Authors: The Whitechapel Society
Ripperologists have tried to produce a picture of the killer, from the thirteen or so people who possibly saw him. Philip Sugden writes that a study of the best of these witnesses suggests that the murderer was ‘a white male of average or below average height in his twenties or thirties.’
23
Maybrick is, therefore, unlikely to have been Jack the Ripper, as he was in his late forties in 1888. William Beadle has argued that Maybrick was not only too old to be the killer, he also ‘simply does not fit the psychological profile of a serial killer.’
24
He points to Maybrick’s ability to interact with women, the fact that he had children, whom he appeared to love, and to the remorse shown by the diarist at the end of the journal, a concept he describes as alien to multicides. However, Dr David Forshaw, a specialist consultant in addiction, asked by Shirley Harrison to examine the diary, produced a lengthy report in which he concluded that, if you had to rely on the content of the diary, then ‘on the balance of probabilities from a psychiatric perspective, it is authentic.’
25
David Canter, wrote:
The diary may be a fake, but what it tells us certainly does not contradict what we know from other sources about James Maybrick, or Jack the Ripper. It also accords with what we can see about how a serial killer’s inner narrative is reflected in the geography of his crimes.
26
The diary, the watch and the circumstantial evidence surrounding James Maybrick, have convinced many that he was, indeed, Jack the Ripper. Although Maybrick lived in Liverpool, he often visited London and almost certainly knew the Whitechapel area. He was a regular user of prostitutes and a habitual user of dangerous drugs. In the summer of 1888, his health and demeanour were suffering as a result of his loose living and drug abuse. His business and personal life were in turmoil, and his wife was about to start (or maybe already was having) an adulterous affair. However, Maybrick will remain a highly controversial candidate to be Jack the Ripper, until the provenance of the diary can be successfully resolved. Paul Begg wrote, ‘…when faced with a possibly forged document the most important thing is provenance: the history or the lack of provenance altogether is highly suspicious. In fact poor provenance is alone sufficient to brand the diary a forgery.’
27
James Maybrick’s coat of arms carried the legend
Tempus Omnia Revelat
(Time Reveals All). This is extremely apt because research into both James Maybrick and the diary has continued unabated, since 1992. For example, it has recently been discovered that Maybrick served on the Grand Jury in Liverpool, in December 1888.
28
The diarist, who continually ridicules the police for their failure to catch him, fails to record this event in the journal. If Maybrick had been the diarist, then surely he would have mentioned his time on the jury. Although this piece of evidence is suggestive, it is far from conclusive. Nevertheless, it is likely that in the future, research will unearth new evidence that will finally answer the question of whether, or not, James Maybrick was actually Jack the Ripper.
1.
Harrison, S.,
The Diary of Jack the Ripper
(Blake, 1998), p.239
2.
Linder, S., Morris, C. & Skinner, K.,
Ripper Diary – The Inside Story
(Sutton Publishing, 2003), pp.4–5.
3.
Ibid
., p.18
4.
Sugden, P.,
The Complete History of Jack the Ripper
(Robinson, 2002), pp.10–11
5.
Irving, H.B.,
Trial of Mrs Maybrick
(William Hodge, 1927), p.179
6.
Rubinstein, W.D., ‘Hunt for Jack the Ripper’, in
History Today
, # 50 (2000)
7.
Canter, D.,
Mapping Murder
(Virgin Books, 2003), p.94
8.
Stead, W.T., ‘Ought Mrs. Maybrick to be Tortured to Death? An Appeal from North America, and a Confession from South Africa’, in the
Review of Reviews
, # VI (1892)
9.
Irving, H.B.,
Trial of Mrs Maybrick
, p.195
10.
Ibid
., pp.32–33
11.
Ibid
., p.69
12.
Rumbelow, D.,
The Complete Jack the Ripper
(Penguin, 2004), p.253
13.
Liverpool Weekly Mercury
(6 June 1888)
14.
The
Liverpool Citizen
(29 October 1887)
15.
The
Garston and Woolton Reporter
(17 August 1889)
16.
MacDougall, A.W.,
The Maybrick Case: A Treatise
(Bailliere Tydall & Cox, 1891), p.10
17.
HO 144/1639/A50678D/99
18.
Rumbelow, D.,
The Complete Jack the Ripper
, p.252
19.
Harrison, S.,
The Diary of Jack the Ripper
, p.352
20.
