The Routledge Handbook of Jack the Ripper Studies is now available for pre-order on Kindle. This is a high-quality multi-disciplinary work on the Whitechapel murders of 1888, comprising eight themes and forty chapters by experts in their fields. I contributed Chapter 13, Copycat and Legacy Killings. Abstract below. This chapter will look at various other […]
During the search for Jack the Ripper members of the public wrote to the newspapers and the police with their theories. On 3 October 1888 the Daily Telegraph published a letter from X of St Albans who reported that a lunatic, considered dangerous to women, had escaped from Leavesden asylum the previous year. His name […]
On 27 September 1888 a letter signed by Jack the Ripper arrived at the Central News Agency. The writer claimed to be responsible for the recent murders in Whitechapel and threatened more. On the morning of 30 September two women were killed. The next day a postcard was received from the same writer, which some […]
On 19 September 1888 Sir Charles Warren, Head of the Metropolitan police, named a suspect in the search for a murderer who would soon be called Jack the Ripper. He wrote: “A man named Puckeridge was released from an asylum on 4 August. He was educated as a surgeon – has threatened to rip people […]
I am often asked to recommend a book about Jack the Ripper. My answer is always Phillip Sugden’s Complete History. First published in 1994 this is a masterclass of quality research presented in a readable narrative. It persuaded historians to take the topic seriously, with the forthcoming Routledge Handbook showcasing the growing interest of professionals […]
One of the interesting aspects of Jack the Ripper research is the discovery of coincidences and connections between seemingly unrelated events or individuals. In October 1895 newspapers published an interview with a recently released prisoner about her encounters with Florence Maybrick in Woking Prison. In 1889 Florence was convicted of poisoning her husband, James Maybrick, […]
In August 1882 London magistrates began to lose patience with William Onion. Earlier that year he accepted a new life in Quebec with his travel paid by a benefactor. On the train going to the boat he absconded and went on a drunken rampage in Canning Town. The media claimed he had over two-hundred convictions. […]
On 15 August 1914 the poet John Barlas died in the Gartnavel Royal Asylum, Glasgow, aged 54. According to his friend, Robert Sherard, Barlas gave away his fortune and became destitute. On New Years Eve 1891 he fired a revolver at the House of Commons. Oscar Wilde paid part of his bail. Afterwards his mental […]
I began my quest to identify the Jack the Ripper victim known as Mary Jane Kelly with over a thousand possibilities. Slowly and painstakingly that list has halved by tracing those who could not have been murdered in 1888. In 1997 genealogist Peter Birchwood identified a Kelly family in Carnarvon at the time of the […]
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