Black Museum Jack The Ripper

Secrets of the Black Museum - Mirror Online. Secrets of the Black Museum. It was sent to Doctor Thomas Openshaw of the London Hospital Whitechapel dated 1888. The Black Museum was a radio crime-drama program produced by Harry Towers in London. It was broadcast in Europe on Radio Luxembourg, a commercial radio station, and was not broadcast by the BBC until 1991. In 1946 Harry Towers and his mother, Margaret Miller Towers, started a company called Towers of London that sold various syndicated radio shows around the world, including The Lives of.

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The original radio program was reissued in an audiobook format by Heritage Media.

The Black Museum was a radio crime-drama program produced by Harry Towers in London. It was broadcast in Europe on Radio Luxembourg, a commercial radio station, and was not broadcast by the BBC until 1991.

In 1946 Harry Towers and his mother, Margaret Miller Towers, started a company called Towers of London that sold various syndicated radio shows around the world, including The Lives of Harry Lime with Orson Welles, The Secrets of Scotland Yard with Clive Brook, Horatio Hornblower with Michael Redgrave, and a series of Sherlock Holmes stories featuring John Gielgud as Holmes, Ralph Richardson as Watson and Welles as Moriarty.^[1]

The Black Museum was based on real-life cases from the files of Scotland Yard's Black Museum. The program was transcribed in 1951 and was broadcast in the United States in 1952 on Mutual.^[2] More than 500 of the network's stations carried it.^[3] Ira Marion was the scriptwriter, and music for the series was composed and conducted by Sidney Torch.

Orson Welles was both host and narrator for stories of horror and mystery, based on Scotland Yard's collection of murder weapons and various ordinary objects once associated with historical true crime cases. The show's opening began:

This is Orson Welles, speaking from London.

(Sound of Big Ben chimes)

The Black Museum... a repository of death. Here in the grim stone structure on the Thames which houses Scotland Yard is a warehouse of homicide, where everyday objects... a woman’s shoe, a tiny white box, a quilted robe... all are touched by murder.

In 2002, Towers produced The Black Museum for television and hired director Gregory Mackenzie to be the showrunner and director for the anthology series using the original narration by Welles. The adaptation was shot on location in London in a film noir style and the pilot stars Michael York as the Scotland Yard Inspector Russel.

Programme format and themes[edit]

Walking through the museum, Welles would pause at one of the exhibits, and his description of an artifact served as a device to lead into a wryly-narrated dramatised tale of a brutal murder or a vicious crime. In the closing: 'Now until we meet again in the same place and I tell you another tale of the Black Museum', Welles would conclude with his signature radio phrase, 'I remain, as always, obediently yours'.

With the story themes deriving from objects in the collection (usually with the names of the people involved changed but the facts remaining true to history), the 51 episodes had such titles as 'The Tartan Scarf' and 'A Piece of Iron Chain' or 'Frosted Glass Shards' and 'A Khaki Handkerchief'. An anomaly to the series was an episode called 'The Letter' as this was the only story not about murder, but about forgery.

Broadcast history[edit]

In the United States, the series aired on the Mutual Network in 1952.^[2] It was rebroadcast on KABC, Los Angeles, California, in 1963–1964^[4] and on KUAC (FM) in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1967.^[5]

Beginning May 7, 1953, it was also broadcast over Radio Luxembourg sponsored by the cleaning products Dreft and Mirro. Since the BBC carried no commercials, Radio Luxembourg aired sponsored programs at night to England.

