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Jack the Ripper Special Branch Index Ledgers
Fri Sep 02, 2011 7:17 am by Admin
Where would a book on Jack the Ripper conspiracies be without mention and an adequate assessment of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch Index Ledgers?
For those who do have a personal interest in these developments on the case, details on their existence and relevance was first published in the foundational reference work on the Whitechapel murders in 2006, Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard …
For those who do have a personal interest in these developments on the case, details on their existence and relevance was first published in the foundational reference work on the Whitechapel murders in 2006, Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard …
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Secret Files on Jack the Ripper?
Wed May 18, 2011 3:36 pm by auspirograph
Breaking News?
Hi all,
Yes, this is a breaking story on Jack the Ripper historical sources but it has been an on-going saga for some time with the UK Information Tribunal. The story is a bit more involved than the press are reporting, or as Trevor Marriott is describing. There are certainly some details of a Victorian Special Branch investigation of Jack the Ripper, however, because suspects …
Hi all,
Yes, this is a breaking story on Jack the Ripper historical sources but it has been an on-going saga for some time with the UK Information Tribunal. The story is a bit more involved than the press are reporting, or as Trevor Marriott is describing. There are certainly some details of a Victorian Special Branch investigation of Jack the Ripper, however, because suspects …
Comments: 5
Ripper Writers RSS Feeds
Wed Aug 25, 2010 4:56 pm by Admin
As a service to members and guests of Jack the Ripper Writers who would like to subscribe to updates and news displayed on this website blog, please go to the menu right and choose your favorite option.
Thanks for your continued interest and support of a site specific for writers, authors and crime historians on Jack the Ripper and the iconic Whitechapel murders.
Admin
Jack the Ripper Writers
Thanks for your continued interest and support of a site specific for writers, authors and crime historians on Jack the Ripper and the iconic Whitechapel murders.
Admin
Jack the Ripper Writers
Comments: 0
The East End Tradesmen, The Three Nuns Hotel and the Retirement of Chief Inspector Abberline
by Scott Nelson
When Frederick G. Abberline retired from the Metropolitan Police Force (MET) on 8 February 1892, he was the highest-ranking Chief Inspector at the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard. Abberline began investigating the Jack the Ripper Murders as a Detective Inspector, beginning with the killing of Mary Ann Nichols on 31 August 1888, until his involvement ended with the investigation into the murder of Mary Kelly on 9 November 1888. Throughout his many years of service at the MET, he was very respected for his knowledge of criminal activity in the East End. In fact, when Abberline was promoted in December 1887, from H Division, Whitechapel, where he had patrolled for the last fourteen years, to the Central Office of Scotland Yard, he was honored with a ceremonial dinner at the Unicorn Tavern in Shoreditch by the grateful inhabitants of Spitalfields.1 Upon his promotion to Chief Inspector in March 1889, Abberline left the Whitechapel Murders Investigation to work on other MET Police cases, such as the Cleveland Street Scandal of 1889, until he retired.
On 11 June 1892, The East London Observer carried an article entitled, “Presentation To A Well-Known Detective.” The subheading read, “Chief Inspector Abberline Retires from the Service And is the Recipient of a Presentation.” The occasion was a retirement dinner given to Abberline on 8 June 1892, at the Three Nuns Hotel on Aldgate-High Street. This ceremony was so popular that a large public crowd stood outside the hotel during the ceremony, hoping perhaps, to get a glimpse of the great detective. The Three Nuns Hotel is significant because it was the scene of several incidents related to the Whitechapel Murders. The location of the hotel is also interesting because of its proximity to certain businesses run by local tradesmen, many of whom were present at the hotel to honor Abberline during his retirement ceremony.
