Frederick Bailey Deeming - Jack The Ripper Or Something Worse?

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Book excerpt

Introduction

As a child, my father was fascinated by unsolved mysteries and would collect books and other ephemera on the topic.  On occasion he would allow me to look at his books, and I would sit and ask questions about certain cases from ghosts and hauntings, to UFO’s and strange tales of out of place monsters.  One case caught my attention from an early age, and this was the case of Jack the Ripper.  It wasn’t until the 1990’s when I was at college and had an income that I could really dig deeper, purchasing every book available in my home town of Kingston upon Hull, and checking out every bookstore and antique shop when we travelled further afield.  I would take the books to college and later work and sit and read such works by Philip Sugden, Donald Rumbelow, Stewart P. Evans and Paul Begg.  It wasn’t until 2006 when I was diagnosed with a critical heart condition that I really started digging a little deeper.  I had been made redundant and with no sign of employment due to health I grew bored and wanted something to do.  With my father’s passion for local history, and my wife’s insistence that I put my work down in book form I put pen to paper, but I wasn’t writing about Jack the Ripper, but the allegedly haunted buildings in Hull.  It was during my research for this tome that I really discovered Jack the Ripper, and this was the start of my journey into Ripperology.  It has been an exciting journey, with newspaper articles, television appearances, radio slots, podcasts, and many adventures along the way.  This book is the second part of that journey. 

I first became interested in Frederick Bailey Deeming after reading one of my father’s local history/true crime books.  The book stated that a suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders had not only stayed at Hull’s Royal Station Hotel, but he had committed a crime in the city, and was later imprisoned at Hull Gaol.  I wanted to know more, and quickly took up the search of one of the darkest figures in true crime history, a figure that has featured in several books, documentaries, and radio shows, but who is surrounded by half-truths, and falsified statements,  some showing him to be connected to the murders, some ruling him out.  Many of them based on newspaper reports rather than the primary source give the reader a false impression of events.  Many of them repeating unsubstantiated tales from the press, passing them off as the truth and then later publications accepting these as gospel truth.  What struck me was the evil deeds that this man committed, yet that so many true crime books had failed to mention him in relation to murder or fraud.  In 1892 one only had to pick up the newspapers and see the horrific stories that dominated the press during the months of March, April and May of that year, and see what atrocities Deeming had committed.  His case made it into several penny dreadfuls, and numerous books at the time, but history has largely forgotten the man and his life.  One book at the time featured the following description of Deeming,  

What may be regarded as one of the most remarkable, as well as sensational causes celebres ever revealed at the Antipodes is that now known as the Williams Deeming case – a tragedy interwoven with other tragedies, and forming a series of crimes unparalleled, perhaps, in the history of the world.  Williams, the central figure, with his numberless aliases, stands out in bold relief as the Champion Assassin – the villain par excellence – of the nineteenth century, an epoch which has produced more villains and murderers that any previous years.

Another book written at the time featured the following,

When in the history of crime has such a record been written?  Little wonder it is that the whole world has been shocked and horrified by the revelations; and that this monster in human form has been designated the criminal of the century.

The case attracted not only the local press in Australia, but soon reports were cropping up in New Zealand, America, and across the United Kingdom.  A search of the British Libraries 19th Century British Newspapers online throws up 778 articles featuring the case. A search of the Australian Newspaper Archive throws up 34,708 articles featuring the case. A search of the New Zealand Papers Past website throws up hundreds of articles featuring the case. This is without including the articles on other newspaper sites from other nations across the globe. 

At the time of the case it was written of the press,

Never in the history of the world and probably never again, under such wonderfully remarkable circumstances will it be the duty of the Press to record a series of crimes at once so horrible and so cunningly arranged as in this case.

Frederick Bailey Deeming himself was discussed in Parliament, and files exist to show that the Home Office, and Scotland Yard also looked into his life and crimes.  Madame Tussaud’s, the popular wax works museum had paid to have Rainhill and Deeming recreated at their London site, and numerous plays and penny dreadfuls appeared, some of them being banned under obscenity laws.  Despite the attraction the case got at the time beyond 1892 it was largely forgotten.  In recent years a handful of books have tackled the case directly, and more recently Deeming has appeared in books looking at the case of Jack the Ripper, but Deeming is often ignored or brushed aside based on misconceptions and previous texts that have appeared.  Many of the books were based on the newspaper accounts of the time.  Whilst I see nothing wrong with this, I do think that more important lessons could have been learnt from perusing the primary sources held on file at research centres across the globe.  It was time for a serious look at this man, and his life and crimes.