Whitechapel Murder Chapter Summary

mortuary in Old Montague Street on the morning of 31

August 1888, born 1835, Mile End New Town. Inmate of the

Whitechapel Workhouse, described as a laborer and dock

laborer. Died of pthisis (A disease characterized by the

wasting away or atrophy of the body or a part of the body.

Tuberculosis of the lungs). in Whitechapel in 1896. Advanced

as a suspect by M. J. Trow in the 2009 book – Jack the Ripper

Quest for a Killer, and the accompanying Discovery Channel

documentary, Jack the Ripper Killer Revealed. Trow used the

1988 FBI profile as the foundation for his theory. Mann

helped James Hatfield wash and lay out the body of Mary

Ann Nichols in Old Montague Street Workhouse Infirmary.

The police were criticized for allowing the body to be washed

without adequate

police supervision. Inspector Helsen insisted
he had left strict instructions the body was not to be touched.
These instructions were disregarded, and James Hatfield, or
Robert Mann instigated the washing of the body. At the
inquest the coroner Wynne Baxter instructed the jury to
disregard Mann's evidence, as he was unreliable and had fits.
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RICHARD MANSFIELD
Richard Mansfield was an American actor, though was
actually born in Helgoland, Germany, on 24
May 1857. The
son of operatic soprano, Erminia Rudersdoff, and her second
husband, English violin-playing wine merchant Maurice
Mansfield. His father died when he was 4 years old. Educated
in Derby, England, he studied painting in London, though
when this work failed to support him he turned to acting. He
became a light comedy actor and singer with the D'Oyly Carte
(Gilbert and Sullivan), provincial touring company. At the
time of the Ripper murders he was starring in a production of
Robert Lewis Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at Henry
Irving's Lyceum Theatre. He came under attack and suspicion
after many believed his convincing on stage transformation
from a gentleman into a mad killer incited murder. His on
stage transformation was achieved by the method of prepainting
the required face altering shadows in actors grease
paint, this would be undetectable under normal stage light,
then by the process of gradually introducing a colored filter to
the lighting, while simultaneously contorting his facial
features, the monstrous visage of Hyde would eerily become
apparent. In an attempt to stem criticism of him, Mansfield
offered to present a special benefit performance for the
Suffragan Bishop of London's home and refuge fund, who
were trying to raise money to open a laundry for the
employment of reformed prostitutes. The newspapers said
Mansfield wisely selected Prince Karl a comedy in four acts
for his benefit performance. Mansfield unfortunately however
suffered financial loss due to falling audience attendances and
canceled the show. He died from liver cancer 30
th
August
1907 at the age of 50. At the time of his death The New York
Times claimed, 'He was the greatest actor of his hour, and one
of the greatest of all times'.
MARY OF BREMEN*
A male German hairdresser named Theophil Mary, born in
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Alsace, was mentioned in the Scotland Yard files, 27
September 1888, and 19 October, having been arrested
several times in Germany for assaulting women in Strasbourg
and Bremen, stabbing them in the breasts and private parts
with a sharp instrument. He had also in 1881 attempted to
rape a 12 year old girl in his barbershop. The young girl was
able to give a very good description of her assailant, and he
was arrested the following day. Suspecting they had a
possible Ripper suspect the British police contacted their
German colleagues, only to find that Mary, having just served
a seven year prison sentence, had been rearrested immediately
and was now serving a further twelve months at Oslebshausen
prison for the Strasbourg assaults, and was not due to be
released until August 1889; therefore was in prison when the
Whitechapel murders occurred.
ARTHUR HENRY MASON*
Mentioned in a Scotland Yard file which is now missing dated
18
th
December 1888.

At 10.20 p.m. 16

November, 1888 John

Hemmings of 11 Youngs Buildings, Kingston, and William

Shulver of 201 Aspen Road, Starch Green, Middlesex,

informed PC 548T, Robert Large, they were drinking inside

the White Hart public house, Hampton Wick, Middlesex, and

were talking about the 'Whitechapel Murders' , when another

man Arthur Henry Mason who was in the public house and

upon hearing their conversation became excited. Mason's

strange behavior caused the men to become suspicious of him.

They thought his description matched that of the Ripper in the

newspapers, and dually informed PC Large. Mason lived at 12

Portland Road, Spring Grove, Kingston, and was employed as

a compositor at Kelly and Co, Kingston. He was described as

32 years of age, 5ft 9 inches tall, fresh complexion with a thin

face, whiskers and mustache. He was interviewed by the

police and his statement was proved to be correct.

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THOMAS MASON

On the 28

April 1895 the Chicago Sunday Times published a

story in which it claimed the medium Robert Lees had

received a psychic impression of the Whitechapel murderer.

Seventeen murders later? The police asked for his assistance.

