Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution
OCLC 2646848 | |
Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution is a book written by Stephen Knight first published in 1976. It proposed a solution to five murders in Victorian London that were blamed on an unidentified serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper".
Knight presented an elaborate conspiracy theory involving the British royal family, freemasonry and the painter Walter Sickert. He concluded that the victims were murdered to cover up a secret marriage between the second-in-line to the throne, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, and Annie Elizabeth Crook, a working class girl. There are many facts that contradict Knight's theory, and his main source, Joseph Gorman (also known as Joseph Sickert), later retracted the story and admitted to the press that it was a hoax.
Most scholars dismiss the theory, and the book's conclusion is now widely discredited. Nevertheless, the book was popular and commercially successful, going through 20 editions.[1] It was the basis for the graphic novel and film From Hell, as well as other dramatisations, and has influenced crime fiction writers, such as Patricia Cornwell and Anne Perry.
Origins
Between August and November 1888, at least five brutal murders were committed in the Whitechapel district of London. Although Whitechapel was an impoverished area and violence there was common, these murders can be linked to the same killer through a distinctive modus operandi. All the murders took place within the distance of a few streets, late at night or in the early morning, and the victims were all women whose throats were cut. In four of the cases, their bodies were mutilated, or even eviscerated.[2] The removal of internal organs from three of the victims led to contemporary proposals that "considerable anatomical knowledge was displayed by the murderer, which would seem to indicate that his occupation was that of a butcher or a surgeon."[3] Media organisations and the police received many letters and postcards purportedly written by the killer, who was dubbed "Jack the Ripper" after one of the signatories. Most of the anonymous confessional letters were dismissed by the police as hoaxes but one, known as the "From Hell" letter after a phrase used by the writer, was treated more seriously; it was sent with a small box containing half of a preserved human kidney. It is not clear, however, whether the kidney truly came from one of the victims or was a medical specimen sent as part of a macabre joke.[4][5][6]
Despite an extensive police investigation, the killer was never found and his identity is still a mystery. Both at the time and subsequently, many amateur and professional investigators have proposed solutions but no single theory is widely accepted.
Claims of Thomas Stowell
In 1970, British surgeon
Stowell's article attracted intense attention,[9][11] and placed Albert Victor among the most notable Ripper suspects, but his innocence was soon proven. Gull died before Albert Victor, and so could not have known about Albert Victor's death.[12] All three doctors who were attending Albert Victor at his death in 1892 concurred that he had died of pneumonia, and given the timescale of syphilitic disease progression, it is highly improbable that Albert Victor had syphilis. The first symptoms of mental illness that arise from syphilitic infection tend to occur about 15 years from first exposure. While the timescale of disease progression is never absolute, for Albert Victor to have suffered from syphilitic insanity in 1888, he would probably have to have been infected at the age of nine in about 1873, six years before he visited the West Indies.[13] Stowell claimed that his suspect had been incarcerated in a mental institution, when Albert Victor was serving in the British army, making regular public appearances, and visiting friends at country houses.[14] Newspaper reports, Queen Victoria's diary, family letters, and official documents prove that Albert Victor was attending functions in public, or meeting foreign royalty, or hundreds of miles from London at the time of each of the five canonical murders.[15][a]
On 5 November 1970, Stowell wrote to The Times denying that it was his intention to imply Prince Albert Victor was Jack the Ripper. The letter was published on 9 November,[17] the day after the elderly Stowell's own death from natural causes. The same week, Stowell's son reported that he had burned his father's papers, saying "I read just sufficient to make certain that there was nothing of importance."[18]
Claims of Joseph Gorman
Though Stowell's hypothesis was incorrect, his article rekindled interest in the Jack the Ripper case,
Gorman said that his
Content
Gorman's story
The book begins with Knight explaining how he came to meet Joseph Gorman, and then he tells Gorman's story which "did not come in clear, precise, chronological order but I had to glean it from rambling and sometimes vague discussion".
