How Jack the Ripper shook south Essex

He had already slaughtered two women and would go onto kill at least three more.

Just like there remains today some 132 years later, back in the autumn of 1888 there was no end of speculation as to who Jack the Ripper could be.

He was a local butcher, it was all a Royal conspiracy, he was Queen Victoria’s doctor (who incidentally came from Essex). It was a mad midwife! All of these theories and more have been made – and most widely discredited – over the years. Yet it seems that every week a new twist in the saga emerges.

In Southend, news of the ghastly murders taking place 40 miles away in the East End of London reached residents via the Southend Standard newspaper and readers lapped up the story.

In October 1888 the newspaper featured an article headlined: “The East End Murders” which described the findings of the inquest into the Ripper’s third victim Elizabeth Stride. She had been butchered in the early hours of September 30, 1888. As well as gruesome details, the story gives us a fascinating insight into social prejudices of the time and how destitute women, like the Ripper’s victims, were thought of by society.

After outlining the bloody details of her violent murder and how the Ripper was pledging to kill again, the article goes on to stress: “It may be stated however that although the miscreant avows to his intention of committing further crimes shortly, it is only against prostitutes that his threats are directed, his desire being to respect and protect honest women.”

So, in other words – rich married women did not have to worry – he only targeted ‘dishonest prostitutes’.

The final of the ‘canonical five’ Whitechapel Murders was Mary Kelly. Her abhorrent death at the hands of the Ripper has become legendary. In the Southend Standard every blood-curdling detail of her murder was included – details that would most likely be too grizzly to report in a newspaper today.

It was November 15, 1888 and the headline was: “Another crime by the murder maniac –More revolting than ever.”

“At a quarter to eleven on Friday morning a woman was found with her head nearly cut off, in a room in a house in Mcarthy’s Court,” the article begins.

One of the first police chiefs on the scene following the discovery of Mary Kelly’s mutilated corpse was Superintendent Thomas Arnold. He was the head of H Division, Whitechapel, at the time of the Ripper murders, although he had been away on leave during the earlier Ripper murders of Martha Tabram and Annie Chapman.

Arnold had been born in Brentwood, Essex and had worked his way through the ranks to become a top police chief.

Upon arriving at Mary Kelly’s home, Arnold ordered for the door to be burst open with a pickaxe and then sent for a police photographer to take an image of the corpse.

In 1898 another Essex-born policeman gave his account of working on the Ripper case.

Unfair suspect - Sir William Gull who was born in Colchester

Upon retiring from the force Detective lnspector Sewell, of Brixton Police, described his time working as a sergeant while the Whitechapel Murders unfolded. Det Insp Sewell had been born and raised in Rayleigh.

“People were afraid to venture from their houses at night,” he recalled. “We had to work extra hours day and night.”

Det Insp Sewell described how the case was hampered by so many people turning ‘amateur detective’ and trying to solve the case themselves with ridiculous theories.

He admitted he believed the ripper to be a sailor from either India or south east Asia who had either died or been committed to a lunatic asylum.

During the investigation into the Whitechapel Murders more than 2,000 people were questioned by police. There were countless possible suspects – but one name not on the list at the time was Sir William Gull – Queen Victoria’s personal physician.

However that hasn’t stopped several extravagant theories from springing up over the years, labelling the eminent surgeon, who was born in Colchester and grew up in Thorpe-Le-Soken an as the possible killer.

A 1988 TV mini series about the murders even unmasked the killer’s identity as Gull – the theory was later widely discredited by scholars.