The Three Nuns Hotel
The Three Nuns Hotel was an old establishment located close to the old gates (“aldgate”) which opened to the City of London. Henry Shelly, in his Inns and Taverns of Old London, wrote “ Three Nuns Aldgate, London. ‘This, as one would expect from its commanding position, was once a well-known coaching-inn, true to type, with galleried yard, etc.; now a huge modern tavern, doing obviously a very big trade at a very busy spot. During the plague of London, in 1665, a huge pit was dug near this spot, in which well over a thousand bodies were buried between September 6th and 20th.’ In 1744, the Church of St. Botolph’s was built on the west-side of the Inn, partially incorporating the mass burial site dug the century before. By Victorian times, Three Nuns Hotel had become modified into a long and narrow L-shaped building that stood on the north side of Aldgate-High Street between an Italian restaurant on the west, and the Aldgate Railway Station on the east side.2 The hotel front included a bar, a booking office, and a tobacco shop, situated above the underground Metropolitan Railway tracks, which were constructed through the site in 1876. The bar was a small room, some 25 by 40 feet in area. It was in this crowded space that Abberline’s testimonial dinner must have been held, attended by up to 60 or more people. On the east-side of the hotel, stairs led down to the underground loading platforms of the Aldgate Railway Station. Directly across the street from the hotel were several shops on either side of the aboveground railway lines. Further east along the street was a row of butcher shops, known locally as “Butchers’ Row.”
The Three Nuns Hotel entered into the Ripper case several times during the autumn of 1888. On the night of the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes (known as the “double event”), 29-30 September 1888, Albert Bachert, a local engraver who happened to be drinking in the hotel bar, was approached by a man. Bachert later made a statement concerning this encounter to the press: “On Saturday night at about seven minutes to 12 I entered the Three Nuns Hotel, Aldgate. While in there an elderly woman, very shabbily dressed, came in and asked me to buy some matches. I refused and she went out. A man who had been standing by me remarked that those persons were a nuisance, to which I responded ‘Yes.’ He then asked me to have a glass with him, but I refused, as I had just called for one myself. He then asked me if I knew how old some of the women were who were in the habit of soliciting outside. I replied that I knew or thought that some of them who looked about 25 were over 35, the reason they looked younger being on account of the powder and paint. [He then asked me whether I thought a woman would go with him down Northumberland-alley – a dark and lonely court in Fenchurch street. I said I did not know, but supposed she would.] Having asked other questions about their habits [when they usually left the street outside, and where they were in the habit of going], he went outside and spoke to the woman who was selling matches, and gave her something, I believe. He returned to me and I bid him good-night at about 10 minutes past 12. [We came out together at closing time (12 o’clock), and I left him outside Aldgate Railway Station]. I believe the woman was waiting for him. I do not think I could identify the woman, as I did not take particular notice of her, but I should know the man again. He was a dark man [about 38 years of age], height about 5ft. 6in or 7in. [a shabby genteel sort of man]. He wore a black felt hat, dark clothes, morning coat, black tie, and carried a black shiny bag.”3
Following the double event, the City Press, 6 October 1888, reported that working men of the east-end of London had met at the Three Nuns Hotel on 3 October “for the purpose of considering what action the bodies of working men should take regarding the recent murders.” They voted to offer an official thanks to the Corporation of the City of London for its prompt action in offering a reward for the apprehension of the murderer. They also voted to form officially the “Workmen’s Vigilance Committee, to assist by all means in their power, the police in their present arduous duties.”4 This newly-formed committee would meet again on 15 October and on occasions thereafter at the Three Nuns Hotel. 5 It would be interesting to know if Bachert was part of this particular committee at the time.
