run straight to the yard. But it makes sense to me that Lamb and Smith would have been using the same clock as their time benchmark. So I believe Lamb would have checked the clock at least on his way east towards the fixed point if not on the way back as well after the alarm was raised.

Smith: I saw a crowd of people outside the gates of No. 40. I did not hear any cries of "Police." When I got there I saw constables 12 H R and 252 H.

What makes you think he ran? Lamb knew of the murder before he arrived, but why would Smith know likewise? Another reason to suppose there was a substantial delay between Lamb and Smith's arrival, is that Smith does not seem to have passed Ayliffe, as the later proceeded to the surgery.

I used Google maps to determine that when Diemshitz said he saw the clock he would have been in the middle of Commercial Road nearly 15 metres from the clock. Apart from my doubt that he could have seen the clock from there past the palister facade, I also wonder why he would have, while trying to cross a major thoroughfare in the dark, felt the need to know the time when he was less than a minute from home.

Good point. The time at that point would be the least of his concerns, especially if he were a bit early getting home, due to wet weather.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Well, it's a good thing your opening if is false. See, if I were trying prove Diemshitz's arrival time was more or less correct, I would have included Diemshitz in the analysis. I would also have great difficulty because, unless Diemshutz stopped by Dr. Blackwell's to get the time, Diemshitz's stated time is based upon a different clock.

So what are you comparing Blackwell's time to? If Diemschitz has nothing to do with it, why did you chose 1am as the starting point for the search, and not say, 12:55 or 1:05?

Ok, Dr. Blackwell arrives at 1:16.
We'll go with 9 minutes for the Lamb-Johnson interval as you suggest above.
Johnson arrives, and he estimates he arrived 3-4 minutes before Blackwell, which would translate to 2m 2s - 2m 49s (we'll call that 2-3 minutes though).
So Johnson arrives around 1:13-1:14.
Lamb estimates Johnson's arrival 9 minutes prior, making Lamb's arrival at 1:04-1:05.

The round trip from the yard to Lamb and back we worked out to roughly 2m 24s,
Meaning that trip started between 1:01:36-1:02:36.
And if you go with a sequential search, the first trip started 1m 47 seconds earlier, so between 12:59:51 and 1:00:51.

The round trip from the yard to Lamb and back, assumes that Eagle did just that, but this ignores Spooner's ~6 minutes of subjective time, prior to Lamb's arrival. So that would have the search starting at between about 12:58 and 12:59:30.

Add a couple minutes for Diemshutz's activities, and Diemshutz arrives between 12:58 and 12:59.

So I would say as early as 12:56, and even that is assuming Blackwell's watch is not ahead of time.

In the sense that Smith's time doesn't match with Dr. Blackwell's watch, yes. Why do you think Smith would know what time Dr. Blackwell's watch read?

I'm only interested in what we suppose Blackwell's watch read. I assume that the police would have used clocks that were known to be kept to an accurate time. The discrepancy between Smith's testimony and the calculated time(s) of Lamb's arrival, suggest that Blackwell's watch was not reading the correct time.

[GBinOz]

Trying to delete double post.

[GBinOz]

Hi George,





I think you could build a case for that, but consider the following.

Going back to FrankO's timeline of events (post 451 in the "The Schwartz/BS Man situation - My opinion only" thread) we have:

19. P.C. Lamb arrives, followed by PC 426 H
20. P.C. 426 is sent for Blackwell, Eagle for Inspector Pinhorn
21. Lamb blows his whistle
22. P.C. Albert Collins arrives as a result of the whistle (Smith sees 2 constables on his arrival and PC 426 isn’t at the scene then)
23. P.C. Smith arrives at the scene

Points 20-22 could all happen very quickly, so really, PC Smith arriving after PC Lamb, would place PC Smith's arrival sometime after 1:04-1:05 based upon my post 2602, which is the same as what NBFN came up with as well (for PC Lamb).

PC Smith gives a 5 minute range, for both his previous patrol (12:30-12:35) and for his beat circuit (25-30 minutes). Given PC's have to note the time of their patrols, we wouldn't view his 25-30 minute patrol time as an estimate, so we don't use the estimation tables for that.

Now, if he checked the clock as you suggest to time stamp, then he should be able to state the time of his patrol, since he's just started it again, yet we have 12:30-12:35, which doesn't look like a recent time update.

If we use PC Smith's time of 12:30 as his patrol, then 1:00 would suggest a 30 minute round, and 12:35 would suggest a 25 minute round. But of course 12:35 + 30 minutes, means he would be at the top of Berner Street at 1:05 just when PC Lamb has arrived, and so by the time he gets to the scene, PC Lamb is there, etc.

There's nothing in the testimony that prohibits PC Smith passing PC426 who is on his way to fetch the doctor, etc.

