The Diary of Jack the Ripper - The Chilling Confessions of James Maybrick Read online

  This book is dedicated to those often-forgotten women of Whitechapel who were savagely butchered in 1888 and whose deaths have been eclipsed since by the mystery of their killer.

  If this Diary is a modern forgery — which I am sure it is not — and if I were the faker, then I would consider it to have been the summit of my literary achievement.

  Bruce Robinson, Oscar nominee

  and scriptwriter of The Killing Fields.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Maps

  Acknowledgements

  Foreword

  Preface

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Facsimile of the Diary of Jack the Ripper

  Transcript of the Diary of Jack the Ripper

  Index

  Copyright

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The opportunity to work on such an extraordinary project happens once in a lifetime. Since the day in 1992 that the Diary was first shown to me I have sought the help and guidance of literally hundreds of people. There have been experts, amateur enthusiasts in an astonishing range of subjects from pub signs to body snatching and descendants of anyone connected to the cases of James Maybrick and Jack the Ripper. As the material has continued to pour in it has been collated, researched and checked by my colleague Sally Evemy and forms the backbone of this new, fully updated edition. There are far too many individuals to mention but in particular we are grateful to:

  Doreen Montgomery, our agent, whose iron glove conceals a velvet hand and without whose vision the project would not have been born.

  Robert Smith, our original publisher. His enthusiasm and consumption of midnight oil went well beyond the call of duty.

  Keith Skinner, Paul Begg and Martin Fido who have so generously guided our first faltering footsteps into the world of Jack the Ripper.

  Richard Nicholas of Roberts, Moore, Nicholas and Jones of Liverpool, who advised and supported Albert Johnson in all matters relating to the watch.

  Roger Wilkes, whose generous gift of the Christie material launched our research.

  The late Paul Feldman, whose enthusiasm kept us on our toes and yielded some useful leads.

  Naomi Evett of Liverpool Library whose limitless patience was invaluable.

  Dr Nicholas Eastaugh; Dr David Forshaw; Sue Iremonger; Anna Koren; Melvyn Fairclough; art collector the late Sidney Sabin; Nicholas Campion; John Astrop; Jeremy Beadle; Camille Wolfe and Loretta Lay; scriptwriter Bruce Robinson; forensic handwriting examiner Lawrence Warner; Dr Glyn Volans of Guy’s Hospital; Judge Richard Hamilton, Liverpool; Bill Waddell former Curator, Scotland Yard Black Museum; music historian the late Tony Miall; Richard and Molly Whittington Egan; Paul Dodd; the late Brian Maybrick; Gerard Brierley; Berkeley Chappelle Gill; Derek Warman and John Matthews in the Isle of Wight; Sister Ursula Maybrick; Dr.W.Taylor, the Fazakerley Hospital; Seddons Funeral Service, Southport; Phil Maddox of Wordplay Public Relations; Kevin Whaye of Outhwaite and Litherland, auctioneers, Liverpool; David Fletcher Rogers; Walkleys Clogs; Gordon Wright of the Inn Sign Society; The Special Hospitals Service; Andrew Brown of the Metropolitan Police Archives, New Scotland Yard; Colin Inman of the Financial Times; Nick Pinto of the Public Record Office; R.H. Leighton and Co., Southport; Colin Wilson; Donald Rumbelow; the Liverpool Cotton Association; The British Medical Association Library; Mrs Gill Wokes of Hampshire and Mrs Delphine Cummings in Canada (descendants of Arthur Simenton Wokes); Des McKenna for help with the Museum of Anatomy; The Royal Netherlands Embassy; Peter O’Toole BEM and Lee Charles Allen of the Museum of the S.A.S Regiment and the Artists’ Rifles; the staff of libraries and local history departments throughout the country. In the United States: Dorothy MacRitchie of South Kent School and Peggy Haile of Norfolk Public Library; Carole Cain of the Mobile Register; the American Heritage Centre, University of Wyoming for permission to use excerpts from the Trevor Christie Collection and to Harper Collins for permission to use an excerpt from Hunting the Devil; Brian Pugh of the Conan Doyle Establishment; Stephen Shotnes of Simons, Muirhead and Burton.

