Muse – Jack the Ripper and Masonic Connections

Some looking for the best source quickly took me to Casebook: Jack the Ripper as a primary source. It seems, quite literally, the site on Jack the Ripper, with a deep, extensive set of articles and features that look at people and events associated not only with the murders, but investigators and others only partially associated with the case itself.

The simplest fact about the Ripper murders is that so little is truly known about them or the person who perpetrated them. There are many valid and many not so valid theories, but most all can be supported and/or dismissed by what evidence is considered viable.

The theory of Masonic involvement involves a plot that goes like this. Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward (“Eddy”) has a liaison with and eventually marries a commoner, whom he also has a child by. The word of this eventually spreads to several prostitutes through a friend of Annie Elizabeth Crook(the liaison in question), Mary Kelly. They apparently have some dreams of blackmailing the crown with this information, but are silenced by Masonic assassins, who happen to telegraph their involvement through ritualistic killings. Annie Crook ea caught and incarcerated, as well as having her brain operated on to scramble her memories.

This is, as well, the basic plot for From Hell, a graphic novel(said to be a fine quality) and a movie(which I have on DVD – Good movie with Ian Holm as The Ripper).

This is the story that was told by one Walter Sickert to his son Joseph Sickert, who cooperated with Stephen Knight in writing Jack the Ripper – The Final Solution and whose stories were the base of Melvyn Fairclough’s book The Ripper and the Royals. There was an addition that Alice Margaret Crook, the child supposed to have come of Eddy’s dalliance, was mother to Joseph Sickert, Walter ‘s son. But for that aspect of it to hold up, she would have had to have continued to have relations with Walter seven years after she’d left him to marry William Gorman, an ex-boxer. If a book by Melvyn Fairclough is to be believed, written recently in 1991.

But, embellishments aside, how did Walter Sticklert become involved in this? Oswald Sickert, Walter’s father, was an artist who is said to have made friends with many members of the Danish royal family, including King Christian IX’s daughter, Alexandra(Alix). Alix was worried about Eddy’s social and sexual development, so she turned to Walter, four years older than Eddy, to take Eddy under his wing. Later, passing Eddy off as his younger brother Albert, Walter(also an artist) introduced Eddy to one of his models. Annie Crook. After the birth of the child, Walter hired Mary Kelly to act as the child’s nanny.

According to the story, on the orders of Prime Minister and prominent Freemason, the Right Honorable Robert Cecil, Marquis of Salisbury, plain clothes police raided Annie Crook’s home on 2 April 1888. Annie was taken, Mary Kelly escaped and the previously mentioned chain of events took place.

Or so the story goes.

Of course, there are points against it. One, which is perhaps the weakest in my opinion, is that Eddy did nothing to assist Annie Crook before she was taken, nor before she was operated on after being taken. Of course, this is plying to human nature and decency which are far from reliable.

Also, there have been no connections between the Sickert and any member of the Danish Royal Family. If there was enough trust for Queen Alexandra to entrust the development of her son, there would be some detectable connection between the two families. Alice Margaret Crook, the purported child, was said to be born on 18 April 1885, which means her conception would have been around 18 July and 11 August 1884. When Eddy was in Heidelberg with his German tutor. The Royal Marriages Act was still in effect then, thus any marriage could have been declared illegal and the Act of Settlement prevents anyone who marries a Roman Catholic from “inheriting the Crown”. Which Annie Crook was(Catholic).

That sort of precludes the need for him to be so dramatically protected, considering his father had a fair share of scandals that weren’t.

Lastly, Annie Crook and Walter Sickert couldnt have been living at 15 Cleveland Street(IDed as the location of Walter’s studio, where Eddy met Annie) in 1888(when they are said to have met) as that spot was demolished in 1886 and remained vacant until 1887 when the Middlesex Hospital Trained Nurses Institute was built there. This revealed n the researches of Simon Wood in 1987, who also noted that Annie Crooke hadn’t even been kidnapped, according to rate books for Cleveland Street which show her living in the basement of #6 throughout 1888 through 1893.

As well, Joseph Sickert later said his story was a hoax. Which, of course, would make one wonder. Though I suppose if Masons were involved, he could have been coerced into calling his story a hoax.

Quite simply, it comes down to a matter of whose evidence do you believe the most? I’d think that some of the evidence against the royal conspiracy theory would be easier to corroborate, but I’ll leave my readers to consider.

Resources

Casebook: Jack the Ripper

Jack The Ripper – A how to respond to concerns article for Masons.

Was Claude Reignier Conder Jack The Ripper?

Jack the Ripper: Prince or complete nutter? – Skeptic Friends Network forum post

“Jack the Ripper” Murders: How To Respond To Alleged Masonic Connections – Another for Mason’s article

The Real Jack the Ripper

The “Jack the Ripper” Murders and Their Alleged Masonic Connections

Something Wicked: Murder and Mayhem