| Frederick Abberline | |
| Birth Name: | Frederick George Abberline |
| Birth Date: | 1843 1, df=yes |
| Birth Place: | Blandford Forum, Dorset, England |
| Death Place: | Springbourne, Hampshire,[1] England |
| Spouse: | |
| Rank: | Chief inspector for the London Metropolitan Police |
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.
Born in Blandford Forum, Dorset, England, Abberline was the youngest son of Edward Abberline, a saddlemaker, sheriff's officer and clerk of the market, minor local government positions; and his wife Hannah (Chinn). Edward Abberline died in 1849, and his widow opened a small shop and brought up her four children, Emily, Harriett, Edward and Frederick, alone.
Frederick was a clockmaker until he left home to go to London, where he enlisted in the Metropolitan Police on 5 January 1863, being appointed to N Division (Islington) with the Warrant Number 43519. PC Abberline so impressed his superiors that they promoted him to Sergeant two years later on 19 August 1865. On his promotion he moved to Y Division (Highgate). Throughout 1867 he investigated Fenian activities as a plainclothes officer.[2] He was promoted to Inspector on 10 March 1873, and three days later, on 13 March, transferred to H Division in Whitechapel. On 8 April 1878 Abberline was appointed Local Inspector in charge of H Division's CID.On 26 February 1887 Abberline transferred to A Division (Whitehall), and then moved to CO Division (Central Office) at Scotland Yard on 19 November 1887, being promoted to Inspector First-Class on 9 February 1888 and to Chief Inspector on 22 December 1890. Following the murder of Mary Ann Nichols on 31 August 1888, Abberline was seconded back to Whitechapel due to his extensive experience in the area. He was placed in charge of the various detectives investigating the Ripper murders. Chief Inspector Walter Dew, then a detective constable in Whitechapel's H Division in 1888, knew Abberline and, while describing him as sounding and looking like a bank manager, also stated that his knowledge of the area made him one of the most important members of the Whitechapel murder investigation team.[3]
Among the many suspects in the case, Abberline's primary suspect was George Chapman (Severin Antoniovich Klosowski). That theory was reiterated decades later by Robert Milne, MFSSoc, FFS, FA IA-IP, who had recently retired from the Metropolitan Police Directorate of Forensic Services. He presented a paper about the case to the International Association for Identification Conference in 2011 and to the Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences in 2014, suggesting Chapman as the most likely the Ripper. Based on his expertise, review of investigation documents, and the use of geographical profiling software, he was convinced that the killer lived in the area of the murders. Chapman fit that bill accurately. Milne also pointed out that Chapman "a now known serial poisoner of women" ... "would go out carrying a small bag, not coming home until 4:30 a.m.", according to his estranged wife. In his 2014 paper, Milne also discussed a 1902 murder victim (1901 according to some sources), Mary Ann Austin, who had described a client before her death. According to Milne, "a Russian 5ft 7 inches tall with a black moustache [who] visited Mary and in the course of having sex stabbed her and tried to cut out her uterus".[4] [5] (Austin died of ten wounds to her abdomen, inflicted at Annie Chapman's former home, Crossingham's Lodging House, at 35, Dorset Street.)[6]
Among Abberline's theories about the murders, one suggested that the crimes could have been perpetrated by a female killer.[7]
Abberline was subsequently involved in the investigation of the Cleveland Street scandal in 1889. This case left him disenchanted with police work, convinced that there had been cover-ups by his superiors; if so, this was because, during the investigation, some sources claimed that the Duke of Clarence, Queen Victoria's grandson, had been a frequent visitor to the homosexual brothel on Cleveland Street. That was Abberline's last major case.[8]
Chief Inspector Abberline retired from the police on 8 February 1892, having received 84 commendations and awards.[9]
Abberline was married twice: once in March 1868 to 25-year-old Martha Mackness, the daughter of a labourer, from Elton, Northamptonshire; she died of tuberculosis two months after the marriage. On 17 December 1876 Abberline married 32-year-old Emma Beament, the daughter of a merchant, from Hoxton New Town, Shoreditch. The marriage lasted until Frederick's death over 50 years later. They had no children.
On his retirement from the Metropolitan Police, he returned to Bournemouth and was hired by the Pinkerton Detective Agency in 1904. Initially, he worked in casinos in Monte Carlo to find customers who were cheating. He then returned to England and continued working for the agency, until another retirement in 1904. He then bought a home, "Estcourt", 195 Holdenhurst Road, Springbourne, Bournemouth.[10] [11]
Abberline died on 10 December 1929, aged 86, just under three months before his wife Emma,[12] and was buried in Bournemouth at Wimborne Road Cemetery. A blue plaque commemorating Abberline was unveiled at 195 Holdenhurst Road (now divided into flats) on 29 September 2001.[13] In 2007, following a campaign for Abberline's unmarked grave to be recognised, and with the approval of his surviving relatives, a black granite headstone, inscribed and donated by a local stonemason, was erected on the grave where Abberline and Emma are buried.[14]
Several fictional retellings of the events surrounding the Jack the Ripper murders have cast Abberline in a lead role. The suggestion is often but erroneously made for the sake of drama that Abberline was unmarried and formed an attachment to one of the women connected to the events. The two most popular film depictions have also cast him as an addict, for which there is no known historical basis.