  PRINCIPAL SOURCES

  The College of Heralds; Freemasons’ Hall; Public Record Office, Kew; Public Record Office, Chancery Lane; the IGI Index; The Scottish Record Office; the Governor of Walton Prison, Liverpool; General Register Office, St Catherine’s House; Principal Registry of the Family Division, Somerset House; Patent Office; Companies House; British Library; National Newspaper Library, Colindale; American State Archives, Washington DC; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Victoria State Library, Australia; HM Land Registry; New Scotland Yard, Black Museum; Merseyside Police; Lancashire Constabulary; Ministry of Defence; Liverpool University; University of Wyoming, Christie Collection; Royal Liverpool University Hospital; Fazakerley Hospital, Histopathology Department; Historic Manuscripts Commission; Post Office Archives; Postal Museum; Post Mark Society; Shoe Museum; Liverpool Maritime Museum; Whitworth Museum, Manchester; Cotton Association, Liverpool; Liverpool Chamber of Commerce; Coldestone Park Cemetery; Lewisham Cemetery; Southwark Cemetery; Seddons Funeral Service; Parker Pens; John Lewis Partnerships Archives Dept; Boddingtons; Scottish College of Textiles; The Poetry Library; Peter Bower, paper historian; Dr Earl Morris Dow Chemicals; Stephen Ryder editor of the Internet Ripper Casebook.

  Local History departments of Liverpool, Lambeth, Lewisham, Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Edinburgh.

  Libraries: Guildhall, Tunbridge Wells, Morden, Carlshalton, Sutton, Sunderland, Camden, Westminster, Liverpool, Chester, Manchester, Rochdale, Royal College of Surgeons, Royal College of Psychiatrists, Royal Society of Medicine, British Toxicological Society, Wellcome Research Institute, Science Library, Patent Office.

  Record Offices: West Sussex, Lancashire, Chester, Newport, Isle of Wight.

  Register Offices: Liverpool, Caernarfon.

  NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS

  New Penny; Touchstone; Punch; Review of Reviews; Liverpool Review; Pall Mall Gazette; Family Tree; Brooklyn Eagle; Pall Mall Budget; New York Herald; New York Times; New Milford Times; Bridgeport Sunday Post; Police Gazette; Daily Telegraph; Liverpool Daily Post; Liverpool Echo; Liverpool Mercury; Liverpool Courier; Liverpool Citizen; Porcupine; The Times; Star; Graphic; Manchester Guardian; Yorkshire Post; Independent; Evening News; Pictorial News; Southport Guardian; Whitehaven News; Liverpool Medico Chirulogical Journal; New Scientist; Nature; Criminologist; True Detective; Murder Casebook; Ripperana; Ripperologist; Crime and Detection.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Steps to the Temple: Delights of the Muses, Richard Crashaw, reprinted Cassell 1881

  The Sphere History of English Literature Volume 2, ed. Christopher Ricks, revised 1986

  The Faber Book of English History in Verse, ed. Kenneth Baker, Faber and Faber

  Just a Song at Twilight, Anthony Miall, Michael Joseph 1974

  The Parlour Song Book, Anthony Miall, Michael Joseph 1972
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  Gore’s Directories of Liverpool

  Kelly’s Directories

  Who was Who, A & C Black

  The Trial of Mrs Maybrick, H.B. Irving (ed. William Hodge), 1912

  Treatise on the Maybrick Case, A.W MacDougall, Bailliere Tindall and Cox 1891

  The Necessity for Criminal Appeal, J.H.Levy, P.S. King and Son 1899

  My Fifteen Lost Years, Florence Elizabeth Maybrick, Funk and Wagnalls 1909

  A Toxicological Study of the Maybrick Case, C.N. Tidy and R. Macnamara, Bailliere, Tindall and Cox 1891

  The Maybrick Case, Helen Densmore, Swan Sorrenschein 1892

  Etched in Arsenic, Trevor L. Christie, George C. Harrap 1960

  This Friendless Lady, Nigel Morland, Frederick Muller 1957

  The Poisoned Life of Mrs Maybrick, Bernard Ryan and Sir Michael Havers, Kimber 1977

