At 1pm on 31 December 1888, Henry Winslade, a waterman, discovered yet another decomposing body in the Thames off Thorneycroft's Wharf at Chiswick. Despite the fact the body, that of a well-dressed professional man, had several valuable items on it, including cheques for £50 and £16, £2.17s.2d in cash, and a silver watch Winslade brought it ashore intact and alerted the authorities. According to Constable George Moulson, the policeman involved the authorities were able to identify the body from 'various papers' found on the body (most likely the cheques or the season ticket from Blackheath to London) as that of Montague John Druitt, a thirty-one year old barrister and schoolmaster.
On 2 January an inquest was held at the Lamb Tap in Chiswick at which Montague's elder brother, William Harvey Druitt, a solicitor from Bournemouth, gave evidence that on 30 November Montague had got into 'serious trouble' at the school at Blackheath where he worked as an assistant master and had been dismissed. On 11 December William had heard from a friend that Montague had not been seen at his chambers in London for 'more than a week'. William immediately went to Blackheath where he had Montague's rooms searched and found a note addressed to him or George Valentine, the headmaster (the newspaper accounts are unclear on this) which stated that 'Since Friday I felt I was going to be like mother, and the best thing for me was to die' (Acton, Chiswick, and Turnham Green Gazette) and that 'what he intended to do would be the best for all parties' (Richmond and Twickenham Times). William then explained that their mother had been declared insane that July (mental illness also ran in the family, their grandmother had committed suicide, and their sister would also do many years later). The coroner, Dr. Thomas Bramah Diplock concluded that Montague had committed suicide 'whilst of unsound mind'. The next day, Montague was buried quietly at Wimborne Minster, his hometown, with a few friends and family present, a tragic end to what had been a short but promising life. However, the afterlife of Montague Druitt had only just begun.
On 11 February 1891, the Bristol Times and Mirror an a story under the heading 'Our London Letter' which stated that 'Jack the Ripper', the infamous murderer who had killed five prostitutes the notorious Whitechapel district of London during the Autumn of 1888, had been identified by a 'West of England member' who claimed that 'Jack the Ripper committed suicide on the night of the last murder.' He stated that the man was wearing 'blood-stained clothes' and this man was 'the son of a surgeon who suffered from homicidal mania.' Apparently the story was 'so circumstantial that a good many people believe it.' However, the reporter was clearly unimpressed with the West Country M.P.'s claims stating his belief that 'the accusation will [soon] be stifled thoroughly'. Although the journalist was unimpressed it would turn out that Melville Macnaghten (1853-1921), the Chief Constable of the CID, was. Macnaghten later stated in a private Memorandum dated 23 February 1894 in which he noted the details of three men he considered more likely than Thomas Cutbush, a man accused of stabbing several ladies in the rear and who had been pegged by the Sun as the Ripper, to have committed the Whitechapel murders. Of these three men, the other two being Kosminski, a mentally disturbed Polish Jew and Michael Ostrog, a 'Russian convict' and 'homicidal manic', Macnaghten reckoned that the most likely suspect was:
A Mr M. J. Druitt, said to be a doctor & of good family -- who disappeared at the time of the Miller's Court murder, & whose body (which was said to have been upwards of a month in the water) was found in the Thames on 31st December -- or about 7 weeks after that murder. He was sexually insane and from private information I have little doubt but that his own family believed him to have been the murderer.
Macnaghten clearly did not get his information on Montague Druitt firsthand; he made several mistakes on Druitt, firstly that he had been a doctor (actually he was a barrister and schoolmaster, although several members of his family, including his father were), and that he committed suicide immediately after the last murder, that of Mary Jane Kelly on 9 November 1888. In fact Montague was alive untill at least 1 December. Despite these mistakes and a lack of firsthand information, Macnaghten became increasingly convinced that Montague was the murderer, although he never named him to the public, perhaps to spare his family's honour. In his autobiography, Days of My Years (1913) Macnaghten commented that:
There can be no doubt that in the room at Miller's Court the madman found ample scope for the opportunities he had all along been seeking, and the probability is that, after his awful glut on this occasion, his brain gave way altogether and he committed suicide ; otherwise the murders would not have ceased. The man, of course, was a sexual maniac...