Beadle, W., ‘Revisiting the Maybrick Diary’, in the
Journal of The Whitechapel Society
, #20 (2008)
21.
Morris, C., ‘Response to Bill Beadle’, in the
Journal of The Whitechapel Society
, #22 (2008)
22.
Irving, H.B.,
Trial of Mrs Maybrick
, p.231
23.
Sugden, P.,
The Complete History of Jack the Ripper
, p.367
24.
Beadle, W., ‘Revisiting the Maybrick Diary’, p.15
25.
Harrison, S.,
The Diary of Jack the Ripper
, p.19
26.
Canter, D.,
Mapping Murder
, p.98
27.
Begg, P.,
Jack the Ripper: the Facts
(Robson Books, 2006), p.416
28.
The
Liverpool Courier
(4 December 1888)
Beadle, W., ‘Revisiting the Maybrick Diary’, in the
Journal of The Whitechapel Society
, #20 (2008)
Begg, P.,
Jack the Ripper: The Facts
(Robson Books, 2006)
Canter, D.,
Mapping Murder
(Virgin Books, 2003)
Harrison, S.,
The Diary of Jack the Ripper
(Blake, 1998)
Irving, H.B.,
Trial of Mrs Maybrick
(William Hodge, 1927)
Linder, S., Morris, C. & Skinner, K.,
Ripper Diary – The Inside Story
(Sutton Publishing, 2003)
MacDougall, A.W.,
The Maybrick Case: A Treatise
(Bailliere, Tyndall & Cox, 1891)
Rumbelow, D.,
The Complete Jack the Ripper
(Penguin, 2004)
Sugden, P.,
The Complete History of Jack the Ripper
(Robinson, 2002)
The
Garston and Woolton Reporter
History Today
The
Journal of The Whitechapel Society
The
Liverpool Citizen
The
Liverpool Courier
Liverpool Weekly Mercury
Review of Reviews
Chris Jones, a member of The Whitechapel Society, is a teacher and researcher who lives in Liverpool. In 2007, he organised ‘The Trial of James Maybrick’ at Liverpool Cricket Club – an event that was part of Liverpool’s Capital of Culture celebrations. His book,
The Maybrick A to Z
, published in 2008, was well-received for its thoroughness and objectivity. Chris has come to be seen as an expert of James and Florence Maybrick, and he has given talks on the Maybricks in both Britain and America. His website:
www.jamesmaybrick.org
, has received more than half a million hits. Chris has continued his research into the Maybricks and, in the near future, he plans to publish a new book providing the definitive account of the life of James and Florence Maybrick.
Walter Sickert’s candidacy, as a Ripper suspect, arises from works by Jean Overton Fuller and Patricia Cornwell. Given that Cornwell’s book,
Portrait of a Killer
, makes Sickert a high profile suspect, I will concentrate on this thesis. It has been widely dismissed due to its highly subjective, speculative nature, with poor research techniques used and clear mistakes made; roundly criticised not just within Ripperologist circles but by historians and art experts.
1
But the arguments against Cornwell are well documented and it would seem futile to go back over old ground. The Sickert argument centres round abstractions from pathology, art, psychology and graphology. The murders, and the time and place in which they occurred, seem secondary. I will take Sickert out of the realms of art and science, and attempt to place him within the reality of the mean streets of Whitechapel, in 1888. I will consider Cornwell’s contention that Sickert used a network of secret studios, mastery of disguise and great knowledge of the local streets to avoid detection.
There appears to be a distinct geographical pattern to the murders. Buck’s Row, Hanbury Street, Henriques Street and Miller’s Court are equidistant from central Spitalfields. Profiling tells us that such a pattern killer often murders his first victim close to home, because he lacks confidence to kill further afield. So, whether or not one believes the George Yard murder was a Ripper killing, it does not, overly, alter the pattern. The Mitre Square murder appears to have been unplanned, the killer happening upon his victim by chance, as he made his way home from Dutfield’s Yard. For those who believe Dutfield’s Yard was not a Ripper killing, I still maintain Mitre Square was unplanned; soliciting the city being rigorously policed. Prostitutes, looking to attract city clientele, tended to advertise their wares outside St Botolph’s Church, across the street from the city, in the jurisdiction of the Met Police. The killer would not have wasted his time looking for a victim within the City, and could not have believed his luck when he happened upon Catharine Eddowes.
