James Maybrick suffered what was a questionable death, which sent his wife on trial for her life. 

He was born in October 1836, the son of engraver William Maybrick and wife Susanna, and died May 11, 1889. James’s parents named him after a brother who had died the year before, and they christened him on November 12, 1838, at St. Peter’s Church in Liverpool; he was the third of their seven sons. James’ trade as an adult was as a Liverpool cotton merchant. 

In 1871, James Maybrick was unmarried and living with his mother in London. Two years later, James formed a company with his brother Edwin. In 1874 James left England for the cotton port of Norfolk, Virginia, to open a branch office. This is where James Maybrick contracted malaria. By 1878, Maybrick lived as a bachelor in rented quarters on York Street and became a member of the Virginia Club. There are reports of his being a frequent visitor to the brothel run by Mary Hogwood.

Maybrick was given a prescription of quinine that did not rid him of malaria. Then they tried second medicine of arsenic and strychnine, which was used in the 1870s. Folwers medicine is also popular in medicine. James Maybrick took a liking to arsenic. At first, thinking it increased his virility, but this not only had high addictive properties but was becoming fashionable with professional men in America and back in Britain.

Why did James Maybrick become a Jack the Ripper Suspect? 

James Maybrick became a Jack the Ripper suspect long after his death. The reason he became suspected stemmed from his own diary entries. There were some who claimed the entries in the diary were a hoax. It seems whoever Jack the Ripper was went to their death with them since no one ever got caught in the vicious murders. 

In 1992, someone found the diary under the floorboards of his bedroom during a remodel of Battlecrease House, his home where he lived and where he died. That year Michael Barrett, a retired Liverpool scrap metal merchant, gave up a diary he claimed Tony Devereux had given him in a pub the year before. 

While the diary does not give a name to identify him, it is clear from personal references that the owner was James Maybrick. Of these references, he referred to his wife as ‘the bitch’ or ‘the whore’. In his diary, he seemed to assume she was having an affair. 

Then, in the diary, he described the Jack the Ripper murders, basically confessing to the murders. The diary entries go into detail about the murders. 

The forensic testing did not provide any answers for the Ripper enthusiasts who did not trust Maybrick wrote the diary. Similarly, the inconclusive test results did not vindicate those who surmised this was Maybrick’s diary. The one thing found in the diary were scratches that scientific analysis found the scratches could be from the period between 1888 and 1889. 

The one thing not clear is if the diary handwriting got checked against the Jack the Ripper letters sent to the police at the time taunting them, one labeled ‘Dear Boss’. 

Another thing that links James Maybrick to Jack the Ripper is a watch of Maybrick’s that was found. The watch inscribed with the scratched initials of Jack the Ripper’s five victims, together with the signature J. Maybrick, and the words “I am Jack.”

 When Albert Johnson purchased this watch in 1993, it drew more criticism. This lends some credibility to the remodeling and finding of both the diary and watch hidden under the floorboards. Tests of the antique gold watch did date back to when James Maybrick would have been alive.

Diary Passages

This is one passage where he is deciding: 

Time is passing much too slowly. I still have to work up the courage to begin my campaign. I have thought long and hard over the matter and sstill I cannot come to a decision to when I should begin. Opportunity is there, of that fact I am certain. The bitch has no inclination.

Another passage: 

To my astonishment I cannot believe I have not been caught. My heart felt as if it had left my body. Within my fright I imagined my heart bounding along the street with I in desperation following it. I would have dearly loved to have cut the head of the damned whore off and stuff it as far as it would go down the whores throat. I had no time to rip the bitch wide, I curse my bad luck. I believe the thrill of being caught thrilled me more than cutting the whore herself. As I write I find it impossible to believe he did not see me. In my estimation I was less than a few feet from him. The fool panicked, it is what saved me. My satisfaction was far from complete, damn the bastard, I cursed him and cursed him, but I was clever, they could not out do me. No one ever will. Within the quarter of the hour I found another dirty bitch willing to sell her wares. The whore like all the rest was only too willing. The thrill she gave me was unlike the others, I cut deep deep deep. Her nose annoyed me so I cut it off, had a go at her eyes, left my mark, could not get the bitches head off. I believe now it is impossible to do so. The whore never screamed. I took all I could away with me. I am saving it for a rainy day ha ha.