In a story similar to Bachert’s encounter with the strange man, The 6 October Eastern Post & City Chronicle reported that on the very same night the Workmen’s Vigilance Committee had first met in the hotel, that: “Just after 10 o’clock, a well-dressed man rushed out of the Three Nuns public-house in Aldgate followed by a woman, who, in a loud voice, declared to the loungers and passers–by, that he had molested and threatened her. While he was thus being denounced the stranger hailed a cab, jumped in, and proceeded to drive off. It was the universal belief that the murderer was the occupant, and a hot pursuit was given. In a moment or two the cab was stopped, and a police constable got in, secured the man, and directed the cabman to drive to the Leman Street Police-station. Here the prisoner was formally charged on suspicion […] It was, however, deemed prudent by the officer in charge to detain the man pending inquiries. He is an athletically-built determined-looking fellow, apparently about 40 years of age, with a dark moustache and clear-cut features. On his pockets being searched no weapons of any kind were found upon him. He gave his name, but refused to state his address. When removed to the cell his attitude became defiant. In the course of the conversation, which he carried on with a slightly American accent while pacing up and down his place of confinement, the frequency with which he used the word ‘Boss’ was particularly noticed [...] He still remains in custody.” This suspect was eventually released.
A Retirement Ceremony at the Hotel
It seems remarkable in view of the preceding occurrences that Abberline's retirement ceremony was held at the Three Nuns Hotel on Aldgate-High Street. But the occasion was hosted by the tradesmen of the Aldgate area, tradesmen who had gathered to show their appreciation to Abberline and the police for helping to protect their district when he served H Division. During the autumn of 1888 many police officers were drafted into H Division, Whitechapel as well as into the City of London Force. Many of the tradesmen present at the ceremony had businesses on or near Aldgate-High Street, where police patrols were heavy during the Ripper scare. Thus, the choice of the Three Nuns Hotel as the locale for Abberline’s retirement ceremony does seem fitting. Some of the twenty or so tradesmen in attendance included several individuals who worked in the immediate vicinity of the Three Nuns Hotel.6 Isaac Davis presided over the ceremony. His brother-in-law was Henry Nathan, a butcher who had a shop at no. 46 Aldgate-High Street, across the street in Butchers’ Row. Two other butchers were in attendance that night, J(James) Hawkins and F(Frederick) Louisson, both of whom also had shops in Butchers’ Row, at nos. 55 and 57, respectively. Also present were: J(Joseph) Levy, a tailor who ran a shop at no. 79 Aldgate-High Street, down the street at the corner of the Minories; Levy’s father-in-law, H(Henry) Gluckstein, who had a tobacco shop at no. 13 in the hotel with a man named Salmon; I(Isaac) Abrahams, Henry’s brother-in-law, a cigar maker residing at 212 Whitechapel Road; and Frederick W. Ayers, the landlord of the hotel.
In addition to the presence of the local tradesmen, many of Abberline’s associates who had worked with him on the Whitechapel Murders were present on the night of his retirement ceremony. At least eighteen of Abberline’s policemen colleagues were attended. They included: MET Superintendents John Shore, James (?) Butcher7, Thomas Arnold and Henry Jones; Chief Inspector Peel and several Detective Inspectors, including Abberlines’s partners in the murder investigations, Henry Moore and J.C. McDonald. Abberline’s former superior, Superintendent Arnold, who would retire himself a year later, reportedly told the gathering: “During the continuance of the Whitechapel crimes, Mr. Abberline came down to the East End and gave the whole of his time with the object of bringing those crimes to light. Unfortunately, however, the circumstances were such that success was impossible, but he [Arnold] could assure them that it was through no fault of Mr. Abberline’s that they did not succeed.”
The preceding remarks attributed to Arnold are curious. What did he mean by “the circumstances were such that success was impossible”? Could it have been known among certain tradesmen and the police that a Jack the Ripper suspect, possibly the only viable suspect known at that time, had been identified, but with no further evidence coming forth, the suspect was put in an asylum? Interestingly enough, there was an account by a retired City Police Inspector, Robert Sagar, who told a journalist that he and his fellow officers had watched a man they were certain was Jack the Ripper, who worked in Butcher’s Row, Aldgate. As mentioned, Butcher’s Row was across the street from the Three Nuns Hotel. Since this man could not be identified, or evidence could not be secured by inducing testimony, he could not be charged and was confined by his friends in an asylum.8 That this insight into the fate of a Jack the Ripper suspect was also known to detectives at the MET, including Arnold, Moore and Abberline, seems a reasonable assumption, especially when one considers that Sagar’s recollections closely parallel those of MET Chief Inspector Donald Swanson’s description of the confinement of a suspect, Kosminski.
