Wowzers: The 1881 British Census and Jack the Ripper?

[Andrew D. Gable]

Yeah, I know this isn't a Jack The Ripper board, but I came across this today, and I'm pretty excited!

This was posted on the boards of Casebook Jack the Ripper, the best Ripper site I've ever seen. To sum up for those non-Ripper savvy, we found via searches of the 1881 British census all the victims, save the final one, Mary Kelly. Paul Williams, one of the members of said board, turned this up on the census. The addresses of these people were 30 Southowram Bank, York.

[i]Name 		Status 	Age 	Birthplace       
John Kelly 	M 	66 	Ireland	       
Bridget Kelly 	M 	60 	Ireland
Michael Kelly 	U 	29 	Ireland	 
John Kelly	U 	23 	Ireland	 
James Kelly 	U 	21 	Ireland	 
Bridget Kelly 	U 	19 	Ireland	 
[b]Mary Kelly 	U 	15 	Ireland	 
James Langan 		3 	Halifax[/b][/i]

He adds that this may be the Mary Kelly, since a birth certificate was found by the authors of one of the Ripper books indicating that she was born at St. Michael's, Limerick, Ireland on March 5, 1866 to John Kelly and Bridget Goulden.

Sure, it's not definitively her. But it's certainly food for thought for me, given the son named James Langan (who was obviously either Mary's or her sister Bridget's). Tie that in with some people's stories that Mary Kelly had a child of about 8 (James Langan would be 10) living with her in 1888 and there you have it. Plus it's very odd, IMHO, that a John Langan was arrested in France in October of 1888, and the French police made a thing of how he resembled Jack - my pet theory, which is that Mary Kelly's child was actually Jack's, is gaining steam somewhat.

I was planning a trip to England and Wales someday to research things further, and now when I go there I have two solid leads to follow up on (the other is a possible in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales).

Just showing off.

 

[Crothian]

Interesting, can you expand upon this for us non Jack the Ripper people.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Interesting, can you expand upon this for us non Jack the Ripper people.

Agreed! More info! Very interesting...

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

Sure, it's not definitively her. But it's certainly food for thought for me, given the son named James Langan (who was obviously either Mary's or her sister Bridget's). Tie that in with some people's stories that Mary Kelly had a child of about 8 (James Langan would be 10) living with her in 1888 and there you have it. Plus it's very odd, IMHO, that a John Langan was arrested in France in October of 1888, and the French police made a thing of how he resembled Jack - my pet theory, which is that Mary Kelly's child was actually Jack's, is gaining steam somewhat.

Interesting that this doesn't follow the serial killer profile (as I understand it) that most psychologists look at, in that the first victim of a serial killer usually has the closest personal bond to the killer. They usually kill someone they know before moving on to total strangers, but perhaps this is an antiquated profile.

 

[Macbeth]

This sounds REALLY interesting, but I'm a bit lost. Mind elaborating a bit?

 

[Old Fezziwig]

That's wicked interesting. I was reading pretty deeply into Ripper stuff last spring (for a paper I was writing for a Victorian Non-fiction Prose course), and the Casebook was wicked helpful. I'll second the other folks here--if you can expand on this, please do.

Thanks,
Nick

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

Sorry. This gonna be a long post.

As to this particular tidbit, there isn't much more than what I posted already, at least not until I take my trip to Britain and try to check these things out. Basically, this fits with what we know, which was that her father's name was John and her mother's Bridget, she had several siblings, she was about 25 years of age (for reference, this Mary Kelly would have been merely 22, her sister Bridget 26, and the Welsh Mary Kelly I referred to 23). Most interesting about the sister is that she's closer to the canonical age the victim was, more likely to have had a child, and furthermore, one alias of the victim was Bridget Kelly. She also said she married a coalminer by the name of Davis, and Yorkshire is prime English coal mining country.