As the entries in the diary go on, they get more delusional, and in some cases he makes poems. In some entries, he either says how good his medicine is working or complains his mind is in a fog. 

What do we know?

The cotton trading James Maybrick did required him to travel regularly. That gave him time for Jack the Ripper activities. An entry in the diary talks about going to Post House. While there has been some debate about its not existing at the time. The pub existed when James Maybrick lived, and rather than it being in London or Whitechapel, the pub was in Liverpool. It was built in 1820 and still exists today. The advertising for the pub today touts it is one of Liverpool’s cheapest and oldest bars. At 23 Cumberland Street, Liverpool L1 6BU, United Kingdom. 

James Maybricks Health 

During his life there were some, including his personal doctor, who had to be aware James Maybrick was an arsenic addict. 

The spring of 1889 found James Maybrick’s health deteriorating rapidly. He described his deteriorating health as ‘seedy’ and his mouth as ‘foul as a maiden’. He suffered from a sore stomach, he felt dizzy, could not stop vomiting and had diarrhoea.  

His doctor prescribed a digestive medicine containing prussic acid, which contains a poison known as hydrogen cyanide. Then he prescribed regular doses of Fowler’s Solution, a tonic that contains arsenic and champagne. They believed this solution to have a calming effect. A plaster was then to be applied to the skin to draw out the infection. None of these remedies worked and, by today’s standards, probably made his condition worse. 

James got fed bowls of arrowroot and glasses of beef essence in his bedroom, where he remained because of his failing health. James Maybrick’s health failed fast, with his death coming fifteen days later. 

Questions Asked Later 

One of the largest questions asked after James Maybrick’s death. Did he get poisoned? If he was who did it? His doctor prescribed several medicines containing arsenic and strychnine? The more popular killer, according to his brothers, was Florence Maybrick, his much younger wife. 

The Happy Life of James and Florence Chandler Maybrick

Florence was born Florence Elizabeth Chandler in Mobile, Alabama, to William George Chandler and Caroline Holbrook Chandler Du Berry. Her father had been a Mobile, Alabama, mayor and partner in the banking firm of St. John Powers and Company. Her father died before Florence’s birth, and her mother remarried Adolph Von Roques of the German Army. He was a cavalry officer in the Eighth Cuirassier Regiment.

Florence Chandler met James Maybrick while traveling by ship to the United Kingdom. The marriage between the 18-year-old Florence and 42-year-old James happened after meeting aboard a transatlantic steamship, the SS Baltic, from New York to Liverpool. Shocking many passengers that she was spending so much time alone with Maybrick, who was so much older. One year later, on July 27, 1881, James Maybrick and Florence Chandler married at St. James Church, Piccadilly, London. The couple settled in Battlecrease House in Aigburth, a suburb of Liverpool. After the marriage, the couple attended the most important balls in Liverpool.

James Maybrick had been conducting business in Norfolk, Virginia, and after the marriage the couple split their time between Norfolk, Virginia, where they lived in a house on West Freemason Street, and Liverpool. They did this for the next two years.

Eight months after Florence and James married, their son was born prematurely.

By 1844, the Norfolk Cotton Exchange was declining in trade, which caused James Maybrick to resign and return to Liverpool with his wife and son. In 1886, Florence gave birth to their daughter Gladys Ebelyn. Then, in 1877, Florence discovered there was another woman. James’s long-time mistress, who had several children. Florence stopped sharing a bedroom with her husband moving to her own room in their twenty-room house.

