Patricia Cornwell - Walter Sickert - BOOK 2

[Elamarna]

Steve,

I had in mind sleekviper's statement that "Sketches have the date that they were done, not the original sketch date." which I couldn't wrap my head around and still can't. And then Fisherman took from this that Sickert's practice was "dating the sketches NOT when the scene he depicted took place but instead when he made the actual sketches".

But I don't understand how a sketch inscribed and dated, e.g. "Collins Music Hall, 28 Sept 1888" can mean anything other than that Sickert was at the Collins Music Hall on 28 September 1888.

I can actually, the place is what the sketch is of, in that case Collins music hall. The date would be the date of that particular sketch. What was suggested was there would be an original and then follow up works each similar but not exactly alike with different dates.
At least that is how I read the suggestion.

Of course if there is no follow up in a series and sketches are completely unlike each other it is fair to assume we are dealing with originals and the date would be when he was there.

Steve

[Abby Normal]

John

It's about plausibility.

Sickert while highly unlikely is not impossible and real tangible evidence is presented.

While one may not agree with or indeed accept that evidence, it is far strong than the argument, for want of a better word, put up for Wonderland.


Steve

Hi El
what is the "real tangible evidence" that sickert was the ripper??

[Abby Normal]

David

I did not read it that it was suggested that he dated sketches on dates he did not draw them, rather that some sketches could be follow up work done in his studio and not at the actual site. The date would therefore still reflect the day that sketch was done.

However it does seem clear he was in London during the late summer-Autumn of 88.

Steve

HI El
not so sure about that. all we know is he was PROBABLY in London the days those two sketches were dated. hardly proof that he was in London or even whitechapel thoughout the duration of the crimes.

[Elamarna]

awesome. thanks for posting these-keep en coming.

The difference between an outstanding researcher and well...

Absolutely agree with you Abby, I certainly cannot do what David does.

Steve

[David Orsam]

David

I did not read it that it was suggested that he dated sketches on dates he did not draw them, rather that some sketches could be follow up work done in his studio and not at the actual site. The date would therefore still reflect the day that sketch was done.

However it does seem clear he was in London during the late summer-Autumn of 88.

Steve,

I had in mind sleekviper's statement that "Sketches have the date that they were done, not the original sketch date." which I couldn't wrap my head around and still can't. And then Fisherman took from this that Sickert's practice was "dating the sketches NOT when the scene he depicted took place but instead when he made the actual sketches".

But I don't understand how a sketch inscribed and dated, e.g. "Collins Music Hall, 28 Sept 1888" can mean anything other than that Sickert was at the Collins Music Hall on 28 September 1888.

[Elamarna]

Noting that along with the body of the limbless female body discovered in the Scotland Yard building on 1 October 1888 was found a bloodstained copy of the Echo newspaper from 24 August 1888, Cornwell took a look at that newspaper, suspecting that the killer might have had it in his possession for a reason. Her suspicions appeared to be confirmed when she found in the Notes and Queries section that someone using the name "W.S." had answered five questions which had been asked by readers of the newspaper in previous editions. According to Cornwell, sending in five answers to queries was "compulsive" behaviour typical of both Sickert and Jack the Ripper even though none of the answers seem to have any connection with subjects of interest to Sickert or anything to do with the murders.

Having looked at the Notes and Queries section of the Echo in the period July to October 1888 I can say that there was absolutely nothing unusual about one individual sending in five answers. It was quite common. There was a small group of people who frequently sent in replies (and often multiple replies on one day) to questions asked by readers. This group included individuals using the names or initials "S.R.", "K.", "E.L.G"., "Blennerhasst" and "Peter Tickle" amongst others. We find that "S.R". contributed five answers on both 7 and 8 September 1888 and there are plenty of other examples. On 3 August we find someone signing as "Nemo" supplying five answers (all legal related).

