One of our most popular London walks is the Jack the Ripper
Tour. Over the years thousands of people have joined us on our walking tour
around the creepy East End Streets where the murders took place in the autumn of
1888. Indeed, this year, 2013, marks the 125th anniversary of the World’s most
famous series of serial killings.
Jack The Ripper A question we often get asked on the Jack the
Ripper walk is, why is he called Jack the Ripper?
The name actually came from the signature on a letter that
was sent to a London news agency in September 1888.
When the murders began – it is generally agreed, though by
no means certain, that the first actual Jack the Ripper Murder was that of
“Polly” or Mary Nichols on August 31st 1888 – it was widely believed that the
killings were being carried out by one of the local gangs who were attempting
to extort money from the prostitutes in the East End of London.
This belief continued to influence the police enquiry after
the second murder, that of Annie Chapman, took place on the 8th September 1888.
It was around this time that the police began to realise
that the crimes were probably not gang related and that they were, in fact,
pitting their wits against a lone, though cunning, assassin.
Officially the culprit responsible for the murders was known
as The Whitechapel Murderer. The local people and the press, on the other hand,
dubbed him the red fiend, the beast of Whitechapel and other more
sensationalist names.
In early September 1888 the local prostitutes began telling
the police about a sinister character whom they had nicknamed leather Apron, on
account of the fact that he habitually wore this particular type of garment.
The police considered this man to be such a likely sounding
suspect that they even produced posters for display in the neighbourhood where
the murders were taking place that bore the headline “Capture Leather Apron.”
But then, on 27th September 1888, a letter arrived at the
Central news Office, in the City of London, that was written in red ink, and
which was addressed to “The Boss Central News Office, The City.”
The writer of the letter claimed that it was he who was
murdering prostitutes in the East End of London and gloated,in mocking terms, about the police’s inability
to catch him.
Having warned them that they would soon hear more of him and
his funny little games the writer signed his missive “Jack the Ripper.”
The News Agency handed the letter over to the police on the
29th September 1888 and, within 24 hours of them receiving it, the killer,
after an absence of several weeks, returned and killed two women (Elizabeth
Stride and Catherine Eddowes) in the space of just one hour in the early hours
of the 30th September 1888.
With nothing to go on the police wondered if the solution to
catching the killer could lie with the Jack the Ripper letter and they made it
public on the 1st October.
Once the name went into general circulation it caught on
immediately and transformed the murderer from a sordid East End opportunist
killer into an international superstar and the legend of Jack the Ripper was
born.
So when people ask us on the Jack the ripper walks where the
name came from we are able to explain its origins and state, categorically,
that Jack the Ripper was, most definitely, the man who never was.
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