Jack the Ripper
"With the Vigilance Committee in the East End: A Suspicious Character" from The Illustrated London News, 13 October 1888
Background information
Birth name	Identity unknown
Also known as	"The Whitechapel Murderer" "Leather Apron"
Killings
Number of victims	5+?
Country	United Kingdom

"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the media. The letter is widely believed to have been a hoax, and may have been written by a journalist in a deliberate attempt to heighten interest in the story. Other nicknames used for the killer at the time were "The Whitechapel Murderer" and "Leather Apron".

Attacks ascribed to the Ripper typically involved female prostitutes from the slums whose throats were cut prior to abdominal mutilations. The removal of internal organs from at least three of the victims led to proposals that their killer possessed anatomical or surgical knowledge. Rumours that the murders were connected intensified in September and October 1888, and letters from a writer or writers purporting to be the murderer were received by media outlets and Scotland Yard. The "From Hell" letter, received by George Lusk of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, included half of a preserved human kidney, supposedly from one of the victims. Mainly because of the extraordinarily brutal character of the murders, and because of media treatment of the events, the public came increasingly to believe in a single serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper".

Extensive newspaper coverage bestowed widespread and enduring international notoriety on the Ripper. An investigation into a series of brutal killings in Whitechapel up to 1891 was unable to connect all the killings conclusively to the murders of 1888, but the legend of Jack the Ripper solidified. As the murders were never solved, the legends surrounding them became a combination of genuine historical research, folklore, and pseudohistory. The term "ripperology" was coined to describe the study and analysis of the Ripper cases. There are now over one hundred theories about the Ripper's identity, and the murders have inspired multiple works of fiction.

Background[link]

In the mid-19th century, England experienced an influx of Irish immigrants, who swelled the populations of England's major cities, including the East End of London. From 1882, Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe and Tsarist Russia moved into the same area.^[1] The civil parish of Whitechapel in London's East End became increasingly overcrowded. Work and housing conditions worsened, and a significant economic underclass developed.^[2] Robbery, violence and alcohol dependency were commonplace, and the endemic poverty drove many women to prostitution. In October 1888, London's Metropolitan Police Service estimated that there were 1200 prostitutes and about 62 brothels in Whitechapel.^[3] The economic problems were accompanied by a steady rise in social tensions. Between 1886 and 1889, frequent demonstrations, such as that of 13 November 1887, led to police intervention and further public unrest.^[4] Racism, crime, social disturbance, and real deprivation fed public perceptions that Whitechapel was a notorious den of immorality.^[5] In 1888, such perceptions were strengthened when a series of vicious and grotesque murders attributed to "Jack the Ripper" received unprecedented coverage in the media.^[6]

Murders[link]

The sites of the first seven Whitechapel murders – Osborn Street (centre right), George Yard (centre left), Hanbury Street (top), Buck's Row (far right), Berner Street (bottom right), Mitre Square (bottom left), and Dorset Street (middle left)

The large number of attacks against women in the East End during this era adds uncertainty to how many victims were killed by the same person.^[7] Eleven separate murders, stretching from 3 April 1888 to 13 February 1891, were included in a London Metropolitan Police Service investigation, and were known collectively in the police docket as the "Whitechapel murders".^[8][9] Opinions vary as to whether these murders should be linked to the same culprit, but five of the eleven Whitechapel murders, known as the "canonical five", are widely believed to be the work of the Ripper.^[10] Most experts point to deep throat slashes, abdominal and genital-area mutilation, removal of internal organs, and progressive facial mutilations as the distinctive features of Jack the Ripper's modus operandi.^[11] The first two cases in the Whitechapel murders file, those of Emma Elizabeth Smith and Martha Tabram, are not included in the canonical five.^[12]

Smith was robbed and sexually assaulted on Osborn Street, Whitechapel, on 3 April 1888. A blunt object was inserted into her vagina, which ruptured her peritoneum. She developed peritonitis, and died the following day at London Hospital.^[13] She said that she had been attacked by two or three men, one of whom was a teenager.^[14] The attack was linked to the later murders by the press,^[15] but most authors conclude that it was gang violence unrelated to the Ripper case.^[8][16][17]

Tabram was killed on 7 August 1888; she had suffered 39 stab wounds. The savagery of the murder, the lack of obvious motive, and the closeness of the location (George Yard, Whitechapel) and date to those of the later Ripper murders led police to link them.^[18] However, the attack differs from the canonical murders in that Tabram was stabbed rather than slashed at the throat and abdomen. Many experts today do not connect it with the later murders because of the difference in the wound pattern.^[19]

Canonical five[link]

The canonical five Ripper victims are Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. Nichols' body was discovered at about 3:40 a.m. on Friday 31 August 1888 in Buck's Row (now Durward Street), Whitechapel. The throat was severed deeply by two cuts, and the lower part of the abdomen was partly ripped open by a deep, jagged wound. Several other incisions on the abdomen were caused by the same knife.^[20]

Chapman's body was discovered at about 6 a.m. on Saturday 8 September 1888 near a doorway in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields. As in the case of Mary Ann Nichols, the throat was severed by two cuts.^[21] The abdomen was slashed entirely open, and it was later discovered that the uterus had been removed.^[22] At the inquest, one witness described seeing Chapman at about 5:30 a.m. with a dark-haired man of "shabby-genteel" appearance.^[23]