In that four month period we find quite a number of answers provided by "W.S." frequently in response to legal questions:

2 Aug 1888 – lodgers’ goods (legal issue).
6 July 1888 – Water company’s powers.
9 July 1888 - Two answers, about special licences and marriage (legal) and corrects Blennerhasset on 12 July about cost of special licences.
18 July 1888 – Origin of name Whitefriars.
20 Aug – Pension of the Kaiser's wife (the Kaiserin).
28 Aug – Two answers – regarding food for tortoises and an answer to a question about why Jews disagree with Christianity.
29 August – more on the Kaiserin’s pension.
20 Sept – Effects of the Merchandise Trade Marks’ Act (says "I know of a large manufacturing cutler in Germany doing an immense trade with our Colonies…").
12 Oct – Bank of England notes (legal position).
18 Oct – Itching (medical).
23 Oct – Bills of Exchange.
28 Oct – Patents.
30 Oct – rights of homeowners (legal question).

It is highly probable that the "W.S." who provided all these answers was the same person.

On 6 July 1888, the answer of "W.S." included this statement:

"Some ten years ago I received a similar notice from the New River Company, requiring alterations with a view to constant supply. Being a leaseholder, I caused the very expensive alterations to be made…"

So "W.S." was a leaseholder in 1878 (when Sickert was an 18 year old art student) who made expensive alterations to a property. This means we can safely say that W.S. was not Sickert.

Really lots of work put in there David. This is the sort of response I had hoped for when this thread began, you have done as Paul Begg suggested. Looked this book and assed it; not the previous one.

Steve

[Abby Normal]

awesome. thanks for posting these-keep en coming.

The difference between an outstanding researcher and well...

[David Orsam]

Nice work David.

Thank you Steve.

[Elamarna]

Hi Steve

I'm not sure how the Lewis Carroll theory makes the Sickert Theory any less crackpot.

Cheers John

John

It's about plausibility.

Sickert while highly unlikely is not impossible and real tangible evidence is presented.

While one may not agree with or indeed accept that evidence, it is far strong than the argument, for want of a better word, put up for Wonderland.


Steve

[David Orsam]

WS

Noting that along with the body of the limbless female body discovered in the Scotland Yard building on 1 October 1888 was found a bloodstained copy of the Echo newspaper from 24 August 1888, Cornwell took a look at that newspaper, suspecting that the killer might have had it in his possession for a reason. Her suspicions appeared to be confirmed when she found in the Notes and Queries section that someone using the name "W.S." had answered five questions which had been asked by readers of the newspaper in previous editions. According to Cornwell, sending in five answers to queries was "compulsive" behaviour typical of both Sickert and Jack the Ripper even though none of the answers seem to have any connection with subjects of interest to Sickert or anything to do with the murders.

Having looked at the Notes and Queries section of the Echo in the period July to October 1888 I can say that there was absolutely nothing unusual about one individual sending in five answers. It was quite common. There was a small group of people who frequently sent in replies (and often multiple replies on one day) to questions asked by readers. This group included individuals using the names or initials "S.R.", "K.", "E.L.G"., "Blennerhasst" and "Peter Tickle" amongst others. We find that "S.R". contributed five answers on both 7 and 8 September 1888 and there are plenty of other examples. On 3 August we find someone signing as "Nemo" supplying five answers (all legal related).

In that four month period we find quite a number of answers provided by "W.S." frequently in response to legal questions:

2 Aug 1888 – lodgers’ goods (legal issue).
6 July 1888 – Water company’s powers.
9 July 1888 - Two answers, about special licences and marriage (legal) and corrects Blennerhasset on 12 July about cost of special licences.
18 July 1888 – Origin of name Whitefriars.
20 Aug – Pension of the Kaiser's wife (the Kaiserin).
28 Aug – Two answers – regarding food for tortoises and an answer to a question about why Jews disagree with Christianity.
29 August – more on the Kaiserin’s pension.
20 Sept – Effects of the Merchandise Trade Marks’ Act (says "I know of a large manufacturing cutler in Germany doing an immense trade with our Colonies…").
12 Oct – Bank of England notes (legal position).
18 Oct – Itching (medical).
23 Oct – Bills of Exchange.
28 Oct – Patents.
30 Oct – rights of homeowners (legal question).

