The Career of Sir Charles Warren (part 2)

The Whitechapel murderer first struck on 31 August 1888. The body of Mary Anne Nichols, 43, a prostitute, was found in Bucks Row, in the squalid East End district of Whitechapel. The woman's throat had been cut and her stomach mutilated. She was the first of the five accepted victims, all poor prostitutes. The next was Annie Chapman, 47, found in Hanbury Street, on 8 September. Her throat was cut, her stomach and genitals were severely mutilated, and some of her entrails had been drawn over her shoulder. Post mortem examination showed that her uterus had been taken. Next came Elizabeth Stride, 43, found in Berner Street on 30 September, with only her throat cut. The murderer had been disturbed before he could perform more mutilations.
However, on the same night he also claimed the life of Catherine Eddowes, 46, cutting her throat and mutilating her face and stomach. Her body was photographed, sewn up after a post mortem, which had revealed that her uterus and left kidney had been taken.

Finally, on 9 November, Mary Jane Kelly, 25, was found in her unlocked room in Millers Court. According to the Assistant Chief Inspector, Melville McNaghten, Mary was 'said to have been possessed of considerable personal attractions'. Well, not when her killer had done with her. Her body and face had been subjected to an orgy of butchery. Her heart seemed to be missing.

These murders caused popular hysteria; especially after letters apparently from the mystery killer began arriving at newspaper offices and police stations. The first arrived on 27 September, at the Central News Office. It was written in red ink, and the murderer was taunting those hunting him. …My knife is so nice and sharp I want to get it to work right away if I get the chance. Good luck, Yours truly Jack the Ripper Don't mind me giving the trade name. Later, another letter accompanied a parcel containing a human kidney. London had a psychopath on its hands.

Warren's response to the Ripper murders was controversial for various reasons. Though he drafted more men into the area, including Detective Inspector Abbeline, little progress was made. It was as though they were hunting a phantom. Warren thought that bloodhounds might help track the Ripper. On October 11, he personally trialled two (Barnaby and Burgho) in Regents park. The trials were unsuccessful, for the dogs could not hold a scent through crowded areas. Some newspapers poured scorn on Warren's antics, even reporting that one of the dogs had bitten him, and Jack the Ripper wrote 'Dear Boss, I hear you have bloodhounds for me now.'

On the night of the double murder, a bloodstained part of Catherine Eddoewes' apron had been found in a doorway in nearby Goulston Street. Above it, PC Alfred Long discovered the chalked words:

The Juwes are

the men That

Will not

be Blamed

for nothing.

When Sir Charles Warren arrived on the scene, Superintendent Thomas Arnold asked for permission to wash away the writing. Arnold was in charge of keeping the peace in an area with a large Jewish community- predominantly refugees from pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe. He had a constable waiting with a wet sponge already. Warren, apparently appreciating that the graffiti could provoke an anti-Semitic riot if the Jews were linked to the murders, quickly agreed. The City of London Police, (on whose turf Eddowes' body had been found) and others criticized Warren's hasty erasure of a potential clue, before it could be photographed. It was, after all, too late to stop the writing on the wall becoming common knowledge. Warren himself soon issued a statement that the word Juwes did not mean Jews in any known language, (earning the personal thanks of the chief Rabbi).

As a Masonic historian, Warren would have known, though, that 'Juwes' was a collective term for the three murderers of Hiram, in Masonic teachings. Moreover, in the lore, the fugitive three, Jubelo, Jubela and Jubelum, lament their crime and imagine being punished for it in macabre ways which are slightly similar to the mutilations Jack the Ripper gave his victims (including the entrails being cast over the shoulder). It has also been noted that the mutilations on Catherine Eddowes's face included two inverted 'V' shapes, which could be construed as Masonic compasses. (The name of the place where the body was found, Mitre Square, has also been read by some as a masonic message). Some have gone so far as to call the mutilations 'Masonic retribution', though this is grasping at straws. Moreover the three 'Juwes' of the legend are the enemies of Masonry, so to read the graffiti as the veiled boast of a Masonic assassin makes little real sense.