Meanwhile, Gorman alleges, Kelly was looking after the daughter, Alice, both during and after the raid. Gorman asserts that at first Kelly was content to hide the child, but then she, along with her friends
Knight's investigation
Knight explains that at first he did not believe Gorman's sensational story, which seemed "arrant, if entertaining, nonsense", but was so entranced by it that he had to investigate further.[27] In describing the progress of his investigation, Knight reveals a series of coincidences: both Albert Victor's mother and Alice Crook were deaf;[28] both Albert Victor's mother and Walter Sickert were Danish;[29] Sickert is obsessed by the Ripper;[30] the murders ended with the death of Mary Kelly;[31] there was growing republican sentiment at the time of the murders,[32] as well as anti-Catholic prejudice;[33] a woman named "Elizabeth Cook", who Knight claims could be Annie Elizabeth Crook misspelt, did live at 6 Cleveland Street;[34] Annie Crook was institutionalised;[35] rumours of the time link Prince Albert Victor to a scandal in Cleveland Street;[36] Gull was fond of grapes, and one of the victims may have been eating some at the time of her death;[37] Gull matches the description of an unnamed physician accused by clairvoyant Robert James Lees, who claimed to have identified the Ripper by using psychic powers.[38]
Eventually, as the circumstantial coincidences build up, Knight becomes convinced that Gorman's story is true.[39] The lack of tangible evidence, he claims, is due to a government cover-up and deliberate misdirection of the police investigation.[40] To back up the claims of a masonic conspiracy, he notes supposed similarities between the Jack the Ripper killings and alleged masonic ritual murders,[41] and accuses Sir Charles Warren, Commissioner of Police, of destroying evidence to protect his freemason cronies.[42][b] Knight points out that Stowell, who was apparently the first person to suggest Albert Victor's and Gull's involvement in the murders,[44] was a freemason.[45]
Critical reception
Reviewers at the time of first publication met the book with undisguised scepticism and satire, but felt that Knight presented his unlikely case with ingenuity. Quentin Bell wrote in The Times Literary Supplement: "[The book] begins bravely and fairly by presenting the greater part of the author's case and admitting at once that 'it all sounds terribly unlikely'. It does."[46] Medical History stated: "Despite the author's ingenuity the case does not stand up to careful and critical analysis and is no more 'final' than its many predecessors."[47] Since then, scholars from multiple disciplines have rejected Gorman's story as a ridiculous fantasy, and highlight many facts which contradict the version of events presented by Knight.[48][49][50]
Annie Crook was a real person and did have a daughter, Alice, born on 18 April 1885 at St Marylebone Workhouse, and Joseph Gorman was Alice's son. However, there is no evidence in support of Gorman's claim that his father was Walter Sickert.
There are further multiple problems with Gorman's version of events. An apartment at 6 Cleveland Street could not have been raided in April 1888, since by that time Nos. 4–14 Cleveland Street had been demolished, and the house no longer existed.
Knight appreciated that there were problems with Gorman's claims, but he "either misinterpreted, or deliberately ignored" them.[50] Knight admitted that parts of Gorman's story were wrong but claimed that such mistakes were "stronger support of the fact that he was telling the truth".[71] Realising that Anderson's absence in Switzerland meant that Anderson could not have been an accomplice, Knight considered Walter Sickert a much more likely culprit than Anderson, and suggested that he was the "third man" to participate in the crimes.[77] This was not the first accusation made against Sickert. He had been previously mentioned as a potential suspect in Donald McCormick's 1959 book The Identity of Jack the Ripper.[78] However, Sickert was in France with his mother and brother in the late summer of 1888, and is unlikely even to have been in London at the time of at least four of the murders.[79] After Knight implicated Sickert, Joseph Gorman withdrew his testimony, admitting to The Sunday Times newspaper that "it was a hoax ... a whopping fib".[80]
Knight's friend and fellow Ripper aficionado Colin Wilson thought the story was "obvious nonsense"[81] but shortly after Knight's tragically early death from a brain tumour he wrote in his defence: "he wrote the book with his tongue in his cheek, then found himself caught up in a success that prevented him from retracting or quietly disowning it."[82]
Influence
Despite its many inconsistencies, Knight's and Gorman's conspiracy theory has captured the imagination of other authors, who have made further modifications to the story. For example, Melvyn Fairclough's The Ripper and the Royals (London: Duckworth, 1991) asserted that
The conspiracy theory outlined in Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution is fictionalised in two plays:
Knight's theory features in the final book of
See also
- Jack the Ripper in fiction
- Jack the Ripper suspects
- Jack the Ripper's Bedroom, one of Sickert's paintings[90]
Notes
- ^ For example, on 30 September 1888, when Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were killed in the early morning, Albert Victor was at Balmoral, the royal retreat in Scotland, over 500 miles (over 800 km) from London.[16]
- anti-Semitic riots if the words were reported. Knight claims that "Juwes" is not a misspelling of "Jews" but is a reference to "three apprentice Masons ... who are the basis of Masonic ritual".[43]
References
- ^ Knight's literary agent, Andrew Hewson, quoted in Rice, Karen (16 December 2001) "Jack the Ripper 'revlations' [sic] exposed as same old story." Scotland on Sunday p. 3
- ^ Evans and Skinner, pp. 399–402 and Knight, p. 168
- ^ Dr. Winslow, the examining pathologist, quoted in Haggard, Robert F. (1993). "Jack the Ripper As the Threat of Outcast London" Archived 2013-05-27 at the Wayback Machine. Essays in History. Volume 35. Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia. Accessed 17 July 2009.