It is highly probable that the "W.S." who provided all these answers was the same person.

On 6 July 1888, the answer of "W.S." included this statement:

"Some ten years ago I received a similar notice from the New River Company, requiring alterations with a view to constant supply. Being a leaseholder, I caused the very expensive alterations to be made…"

So "W.S." was a leaseholder in 1878 (when Sickert was an 18 year old art student) who made expensive alterations to a property. This means we can safely say that W.S. was not Sickert.

[Elamarna]

The notion that Sickert dated his sketches to reflect a date on which he did NOT draw them is somewhat bizarre and, as far as I am aware, not based on anything said by Wendy Baron (as claimed earlier in the thread by sleekviper). So Fisherman's difficulty in understanding why it has been said that Sickert was in London "during the killings" is easily resolved, in the sense that Sickert was clearly in London on 28 September and 4 October 1888 due to him dating his sketches from the Sam Collins Music Hall on those dates.

David

I did not read it that it was suggested that he dated sketches on dates he did not draw them, rather that some sketches could be follow up work done in his studio and not at the actual site. The date would therefore still reflect the day that sketch was done.

However it does seem clear he was in London during the late summer-Autumn of 88.

Steve

[David Orsam]

Williams Buchanan

A letter from a Williams Buchanan of 11 Burton Street about the successful use of bloodhounds in Dieppe to track down the murderer of a little boy in the early 1860s published in the Times of 9 October 1888 (along with a similar one from the same person in the Echo of 2 October 1888) is another letter which excites Cornwell.

She wasn’t able to corroborate the existence of the Dieppe murder and the only information she can find about Williams Buchanan is that he was on the electoral roll in 1889/90 at the Burton Street address under the name of William Buchanan.

Consequently, she suspects that Williams (or William) Buchanan was really Walter Sickert playing letter writing games, having created a false identity in real life.

Now it’s fair to say that the British Newspaper Archive was not available when Cornwell wrote her first book but it is available today and it only takes a few minutes to discover that Williams Buchanan was a quack selling a baldness cure which featured in published advertisements in a number of regional newspapers between May 1887 and October 1889. Here is an example from the Leeds Times of 27 October 1888:

Prematurely Bald People

And those whose hair is weak and “falling” should send at once for my circular (post free). If case undertaken, a cure guaranteed. Scientific treatment. Testimonials from all sorts and conditions of men and women.

Address, Williams Buchanan, B.A. Specialist, 84, Park Street, Regent’s Park, London N.W. Laboratory, 11 Burton-street, W.C.

It is, I think, a little unlikely that Walter Sickert went to such extreme lengths to create a cover story by placing numerous advertisements in newspapers and even creating his own Buchanan’s Petrolia as can be seen in the below example from the Preston Chronicle of 14 May 1887:

BALDNESS CURABLE
BUCHANAN'S PETROLIA

LADIES and GENTLEMEN whose Hair is Thin or Falling, or who have Bald Patches or Scanty Partings, should use BUCHANAN'S PETROLIA, a carefully compounded preparation, positively guaranteed to produce a Fine Growth of Hair, Beard, Whiskers, or Moustache, within a Month's time, provided the slightest vitality be let in the bulbs or roots.

As a specific for the Hair, BUCHANAN'S PETROLIA has no equal, and it is as harmless as it is effective. It is, moreover, delightfully cooling and refreshing to use, and renders the Hair soft, pliable, and glossy.

TRY IT

even if all other so-called "Restorers" has failed.

Hundreds of Testimonials attest its efficacy.

Mention this paper when ordering.

