A reflection

I think that our presentation went pretty well for the most part. I was satisfied when we left the lecture theatre. I think our PowerPoint was well structured and sophisticated, and the distribution of information was equal. I think that we could have prepared a little bit more to save some of us who were on edge... and I do agree with Aimee, we could've slowed down a little. But other than that I was very pleased and think that everyone did a great job, so well done fellow comrades.

I have learnt a lot from this group project too, such as to always prepare as much as possible, and to make sure that each group member has their opinion heard as early as possible. I have also become apprehensive as to allow late members join the group weeks after the group has already been formed, for it seems that these are the members that do not pull their weight and eventually, let us down by not turning up or doing the work.

Great work though girls, give yourselves a pat on the back.

Well Done

I just want to say well done to everyone, as i thought the powerpoint was ace.
Salma the slides were wicked, loved the scream, should have turned the volume up though (maybe next time) blood dripping down the side was good.
I did feel like i could have said more, Natalie your bit about Sickert was brilliant, i just wish i found out more information, thats whay when she asked to elebrate on the quotes i talked about the first one, just thought that it seemed like i was rambling about it though, just hope i havent let us down by only saying such a little part.
Maybe we should have slowed it down a little, as it did only last 11 minutes...oops I still felt that we said all the relevent points about each person.

Anyways best of luck with your grades for this module....still can't believe i missed my bibilography off for the first assingment, im gutted now.

Happy Holidays Everyone
Aimee :-)

Presentation

In the presentation I am only briefly explaining who Walter Sickert is before going on to discuss reasons why people would want him to be the Ripper. I think Luc missed the point of the PowerPoint, as we're not just reading from it. There are just a few facts and details of who the person is we're talking about then we go into more depth in our verbal presentation. The PowerPoint is just a visual aid, not half our grade, we don't even need one.
My main argument for why people want Sickert to be the Ripper is that he's famous, he's eccentric and, to some extent, was born in Germany. (I cannot talk about these things without introducing people to who he actually is. Hence the facts!) People have always feared what they don't understand, it's human nature. Seeing as Sickert was different and a little strange this can make people think he was bad or evil. I will obviously develop this argument further, verbally, tomorrow.
Good luck everyone.

presentation

First of all thank you for letting me contribute to the project. I have my own views, you have yours and neither of us will change them. I am glad we found some sort of a compromise. If all this mess will made our presentation any better it was worth it. That is what I am concerned about the most. Taste is something we were born with and you stick to your I’ll stick to mine, majority decided, I don’t see the point of discussing it any further, especially here on this blog.

I changed my part a little bit hoping it will fit better to the presentation as a whole. I am still focusing more on the society than the dates and stuff like that. The factual bits has to lead somewhere. In my conclusion I would like to say that this “why people believe him to be the ripper” depends largely on themselves. People’s background, their own characteristics affect their view on the case. Just like in our presentation. We are different and although we look at the same things (facts) we have different opinions on them (perceptions).

Good luck for us all tomorrow.

They sound ace, have you wrote what your going to say yet?
What did you think of mine?
I'll probs expand a little on thursday...

"Sickert was in a superior and untouchable position if he wanted to get away with murdering Unfortunates. He was of a class that was above suspicion." (2002, p81)

Cornwell, P. 2002. Portrait of a Killer Jack the Ripper - Case Closed. London: Little Brown.


"The heinous crimes, coupled with Jack the Ripper's phantom-like anonymity, have effectively transformed an ordinary yet resourceful criminal into a mythic representation of the darkest and most bestial aspect of the human condition." (1999, p8)

Coville, G and Luciano, P. 1999. Jack the Ripper. North Carolina: McFarland.

Here are some quotes I felt would be useful in our presentation.

Preparation for presentation

The Powerpoint is almost done. I'm waiting for Shereen to e-mail me the details on the final suspect we were supposed to have researched, Sir. John Williams. If she doesn't email me the information, however; the suspects we have already researched and worked on will be enough. I was thinking that Lukasz could d0 the introduction and the conclusion, which would leave me and Pragati each with sufficient information on suspect one - Tumblety. Natalie and Aimee could then go on to talk through the facts and reasons to believe why Sickert would be the killer... shortly followed by Kay's research on the Prince. If Shereen turns up, she'll talk about Sir. John Williams..... which should leave plenty of time for Lukasz to conclude.