In the United States, there was a contemporary programme called Whitehall 1212 written and directed by Wyllis Cooper and broadcast by NBC, that was similar in scope to The Black Museum. It was hosted by Chief Superintendent John Davidson, curator of the Black Museum. It used many of the same picked cases as The Black Museum, and it nearly mirrored its broadcast run. The two shows were different in the respect that while Whitehall 1212 told the story of a case entirely from the point of view of the police starting from the crime scene, The Black Museum was more heavily dramatized and played out scenes of the actual murders and included scenes from the criminal's point of view.^[6]

Episodes[edit]

The following episodes were broadcast:^[7]

Black Museum – 01 The .22 Caliber Pistol AKA Little Blue 22
Black Museum – 02 .32 Calibre Bullet
Black Museum – 03 Bath Tub
Black Museum – 04 The Black Gladstone Bag
Black Museum – 05 The Brick
Black Museum – 06 The Brass Button
Black Museum – 07 Can of Weed Killer
Black Museum – 08 Canvas Bag
Black Museum – 09 The Car Tire
Black Museum – 10 The Champagne Glass
Black Museum – 11 A Claw Hammer
Black Museum – 12 Door Key
Black Museum – 13 Faded Tartan Scarf AKA The Yellow Scarf
Black Museum – 14 Four Small Bottles
Black Museum – 15 French–English Dictionary
Black Museum – 16 Gas Receipt
Black Museum – 17 Frosted Glass Shards
Black Museum – 18 The Hammerhead
Black Museum – 19 The Jack Handle
Black Museum – 20 Jar of Acid
Black Museum – 21 The Khaki Handkerchief
Black Museum – 22 A Lady's Shoe
Black Museum – 23 The Leather Bag
Black Museum – 24 A Letter
Black Museum – 25 The Mandolin String
Black Museum – 26 Meat Juice
Black Museum – 27 The Notes
Black Museum – 28 The Old Wooden Mallet
Black Museum – 29 The Open End Wrench
Black Museum – 30 A Pair Of Spectacles
Black Museum – 31 A Piece Of Iron Chain
Black Museum – 32 The Pink Powderpuff
Black Museum – 33 Post Card With Picture Of The Rising Sun
Black Museum – 34 A Prescription
Black Museum – 35 The Raincoat
Black Museum – 36 Length of Sash Cord
Black Museum – 37 Auto Service Card
Black Museum – 38 The Sheath Knife
Black Museum – 39 The Shopping Bag
Black Museum – 40 Shilling
Black Museum – 41 A Silencer
Black Museum – 42 The Small White Boxes
Black Museum – 43 The Spotted Bedsheet
Black Museum – 44 The Straight Razor
Black Museum – 45 The Tan Shoe
Black Museum – 46 The Telegram
Black Museum – 47 The Trunk
Black Museum – 48 Two Bullets
Black Museum – 49 Walking Stick
Black Museum – 50 A Women's Pigskin Glove
Black Museum – 51 The Wool Jacket

Cases[edit]

Based on original research and comparisons of the episode plot with the facts of the actual case, the below-listed Metropolitan Police cases were probably used as the basis for episodes of The Black Museum:

Thomas Henry Allaway – 'The Telegram'
Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong – 'The Champagne Glass'
Elvira Dolores Barney – 'The .22 Caliber Pistol'
Adelaide Bartlett – '4 Small Bottles'
Frederick Browne & William Kennedy – 'The Car Tire' & 'The Gas Receipt'
James Camb – 'The Spotted Bedsheet'
George Chapman – 'The Straight Razor'
Christopher Craig & Derek Bentley –'Two Bullets'
John Alexander Dickman – 'The Tan Shoe' & 'The Leather Bag'
Samuel Herbert Dougal – 'The Lady's Shoe'
Miles Giffard – 'The Service Card'
Harold Greenwood – 'Weed Killer'
John George Haigh – 'The Jar of Acid'
Neville Heath – 'The Powder Puff'
Harold Hill – 'The Khaki Handkerchief'
Karl Hulton & Elizabeth Jones – 'The Jack Handle'
Charles Jenkins, Christopher Geraghty & Terence Rolt – 'The .32 Caliber Bullet'[1], [2]
Patrick Mahon – 'The Gladstone Bag'
Toni Mancini – 'The Hammerhead'
Florence Maybrick – 'Meat Juice'
William Henry Podmore – 'The Receipt'
Dr. Edward Pritchard – 'The Walking Stick'
Florence Ransom – 'A Woman's Pigskin Glove'
John Robinson – 'The Trunk'
Alfred Arthur Rouse – 'The Mallet'
Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters – 'The Sheath Knife'
August Sangret – 'The Brass Button'
James Townsend Saward (alias 'Jim the Penman') – 'The Letter'
Henry Daniel Seymour – 'The Claw Hammer'
George Joseph Smith – 'The Bath Tub'
Madeleine Smith – 'Small White Boxes'
Frederick Stewart – 'The Frosted Glass Shards'
George Stoner – 'The Brickbat'
Norman Thorne – 'The Wool Jacket' & 'The Spectacles'
Jean–Pierre Vaquier – 'The Dictionary'
Nurse Dorothea Waddingham – 'The Prescription'
William Herbert Wallace – 'The Raincoat'
Robert Wood – 'The Postcard'

