Witness Testimony: Albert Cadosche

[Herlock Sholmes]

The Daily News, Sept 10th:

“About six o'clock, however, John Davis, who lives at the top of the house, before setting out to his work happened to go into the yard.”


Evening Standard, Sept 10th:

“In this recess John Davis, as he crossed the yard at five minutes to six o'clock, saw the body of a woman, her clothes so disarranged as to show that the lower part of her body had been horribly mutilated”


Morning Advertiser, Sept 10th:

“Nothing further can be traced of the dreadful tragedy until shortly before six o'clock. At that hour John Davis, a porter in Spitalfields market, who lives in the house, 29 Hanbury street, was passing through the yard on the way to his work, when he saw the mutilated body of the murdered woman”


Pall Mall Gazette, Sept 8th:

“by a Mr. Davis, who lodges in the house. As Mr. Davis, who is a market porter, was going to work at about six o'clock”


The Star, Sept 10th:

“It was half an hour later, at six o'clock, that John Davis, before going to his work, walked along the passage into the yard, and made the horrifying discovery of the mutilated body”


Daily Telegraph, Sept 11th (inquest):

“and then fell asleep until a quarter to six, when the clock at Spitalfields Church struck. I had a cup of tea and went downstairs to the back yard”


The Times, Sept 11th (inquest):

“He got up about a quarter to 6. Soon afterwards he went across the yard.”


———————————


So we have pre-inquest newspaper reports plus the two Press reports of the inquest giving us:

About 6.00 (x 2)

5 to 6 (x1)

Before 6.00 (x1)

6.00 (x1)

After 5.45 (x1)

Soon after 5.45 (x1)


So which do we go with? From these it’s reasonable to say that Davis discovered the body definitely no later than 6.00 but after 5.45. And from a closer reading, nearer to but just before 6.00 would appear the likeliest estimate.

He then ran straight out into the street where he ran into two men. So this would have been pretty much spot on 6.00 right?

Not quite.


James Kent:

“On Saturday I arrived about ten minutes past that hour. Our employer's gate was open, and there I waited for some other men. Davis, who lives two or three doors away, ran from his house into the road and cried, "Men, come here."”


James Green:

“…. a packing-case maker, in the same employ as last witness, said: I arrived in Hanbury-street at ten minutes past six on Saturday morning”


Henry Holland:

“a boxmaker, stated: As I was passing 29, Hanbury-street, on my way to work in Chiswell-street, at about eight minutes past six on Saturday. I spoke to two of Bayley's men. An elderly man came out of the house and asked us to have a look in his back yard”


Inspector Chandler:

“On Saturday morning, at ten minutes past six, I was on duty in Commercial-street. At the corner of Hanbury-street I saw several men running. I beckoned to them. One of them said, "Another woman has been murdered."




So was Davis wrong. Or lying? Should we be suspicious about what he’d been doing for the ‘missing’ 10 minutes? Or were Kent, Green, Holland and Chandler all wrong? Or lying?

Or were they all correct but there was simply an explicable discrepancy in time which causes us no problem when we sensibly apply a reasonable margin for error?

[Fleetwood Mac]

Victorian clocks, especially the large ones in churches etc, were almost always well made and kept fairly accurate time. Unfortunately, there was no universally agreed standard time, and GMT was not used by very many of them. It was used by the railways and the police, but not many others.

What is Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) - and why does it matter? | Royal Museums Greenwich (rmg.co.uk)

This article is from Royal Museums Greenwich. It includes:

By the mid-1850s, almost all public clocks in Britain were set to Greenwich Mean Time and it finally became Britain’s legal standard time in 1880.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

What is Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) - and why does it matter? | Royal Museums Greenwich (rmg.co.uk)

This article is from Royal Museums Greenwich. It includes:

By the mid-1850s, almost all public clocks in Britain were set to Greenwich Mean Time and it finally became Britain’s legal standard time in 1880.

The Christ Church Spitalfields clock was so accurate that it needed to be rewound only a couple of times per year and it was set to Greenwich Mean Time.

And Cadoche evidently relied upon it to make sure he got to work on time.

Why else would he have noted the time as he passed it?

[Doctored Whatsit]

The timings given at the Eddowes inquest suggest otherwise.

The timings given at the Eddowes' inquest didn't test very many clocks.

[Doctored Whatsit]

What is Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) - and why does it matter? | Royal Museums Greenwich (rmg.co.uk)

This article is from Royal Museums Greenwich. It includes:

By the mid-1850s, almost all public clocks in Britain were set to Greenwich Mean Time and it finally became Britain’s legal standard time in 1880.