Stride and Eddowes were killed in the early morning of Sunday 30 September 1888. Stride's body was discovered at about 1 a.m., in Dutfield's Yard, off Berner Street (now Henriques Street) in Whitechapel. The cause of death was one clear-cut incision which severed the main artery on the left side of the neck. Uncertainty about whether Stride's murder should be attributed to the Ripper, or whether he was interrupted during the attack, stems from the absence of mutilations to the abdomen.^[24] Witnesses who thought they saw Stride with a man earlier that night gave differing descriptions: some said her companion was fair, others dark; some said he was shabbily dressed, others well-dressed.^[25] Eddowes' body was found in Mitre Square, in the City of London, three-quarters of an hour after Stride's. The throat was severed, and the abdomen was ripped open by a long, deep, jagged wound. The left kidney and the major part of the uterus had been removed. A local man, Joseph Lawende, had passed through the square with two friends shortly before the murder, and he described seeing a fair-haired man of shabby appearance with a woman who may have been Eddowes.^[26] His companions, however, were unable to confirm his description.^[26] Eddowes' and Stride's murders were later called the "double event".^[27] Part of Eddowes' bloodied apron was found at the entrance to a tenement in Goulston Street, Whitechapel. Some writing on the wall above the apron piece, which became known as the Goulston Street graffito, seemed to implicate a Jew or Jews, but it was unclear whether the graffito was written by the murderer as he dropped the apron piece, or merely incidental.^[28] Police Commissioner Charles Warren feared the graffito might spark antisemitic riots, and ordered it washed away before dawn.^[29]

Official police photograph of Mary Kelly's murder scene in 13 Miller's Court^[8]

Kelly's gruesomely mutilated body was discovered lying on the bed in the single room where she lived at 13 Miller's Court,^[8] off Dorset Street, Spitalfields, at 10:45 a.m. on Friday 9 November 1888. The throat had been severed down to the spine, and the abdomen virtually emptied of its organs. The heart was missing.

The canonical five murders were perpetrated at night, on or close to a weekend, and either at the end of a month or a week or so after.^[30] The mutilations became increasingly severe as the series of murders proceeded, except for that of Stride, whose attacker may have been interrupted.^[31] Nichols was not missing any organs; Chapman's uterus was taken; Eddowes had her uterus and a kidney removed and her face mutilated; Kelly's body was eviscerated and her face hacked away, though only her heart was missing from the crime scene.

Historically, the belief that these five crimes were committed by the same man derives from contemporary documents that link them together to the exclusion of others.^[32] In 1894, Sir Melville Macnaghten, Assistant Chief Constable of the Metropolitan Police Service and Head of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), wrote a report that stated: "the Whitechapel murderer had 5 victims—& 5 victims only".^[33] Similarly, the canonical five victims were linked together in a letter written by the police surgeon Thomas Bond to Robert Anderson, head of the London CID, on 10 November 1888.^[34] Some researchers have posited that while some of the murders were undoubtedly the work of a single killer, an unknown larger number of killers acting independently were responsible for the others.^[35] Authors Stewart P. Evans and Donald Rumbelow argue that the canonical five is a "Ripper myth" and that while three cases (Nichols, Chapman, and Eddowes) can be definitely linked, there is less certainty over Stride and Kelly, and less again over Tabram.^[36] Conversely, others suppose that the six murders between Tabram and Kelly were the work of a single killer.^[11] Dr Percy Clark, assistant to the examining pathologist George Bagster Phillips, linked only three of the murders and thought the others were perpetrated by "weak-minded individual[s] ... induced to emulate the crime".^[37] Macnaghten did not join the police force until the year after the murders, and his memorandum contains serious factual errors about possible suspects.^[38]

Later Whitechapel murders[link]

Kelly is generally considered to be the Ripper's final victim, and it is assumed that the crimes ended because of the culprit's death, imprisonment, institutionalisation, or emigration.^[16] The Whitechapel murders file does, however, detail another four murders that happened after the canonical five: those of Rose Mylett, Alice McKenzie, the Pinchin Street torso and Frances Coles.

Mylett was found strangled in Clarke's Yard, High Street, Poplar on 20 December 1888. As there was no sign of a struggle, the police believed that she had accidentally choked herself while in a drunken stupor, or committed suicide.^[39] Nevertheless, the inquest jury returned a verdict of murder.^[39]

McKenzie was killed on 17 July 1889 by severance of the left carotid artery. Several minor bruises and cuts were found on the body, discovered in Castle Alley, Whitechapel. One of the examining pathologists, Thomas Bond, believed this to be a Ripper murder, though another pathologist, George Bagster Phillips, who had examined the bodies of three previous victims, disagreed.^[40] Later writers are also divided between those who think that her murderer copied the Ripper's modus operandi to deflect suspicion from himself,^[41] and those that ascribe it to the Ripper.^[42]

"The Pinchin Street torso" was a headless and legless torso of an unidentified woman found under a railway arch in Pinchin Street, Whitechapel, on 10 September 1889. It seems probable that the murder was committed elsewhere and that parts of the dismembered body were dispersed for disposal.^[43]

Coles was killed on 13 February 1891 under a railway arch at Swallow Gardens, Whitechapel. Her throat was cut but the body was not mutilated. James Thomas Sadler, seen earlier with her, was arrested by the police, charged with her murder and was briefly thought to be the Ripper.^[44] He was, however, discharged from court for lack of evidence on 3 March 1891.^[44]

Other alleged victims[link]

In addition to the eleven Whitechapel murders, commentators have linked other attacks to the Ripper. In one case, that of "Fairy Fay", it is unclear whether the attack was real or fabricated as a part of Ripper lore.^[45] "Fairy Fay" was a nickname given to a victim allegedly found on 26 December 1887 "after a stake had been thrust through her abdomen",^[46][47] but there were no recorded murders in Whitechapel at or around Christmas 1887.^[48] "Fairy Fay" could have been created by the press through confusion of the details of the murder of Emma Elizabeth Smith with a separate non-fatal attack the previous Christmas.^[45] Most authors agree that "Fairy Fay" never existed.^[45][49]