Sickert...Script

Hey this is what im thinking of saying for the Sickert part of the slide show, can you let me know what you think...

"Patricia Cornwell became interested in Walter Sickert, because of a painting she brought of his, she believed that it was from one of Jack the Rippers crime scenes. Since then she has seemed to 'nick pick' (can i use that word?) at things about Walter Sickert, making different assumptions in her book.
Looking at the evidence from at the time of the crimes, she believes that it was Walter Sickert because one of the letters was signed "Mr Nobody" a name that Sickert sometimes went by. And she believed that because Sickert had a deformality of the gentails then he would want to mutilate women."

Aimee

Claims that the Prince was hidng a secret

The claim that the Prince was not the killer but was the cause of the killings has a follow up to it. As only five women were murdered within the nine week period, the killings appear to have been a plot with a purpose. The Prince married a Catholic woman of the name Annie Crook who he met in Cleveland Street (home to famous male brothels) and she also had his child. A nanny was said to have been hired to take care of the child but she then became a prostitute and told of the Prince's marriage and child to three other prostitutes. The royal physician Sir William Gull was called to eliminate the threats, which resulted in the women's murder and therefore led to him becoming another of the Jack the Ripper Suspects.

This was meant to be on the post below

(this is actually on the post below but i must have changed the writing to black so it wont show up unless its highlighted...i hope it still counts as a post, because it is actually there.)

In recent years, Sickert's name has been connected with Jack the Ripper. Sickert himself was interested in the crime and believed that he had lodged in the room used by the infamous serial killer having been told this by his landlady, who suspected a previous lodger. He painted the room, entitling it "Jack the Ripper's bedroom," portraying it as a dark, brooding, almost unintelligible space. (on the right hand side)

Pictures...Sickert

In recent years, Sickert's name has been connected with Jack the Ripper. Sickert himself was interested in the crime and believed that he had lodged in the room used by the infamous serial killer having been told this by his landlady, who suspected a previous lodger. He painted the room, entitling it "Jack the Ripper's bedroom," portraying it as a dark, brooding, almost unintelligible space. (on the right hand side)

Most of Sickerts painting we're of naked women (example on the left hand side)

Cornwell tried to make a link between Walter Sickert and one or two "Ripper letters" in the guise of a matching mtDNA sequence. She was clearly just trying to find anything to make her book plausible.

Sickert was fluent in German, English, French, and Italian. He knew Latin well enough to teach it to friends.

Im glad you agree Kay, Salma's was just fine and I'd prefer to work off that Powerpoint, it was all ready just of couple points were needed to be added to the slides.
Well im in lesson monday till 1pm so can come find you in the library if you want, to be honest i think we all agree Salmas was ok.
To be honest Luc hasn't communicated with any of us on changing the powerpoint, which is unfair, we're all apart of this presentation!
I think to meet up for a quick vote will be a good idea.

It's coming to the end of the semester and if your all like me then I'm guessing you have lots of other deadlines to meet as well so for Luc to redo the presentation i think is just wasting time. Salma obviously worked hard on that slide show and in my opinion i thought it was great and for Luc to totally disregard it is unfair on the rest of the group as like Aimee said about being confused, i am too! Presentation's are horrible at the best of times so to change everything at this point is not a good idea. The slide show is there to back us up; provide some general information to get us along, what we individually say ourselves is the main thing! To be honest guys I think we should just stick with what we've got. But yes we do need to meet up, I'm going to be in the library all day Monday and Tuesday to meet my deadlines so i will be at uni to meet up but i wont have much time! But yeah it is a group presentation so we should all feel comfortable with what we are doing but by the looks of it none of us are; Luc, Salma was trying to do us all a favour in doing the slideshow, it's a bit late in the day to start changing things on your own. Hopefully we can sort it out on Monday then.

