My boy in the river

Sometimes we return, sometimes we are returned - to a place, a name, a plot, a melody - and sometimes we're drawn into somebody's life, just as somebody is drawn into ours - dead or alive.

One cold winter morning they’ve found you, floating in the Thames. Too far, too young, too good - to be dead. One cold winter morning they took you to the place nobody ever came out of and examined you. One cold winter morning, they’ve found four large stones in your coat, and your papers and money still intact. Even your silver pocket watch, with a golden chain, was still there. Dead, they said, and they were right. A man of about 6ft 3, they said, and they were right. Darkhaired, they said, and they were right again, but that was obvious. It was all floating above the water, just like you. They even got the name right - M.J.Druitt. But then they were absolutely wrong - you were never a doctor, not in that way, anyway. You were not forty one, - you weren’t even thirty two. And no, this wasn’t a suicide - but to assume that, they had to know you better. But they didn’t - for they had no time for that. The year was 1888, and the Autumn of Terror of 1888 has just ended. The year was 1888, and they were still looking for Jack the Ripper - and a body in a river seemed such a perfect scapegoat!

Except…wait a moment.

The name of a young man found on 31 December 1888 was, indeed, Montague John Druitt, and by trade he was a barrister and a schoolmaster, and he was but thirty-one. He was well-dressed, as befitting a gentleman of his social class (upper middle one, with a family full of celebrated doctors and ministers, and lawyers), and whilst alive, was quite a catch - being over 6ft tall, with wavy dark hair, dark blue eyes and aristocratic features. A keen cricketer and swimmer, football and fives player, and - as some say, a rugby player too - he was what could be described ‘ sportsman-like’. His reputation ideal, unblemished, his mind - sharp and analytical, a very apt debater and a believer in equality, female independence and social evolution, - and an acquaintance, perhaps, of the great Oscar Wilde (at least, they were at University together). Such is the portrait of M.J.D - nothing bad, simply the good things.

Unmarried, carreer orientated - not ever noticed in female company, this man divided his time between teaching, playing cricket and defending people at court. His life was a busy one, but it never brought him to salacious, lowly parts of London. His life was emotionally private, but some parts of it are known - he had three brothers and three sisters, his brother William was a solicitor, Edward was a military man and young Arthur was, in 1888, a student. His three sisters are, mostly, invisible, as almost all Victorian women, save for the oldest, Georgiana - who would tragically die, falling from her attic window at the age of 78. She married a future bishop, William Hough.

That was, perhaps, Monty’s greatest fear - running mad, thus losing grip of reality. He sure had his reasons - his aunt, grandmother and mother were victims of madness - and suicide, apparently. His poor mother Anne’s life ended in a lunatic asylum a year after her son’s tragic demise, and she was so bad the doctors never told her that her favorite son died.

In 1885 Monty’s father, a pragmatic surgeon, William - suddenly died of a heart attack, leaving his eldest son and namesake, in charge of everything, including money and valuable assets. By the way, he left a substantial will - and everything seemed to be taken care of - that is, except Monty. He got the pictures. And some silverware. The sisters were left with a good dowry each, Anne got herself about 16000 pounds, William became the owner of the farmlands and family home. Edward and Arthur were left with humble sums, whereas Monty had to cope on his own. The reason was simple - in 1883 he, a third-degree graduate of Classics (New College, Oxford), came back home to Dorset. His father, quite a sharp critical man, wasn’t too pleased about it. He was expecting better results than a third degree - and Monty’s debating and sport achievements were not that important, although he actually was a star student. But Monty had an idea - he knew his father too well.

He convinced his father to lend him 500 pounds - that would be deduced from his inheritance (and his father didn’t have more to give) - and he would use them to study law and pay for the lodgings. That he did, and to support himself financially, took up a job of a schoolmaster at Blackheath. Neat, you say? No doubt this plan was thought through, and his father was impressed as well. In 1886 Monty was called to the bar, and his successful law carreer began. Mind you, he kept his school job as well. And he never stopped playing cricket, becoming one of the founding fathers of the modern Blackheath cricket club. Quite impressive, huh?

His brother William, a year his senior, was a modest solicitor in Bournemouth - and to think, some time ago everybody was comparing the two. Now Monty was the star of the family, balancing everything skillfully, and managing several jobs with ease! No doubt, envy began right there. Monty was everything William was not - popular, attractive, skilled and beloved - and pretty stubborn, too. For his own part, William preferred desk-jobs and investment, golf and loneliness - not exactly an outgoing type. Moreover, thanks to cricket, Monty had friends in high places. He was shrewd, that dreamy boy - and had a useful talent of seeing the people for who they were. Useful connections crept up on him, leaving useful links to more useful connections, but he never abused those.

That’s William in his forties. He never married, and through his adult life, he employed only two servants - and aunt and a niece, Jane and Eliza, leaving each of them an annuity of 52 pounds. However, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here.

When Druitt the father died, William became a head of the family. His relationship with his brothers wasn’t a cordial one, but he clearly loves his younger sister Edith. In his will, he'll leave her daughter Gwendoline 250pounds, whereas he other nieces and nephews would get only a 100 each.

He also cared about young Arthur, but Monty and Edward were a bit of an enigma to him. Military men were never well-off, and Edward had no freedom of his own. He chose an unpredictable life of a soldier over a stable well-being that was preferable to most men of the family. Besides, Edward was temperamental. He got engaged in 1887, and his bride to be was Catholic. That provoked a rift between Edward and William. Edward converted to Catholicism and left for Scotland.

