Jack the Ripper
Authors: The Whitechapel Society
JACK THE RIPPER – WHO IS HE? From the front cover of
Puck
, 21 September 1889. (Courtesy of Stewart P. Evans)
The Whitechapel Society gratefully acknowledges the following for the material and the assistance they have provided: The Bancroft Library; The Bishopsgate Institute; British Library Newspapers; The National Archives; Winchester College Archives;
www.casebook.org
;
www.jtrforums.com
; Mark Galloway; Petrina Thompson; Richard Nash; Peter Leyland; Alyn Smith; Richard Clarke; Thomas Toughill; Nicholas Connell; Robert Smith; Roger Palmer and Stewart P. Evans.
A special thank you to our membership for their continued support.
The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the individual authors and do not represent The Whitechapel Society as a whole.
By Robin Odell
The History of The Whitechapel Society
By Frogg Moody
1.
The Beatification of Joseph Barnett
By Mickey Mayhew
By Christine Warman
3.
Severin Klosowski, alias George Chapman
By Sue Parry
4.
More Likely than Cutbush: Montague John Druitt
By Adrian Morris
By M.J. Trow
6.
The Mysteries of Aaron Kosminski
By Philip Marquis
7.
James Maybrick: Ripper Suspect
By Chris Jones
By Ian Porter
By Joe Chetcuti
By M.W. Oldridge
11.
Suspects: The Best (or Worst) of the Rest
By William Beadle
The Jack the Ripper murders, committed in 1888 in London’s Whitechapel, are etched into the public psyche. The killings were a criminal benchmark, against which subsequent murderers have been measured. For example, those committed by Peter Sutcliffe – the Yorkshire Ripper, Andrei Chikatilo – the Red Ripper of Rostov and Daniel Rolling – the Gainesville Ripper.
That the Whitechapel Murders have never been solved adds to their fascination. The combination of dingy Victorian streets, blood on the cobblestones, ephemeral clues, fumbling investigators and an unknown mutilator lurking in the shadows, has all the ingredients of a story that continues to captivate the imagination.
Yet, while the crimes remain unsolved, they are not without suspects. In a memorandum penned in 1894, Sir Melville Macnaghten, Head of CID at Scotland Yard, wrote of the murders that, ‘…many homicidal lunatics were suspected…’ He went on to name three of them, two of whom – Druitt and Kosminski – are included in this anthology. Sir Melville would, no doubt, have been astounded to see how the list of suspects has grown over the years.
From a cast of well over a hundred, the names of ten suspects have been selected for inclusion in this book. They include a member of the Royal Family, a barrister, an artist, a brace of hairdressers, a doctor, a quack, a businessman, a fish porter, and a wife murderer. To qualify as a suspect for a criminal offence, there must be reasonable grounds for suspicion, based on knowledge of the person and their background, and what in police circles might be called ‘previous’, as well as information about conduct and actions.
Common sense suggests that those regarded as suspects in the hunt for the Whitechapel murderer should be measured against a number of investigative criteria. For example, was the suspect known to be in the locality at the time the murders were committed? Was he familiar with the streets and alleyways of the area? Was his appearance such as to create fear or suspicion? How well did he blend into the social background and street scene?
This approach was supported and put on a more professional basis during the centenary year of the murders, in 1988, when American crime profilers applied their knowledge of modern serial killers to the known facts about the Whitechapel Murders. These experts concluded that Jack the Ripper was, almost certainly, male and a person of limited education, intelligence and resources. He probably lived and worked in the locale and would have been normal in appearance and, consequently, not someone who would have invoked suspicion. In profilers` parlance, he was a disorganised serial killer.
Urged on by his paranoid personality, he waited for the right opportunity in order to fulfil his killing instincts. He targeted prostitutes as they were easy prey for the opportunist who readily merged with the local street culture. He was a predator in his own time and place. After each murder, swiftly executed and followed by equally rapid mutilation of his victims, he melted away into the shadows of his comfort zone. Once safely off the streets, likely as not, he was within earshot of the hue and cry breaking out in the neighbourhood at the discovery of a fresh killing.