And, it also means, we're viewing his time with a 5 minute window, the same as the window he gave for the previous round at about the same point - only this time he didn't state both options.

The alternative, of course, is that we suggest the Harris clock is out by 5 minutes realtive to Dr. Blackwell's watch (the times above are all locked to Dr. Blackwell's watch), in which case Diemshutz read the clock at 12:55 as 1:00, either due to the angle of viewing, or due to having, when he looked, saw it was "about 1:00". When later he has to recall the time he arrived he remembers thinking it was "about 1:00" when he looked at the clock - you know, he remembers what the time was when he checked - that doesn't mean he recalls a visual image of the clock hands and re-reads the time off that, it means he's going to recall how he thought of the time at the time).

We end up, though, with either Deimshutz misreading the Harris clock to make PC Smith fit and also that the Harris clock is out by 5 minutes relative to Dr. Blackwells, or we have the two clocks pretty close to each other, and PC Smith didn't have time to reverify his time due to the commotion, and he's doing as he did before, calculating the time based upon his beat patrol time, which means his arrival at the scene around 1:05 would fit with his testimony.

I think any of those could work. And sure, the Harris Clock is on his beat, and so it could be the one he uses. But if he does, his having to state his previous patrol time as being 12:30-12:35 suggests he didn't check every round. Given the commotion at the scene, it then becomes reasonable to question if he checked then. His lack of stating how he knew the time means we do not know where the clock was that he used, or how often he checked it. We can suggest one, but we cannot know if that suggestion is true. What is true is that he doesn't state the time of his last patrol specifically, he only gives us a range, and that doesn't sound very clock-like to me, making me think whatever clock he did check was far enough back in his beat that he was now calculating a time. But that's my impression, it may not be yours.

- Jeff

Hi Jeff,

My impression is that Smith was stating how long it usually took him to complete his round, which would vary according to any disturbances he may have had to address, or anything unusual that he may have had to investigate. When Frank and I, and I seem to remember you were involved, were trying to work out how Smith patrolled the internal streets of his beat, the conclusion was that he walked down Berner St, turned around at Fairclough, and return back up Berner St, so to complete this he probably was in Berner St for about five minutes. When he said 12:30-12:35, he wasn't talking about a point time but a total time in the street.

I am in no doubt that when he spotted all the commotion, Smith didn't check the Harris clock as it was on the opposite side of Berner St, and I'm sure he would have run straight to the yard. But it makes sense to me that Lamb and Smith would have been using the same clock as their time benchmark. So I believe Lamb would have checked the clock at least on his way east towards the fixed point if not on the way back as well after the alarm was raised.

Frank's timeline is in an almost permanent tab on my computer. His point "19, P.C. Lamb arrives, followed by PC 426 H", indicates to me that Lamb had told PC 426 H (Ayliffe) that he had a minute or two before his release time of one o'clock. Herlock disagrees with me here insisting that the fixed point PC had to be released by the supervising Sergeant, but I would think that if that Sergeant were there to release him the Sergeant would have come to the yard as well when th alarm was raised. The fact that the fixed point PC was following Lamb indicates to me that he was called by Eagle and Koze before or at one o'clock. This would support Johnson's testimony that Ayliffe arrived a few minutes after one o'clock. Smith testified: When I came to the spot two constables had already arrived. The gates at the side of the club were not then closed. I do not remember that I passed any person on my way down. I saw that the woman was dead, and I went to the police-station for the ambulance, leaving the other constables in charge of the body. Dr. Blackwell's assistant arrived just as I was going away. This seems to confirm that there was a disparity between police time and Blackwell's pocket watch time, IMO about 7 minutes.

If we allow two minutes from pony shy to search parties departure, and four minutes for a sequential search and apply that to a Lamb call time of 12:59, we have Diemshitz turning into Berner at about 12:53. That would, I should think, qualify as about one o'clock as he originally said. It also would not unduly disturb times by Mortimer (adjusted), Letchford and Schwartz. I used Google maps to determine that when Diemshitz said he saw the clock he would have been in the middle of Commercial Road nearly 15 metres from the clock. Apart from my doubt that he could have seen the clock from there past the palister facade, I also wonder why he would have, while trying to cross a major thoroughfare in the dark, felt the need to know the time when he was less than a minute from home. Your speculation on his mental processing seems more likely.

I still believe that all the time differences, including those of Koze and Hosch, can be resolved with clock sync adjustments. With so many witnesses sourcing their estimates from so many different clocks, there would be many sync corrections to make.

Cheers, George

[JeffHamm]

Hi George,

Hi Jeff,

I can see merit in your logic. I have done some pondering on what you were saying about Smith and re-examined his deposition.