Post Free (large bottle, 3s, 6d, in stamps) WILLIAMS BUCHANAN, 11 Burton St, London, W.C.

I don’t think Walter Sickert is likely to have created a false persona selling a baldness cure, inserting advertisements into northern newspapers between 1887 and 1889. That being so, the letter in the Times of 9 October 1888 has nothing to do with him.

[Elamarna]

Patricia Cornwell notes that in his younger acting days Walter Sickert went by the name of 'Nemo', or 'Mr Nemo'. This basically meant 'Nobody' or 'Anonymous' and was not an uncommon pseudonym but the fact that five letters catalogued in the Whitechapel Murders file at the London Metropolitan Archives were signed ‘Nemo’ is enough for Cornwell to assume that they were written by Sickert (although she does not tell us what those letters say or if Nemo was also claiming to be the murderer or, by contrast, was offering advice to the police to help them catch the murderer).

If this was not enough, someone signing himself as 'Nemo' had a letter published in the Times of 4 October 1888.

Cornwell quotes selectively from the letter. Firstly this bit:

"The mutilations, cutting off the nose and ears, ripping up the body, and cutting out certain organs – the heart &C"

The interesting element for Cornwell is that the author has referred to the cutting out of the heart yet it was not until the murder of Mary Jane Kelly that a heart was actually (supposedly) removed.

Then she quotes this end passage:

"Unless caught red handed, such a man in ordinary life would be harmless enough, polite, not to say obsequious, in his manners, and about the last a British policeman would suspect.
But when the villain is primed with his opium, or bang, or gin, and inspired with his lust for slaughter and blood, he would destroy his defenceless victim with the ferocity and cunning of the tiger; and past impunity and success would only have rendered him more daring and reckless,
Your obedient servant,
October 2 NEMO"

On it’s own it’s a little bit odd. If this is supposed to be a letter written by the murderer (Sickert) why is the writer seemingly uncertain about whether opium, bang or gin is the driving force? Would he not know which it is? And what did Nemo mean by "such a man"? Why was Nemo even writing to the Times?

Once we see the parts of the letter that Cornwell omits, everything becomes clear. The letter actually begins thus:

"Having long been in India and, therefore, acquainted with the methods of Eastern criminals, it has struck me in reading the accounts of these Whitechapel murders that they have probably been committed by a Malay, or other low-class Asiatic coming under the general term of Lascar, of whom, I believe, there are large numbers in that part of London. The mutilations, cutting off the nose and ears, ripping up the body, and cutting out certain organs – the heart &C – are all peculiarly Eastern methods and universally recognized, and intended by the criminal classes to express insult, hatred and contempt; whereas, here the public and police are quite at a loss to attach any meaning to them, and so they are described as the mere senseless fury of a maniac."

So the rather crucial piece of information that the writer claims to have lived in India for a long time has been completely omitted by Cornwell. Apparently this was not important enough for her reader to be made aware of. But it’s pretty crucial because what Nemo appears to be saying that it is the Lascars who perform mutilations and cut out organs such as the heart.

Nemo continues:

"My theory would be that some man of this class has been hocussed and then robbed of his savings (often large), or, as he considers, been in some way greatly injured by a prostitute – perhaps one of the earlier victims; and then has been led by fury and revenge to take the lives of as many of the same class as he can. This is also entirely in consonance with Eastern ideas and the practices of the criminal classes."

So when he refers to the villain being high on opium or drink he is referring to this Eastern killer.

Is there any significance that this letter was signed in a name known to have been used by Sickert?