- ^ DiGrazia, Christopher-Michael (March 2000). "Another Look at the Lusk Kidney". Ripper Notes. Published online by Casebook: Jack the Ripper. Accessed 17 July 2009.
- ^ Wolf, Gunter (2008). "A kidney from hell? A nephrological view of the Whitechapel murders in 1888". Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation vol. 23 pp. 3343–3349 (Subscription required)
- ^ Knight, p. 222; Marriott, pp. 166, 225
- ^ a b c Stowell, T. E. A. (November 1970) "Jack the Ripper – A Solution?". The Criminologist vol. 5 pp. 40–51 quoted in Rumbelow, pp. 209–212
- ^ Rumbelow, pp. 209–213
- ^ a b See for example: "Who Was Jack the Ripper?" (9 November 1970). Time Magazine. Accessed 17 July 2009.
- ^ Begg, pp. 288–289 and Knight, pp. 202–203
- ^ Knight, pp. 15–16
- ^ Rumbelow, p. 211
- ^ Rumbelow, pp. 212–213
- ^ Rumbelow, pp. 211–212 and Trow, p. 153
- ^ a b Marriott, p. 268
- ^ Marriott, pp. 267–269
- ^ Stowell, T. E. A. (9 November 1970). "Jack the Ripper". The Times p. 9; Issue 58018; col. F
- ^ PHS (14 November 1970). "The Times Diary: Ripper file destroyed". The Times p. 12; Issue 58023; col. E
- ^ Knight, p. 15
- ^ Knight, p. 16 and Rumbelow, p. 223
- ^ Knight, p. 22
- ^ Begg, p. 289
- ^ a b Knight, pp. 24–39
- ^ Knight, p. 30
- ^ Knight, p. 20
- ^ Knight, pp. 22–28
- ^ Knight, pp. 30 and 40
- ^ Knight, p. 41
- ^ Knight, p. 42
- ^ Knight, p. 44
- ^ Knight, p. 70
- ^ Knight, pp. 80–85
- ^ Knight, pp. 90–92
- ^ Knight, p. 95
- ^ Knight, pp. 98–99
- ^ Knight, p. 102
- ^ Knight, pp. 240–245
- ^ Knight, pp. 193–203
- ^ Knight, p. 101
- ^ Knight, pp. 106–141
- ^ Knight, pp. 151–177
- ^ Knight, pp. 178–179
- ^ Knight, p. 179
- ^ Knight, pp. 205–207
- ^ Stowell's will quoted in Knight, p. 205
- ^ Bell, Quentin (30 July 1976). "A right royal cover-up". The Times Literary Supplement. p. 953
- ^ Anon. (1977). Medical History. vol. 21 p. 220
- ^ Aronson, p. 110; Begg, pp. x–xi; Cook, p. 9; Cornwell, pp. 133–135; Fido, pp. 185–196; Harrison, pp. 142–143; Hyde, p. 58; Knight, p. 180; Marriott, pp. 267–268; Meikle, pp. 146–147, 178, 188; Ridley, pp. 266–267; Roland, pp. 142–147; Rumbelow, pp. 209–244 and Trow, pp. 152–158
- ^ a b c d Whiteway, Ken (2004). "A Guide to the Literature of Jack the Ripper". Canadian Law Library Review vol. 29 pp. 219–229
- ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Accessed 17 July 2009. (Subscription required)
- ^ Scott, Christopher (2004). "Jack the Ripper: A Cast of Thousands". Casebook: Jack the Ripper. Accessed 17 July 2009.
