Kitty Ronan

[Suzi]

I Love the top image!!! Ooooooooooh Lawks...somebody's cut poor Kitty's throat!
Wonderfully theatrical!!!! Ooooooooooooh Fie Poor Kitty!!!!

(Ah! Kitty!!! Case solved! Hmmmmmmmmmmm)

[Judroo]

Greetings all

Rob and Robert - many thanks for your replies.Hopefully one day some photos will turn up. Fingers crossed

I've been rereading this thread and the Kate Marshall one. Am I right in thinking that both murders took place in the same room and that room was the one that had been Mrs Praters at the time of the MJK murder?


Best wishes

Jud

[m_w_r]

Hello -

This is the case as told in the pages of the Times:

20 July 1909:


21 July 1909:


28 July 1909:


15 September 1909:


Two things to note: first, that the confession to the police at Bristol did, according to the Times, mention strangling; second, that Hall's age as reported on 21 July and 28 July was 32, whereas at the Old Bailey it seems to have been recorded as 27.

Hall is not recorded in John J Eddleston's The Encyclopedia of Executions as having been hanged. In those days (I think), the sentence of death could be carried out once three Sundays had elapsed from the date of sentencing, so Hall could have been executed as early as October 1909 - but I have not been able to find an entry in the death registers to match. The variation in his dates of birth (and his fairly ordinary name) makes him a difficult person to look for in databases. It is quite possible that the death sentence was commuted, and that Hall spent the next few years in jail.

One last thing - a search of the Catalogue of the National Archives threw this up ... very interesting ...

Ext 11/133: Public Record Office: Items extracted to boxed storage from various classes of records since 1 January 1999: 1 item extracted from CRIM 1/115/1. A penknife produced as an exhibit in the case R v Harold Hall.

Regards,

Mark

[Rob Clack]

Thanks for posting that information Mark. Very interesting about the knife.

These are a couple of illustrations I have, the first is the same as the above one but a better quality one.

'The Illustrated Police News'



And a rather fanciful one from 'The Illustrated Police Budget'



Rob

[Mitch Rowe]

Hmm?
Strangely enough the two "Kittys" look very similar. Even looks like the same clothing.
But I think I would be correct in assuming Kittys room did NOT look like The Illustrated Police Budgets rendition of it!
When looking at the two sketches it just re-enforces my suspicion that The Illustrated Police News seem to have taken a far more interest in accuracy as compared to other journals of the time.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

For once I agree with Mitch Rowe on something!

Thanks, Rob, for posting those very interesting illustrations. I didn't even know about the Illustrated Police Budget! By God, how many illustrated tabloids were there?

I think the reason why the two Kittys look similar is because they were based on female artist clichés that were popular of the day, and quite often idealized.
I agree that Illustrated Police Budget's depiction of the room is as far from the truth as one can get, although it's beautifully done technically. Like Mitch, I think Illustrated Police News were quite accurate in their depictions of environs.
However, the illustrators in the same paper were terrible in doing portraits, especially on women (as can be seen on their terrible versions of Stride and Chapman - especially Stride) that can be cosidered far from accurate.
Penny Illustrated Paper was probably one of the tabloids that had the best illustrators as far as portraying people is concerned.

All the best

[Stephen Thomas]

Hall is not recorded in John J Eddleston's The Encyclopedia of Executions as having been hanged. In those days (I think), the sentence of death could be carried out once three Sundays had elapsed from the date of sentencing, so Hall could have been executed as early as October 1909 - but I have not been able to find an entry in the death registers to match. The variation in his dates of birth (and his fairly ordinary name) makes him a difficult person to look for in databases. It is quite possible that the death sentence was commuted, and that Hall spent the next few years in jail.

Hi Mark

I've just finished reading the 1930 memoirs of Fred Wensley who went from Whitechapel constable to head of the CID (Detective Days UK/40 Years of Scotland Yard US) and in it he mentions the Ronan murder without giving names. He seems to have had a lot of sympathy for Harold Hall and pleaded with the Home Office for the sentence to be commuted. Hall did spend a few years in jail then joined the army to fight in France where he served with distinction. In 1929 just before Wensley retired, Hall visited him at Scotland Yard and Wensley fixed him up with a job.

