Rumours and Half-Truths

Please don't put any straight history here. You may link historical material here, but this is a place we want carefully sectioned-off so that people know what's what. I've started us off with an example so you see what I've got in mind.

-- ChrisLehrich^? - 30 Dec 2004

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Mysterious Origin Explained

• I note that the Superintendent of M (Southwark) Division of the MetropolitanPolice was in 1888, according to Charles Dickens Jr., “Denis Neylan.” (See Met. Div. M). Dickens’s Dictionary is very well edited, but not without the odd typographical error; could this be Denis Nayland? The spelling "Denis" could hardly have been common, being a very French spelling. And is it possible that this was the father of Sir Denis Nayland Smith, the arch-enemy of Dr. Fu Manchu in the 1920s? It might explain, at least, why Smith always got on so well with the police. The name change may indicate that his father (the police Superintendent might have been his uncle, of course) married very much above his station, to a Miss Smith of high estate, and that they added her name to his (Nayland-Smith or Nayland Smith) in order to preserve genealogy. It is unfortunate indeed that Smith is such a common name, but perhaps a search of the families of peers might turn her up? -- ChrisLehrich^? - 31 Dec 2004

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