Paddington' Pollaky, Private Detective Read online

  For Anne-Marie

  Acknowledgements

  Alicia Clarke – Henry S. Sanford Papers, Sanford Museum

  Rosemarie Barthel – Thuringian State Archives, Gotha

  Letter written by C.L. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) reprinted by permission of United Agents on behalf of Morton Cohen, The Trustees of the C.L. Dodgson Estate and Scirard Lancelyn Green

  Held by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

  GEN MSS 103, box 1, folder 53

  Quotations from the Toni and Gustav Stolper Collection 1866–1990 and the photograph of Pollaky courtesy of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York

  2010 Photograph of Paddington Green houses – Pre-Construct Archaeology – www.pre-construct.com

  David Shore – image of Darrell Fancourt

  Mark Beynon and Juanita Zoë Hall – The History Press

  Gill Arnot – Hampshire Museum Services

  Contents

  Title

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  1 In Hungary

  2 Arrival in England

  3 ‘Inspector Bucket’, Lord Lytton, Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston, the Road House Murder and Whicher

  4 Marriage One

  5 Pollaky Alone

  6 Confederate Correspondence

  7 Marriage Two

  8 Sir Richard Mayne

  9 1862 Naturalisation Application – ‘It would be monstrous’

  10 The Casebook of Ignatius Pollaky

  11 An Interview with Pollaky

  12 Dickens, Lewis Carroll, W.S. Gilbert, and others

  13 Retirement

  14 Naturalisation

  15 Death

  Appendices

  i ‘Small-Beer Chronicles’ (Dickens)

  ii ‘The Agony Column’

  iii ‘Polly Perkins of Paddington Green’

  iv The Colonel’s Song etc. (Gilbert and Sullivan)

  Bibliography and Sources

  Plates

  Copyright

  Introduction

  Some time ago I was driving my car on the way home from a singing engagement, singing the Colonel’s song from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience to myself. This involves a long list of people of the type to make up a ‘heavy dragoon’, and includes the name ‘Paddington Pollaky’. I couldn’t remember who he was – I had known once. I decided to check at the earliest opportunity. Who would have guessed that this would lead me to write an opera about him as well as this book?

  My initial researches led me to look at the ‘Agony Column’ of The Times. Here was subject matter for musicalisation. Why not write an opera about the mysterious people who advertised there? What if Paddington Pollaky, who was one of them, was an important character in the piece? What if he were the main character? I began to work out a plot. This involved a certain amount of research into his life. I gathered a huge amount of facts, some of which had not been examined much before, and certainly not placed in juxtaposition with each other. It seemed that a biography was inevitable. There were frustrations as well as successes, and you will read about some of them in the following pages. I have tried to find original sources for everything, and not to rely only upon rumour and tradition. Where there is doubt, I have indicated it.

  An investigation into Pollaky and his life must necessarily be hampered by the fact that he destroyed all his case records. Nevertheless, plenty of material exists, buried away in newspaper and court reports, and hidden in archives in various cities. Among these are a number of documents, which, if not of huge historical import, lend a new colour to certain famous events of the past.

  He was a fascinating character. Described variously as Detective, Private Investigator, and Adventurer, he was also an Alien Hunter (aliens of the foreign kind), and evidently something of a busybody, but one who seems genuinely to have had the best interests of others at heart. He himself often felt frustrated at the stubbornness of some of those around him – but more of that in its place.

  W.S. Gilbert mentions Pollaky in three of his dramatic pieces – No Cards, An Old Score, and most famously, Patience. Even Charles Dickens and Lewis Carroll wrote about him. You can read about these references in Chapter 12 and in the Appendices.

  My voyage of discovery has taken me to a number of archives in London; involved numerous emails and letters to archives and copyright holders in England, America, Germany, and Slovakia; and involved a trip to Bratislava in an attempt to uncover any little detail of Pollaky’s early life which might remain in his birthplace.