Well the fact of the matter is that Nemo was a very frequently used pseudonym for letters to the editor published in the Times. We find letters from Nemo on a wide variety of topics in the Times of the following dates

26 Feb 1827
23 Dec 1833
28 Dec 1833
24 Nov 1836
23 Nov 1843
13 Nov 1844
28 Dec 1844
12 July 1845
19 Feb 1846
6 April 1849
31 July 1849
17 Aug 1850
16 Sept 1850
27 Sept 1850
18 Jan 1851
19 April 1852
2 Nov 1852
26 Jan 1853
14 Feb 1853
25 June 1853
20 Sept 1855
4 Jan 1856
24 June 1856
6 Aug 1856
1 Nov 1856
12 Nov 1856
19 Nov 1856
11 April 1857
9 July 1857
15 Sept 1857
18 Sept 1857
22 Oct 1857
26 Oct 1857
24 May 1858
27 July 1858
30 Aug 1860
14 Jan 1861
21 Jan 1861
6 Sept 1861
8 Feb 1862
6 May 1863
9 May 1863
26 July 1864
14 April 1865
27 June 1865
12 Oct 1865
20 Oct 1865
13 Dec 1865
21 July 1867
8 June 1868
7 Oct 1868
27 Oct 1869
24 Dec 1869
4 Jan 1870
19 Aug 1871
28 May 1873
16 Sept 1873
21 Sept 1874
4 Dec 1875
17 Aug 1877
4 May 1880
23 Dec 1880
28 Dec 1880
3 Feb 1881
31 Jan 1882
14 May 1883
2 June 1884
16 Sept 1884
18 Feb 1885
9 May 1885
14 Jan 1887
12 May 1887
19 Aug 1887
31 May 1888
10 July 1888

I think we are on safe ground in saying that all of the above were not authored by Walter Sickert.

It’s actually interesting to note that the letter of 17 August 1850 was about a fight between two women in Whitechapel witnessed by the author about which he was told a police officer had refused to intervene while the letter of 27 July 1858 was said to have come from the Dardenelles and was about mutilation of Turkish soldiers by the Motenegrins who cut off the noses, lips and ears. As Walter Sickert had not yet been born it is certain that he wrote neither of these Nemo letters but one can only wonder what Cornwell had said if they had been published in 1888 or thereabouts.

Further, there were another three letters from 'Nemo' in the remainder of 1888 alone: On 9 October 1888, about the new German drill book, on 1 November 1888 about Irish Protestants and the Union and on 25 December 1888 about Liberal Unionists and the National Liberal Club. It is inconceivable that Cornwell did not locate these letters – she would certainly have searched for all letters from Nemo in the Times during 1888 – but there is no mention of them in her book.

Although Cornwell claims that the use of pseudonyms by authors of letters to newspapers at the time was rare, this is not my experience and does not seem to be supported by the above.

My conclusion is that Jack the Ripper or no Jack the Ripper, there is no good reason to think that Walter Sickert was the author of the 'Nemo' letter of 4 October 1888.

Nice work David.


Steve

[David Orsam]

Mathematicus

According to Cornwell, included in a set of "letters attributed to Jack the Ripper at the National Archives" is an undated one signed by a 'Mathematicus'. Actually, the letter is not a JTR letter. It’s a letter from a member of the public suggesting that the Ripper was a tailor due to the fact that 'ripper' and 'buckle' were words used in tailoring. Nevertheless, this letter excites Cornwell because she tells us, unconvincingly, that Sickert was "a Mathematicus technician".

She is also excited by the fact that a letter was published in The Times of 12 September 1888, during the period of the Ripper murders, from someone using the pseudonym 'Mathematicus'. Moreover, a reply to this letter from someone signed as 'Pomingolarna' was published in the Times of Monday 17 September 1888 which, says, Cornwell, "happens to be the date of possibly the first Ripper letter where the name Jack the Ripper appears." She is referring here to a controversial letter discovered in 1988 by Peter McClelland signed 'Jack the Ripper' but, really, a more tenuous connection is hard to imagine, even if the 17 September letter is genuine. The letter from 'Pomingloarna' would have been written at some point between 13-15 September and had nothing to do with Jack the Ripper or the murders.