Annie Millwood was admitted to Whitechapel workhouse infirmary with stab wounds in the legs and lower abdomen on 25 February 1888.^[50] She was discharged but died from apparently natural causes aged 38 on 31 March 1888.^[49] She was later postulated as the Ripper's first victim, but the attack cannot be linked definitely.^[51] Another supposed early victim was Ada Wilson,^[52] who reportedly survived being stabbed twice in the neck on 28 March 1888.^[53] Annie Farmer, who resided at the same lodging house as Martha Tabram,^[54] reported an attack on 21 November 1888. She had a superficial cut on her throat, but it was possibly self-inflicted.^[55]

"The Whitehall Mystery" of October 1888

"The Whitehall Mystery" was a term coined for the discovery of a headless torso of a woman on 2 October 1888 in the basement of the new Metropolitan Police headquarters being built in Whitehall. An arm belonging to the body was previously discovered floating in the river Thames near Pimlico, and one of the legs was subsequently discovered buried near where the torso was found.^[56] The other limbs and head were never recovered and the body was never identified. The mutilations were similar to those in the Pinchin Street case, where the legs and head were severed but not the arms. The Whitehall Mystery and the Pinchin Street case may have been part of a series of murders, called the "Thames Mysteries", committed by a single serial killer, dubbed the "Torso killer".^[57] Whether Jack the Ripper and the "Torso killer" were the same person or separate serial killers active in the same area is debatable.^[57] As the modus operandi of the Torso killer differed from that of the Ripper, police at the time discounted any connection between the two.^[58] Elizabeth Jackson, a prostitute whose various body parts were collected from the river Thames between 2 and 25 June 1889, may have been another victim of the "Torso killer".^[59]

John Gill, a seven-year-old boy was found murdered in Manningham, Bradford, on 29 December 1888. His legs had been severed, his abdomen opened, his intestines drawn out, and his heart and one ear removed. The similarities with the murder of Mary Kelly led to press speculation that the Ripper had killed the boy.^[60] The boy's employer, milkman William Barrett, was twice arrested for the murder on circumstantial evidence but was released.^[60] No-one else was ever prosecuted.^[60]

Carrie Brown (nicknamed "Shakespeare", reportedly for quoting Shakespeare's sonnets) was strangled with clothing and then mutilated with a knife on 24 April 1891 in New York City.^[61] Her body was found with a large tear through her groin area and superficial cuts on her legs and back. No organs were removed from the scene, though an ovary, either purposely removed or unintentionally dislodged, was found upon the bed.^[61] At the time, the murder was compared to those in Whitechapel though the Metropolitan Police eventually ruled out any connection.^[61]

Investigation[link]

Inspector Frederick Abberline, 1888

The surviving police files on the Whitechapel murders allow a detailed view of investigative procedure in the Victorian era.^[62] A large team of policemen conducted house-to-house inquiries throughout Whitechapel. Forensic material was collected and examined. Suspects were identified, traced and either examined more closely or eliminated from the inquiry. Police work follows the same pattern today.^[62] Over 2000 people were interviewed, "upwards of 300" people were investigated, and 80 people were detained.^[63]

The investigation was initially conducted by the Metropolitan Police Whitechapel (H) Division Criminal Investigation Department (CID) headed by Detective Inspector Edmund Reid. After the murder of Nichols, Detective Inspectors Frederick Abberline, Henry Moore, and Walter Andrews were sent from Central Office at Scotland Yard to assist. After the Eddowes murder, which occurred within the City of London, the City Police under Detective Inspector James McWilliam were involved.^[8] However, overall direction of the murder enquiries was hampered by the fact that the newly appointed head of the CID, Robert Anderson, was on leave in Switzerland between 7 September and 6 October, during the time Chapman, Stride and Eddowes were killed.^[64] This prompted the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Charles Warren, to appoint Chief Inspector Donald Swanson to coordinate the enquiry from Scotland Yard.^[65]

"Blind-man's Buff": Punch cartoon by John Tenniel (22 September 1888) criticising the police's alleged incompetence. The failure of the police to capture the killer reinforced the attitude held by radicals that the police were inept and mismanaged.^[66]

Partly because of dissatisfaction with the police effort, a group of volunteer citizens in London's East End called the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee patrolled the streets looking for suspicious characters, petitioned the government to raise a reward for information about the killer, and hired private detectives to question witnesses independently.^[67]

Butchers, slaughterers, surgeons and physicians were suspected because of the manner of the mutilations. A surviving note from Major Henry Smith, Acting Commissioner of the City Police, indicates that the alibis of local butchers and slaughterers were investigated, with the result that they were eliminated from the inquiry.^[68] A report from Inspector Donald Swanson to the Home Office confirms that 76 butchers and slaughterers were visited, and that the inquiry encompassed all their employees for the previous six months.^[69] Some contemporary figures, including Queen Victoria, thought the pattern of the murders indicated that the culprit was a butcher or cattle drover on one of the cattle boats that plied between London and mainland Europe. Whitechapel was close to the London Docks,^[70] and usually such boats docked on Thursday or Friday and departed on Saturday or Sunday.^[71] The cattle boats were examined but the dates of the murders did not coincide with a single boat's movements and the transfer of a crewman between boats was also ruled out.^[72]

Criminal profiling[link]