Monty, that quiet Oxfordian, was full of surprises - and his character tempered during his education/working years. Argumentative, logical and convincing, he was against William’s proposition of committing Anne to the asylum.

Anne was slowly crumbling to pieces after her husband’s death. He was her rock, he stabilizer, and now with him gone, she was losing herself, too. She started forgetting things, and had to be looked after constantly. She forgot about many a thing,- eating, spending money or washing. She stopped recognizing her children, which was a blow to her young daughters and Arthur, who was a very loving son. Being a good boy, he even offered himself as his mother’s keeper, but William refused. Edward was out of the picture by 1888.

Monty though was pretty visible.

Opposing William wasn’t easy, but William had more rights, so Anne became a patient of a lunatic ward. Learning about that, Edward broke off all ties with his family, to the chagrin of his sister.

Monty left home for good too - and that was pretty convenient, since now Willam had not only his father’s money - but his mother’s assets as well.

Montague had no need of her money, although she did leave him a bit over 1000 pounds. Montague worked as a dog, finding time for cricket - never for social stuff, though. Montague was such a weird, difficult one. At least, to William.

When his body was found in the Thames, William was notified, and a strange story came up. In his own words, William has been looking for his brother for almost a month, having received news of Monty’s absence from his school premises. He looked, he said, but had no luck, and at Monty’s school, they told him he landed himself in a “big trouble”, so they made him leave. And after that, his body emerged from the river, almost unrecognizable. He was no longer Monty Druitt, the barrister, with his dashing looks. He was a corpse - and no longer a nuisance. In time, William’s story would change in several details, but he asked more questions than he answered, and some of his answers were a bit strange.

He told the police quite plainly that he was the only living next of kin. That Monty was always strange, but he never tried killing himlself before - however, it must have been a suicide, provoked by either his sacking, or his mother’s madness, or his father’s untimely death. Also, it was William who first mentioned the trouble at school.

As you can see, William..wasn’t that honest with the police. He surely wasn’t the only living relative, and drowning wasn’t the way Monty would’ve preferred, being a really skilled swimmer (and William should’ve known that, being his brother). Also, Montague actually was a very strong-willed guy, as he handled both his father’s death and his mother’s madness quite well, never taking leave or breaking down.

Now, the big trouble issue could’ve been problematic. This was a common euphemism for…ahem…sexual misdemeanor. William threw that in quite casually, but noone had ever asked the school headmaster. George Valentine held Monty in the highest respect, and for eight years there were no complaints. Did William mean that while Monty was watching over the boys during nighttime, something abominable happened? That would be quite a scandal - but again, no complaints were made. It still boggles my mind - why throwing that in if it was a lie? But William was a good liar, if his words went unchecked.

William also never mentioned how successful his brother was as a barrister, having won threw cases of varying difficulty in the last three years. He never mentioned the fact that Monty's last case was proposed to him by William himself.

He never mentioned the last court hearings where Monty was sighted were on 29th and 30th November, which means …that William was the last person to have seen his brother alive.

This fact alone throws a big shadow on everything he ever said during the inquest. Later on, William would visit the police on an almost regular basis, trying to blackmail the commissioner. He was doing it for the family he said, when they mentioned Monty as a contender for the case of Jack the Ripper. And he swore he'd write to the newspapers, outing all masons and gays- and they heard him. Monty's name wasn't mentioned again till the 1960s. William was long dead by then of course.

When James Monro, the Assistant Metropolitan Police Commissioner, took over after the resignation of Sir Charles Warren, who led the investigation in 1888, he had his own prime suspect in the case. Unexpectedly, it wasn’t a madman, a razor-wielding rioter or even a misogynist. To Monro, it was Monty Druitt. That’s him, by the way - James Monro.

Monro believed that Montague Druitt was Jack the Ripper, according to his grandson Christopher, but was prohibited from saying so at the height of the murders due to political reasons. James Monro's son, Douglas Monro, claimed to have uncovered this information - including the story about William’s threats - while reading through his father's papers after his death. That’s interesting, don’t you think?

Monro wasn’t the only one to believe Monty was the killer. Sir Melville Macnaghten did, too. Though he was not directly involved in the Ripper investigation, and was not actually brought into the CID until 1889, Macnaghten was an avid student of the case. Before working for the police, he managed his father’s tea farms in Bengal, India. He then returned to England in 1888, was appointed an Assistant Chief Constable in 1889, and then Chief Constable in 1890.

Macnaghten had a set of three suspects that he favored after studying police records of the case: Druitt, Kosminski, and Ostrog. He summarized the reasons for his strong suspicions in the famous Macnaghten Memorandum, in which he also detailed what would become known as the “canonical five” Ripper victims. The report was written in 1894, but was not released into the public view until 1959.

The man behind the official investigation, Inspector Abberline, was against that. Having seen the case from the inside, and knowing Whitechapel and its inhabitants better than anyone, he staunchly opposed the Druitt theory. According to him, Monty sure battled his own demons - but the demon of Jack the Ripper wasn’t his.

We might never know the truth of course, but…could William be behind the murders? Could he have been his brother’s killer? Or was he the one who merely organized Monty’s death out of envy, and greed (after all, he became his brother’s sole heir, as Monty left no will of his own)?

Until we do know, Monty Druitt will be - as he had always been (at least for me) - a brilliant victim of the era, so full of hope and promise, progress and development - and so unbelievably wrought with poverty, misery and double standards.

He will always be my boy in the river, the one I've fallen in love with so many years ago.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Victorian era - but it wasn’t all Preraphaelites and Gothic novels - you have to take it with a huge pinch of salt.

Until next time,

Me.