Macnaghten was not the only one to state his belief that the Whitechapel Murders had been committed by a doctor suffering from 'homicidal mania' who drowned himself in the Thames. His friend, journalist George R. Sims, who probably got most of his inside information from Macnaghten, wrote several articles on Jack the Ripper's crimes in the early 1900's, added to the myth stating that the 'doctor ad been an inmate of a lunatic asylum for some time, and had been liberated and regained his complete freedom.' By this point, the story Montague Druitt had separated considerably from reality. It may have been that both Macnaghten and Sims were soon keen to latch onto and in Sims case elaborate on Druitt's story after reading the 'expert' testimony of L. Forbes Winslow, an asylum proprietor, alienist and self-proclaimed expert on mental illness, who wrote to several newspapers, including the Times in September 1888, stating his opinion that:
I think that the murderer is not of the class of which "Leather Apron" belongs, but of the upper class of society, and I still think that my opinion given to the authorities is the correct one -viz., that the murders have been committed by a lunatic lately discharged from some asylum, or by one who has escaped. If the former, doubtless one who, though suffering from the effects of homicidal mania, is apparently sane on the surface, and consequently been liberated, and is following out the inclinations of his morbid imaginations by wholesale homicide.
However, despite the fact that Macnaghten was clearly convinced that Druitt was the murderer, his identity was never revealed to the public, until the contents of Macnaghten's 1894 Memorandum was discovered by journalist, Dan Farson in 1959 on a visit to Macnaghten's daughter, Lady Christobel Aberconway. However, in 1959, Farson was still not allowed to reveal the name of Macnaghten's suspect in his television programs on the subject of Jack the Ripper, he could only reveal the man's initials, 'M.J.D.'. Montague John Druitt's full name was only finally revealed to the public on the publication of Tom Cullen's When London Walked in Terror in 1965. Since then, several other studies have been published fingering Druitt as Jack the Ripper, including, Farson's Jack the Ripper (1972) and Martin Howell and Keith Skinner's The Ripper Legacy: The Life and Death of Jack the Ripper (1987). However, Druitt's popularity as a Ripper suspect has declined in recent years in favour of working-class suspects living in the vicinity in which the murders took place. Although I myself do not believe Druitt to have been the murderer he is a far more legitimate candidate compared to many of the numerous suspects accused of the crimes over the years due to the fact he was fingered by a high-ranking contemporary police official who apparently had some sort of evidence to back up his accusations.
On 2 January an inquest was held at the Lamb Tap in Chiswick at which Montague's elder brother, William Harvey Druitt, a solicitor from Bournemouth, gave evidence that on 30 November Montague had got into 'serious trouble' at the school at Blackheath where he worked as an assistant master and had been dismissed. On 11 December William had heard from a friend that Montague had not been seen at his chambers in London for 'more than a week'. William immediately went to Blackheath where he had Montague's rooms searched and found a note addressed to him or George Valentine, the headmaster (the newspaper accounts are unclear on this) which stated that 'Since Friday I felt I was going to be like mother, and the best thing for me was to die' (Acton, Chiswick, and Turnham Green Gazette) and that 'what he intended to do would be the best for all parties' (Richmond and Twickenham Times). William then explained that their mother had been declared insane that July (mental illness also ran in the family, their grandmother had committed suicide, and their sister would also do many years later). The coroner, Dr. Thomas Bramah Diplock concluded that Montague had committed suicide 'whilst of unsound mind'. The next day, Montague was buried quietly at Wimborne Minster, his hometown, with a few friends and family present, a tragic end to what had been a short but promising life. However, the afterlife of Montague Druitt had only just begun.