I wonder what exactly is meant by "public clocks". I presume it means clocks on Government buildings, or what is referred to as the "public sector", as opposed to the "private sector"?

Legal standard time is merely the time as far as the law is concerned, for example with regard to the opening of licensed premises. It doesn't mean that clocks were required by law to be set to GMT. They weren't.

Chris McKay, writing about East End clocks in the 1880s wrote, "Overall, I think that if you found a clock in the East End that was telling the time to within ten minutes of GMT you were doing well."

The article I referred to was written by a working class East Ender who didn't ever own a watch until he was presented with one on his retirement in about 1893-1895. It expressed his surprise at just how much variation he observed with the local clocks.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

The timings given at the Eddowes' inquest didn't test very many clocks.

Lawende used the clock at the Imperial Club.

Harvey used the Post Office clock.

We do not know which clock Watkins used, but we know he was able to time his arrival at Mitre Square and estimate the time of Collard's arrival, which suggests that he had a watch.

Morris must have used his own watch or clock.

Inspector Collard may have used a clock at Bishopsgate Police Station, but may have had a watch, as he was able to time his arrival at Mitre Square.

Dr Sequeira similarly may have had a watch, as he was able to time his arrival at Mitre Square.

Dr Brown was able to say that he was called shortly after 2 a.m., which suggests he referred to a clock, and estimate his time of arrival, which suggests he had a watch, unless he passed a clock shortly before he arrived.

"Overall, I think that if you found a clock in the East End that was telling the time to within ten minutes of GMT you were doing well."

It seems that many people who testified at Catherine Eddowes' inquest had been 'doing well'.

[rjpalmer]

I wonder what exactly is meant by "public clocks". I presume it means clocks on Government buildings, or what is referred to as the "public sector", as opposed to the "private sector"?

Legal standard time is merely the time as far as the law is concerned, for example with regard to the opening of licensed premises. It doesn't mean that clocks were required by law to be set to GMT. They weren't.

You might recall Howard Brown posting this suggestive 1883 cartoon from Punch.

"Metropolitan Prize Puzzle: To Know the Right Time at Waterloo Station."

It wouldn't have been funny if the readers didn't also know that it was true.

[A P Tomlinson]

The Christ Church Spitalfields clock was so accurate that it needed to be rewound only a couple of times per year and it was set to Greenwich Mean Time.

And Cadoche evidently relied upon it to make sure he got to work on time.

Why else would he have noted the time as he passed it?

And if that clock were set five minutes out from the one down the road, it would remain five minutes out as long as the one down the road was also accurate.
It's NOT about their ability to KEEP time. It's that the people setting them didn't have an instant and accurate reference to a central spot-on time. They were set differently.
And pocket watches and the cheaper domestic clocks were not as accurate at keeping time, so even if you set your watch to the church clock, by the following morning your watch may be out by a few minutes, and that church clock may be set a few minutes behind the clock on the wall of your boss at work. So, in that situation, what do you do? You probably set your slightly unreliable watch to about 5 minutes ahead of the bosses clock, so that you won't be late to work... it doesn't matter to anyone at all whether any of the times on any of the clocks say the same time as the people in Greenwich have decreed, as long as people are getting where they need to be by the time the person expecting them to be there has stated, using THEIR clock.

The Town Hall clock in my home town is about three minutes ahead of the one remaining church clock, which is about half a mile out of town. There is another, non chiming clock on the archway to the covered market that's a few minutes ahead of the Town Hall.
All three keep excellent time, because these discrepancies never widen or shorten. But at least TWO of them are obviously "wrong" and if I check when I go up this afternoon I will probably find that all three are out on GMT by at least a minute or so.

If that super accurate clock wasn't in time with the Inpsectors watch at the scene of crime, (or whoever was compiling the timeline for the Police) there would be a disparity in the reported times.
Like with Robert Paul and Abberlines established time line at Bucks row.

[Doctored Whatsit]

Lawende used the clock at the Imperial Club.

Harvey used the Post Office clock.

We do not know which clock Watkins used, but we know he was able to time his arrival at Mitre Square and estimate the time of Collard's arrival, which suggests that he had a watch.

Morris must have used his own watch or clock.

Inspector Collard may have used a clock at Bishopsgate Police Station, but may have had a watch, as he was able to time his arrival at Mitre Square.

Dr Sequeira similarly may have had a watch, as he was able to time his arrival at Mitre Square.

