James Maybrick

[SIMON HARRISON]

Jack the ripper?? Interesting guy even without the tag

[Max]

Don't think he really was the ripper.

[SIMON HARRISON]

I have my doubts 2 Max, maybe Chris could help?

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Simon and Max

The first I heard of the Maybrick Diary in 1993 I thought it was going to be a dud. I knew about the Maybrick case

of 1889 from my grandmother, having grown up in Mossley Hill on Aigburth Hall Avenue, which is an extension of Riversdale Road running up from the Mersey, as

you probably know. When I was a boy, my grandmother had shown me one of the chemist's shops where Florence Maybrick bought the flypapers supposedly to bump

off James -- though she claimed she was doing it to obtain arsenic for a hair remover. The Maybrick case was world famous in its time, and it just seemed to

me too good to be true that two such famous Victorian murder cases, the Maybrick and the Ripper case, could be so joined. And since the handwriting of the

Diary is not in James Maybrick's handwriting and the Diary mentions such things as the Post House on Cumberland Street which was not called by that name in

1888-1889, the whole thing is a contrived hoax. No evidence puts James Maybrick in London at the time of the murders, so his candidacy is really a

nonstarter. It's just that somebody was cunning enough to pick this man who died so conveniently on May 11, 1889 as the Ripper.

Chris

[SIMON HARRISON]

Thanks Chris, maybe then Mike Barret deserves, his name listed, as its still a fasinating bit of fiction, shame to see Maybricks headstone

is smashed at Anfield cem.

[Kev]

Its all facinating stuff

[SIMON HARRISON]

You, can tell by my spelling i

couldnt have forged it, wonder who did ?

[ChrisGeorge]

Hello Simon & Kev

The jury is still out on who precisely hoaxed the Maybrick Diary, but there are a number of facts that are incontrovertible. First, it is not in James Maybrick's handwriting. Second, it cannot be dated back any further than 1992/1993. Third, there is nothing to connect it to the Maybricks -- and this is probably the biggest defect, that the Diary has absolutely no provenance to say that James Maybrick ever owned it. Fourth, there are no major new facts about the Ripper crimes in the Diary, and what is in there is a rehash of what can be gleaned about the case from popular books, including emulating the style of the Jack the Ripper letters, which most authorities on the case think were probably hoaxes in and of themselves.

The Barretts, Mike Barrett and his former wife Anne Graham, have come up with two different stories about how they came by the Diary. The first story was that Mike got the Diary from a friend, Tony Devereaux, a former typesetter for the Liverpool Echo, who subsequently died before Mike could get the full story of where the Diary came from. Later Anne Graham came up with a revised story that the Diary had been in her family for years, at least back to 1950 in a trunk owned by her father, Billy Graham.

Ms. Graham said that she gave the Diary to Tony Devereaux to give to Mike to give him "something to do" as he was a part time writer. Separately, Mike has given several confessions that he in fact forged the Diary, that he obtained a Victorian commonplace book or scrapbook, removed the opening 63 pages with a Stanley knife because they contained photographs (there is evidence on the remaining pages that photos had been in the book) and that he wrote the Diary using Diamine ink bought from the Bluecoat School. Since Mike has had alcoholic episodes and periods of incoherence his stories don't quite add up.

Mike Barrett's confessions are not bought by Keith Skinner, Seth Linder and Caroline Morris, authors of the 2003 book, Ripper Diary: The Inside Story. While Skinner and his co-authors don't come up with any answers on who was responsible for creating the Diary, their chronicling of the whole Diary mess is worth reading.

Chris

[MissInformed]

i always walk past battlecrease house and can't help but have a look....to think of what has gone on in there is quite amazing...

[ChrisGeorge]

Hello MissInformed

Yes it is amazing to think of the goings-on at Battlecrease House in those heady days of 1888-1889. The age gap between Florence and James Maybrick, 26 years, was amazing in itself and I think almost bound to cause problems of itself. I get the impression, sorry, that Florence was a bit of an airhead. In her autobiography, My Lost Fifteen Years, she actually calls the place where she lived "Aigwerth" rather than "Aigburth" although of course that could have been a typo in the book. By the way, I noted your comment I think in the Toxteth thread about having held Dr. Solomon's book about his Balm of Gilead. I have also held that book as well as Florie's book. By the way the Irving Famous British Trial series The Trial of Mrs. Maybrick often comes up for sale on ebay at a fairly inexpensive price and is worth getting if you have not got a copy. I bought a copy there recently.

All my best

Chris

[MissInformed]

hey chris...i will be sure to look out for that!
i have just finsihed reading 'bedside book of murder' by richard and molly whittington egan....excellent!!

[SteH]

Thanks Chris, maybe then Mike Barret deserves, his name listed, as its still a fasinating bit of fiction, shame to see Maybricks headstone is smashed at Anfield cem.

Picture of the grave

[SIMON HARRISON]

Nice one Ste, has anyone got any pics of battlecrease other than the ones im the book?

[TonyMay]

Hi everybody, this is my first post and I can't help chuckling to myself about the subject matter! I'm not a nutter (honest guv') but I am a keen Ripperologist and a beleiver in the Diary (sorry Chris! HA HA).
I read with interest Chris George's comments about the Maybrick diary and I agree that there are many puzzling questions to do with the diary that cannot be explained by either of the pro/against diary camps.
For me however the diary is simply too good a piece of work to be fake. By this I mean (and I say this as an Author myself) that IF the diary was to ever be conclusively proven to be a fake (to everybody's satisfaction!) then it would quite simply be the most impressive piece of work EVER BAR NONE.
I should say also at this point that as well as being a writer I have for many years suffered with depression. The psychological profile that the diary paints of the writer (and the succession of mood swings it portrays) I have to say is quite typical of how one does feel. In my opinion NO WRITER regardless of ability could so accurately and faultlessly artificially reproduce this.
One other thing that strikes me about the diary is that it begins half way through a sentence. As a writer I think it extremely unlikely that any potential forger would begin a piece of work in this way. It is pretty much fundamental when writing to structure a clear beginning, middle and end.
Well Chris that should get you up on your high horse!! HA HA HA
I look forward to being 'shot down' and welcome anyone's thoughts on the subject!

[Kev]

Ello Tony - a bright and breezy welcome from me. Do me a favour? The photo in your sig: Can you move to and use it as your avatar? If u can't I'll do it for you, cheers

Kev