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 up with a long knife. He is being looked for but cannot be found as yet.”

 Oswald Puckridge, was a chemist who inherited money and squandered it on alcohol. He ran public houses in Kent before becoming a public nuisance in Jersey. He was admitted to the Hoxton House lunatic asylum on 6 January 1888, as a pauper and released, as Warren said, shortly before the murders began. Eight years later records at another asylum described him as a danger to others.  

City of London Police records indicate that Puckridge was traced during the Whitechapel murders. Detectives reported on 25 September 1888 that he had had been lodging at a coffee house for four weeks, was eccentric and given to drink but had ample means. He had slept every night in the house.

Puckridge was not Jack the Ripper. The claim that he threatened to rip people up is either an invention or a coincidence. As there is no supporting evidence of his surgical experience either, we can assume that someone was providing false information.

Paul Williams is a researcher and writer, best known for his award-winning study of 333 Jack the Ripper suspects.