In many ways, "Mary Kelly" (I say her name in quotes or merely 'the victim', as we can't be sure Mary Kelly was even her name) is as much an enigma as Jack himself. Of all five victims, she's the one we know absolutely nothing about - sure, there were a few people who knew her, her boyfriend and several neighbors, but that was about it. No relatives, unlike the other victims, ever came forward after her death. Her boyfriend, Joe Barnett, said once (although I can't track down the reference) that her parents did come to visit her on occasion, and that she refused to see them on all occasions. Also, it seemed she was terrified of Jack (although not really anymoreso than any other East End prostitute, likely), and after she broke up with him and he moved out of her little hovel, she shared the rooms with other prostitutes, and in fact the murder happened on only the second night she was truly alone. She was also making plans to leave London. Coupled with the fact she used aliases extensively, one has to wonder if she suspected and feared something or someone...

Tarrasque Wrangler, you said about how that doesn't fit the serial killer thing... well, "Mary Kelly" broke serial killer rules in a lot of ways. She was considerably younger than all the others (considerably - she was 25, while all the others were pushing 50). Up till this one, Jack had even a rough profile of the physical appearance of his victims, and apparently she didn't fit that. She was the only one of the victims who had her own lodgings, though she apparently barely made payments - and they were hers, her landlord John McCarthy stated that the place was rented under her name, and not that of Joe Barnett. That implies some measure of success greater than the average whore at the time. And of course, the murder was by far the most gruesome of the five. One of the main theories is that Jack burnt out in a fury of rage he unleashed on her. Really, it doesn't seem that Jack was even the one who did this, at least on the surface. But when you look at how certain things were done, it does seem to match. Jack might be a complete anomaly among serial killers from a psychological standpoint. To me, the fact she was so different implies the motive might have been different, or perhaps she was integral to why the whole cycle started in the first place. Personally, I also think it happened this way because he had to find out where she was.

John Langan was a guy arrested in France (I believe Boulogne? Is that France or Belgium?) for vagrancy. His story's given in many Ripper books and references. The French police thought he resembled Jack, so they turned him over to Scotland Yard for questioning. He fed them an alibi, and a few previous addresses. He was released after about two days, after the Yard determined his story washed. When I take my trip, I might make a stop here, too, as we have a description of the man seen with Mary Kelly immediately before her death, the man who was obviously Jack. If Langan fits that... well, the Yard'll be kicking themselves if they had Jack in custody and let him go.

To put the time of Langan's arrest in perspective, there were the first four murders in August and September, Jack took the month of October off, which is when Langan was arrested, then he came back on November 9 to kill Mary.

I'll make another post with some unexplained little coincidences about the case - and there's several.

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

Now for the weirdisms about the case. Feel free to dissect these and do psychoanalysis of Jack as you will.

1) Victim #1, Mary Ann (Polly) Nicholls. Of all things, two cheap brass rings were taken from her fingers.

2) Victim #2, Ann Chapman. Interesting, interesting. There was a kind of pattern of items under her feet. One of which was a torn envelope, which read (IIRC) M 2 Do Spi. I wonder if this was a partial address, reading Mary Jane Kelly, 26 Dorset Street, Spitalfields. Hmm?

4) Victim #4, Catherine Eddowes. What's interesting about her is that she was arrested immediately prior to her murder, and when booked she gave the name "Mary Ann Kelly". And she ended up murdered. Also, some have wondered why facial mutilation was added on the last two - the last two were associated with the name Mary Kelly, too.

5) Victim #5, Mary Kelly. Several anomalies. After her remains were basically scattered around the room, oddly, her clothing was neatly folded. And something was burned in the fireplace with a ferocity that melted a metal teapot. And her heart was missing.

Another weird thing was that we're not sure, but at least three victims may have been in a less than healthy state. The 1881 census shows a "lunatic" named Mary Ann Nuckold, which might indicate Polly Nicholls was insane. Ann Chapman had some sort of brain disorder which would have killed her in a matter of weeks. Catherine Eddowes was sick with some sort of kidney disorder.

And just a little aside, but I think Jack had obsessive-compulsive disorder, among other things. In most of the murders, though things were a mess, he organized things. I won't really go into it all, but take my word for it.