The marriage deteriorated with James Maybrick’s addiction to arsenic and other medicines that included poisonous substances continuing. After finding out about James’s longtime mistress, she began having an affair with businessman Alfred Brierly. When James found out about the affair, he assaulted Florence, and while divorce was impossible, he could divorce her and take the children for adultery. But Florence could not divorce him and keep the children. Maybrick would not be obligated to support Florence if there were a divorce. He had several mistresses, one which bore him five children.

After Florence Maybrick’s affair with Brierley, she wrote letters to him that nanny Alice Yapp intercepted and passed to Maybrick’s brother Edwin, who in turn showed them to James’ other brother Michael. Michel, the head of the family, deemed Florence a gold-digger and disposed her as mistress of the house, holding her under house arrest.

The Trial of Florence Maybrick, James Maybrick’s Wife 

James Maybrick’s brothers had James’ body examined, suspecting Florence. They could not prove James had not taken the trace amounts of arsenic found in his body or if Florence administered it to him.

An inquest held at a nearby hotel determined Florence Maybrick to be charged with her husband’s murder.

Florence had soaked flypaper in a bowl of water to extract the arsenic she said as a solution for her skin. She was clear about this since it was a key ingredient for the cosmetic wash. Her purchase of the flypaper was told by a local chemist’s shop.

Her late husband’s brothers did not wait for James’ last breath before they had their suspicions about it and the fact that she may have put something in her husband’s beef juice. Then the fact she had had an affair with a family friend, Alfred Brieley. Florence was unable to deny the adultery whenshe spent two nights in London with Brierley in a hotel room. Paperwork existed from the hotel stay.

James Maybrick’s Edwin and Michael, his brothers, believed Florence was a gold-digger. Since there was a 23-year age difference between James and Florence and as an American of dubious background.

In one book on Jack the Ripper, it is possible James’s brother Michael might have known James was Jack the Ripper, but if James got caught, Michael feared he and his brothers would be ruined. It is also questioned whether Florence might have known and hidden it since that would give her a reason to murder James.

Florence swore James had long been slowly killing himself as a hypochondriac and addicted to many pills and potions. Many that contained arsenic. The examination revealed arsenic in his body, as well as strychnine and belladonna. After James Maybrick died, authorities removed approximately 120 bottles from the house.

The brothers disagreed with Florence, and between they found, the flypaper and Florence’s adultery, they wanted her held accountable for Jame’s death.

Despite convincing evidence, they tried Florence Maybrick for the death of James Maybrick. The trial of Florence Maybrick began on July 31 at St. George’s Hall in Liverpool. Sir Charles Russell was Florence Maybrick’s advocate.

On May 9th, a nurse reported Florence tampered with a Valentine’s Meat Juice bottle. Afterward, they found to contain a half-grain of arsenic. Florence testified that her husband had begged her to administer it to him. James Maybrick did not drink the contents of the Valentine’s Meat Juice.

The jury found Florence guilty of the death of her husband, James Maybrick, and the court sentenced her to hang. One report said Judge Fiztjames Stephens believed women to be evil. He told the jury that “Mrs. Maybrick was an adulteress and that adulteresses by nature were likely to commit murder.”

   After the sentence there was a public outcry that the presiding Judge James Stephen thought to have been hostile to Florence Maybrick. She won many people over in the dock and was only guilty of adultery and not James’ death.

The result of this uprising in her case kept Florence Maybrick from being hung by Henry Matthews, the home secretary and Lord Chancellor Halsbury. They concluded the evidence established that Mrs. Maybrick administered poison to her husband with the intent to murder. But there is ground for reasonable doubt if the arsenic administered did in fact cause his death. Instead, the sentence was commuted from hanging to life imprisonment for a crime she was never charged with.

Later found, a city chemist confirmed he supplied James Maybrick with quantities of arsenic over a lengthy period, and the search of Battlecrease House turned up enough arsenic to kill approximately fifty people.