In fact, the original 'Mathematicus' letter challenged the notion that, due to the lack of different words for numbers in their language, "savages" (aborigines) did not have the mental capacity to appreciate or understand any number greater than four. Hence, with the letter being about numbers, the name of 'Mathematicus' was appropriate. The person writing in response as 'Pomingolarna' said that he (presuming it was a 'he') was writing "from personal experience of the Australian native". 'Pomingolarna' wrote a further letter in the debate about the ability of Australian natives to count on 28 September which was published in the Times of 2 October 1888.

Pomingolarna (or Pomingalarna) is an area on the outskirts of Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia. Someone called 'Pomingolarna', claiming to have had experience of horses in Australia, had a letter published in the Times of 29 June 1878. A further letter from a 'Pomingolarna' about the rise of Australasian wool was published in the Times of 5 October 1886. Quite possibly the same person wrote all three letters and the name has nothing whatsoever to do with the Tichborne case, with which Sickert had an interest, as Cornwell suggests.

As for 'Mathematicus', this was a fairly common pseudonym for letters in the Times. As long ago as 13 Dec 1786 a letter from 'Mathematicus' containing a mathematics question was published in the Times. Additional letters from 'Mathematicus' on a variety of topics appeared in editions of the Times dated 15 November 1819, 23 September 1835, 22 December 1854, 16 November 1866 and 9 August 1867. 'Mathematicus' also replied to responses to his original letter in the Times which was published in the Times of 18 September 1888.

There is, in my view, absolutely no reason to suppose that the 'Mathematicus' whose letter was published in the Times of 12 September 1888 was Walter Sickert or that 'Pomingolarna' was also 'Mathematicus', replying to his own letter.

[David Orsam]

Nemo

Patricia Cornwell notes that in his younger acting days Walter Sickert went by the name of 'Nemo', or 'Mr Nemo'. This basically meant 'Nobody' or 'Anonymous' and was not an uncommon pseudonym but the fact that five letters catalogued in the Whitechapel Murders file at the London Metropolitan Archives were signed ‘Nemo’ is enough for Cornwell to assume that they were written by Sickert (although she does not tell us what those letters say or if Nemo was also claiming to be the murderer or, by contrast, was offering advice to the police to help them catch the murderer).

If this was not enough, someone signing himself as 'Nemo' had a letter published in the Times of 4 October 1888.

Cornwell quotes selectively from the letter. Firstly this bit:

"The mutilations, cutting off the nose and ears, ripping up the body, and cutting out certain organs – the heart &C"

The interesting element for Cornwell is that the author has referred to the cutting out of the heart yet it was not until the murder of Mary Jane Kelly that a heart was actually (supposedly) removed.

Then she quotes this end passage:

"Unless caught red handed, such a man in ordinary life would be harmless enough, polite, not to say obsequious, in his manners, and about the last a British policeman would suspect.
But when the villain is primed with his opium, or bang, or gin, and inspired with his lust for slaughter and blood, he would destroy his defenceless victim with the ferocity and cunning of the tiger; and past impunity and success would only have rendered him more daring and reckless,
Your obedient servant,
October 2 NEMO"

On it’s own it’s a little bit odd. If this is supposed to be a letter written by the murderer (Sickert) why is the writer seemingly uncertain about whether opium, bang or gin is the driving force? Would he not know which it is? And what did Nemo mean by "such a man"? Why was Nemo even writing to the Times?

Once we see the parts of the letter that Cornwell omits, everything becomes clear. The letter actually begins thus:

"Having long been in India and, therefore, acquainted with the methods of Eastern criminals, it has struck me in reading the accounts of these Whitechapel murders that they have probably been committed by a Malay, or other low-class Asiatic coming under the general term of Lascar, of whom, I believe, there are large numbers in that part of London. The mutilations, cutting off the nose and ears, ripping up the body, and cutting out certain organs – the heart &C – are all peculiarly Eastern methods and universally recognized, and intended by the criminal classes to express insult, hatred and contempt; whereas, here the public and police are quite at a loss to attach any meaning to them, and so they are described as the mere senseless fury of a maniac."