  Victorian Murderesses, Mary S. Hartman, Robson 1977

  Victorian England, W.J. Reader, Batsford 1974

  Liverpool’s Legion of Honour, written and published B.G. Orchard 1899

  Materia Medica of Homeopathic Remedies, James Tyler Kent, republished Homeopathic Book Service 1989

  Oxford English Dictironary

  Webster’s Dictionary

  Dictionary of Jargon, Jonathon Green, Routledge Keegan Paul 1987

  Encyclopedia of Australia, A.T.A. Learmouth, Warne 1968

  Law’s Grocer’s Manual c1900

  Enquire Within Upon Everything, Herbert Jenkins, 1923

  American Illustrated Medical Dictionary (22nd edition)

  The Trials of Israel Lipski, Martin L. Friedland, Macmillan 1984

  Encylopedia of Chemical Technology (3rd edition, vol 3) Merck Index (Ninth ed) Casebook on Jack the Ripper, Richard Whittington Egan, 1976

  The Complete Jack the Ripper, Donald Rumbelow, Penguin 1988

  The Jack the Ripper A–Z, Paul Begg, Martin Fido and Keith Skinner, Headline 1996

  The Ripper Legacy, Martin Howells and Keith Skinner, Warner Books 1987

  Jack the Ripper: Summing Up and Verdict, Colin Wilson and Robin Odell, Corgi 1987

  Jack the Ripper, The Uncensored Facts, Paul Begg, Robson Books Ltd, 1987

  The Ripper and the Royals (2nd edition) Melvyn Fairclough, Gerald Duckworth and Co. Ltd., 1992

  The Ripper File, Melvin Harris, W.H. Allen, 1989

  The True Face of Jack the Ripper, Melvin Harris, Michael O’Mara 1994

  The Encylopedia of Serial Killers, Brian Lane and Wilfred Gregg, Headline 1992

  Hunting the Devil, Richard Lourie, Grafton 1993

  The Lighter Side of My Official Life, Sir Robert Anderson, Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine 1910

  The Police Encyclopedia, Hargrave Lee Adam, Waverley Book Co 1920

  Days of My Years, Sir Melville Macnaghten, Edward Arnold 1914

  From Constable to Commissioner, Sir Henry Smith, Chatto and Windus 1910

  The Mystery of Jack the Ripper, Leonard Matters, W.H. Allen 1929

  I Caught Crippen, Walter Dew, Blackie and Son Ltd. 1938

  The Identity of Jack the Ripper, Donald McCormick, Jarrold Books, 1959

  The Crimes and Times of Jack the Ripper, Tom Cullen, Bodley Head 1965

  Jack the Ripper, The First American Serial Killer, Stewart Evans and Paul Gainey, 1996

  Jack the Ripper, The Final Chapter, Paul H. Feldman, Virgin 1997

  The Lodger, Marie Belloc Lowndes, OUP 1913

  The Complete History of Jack the Ripper, Philip Sugden, Robinson 1994

  The Guinness Book of Names, Leslie Dunkling, Guinness 1993

  Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golen, Peter Ackroyd, Sinclair Stevenson 1994

  Jack the Ripper Revealed, John Wilding, Constable Volcano 1993

  Who was Jack the Ripper?, ed. Camille Wolfe, Grey House Books 1995

  Murder, Mayhem and Mystery in Liverpool, Richard Whittington Egan, Gallery Press 1985

  Death, Dissection and the Destitute, Ruth Richardson, Routledge 1988

  The Suicide Club, Robert Louis Stevenson, Blackie 1961

  Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson, McDonald 1960

  Jack the Ripper, The Final Solution, Stephen Knight, Grafton 1977

  The Simple Truth, Bruce Paley, Headline 1995

  Pen, Ink and Evidence, Dr Joe Nickell, 1995

  Criminal Shadows, David Canter, HarperCollins 1994

  The Chemistry of Dyestuffs, Font and Lloyd, Cambridge University Press 1919

  Printing Ink Technology, Apps, Leonard Hill 1959

  Cyclopaedia of the Practice of Medicine, Dr H Von Ziemenssen, William Wood and Co. New York 1878

  The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes, Richard Lancelyn Green, Penguin 1983

  Dr Joe Bell, Model for Sherlock Holmes, Ely Liebow, Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1982

  FOREWORD

  by Professor David Canter,

  Director of the Institute of Investigative Psychology

  and Forensic Behavioural Science,

  The University of Liverpool, 1997.