In the 1890s, fresh evidence was publicized by those in support of Florence since she had no appeal afforded her. The Home Office refused her release even with the efforts of Lord Russell of Killowen, the Lord Chief Justice.

Newspapers took up covering the case on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean at a time when some men viewed arsenic as an aphrodisiac and tonic.

Florence served 15 years in prison. She left for America after serving her jail sentence and died in 1941, destitute. She spent some years at the Woking District Female Convict Prison. Florence remained there until 1896, and then authorities moved her to Aylesbury Prison, where she spent nine months in solitary confinement. Then she got moved to a different cell in this prison but under the structure of the silent system. The prison staff enforced silence at all times. After this, Florence Maybrick entered a third phase at this prison that involved hard labor. She could leave her cell at 6:00 a.m. and returned to it at 5:30 p.m. she had to watch ten four quart cans, scrub one twenty foot able and two twelve foot dressers, clean knives, wash a stack of potatoes and help serve the dinners and scrub a piece of floor twenty by ten feet. Based on the writing of her book.

In May 1896, Florence Maybrick became ill upon entering the prison infirmary. She stayed there for two weeks suffering from a feverish cold. She claimed it was from drafty cells, inadequate clothing and bedding. At the end of this, infirmary stay is when she got transferred to Aylesbury prison.

After Prison and The Children

Florence never saw her two children again. Florence and James, two children, James Chandler with the nickname ‘Bobo’ and their daughter Gladys Evelyn. They were raised by the family doctor. Her son died in 1911 after becoming a minor when he mistook a glass of poison for water.

Upon release from prison in January 1904, Florence had spent over 14 years in prison. She left for America, where she had lost her citizenship when she married James Maybrick. In the beginning, she earned a living on the lecture circuit talking about prison reform and protested her innocence.

Florence Maybrick wrote a book after prison as a memoir, ‘Mrs. Maybrick’s Own Story My Fifteen Lost Years.’

In the book, she described kneeling down beside her late husband’s bedside. To surmise, ‘Death had wiped out the memory of many things, I was thankful to remember. That I had stopped divorce proceedings, and that we had become reconciled for the children’s sake.’

With Florence’s marriage all but over, ending in divorce, she had little reason to kill her husband James. With the paltry amount that James left in his will to provide for Florence and their two children, she would have been better off with him alive to provide for them.

She goes on in her book about her time at Aylesbury Prison with her time in solitary confinement and then the cell where she waws under the structures of the silent system. This took a physical and mental toll on her. She claimed solitary confinement was the most cruel feature of the English penal servitude. She emphasised the desolation and despair, the hopeless monotony it led her to feel.

Florence goes on in her memoir that she had insomnia and frequent ill health she claimed was from the frequent shrieking and destruction of cells by weak-minded inmates in the night. This, she said, left her with quivering nerves and unable to sleep.

Some then and now assume that James was about to divorce Florence, which in Victorian society she would be ruined. Then there is the fact that she might have lost the children if they divorced.

Florence later moved to Connecticut using her maiden name of Chandler and spent some months unsuccessfully as a housekeeper. Then she moved to a three-room bungalow in Gaylordsville, Connecticut, a village in New Milford. Her only company was cats. A few residents discovered Florence Elizabeth Chandler’s true identity as Mrs. Maybrick and kept her secret.

Florence Chandler Maybrick died alone, penniless, on October 23, 1941, never seeing her children again.

The New York Times published Florence Elizabeth Chandler’s obituary at the top of page one the next day. Florence requested to be buried next to her dear friend Clara Duton in South Kent, Connecticut, on the grounds of the South Kent School.

When they examined Florence’s possessions, they discovered a tattered family Bible and a scrapbook with newspaper clippings of her life as Florence Maybrick.

References

Shirley Harrison, the author of “The Diary of Jack the Ripper,”

The 1992 book “Murder and Madness” by David Abrahamsen

Ms. Harrison and Paul Feldman, author of the upcoming book “The Ripper Confessions”

Paul Begg from “Ripperologist”