  I have quoted letters, newspaper articles, and reports at length, preferring to let Pollaky and those who wrote about him speak for themselves, but I have added commentary as guidance to these passages when necessary. Many of the items can be read as stand-alone short stories, worthy of dipping into, although I hope that the reader will make an effort to get to know this unusual man by following his story in its entirety. The book almost follows a chronological order, but inevitably if one wishes to follow the threads of a life in a connected way, some concessions have to be made. Being naturally averse to endnotes, and in particular to wretched jargon (e.g. ibid. and loc. cit.), I have included information that might be put there in the body of the text. There is, however, a comprehensive bibliography at the end. All transcriptions of handwritten letters were made by me (except for that of Lewis Carroll). I have not indicated pagination in those letters, nor have I kept the original number of words per line.

  But firstly to Mystery Number One – who was Ignatius Paul Pollaky?

  In 1909 George Routledge & Sons published a book by James Redding Ware called Passing English of the Victorian Era. The following definition appears on page 185:

  O Pollaky ! (Peoples’, 1870). Exclamation of protest against too urgent enquiries. From an independent, self-constituted, foreign detective, who resided on Paddington Green, and became famous for his mysterious and varied advertisements, which invariably ended with his name (accent on the second syllable), and his address.

  This definition by no means tells the whole story, but it’s a start. ‘Peoples’ 1870’ refers to the origin of the expression (a slang word of the man in the street), and the year it came into use. We learn that ‘Pollaky’ should not be pronounced as Pollaky (as in the song from Patience) but Pollaky, with the stress on the second syllable. Ware is wrong on one count, though: Pollaky did not invariably finish his advertisements with his address (and, who knows, may not always have used his name either).

  Bryan Kesselman, 2015

  1

  In Hungary

  Pressburg, Hungary, 1838. Summer – late afternoon. School over, a 10-year-old boy and two friends climb in and around the castle ruins that look out over the Danube, its high walls dominating the view of the city from the other side of the river. Their chatter is all nonsense, of course, to everyone but themselves; and their shrieks of laughter as they imitate their teacher who talks through his nose and is often angry because the class doesn’t pay attention in these hot days, echo around the castle walls. Then, suddenly, a woman’s voice calls, ‘Ignatz, come at once, your father wants you to carry his violin.’

  ‘Coming,’ he calls.

  ‘Just look at your clothes! Go and change at once, don’t let your father see you like that.’

  And so on. Is this a possible scene from the boyhood of Ignatius Paul Pollaky? So few details exist of his early life in Hungary, that I have made this up. All that follows, however, is fact. In this chapter, I have detailed a little of the detective work I attempted in my efforts to uncover previously unknown facts.

  In 1914, Ignatius Paul Pollaky applied (for the second time
) to become a British Citizen. He told Detective Superintendent Charles Forward of the Brighton Police that he was born in Pressburg (Pozsony), Hungary, on the 19 February 1828.

  His father was Joseph Francis Pollaky, a Common Councillor according to his 1861 Marriage Certificate, or a Private Correspondent and Musician according to his 1914 naturalisation papers as recorded by Detective Superintendent Forward.

  Had Joseph Pollaky been accorded the honorary title Regierungsrath? This title nominally denotes a government official, but in countries ruled by Austria, as Hungary was at that time, it was a title awarded for meritorious services which might equate with ‘common councillor’. Ignatius’s mother was Minna Pollaky; both parents were Hungarian subjects. Pressburg is now called Bratislava, and is the capital city of Slovakia. It has had a number of names over the years, often with alternative spellings: Posonium, Pisonium, Posony, Pozsony, Presburg, Preßburg, Pressporek and Poson are examples. The name Bratislava has been in use since 1919, the year after Pollaky’s death. As you will read later, in 1863 he went back to Pressburg during an investigation, and would surely have visited his parents if they were still alive.