[m_w_r]

Hi Stephen,

Yes, that's right - you'll probably have seen Nick Connell and Jon Ogan's version of the Kitty Ronan story in the Journal of the Whitechapel Society 1888 a year and a half ago (or thereabouts - I'm working from memory here). It's also covered by Fiona Rule in her book, The Worst Street in London. And if my book ever comes out, you'll see my version of it in there too.

Regards,

Mark

[Robert]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the name was actually "RoMan."

[m_w_r]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the name was actually "RoMan."

Hi Robert,

It was.

But this is almost a philosophical question. When we come to know someone by a particular name, should we change that name when we discover it to be incorrect or dubious? I wrote an article on Annie Milward a long time ago, but she's still almost always referred to as Annie Millwood. And then there is Catherine Mylett, the Rose by any other name... What about Lechmere / Cross? What about Diemschutz / Diemschitz (etc)?

I think it may be true to say that all these individual cases have certain inherent and specific qualities which either drive or inhibit change. The conscious, deliberate use of the alias name of Cross, for example, by a man known more-or-less exclusively throughout all the other spheres of his existence as Lechmere presents a different problem to probable mishearings of surnames (Milward / Diemschutz) and the vagaries of preferred / adopted forenames (Catherine / Rose). Still, there was a time when one would regularly read about Marie Jeanette Kelly, and one hardly ever does any more.

The difficulty, I suppose, is that, in judging these questions case-by-case, a general ordinance becomes impossible to formulate. There isn't, I think, a one-size-fits-all rule for the revision of incorrect or dubious names. And the question goes a little wider at that point - do we go on telling the story, because it's a good one, with all its faults? Or do we insist on historical precision every step of the way? The latter course could be pedantic, or revisionist, or unromantic. The former is inherently imperfect...

I don't propose any answers here, but, since you asked, yes, she's Kitty Roman, and no, I don't suppose she'll ever be known as anything but Kitty Ronan.

Regards,

Mark

[Stephen Thomas]

I don't propose any answers here, but, since you asked, yes, she's Kitty Roman, and no, I don't suppose she'll ever be known as anything but Kitty Ronan.

Hi Mark and Robert

How do we know that her real surname was Roman?

[m_w_r]

How do we know that her real surname was Roman?

Steve,

There's copious proof, actually, but I offer the below for your consideration:



Regards,

Mark

[Robert]

Hi Mark

I guess it matters to me because there are RoNans in my family tree.

Bang goes my claim to fame.

I shall have to do Dr Munson's roses next week after all (Jethro Tull, "Thick As A Brick")

[seanr]

Thanks for posting this and making me aware that the Old Bailey records for the Ripper years are finally online...

Unfortunately we STILL don't know what happened to Harold Hall. There is no record of him ever being executed. And I don't see any record of an appeal in the Old Bailey records.

Not to mention there are a TON of holes in his confession. She was obviously strangled, and yet Hall never mentioned this. There were signs of intercourse which Hall also doesn't mention. And if you are a prostitute who wants to steal money from a client you CERTAINLY don't take them back to your place of residence. You also don't pick their pocket until AFTER the deed is done (not BEFORE). Otherwise when they go to pay you they are going to notice the missing money.

The only "evidence" purportedly comes from the fact that he knew the place didn't have gas and he knew a little about the layout. And even though it was mentioned at the trial that these two facts were not known in the press there is the possibility they were mistaken, or that Hall had simply been to the building before.

I realised this thread is quite old, but I didn't want to start a new one if there was already one for this.

I found a reference as to the fate of Howard Hall elsewhere on the internet: https://www.babiafi.co.uk/2015/09/mi...oor-kitty.html

The relevant paragraph is at the end of the article. It seems Hall was not executed and the death sentence was commuted on the advice of Inspector Wensley.

In 1917, Hall was released to fight in the First World War. I guess by that point in the war they had started releasing prisoners to use as conscripts?

It's claimed Hall visited Wensley in 1929, to thank him for the intervention that saved his life. The original source for this information doesn't seem to be this blog, but the book 'Whitechapel's Sherlock Holmes' by Dick Kirby.