Melville MacNaghten
Encyclopedia
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
KPM (16 June 1853, Woodford, London –12 May 1921) was Assistant Commissioner (Crime)
Assistant Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis
Assistant Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, usually just Assistant Commissioner , is the third highest rank in London's Metropolitan Police, ranking below Deputy Commissioner and above Deputy Assistant Commissioner. There are usually four officers in the rank...
of the London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan police
Metropolitan Police is a generic title for the municipal police force for a major metropolitan area, and it may be part of the official title of the force...
from 1903 to 1913.
He is known for a major report in 1894 on the Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper
"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...
case, naming three possible Jack the Ripper suspects.
Early career
The youngest of fifteen children of Elliot Macnaghten, the last Chairman of the British East India CompanyBritish East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
, Macnaghten was educated at Eton
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
. After leaving school in 1872, he went to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
to run his father's tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
estates in Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
and remained there until 1888, albeit with occasional visits back home. In 1881 he was assaulted by Indian land rioters and as a result, became friends with James Monro
James Monro
James Monro CB was a lawyer who became the first Assistant Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police and also served as Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis from 1888 to 1890.-Early career:...
, who was District Judge
District Judge
District Judge may refer to*A member of the Judiciary of England and Wales*A United States federal judgeNormally concerned with the civil law. I.e. Families, bankruptcy, property etc....
and Inspector-General in the Bombay Presidency
Bombay Presidency
The Bombay Presidency was a province of British India. It was established in the 17th century as a trading post for the English East India Company, but later grew to encompass much of western and central India, as well as parts of post-partition Pakistan and the Arabian Peninsula.At its greatest...
at the time.
On 3 October 1878 he married Dora Emily Sanderson, the daughter of a canon
Canon (priest)
A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....
from Chichester
Chichester
Chichester is a cathedral city in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, South-East England. It has a long history as a settlement; its Roman past and its subsequent importance in Anglo-Saxon times are only its beginnings...
; they eventually had two sons and two daughters.
Career in the Criminal Investigation Department
Upon his return to EnglandEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Macnaghten was offered the post of first Assistant Chief Constable
Assistant Chief Constable
Assistant chief constable is the third highest rank in all British territorial police forces , as well as the British Transport Police, Ministry of Defence Police and...
(CID) in the Metropolitan Police by Monro, who by that time had become the first Assistant Commissioner (Crime); however this appointment was opposed by Charles Warren
Charles Warren
General Sir Charles Warren, GCMG, KCB, FRS was an officer in the British Royal Engineers. He was one of the earliest European archaeologists of Biblical Holy Land, and particularly of Temple Mount...
, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis
Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis
The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis is the head of London's Metropolitan Police Service, classing the holder as a chief police officer...
, allegedly due to the beating he took by "the Hindoos" back in Bengal; but the real reason seemed to be that Warren and Monro did not get along well from the beginning. Warren's rejection of Macnaghten widened the rift between the two men, resulting in Monro's resignation and his transfer to Special Branch
Special Branch
Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security in British and Commonwealth police forces, as well as in the Royal Thai Police...
by the Home Secretary
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
, Henry Matthews
Henry Matthews, 1st Viscount Llandaff
Henry Matthews, 1st Viscount Llandaff PC, QC was a British lawyer and Conservative politician. He is best remembered for his role in the 1885 Sir Charles Dilke divorce trial and for his tenure as Home Secretary from 1886 to 1892.-Background and education:The member of an old Herefordshire family,...
.
However, due to the continuous disagreements with Home Secretary Matthews, Commissioner Warren chose to resign on 9 November 1888. Monro was brought in to succeed him as Commissioner. With this turn of events, Macnaghten was brought in with the position of Assistant Chief Constable
Assistant Chief Constable
Assistant chief constable is the third highest rank in all British territorial police forces , as well as the British Transport Police, Ministry of Defence Police and...
in June 1889; he was later promoted to Chief Constable in 1890, following the unexpected death of the first incumbent, Adolphus Williamson
Adolphus Williamson
Frederick Adolphus "Dolly" Williamson was the first head of the Detective Branch of the Metropolitan Police and the first head of the Detective Branch's successor organisation, the Criminal Investigation Department . He joined the force in 1850 and eventually became Chief Constable.-References:...
.
MacNaghten's report on Jack the Ripper
Even though he was not directly involved with the investigation of the Ripper killings, like most members of the Metropolitan PoliceMetropolitan police
Metropolitan Police is a generic title for the municipal police force for a major metropolitan area, and it may be part of the official title of the force...
, Macnaghten took an active interest in the case. As Chief Constable he had access to police records on the case; as a result of his own investigation he wrote a confidential report dated February 23, 1894; however, the report was not publicly available until 1959 and the complete report was not available or viewing a reproduction until 2002. This report proved influential for Ripper research, for it established the canonical victims of the serial killer at five, as well as naming three possible suspects.