The pattern indicates that the killer lived, or had a bolt-hole, in Spitalfields. So where does Walter Sickert fit into this pattern? Cornwell uses evidence from Sickert’s friend, Marjorie Lilly, to state that Sickert had multiple studios in ‘unknown’ locations. This is confirmed by other friends, William Rothenstein and Ambrose McEvoy. Cornwell argues that Sickert’s secret studios would have been well located as bases, from which to commit the murders, but there is no evidence to suggest Sickert had studios in the East End in 1888.
If Sickert enjoyed a network of secret East-End hideaways, he would have had numerous landlords. Such men built mini empires in single streets. Jack McCarthy, for example, Mary Kelly’s and at one time Liz Stride’s landlord, owned several properties in Dorset Street. Areas close to the murders tended to be divided along national or ethnic lines; some were almost exclusively English, while others were either Irish or Jewish. Landlords preferred not to rent to the ‘wrong sort’. If Sickert had a network of studios close to all the murder sites, he would have had to rent from various landlords, who rented to differing categories of people. He may have looked out of place, needing to persuade them against their normal judgement to rent him a room. But perhaps Sickert used disguise to present himself as a suitable tenant, blending in to each environment.
Let us look at these surroundings and the art of disguise to blend in. The Charles Booth survey, 1889, reported there were 456,000 people living in Tower Hamlets. This is larger than the area in which the murders occurred, but Spitalfields and its environs were the most overcrowded part of Tower Hamlets
2
, making up a good proportion of that near-half-million population. But this is the official figure. In reality, when a Booth survey worker knocked on the door of a tenement, or common lodging house, it’s unlikely this representative of officialdom would have been given accurate information by a landlord’s bully, who had nothing to gain from being honest. He would have distrusted what the information might be used for, and have a natural aversion to ‘busy-bodies’ poking their nose into his business. There must have been inestimable numbers living within a square mile of the murders. And this was a twenty-four-hour society; chandler’s shops, forerunners of corner shops, were open twenty-two hours a day (except Sundays), closing between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. The homeless who couldn’t afford a place in a common lodging house (4
d
for a bed, 3
d
to share a bed and a penny to ‘sleep on the string’ – leaning against a thick rope) were not allowed to sleep in shop doorways; the police moved them on. They had to walk the streets all night, sleeping in places like the graveyard of Christ Church, Spitalfields (nicknamed ‘Itchy Park’) during the day. And people worked long hours; some went out to work early, others came home late. The bodies of victims Tabram, Nichols and Chapman were discovered by people in the early hours on their way to work; while the mutilation of Stride was interrupted by a man finishing his day’s work. Amongst the throng, there were an estimated 1,200 prostitutes in the Whitechapel area at the start of the murders. There were sixty-two brothels, but the majority of such women were streetwalkers, looking to service the rough trade with a ‘fourpenny kneetrembler’ or a ‘tuppenny upright’. The streets were full of unwashed humanity at all hours. Jack the Ripper was not the unseen man portrayed in books and films. He must have been seen by hundreds; seen but not noticed, unremembered, a man amongst many, who just merged in.
Could Sickert have been such a man? The ‘shabby genteel’ appearance of the killer is oft quoted. This could point to a gent like Sickert, attempting to dress down to blend in. But ‘shabby genteel’ was simply an expression – the equivalent nowadays being that the man’s clothes ‘had seen better days’. More importantly Sickert looked nothing like the man, or men, seen by eye witnesses with Annie Chapman, ‘Long Liz’ Stride
3
and Catharine Eddowes. But Cornwell counters that his normal appearance is irrelevant, because Sickert was a master of disguise, even suggesting he could have disguised his height. This all springs from the fact that Sickert was known to change his appearance by use of beards and moustaches; he also used different hairstyles and even shaved his head.
4
The one occasion in which this behaviour was caught, for all to see, was when Sickert wore an obviously false moustache in a portrait by Wilson Steer. The moustache wouldn’t fool anyone. However, it is quite a leap to suggest that a flamboyant theatricality with his appearance makes Sickert a master of disguise, good enough to fool the world’s greatest manhunt. This would seem the realm of Moriarty. Sickert didn’t just have to fool victims, policemen on their beat and eye-witnesses; he also had to fool everyone he passed on the street. Every man was a potential suspect, and those who did not look or behave quite right would be the first to receive a backward glance. It would have taken more than ex-actor Sickert’s knowledge of costume and make-up to transform him into the barely noticed man seen with the victims.