If the suspect Sagar described was a Jew, was he known to some of the Jews in attendance at Abberline's retirement ceremony, tradesmen such as Davis, Louisson, Levy, Gluckstein or Abrahams? It seems particularly interesting that Louisson and Hawkins, two of the butchers who had shops in Butcher’s Row, would attend the retirement ceremony for Abberline. The East End Observer article ends with a curious note to the effect that another trader (the tailor), “Mr. J. Levy [was]….recounting, in humorous terms, the incidental manner in which the testimonial was first mooted.” Had these local tradesmen known the man described by Sagar, and had they gathered to show their appreciation for the police assistance in having this particular suspect removed to an asylum?9
Abberline’s Recollections
Eleven years after Abberline’s retirement ceremony at the Three Nuns Hotel, he gave two interviews to the Pall Mall Gazette (PMG) supporting the candidacy of wife-poisoner Severin Klosowski, aka George Chapman, as the Ripper.10 After the first article, printed on 24 March 1903, the Morning Advertiser responded the following day to Abberline’s claims that Chapman could have been the Ripper. The article cited that the police had good reason to believe that “the Whitechapel murders were committed by one of three men, all of whom are either dead or in confinement.” The unnamed journalist who wrote this piece probably obtained his information from Major Arthur Griffiths’ book, Mysteries of Police and Crime, published five years previously in 1898, or possibly from an earlier piece by Griffiths in the 1895 issue of the Windsor Magazine.11 Macnaghten’s confidential 1894 Police Memorandum, upon which Griffiths likely based his information of the three suspects, was unknown to journalists at the time. However, there was one journalist, George R. Sims, who was familiar with Macnaghten’s Memorandum. Four days later, Sims himself responded to Abberline’s claims in the 29 March 1903 Sunday Referee: “How the ex-Inspector can say ‘We never believed “Jack” was dead or a lunatic’ in the face of the report made by the Commissioner of Police is a mystery to me. [12] It is a curious coincidence, however, that for a long time a Russian Pole resident in Whitechapel was suspected at the Yard. But his name was not Klosowski. The genuine “Jack” was a doctor. His body was found in the Thames on December 31, 1888.”
In Abberline’s second PMG interview, published on 31 March 1903, he replied to the claims made by the Morning Advertiser and by Sims that the police believed that the Whitechapel murderer was one of three men. Abberline responded: “I know…that it has been stated in several quarters that ‘Jack the Ripper’ was a man who died in a lunatic asylum a few years ago, but there is nothing at all of a tangible nature to support such a theory.” Abberline may have heard that a suspect Sagar described was locked in an asylum, but not about the earlier witness identification and other information that both Anderson and Swanson knew. Therefore, not having any follow-up information on this early Polish asylum suspect, Abberline may have simply let the ‘man in the asylum theory’ [Kosminski], slip to distant memory. Regarding the drowned “Doctor” theory, Abberline stated that “a report was made to the Home Office about the matter” and that “several months after December, 1888, when the student’s [sic] body was found, the detectives were told still to hold themselves in readiness for further investigations…” This indicates that Abberline and the police were scrutinizing suspicious suicides in late 1888 to early 1889, but did not find anything at the time to suspect Druitt of the Ripper crimes. The fact that Abberline held the same view in 1903 suggests that he was not privy to the further information on Druitt that Macnaghten received after Abberline retired.
