Since my discovery of James Maybrick being listed with a London address in an 1866 newspaper article from Northampton, it has been suggested to me on the Casebook.org forum that I could be promoting a lemon. In the article I cited, the address listed is 46 Lime Street (see below), and there is a famous Lime Street in Liverpool. With Maybrick being from Liverpool, the lack of explicitness in the address leaves it open to interpretation. Fair point.

1866 Northampton Mercury

BITTER-SWEET

Since all the London addresses in the same article are implied without explicit reference to London, I assumed the same was happening here. I guess as an amateur researcher; I was happy to accept this on its own merits. So, I decided I should carry on digging.

EASY PEASY?

1866 Aldershot Gazette

To my surprise, I found him again with this mystical 1866 address. However, my problem remained. The address was not explicit.

DID GORE’S HAVE THE SWEET TRUTH?

There are many business directories from the Victorian era which allow you to see where businesses resided and even where notable individuals lived. I managed to access Gore’s Liverpool directories for 1865 and 1867 (there was none for 1866). All references to 46 Lime Street did not show James Maybrick either in business or living at that address. It did, however, appear this was some kind of shared building with numerous companies. Maybe Maybrick used this communal building as some kind of postal address? Perhaps the man of law Edward Mingaud was taking in his post?

1867 Gore’s Liverpool Directory

SCHUTZ THE DOOR!

Then something rather remarkable happened. Whilst searching through the 1871 edition of ‘The Liverpool Commercial List’, look at what popped up…

The Liverpool Commercial List (1871)

So, naturally, I was intrigued. Who was this G.C. Schutz individual? What was James Maybrick’s connection to him?

Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States (1865)
Mercantile Navy List (1866)

WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LIMES…

I still cannot prove that the 46 Lime Street address in the newspaper articles is Lime Street in London, but I have 45 Lime Street in London conclusively linked to James Maybrick. This means the likelihood of 46 Lime Street being in London is incredibly likely.

A MAYBRICK CHRISTMAS CAROL

Somewhat bizarrely, the residence of Ebeneezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s festive novella ‘A Christmas Carol’ (1843) was believed to be 46 Lime Street. Dickens does not explicitly give an exact address, but many believe the clues refer to this address.
UPDATE: Jack the Ripper researcher David Barrat, has found confirmation that the earliest reference to this idea of 46 Lime Street being Scrooge’s home address came from a 1933 article by Gwen Major entitled ‘Scrooge’s Chambers’, which was published in volume 29 of the Dickensian journal.

WHY DOES THIS ADDRESS MATTER?

It matters for two reasons. The first is that there is solid evidence that shows James Maybrick was conducting (at the very least) a lot of business in the City of London during the late 1860s, which also endorses the idea of him living in London with his “wife” Sarah Ann Roberston around this time.

The second one is my favourite. 45 Lime Street in London is a 5-minute walk from Mitre Square, the murder site of Catherine Eddowes.

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    Jack the Ripper, James Maybrick