A Jack the Ripper author is investigating a link to East Ayrshire as part of a brand new book.
Swedish author Stefan Rantzow is exploring connections one of the Ripper’s victims had to one of the region’s villages in a bid to find out more about the tragic young woman.
Elizabeth Stride was 44 when the UK’s most notorious murderer, still unknown to this day, killed her in a yard in London on October 6, 1888.
Stride, who was known as Elizabeth Gustafsdotter, worked as a maid for a couple, Maria Ingrid Wiesner and Carl Wenzel Wiesner, in her homeland of Sweden in 1865.
When Stride moved to Gothenburg, the country’s capital city, the Wiesners’ daughter, Maria Josefina Elisabeth Wiesner, married Alexander Boswell Thomson, who was dispatched to Gothenburg from Newmilns as the Fields family’s lace-making empire went global, setting up factories in both Barcelona along with the Scandinavian nation.
Thomson, born in Newmilns in 1863, was part of a envoy dispatched to Scandinavia to teach locals how to use the machinery.
After Thomson and Wiesner married, the whole family eventually moved back to Newmilns and put down roots and lived in the area until their dying day.
The Swedish family also have a headstone in Newmilns cemetery to this very day.
Speaking to the Kilmarnock Standard, Stefan Rantzow said: “I have always been very interested in mysteries and unsolved crimes, especially the history of Jack the Ripper and his victims.
“One of them was a Swedish woman, named Elizabeth Gustafsdotter which caught my interest many years ago, very much because there is a big lack of information about her, especially her life here in Sweden.
“In the year of 2007 I decided to find all the relatives of Elizabeth, which I did. Then I started to find other relatives connected to Elizabeth. I wanted to know if any of them knew anything about Elizabeth, every detail was of interest. Over the years I have found many interesting unknown facts about her.
“In 2007 I decided to write a book about Elizabeth and the people closely connected to her, which I am about to finish very soon. It’s a gigantic work that has taken much longer than I thought.
“Still some unsolved questions are to be solved. One of them is, what happened to Maria Ingrid Wiesner, her daughter and a son who all went to Scotland? The connection between Maria Ingrid Wiesner and Elizabeth is very interesting.”
Such is Stefan’s interest in Elizabeth’s tragic case that in 2007 he managed to find 16 people in Sweden who are related to Elizabeth Stride (Gustafsdotter).
Three of them, the Jacobson brothers, became very interested in the research which resulted in a trip to London in the summer of 2008. In London they visited all the places related to Elizabeth which included her gravesite. This was the first time any of her relatives visited her grave.
Back in Newmilns in 1897, Wiesner and Thomson continued work in the lace making industry. Alexander Boswell Thomson had two more daughters in the village, named Hildur and Agnes. Three of the four daughters married, all to locals, according to Stefan’s research.
Alex Josef Wiesner married a woman named Maggie Wright in 1901. They had a son who died very young in 1905. They also had a daughter, named Maria Maggie Wiesner who married William Hamilton, a lace weaver, in 1937 in Newmilns.
Eleven members of the family are buried at Newmilns cemetery. Their names are as follows: Maria Ingrid Wiesner, died on October 22, 1915; Alex Josef Wiesner, died on April 6, 1942; Maggie Wright, died on March 3, 1943; Axel (died in 1905) and Maria Maggie Wiesner;
Maria Josefin Elisabeth Thomson (born Wiesner) died on March 22, 1956 in Govan; Alexander Boswell Thomson, died on September 17, 1942; Mary Reid, Janet, Hildur and Agnes Thomson.
Stefan is now keen to hear from anyone in the area that knew the family and may have some information to share.
He added: “I am looking for relatives of the Wiesner and the Thomson families. Are there any relatives living in the Newmilns area today, or somewhere else? What happened to Mary Reid, Janet, Hildur and Agnes Thomson? Did Maria Maggie Wiesner have any children? All information is of interest.”
You can reach Stefan at stefan_rantzow7@hotmail.com
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