Presentation...

Ive had the email with Luc's new slide show and to blunty honest i dont like it, the slides are all black and white and to me it looks dull and boring.
I dont see why we can't use Salma slides, they we're all ready we just needed to put our information onto them, which she had and now you Luc have gone and made new one slides, im just confused as to why you've done this?!
We have little time left and now we have to resend all our work to him.

This is meant to be a group presentation and Luc you havent included any of us into what your doing, which i think is unfair, all our grade's depend on this presentation, i know its only worth 30% but thats still 30% i want to pass.
I think we should all discuss this, as im sure im not the only one that feels this way. I was actually shocked when i heard you wanted to redo the powerpoint slides...why did you want to do this? We all liked Salma's, ok maybe you didnt but all you had to say was, you "didnt like this or that" and we could have worked it out, without making a completely new slide show and having to redo all the information.

Please leave comments

Aimee

Power Point

These are the facts I want to include in the presentation for my slide. I have emailed these to Salma but just thought i'd add them to the blog for you all to see before we go ahead with the presentation next week.

Prince Albert Victor, known as ‘Eddy’ to friends.
One of the most famous suspects of the Jack the Ripper case.
But no theories of him being involved in the murder at the time.
Grandson of Queen Victoria

Reverend John Neale Dalton tutored Prince Eddy but complained he was apathetic with an ‘abnormally dormant condition of mind.’
Was also noted that Eddy was slightly retarded.
Joined the army aged 21 where he encountered drinking, gambling and attended both male and female brothels.

Two Main Theories:
Phillippe Julian 1962 wrote in his book Edouard VII that ‘the prince and the Duke of Bedford’ were rumoured to be responsible for the murders.
Dr Thomas Stowlle 1970 published an article ‘A Solution’. It was said that Stowlle came about his theory through using the private papers of Sir William Gull who was the royal physician and also a suspect.

The Hole in the Theories!

The Court Circulars of 1888 show Prince Eddy was not in London at the time of any of the murders. However a BBC Documentary made the claim that Eddy was not the killer but the cause of the killings. So with one source saying it could not have been the prince there is still ongoing theories that he did have something to do with the killings. But why? The fact that he was a member of the royal family, the grandson of Queen Victoria makes people want to believe he was the cause. Reasons being that some people have a general hate for the royal family and enjoy their name being tarnished or for the simple fact it is more interesting to believe someone of royalty could carry out or be the cause of such brutal crimes.

Great work

Salma you've done a fab job with the powerpoint layout.
We should be getting top marks, just got to work on our script, shouldnt be too much of a problem though.
Anyways just wanted to say, that the work looks fab so far, done us ripper'ets proud.

Aimee

Sir William Gull

Whilst researching Prince Albert Victor I have come across another suspect Sir William Gull. If it's ok with the rest of the group I would like to include him in my research and as a part of the presentation. Simply because he is linked to the Prince as he was the royal physician so I think it ties in nicely. I am not going to go into specific detail about Sir William Gull as I still want the Prince to be my main suspect, however the physician will be mentioned throughout my part of the presentation, again if that's ok with everyone else?

Profile of a murderer

From all the materials I have researched I created a profile of Jack the Ripper which outlines the most important characteristics of his appearence and personality.

Kiler:
- poor self-image
- probably abused in childhood
- probably with drinking problems
- able to socialize in a limited way
- no remarkable signs, did not cause suspicions
- between 25 and 35
- with money
- knew anatomy
- short

I found that the most popular candidates for the title of Jack the Ripper did not fit to the profile in some point. For example..

Tumblety:
-56 at the time of murders
-tall (about 6ft)
-eccentric
-having remarkable mustache

We can use it either as introduction or conclusion to our presentation saying that the person who exactly fits the profile (William Henry Bury) is not likely to be thought as a murderer because people prefer suspect man who are extraordinary rather those who are rationale. The cultural perceptions becomes more significant than the evidence.