Notes
Eleven years after Abberline’s retirement ceremony at the Three Nuns Hotel, he gave two interviews to the Pall Mall Gazette (PMG) supporting the candidacy of wife-poisoner Severin Klosowski, aka George Chapman, as the Ripper.10 After the first article, printed on 24 March 1903, the Morning Advertiser responded the following day to Abberline’s claims that Chapman could have been the Ripper. The article cited that the police had good reason to believe that “the Whitechapel murders were committed by one of three men, all of whom are either dead or in confinement.” The unnamed journalist who wrote this piece probably obtained his information from Major Arthur Griffiths’ book, Mysteries of Police and Crime, published five years previously in 1898, or possibly from an earlier piece by Griffiths in the 1895 issue of the Windsor Magazine.11 Macnaghten’s confidential 1894 Police Memorandum, upon which Griffiths likely based his information of the three suspects, was unknown to journalists at the time. However, there was one journalist, George R. Sims, who was familiar with Macnaghten’s Memorandum. Four days later, Sims himself responded to Abberline’s claims in the 29 March 1903 Sunday Referee: “How the ex-Inspector can say ‘We never believed “Jack” was dead or a lunatic’ in the face of the report made by the Commissioner of Police is a mystery to me. [12] It is a curious coincidence, however, that for a long time a Russian Pole resident in Whitechapel was suspected at the Yard. But his name was not Klosowski. The genuine “Jack” was a doctor. His body was found in the Thames on December 31, 1888.”
In Abberline’s second PMG interview, published on 31 March 1903, he replied to the claims made by the Morning Advertiser and by Sims that the police believed that the Whitechapel murderer was one of three men. Abberline responded: “I know…that it has been stated in several quarters that ‘Jack the Ripper’ was a man who died in a lunatic asylum a few years ago, but there is nothing at all of a tangible nature to support such a theory.” Abberline may have heard that a suspect Sagar described was locked in an asylum, but not about the earlier witness identification and other information that both Anderson and Swanson knew. Therefore, not having any follow-up information on this early Polish asylum suspect, Abberline may have simply let the ‘man in the asylum theory’ [Kosminski], slip to distant memory. Regarding the drowned “Doctor” theory, Abberline stated that “a report was made to the Home Office about the matter” and that “several months after December, 1888, when the student’s [sic] body was found, the detectives were told still to hold themselves in readiness for further investigations…” This indicates that Abberline and the police were scrutinizing suspicious suicides in late 1888 to early 1889, but did not find anything at the time to suspect Druitt of the Ripper crimes. The fact that Abberline held the same view in 1903 suggests that he was not privy to the further information on Druitt that Macnaghten received after Abberline retired.
Notes
1. East London Observer, 17 December 1887. Cited from A Policeman's Lot by Andy Aliffe in Ripperana, no. 11 January 1995, p. 21-24.
2. Charles Goad 1887 Fire Insurance Map of London, 145 b.22, f. 71 (vol. 3). The British Library.
3. Most of Bachert's statement quoted from the East London Advertiser 13 October 1888. Bracketed quotes added from statements in the 1 and 2 October 1888 London Times.
4. This committee was different from George Lusk’s “Whitechapel Vigilance Committee” formed on 10 September 1888.
5. City Press, 10 October 1888. One wonders if the killer was a regular in the hotel bar, having been seen possibly by Bachert on the night of the double event and even having attended the Workmen's Vigilance Committee meeting(s). However, Bachert's encounter may be questionable. It will be recalled that Bachert himself became Chairman of Lusk's Whitechapel Vigilance Committee in 1889.
6. Full names, relationships and addresses of these tradesmen derived from Kellys Post Office Directories, 1888-1891, the 1891 London Census and the Jewish Chronicle Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1890-1895.
7. James Butcher was a Scotland Yard Chief Inspector on the Ripper case and had become a Superintendent by the time of Abberline’s retirement. Eventually, he became the Assistant Chief Constable when Macnaghten became the Assistant Commissioner.
8. Accounts taken from The City Press, 7 January 1905 and Reynolds News, 15 September 1946.
9. If this interpretation is correct, it seems ironic that Abberline, an honored representative of the MET Police, the force which had helped to remove a suspect from the midst of these tradesmen, would come to reject that suspect in later years.