  On my drive into the University of Liverpool, each morning, I pass Riversdale Road. A sleepy cul-de-sac that stretches from the elegant, tree bedecked boulevard of Aigburth Drive down to the wide, grey, River Mersey. The only sign of any note at the entrance to the road is one warning motorists that it does not give them access to the pleasant park that is a respite for courting couples, and promenade that is a haven for joggers and anglers, now that the Mersey has been cleaned. Riversdale Road is thus an unlikely setting for the erstwhile residence of probably the most notorious serial killer of all time, Jack the Ripper. A murderer who was awarded his sobriquet because of the violent way he mutilated his victims.

  A little way down Riversdale Road is a large Victorian house built out of the gentle, russet sandstone characteristic of the opulence of nineteenth century Liverpool. This is where James Maybrick lived in the late 1880’s when the Whitechapel murders were being committed in London. The ‘Diary’ purported to have been written by this apparently insignificant businessman, implies he was the fiendish killer that so many people have been seeking for so long.

  Yet the magical Mystery Tour that takes visitors to Liverpool around the mundane, youthful haunts of John Lennon, Paul McCartney and other Liverpool celebrities does not even pass the end of Riversdale Road. No. 7, where James Maybrick lived, attracts no stream of casual visitors, even though the area of London in which the killings took place over 100 years ago brings in as many as half a million visitors a year.

  Clearly, for most people, it seems highly unlikely that a Victorian businessman, who lived in such pleasant and affluent surroundings, committed so many sickening killings 200 miles away. It would be much more probable that these diaries are some sort of hoax on a par with the notorious ‘Hitler Diaries’.

  Such suspicions have been further fuelled by the remarkable way in which opposing camps so quickly formed, advocating or denigrating claims to the authenticity of the ‘Ripper Diaries’. Instead of the steady drip of systematic research that such an important historical document would demand, with a consensus slowly emerging after careful consideration of all options, there has been a feast of claim and counter-claim, fed by opinions from every bizarre sort of ‘expert’ that could be got hold of. The only surprise to me is that alien abduction or a sighting of Elvis Presley has not entered the diabribes!

  Indeed, before I met Shirley Harrison and was approached by others to comment on the ‘Diary’, not only was it impossible to get any clear or detailed information about its provenance, or the tests that had been carried out on the ‘Diary’, it was not really feasible to enter into any sensible dialogue about the claims and counter-claims, so vociferous were the advocates. Since those early harangues, comments on the ‘Ripper Diary’ from astrologers, graphologists and a small army of psychics, none of which has ever withstood careful, systematic, scientific validation, have masked the growing body of scholarly and objective information which Shirley Harrison and her publishers have garnered
about this most curious of documents. Their careful studies demand that the Diary of Jack the Ripper be looked at closely.

  By their nature clairvoyants, and all other purveyors of the paranormal, express their opinions with great confidence. They offer up a proliferation of views that the unwary and gullible can pick amongst until they find something they can clasp as a gem that supports their beliefs. These apparently glittering crystals of insight make the cautious, specific opinions of scientists look pale by comparison. The steady build-up of rather dour, technical information politely asks for consideration amongst the yapping claims of minor media moguls and counter claims of professional cynics.

  Out of this unproductive exchange of polemics a clan of the converted emerges, holding aloft the fake baubles and icons of their faith. Thus, when I have tried to find the evidence for and against the genuineness of the ‘Ripper Diary’ I am regaled with wondrous account of psychics flown in from foreign lands and astrologers poring over Mr and Mrs Maybrick’s birth charts. I have seen TV presenters sniffing the Victorian album in which the ‘Diary’ is written as if it were a bottle of wine that would reveal its origins in a distinctive bouquet. I have witnessed a psychic swinging a pendulum over the document intoning “Was this written in 1888… 1889… 1890?” whilst apparently well-informed, intelligent people watch without even a smile to cloud their gullibility. This is all such arrant nonsense that I have been tempted to dismiss the ‘Diary’ as one more component of the myth of Jack the Ripper, and see it as another millennial, new age flowering, half fiction, half fantasy.