In 1960 author and researcher, Colin Wilson, wrote a series of articles for the London Evening Standard about Jack the Ripper. Afterwards he received several letters, three of which intrigued him. One alleged that Jack the Ripper had died in an asylum run by the writer’s father. Another recounted a story from artist, Walter Sickert, about a young veterinary student suspected by his landlord. The third was from a brain surgeon who believed that Wilson knew the truth about Jack the Ripper and asked to meet him for lunch.

The meeting took place at the Athenaeum Club, which opened 64 years before the Ripper murders. The surgeon, Thomas Stowell, suspected the Duke of Clarence, Queen Victoria’s grandson, of being Jack the Ripper. Stowell claimed to have seen papers belonging to Sir William Gull, the Queen’s surgeon which proved this. Wilson respected Stowell’s wishes not to make the revelations public, although he did tell some others including the editor of the Criminologist, Nigel Morland.

Morland persuaded Stowell to publish his theory. He called the suspect S, with sufficient clues to identify him as Clarence. This led to a television appearance for Stowell and then a letter from him to The Times, denying that he said the murderer was of royal blood. This was published on 9 November, a day after Stowell’s death and 82 years to the day since Jack the Ripper’s most notorious crime. Contemporary evidence proves Clarence’s innocence, but this theory inspired books and movies that expanded to accuse Sir William Gull and Walter Sickert.