Ripperologist 127: August 2012

[Monty]

Beowulf,

This is one of the reasons we feel it was taken October 88. Yes, the letter and post card coupled with the recent murders themselves may have triggered them photographing such items early doors.

Monty


PS. I'm sure you meant 29th.

[Beowulf]

Beowulf,

This is one of the reasons we feel it was taken October 88. Yes, the letter and post card coupled with the recent murders themselves may have triggered them photographing such items early doors.

Monty


PS. I'm sure you meant 29th.

Oh, NOW this is clear! I confused the date of Eddowes and Strides death as to be on the 27th. It was on the 30th! And of course that is the end of September, so it had to be photographed in the daylight putting it into October.

Then this wall writing could actually have been written by Jack the Ripper. I don't want to be hasty, but then does that make the Dear Boss writing likely not a hoax?

[Harry the Hawker]

Mrs Harvey

Well, Farson's notes were kindly provided by Keith Skinner, who obviously has a lot of other interesting material, though I think he sent us all he had that was directly relevant to "Farson's Guide".

I have a few more snippets of information from the production file at the BFI about those who appeared (or didn't appear) in the programmes, which I'll try to post over the next few days if people are interested.

Chris,

Many thanks for the transcript and info! Fascinating stuff. I would love to know the story of "Mrs Harvey, who thinks she once met the killer", is there anything more known about her?

Cheers!
Harry

[Rob Clack]

Hello all,

I have just finished Trevor Marriott's piece and must say that this very detailed and responsible article raises, imho, serious questions against Tumblety's candidacy as a suspect for the Ripper crimes. The methodology used by the authorities shown in this article, if correct (and I see no reason to say that it isn't) is quite conclusive.

Well done to Trevor, and to Simon as well. It is a very fine article indeed, that may well be groundbreaking imho.

Best wishes

Phil

I have just finished Trevor's article, and while I didn't have the orgasm you did after reading it, I did enjoy it. However, Trevor's idea that to be a Jack the Ripper suspect, you would have had to committed the 'Macnaghten Five' murders is just plain silly. I felt the idea behind the article was to remove Tumblety from the list of suspects and this was the best way to do it. Personally speaking that is an impossible task as Tumblety (whether you think he is Jack the Ripper or not, and I don't) is a legitimate Jack the Ripper, he was named at the time and he was named by a top police officer so whether we like it or not he is a genuine suspect and should be placed along side the likes of Druitt and kosminski.
I'd have to read the article several times to understand all the technical jargon and a note on sources wouldn't have gone amiss.

Rob

[Rob Clack]

I thoroughly enjoyed Chris and John's article. These are the articles I like reading about and the new information regarding Farson's program would hopefully open up new areas of research regarding the participants we now know about.

Rob

[mariab]

Congratulations to Rob, Monty, and Debs for these very significant findings. Congrats also to Magpie and How Brown for having also located the newspaper report.

I haven't downloaded the issue yet (finishing up with a project that requires my comp at 100%), so I really hope that the pics will be visible.

I just wanted to add that in my opinion, the controversy of the missing "signed" could be explained by the fact that the newspaper added it to indicate the signature.

Anyone already compared the graffito with "From Hell" and with the "Dear boss" letter and postcard?

[Monty]

I think clarification is required.


In 2007 How Brown located a report in which the wall writing photo is mentioned.


In February 2011 John, Laura, Rob and myself were present, along with Catherine Coulthard at the finding of the wall writing photo.

A few months after that, Debs Arif notified us of the same report How had located. However Debs was unware How had found the report at that moment.

Fast forward many months, Magpie located the same report (again unaware that others had found it) and posted it on JTR Forums. Debs noted this but as she was aware that we had to keep the discovery under wraps, kept quiet.

When we published the Wall writing article we thanks Debs for her find. Debs pointed out that Magpie had already revealed the report and subsequently found out that How had actually released it many years ago (in 2007).

So basically what has happen is two seperate threads of research has come together.

Monty

[mariab]

Who's Catherine Coulthard?

[AdamNeilWood]

Who's Catherine Coulthard?

Hi Maria,

Can I suggest you subscribe and read the issue - all will become clear!

Best wishes
Adam

[Monty]

Catherine Coulthard is someone we all should be extremely grateful to.

She is the Records Officer for the City of London Police. She also stepped into the temporary role of Curator of the museum at a time when its future looked doubtful. Catherine let Rob and I full access to the archives they hold and if she hadn't have done that we as a community would have either have had to wait a little longer for the photos or, heaven forbid, miss out on them completely.

We owe a debt of gratitude to Cathy.

Monty

[mariab]

Much gratitude to Catherine Coulthard then.

I'll read the article real soon (need to finish up a little project first) and can't wait to also read the Tumblety article (by Trevor Marriott with the help of Simon Wood).

[Monty]

I have just finished Trevor's article, and while I didn't have the orgasm you did after reading it, I did enjoy it. However, Trevor's idea that to be a Jack the Ripper suspect, you would have had to committed the 'Macnaghten Five' murders is just plain silly. I felt the idea behind the article was to remove Tumblety from the list of suspects and this was the best way to do it. Personally speaking that is an impossible task as Tumblety (whether you think he is Jack the Ripper or not, and I don't) is a legitimate Jack the Ripper, he was named at the time and he was named by a top police officer so whether we like it or not he is a genuine suspect and should be placed along side the likes of Druitt and kosminski.
I'd have to read the article several times to understand all the technical jargon and a note on sources wouldn't have gone amiss.

Rob

I just read it on Kindle.

I thought it a good piece also (The thud you hear is Marriott passing out) however there are liberties with legalities, interpretation and assumption.

I am not a Tumblety believer however, as Rob states, his is a contemporary name who was in the area (that doesn't apply to Cross by the way ;-) ).

Doesn't completely remove Dr T for me but it was a very interesting insight into Victorian legal system.

Monty

[Archaic]

Hi Rob and Monty.

Stellar work on finding the photo; you really outdid yourselves!

Looking forward to reading the article again.

Please thank Ms. Coulthard for her kind assistance.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Monty]

Thanks Bunny,

Catherine was fabtastic to us.

Monty

[Rob Clack]

Just to add to what Neil said. Ripperology owes a lot to Catherine and the work she has done at the City of London Police Museum.

Rob