Episodes yet to be matched with true case histories are:^{[original research?]}

The Canvas Bag
The Door Key
The Faded Tartan Scarf
The Iron Chain, Piece of
The Mandolin String
Notes – Kilroy was Here
The Open End Wrench
The Sash Cord, Length of
The Shilling
The Shopping Bag
The Silencer

Relationships and differences with source material[edit]

Two episodes, 'The Car Tire' and 'The Gas Receipt,' were the same story with minor differences between the two. Another pair of episodes, 'The Baby's Jacket' and 'The Spectacles,' were also based on the same case, as were 'The Tan Shoe' and 'The Leather Bag.'
Four famous murder cases were dramatized on The Black Museum: John George Haigh, the 'Acid Bath Murderer'; George Joseph Smith, the 'Brides in the Bath Murderer'; Adelaide Bartlett, whose husband died from chloroform poisoning; and Florence Maybrick, who allegedly used arsenic from fly-paper to murder her husband James Maybrick (who was suspected of being Jack the Ripper due to the 1993 publication of The Diary of Jack the Ripper).
In 'The Open End Wrench' it's mistakenly stated that the culprit was executed in Dartmoor. No twentieth-century executions were carried out in Dartmoor. Built during the Napoleonic Wars to contain French and American POWs, it was, after lying idle from 1815 to 1850, later commissioned as a convict prison and used for dangerous long-term prisoners only.
The dramatized story of 'The Hammerhead' was changed to make the victim's sister the murderer instead of the boy friend.
The episode 'Small White Boxes' is the only story in which the real names were used rather than pseudonyms.

Notes[edit]

^'Harry Alan Towers obituary'. September 30, 2009. Retrieved March 21, 2017.
^ ^a^bDunning, John (1998). On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio (Revised ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. p. 95. ISBN978-0-19-507678-3. Retrieved 2019-11-04. The Black Museum, crime drama.
^Sullivan, Ed (December 17, 1951). 'Little Old New York'. The Morning Herald. p. 4. Retrieved May 4, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
^'Radio Drama'(PDF). Broadcasting. August 19, 1963. p. 62. Retrieved 4 May 2015.^{[permanent dead link]}
^'KUAC Brings Back Old Days With 'The Black Museum''. Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. January 10, 1967. p. 5. Retrieved May 4, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
^Dunning 1998, p. 721.
^https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Black_Museum_Singles

References[edit]

Browne, Douglas; Tullett, Tom (1951), Bernard Spilsbury, Grafton Books, London, ISBN0-586-05574-6
Dunning, John (1998), On the air: the encyclopedia of old-time radio (2 ed.), Oxford University Press, p. 721, ISBN978-0-19-507678-3
Fido, Martin (1986), The Murder Guide to London, Grafton Books, London, ISBN0-586-07179-2
Simpson, Keith (1978), Forty Years of Murder, Grafton Books, London, ISBN0-586-05038-8
Tullet, Tom (1979), Murder Squad: Famous Cases of Scotland Yard's Murder Squad from Crippen to The Black Panther, Granada Publishing Ltd., London, ISBN0-586-05218-6

External links[edit]

Listen to
- The Black Museum in the Internet Archive's Old-Time Radio Collection

Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Black_Museum&oldid=933898938'