  According to the announcement of Pollaky’s 1861 marriage his father’s middle name was François, and the Pollaky family address in Pressburg was Old Castle Hill. The castle is on a hill, but there is and was no street name that exactly translates in that way. Of course, it is possible that he simply meant that they lived on the side of the hill upon which the old castle stands. From 1811, after a disastrous fire destroyed it, until 1957, when restoration work began, the castle was in ruins, a shell, and that is how young Ignatius would have known it. One might imagine him, as suggested above, wandering around the ruin, and gazing out over the Danube to the land that lay south of the river and beyond.

  The spelling of these names follows English conventions, and it is more likely that father and son were in reality Josef Franz and Ignatz or Ignaz Pál Polák(y). The surname Pollaky is fairly uncommon, so much so that it is tempting to make use of all sorts of scraps of information, even if they lead nowhere. What, for example, should be made of a letter written from Vienna (in German) in 1868 by a married lady called Julie Pollaky to Sir George Airy, Astronomer Royal in England, in which she asks for any information he might have about her brother? Her brother, August Weiss, bears little connection to this investigation, nor does she – but her husband is possibly a member of the Pollaky clan. (In the event, Airy replied, in English, that he knew nothing of the lady’s brother – and there the matter rests, we don’t know why Julie Pollaky thought that he should know anything.) Of more interest, perhaps, though still as mysterious, is a notice printed in Budapest (also in German) in November 1885 announcing the death of one Fanny Modern, whose maiden name was Pollak [sic]. Among the mourners listed are Ignatz Pollaky, brother, and Marie Pollaky (relationship not listed).

  Finding information about Pollaky’s early life proved extremely difficult. Were the Pollaky family in Pressburg comfortably off? What was their religion? Polak, Pollak, Pollack etc. are often (but not necessarily) names of Jewish families. On the other hand there are baptismal records in Slovakia from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries showing a small number of Pollakys who were Roman Catholic. The surname implies that a male ancestor was from Poland. He was married twice after he arrived in England, both times in a (Church of England) church ceremony, and all his children were baptised. What did his family and friends call him? – Ignatz, Ignatius, Paul, or perhaps Náci (which is a shortened version of Ignatius). The last is pronounced na:tsi, which now has other connotations but did not then.

  First theory: since I found no records of an Ignatius Pollaky (or variation of that name) born in 1828, or in the years either side, in Bratislava, Slovakia, or any part of what was Hungary or Austria, I contacted a genealogist based in Slovakia who suggested the following was a possible match: on 1 May 1829 a child was baptised at the (Roman Catholic) Blumentál church in Pressburg under the name Franciscus Polák. His father was also called Franciscus Polák and his mother Maria Polák (née Woszinger). All first names were written in Latin, and so it seems likely that Franciscus Polák was in reality Franz. It seemed quite possible that Minna (Pollaky’s mother’s name) might be a diminutive of Maria. Could it not be that the child was baptised with his father’s name though he might grow up known by another?

  But I did not feel satisfied with identifying this Franciscus Polák with Ignatius Paul Pollaky, and so as not to leave a stone unturned, I decided that it was necessary to make a visit to Bratislava, the one-time Pressburg, the city (now in Slovakia) in which Pollaky claimed to have been born. A brief record of my visit follows, leaving out most details that are not relevant to my researches. My discoveries, or lack of them, will become clear. One thing is certain, though: I walked in places where the subject of this book walked as a child and young man, and saw buildings that he must have seen.

  Sunday, 6 April 2014

  The plane landed at Vienna Airport at 10.30 a.m. The bus to Bratislava took only one hour. There was no border control as we entered Slovakia.

  In the afternoon I walked to Bratislava Castle. Entry was free, but it cost 2 euros for permission to take photos inside. The castle has been beautifully restored from the dreadful ruin it was, with white plastered walls inside and out. But the place is incredibly sterile as a result. The souvenir shop had nothing to recommend, but the old books – calendars and almanacs – displayed on the top floor of the castle museum were interesting.