10. By coincidence, Abraham Radin, a hairdresser, shared premises with an Abraham Kallin two doors down from the Three Nuns Hotel, at no. 7 Aldgate-High Street, in 1889-90. Radin was also Chapman’s employer in 1887 on West India Dock Road.
11. In late 1894 or early 1895, Griffiths was told by Robert Anderson that he had "a perfectly plausible theory that Jack the Ripper was a homicidal maniac, temporarily at large, whose hideous career was cut short by committal to an asylum." Recounted in The Detective in Real Life from the Windsor Magazine, vol. 1, January-June 1895, p. 507. Cited from Major Arthur Griffiths, Dr. Robert Anderson and Jack the Ripper, by Stewart Evans in Ripperana, no. 25, July 1998, p. 2-8.
12. Sims here is possibly referring to Assistant Commissioner Macnaghten’s earlier 1894 Memorandum, written when Macnaghten was the Chief Constable. Robert Anderson, who retired in 1901, is not known to have made an official police report describing his lunatic asylum suspect.
General References:
The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Companion by Stewart Evans and Keith Skinner, Carroll & Graf, 2000.
Inns and Taverns of Old London by Henry C. Shelley, London, Pitman, 1909, p. 42.
2. Charles Goad 1887 Fire Insurance Map of London, 145 b.22, f. 71 (vol. 3). The British Library.
3. Most of Bachert's statement quoted from the East London Advertiser 13 October 1888. Bracketed quotes added from statements in the 1 and 2 October 1888 London Times.
4. This committee was different from George Lusk’s “Whitechapel Vigilance Committee” formed on 10 September 1888.
5. City Press, 10 October 1888. One wonders if the killer was a regular in the hotel bar, having been seen possibly by Bachert on the night of the double event and even having attended the Workmen's Vigilance Committee meeting(s). However, Bachert's encounter may be questionable. It will be recalled that Bachert himself became Chairman of Lusk's Whitechapel Vigilance Committee in 1889.
6. Full names, relationships and addresses of these tradesmen derived from Kellys Post Office Directories, 1888-1891, the 1891 London Census and the Jewish Chronicle Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1890-1895.
7. James Butcher was a Scotland Yard Chief Inspector on the Ripper case and had become a Superintendent by the time of Abberline’s retirement. Eventually, he became the Assistant Chief Constable when Macnaghten became the Assistant Commissioner.
8. Accounts taken from The City Press, 7 January 1905 and Reynolds News, 15 September 1946.
9. If this interpretation is correct, it seems ironic that Abberline, an honored representative of the MET Police, the force which had helped to remove a suspect from the midst of these tradesmen, would come to reject that suspect in later years.
10. By coincidence, Abraham Radin, a hairdresser, shared premises with an Abraham Kallin two doors down from the Three Nuns Hotel, at no. 7 Aldgate-High Street, in 1889-90. Radin was also Chapman’s employer in 1887 on West India Dock Road.
11. In late 1894 or early 1895, Griffiths was told by Robert Anderson that he had "a perfectly plausible theory that Jack the Ripper was a homicidal maniac, temporarily at large, whose hideous career was cut short by committal to an asylum." Recounted in The Detective in Real Life from the Windsor Magazine, vol. 1, January-June 1895, p. 507. Cited from Major Arthur Griffiths, Dr. Robert Anderson and Jack the Ripper, by Stewart Evans in Ripperana, no. 25, July 1998, p. 2-8.
12. Sims here is possibly referring to Assistant Commissioner Macnaghten’s earlier 1894 Memorandum, written when Macnaghten was the Chief Constable. Robert Anderson, who retired in 1901, is not known to have made an official police report describing his lunatic asylum suspect.
General References:
The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Companion by Stewart Evans and Keith Skinner, Carroll & Graf, 2000.
Inns and Taverns of Old London by Henry C. Shelley, London, Pitman, 1909, p. 42.