Dr Brown was able to say that he was called shortly after 2 a.m., which suggests he referred to a clock, and estimate his time of arrival, which suggests he had a watch, unless he passed a clock shortly before he arrived.




It seems that many people who testified at Catherine Eddowes' inquest had been 'doing well'.

The railways and the police stations used GMT, and I think I read somewhere (possibly Neil Bell) that the post office generally did so too, and that policemen on the beat therefore tended to use the post office clocks as a reliable time source. It might be that because of their job, that police surgeons also used GMT. I think that GMT was therefore used fairly consistently in the Eddowes case.

[A P Tomlinson]

The railways and the police stations used GMT, and I think I read somewhere (possibly Neil Bell) that the post office generally did so too, and that policemen on the beat therefore tended to use the post office clocks as a reliable time source. It might be that because of their job, that police surgeons also used GMT. I think that GMT was therefore used fairly consistently in the Eddowes case.

One of the main reasons the Mitre Square times (along with Bucks row) are considered accurate is that there were police officials constructing a timeline of arrivals and departures. If someone said "I arrived about x past y" and someone who arrived before them also said "I arrived about x past y" the police would be able to determine who had arrived first based on... who arrived first and more accurattely say that, "Well you arrived AFTER the other guy so you were more like... z past y"
I'm pretty certain that Watkins' precision of 1.44 is as a result of this. None of these are guarnateed to be anything better than an estimate vs GMT.

If anyone can prove that the clock Lawende and Levy used to estimate THEIR time slots was in perfect synch with the clocks/watches subsequently used to establish the Mitre Square Police times, I'll buy them a pint!

We see the same thing at Bucks row, and the general discrepancy in time keeping of the people wandering the streets at silly oclock in the morning is why most sensible folk consider Rober Pauls independent estimate of arriving at Bucks row at 3.45 to be at odds with the Police's established timeline. Because Abberline looked at the chain of events and the times given and worked out the closest estimate he could.

To think that ANY of the times stated thrughout the case were accurate down to individual minutes vs GMT is reaching.

[Fleetwood Mac]

I wonder what exactly is meant by "public clocks". I presume it means clocks on Government buildings, or what is referred to as the "public sector", as opposed to the "private sector"?

They were known as 'public clocks' because they existed for the community. Clocks on towers, churches and the like.

Legal standard time is merely the time as far as the law is concerned, for example with regard to the opening of licensed premises. It doesn't mean that clocks were required by law to be set to GMT. They weren't.

The article states this: by the mid-1850s, almost all public clocks in Britain were set to Greenwich Mean Time.

'Required by law' doesn't detract from that. I could have a look 'round the internet for more details on the law, but it's not pertinent to the discussion. The point is that the vast majority of clocks were set to Greenwich Mean Time.

Here'a a different article from The Royal Observatory Greenwich:

The astronomical basis of timekeeping (royalobservatorygreenwich.org)

It includes:

By 1855, 98% of the public clocks in Great Britain were set to show Greenwich Mean Time.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

If anyone can prove that the clock Lawende and Levy used to estimate THEIR time slots was in perfect synch with the clocks/watches subsequently used to establish the Mitre Square Police times, I'll buy them a pint!

How much could the clock used by Lawende have been out of sync with the other timings?

If it was relatively slow, then there is even less time for the murderer to do what he appears to have done.

If it was five minutes fast and even if the couple had been there for no more than a minute, then they would have been seen by Harvey.

If it was four minutes fast and even if the couple had been there for no more than two minutes, then they would have been seen by Harvey.

How fast could it have been?

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

It's NOT about their ability to KEEP time. It's that the people setting them didn't have an instant and accurate reference to a central spot-on time. They were set differently.

By 1855, 98% of the public clocks in Great Britain were set to show Greenwich Mean Time.

Would someone like to adjudicate?

[Fleetwood Mac]

Would someone like to adjudicate?

I think he's saying that the people who wound up the clocks didn't have access to Greenwich Mean Time, which in my view is an erroneous assumption. For centuries, public clocks were wound up by clock enthusiasts. Clocks were cherished in years gone by. The job was passed down from generation to generation and the clock telling the right time was a matter of pride.

[Ally]

Clocks being set to Greenwich mean time doesn't mean we are talking about all clocks being set accurately to exact minutes. Prior to GMT being adopted as a standard, there were different local mean times, and railway times, that differed from GMT. Adopting GMT meant everyone synched THE HOUR and the basic concept of the general minutes. It is impossible to sync clocks to the minute even when all are set to "GMT".

The two above statements aren't contradictory. Adjudicated.