At the end of October, Robert Anderson asked police surgeon Thomas Bond to give his opinion on the extent of the murderer's surgical skill and knowledge.^[73] The opinion offered by Bond on the character of the "Whitechapel murderer" is the earliest surviving offender profile.^[74] Bond's assessment was based on his own examination of the most extensively mutilated victim and the post mortem notes from the four previous canonical murders.^[34] He wrote:

All five murders no doubt were committed by the same hand. In the first four the throats appear to have been cut from left to right, in the last case owing to the extensive mutilation it is impossible to say in what direction the fatal cut was made, but arterial blood was found on the wall in splashes close to where the woman's head must have been lying.
All the circumstances surrounding the murders lead me to form the opinion that the women must have been lying down when murdered and in every case the throat was first cut.^[34]

Bond was strongly opposed to the idea that the murderer possessed any kind of scientific or anatomical knowledge, or even "the technical knowledge of a butcher or horse slaughterer".^[34] In his opinion the killer must have been a man of solitary habits, subject to "periodical attacks of homicidal and erotic mania", with the character of the mutilations possibly indicating "satyriasis".^[34] Bond also stated that "the homicidal impulse may have developed from a revengeful or brooding condition of the mind, or that religious mania may have been the original disease but I do not think either hypothesis is likely".^[34]

While there is no evidence of any sexual activity with any of the victims,^[11][75] psychologists suppose that the penetration of the victims with a knife and "leaving them on display in sexually degrading positions with the wounds exposed" indicates that the perpetrator derived sexual pleasure from the attacks.^[11][76] This view is challenged by others who dismiss such hypotheses as insupportable supposition.^[77]

Suspects[link]

Speculation as to the identity of Jack the Ripper: cover of the 21 September 1889, issue of Puck magazine, by cartoonist Tom Merry

The concentration of the killings at the weekend, and within a few streets of each other, has indicated to many that the Ripper was employed during the week and lived locally.^[78] Others have thought the killer was an educated upper-class man, possibly a doctor or an aristocrat, who ventured into Whitechapel from a more well-to-do area;^[79] such theories draw on cultural perceptions such as fear of the medical profession, distrust of modern science, or the exploitation of the poor by the rich.^[80] Suspects proposed years after the murders include virtually anyone remotely connected to the case by contemporary documents, as well as many famous names, who were never considered in the police investigation. As everyone alive at the time is now dead, modern authors are free to accuse anyone, "without any need for any supporting historical evidence".^[81] Suspects named in contemporary police documents include three in Sir Melville Macnaghten's 1894 memorandum, but the evidence against them is circumstantial at best.^[82]

Despite the many and varied theories about the identity and profession of Jack the Ripper, authorities are not agreed on a single solution and the number of named suspects reaches over one hundred.^[83][84]

Letters[link]

Over the course of the Ripper murders, the police, newspapers and others received many hundreds of letters regarding the case.^[85] Some were well-intentioned offers of advice for catching the killer but the vast majority were useless.^[86]

Hundreds of letters claimed to have been written by the killer himself,^[87] and three of these in particular are prominent: the "Dear Boss" letter, the "Saucy Jacky" postcard and the "From Hell" letter.^[88]

The "Dear Boss" letter, dated 25 September, was postmarked 27 September 1888. It was received that day by the Central News Agency, and was forwarded to Scotland Yard on 29 September.^[89] Initially it was considered a hoax, but when Eddowes was found three days after the letter's postmark with one ear partially cut off, the letter's promise to "clip the ladys (sic) ears off" gained attention.^[90] However, Eddowes' ear appears to have been nicked by the killer incidentally during his attack, and the letter writer's threat to send the ears to the police was never carried out.^[91] The name "Jack the Ripper" was first used in this letter by the signatory and gained worldwide notoriety after its publication.^[92] Most of the letters that followed copied this letter's tone.^[93] Some sources claim that another letter, dated 17 September 1888, was the first to use the name "Jack the Ripper", ^[94] but most experts believe this was a fake inserted into police records in the 20th century.^[95]

The "From Hell" letter

The "Saucy Jacky" postcard was postmarked 1 October 1888 and received the same day by the Central News Agency. The handwriting was similar to the "Dear Boss" letter.^[96] It mentions that two victims were killed very close to one another: "double event this time", which was thought to refer to the murders of Stride and Eddowes.^[97] It has been argued that the letter was mailed before the murders were publicised, making it unlikely that a crank would have such knowledge of the crime,^[98] but it was postmarked more than 24 hours after the killings took place, long after details were known by journalists and residents of the area.^[97]

The "From Hell" letter was received by George Lusk, leader of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, on 16 October 1888. The handwriting and style is unlike that of the "Dear Boss" letter and postcard.^[99] The letter came with a small box in which Lusk discovered half of a kidney, preserved in "spirits of wine" (ethanol).^[99] Eddowes' left kidney had been removed by the killer. The writer claimed that he "fried and ate" the missing kidney half. There is disagreement over the kidney: some contend it belonged to Eddowes, while others argue it was nothing more than a macabre practical joke.^[8][100] The kidney was examined by Dr Thomas Openshaw of the London Hospital, who determined that it was human and from the left side, but (contrary to false newspaper reports) he could not determine its gender or age.^[101] Openshaw subsequently also received a letter signed "Jack the Ripper".^[102]