Tumblety

After the lecture of the last book I found two reasons why Tumblety is a suspect in Whitechapel murders: firstly, because he was a foreigner and secondly because he had homosexual contact. Now I found a quote to back up this second reason.
"Littlechild's suspicions against Tumblety seem to have been partially grounded in the doctor's homosexuality and his own belief that those given to 'contrary sexual instinct' were also prone to cruelty."
I found it in the Complete History of Jack the Ripper. The book is convincing that Tumblety was not the real killer and point that homophobia seems to be the reason for believing the murderer was gay.

Objective/interpretation

Great quotes Luc. We should be fine as long as we all focus on our primary objective:- WHY people would want our suspects to be Jack The Ripper. We have to demonstrate our knowledge of research through our use of interpretation. Our main reason could be that Tumblety was a misogynist, and so women (especially feminists) would want to outline him as prime suspect.

We will split the Powerpoint up in two for each suspect, one slide outlining biographical/factual information regarding the suspect and why they might've been infamously outlined a suspect, and the other slide offering our own interpretation as to why we think people may have wanted them to be The Ripper.

The presentation should be fine as long as we all have our research. Hope you can all still meet at 11am on Thursday outside the Library!

Sickert, Powerpoint

That's good Aimee, are you going to say the stuff about how he couldn't have had a penis deformity as had a son and she couldn't possibly find any DNA in the paintings? We could have a beginning bit where you talk about Cornwell and I can talk about Sickert then move on to a bit about why people want Cornwell to be right and why people want it to be Sickert. We can also say why we think Cornwell wrote the book; greed, ego...
For the PowerPoint I've got a few facts about Sickert to introduce who he is

Walter Richard Sickert Born May 31 1860 in Munich, Germany. Died 1942 in Bath, England.

He was an English Impressionist painter who favoured urban scenes and ordinary people as his subjects.

He was obsessed with Jack The Ripper and claimed he once lodged in a room that was previously occupied by Jack.

He was first accused as being a reluctant accessory by Stephen Knight in his film 'The Final Solution'.

I have a picture of him wearing a bowler hat, like Jack the Ripper so that would look good on the PowerPoint next to his name. Anyway, hope every ones works going well.

Jack The Ripper

I am after a lecture of a book by Jakubowski and Braund simply called Jack The Ripper. Initially I wanted to find there information about Francis Tumblety but the book has only two pages on this suspect covering mostly the same things which Salma found on Casebook.org . Fortunately my effort of reading such a big book (;)) didn't go to waste. I found some general information and quotes which we might use in our introduction and conclusion or as a transition between slides so the presentation would go very smoothly.
"Jack The Ripper has been portrayed as a slaughterer, fishporter, lodging-house keeper, policeman, barrister, doctor and clergy-man. It fact it would be easier to list the things he has not been described as."
"The identity of Jack the Ripper could greatly depend on who we are and who we wish to perceive as a brutal killer." (good enough for the introduction and supporting the topic?;))
" His (Jack The Ripper's) crimes took place in the poorest quarter of London, at the time of social unrest. This was a community which resented both immigrants, particularly Jews, and the propertied classes"
"..our xenophobic ancestors refused to believe the Ripper could be an Englishman." (this could be a reason for choosing Tumblety for a suspect.)

There will be some more as I still have some books to read. As for now I am amazed by the number of theories and the amount of words devoted to Saucy Jack.

Part for the powerpoint

Hey,
These are a couple of points that could include on the powerpoint, for the Walter Sickert/Patricia Cornwell slides.

*Cornwell believes that Walter Sickert is Jack the Ripper because of a painting she brought (see post below).

* Sickert did paintings that resembles either the victim e.g. the painting of a woman, it resembles Eddows as the woman in the painting has mutilatiosn to the right side of her face, same as Eddows.

*Cornwell believes that because Sickert had a deformity of the gentials that would make him mutilate women.

*Walter Sickert went by several alias through his acting career: 'Mr Nemo' - (Mr Nobody), An Outsider, An Enthusiast and various initials - W.S, W.St, RS, S etc = this is another reason Cornwell think he was the Ripper beacuse one of the letters wer're addressed Nr Nobody.