There is another conceivable measure of the suspect and that is his familiarity with the knife. The hallmark throat-cutting, inflicted on each of the five victims, cannot be denied, nor the swift mutilation and excision of organs which usually followed. A knife was clearly an essential tool of the Ripper’s murderous trade. Of our ten chosen suspects, we might suppose that the doctor and the quack knew how to use a scalpel and that the hair-dressers would be familiar with cut-throat razors. On the other hand, of course, anyone might use a knife when compelled to violence.
So, there are some considered criteria against which Ripper suspects might be measured. Readers will judge the suspects chosen by our contributors and form their own opinions.
In some cases, there might be evidence, or arguments, that will be sufficient to keep a particular suspect in the frame. In others, there may be evidence which eliminates a suspect from consideration and, thereby, clears his name. Alternatively, the conclusion reached, after analysing all that is presented about the candidates for the Ripper’s mantle, might simply be ‘suspect unknown’.
It is the mystery that has sustained the pursuit of Jack the Ripper’s identity over such a long period. It is in the natural order of things to want to fill a vacuum and, certainly, there is a void at the heart of the story of the Whitechapel Murders. Perhaps one of our contributors has finally pierced the shadows and directed a spotlight at the true suspect?
Researchers consistently uncover new information, such as the recent revelation about Montague Druitt. The discovery that he was denied membership of the Oxford Union, in 1876, brought new light to bear on what is arguably the most enigmatic remark made about any of the suspects; Macnaghten referred to Druitt as being ‘sexually insane’. This indicated that the essence of Druitt’s sexual orientation had already been recognised. The case is made that the sources for this contention were his contemporaries at Oxford. These included Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, Private Secretary to the Home Secretary at the time, and Thomas Tuke, owner of the Chiswick Asylum, located close to the spot where Druitt’s body was recovered from the River Thames. The likelihood is that Dr Tuke, who later treated Druitt’s mother, was the doctor who declared that her son was ‘sexually insane’.
We must, of course, keep an open mind, even in the face of apparently compelling arguments. The conduct of research and the recording of history depend on the questing spirit which is not seduced by vapours of the final, definitive word having been pronounced on any subject. We might agree with Francis Bacon when he wrote of suspicion, ‘there is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know a little.
Robin Odell, 2011
Toughill, T.,
The Ripper Code
(The History Press, 2008)
Bacon, F.,
Essays: On Suspicion
(1625)
Since its establishment by Mark Galloway in 1995, The Whitechapel Society (formerly ‘The Cloak and Dagger Club’) has fostered the advancement of studies into The Whitechapel Murders and the social history of the Victorian & Edwardian East End.
When Mark Galloway founded the ‘Cloak & Dagger Club’ back in 1995, he could not have envisaged that it would eventually develop into The Whitechapel Society and the international organisation it has become today. Mark’s first real interest in ‘Jack’ came about when, as a twelve-year-old boy, he came across a book in his local library on the history of the Metropolitan Police, which contained a whole chapter on the Whitechapel Murders and Jack the Ripper. What really interested Mark, like so many of us, was the fact that they never caught the killer.
It was years later that Mark (who is now ‘Lifelong Honorary President’ of The Whitechapel Society) decided to follow up his early interest and, together with some like-minded people, organised a gathering for a discussion on Jack the Ripper. Gradually the idea consolidated into the notion of a regular club, with a membership list and a bi-monthly meeting – an event that would also include a guest speaker to give a lecture or talk. An ambitious beginning, but the ‘Cloak and Dagger Club’ was born.
After several successful meetings, it was decided to introduce a membership newsletter; this was the beginning of what would eventually become the highly respected magazine
The Whitechapel Journal
. Society member Paul Daniel was the very first editor and he took the early magazine to a new dimension, producing a first-class publication containing historical articles, book reviews and all the latest research into Jack the Ripper and associated East End of London history.
In 2005, it was decided to rename the club ‘The Whitechapel Society’ and to ask the question of not who was Jack the Ripper, but why was Jack the Ripper? This simple question allowed us to broaden our research into the Whitechapel Murders of 1888, by looking at a whole spectrum of other, closely related issues. These issues are important because they give us a better understanding of Jack the Ripper, by looking at the world he lived in and what was happening around him. This has resulted in The Whitechapel Society researching and studying workhouses, poverty maps, social conditions, Victorian policing methods and lodging houses and more, resulting in published articles and presentations by, not only Whitechapel Society members, but some of the country’s leading experts.