Walter Dew

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Walter Dew
Dew c. 1920
Born(1863-04-07)7 April 1863
Hardingstone, Northamptonshire, England
Died16 December 1947(1947-12-16) (aged 84)
Worthing, England
Resting placeDurrington Cemetery, Worthing
OccupationMetropolitan Police officer
Known forJack the Ripper and Dr Crippen cases

Detective Chief Inspector Walter Dew (17 April 1863 – 16 December 1947) was a British Metropolitan Police officer who was involved in the hunt for both Jack the Ripper and Dr Crippen
.

Early life

Dew was born at Far Cotton, in Hardingstone, Northamptonshire, one of seven children to Walter Dew Sr (ca 1822–1884), a railway guard, and his wife Eliza (ca 1832–1914). His family moved to London when he was 10.[1] As a boy Dew was not a natural scholar, and left school aged 13. As a youth Dew found employment in a solicitor's office off Chancery Lane, but not liking the work he became a junior clerk at the offices of a seed-merchant in Holborn. Later, he followed his father on to the railways,[1] for on the 1881 census he is listed as a 17-year-old railway porter living in Hammersmith in London. However, in 1882 he joined the Metropolitan Police, aged 19, and was given the warrant number 66711. He was posted to the Metropolitan Police's X Division (Paddington Green) in June 1882. On 15 November 1886, Dew married Kate Morris in Notting Hill. They had six children, one of whom died in infancy.[1]

Jack the Ripper

Detective Constable Walter Dew c. 1887
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Legacy

Early in 1887, Dew was transferred to

Commercial Street police station in H Division (Whitechapel), where he was a detective constable in the Criminal Investigation Department during the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.[2]

In his memoirs, published fifty years later in 1938, Dew made a number of claims about being personally involved in the Ripper investigation. Dew claimed to know Mary Jane Kelly by sight. "Often I saw her parading along Commercial Street, between Flower and Dean Street and Aldgate, or along Whitechapel Road", he wrote. "She was usually in the company of two or three of her kind, fairly neatly dressed and invariably wearing a clean white apron, but no hat."[3] Dew also claimed to have been one of the first police officers on the murder scene, though none of the records mentioning those people who were present list his involvement.

Dew wrote that he saw Kelly's mutilated body in her room in Miller's Court and that he regarded it as "the most gruesome memory of the whole of my Police career."

Ripperologists,[6]
and opined that "Someone, somewhere, shared Jack the Ripper's guilty secret."

Police career

In 1898 Dew was promoted to

Chief Inspector, and returned to Scotland Yard. By the time of his retirement from the police in 1910 Dew had received 130 recommendations and rewards from the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, judges and magistrates
.

In 1898, Dew was involved in bringing international jewel-thief William Johnson, known as 'Harry the Valet', to justice. Johnson stole jewellery then valued at £30,000 from

prison sentence, Johnson refused to disclose the whereabouts of the Duchess's jewels, and only £4,000 worth were ever recovered.[8]

Dew had a small role in the

Druce-Portland case: he supervised the exhumation of the remains of T. C. Druce[9] which effectively put an end to the Druce claims.[10]

When

s to his bank account in London, where he subsequently fled, it was Dew who tracked him down. Despite claiming that he was Harms' near identical cousin Henry Clifford, a pretence he maintained even when confronted by the wife he had previously abandoned, Friedlauski/Harms was sentenced to six years penal servitude for fraud and bigamy.[11]

Arrest of Dr Crippen

Doctor

Canadian Pacific liner SS Montrose
for Canada.

Inspector Dew with a disguised Crippen in handcuffs

Their disappearance led the police at

telegram to the British authorities: "Have strong suspicions that Crippen London cellar murderer and accomplice are among saloon passengers. Mustache taken off growing beard. Accomplice dressed as boy. Manner and build undoubtedly a girl." Had Crippen travelled 3rd class, he would have probably escaped Kendall's notice. Dew boarded a faster White Star liner, the SS Laurentic, arrived in Quebec
, Canada ahead of Crippen, and contacted the Canadian authorities.

As the Montrose entered the St. Lawrence River, Dew came aboard disguised as a pilot. Kendall invited Crippen to meet the pilots as they came aboard. Dew removed his pilot's cap and said, "Good morning, Dr Crippen. Do you know me? I'm Chief Inspector Dew from Scotland Yard." After a pause, Crippen replied, "Thank God it's over. The suspense has been too great. I couldn't stand it any longer." He then held out his wrists for the handcuffs. Crippen and le Neve were arrested on board the Montrose on 31 July 1910.

