During campaigning for the 1880 General Election a man was jailed for six months for painting his dog in political colours. The unfortunate animal died after licking the paint. Oswald Puckridge was described as a retired publican. The magistrate didn’t know that he had previously been in court for opening his pub early on a Sunday and would later be sought in connection with the Jack the Ripper murders.

Like many others of the time, Puckridge ruined a promising life with alcohol. He attempted to escape addiction through the Salvation army, wearing their uniform to some of his court appearances. He also hit people with crutches whilst preaching. Said to be an apothecary with surgical training, his eccentricities crossed the insanity line, and he was confined in an asylum from January to August 1888, being released just before the Ripper murders.

The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Charles Warren, claimed that Puckridge had threatened to rip people up with a long knife. City of London Police records indicate that he was traced to a Coffee House where he had slept on every night of the crimes. After that he continued to be sporadically in trouble for drunkenness in Essex and London. He once set fire to his cell and spent more time in asylums. He died in the Holborn workhouse on 1 June 1900.