Jack the Ripper: The Hand of a Woman

regarded Dr John Williams as being at the centre of their world? There was only one possible person: his wife, Lizzie Williams.
    She, we concluded, had written the letter and sent it to her husband. She was not at the centre of his world, but he was at the centre of hers. Looked at from this new point of view, it all made perfect sense: she was the one thanking him for his forgiveness, and for keeping her secret.
    Perhaps the ‘forgiveness’ and ‘secret’ referred to something quite innocent and had nothing to do with the terrible events that had taken place in Whitechapel. Equally, she could have been alluding to the five murders she had committed the previous autumn, and sent the letter to him early the following year. Whichever explanation was correct, it was my father’s sudden realisation that it was not Dr John Williams who had a motive to commit murder, but his wife, so the finger of suspicion pointed directly at her.
    But why would Mrs Lizzie Williams have written to her husband when she was surely living with him in their home in Queen Anne Street; unless she was not living with him at that time? The result of the census taken during 1891 in Swansea, two years after the letter was written, discloses that a number of people lived at 188 Ynystawe Road, Morriston: they were Richard Hughes, aged seventy-four, described as a tinplate manufacturer, married; Mary Hughes, his wife aged fifty-seven, no occupation given; and Mary E.A. Williams (Lizzie), daughter, aged forty-one. Under the ‘occupation’ rubric, she has given that of her husband, whom she describes as ‘General Practitioner, Surg. MRCS’. There were also three domestic servants living with the household, all female.
    There was just one other odd entry: Edward R. Morgan, who is described as a nephew, also aged forty-one; but under ‘occupation’, he is described as a ‘Registered Surg’.
    Could it be that soon, perhaps just days, after the murder of Mary Kelly, Lizzie Williams had suffered a nervous or mental breakdown? Then, she revealed to her husband the dreadful crimes she had committed, begging for his forgiveness and, of course, his silence. Shocked, upset and almost unable to believe what he was hearing, until, perhaps, she showed him a knife she had used in a murder – still possibly blood-stained, had he then done what he thought was best, and sent her far from London and out of harm’s way? Lizzie could remain with her family in Wales, there to recover from her illness, and wait until the hue and cry in London had died down. We believe that this could have been the case.
    Just a few weeks later, early in the New Year, perhaps Dr Williams came to accept that he was partly responsible for his wife’s criminal actions, that his conduct had been far from exemplary, and so he had ‘forgiven’ her.
    Who was the nephew, Edward R. Morgan, registered on the census form as living in the Hughes household, described as a ‘Registered Surg?’ Was he a doctor or a medical practitioner of some sort whom Dr John Williams was paying to keep an eye on his wife? We thought that he might have been. Certainly, the family fortunes appeared to have improved since Lizzie had gone home to live with them, so soon after the murders. They were no longer living in Church Street. The present property was larger and there were now three live-in servants. This was after Richard Hughes had lost his fortune, and his tinplate company was in terminal decline. Perhaps a bigger house was needed now that Lizzie was living there too, and Dr Williams was doubtless paying towards the upkeep.
    A few pages later on in Uncle Jack , Tony Williams was to say that he had mistaken the identity of the letter’s recipient, and it had really been sent to someone else; the wife of the Reverend Owen, Sophia Owen, a childhood friend of Dr Williams, with whom he also enjoyed a close relationship. But it made no difference, because it still seemed to us that it must have been written by Lizzie, which was why we had looked at her so closely in the first place.
    Tony Williams discovered something else that was strange. It was in a catalogue, also kept at the National Library of Wales, which listed the personal effects formerly owned by his great-great-uncle. Item number 329, within the volume’s pages, read: “Diary of Sir John Williams for 1888. Most of the pages are missing; those that remain are blank.”
    The diary, a faded red cloth-covered volume, has become a cause