Although some information about the suspect he believed most likely to have been the murderer had been available before the turn of the century, the name of the suspect was not made public until 1959. Macnaghten's most likely suspect was Montague John Druitt, a barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
turned teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
who allegedly committed suicide sometime in December 1888. Unfortunately, Macnaghten, in writing from memory, committed many factual errors in his report regarding Druitt. Despite the errors, his allegation seemed to be plausible at first glance, but there is no evidence of contemporary police suspicion against him at the time of the murders; indeed, recent research could find no concrete evidence that Druitt was indeed the Ripper. Sir James Monro
James Monro
James Monro CB was a lawyer who became the first Assistant Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police and also served as Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis from 1888 to 1890.-Early career:...
's grandson Christopher was told by his father, Douglas Monro, that Sir James believed that Druitt was the Ripper but was prevented from saying so because Druitt's elder brother William put pressure on the Government. He said that if his brother was named as the Ripper he would disclose the presence of homosexuals in high positions in several areas of public life. Abberline, the detective who led the investigation, did not believe that Druitt was the Ripper. In an interview some years later he said that he had heard "that story but what did it amount to?" He felt that Druitt had simply died at a time that might explain the end of the Ripper murders. He appears to have had little knowledge of him, referring to him erroneously as a doctor. Macnaghten's daughter, Lady Christabel Aberconway, made a transcript of the notes that he used to dictate his report to his elder daughter and in 1959 she showed it to the author Daniel Farson. He later wrote a book around it. However, in 1992 a friend Michael Thornton told the Sunday Express that she had remarked that in accusing Druitt, her father had merely "followed the official line" and the truth "could have made the Throne totter". Curiously, Douglas G. Browne in his The Rise of Scotland Yard, states that Macnaghten "appears to identify the Ripper with the leader of a plot to assassinate Mr Balfour
Arthur Balfour
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC, DL was a British Conservative politician and statesman...
at the Irish Office." This reference is puzzling because, although there were Fenian
Fenian
The Fenians , both the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican Brotherhood , were fraternal organisations dedicated to the establishment of an independent Irish Republic in the 19th and early 20th century. The name "Fenians" was first applied by John O'Mahony to the members of the Irish republican...
plots to assassinate Balfour, Druitt is not known to have had any such connections and it is extremely unlikely that he did. It is generally thought that Browne misunderstood or misuinterpreted something he saw in the Scotland Yard files while researching his book. In his published memoirs, Days of My Years, Macnaghten does not mention a suspect by name although he devotes a chapter to the Ripper Murders in which he implies that the identity of the killer is known. The description in the chapter points to Druitt.
The second of Macnaghten's three suspects was Aaron Kosminski
Aaron Kosminski
Aaron Kosminski was an insane Polish Jew who was a suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders. He emigrated to England from Poland in the 1880s and worked as a hairdresser in Whitechapel in the East End of London, where the murders were committed in 1888...
, a Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
Jew who lived in Whitechapel
Whitechapel
Whitechapel is a built-up inner city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London, England. It is located east of Charing Cross and roughly bounded by the Bishopsgate thoroughfare on the west, Fashion Street on the north, Brady Street and Cavell Street on the east and The Highway on the...
and was committed to an insane asylum in 1891. While not on the top of the list as Druitt, he was certainly suspected by Robert Anderson, the man who succeeded Monro as Assistant Commissioner, with apparent confirmation by Chief Inspector Donald Swanson
Donald Swanson
Chief Inspector Donald Sutherland Swanson was born in Thurso in Scotland, and was a senior police officer in the Metropolitan Police in London during the notorious Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.-Early life:...
, Anderson's desk officer. As with Druitt, there is no concrete evidence to support this allegation, and it is suggested that naming Kosminski as a suspect seemed to reflect anti-semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
rather than a genuine connection to the case. In a copy of a book by Anderson found in his effects many years later, Swanson referred to a secret identification in which an unnamed Jewish witness named Kosminski as the Ripper but refused to testify against a fellow Jew. This seems to have been a very doubtful exercise and as there were only two known Jewish witnesses and neither of them were likely to have identified Kosminski. It may be that Kosminski was seen as a plausible scapegoat because had he been charged and named, he would almost certainly have been found unfit to plead - he suffered from dementia and hallucinations and with a phobia about taking food from another man's hand, he fed on scraps that he found in the gutters. Had he been charged and named, however, he would probably have been accepted as Jack the Ripper.
The third suspect in Macnaghten's report was a man named Michael Ostrog, a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n-born thief and con man who affected several aliases and disguises and was detained in asylums in several occasions. Again there is little to support this suspicion against Ostrog: records indicated that he was imprisoned in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
during the murders; the fact that Ostrog was arrested and imprisoned before the report was written raises the question of why Ostrog was included at all as a viable suspect.
