Over on the corresponding Facebook Page to this blog I like to change my Cover Photo on occasion. Now, there are millions of photos to look at, and so many amazing images from the time of Holmes and Watson, but I have a number of elements I look for before a picture is used. The one I have on there now was added in January, and while it wasn't perfect for those purposes, it was too good of an image to pass up. Here it is with the description I put with it:
It is believed, by all accounts, to have been taken in 1886. If that’s true, then it might show the only known photographic image of one of the most famous Inspectors ever.
There is not one photo that exists of Frederick Abberline. He was on the force for nearly thirty years, and was instrumental in the Jack the Ripper investigation, but in all that time no one got a picture of him that survives. Three men in this shot have been tagged as him, but I think I know (based on illustrations of him) which is correct.
I’ll expand upon it soon, but for now I’ll just let you enjoy this photograph.
Having said that part about narrowing down which man is him in the shot, let's get to it. Now, let me say up front that I made my decision before I knew others had done so as well. (And before I ever thought about using this picture.) It was only after I had done my examination of the information that I found that I was not alone in my ultimate choice. So, I will use some of their work on here as it is better than mine. Let's look briefly at the man who is the subject today.
Stolen directly from the Wikipedia page:
Frederick George Abberline (8 January 1843 – 10 December 1929) was a British Chief Inspector for the London Metropolitan Police. He is best known for being a prominent police figure in the investigation into the Jack the Ripper serial killer murders of 1888.
What we know of him image-wise is only from a series of illustrations that have been reproduced over and over for a century plus. There are four well-known ones, and they are all famous. This one is the one I was familiar with:
All of them easily represent the same man with the same distinctive facial-hair style. But, no one has ever found an actual photo of him. He was the recipient of many awards from the Force, and was instrumental in some of their biggest cases, but if a picture of him was ever taken, it hasn't come to light.
In the group photo above several men have been pegged as being him. Facial hair was a big thing back then, and looking at this photo you'll note that the lack of it is not the norm. Most of the men have it. You can distinguish regular officers from the detectives by the outfits, and there appear to be a number of detectives/inspectors present. There has never been a list found of the people in the shot, so we have to speculate on most. As I said, there are three men in this picture that have been named as Abberline, and I'll tell you which I think it is.
These two guys have both been named as Abberline by people, including some prominent Ripperologists, but even more folks have said that those conclusions are clearly wrong, and have even been able to demonstrate who they probably actually are. What we know about Abberline is that he was a private person who didn't like attention. It shows when you think about the lack of photos of him, so standing out front wouldn't have been his style. Looking at the shot one day, I saw the guy who immediately jumped out at me as a good possibility (if Abberline's in the shot at all). I convinced myself it was him, and got online to talk to other about it only to find that I had been beaten by many, many years to the same conclusion. Still, I felt pretty good about coming up with the best answer on my own, so I'll pat myself on the back.
If you'll look closely at the left side of the picture you'll see a dark mark, or shadow, running down the length of it. There are a number of officers within that line, but one seems to be just peeking out enough to get in the shot. His clothing shows he's a detective or Inspector, but he doesn't seem to want to have his picture taken. I'll include the forensic work of a fine amateur Ripperologist from a website called Casebook.org. (I'll also put a link to the whole discussion at the bottom of the post.)
As you can see, this guy is the best fit. Jumping back into The Game it's easy to assume that Holmes and/or Watson would have met this man, and a number of his cohorts. The Canon is completely silent on The Ripper, and many have surmised it's because Holmes failed to bring the man to justice. Others have said that it's because the identity of the killer would have been damaging for England. Either way, I don't think Holmes cared much about it. If he did solve it, it would've been fairly quickly, and like a child with a new toy, he would've lost interest. But, he still would have interacted with these officers in some way, and not just on this case. Abberline was, after all, on the Force for 29 years.
So, there's the rabbit hole I promised you. It's not a chronological listing at all (in fact, that's the first time the word has been used on this post), but a small tangent into the world Holmes would have known and been a part of. Abberline knew who Holmes was, and vice versa. It seems impossible to me that they wouldn't.
As I said before, there's been quite a bit written about Abberline and the lack of a photo, but my main site for what you see here is from this address:
https://forum.casebook.org/forum/ripper-discussions/police-officials-and-procedures/abberline-inspector-frederick/2991-there-must-be-a-photo-of-frederick-abberline
There are nine sparsely-written pages, but it's fun to read all of it and find out just how passionate people can be when it comes to a mystery. Heck, it's why I'm here today writing about it. Anyway, I appreciate you joining me in chasing the White Rabbit. I'll see you next time, and as always...thanks for reading.