Jack the Ripper Museum
Location	12 Cable Street, Tower Hamlets, London, E1 8JG
Coordinates	51°30′39″N0°04′05″W / 51.510805°N 0.067972°WCoordinates: 51°30′39″N0°04′05″W / 51.510805°N 0.067972°W
Website	www.jacktherippermuseum.com

The Jack the Ripper Museum is a museum and tourist attraction that opened in August 2015 in Cable Street, London. It recreates the east London setting in which the unsolved Jack the Ripper murders took place in 1888, and exhibits some original artefacts from the period as well as waxwork recreations of crime scenes and sets. The museum was founded by Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe, a former head of diversity for Google.^[1]

The museum's planning application described it to the council as a 'Museum of Women's History'. Its change of focus to a Jack the Ripper museum was only revealed when the museum opened a year later, leading to numerous protests.

Exhibits[edit]

The museum's exhibits includes the whistle used by police constable Edward Watkins to summon help when he discovered the body of Catherine Eddowes, and the truncheon and notebook case he was carrying.^[2]

The five-room exhibition includes a recreation of the police station in Leman Street where detectives attempted to identify the murderer, of the bedroom of victim Mary Jane Kelly, and the scene of Catherine Eddowes' murder, with an effigy of PC Edward Watkins standing over her.^[2] A mocked-up morgue in the basement includes shrines to the 'canonical five' victims - Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly - as well as Emma Elizabeth Smith, Alice McKenzie and Frances Coles.^[2]

Museum history[edit]

The change-of-use planning application from Palmer-Edgecumbe's architects in August 2014 described plans to convert the disused Victorian building into the 'Museum of Women's History', which it described as the first women's museum in the United Kingdom. The application featured illustrations of suffragettes and equal pay campaigners, and made reference to the closure of Whitechapel's Women's Library in 2013, saying that this museum would be 'the only dedicated resource in the East End to women’s history'.^[3] The application stated: 'The museum will recognise and celebrate the women of the East End who have shaped history, telling the story of how they have been instrumental in changing society. It will analyse the social, political and domestic experience from the Victorian period to the present day.'^[1]

Jack The Ripper Identity Revealed

When covers were removed from the site in 2015, local residents were shocked to instead see a 'Jack the Ripper Museum', dedicated to the unsolved murders of local women.^[3] They had not been informed of the museum's change of focus.^[1] Protests were repeatedly staged outside,^[4] with anti-gentrification organisation Class War threatening further protests after a Hallowe'en event at which visitors were invited to pose for photographs with actors playing the killer and his mutilated victims.^[5]^[6]

Andrew Waugh, the museum's architect, described the venture as 'salacious, misogynist rubbish' and described himself as having been 'duped' into offering a low fee to work on a museum celebrating women in politics in the East End.^[7] Waugh said would not have touched the project 'with a bargepole' if he had known how it would ultimately be marketed.^[8]John Biggs, the mayor of Tower Hamlets, said that the council's planning officers had been 'misled by the applicant'.^[7]^[9] In 2016 the museum's owners were refused retrospective planning permission for its shop front and ordered to change the museum's signage and to remove the roller shutter installed without planning permission in 2015 after protestors smashed a window.^[10] The Planning Inspectorate considered the shop's frontage to be detrimental to Cable Street, a conservation area.^[11] By 2017 the museum had lost an appeal to the Secretary of State and failed to comply with the change of signage and removal of the shutter.^[4] In 2018 the museum redesigned its frontage.^{[citation needed]}

The museum defended its position, Palmer-Edgecumbe saying that 'We did plan to do a museum about social history of women but as the project developed we decided a more interesting angle was from the perspective of the victims of Jack the Ripper.'^[3] He said the Ripper theme would serve as a 'primary platform' from which the stories of other East End women would be told.^{[citation needed]}

Palmer-Edgecumbe had been involved in an exhibition about the serial killer at the Museum of London Docklands in 2008, and was co-director of a 'Jack the Ripper Museum (London) Limited' company in 2012.^[7] He said he had 'clearly stated' during planning discussions that the Museum of Women's History would be based 'to a large extent' on this Jack the Ripper exhibition, and that the planning document included a number of images from it.^[12]