Melville MacNaghten
Sir Melville Leslie MacNaghten CBE,
CB (
June 16,
1853-
May 12,
1921) was
Assistant Commissioner (Crime) of the
London Metropolitan Force from
1903-
1913.
He is known for a major report in
1894 on the
Jack the Ripper case, naming three possible
Jack the Ripper suspects.
The youngest of fifteen children of Elliot MacNaghten, the last Chairman of the
British East India Company, MacNaghten was educated in
Eton. After leaving school in
1872, he went to
India to look after his father's estates in
Bengal and remained there until
1888, albeit with occasional visits back home. In
1881 he was assaulted by Indian land rioters and as a result, became friends with
James Monro who was
District Judge and
Inspector-General in the
Bombay Presidency at the time.
In
October 3,
1878 he married the former Dora Emily Sanderson, the daughter of a
Canon from
Chichester; they eventually had two sons and two daughters.
Upon his return to
England, Macnaghten was offered the post of
Chief Constable of the Metropolitan Police by Monro, who by that time had become the first Assistant Commissioner (Crime); however this appointment was opposed by
Charles Warren, the
Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, allegedly due to the beating he took by "the Hindoos" back in Bengal; but the real reason seemed to be that Warren and Monro did not get along well from the beginning. Warren's rejection of MacNaghten widened the rift between the two men, resulting to Monro's resignation and his transfer to
Special Branch by the
Home Secretary,
Henry Matthews.
However, due to the mounting criticism against Warren, particularly on his handling of the Jack the Ripper case, Commissioner Warren was forced to resign on
November 9, 1888. Monro was brought in to succeed him as Commissioner. With this turn of events, Macnaghten was brought in given the position of
Assistant Chief Constable in June
1889; he was later promoted to Chief Constable in
1890.
MacNaghten's report on Jack the Ripper
Even though he was not directly involved with the investigation of the Ripper killings, like most members of the Metropolitan Police, MacNaghten took an active interest in the case. As Chief Constable he had access to police records on the case; as a result of his own investigation he wrote a confidential report dated
February 23, 1894; however, the report was not publicly available until
1959 and the complete report was not available or viewing and reproduction until
2002. This report proved influential for Ripper research, for it established the canonical victims of the serial killer at five, as well as naming three possible suspects.
Although some information about the suspect he belived most likely to have been the murderer had been available before the turn of the century, the name of the suspect was not made public until 1959. MacNaghten's most likely suspect was Montague John Druitt, a
barrister turned
teacher who allegedly committed suicide in sometime in December 1888. Unfortunately, Macnaghten, in writing from memory, committed many factual errors in his report regarding Druitt. Despite the errors, his allegation seemed to be plausible at first glance, but there is no evidence of contemporary police suspicion against him at the time of the murders; indeed, recent research could find no concrete evidence that Druitt was indeed the Ripper.
The second of MacNaghten's three suspects was Aaron Kosminski, a
Polish Jew who lived in
Whitechapel and was committed to an insane asylum in
1891. While not on the top of the list as Druitt, he was certainly suspected by
Robert Anderson, the man who succeeded Monro as Assistant Commissioner, with apparent confirmation by Chief Inspector Donald Swanson, Anderson's desk officer. As with Druitt, there is no concrete evidence to support this allegation, and it is suggested that naming Kosminski as a suspect seemed to greater reflect
anti-semitism than a genuine connection to the case.
The third suspect in MacNaghten's report was a man named Michael Ostrog, a
Russian-born thief and con man who affected several aliases and disguises and was detained in asylums in several occasions. Again there is little to support this suspicion against Ostrog: records indicated that he was imprisoned in
France during the murders; the fact that Ostrog was arrested and imprisoned before the report was written raises the question of why Ostrog was included at all as a viable suspect.
Later career, including as Assistant Commissioner
In
1900 MacNaghten served in the
Belper Committee to inquire about "the working of the method of Identification of Criminals by Measurement and Fingerprints". As the committee recommended the use of
fingerprints as a means of
identification over
bertillonage, largely due to the testimony of
Edward Henry on their respective merits.
When Henry was appointed Commissioner in
1903, succeeding
Edward Bradford, Macnaghten became Assistant Commissioner (Crime) and became involved in many of the most famous cases in the history of the Metropolitan Police, including the
Hawley Harvey Crippen case and the Farrow double murder case, which resulted in the conviction and hanging of the
Albert and Alfred Stratton largely on the basis on fingerprint evidence.
For his services to the
British Crown, in
1907 he was invested with the rank of Commander of the British Empire.
However, in
1911 MacNaghten was experiencing the first signs of ill-health; even a trip to
Australia the following year failed to improve matters. He was forced to retire from his job in
1913.
In
1914 he published his memoirs
Days of my Years. He also made a translation of
Horace's Ars Poetica into English verse, an effort to which he devoted the last ten years of his life.
In
1918 he was invested as Companion of the Order of the Bath; he was also a Knight Commander of the
White Military Order of Spain and a Commander of the
Order of the Dannebrog.
Sir Melville MacNaghten died on May 12, 1921 at Queen Anne's Mansions,
Westminster.