Throughout the night Lees followed a psychic trail

which
ended at the house of an eminent Physician. The story goes on
to say that the police questioned the doctor and his wife,
eliciting the admission that the doctor suffered from
occasional losses of memory, and had on one occasion
regained it to find his shirt blood-stained. Proof of his guilt as
Jack the Ripper was found in the house and he was committed
to an asylum in Islington under the name Thomas Mason 124.
Author Stephen Knight identifies Thomas Mason with Gull
though miss-dates Mason's death as 1896. The real Thomas
Mason was a 71 year old retired bookbinder whose address
was given as Bookbinders' Alms Houses, Balls Pond,
Islington. Mason who was born in 1817, had no connection
with Gull, or Jack the Ripper, and was never incarcerated in
an asylum. He died in 1902 from bronchitis in Islington
Infirmary.
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OLIVER MATHEWS*
Mathews aroused the suspicion of Richard Watson, of 21 Old
Square, Lincoln's Inn who while sitting next to him in the
Trevor Music Hall, Knightsbridge, noticed that Mathews had
in his possession a small black bag. Watson informed the
police of his suspicions and Mathews was questioned and his
bag searched. When his bag was opened it was found to
contain only clean linen. Mathews, who had resided at 14
Wharton Street, Kings Cross, for over a year, and whose
appearance did not answer that of the Whitechapel murderer
was able to satisfactorily prove his innocence.
JAMES MAYBRICK
James Maybrick, born 25
th
October 1838, in Liverpool, was at
the time of the Whitechapel murders a 50 year old Liverpool
cotton broker. He was named as Jack the Ripper after a diary,
purporting to have been written by him, came into the
possession of Michael Barrett, an unemployed, invalid,
former merchant seaman and scrap metal dealer from
Liverpool. Barrett had been given the diary in a pub by a
casual friend Tony Devereux, who told Barrett to do
something with it. Despite questioning from Barrett as to the
diary's provenance, Devereux died shortly after from heart
failure without ever revealing its true origins. After
researching the 63 page handwritten journal, Barrett
discovered that the writer, who signed the diary Jack the
Ripper, was James Maybrick. Publication rights to the diary
were secured by Smith Gryphon Limited, who published the
diary in 1994 amid worldwide interest and intense debate
among Ripperologists as to the diary's authenticity, a debate
that continues to this day. On 27
June 1994 Michael Barrett
told the Liverpool Daily Post that he had in fact forged the
diary, using a scrapbook bought from an auctioneer's and ink
from the Bluecoat Art Shop, only to retract his confession,
then confess to forging the diary once more, a claim he
maintains to this day. In July 1994 Barrett's estranged wife
Ann Graham, in a statement said she had had the diary in her
possession since 1989, and that it was given to her by her
father, Billy Graham now (deceased), who in turn had
received it in 1950 along with a pile of other books from his
stepmother. She had passed it to Tony Devereux to give to
Barrett in the hope that he would write a story around it, as he
seemed to have lost his purpose in life. She had not thought
that he would attempt to publish it. Another story relating to
the diary's provenance is that workmen found it under
floorboards that had been lifted for the first time in over a
century at Battlecrease House, Maybrick's old home.
Whatever the true origins of the diary may be makes little
difference, for it is littered with errors. The writer of the diary
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claims to have placed Mary Kelly's body parts around the
room, left farthings at Annie Chapman's feet and attempted to
remove Mary Ann Nichols head, all these claims are false,
and the inaccuracies within the diary are almost endless. The
writer of the diary claims two further murders in Manchester
England, no records of any such murders have to date been
found. If the provenance of the diary was not enough to
contend with, a ladies 18 caret gold half-hunter watch, made
by Henry Verity of Lancaster in 1846, supposedly owned by
James Maybrick, was discovered shortly after the diary's
appearance. Purchased by Mr. Albert Johnson (d. 2008) from
Stewarts the Jewellers of Wallasey, Cheshire in July 1992 the
watch Johnson noticed had the words, I am Jack - J.
Maybrick, and the initials of his five victims scratched upon
the inner case. Like the diary the watches authenticity is hotly
debated. Without the diary Maybrick would not be a Ripper
suspect, he did not fit any of the eyewitness descriptions, his
known hand writing does not match the writing in the diary,
his health did not begin to fail until 1889, so there is no
explanation as to why the murders suddenly ceased. Until the
emergence of the diary there is no evidence that James
Maybrick was ever suspected or associated with the Ripper
case. James Maybrick died in dubious circumstances on 11
May 1889, his wife Florence stood trial for murder and in a
sensational trial was convicted of poisoning him with arsenic.
Initially sentenced to death her sentence was commuted to life
imprisonment. She was released in 1904 and died 23
October 1941.
MICHAEL MAYBRICK
Named as Jack the Ripper in the 2009 book – The Diary of
Jack the Ripper another Chapter by James Stettler. Stettler in
his book makes the following claims - that the Ripper diary
was not written by James Maybrick, but by Michael
Maybrick. That Michael Maybrick was homosexual or at least
bisexual. That Michael disliked women and hated his sister in
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law (Florence Maybrick) and was jealous and envious of his
brother's relationship with a beautiful wife. It was this envy
Stettler claims drove Micheal to murder. Michael Maybrick
was the younger brother of Ripper suspect James Maybrick.
The fourth of seven sons of William Maybrick an engraver,
and parish Clerk at St Peters Church Liverpool, and his wife,
Susannah who died 1
May 1880. William died in in 1870
and is buried in Anfield Cemetery. Michael was Born 31
st
January 1841 at 8 Church Alley, Liverpool. A keen amateur
cricketer yachtsman and cyclist, he was also a Freemason.
From an early age he had a talent for music. Composer and
singer best known under his pseudonym 'Stephen Adams' as
the composer of 'The Holy City'". On 9
March 1893 he
married his forty-year-old housekeeper, Laura Withers, and
settled with her at Ryde on the Isle of Wight. Maybrick
became chairman of the Isle of Wight Hospital, was a
magistrate and was five times mayor of Ryde. His friends
spoke of his charming personality, but others thought him
arrogant and vain. He had been at Buxton for three weeks
being treated for periodic gout when he died in his sleep of
heart failure on 26
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