Scotland Yard published facsimiles of the "Dear Boss" letter and the postcard on 3 October, in the ultimately vain hope that someone would recognise the handwriting.^[103] In a letter to Godfrey Lushington, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, Charles Warren explained "I think the whole thing a hoax but of course we are bound to try & ascertain the writer in any case."^[104] On 7 October 1888, George R. Sims in the Sunday newspaper Referee implied scathingly that the letter was written by a journalist "to hurl the circulation of a newspaper sky high".^[105] Police officials later claimed to have identified a specific journalist as the author of both the "Dear Boss" letter and the postcard.^[106] The journalist was identified as Tom Bullen in a letter from Chief Inspector John George Littlechild to George R. Sims dated 23 September 1913.^[107] A journalist called Fred Best reportedly confessed in 1931 that he had written the letters to "keep the business alive".^[108]

Media[link]

Newspaper broadsheet referring to the killer as "Leather Apron", September 1888

The Ripper murders mark an important watershed in the treatment of crime by journalists.^[16][109] While not the first serial killer, Jack the Ripper's case was the first to create a worldwide media frenzy.^[16][109] Tax reforms in the 1850s had enabled the publication of inexpensive newspapers with wider circulation.^[110] These mushroomed later in the Victorian era to include mass-circulation newspapers as cheap as a halfpenny, along with popular magazines such as the Illustrated Police News, which made the Ripper the beneficiary of previously unparalleled publicity.^[111]

After the murder of Nichols in early September, the Manchester Guardian reported that: "Whatever information may be in the possession of the police they deem it necessary to keep secret ... It is believed their attention is particularly directed to ... a notorious character known as 'Leather Apron'."^[112] Journalists were frustrated by the unwillingness of the CID to reveal details of their investigation to the public, and so resorted to writing reports of questionable veracity.^[16][113] Imaginative descriptions of "Leather Apron" appeared in the press,^[114] but rival journalists dismissed these as "a mythical outgrowth of the reporter's fancy".^[115] John Pizer, a local Jew who made footwear from leather, was known by the name "Leather Apron"^[116] and was arrested, even though the investigating inspector reported that "at present there is no evidence whatsoever against him".^[117] He was soon released after the confirmation of his alibis.^[116]

After the publication of the "Dear Boss" letter, "Jack the Ripper" supplanted "Leather Apron" as the name adopted by the press and public to describe the killer.^[118] The name "Jack" was already used to describe another fabled London attacker: "Spring-Heeled Jack", who supposedly leapt over walls to strike at his victims and escape as quickly as he came.^[119] The invention and adoption of a nickname for a particular killer became standard media practice with examples such as the Axeman of New Orleans, the Boston Strangler, and the Beltway Sniper. Examples derived from Jack the Ripper include the French Ripper, the Düsseldorf Ripper, the Camden Ripper, the Blackout Ripper, Jack the Stripper, the Yorkshire Ripper, and the Rostov Ripper. Sensational press reports, combined with the fact that no one was ever convicted of the murders, have confused scholarly analysis and created a legend that casts a shadow over later serial killers.^[120]

Legacy[link]

The 'Nemesis of Neglect': Jack the Ripper depicted as a phantom stalking Whitechapel, and as an embodiment of social neglect, in a Punch cartoon of 1888

The nature of the murders and of the victims drew attention to the poor living conditions in the East End,^[121] and galvanised public opinion against the overcrowded, unsanitary slums.^[122] In the two decades after the murders, the worst of the slums were cleared and demolished,^[123] but the streets and some buildings survive and the legend of the Ripper is still promoted by guided tours of the murder sites.^[124] The Ten Bells public house in Commercial Street was frequented by at least one of the victims and was the focus of such tours for many years.^[125]

In the immediate aftermath of the murders, and later, "Jack the Ripper became the children's bogey man."^[126] Depictions were often phantasmic or monstrous. In the 1920s and 1930s, he was depicted in film dressed in everyday clothes as a man with a hidden secret preying on his unsuspecting victims; atmosphere and evil were suggested through lighting effects and shadowplay.^[127] By the 1960s, the Ripper had become "the symbol of a predatory aristocracy",^[127] and was portrayed in a top hat dressed as a gentleman. The Establishment as a whole became the villain with the Ripper acting as a manifestation of upper-class exploitation.^[128] The image of the Ripper merged with or borrowed symbols from horror stories, such as Dracula's cloak or Victor Frankenstein's organ harvest.^[129] The fictional world of the Ripper can fuse with multiple genres, ranging from Sherlock Holmes to Japanese erotic horror.^[130]

In addition to the contradictions and unreliability of contemporary accounts, attempts to identify the real killer are hampered by the lack of surviving forensic evidence.^[131] DNA analysis on extant letters is inconclusive;^[132] the available material has been handled many times and is too contaminated to provide meaningful results.^[133]

Jack the Ripper features in hundreds of works of fiction and works which straddle the boundaries between both fact and fiction, including the Ripper letters and a hoax Diary of Jack the Ripper.^[134] The Ripper appears in novels, short stories, poems, comic books, games, songs, plays, operas, television programmes and films. To date more than 100 non-fiction works deal exclusively with the Jack the Ripper murders, making it one of the most written-about true-crime subjects.^[83] The term "ripperology" was coined by Colin Wilson in the 1970s to describe the study of the case by professionals and amateurs.^[135][136] The periodicals Ripperana, Ripperologist and Ripper Notes publish their research.^[137]

Unlike murderers of lesser fame, there is no waxwork figure of Jack the Ripper at Madame Tussauds' Chamber of Horrors, in accordance with their policy of not modelling persons whose likeness is unknown.^[138] He is instead depicted as a shadow.^[139] In 2006, Jack the Ripper was selected by BBC History magazine and its readers as the worst Briton in history.^[140][141]

See also[link]

London portal

• List of murderers by number of victims
• Servant Girl Annihilator

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

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Media related to Jack the Ripper at Wikimedia Commons

