DRUITT’S DOWNFALL
James Stephen’s many social connections suggest that he would have been familiar with Montague Druitt, an Oxford graduate who qualified as a barrister in the same class as Stephen. Druitt, who worked in a private boy’s school as well as pursuing a legal career, is another suspect for the Whitechapel murders. In 1987, Martin Howells & Keith Skinner published The Ripper Legacy, setting out the case against him.
Druitt is alleged to be the person mentioned, in private notes, by a highranking police officer called Melville Macnaghten. Macnaghten referred to a gentleman who “disappeared around the time of the Miller’s Court (i.e. Mary Jane Kelly’s) murder and his body was found in the Thames... I have little doubt from information received that his own family suspected the man to be the Whitechapel murderer; it was alleged that he was sexually insane.” These notes were not made until 1894, and are supported by no factual information at all, but seem to rely upon a shared understanding by those close to the case.
Other details in Druitt’s life suggest that he was linked to Prince Eddy, James Stephen, and other men who formed a close social circle with homosexual overtones. They may have frequented the male brothel in Cleveland Street that was raided in 1889, leading to a sudden flurry of unexpected legal moves and the silencing of the press. It has often been alleged that aristocratic patrons made the Cleveland Street brothel a topic too risky to investigate. If Montague Druitt was associated with homosexual circles, this alone would have made him ‘insane’ and a suspect in the worst kinds of crime in the eyes of the police of the 1890s.
Druitt was found drowned in December 1888. His death was ruled a suicide, but recent investigations have raised the possibility that this murder suspect might himself have been murdered. Shortly before his disappearance, Druitt was dismissed from his job at Valentine’s School, Blackheath, for an unspecified but serious scandal. He then went to visit a location near ‘The Osiers’, a holiday house at Chiswick Mall maintained by barrister and Cambridge Apostle Harry Wilson. This was a meeting place for young Cambridge men, including Prince Eddy and James Stephen. Then, two weeks later, Druitt’s body was found floating in the Thames at Chiswick.
These details are rather suspicious; Druitt’s journey to Chiswick Mall appears to have been a visit to close friends at a time when he was facing a scandal. If he had wanted to commit suicide, he could have done so in London. However, he purchased a return rail ticket, and set out for The Osiers, a meeting place for men involved in secret friendships and forbidden sexualities. He apparently resided there for a short while, as he left London on 1 December and the inquest records that he had been seen, apparently at Chiswick, on 3 December. Where he was staying during these days is not known. As historian Deborah McDonald has stated: “Druitt’s death, in suspicious circumstances, appears to have, in some way, involved Eddy and Stephen and their friends.” The presence of someone involved in a serious scandal – someone like Montague Druitt – could have threatened disruption and exposure for the whole group. His death closed off all questions.
Prior to his sudden downfall, disappearance and death, Druitt had been