Jack the Ripper

There is no other serial killer in history that chills the blood or heightens the imagination as much as Jack the Ripper. Over 100 years after the events in Whitechapel the murders are still surrounded in mystery. Over eighty books have been written on the subject and there are thousands of professional and amateur Ripperologists who will enthusiastically expound their own theories. Yet the identity of the killer remains as elusive today as it was in 1888.

Anything between four and eleven crimes at different times have been attributed to Jack the Ripper but most experts now agree with Sir Melville McNaughton who joined Scotland Yard as Assistant Chief Constable in 1889 the year following the crimes. He took an intense interest in the case and in his private notes he wrote “The Whitechapel Murderer had five victims and five victims only”.

Of those five victims the first was Mary (Polly) Nichols who was found murdered in Bucks Row on 31st August 1888 the second was Annie Chapman who was discovered in the rear yard of 29 Hanbury Street in the early hours of 8th September 1888. There then followed a three week lull before the Ripper struck again with a double murder on the night of 30th September 1888. The unfortunate victims three and four were (Long) Liz Stride who was found in the entrance to Dutfield’s Yard Berner Street at approx. 1:00 am and Catherine Eddowes who was discovered in Mitre Square at 1:45 am. All the women had died from a slash to the throat and all except for Liz Stride had been disembowelled. The Ripper, a name given to the killer by the newspapers as the result of a letter received, had struck sheer terror into the heart of the east end. On at least two occasions the beast had been within minutes or even seconds of being discovered and yet each time appeared to melt into the misty shadows of Victorian London.

The Ripper saved his most gruesome crime however for his last victim. On the 9th November 1888 Mary Jane Kelly was murdered around 3:30am in her lodgings at 13 Millers Court, off Dorset Street, Whitechapel. She had been mutilated beyond recognition. The outcry that followed resulted in the then Commissioner for Police Sir Charles Warren’s immediate resignation.

Many theories have been put forward as to the identity of the killer and whether or not the murders were linked by some conspiracy. It has even been suggested that Queen Victoria’s grandson Prince Albert Victor was involved, which, many say, is the reason why the Queen took such an interest in the case. More recently Sir Edward Gull the Queen’s surgeon, Dr Francis Tumblety an American quack doctor and James Maybrick a Liverpool cotton merchant have all been named.

In 1888 however rumours abounded. A leather apron found near the body of Annie Chapman lead to the arrest, and subsequent release, of a Jewish butcher. Many thought it was a foreign sailor from one of the ships in the London Docks. There was even a rumour at one time that the killer was a woman.

Let us leave the last word however with Sir Melvin McNaughton who wrote in his memoranda that he believed the killer to be Montague John Druitt, said to be a failed London Barrister, who disappeared and committed suicide shortly after the last murder and was pulled from the Thames at Chiswick a month later.

Whatever the myths and theories that surround the events of that dreadful autumn of 1888 however, one inescapable fact is that five women, who were already suffering a life of incredible hardship were brutally murdered. I ask you therefore to spare a moment’s thought for the memories of Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Lizzie Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly five unfortunates of Whitechapel.