Later career, including as Assistant Commissioner
In 1900 Macnaghten served in the Belper Committee to inquire about "the working of the method of Identification of Criminals by Measurement and Fingerprints". As the committee recommended the use of fingerprintFingerprint
A fingerprint in its narrow sense is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. In a wider use of the term, fingerprints are the traces of an impression from the friction ridges of any part of a human hand. A print from the foot can also leave an impression of friction ridges...
s as a means of identification
Forensic identification
Forensic identification is the application of forensic science, or "forensics", and technology to identify specific objects from the trace evidence they leave, often at a crime scene or the scene of an accident. Forensic means "for the courts"....
over bertillonage
Anthropometry
Anthropometry refers to the measurement of the human individual...
, largely due to the testimony of Edward Henry
Edward Henry
Sir Edward Richard Henry, 1st Baronet GCVO KCB CSI KPM was the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis from 1903 to 1918....
on their respective merits.
When Henry was appointed Commissioner in 1903, succeeding Sir Edward Bradford, Macnaghten was appointed Assistant Commissioner (Crime) and became involved in many of the most famous cases in the history of the Metropolitan Police, including the Hawley Harvey Crippen
Hawley Harvey Crippen
Hawley Harvey Crippen , usually known as Dr. Crippen, was an American homeopathic physician hanged in Pentonville Prison, London, on November 23, 1910, for the murder of his wife, Cora Henrietta Crippen...
case and the Farrow double murder case, which resulted in the conviction and hanging of the Albert and Alfred Stratton
Stratton Brothers case
Alfred Stratton and his brother Albert Ernest were the first men to be convicted in Great Britain for murder based on fingerprint evidence...
largely on the basis on fingerprint evidence.
Macnaghten was knighted
Knight Bachelor
The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...
in the 1907 Birthday Honours. In the 1912 New Year Honours, he was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB). He was awarded the King's Police Medal (KPM) in the 1913 New Year Honours. He was also a Knight Commander of the White Military Order of Spain and a Commander of the Order of the Dannebrog
Order of the Dannebrog
The Order of the Dannebrog is an Order of Denmark, instituted in 1671 by Christian V. It resulted from a move in 1660 to break the absolutism of the nobility. The Order was only to comprise 50 noble Knights in one class plus the Master of the Order, i.e. the Danish monarch, and his sons...
.
Retirement and later life
However, in 1911 Macnaghten was experiencing the first signs of ill-health; even a trip to AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
the following year failed to improve matters. He was forced to retire from his job in 1913.
In 1914 he published his memoirs Days of My Years. He also made a translation of Horace's
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
Ars Poetica
Ars Poetica
Ars Poetica is a term meaning "The Art of Poetry" or "On the Nature of Poetry". Early examples of Ars Poetica by Aristotle and Horace have survived and have since spawned many other poems that bear the same name...
into English verse, an effort to which he devoted the last ten years of his life.
Macnaghten died on 12 May 1921 at Queen Anne's Mansions, Westminster
City of Westminster
The City of Westminster is a London borough occupying much of the central area of London, England, including most of the West End. It is located to the west of and adjoining the ancient City of London, directly to the east of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and its southern boundary...
.
In her 2007 book Jack l'éventreur démasqué (Jack the Ripper Unmasked), French author Sophie Herfort identifies Macnaghten as Jack the Ripper himself, after gathering a high number of converging lines of evidence concluding 20-year long investigations.
Macnaghten in fiction
Macnaghten appears as a character in The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade (1985), ISBN 0333384474, the first of the Inspector LestradeInspector Lestrade
Inspector G. Lestrade is a fictional character, a Scotland Yard detective appearing in several of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle used the name of a friend from his days at the University of Edinburgh, a Saint Lucian medical student by the name of Joseph Alexandre Lestrade....
novels by M. J. Trow
M. J. Trow
Meirion James Trow is a writer who writes under the name M. J. Trow.-Biography:Trow was born in Ferndale, Rhondda Cynon Taff, Wales. He went to Warwick School from 1961 to 1968. In 1968 he went to King's College, London, to read history. After graduation he spent a year at Jesus College, Cambridge...
. The book deals with the aftermath of the Ripper case and with Macnaghten's report. Trow misspells Macnaghten's name as "McNaghten" in his book and fictionalizes Macnaghten's daughter. The novel is set in 1891 at which time Cristabel Macnaghten was a little girl. Trow's novel has Macnaghten with a much older daughter by the name of Arabella. It should be rememebred that Trow's work is intended to be fiction.
Macnaughten also features prominently in the later chapters of Alan Moore
Alan Moore
Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...
's seminal graphic novel From Hell
From Hell
From Hell is a comic book series by writer Alan Moore and artist Eddie Campbell, originally published from 1991 to 1996, speculating upon the identity and motives of Jack the Ripper. The title is taken from the first words of the "From Hell" letter, which some authorities believe was an authentic...
.