Researcher Melvyn Fairclough, like Stephen Knight, has written that the Ripper murders were part of a grand Masonic conspiracy. (Mary Kelly had supposedly been the nanny of a child secretly born to Prince Albert Victor Edward. The Prince- heir to the throne and a Master Mason of the Royal Alpha Lodge- supposedly had a habit of 'slumming' and had allegedly married a Catholic commoner in secret. Mary Kelly had allegedly escaped the Masonic/police attempt to arrest all concerned. After slipping into prostitution she had told her four older associates, who had then attempted to blackmail the crown. The increasingly implausible theory has another prominent Freemason, William Gull- the royal physician- as the Ripper, acting with the coachman John Netley, and feeding poisoned grapes to the victims in his carriage. All this has been broadly discredited. There is no evidence that the Ripper's victims even knew each other, and if they knew a great secret why did they keep silent and wait to be picked off by the murderer? An unfortunate snag that spoils a good story!) The Masonic link to the Ripper crimes is altogether tenuous. However, if Warren was not a conspirator, and if he did not believe 'Juwes' to be a misspelling of 'Jews' then perhaps he thought the graffiti was part of an attempt to frame the Freemasons for the killings. Finally, though, there is little evidence either way. Though some at the scene thought the Goulston street writing looked new, it remains possible that it had nothing to do with the murder.

There was much pressure on Warren to catch the Ripper, who was humiliating the police. There was even speculation that if the murderer was not apprehended then it might bring down the Government. A crowded public meeting after the Mitre Square murder called for the resignations of both Warren and Matthews. The penny newspapers wereout to destroy Warren, still blaming him for the Trafalgar Square violence, and accusing him of various blunders. They criticised his refusal to offer a reward for information that might lead to the Ripper's arrest (Warren had indeed been opposed to offering a reward, but had then changed his mind, only to have the scheme vetoed by the Home Office). The Ripper timed his last murder so that Mary Kelly's remains would be found on the morning of the Lord Mayor's show, and cast a grim shadow over the festivities. That was also the day that Warren tended his resignation as Commissioner. Not everyone was glad of it. Sir Robert Anderson, (who had succeeded Monro as head of CID), had found, against all expectation that Warren had been 'perfectly frank and open' in his dealings. 'When his [Warren's] imperious temper could no longer brook the nagging Home Office ways of the period, I felt sincere regret at his going.'

After leaving the police force, Warren picked up his military career, commanding troops in Singapore, and then served back in England. Meanwhile in 1889 the resentments of the Dutch-speaking Boers against British expansionism in South Africa (and the incursion of British gold-prospectors into the Transvaal and Orange Free State) brought about the Second Boer War. Warren took part, as a Lieutenant General, commanding the 5th Division, South African Field Force. He joined up with General Redvers Buller, the overall commander, in Natal, and in December 1899 found himself commanding an assault on a hill called Spion Kop. The Boers proved unexpectedly tough fighters, and the battle went disastrously for the British. The British managed to take the hill, but were unable to dig trenches into the rocky ground and were exposed to bombardment from other Boer positions. One wonders if the spectacle of butchery reminded Warren of what he had seen in the streets of Whitechapel. After a day of hell the order came to withdraw.

Warren took a share of the blame for the heavy casualties of Spion Kop. Historians of the conflict have accused him of incompetence, though officers of the time were more critical of Buller. Later, Warren had opportunity to redeem himself somewhat. He was involved in the offensive that relieved Natal. He succeeded in making a forced crossing of the river Tugela, and gained a victory at Pieters Hill that opened up the way for the relief of Ladysmith (which Buller saved at the cost of more British casualties than the total force opposing). British fortunes in the war would improve as Lord Roberts and Kitchener assumed control. After Britain secured victory in 1902, Warren served as an administrator in Cape Colony. He reached the rank of General, finally retiring in 1905. He devoted the remainder of his life to work with Scouts and other youth movements. He also published memoirs from his time in South Africa, and continued his Masonic research. He died at Weston-super-Mare in January 1927, leaving two sons and a daughter to mourn him, his wife having predeceased him.

Sources

Paul Begg. Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History (2003)

Paul Begg, Martin Fido and Keith Skinner. The Jack the Ripper A-Z (1996)

Melvyn Fairclough. The Ripper and the Royals (1991).

Graham Hancock. The Sign and the Seal (1992)

Karen Rallis. The Templars and the Grail (2003)

Various. The British Empire (Journals)

Online Sources

http://www.bibleplaces.com/warrenshaft.htm http://www.pef.org.uk/Pages/Warren.htm http://www.met.police.uk/history/ripper.htm http://www.casebook.org/police_officials/po-waren.html http://www.freemasonry.bcy.ca/aqc/ http://www.royalengineers.ca/WilsonC.html http://www.templemount.org/warren1.html http://redcoat.future.easyspace.com/egypt.htm http://www.btinternet.com/~willie.meikle/iss5n1.html http://www.pinetreeweb.com/conan-doyle-chapter-15.htm