*Sickert was dependent on women and loathed them.

*Cornwell just makes assumptions in her book, there are no real facts, to suggest that Sickert was Jack the Ripper. And she just seems to be 'cluthing at straws' to make out that Sickert was the Ripper

What do you have Natalie? Have you read that handout Mark gave us?
How is everyone else getting on with her people?

Aimee

Meeting next thursday

Its alright about you not coming in today, not everyone was there anyways.
We have decided to meet up next week as we wont be doing presentations till week 12. If you can make it next thursday at 11am unsure of which room though (maybe the library to use the computers)
We're going to start the slide show together so everyone can have their imput, thinking of having 2 slides for each of our chosen suspects and then introduction/conclusion slides which we can all say something.
Oh we'll add a bibliography onto the slide show, so we'll all need to keep a note of what site/books we've looked at.
All in all i think we'll have a good presentation.
Oh Natalie you was right about Cornwell not saying about Sickert's son (chaper 5)

Aimee

meeting up

I apologise again for not being able to make it but i've just had a thought; if we could get together some time next week before our lecture then we could start refining the presentation, i suggest that one or two of us work on it first then bring it forward to the rest of us and on the day we meet we can all have a look at it and tweak it a little. I think that's the way we should go about it because we haven't got very much time left and i think it would be better if we had some time to practice the presentation before going into it without any real preparation. Let me know what you all think and so we can arrange a time to meet up, thanks.

Sorry!

i'm sorry i can't make it in today, i'm not feeling too good. I'm going to send Salma all my Tumblety research, though no doubt that she's got the same information after reading that one blog; i think we should look at the information gathered and start makijng the powerpoint....again i'm really sorry about not being able to make it....

Walter Sickert

I've found a few pieces of information on the Internet and in books about Sickert. The main things that we can use would be his eccentricities and his obsession with Jack the Ripper. We are going to have collect some information and then argue 'why' we think people think/want it to be him. There are many reasons why Cornwell would want it to be him like; she would be hailed as a genius for being 'the one who figured it out' or just for the greed. Who really knows! I think we need to focus a bit on why the general public may think it was him. The best thing to focus on would probably be his obsession with the Ripper. It would be a bold but clever move for him to associate himself with the title if he really did it. I will also bring in my notes and we can see what we can develop. See you tomorrow.
Natalie

Prince Albert Victor

Using the website Casebook www.casebook.org/suspects/eddy.html I have been able to gather some information on Prince Albert Victor, who was known as Eddy by friends. 'Eddy' is one of the most famous suspects of the Jack the Ripper case although there were no theories of him being involved in the murders at that time. However theories came about of his involvement long after the main characters in other theories had died. There are three main theories regarding Prince Albert Victor as Jack the Ripper. The first one came about in 1962 from Phillippe Jullian who wrote in his book Edouard VII that ''the prince and the 'Duke of Bedford''' were rumoured to be responsible for the Ripper murders. However details of the character named the Duke of Bedford have remained unknown. The theory I found most interesting was the second, which came about in 1970 and that I am planning on researching some more.

Ive also got the Patricia Cornwell book, ive started reading it and like you said Natalie it is mainly assumptions, but i think theres abit in the 1st 2chapters that we could maybe use, because it says quite abit about Walter Sickert and the names/alis that he went by eg. "Mr Nobody" hence Cornwell thinking it was him.
Ive looked at a couple of sites, about Walter Sickert but think one of the best ones was the one i posted below.
I'll bring notes (bullet points) in on thursday, some from the book others off the internet then we can compare what we have, and start putting it into a script.
Hope everyone else's parts of the work are coming along nicely.

Francis Tumblety

Right. So I've been doing some research regarding our Sadistic Irish/American doctor, Francis Tumblety, who was almost a chief suspect of being The Ripper. The site I have linked contains consistent and relevent information needed to familiarise ourselves with him. I'll just outline some of the reasons he was considered a red hot suspect!