• The National Archives: images and transcripts of letters claiming to be from Jack the Ripper.
• Casebook: Jack the Ripper
• Rossmo, D. K., "Jack the Ripper", Center for Geospatial Intelligence and Investigation, Texas State University.
• Jack the Ripper 1888: examines the history of the murders and puts them into the social context of the era.
• FBI file on Jack the Ripper a 1988 centennial investigation of the case

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The Ripper may refer to

• Jack the Ripper, a 19th century serial killer
  • Jack the Ripper (disambiguation)
• Paul Burchill, a British professional wrestler who uses the ring name The Ripper
• Rupert Giles, a character in the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer who is nicknamed "The Ripper" due to his bloody past.
• Tim "Ripper" Owens, and American Heavy Metal musician best known for his role in Judas Priest and Iced Earth
• "The Ripper", a song by Heavy Metal band Judas Priest on the album Sad Wings of Destiny
• "The Ripper", a 1997 film

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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2008)

David Edward Sutch
Born	10 November 1940 (1940-11-10) Hampstead, London, England
Died	16 June 1999 (1999-06-17) (aged 58) South Harrow, Greater London, England
Occupation	musician, politician

David Edward Sutch (10 November 1940 – 16 June 1999), also known as "Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow", or simply "Screaming Lord Sutch", was a musician from the United Kingdom. He was the founder of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party and served as its leader from 1983 to 1999, during which time he stood in numerous parliamentary elections.

Musical career[link]

Sutch was born at New End Hospital, Hampstead, northwest London. In the 1960s, inspired by Screamin' Jay Hawkins, he changed his artist name to "Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow", despite having no connection with the peerage. His legal name remained David Edward Sutch.

After his career as an early-'60s rock 'n' roll attraction, it became customary for the UK press to refer to him as "Screaming Lord Sutch", or simply "Lord Sutch". Early works included recordings produced by audio pioneer Joe Meek.

During the 1960s, Screaming Lord Sutch was known for his horror-themed stage show, dressing as Jack the Ripper, pre-dating the shock rock antics of Alice Cooper. Accompanied by his band, the Savages, he started by coming out of a black coffin. Other props included knives and daggers, skulls and "bodies". Sutch booked themed tours, such as 'Sutch and the Roman Empire', where Sutch and the band members would be dressed up as Roman soldiers.

Despite self-confessed lack of vocal talent, he released horror-themed singles during the early to mid-'60s, the most popular "Jack the Ripper", covered live and on record by garage rock bands including the White Stripes, the Gruesomes, the Black Lips and the Horrors for their debut LP.

In 1963, Sutch and his manager, Reginald Calvert, took over Shivering Sands Army Fort, a Maunsell Fort off Southend and in 1964 started Radio Sutch, intending to compete with other pirate radio stations such as Radio Caroline. Broadcasts consisted of music and Mandy Rice-Davies reading Lady Chatterley's Lover. Sutch tired of the station, and sold it to Calvert, which was renamed 'Radio City', which lasted until 1967. In 1966 Calvert was shot dead by Oliver Smedley over a financial dispute. Smedley was acquitted on grounds of self-defence. About this time Ritchie Blackmore left the band. Roger Warwick left to set up an R&B big band for Freddie Mack.

Sutch's album Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends was named in a 1998 BBC poll as the worst album of all time, a status it also held in Colin Larkin's book The Top 1000 Albums of All Time, despite the fact that Jimmy Page, John Bonham, Jeff Beck, Noel Redding and Nicky Hopkins performed on it and helped write it.

For his follow-up, Hands of Jack the Ripper, Sutch assembled British rock celebrities for a concert at the Carshalton Park Rock 'n' Roll Festival. The show was recorded (though only Sutch knew), and it was released to the surprise of the musicians. Musicians on the record included Ritchie Blackmore (guitar); Matthew Fisher (keyboard); Carlo Little (drums); Keith Moon (drums); Noel Redding (bass) and Nick Simper (bass).

In the Rolling Stones song "Get Off of My Cloud", the guy who shows up "All dressed up just like a Union Jack" was Lord Sutch uninvited in Mick Jagger's room.

Political activities[link]

In the 1960s, he stood in parliamentary elections, often as representative of the National Teenage Party. His first was in 1963, when he contested the by-election in Stratford-upon-Avon caused by the resignation of John Profumo. He gained 208 votes. His next was at the 1964 General Election when he stood in Harold Wilson's Huyton constituency. Here he received 518 votes.

He founded the Official Monster Raving Loony Party in 1983 and fought the Bermondsey by-election. In his career he contested over 40 elections, rarely threatening the major candidates, but often getting a respectable number of votes. He was easily recognisable at election counts by his flamboyant clothes. It was after he polled several hundred votes in Margaret Thatcher's Finchley constituency in 1983 that the deposit paid by candidates was raised from £150 to £500. This did little to deter Sutch, who increased the concerts he performed to pay for campaigns.

His most significant contribution to politics came at the Bootle by-election in 1990. He secured more votes than the candidate of the Continuing Social Democratic Party (SDP), led by former Foreign Secretary David Owen. Within days the SDP dissolved itself. In 1993, when the British National Party gained its first local councillor, Derek Beackon, Sutch pointed out that the Official Monster Raving Loony Party already had six.

He appeared as himself in the first episode of ITV comedy The New Statesman, coming second in the 1987 election, ahead of the Labour and SDP, which saw Alan B'Stard elected to Parliament.

Adverts in the 1990s for Heineken Pilsener boasted that "Only Heineken can do this". One had Sutch at 10 Downing Street after becoming Prime Minister.