- ^ Marriott, p. 267
- ^ Aronson, p. 88 and Marriott, p. 267
- ^ General Register Office, England and Wales (April–June 1885). Civil Registration Indexes: Births. Marylebone vol. 1a, p. 537
- ^ Rumbelow, pp. 228, 231
- ^ Rumbelow, pp. 227–228
- ^ Aronson, p. 88 and Knight, pp. 103–104
- ^ a b Begg, p. 293; Rumbelow, pp. 232–233; Wilson and Odell, p. 210
- ^ Rumbelow, p. 233
- ^ Begg, p. 293; Rumbelow, p. 232; Wilson and Odell, pp. 209–210
- ^ Aronson, p. 89
- ^ Rumbelow, pp. 241–242
- ^ Rumbelow, pp. 226, 229–231
- ^ Begg, p. 293
- ^ Aronson, p. 109
- ^ Rumbelow, p. 223
- ^ Knight, pp. 180–182, 201
- ^ Freemason, 29 August 1903, quoted in Rumbelow, p. 234
- ^ Peabody, David (July 2002) "Exploding the Ripper Masonic link". MQ Magazine issue 2, p. 48. Accessed 11 July 2011.
- ^ a b Knight, p. 216
- ^ Knight, p. 213
- ^ Fido, p. 195; Marriott, p. 268
- ^ Begg, p. 293 and Rumbelow, p. 231
- ^ Cook, p. 292 and Knight, p. 80
- ^ Knight, p. 247 and Cawthorne, Nigel (2000) "Afterword" in: Knight, p. 270
- ^ Knight, pp. 246–262
- ^ Knight, p. 250
- ^ a b Sturgis, Matthew (3 November 2002). "Making a killing from the Ripper". The Sunday Times
- ^ The Sunday Times, 18 June 1978, quoted in Fido, p. 195 and Rumbelow, p. 237
- ^ Wilson and Odell, p. 205
- ^ Wilson and Odell, p. 211
- ^ Begg, p. 292 and Trow, pp. 159–160
- ^ Edge, Simon (15 December 2001). "'My grandfather was the heir to the throne and Jack the Ripper killed to cover it up'". Daily Express
- ^ Begg, pp. x–xi, 295–296; Meikle, p. 197; Roland, pp. 132–137 and Rumbelow, p. 246
- ^ "Play Reviews: Force and Hypocrisy". The Stage: 13. 8 May 1986.
- ^ Connor, Sheila (2015). "Theatre review: Sherlock Holmes and the Ripper Murders". British Theatre Guide.
- ^ Dix, Barry (2015). "Sherlock Holmes and the Ripper Murders is "refreshingly different"". MyLondon.
- ^ Meikle, pp. 224–234
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 26 January 2024.
Sources
- ISBN 0-7195-5278-8.
- Begg, Paul (2003). Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History. Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education. ISBN 0-582-50631-X.
- Cook, Andrew (2006). Prince Eddy: The King Britain Never Had. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-7524-3410-1.
- ISBN 0-7515-3359-9.
- Evans, Stewart P.; ISBN 0-7867-0768-2.
- Fairclough, Melvyn (1991). The Ripper and the Royals. London: Duckworth. ISBN 0-7156-2362-1.
- ISBN 0-297-79136-2.
- ISBN 0-491-00722-1.
- ISBN 0-491-01995-5.
- ISBN 0-7537-0369-6.
- Marriott, Trevor (2005). Jack the Ripper: The 21st Century Investigation. London: John Blake. ISBN 1-84454-103-7.
- Meikle, Denis (2002). Jack the Ripper: The Murders and the Movies. Richmond, Surrey: Reynolds and Hearn Ltd. ISBN 1-903111-32-3.
- ISBN 978-1-84529-678-0.
- ISBN 978-0-572-03285-2.
- ISBN 0-14-017395-1.
- ISBN 1-84024-016-4.
- ISBN 0-593-01020-5.
External links
- Casebook: Jack the Ripper – Good Knight: An Examination of The Final Solution debunks Knight's theory.
- Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution (1980) on the Internet Archive