On 11 February 1891, the Bristol Times and Mirror an a story under the heading 'Our London Letter' which stated that 'Jack the Ripper', the infamous murderer who had killed five prostitutes the notorious Whitechapel district of London during the Autumn of 1888, had been identified by a 'West of England member' who claimed that 'Jack the Ripper committed suicide on the night of the last murder.' He stated that the man was wearing 'blood-stained clothes' and this man was 'the son of a surgeon who suffered from homicidal mania.' Apparently the story was 'so circumstantial that a good many people believe it.' However, the reporter was clearly unimpressed with the West Country M.P.'s claims stating his belief that 'the accusation will [soon] be stifled thoroughly'. Although the journalist was unimpressed it would turn out that Melville Macnaghten (1853-1921), the Chief Constable of the CID, was. Macnaghten later stated in a private Memorandum dated 23 February 1894 in which he noted the details of three men he considered more likely than Thomas Cutbush, a man accused of stabbing several ladies in the rear and who had been pegged by the Sun as the Ripper, to have committed the Whitechapel murders. Of these three men, the other two being Kosminski, a mentally disturbed Polish Jew and Michael Ostrog, a 'Russian convict' and 'homicidal manic', Macnaghten reckoned that the most likely suspect was:
A Mr M. J. Druitt, said to be a doctor & of good family -- who disappeared at the time of the Miller's Court murder, & whose body (which was said to have been upwards of a month in the water) was found in the Thames on 31st December -- or about 7 weeks after that murder. He was sexually insane and from private information I have little doubt but that his own family believed him to have been the murderer.
Macnaghten clearly did not get his information on Montague Druitt firsthand; he made several mistakes on Druitt, firstly that he had been a doctor (actually he was a barrister and schoolmaster, although several members of his family, including his father were), and that he committed suicide immediately after the last murder, that of Mary Jane Kelly on 9 November 1888. In fact Montague was alive untill at least 1 December. Despite these mistakes and a lack of firsthand information, Macnaghten became increasingly convinced that Montague was the murderer, although he never named him to the public, perhaps to spare his family's honour. In his autobiography, Days of My Years (1913) Macnaghten commented that:
There can be no doubt that in the room at Miller's Court the madman found ample scope for the opportunities he had all along been seeking, and the probability is that, after his awful glut on this occasion, his brain gave way altogether and he committed suicide ; otherwise the murders would not have ceased. The man, of course, was a sexual maniac...
Macnaghten was not the only one to state his belief that the Whitechapel Murders had been committed by a doctor suffering from 'homicidal mania' who drowned himself in the Thames. His friend, journalist George R. Sims, who probably got most of his inside information from Macnaghten, wrote several articles on Jack the Ripper's crimes in the early 1900's, added to the myth stating that the 'doctor ad been an inmate of a lunatic asylum for some time, and had been liberated and regained his complete freedom.' By this point, the story Montague Druitt had separated considerably from reality. It may have been that both Macnaghten and Sims were soon keen to latch onto and in Sims case elaborate on Druitt's story after reading the 'expert' testimony of L. Forbes Winslow, an asylum proprietor, alienist and self-proclaimed expert on mental illness, who wrote to several newspapers, including the Times in September 1888, stating his opinion that:
I think that the murderer is not of the class of which "Leather Apron" belongs, but of the upper class of society, and I still think that my opinion given to the authorities is the correct one -viz., that the murders have been committed by a lunatic lately discharged from some asylum, or by one who has escaped. If the former, doubtless one who, though suffering from the effects of homicidal mania, is apparently sane on the surface, and consequently been liberated, and is following out the inclinations of his morbid imaginations by wholesale homicide.
However, despite the fact that Macnaghten was clearly convinced that Druitt was the murderer, his identity was never revealed to the public, until the contents of Macnaghten's 1894 Memorandum was discovered by journalist, Dan Farson in 1959 on a visit to Macnaghten's daughter, Lady Christobel Aberconway. However, in 1959, Farson was still not allowed to reveal the name of Macnaghten's suspect in his television programs on the subject of Jack the Ripper, he could only reveal the man's initials, 'M.J.D.'. Montague John Druitt's full name was only finally revealed to the public on the publication of Tom Cullen's When London Walked in Terror in 1965. Since then, several other studies have been published fingering Druitt as Jack the Ripper, including, Farson's Jack the Ripper (1972) and Martin Howell and Keith Skinner's The Ripper Legacy: The Life and Death of Jack the Ripper (1987). However, Druitt's popularity as a Ripper suspect has declined in recent years in favour of working-class suspects living in the vicinity in which the murders took place. Although I myself do not believe Druitt to have been the murderer he is a far more legitimate candidate compared to many of the numerous suspects accused of the crimes over the years due to the fact he was fingered by a high-ranking contemporary police official who apparently had some sort of evidence to back up his accusations.
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