Private life[link]

Sutch suffered from depression and committed suicide by hanging on 16 June 1999, following the death of his mother the previous year. At the inquest, his fiancée said he had "manic depression".^{[citation needed]}

Sutch is survived by a son, Tristan Lord Gwynne Sutch, born in 1975 to the American model Thann Rendessy.^[1]

In 1991, Sutch's autobiography Life as Sutch: The Official Autobiography of a Raving Loony (written with Peter Chippindale) was published but recalled by publishers.^{[citation needed]} In 2005 Graham Sharpe, who had known Sutch since the late 1960s, wrote the first biography, The Man Who Was Screaming Lord Sutch.

Discography[link]

Sutch released records from 1961 onwards. Later works include:

• Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends, also known as Smoke and Fire (1970)
• Hands of Jack the Ripper (1972)
• Alive and Well (Live, 1980)
• Jack the Ripper (Compilation, 19??)
• Rock & Horror (Compilation, 1982) Ace Records CDCHM 65
• Story/Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages (Compilation, 1991)
• Live Manifesto (Live, 1992)
• Murder in the Graveyard (Live, 1992)
• Raving Loony Party Favourites (Compilation, 1996)
• Monster Rock (Compilation, 2000)
• Midnight Man (EP, 2000)
• Munster Rock (Compilation, 2001)
• The London Rock & Roll Show DVD ASIN: B00007LZ56

Elections fought[link]

Notes:-

• ¹ This election was won by the incumbent Prime Minister.
• ² Sutch achieved a better result than the candidate from the rump SDP.
• ³ Sutch achieved a better result than the candidate from the continuing Liberal Party.
• ⁴ Sutch achieved a better result than the joint candidate from the Green Party of England and Wales and Plaid Cymru.
• ⁵ This election was won by the incumbent Leader of the Opposition.
• ⁶ This election was won by the incumbent Leader of the Liberal Democrats.

References[link]

• Chippindale, Peter. "Sutch, David Edward (1940–1999)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/72456
• British Parliamentary Election Results 1950-1973, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Parliamentary Research Services 1983)
• British Parliamentary Election Results 1974-1983, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Parliamentary Research Services 1984)

External links[link]

• http://www.screaminglordsutch.com
• Screaming Lord Sutch and The Savages History
• Radio Sutch's successor by Colin Dale, former Radio Sutch DJ
• BBC report of Sutch's death
• BBC obituary
• David Sutch's gravesite
• Screaming Lord Sutch at Ward's Book of Days

Nick Cave
Nick Cave at an event in New York City, 2009
Background information
Born	(1957-09-22) 22 September 1957 (age 54) Warracknabeal, Victoria, Australia
Genres	Post-punk, gothic rock,[1][2] alternative rock, garage rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, writer, actor, composer
Instruments	Guitar, piano, keyboards, vocals
Years active	1973–present
Labels	Mute
Associated acts	Boys Next Door, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Grinderman, The Birthday Party

Nicholas Edward "Nick" Cave (born 22 September 1957) is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, composer and occasional film actor.

He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1983, a group known for its eclectic influences and musical styles. Before that, he had fronted the group The Birthday Party in the early 1980s, a band renowned for its highly gothic,^[1][2] challenging lyrics and violent sound influenced by free jazz, blues, and post-punk. In 2006, he formed the garage rock band Grinderman that released its debut the following year. Cave's music is generally characterised by emotional intensity, a wide variety of influences and lyrical obsessions with religion, death, love and violence.^[3]

Upon Cave's induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame, ARIA Awards committee chairman Ed St John said, “Nick Cave has enjoyed—and continues to enjoy—one of the most extraordinary careers in the annals of popular music. He is an Australian artist like Sidney Nolan is an Australian artist—beyond comparison, beyond genre, beyond dispute."^[4]

Youth, education and family[link]

Cave was born in the small town of Warracknabeal in the state of Victoria, Australia, to Dawn Cave (née Treadwell) and Colin Frank Cave. He has two brothers: Tim (b. 1952) and Peter (b. 1954), and a sister, Julie (b. 1959). As a child, he lived in Warracknabeal and then Wangaratta in rural Victoria. His father was an English teacher and administrator, with a love of literature, and his mother was a librarian. Cave's paternal grandfather's surname was originally Landvoigt, he later in his life became known as Frank Jason Cave.^[5][6][7][8]

Raised as an Anglican, Cave sang in the boys choir at Wangaratta Cathedral. He grew to detest the attitudes of small-town Australia, and he was often in trouble with the local school authorities,^[9] so his parents sent him to boarding school at Melbourne's Caulfield Grammar School in 1970. Cave joined the school choir under choirmaster Norman Kaye, and also benefited from having a piano in his home. The following year he became a "day boy" when his family moved to Murrumbeena, a suburb of Melbourne. Cave was 19 when his father was killed in a car accident; at the moment he was informed of this, his mother Dawn Cave was bailing him out of a St Kilda police station for a charge of burglary. Cave would later recall that his father "died at a point in my life when I was most confused", and "the loss of my father created in my life a vacuum, a space in which my words began to float and collect and find their purpose".^[10]

After his secondary schooling, Cave studied painting (Fine Art) at the Caulfield Institute of Technology (now Monash University, Caulfield campus) in 1976, but dropped out in 1977 to pursue music. He also began using heroin around this time.^{[citation needed]} On 28 March 2008, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws from this university.