William Smith, 452 H Division: On Saturday last I went on duty at ten p.m. My beat was past Berner- street, and would take me twenty-five minutes or half an hour to go round. I was in Berner-street about half-past twelve or twenty-five minutes to one o'clock, and having gone round my beat, was at the Commercial-road corner of Berner-street again at one o'clock.

12:30 - 12:35 + 30 - 25 minutes for his beat comes up to 1:00. Alternatively, using mean values, 12:32.5 + 27.5 minutes = 1:00. So his math is OK.
He then says that, having finished his beat he was back at his beat starting point at the intersection of Commercial and Berner at 1:00. So why would Smith consider this intersection to be the start of his beat? He could use any point as the start point. Gower's walk, for instance, when he makes a u-turn and walks back over ground just covered would seem a logical start point. I would suggest that he chose the intersection because this is the location of the clock that he is using to check if he's on schedule and the time he is taking to complete a beat. Following on from this, it would then make sense for Lamb to be using the same clock for his beat. What do you think.

Cheers, George

Hi Jeff,

I just had another look at Smith's beat as addressed here: https://www.casebook.org/dissertatio...iths-beat.html

From Smith's account at the inquest, his beat started at the intersection of Commercial and Gower's Walk and headed east along Commercial Road to Christian St. But for time purposes his beat started at the corner of Commercial and Berner. I think this is a strong pointer to the Harris clock being his time benchmark.

Cheers, George

I think you could build a case for that, but consider the following.

Going back to FrankO's timeline of events (post 451 in the "The Schwartz/BS Man situation - My opinion only" thread) we have:

19. P.C. Lamb arrives, followed by PC 426 H
20. P.C. 426 is sent for Blackwell, Eagle for Inspector Pinhorn
21. Lamb blows his whistle
22. P.C. Albert Collins arrives as a result of the whistle (Smith sees 2 constables on his arrival and PC 426 isn’t at the scene then)
23. P.C. Smith arrives at the scene

Points 20-22 could all happen very quickly, so really, PC Smith arriving after PC Lamb, would place PC Smith's arrival sometime after 1:04-1:05 based upon my post 2602, which is the same as what NBFN came up with as well (for PC Lamb).

PC Smith gives a 5 minute range, for both his previous patrol (12:30-12:35) and for his beat circuit (25-30 minutes). Given PC's have to note the time of their patrols, we wouldn't view his 25-30 minute patrol time as an estimate, so we don't use the estimation tables for that.

Now, if he checked the clock as you suggest to time stamp, then he should be able to state the time of his patrol, since he's just started it again, yet we have 12:30-12:35, which doesn't look like a recent time update.

If we use PC Smith's time of 12:30 as his patrol, then 1:00 would suggest a 30 minute round, and 12:35 would suggest a 25 minute round. But of course 12:35 + 30 minutes, means he would be at the top of Berner Street at 1:05 just when PC Lamb has arrived, and so by the time he gets to the scene, PC Lamb is there, etc.

There's nothing in the testimony that prohibits PC Smith passing PC426 who is on his way to fetch the doctor, etc.

And, it also means, we're viewing his time with a 5 minute window, the same as the window he gave for the previous round at about the same point - only this time he didn't state both options.

The alternative, of course, is that we suggest the Harris clock is out by 5 minutes realtive to Dr. Blackwell's watch (the times above are all locked to Dr. Blackwell's watch), in which case Diemshutz read the clock at 12:55 as 1:00, either due to the angle of viewing, or due to having, when he looked, saw it was "about 1:00". When later he has to recall the time he arrived he remembers thinking it was "about 1:00" when he looked at the clock - you know, he remembers what the time was when he checked - that doesn't mean he recalls a visual image of the clock hands and re-reads the time off that, it means he's going to recall how he thought of the time at the time).

We end up, though, with either Deimshutz misreading the Harris clock to make PC Smith fit and also that the Harris clock is out by 5 minutes relative to Dr. Blackwells, or we have the two clocks pretty close to each other, and PC Smith didn't have time to reverify his time due to the commotion, and he's doing as he did before, calculating the time based upon his beat patrol time, which means his arrival at the scene around 1:05 would fit with his testimony.

I think any of those could work. And sure, the Harris Clock is on his beat, and so it could be the one he uses. But if he does, his having to state his previous patrol time as being 12:30-12:35 suggests he didn't check every round. Given the commotion at the scene, it then becomes reasonable to question if he checked then. His lack of stating how he knew the time means we do not know where the clock was that he used, or how often he checked it. We can suggest one, but we cannot know if that suggestion is true. What is true is that he doesn't state the time of his last patrol specifically, he only gives us a range, and that doesn't sound very clock-like to me, making me think whatever clock he did check was far enough back in his beat that he was now calculating a time. But that's my impression, it may not be yours.

- Jeff