Jack the Ripper: The Hand of a Woman

the murders having ended more than twelve years before, someone, somewhere, perhaps the then Home Secretary, Charles Thompson Richie (term of office 1900-1902) decided that in order to avoid a scandal involving the many royals, and influential patients of Sir John Williams – of whom Asquith’s own wife was just one, the matter could be quietly, and better, disposed of if Sir John could just be persuaded to co-operate, and leave the medical profession, and London, of his own accord.
    Perhaps it was ‘suggested’ to Sir John that unconfirmed rumours were circulating about Lady Williams – or possibly even about him – which might require Scotland Yard to redirect its investigation (which was officially closed on 14 February 1902) towards the source of the speculation and gossip. Rather than run the risk of their reputations being irrevocably tarnished by police involvement – whatever the outcome – or worse, it might be better for Sir John Williams and his disconsolate lady wife, to depart the scene gracefully , and while no stigma was attached.
    In 1903, Inspector Abberline, having retired from the Metropolitan Police on 7 February of the previous year (which was, coincidentally, Lizzie Williams’s fifty-second birthday), told the Pall Mall Gazette in an interview, “You can state most emphatically that Scotland Yard is really no wiser on the subject [of the identity of Jack the Ripper] than it was fifteen years ago.” But this statement contrasts sharply with what he allegedly told Nigel Morland, novelist and crime-writer, some years later: “I’ve given my word to keep my mouth permanently closed about it … I know my superiors know certain facts … the Ripper wasn’t a butcher, Yid or foreign skipper … you’d have to look for him not at the bottom of London society but a long way up.”
    When publishing his memoirs Lost London in 1934, ex-Detective Sergeant Benjamin Leeson, who joined the police force two years after the murders, wrote: “…amongst the police who were most concerned in the case there was a general feeling that a certain doctor … could have thrown quite a lot of light on the subject.” This opinion expressed a widespread belief, which was held by certain police officers, that a doctor was in some way involved in the murders.
    So what was it that Inspector Abberline (and for that matter, Benjamin Leeson) had come to learn after 1903 – the year that Sir John Williams so unexpectedly gave up his private practice and moved back to Wales with Lady Williams – which was not known in the fifteen-year period that had elapsed since the murders? What was it that Abberline had promised to keep his mouth closed about, and to whom had the promise been made? Had one of his friends at Scotland Yard told him something? Perhaps only an examination of the files held at the Home Office for the years between 1900 and 1903 might provide the answer – rather than any that may have been retained by Scotland Yard.
    It is likely that Abberline maintained many friendships within the police force after he retired. He worked for more than a decade as a private detective for the American Pinkerton Detective Agency, when he almost certainly made use of his connections forged with colleagues at Scotland Yard. He appeared to have enjoyed a close relationship with James Monroe, with whom detectives consulted during the period of the murders, and it was Monroe who held Abberline in such high regard that he had specifically requested his transfer to Scotland Yard in 1887. Monroe held a dual role as Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and Head of the Detective Service. He succeeded Sir Charles Warren as Chief Commissioner on 3 December 1888, on the latter’s resignation after the death of Mary Kelly, and Monroe reported directly to the Home Office on matters of national security. It was said of him that if anyone knew anything about the murders, he would. But while James Monroe may well have possessed and imparted information of a sensitive and confidential nature about a possible suspect to Abberline, neither of them wrote their memoirs, and Monroe, a very private man, gave few interviews and any secrets to which they may have been party, remain untold.
    In order to present a balanced picture, however, it must be said that there were as many theories as to the likely identity of the murderer among senior police officials, as there were officers who were either directly, or indirectly,