So the rather crucial piece of information that the writer claims to have lived in India for a long time has been completely omitted by Cornwell. Apparently this was not important enough for her reader to be made aware of. But it’s pretty crucial because what Nemo appears to be saying that it is the Lascars who perform mutilations and cut out organs such as the heart.

Nemo continues:

"My theory would be that some man of this class has been hocussed and then robbed of his savings (often large), or, as he considers, been in some way greatly injured by a prostitute – perhaps one of the earlier victims; and then has been led by fury and revenge to take the lives of as many of the same class as he can. This is also entirely in consonance with Eastern ideas and the practices of the criminal classes."

So when he refers to the villain being high on opium or drink he is referring to this Eastern killer.

Is there any significance that this letter was signed in a name known to have been used by Sickert?

Well the fact of the matter is that Nemo was a very frequently used pseudonym for letters to the editor published in the Times. We find letters from Nemo on a wide variety of topics in the Times of the following dates

26 Feb 1827
23 Dec 1833
28 Dec 1833
24 Nov 1836
23 Nov 1843
13 Nov 1844
28 Dec 1844
12 July 1845
19 Feb 1846
6 April 1849
31 July 1849
17 Aug 1850
16 Sept 1850
27 Sept 1850
18 Jan 1851
19 April 1852
2 Nov 1852
26 Jan 1853
14 Feb 1853
25 June 1853
20 Sept 1855
4 Jan 1856
24 June 1856
6 Aug 1856
1 Nov 1856
12 Nov 1856
19 Nov 1856
11 April 1857
9 July 1857
15 Sept 1857
18 Sept 1857
22 Oct 1857
26 Oct 1857
24 May 1858
27 July 1858
30 Aug 1860
14 Jan 1861
21 Jan 1861
6 Sept 1861
8 Feb 1862
6 May 1863
9 May 1863
26 July 1864
14 April 1865
27 June 1865
12 Oct 1865
20 Oct 1865
13 Dec 1865
21 July 1867
8 June 1868
7 Oct 1868
27 Oct 1869
24 Dec 1869
4 Jan 1870
19 Aug 1871
28 May 1873
16 Sept 1873
21 Sept 1874
4 Dec 1875
17 Aug 1877
4 May 1880
23 Dec 1880
28 Dec 1880
3 Feb 1881
31 Jan 1882
14 May 1883
2 June 1884
16 Sept 1884
18 Feb 1885
9 May 1885
14 Jan 1887
12 May 1887
19 Aug 1887
31 May 1888
10 July 1888

I think we are on safe ground in saying that all of the above were not authored by Walter Sickert.

It’s actually interesting to note that the letter of 17 August 1850 was about a fight between two women in Whitechapel witnessed by the author about which he was told a police officer had refused to intervene while the letter of 27 July 1858 was said to have come from the Dardenelles and was about mutilation of Turkish soldiers by the Motenegrins who cut off the noses, lips and ears. As Walter Sickert had not yet been born it is certain that he wrote neither of these Nemo letters but one can only wonder what Cornwell had said if they had been published in 1888 or thereabouts.

Further, there were another three letters from 'Nemo' in the remainder of 1888 alone: On 9 October 1888, about the new German drill book, on 1 November 1888 about Irish Protestants and the Union and on 25 December 1888 about Liberal Unionists and the National Liberal Club. It is inconceivable that Cornwell did not locate these letters – she would certainly have searched for all letters from Nemo in the Times during 1888 – but there is no mention of them in her book.

Although Cornwell claims that the use of pseudonyms by authors of letters to newspapers at the time was rare, this is not my experience and does not seem to be supported by the above.

My conclusion is that Jack the Ripper or no Jack the Ripper, there is no good reason to think that Walter Sickert was the author of the 'Nemo' letter of 4 October 1888.