Music career[link]

Early years and The Birthday Party (1973–83)[link]

In 1973, Cave met Mick Harvey (guitar), Phill Calvert (drums), John Cochivera (guitar), Brett Purcell (bass), and Chris Coyne (saxophone); fellow students at Caulfield Grammar. They founded a band with Cave as singer. Their repertoire consisted of proto-punk cover versions of songs by Lou Reed, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Roxy Music and Alex Harvey, among others. Later, the line-up slimmed down to four members including Cave's friend Tracy Pew on bass. In 1977, after leaving school, they adopted the name The Boys Next Door and began playing predominantly original material. Guitarist and songwriter Rowland S. Howard joined the band in 1978, expanding to five members.

From 1977 until their dissolution in 1983 (by which time they were known as The Birthday Party) the band explored various styles. They were a part of Melbourne's post-punk music scene in the late 1970s, playing hundreds of live shows in Australia before changing their name to the Birthday Party in 1980 and moving to London, then West Berlin. Cave's Australian girlfriend and muse Anita Lane accompanied them to London. The band were notorious for their provocative live performances which featured Cave shrieking, bellowing and throwing himself about the stage, backed up by harsh pounding rock music laced with guitar feedback. Cave utilised old testament imagery with lyrics about sin, curses and damnation.^[1] The lyrics were full of "American gothic imagery", talking about horror stories.^[1] The single "Release the Bats" with its story about "vampire sex" was "influential" in the emerging "gothic scene".^[1][2] At that time, Cave also became a regular member of a gothic club in London called The Batcave.^[11]

After establishing a cult following in Europe and Australia, The Birthday Party disbanded in 1984. Howard and Cave found it difficult to continue working together and both were rather worn down from alcohol and drug use.

Cave and the Seeds (1984-present)[link]

Cave performing in 1986

The band with Cave as their leader and frontman has released fourteen studio albums. Their most recent album, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! was released on 8 April 2008. Though their sound tends to change considerably from one album to another, the one constant of the band is an unpolished blending of disparate genres, and song structures which provide a vehicle for Cave's virtuosic, frequently histrionic theatrics. NME used the sentence "gothic psycho-sexual apocalypse" to describe the "menace" present in the lyrics of the title track.^[12]

Critics Stephen Thomas Erlewine and Steve Huey write, "With the Bad Seeds, Cave continued to explore his obsessions with religion, death, love, America, and violence with a bizarre, sometimes self-consciously eclectic hybrid of blues, gospel, rock, and arty post-punk, although in a more subdued fashion than his work with the Birthday Party".^[3] Pitchfork Media calls the group one of rock's "most enduring, redoubtable" bands, with an accomplished discography.^[13] A documentary film about the band The Road to God Knows Where/Life at paradiso directed by Uli M Schueppel, about their 1989 tour, was voted in the year 2008, under the 20 best musicmovies of all the time of the reader and journalists of Total Film.

Cave and the band curated an edition of the famous All Tomorrow's Parties music festival, the first in Australia, throughout the country in January 2009.

Solo work and Grinderman[link]

In addition to his performances with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Cave has, since the 1990s, performed live 'solo' tours with himself on piano/vocals, Warren Ellis on violin/accordion and various others on bass and drums. The current trio are Bad Seeds' Martyn P. Casey, Jim Sclavunos and Ellis (nicknamed the Mini-Seeds). In 2006, this line-up, now including Cave on electric guitar, continued his 'solo' tours performing Bad Seeds material.

In the same year three other Bad Seeds, Mick Harvey, Thomas Wydler and James Johnston, undertook Harvey's first 'solo' tours of Europe and Australia performing material from his own albums. Melbourne double bassist Rosie Westbrook completed the quartet.

An album of new material by Cave's 'solo' quartet, now named Grinderman, was released in March 2007.

Nick Cave 'solo' and Grinderman both played at the All Tomorrow's Parties music festival in April 2007. This was Grinderman's first public performance. Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream accompanied Grinderman on backing vocals and percussion.

In December 2011, after performing at Meredith Music Festival, Cave announced that Grinderman were over.^{[14][dead link]}

Soundtrack involvement[link]

Many of Nick Cave's songs have found their way into movie soundtracks. One of the earliest to feature Cave's distinctive style by incorporating him as part of the movie's music scene—circa 1979—was Dogs in Space, a film by Richard Lowenstein.^[15] Cave performed parts of the Boys Next Door song "Shivers" twice during the film, once on video and once live.

Another early fan of Cave's was German director Wim Wenders, who lists Cave, along with Lou Reed and Portishead, as among his favorites.^[16] Two of Cave's songs were featured in his 1987 film Wings of Desire.^[17] Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds also make a cameo appearance in this film. Two more songs were included in Wenders' 1993 sequel Faraway, So Close!, including the title track. The soundtrack for Wenders' 1991 film Until the End of the World features Cave's "(I'll Love You) Till the End of the World." His most recent production, Palermo Shooting, also contains a Nick Cave song, as does his 2003 documentary The Soul of a Man.^[18]

Cave's songs have also appeared in a number of Hollywood blockbusters and major TV shows. For instance, his "There is a Light" appears on the 1995 soundtrack for Batman Forever, and "Red Right Hand" appeared in a number of films and TV shows, including The X-Files, Dumb & Dumber; Scream, its sequels Scream 2 and 3, and Hellboy (performed by Pete Yorn). In Scream 3, the song was given a reworking with Cave writing new lyrics and adding an orchestra to the arrangement of the track. This version appears on The Bad Seeds B-Sides and Rarities album. The song "People Ain't No Good" was featured in the animated movie Shrek 2, as well as in one of the episodes of the television series The L Word. Cave also sang a cover of The Beatles' "Let It Be," for the 2001 film I Am Sam.