Donald Swanson

Chief Inspector Donald Sutherland Swanson (12 August 1848 - 24 November 1924) was a senior police officer in the Metropolitan Police in London during the notorious Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.

Early life

The son of John Swanson, a brewer, Swanson was born at Geise, where his father operated a distillery, before the family moved in 1851 to Thurso. Donald was a good scholar and on leaving school he worked for a period as a teacher, but realising that that career offered him few prospects, he decided instead to move to London, where two of his sisters had settled after marriage, and in 1867 found work as a city clerk. When his employer decided to retire from business early the following year Swanson spotted an advertisement in The Daily Telegraph by the Metropolitan Police appealing for new applicants.

Police career

Swanson joined the Metropolitan Police on 27 April 1868, and was given the warrant number 50282. He married his wife Julia Ann Nevill (born in Hoxton in 1854 to a

railway murderer, in 1881.^[3]

He retired in 1903.

Swanson died on 24 November 1924 at 3 Presburg Road, New Malden, Surrey, where his wife also died eleven years later. They were both buried at Kingston Cemetery.

Jack the Ripper

On 15 September 1888

the Whitechapel Murders

series Swanson remained ‘in situ’ - gaining a cornucopia of knowledge and information about the killings.

The 'Swanson Marginalia'

Although he declined to write his own memoirs following his retirement, Swanson did collect a small number of published reminiscences by his contemporaries. Among these were two books by his former superior,

Jew

that Anderson had hinted at in his book as being a suspect. Anderson wrote that the only person to get a close look at Jack the Ripper identified him "the moment he was confronted with him" but refused to testify. Swanson clarified this by writing -

"...because the suspect was also a Jew and also because his evidence would convict the suspect, and witness would be the means of murderer being hanged which he did not wish to be left on his mind...And after this identification which suspect knew, no other murder of this kind took place in London...after the suspect had been identified at the Seaside Home where he had been sent by us with difficulty in order to subject him to identification, and he knew he was identified. On suspect's return to his brother's house in Whitechapel he was watched by police (City CID) by day & night. In a very short time the suspect with his hands tied behind his back, he was sent to
Colney Hatch and died shortly afterwards - Kosminski was the suspect - DSS"^[5]

While it is true that Aaron Kosminski lived with his brother in Whitechapel, and that he was an inmate at

Frances Coles

in February 1891, only six days after Kosminski had been admitted to Colney Hatch, possibly inferring that he did not accept those murders as being by the same hand.

The identity of the Jewish witness is in doubt. As far as is known, there were two, Israel Schwartz and Joseph Lawende. Schwartz saw the third victim Elizabeth Stride being attacked at the place where fifteen minutes later her body was found, but he ran off when the attacker called out "Lipski", an antisemitic taunt of the time. Israel Lipski was a Jewish murderer who had been hanged in 1887 and some Gentiles had taken to insulting Jews by shouting his name at them. The implication, perhaps erroneous, is that Stride's attacker was an antisemitic Gentile and therefore not Kosminski. Lawende saw a man and woman together near Mitre Square, Aldgate, a few minutes before the fourth victim Catherine Eddowes was found there but told Swanson that he was doubtful he would recognise the man if he saw him again.

"Kosminski" is also mentioned in

Sunday Express in 1992.^[6]

References

^ 'The Jack the Ripper A to Z' by Paul Begg, Martin Fido and Keith Skinner. Pub. by Headline Book Publishing Plc (1992)
^ Trial of Percy Lefroy Mapleton (Notable British Trials 86) Edited by Adam Wood. Mango Books 2019.
^ 'The Many Faces of Jack the Ripper' by M J Trow. Pub. Summersdale (1997)
^ Jack the Ripper:the Definitive History by Paul Begg Pub. Longman (2002)
^ 'Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates' by Stewart P. Evans and Donald Rumbelow. Pub. by Sutton Publishing (2006) pg 252
^ 'Jack the Ripper - The Theories and the Facts - by Colin Kendell. Pub. by Amberley Publishing (2010)

v t e Jack the Ripper
Canonical victims	Annie Chapman Catherine Eddowes Mary Jane Kelly Mary Ann Nichols Elizabeth Stride
Police	Frederick Abberline Robert Anderson Walter Andrews Thomas Arnold Walter Dew George Godley Melville Macnaghten Henry Moore Edmund Reid Donald Swanson Charles Warren Adolphus Williamson
Doctors and coroners	Wynne Edwin Baxter Thomas Bond Roderick Macdonald Thomas Horrocks Openshaw George Bagster Phillips
Witnesses	George Hutchinson Joseph Lawende Charles Allen Lechmere Israel Schwartz
Letters and clues	Dear Boss letter Saucy Jacky postcard From Hell letter Openshaw letter Goulston Street graffito
Locations	Buck's Row Dorset Street Flower and Dean Street Hanbury Street Mitre Square Ten Bells
Related	George Lusk Whitechapel Vigilance Committee Conspiracy theories Fiction Suspects Jack the Ripper Museum Whitechapel murders
Category