In his 1938 memoirs, Dew recalled:

"I had landed on July 29 by the liner Laurentic, arriving two days before the Montrose, which was already well out in the Atlantic when we first suspected that Crippen was aboard, but which was a much slower vessel than the mail steamer Laurentic. Old Crippen took it quite well. He always was a bit of a philosopher, though he could not have helped being astounded to see me on board the boat. He was quite a likeable chap in his way. Much of my time in Canada was spent evading reporters and cameramen, who knew all about my arrival in spite of our efforts to keep it secret, and who frequently became personal when I did not give them a statement. As it happened, Crippen and his companion, Miss Ethel Le Neve, showed no desire to postpone our departure and waived their extradition rights, which enabled us to make the return journey after being only three weeks in Canada."[14]

Dew returned to England with Crippen aboard the SS Megantic,[15] paving the way for a sensational trial at the Old Bailey. Newspapers at the time said he had "effected the most sensational criminal capture of the century".[14]

Later years

Dew's Gravestone at Durrington Cemetery, Photograph taken in 2011

By now internationally famous, Dew resigned from the police and set up as a "Confidential Agent". In 1911, he brought

libel
actions against nine newspapers for comments they had printed about him during the Crippen case. Most settled out of court, and Dew won his case against those who did not, resulting in his being awarded substantial sums as damages.

After his retirement, Dew became an unofficial 'criminal expert' for the British press, who would print his comments and opinions on various cases then in the public eye, such as the mysterious disappearance in 1926 of crime-writer Agatha Christie.[16] He published his autobiography 'I Caught Crippen' in 1938. This contained factual errors as many of the events described were being recalled sometimes nearly thirty years later; Dew himself admitted this in the book. However, compared to many of the memoirs written by Dew's contemporaries about the same events, it is "broadly accurate".[17]

Dew retired to Worthing, living at the Wee Hoose, 10 Beaumont Road, until his death in 1947. He was buried at Durrington Cemetery in Worthing, Section 15, Row 5, Grave Space 46.

The bungalow that Dew retired in was renamed 'Dew Cottage' in his honour, in 2005.

Film portrayals

Year Title Maker Dew played by:
1942 Dr. Crippen an Bord Germany René Deltgen
1962 Dr. Crippen UK John Arnatt.[1]
2011 Finding Walter Wales Alun Collins

Television portrayals

Year Title Maker Dew played by:
1956 The Case of Dr. Crippen
ATV
 Philip Lennard
1968 Investigating Murder BBC Philip Webb
1973 Jack the Ripper BBC Norman Shelley
1981 The Ladykillers: Miss Elmore ITV Alan Downer
1999 Tales from the Black Museum Discovery Channel Not credited
2004 The Last Secret of Dr Crippen Channel 4 David Broughton-Davies
2008 'Revealed' Was Crippen Innocent?
Five
 Not credited

In fiction

Dew is the inspiration for the central figure in

Gold Dagger Award for crime fiction
.

Dew also appears in several of M. J. Trow's humorous Inspector Lestrade novels, which depict him as dedicated but somewhat bumbling. Lestrade and the Leviathan (1987) includes a fictionalized version of the Crippen case.

Walter Dew appears as a main character in Blackout Baby, a thriller by French writer Michel Moatti, published in 2014.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c ODNB
  2. ^ Paul Begg, Martin Fido and Keith Skinner, 'The Jack the Ripper A-Z' Published by Headline, (1996) pgs 102-103
  3. ^ Dew, Walter 'I Caught Crippen' Blackie & Son Ltd (1938)
  4. ^ Paul Begg, Martin Fido and Keith Skinner, 'The Jack the Ripper A-Z' Published by Headline, (1996)
  5. ^ Dew, p148
  6. ^ Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates: 47-50
  7. ISBN 978-1-84605-813-4
    .
  8. ^ Connell, Nicholas Walter Dew: the Man Who Caught Crippen Sutton Publishing. (2006) p.55 ff.
  9. ^ Charles Kingston (1923). Dramatic days at the Old Bailey (3rd ed.). S. Paul. p. 267.
  10. ISBN 978-0-7126-6724-1
    .
  11. ^ Connell, pg 62 ff.
  12. ^ Hunt, Jane; Peel, John (2004-08-30). "Home Truths". BBC 4. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  13. ^ "History of the Metropolitan Police - Dr Crippen". Archived from the original on 2012-08-02. Retrieved 2007-12-29.
  14. ^ a b The Argus 'The man who caught Crippen' Thursday 27th Dec 2001
  15. ^ "Megantic - 1908". Shawsvillships. Archived from the original on 2007-09-28. Retrieved 2010-10-31.
  16. ^ Connell, pg 221-3
  17. ^ Connell, p.222

References
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