  Monday, 7 April

  I left the hotel and began to walk towards the Slovenský Národný Archív, Drotárska Cesta (Slovak National Archives) – a long walk. I eventually managed to board a 207 bus which took me most of the rest of the way. The remainder was then uphill and downhill: a hot sun and a cool breeze.

  I arrived at the archive building at 9.30 a.m. They found a young lady who spoke English quite well. With her and two Slovak speakers we were able to establish that they would have no information relevant to my researches there. They thought at first I was after records from 1928 and were surprised when they found they were 100 years out. But they were able to direct me to two more archives in Bratislava. By 10.30 a.m., when I left, the sun was stronger and the breeze weaker. I returned to the city centre. The Old Town is very pretty, though there is too much graffiti.

  At noon I arrived at the second archive: Štátny Archív, Križkova 5 (State Archives). The two young men I met there were also very helpful. They spoke little English, but managed to tell me that it was now lunchtime and that their colleagues were now all out. They recommended the third archive as recommended by the previous one. But they took my email address and a photocopy of a page in a Bratislava guidebook I had found in the hotel which mentioned Pollaky.

  Tuesday, 8 April

  I took a taxi to the Archiv Hlavného Mesta SR Bratislavy (Bratislava City Archives), Markova 1. The lady I met there spoke Slovak and German. We used the latter to communicate with, and that proved most satisfactory. She knew nothing of the name Pollaky, only Polák and Polágh, and found a copy, in Slovak, of the reply to an email I had sent to the archive which translates as follows:

  In respect of information about a family named Pollaky, who allegedly lived in Bratislava around the year 1828 we inform you that in Bratislava there is no such name. At that time they lived several families named Polak Pollak Polagh etc. (but not the name Pollaky). We have no directories or census of inhabitants for the given year in our archive. If you wish to consult the archival documents, the archive reading room of the Bratislava City is open to the public from Monday to Thursday.

  And this despite the fact that I knew the name Pollaky had existed. I filled in a form on the subject of my researches, which she kept. She then brought me a huge old tome with births of children in the Blumentál Church area entitled Rodný Index Nové Mesto Blumentál 1770–1888. (I had mentioned finding details of Poláks mentioned in records of that area.) I read there of births with
no other details except years. Could one of these be Ignatius – Josephus Polák born 1827, or Franciscus Polák born 1830? They seemed vaguely possible.

  She then brought me a print-out from the Mormon Family Search website which listed the baptism of an Ignatius Polák on 31 July 1819 – Father: Josephus Polák, Mother: Marina Vincek.

  I pointed out that 1819 was nine years too early, had this been the man I was after he would have been ninety-nine when he died – just about possible, I supposed. Had he therefore lied about his age to make himself appear younger than he really was? I wouldn’t put it past him; vanity might be the explanation. My helper then suggested that the Ignatius Polák listed might have died as a child, but that the parents had another son later to whom they gave the same name. Such things are known to have happened, but there are no records to confirm this.

  This family lived in Malacky, some twenty-two miles north of Bratislava (Pressburg), but close enough for someone to claim that they came from the more impressive place; after all, my grandfather was born in the little village of Przedecz in Poland, but often claimed he was from Warsaw. It was also possible that the family had moved from Malacky to Pressburg before the next son was born, or, if Ignatius Paul Pollaky had been born in 1819 in Malacky, and baptised there in the Kuchya church, they might have moved to Pressburg when he was still an infant.

  After lunch I visited the Bratislava Museum of City History. I learned there that the Jewish Quarter (now largely demolished) was below the castle area, and this would have been on the side of the hill. This is relevant if one considers the possibility that Pollaky may have been Jewish by birth. There are no Jewish Pollakys listed anywhere, but there were Jewish families called Pollak living in Bratislava, as I discovered by contacting people listed on JewishGen website who were researching that name in that area, though I found no likely Jewish connection at that time.