The Jack the Ripper Location Photographs: Dutfield's Yard and the Whitby Collection by Philip Hutchinson
Authors: Philip Hutchinson
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Dutfield’s Yard.
Finally, after the Naples photographs, there was no indication of the photographer’s return voyage to the US. Further correspondence with Paul Smith at the Thomas Cook Archives was to present this information:
‘I am afraid I cannot tell you the name of the ship on which your photographer returned from Europe to New York. However, I can confirm that it would not necessarily have been the ‘Lucania’.
We should have more luck with the dates, however. The Excursionist states that Tour No 22 lasted 103 days. This gives a return date of 12 September 1900 (or thereabouts).
The itinerary quoted in the ‘Excursionist’ also shows that Naples is the final port of call before New York. According to timetables in the archives, the shipping lines which operated a Naples-New York service were as follows: Anchor Line; Cunard Line (14 days’ journey time); Cyprien Fabre & Co (12 days); Hamburg-American Line (13/14 days); North German Lloyd Steamship Company (13 days); White Star Line (12/13 days). Unfortunately, the ‘Excursionist’only shows the North Atlantic routes (between North America and Britain/France) rather than the Mediterranean routes and I do not have any separate timetables or shipping lists from 1900 (1906 is the closest).’
The next stage was, with the information already gathered, to attempt to identify the woman who took the Dutfield’s Yard photograph.
Trying to Identify the Photographer
Most of the research since the summer of 2008 has been trying to discover who owned the album and took the European vacation with Thomas Cook in the summer of 1900. As 125,000 Americans took pleasure trips to Europe that year, the words ‘needle’ and ‘haystack’ come to mind.
I began by contacting museum services in the US. My only possible starting point at this stage (before the Arizona information was known) lay in the Heinn label at the back of the album and its direct link to Milwaukee. I began my enquiries with Al Muchka of the Milwaukee Public Museum. He suggested I contact Steve Daly of the Milwaukee County Historical Society who, in turn, pointed me to Joe de Rose of the Wisconsin Historical Society, an organisation that was to prove very helpful in subsequent research. Various people working for this group undertook unpaid work to assist in uncovering some of the mysteries that still surrounded the album.
I made further enquiries with Larry Lingle, the original seller of the photographs, as to where he obtained the collection. That was, unfortunately, a dead end as he had himself obtained it by auction on eBay in 2005 and had not done anything with it since then.
Little could be assured about the photographer herself from the photographs. Even her age is indeterminate; she could be aged anything between 25 and 50. She appears to be blonde and is certainly slim. The photographs give her the impression of having been quite tall. She has an elongated face with a very wide mouth, square forehead, high cheekbones and a large but upturned nose. Her head shape is almost masculine.
Only one thing is likely regarding the home address of the photographer – she probably did not come from New York or New Jersey for the simple reason that she took a photograph of the Dewey Arch before embarkation. A local resident would not have photographed something so close to home as the first image in an album documenting a three-month break in another continent.
The photographer at the colonnades at St Peter’s, Rome, from the album
Detail of the photographer’s face
The information that came back from Ellen Engseth about the proliferation of Heinn products throughout the US by 1900 did make a link to Wisconsin appear to be a red herring. However, the staff at the Wisconsin Historical Society were only too happy to continue searching records from the few clues in the album to try and locate the photographer.
Those clues, nevertheless, could be quite telling. Firstly, the photographer herself
Finally, after the Naples photographs, there was no indication of the photographer’s return voyage to the US. Further correspondence with Paul Smith at the Thomas Cook Archives was to present this information:
‘I am afraid I cannot tell you the name of the ship on which your photographer returned from Europe to New York. However, I can confirm that it would not necessarily have been the ‘Lucania’.
We should have more luck with the dates, however. The Excursionist states that Tour No 22 lasted 103 days. This gives a return date of 12 September 1900 (or thereabouts).
The itinerary quoted in the ‘Excursionist’ also shows that Naples is the final port of call before New York. According to timetables in the archives, the shipping lines which operated a Naples-New York service were as follows: Anchor Line; Cunard Line (14 days’ journey time); Cyprien Fabre & Co (12 days); Hamburg-American Line (13/14 days); North German Lloyd Steamship Company (13 days); White Star Line (12/13 days). Unfortunately, the ‘Excursionist’only shows the North Atlantic routes (between North America and Britain/France) rather than the Mediterranean routes and I do not have any separate timetables or shipping lists from 1900 (1906 is the closest).’
The next stage was, with the information already gathered, to attempt to identify the woman who took the Dutfield’s Yard photograph.
Trying to Identify the Photographer
Most of the research since the summer of 2008 has been trying to discover who owned the album and took the European vacation with Thomas Cook in the summer of 1900. As 125,000 Americans took pleasure trips to Europe that year, the words ‘needle’ and ‘haystack’ come to mind.
I began by contacting museum services in the US. My only possible starting point at this stage (before the Arizona information was known) lay in the Heinn label at the back of the album and its direct link to Milwaukee. I began my enquiries with Al Muchka of the Milwaukee Public Museum. He suggested I contact Steve Daly of the Milwaukee County Historical Society who, in turn, pointed me to Joe de Rose of the Wisconsin Historical Society, an organisation that was to prove very helpful in subsequent research. Various people working for this group undertook unpaid work to assist in uncovering some of the mysteries that still surrounded the album.
I made further enquiries with Larry Lingle, the original seller of the photographs, as to where he obtained the collection. That was, unfortunately, a dead end as he had himself obtained it by auction on eBay in 2005 and had not done anything with it since then.
Little could be assured about the photographer herself from the photographs. Even her age is indeterminate; she could be aged anything between 25 and 50. She appears to be blonde and is certainly slim. The photographs give her the impression of having been quite tall. She has an elongated face with a very wide mouth, square forehead, high cheekbones and a large but upturned nose. Her head shape is almost masculine.
Only one thing is likely regarding the home address of the photographer – she probably did not come from New York or New Jersey for the simple reason that she took a photograph of the Dewey Arch before embarkation. A local resident would not have photographed something so close to home as the first image in an album documenting a three-month break in another continent.
The photographer at the colonnades at St Peter’s, Rome, from the album
Detail of the photographer’s face
The information that came back from Ellen Engseth about the proliferation of Heinn products throughout the US by 1900 did make a link to Wisconsin appear to be a red herring. However, the staff at the Wisconsin Historical Society were only too happy to continue searching records from the few clues in the album to try and locate the photographer.
Those clues, nevertheless, could be quite telling. Firstly, the photographer herself
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