The site clearly underlines that:

"Tumblety fits many requirements of what we now know as the ‘serial killer profile.’ He had a supposed hatred of women and prostitutes (the abortion with the prostitute Dumas, his alleged failed marriage to an ex-prostitute, his collection of uteri, etc.)
Tumblety was in London at the time and may indeed have been the infamous ‘Batty Street Lodger’ -- he therefore may have had fair knowledge of the East End environs.
Tumblety may have had some anatomical knowledge, as inferred by his collection of wombs, his ‘medical’ practice, and his short-term work with Dr. Lispenard in Rochester.
He was arrested in the midst of the Autumn of Terror on suspicion of having committed the murders.
There were no more murders after he fleed England on the 24th November, if one counts only the canonical five murders.
Chief Inspector Littlechild, a top name in Scotland Yard, believed him a ‘very likely suspect,’ and he was not alone in his convictions.
Tumblety was fond of using aliases, disappearing without a trace, and was the subject of police enquiries before his arrest.
Scotland Yard and the American police had been in touch numerous times concerning Tumblety’s flight from France to New York.
One of the three detectives inspectors assigned to the case was sent to New York at the same time, perhaps to pursue Tumblety.
Tumblety evaded capture in New York City once again.
Tumblety had the wealth necessary for frequent travel and could afford to change his clothes frequently should they have become bloodstained.
He was an eccentric; but shrewd.
He had a tendency toward violence at times, and his career may have included other offences both at home and abroad.
Several acquaintances of his in America believed it likely that he was the Ripper when interviewed in 1888.
There is a strong case to be made that he was indeed the Batty Street Lodger."

(Evans and Gainey)

Again, all the information can be found on the site - Casebook!

So there we have some relevent information in which we can dissect and interpret into our own understanding. We just need to make sure we remain focused on the reasons WHY people may have been led to believe their individual identity as The Ripper.

Patricia Cornwell

I've found the Patricia Cornwell book Portrait of a Killer, Jack the Ripper - Case closed. I've had a look through it and there's quit a lot we can use, the only problem is that she doesn't use any facts at all. It's all just assumptions, but I suppose, as we're writing about why people think it's these suspects it should be helpful. I'll bring it to the next lesson. I've also taken out Jack the Ripper by Gary Coville and Patrick Lucanio, I'll see if it has anything on the suspects. Aimee, have you found anything interesting yet? I can definitely see the resemblance in that picture but too be fair it could be anything! I think Patricia Cornwell went a bit off course with this!

This is the famous painting by Walter Sickert, that made Patricia Cornwell believe that he was Jack the Ripper.

Natalie did you manage to find the book in the library?

Theres several websites that i believe will help us write our part our the presentation, the main one being http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,615413,00.html

Suspects

Okay, so here are the suspects we're going to research and talk about for our presentation:

1) Prince Albert Victor (Duke of Clarence)- Queen Vicoria's grandson, supposed driven mad by syphillis and commited the murders; and Sir John Williams- Queen Victoria's former obstetrician, thought to have helped Prince Albert or committed the murders himself.

2) Francis Tumblety- Irish-American doctor who was in London at the time of the murders, was a sadist and homosexual; had preserved female body parts in his possession.

3) Walter Sickert- famous painter, most suspected for his painting 'Murder at Whitechapel', which is claimed to greatly resemble one of the ripper crime scenes.

links for reserach

i wrote this in the comments but just to reiterate it...

I found these sites, maybe we can use them as a starting point of the unusual suspects...
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1475063,00.html#article_continue
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,615417,00.html#article_continue
http://etext.virginia.edu/journals/EH/EH35/haggard1.htmlhttp://farshores.org/wm06jr.htm
i quite like the idea of the Irishman being Jack
17 November 2007 15:23

Jack the Ripper

The topic for our group presentation is to explore three or four key suspects of Jack the Ripper! These shall include Francis Tumblety, Prince Albert Victor (Duke of Clarence), Sir. John Williams and the famous artist, Walter Sickert.

We will explore the theories and reasons as to why people may have thought they deserved to be named suspects of Jack the Ripper.