Hi John: Having just read some comments on the site about Jack the Ripper, I just thought I'd share with you an essay that I put together several years ago on the subject. I got most of this info from a close friend who has since died of lung cancer. He was in London in the days (1988) that the JTR files were opened. He and many others were privy to this information. It seems that nowadays everyone has a theory, but the only theory that actually makes sense is one where all the evidence fits together. Thanks. John W.
A lot has happened in the years since 1888, but the public never seems to get enough of the legends and myths of Jack the Ripper. What makes this case so remarkable is that it was supposedly "never solved." As you know, this drew suspicion onto anyone who disappeared shortly after 1888. What actually happened in those Jack the Ripper months is so bizarre and embarrassing that history still chooses to ignore the facts.
As an example, the actor, Richard Mansfied, who was a knife thrower/sword skilled thespian at the time, left for America with his girl friend shortly after the killings stopped, giving suspicion to him. Naturally. This, plus dozens of other possibilities, have added smoke to the already dense screen of confusion stirred up by the authorities and others who are still determined to protect the arrogant and partially guilty. After a while, with all the mayhem and nonsense, it became obvious that no one in authority ever really wanted to identify the man they caught as "Jack the Ripper."
Who really was Jack the Ripper?
His real name was Sir William Gull. He was an eminent doctor, surgeon, physician, lecturer, socialite, author, honored doctarian, and an extremely wealthy man. He was also the personal physician to both Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales. This fact is vitally important. This explains the reason for the later cover-up when Gull was finally caught.
Below is his Bio, taken from the Encyclopedia Britannica. The emphases are ours and will be addressed in detail as we progress.
Gull, Sir William Withey, 1ST BARONET (b. Dec. 31, 1816, Colchester, Essex, Eng.-d. Jan. 29, 1890, London), leading English physician of his time, lecturer and physician at Guy's Hospital, London, and an outstanding clinical teacher. Gull received his M.D. from the University of London in 1846 and became lecturer on physiology and anatomy and then physician, at Guy's, where he taught or served as consulting physician for the rest of his life. He was a famous and popular teacher, and some of his epigrams are still current. Gull had a successful and fashionable private practice as well-including among his patients Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales-which made him wealthier than any English physician before his time. He was created a baronet in 1872. Gull contributed valuable articles to Guy's Hospital Reports on many clinical subjects, including xanthoma, intermittent hematuria, the treatment of tapeworm (with oil of male fern), hyperthyroidism, and hypochondria. He was one of the first clinicians to describe pathological lesions in tabes dorsalis (1856), intermittent hemoglobinuria (1866), arteriosclerotic atrophy of the kidney (1872; with H.G. Sutton), and myxedema (1873), known as Gull's disease. He believed in minimal use of drugs ("The road to a clinic goes through the pathologic museum and not through the apothecary's shop") and defended the use of vivisection and clinical investigation. Copyright 1994-1998 Encyclopedia Britannica
This is quite an impressive resume, but it leaves out the one thing that turned him into Jack the Ripper. It was a medical problem that left him periodically mad.
Let's go into the story here - from the official files, as we have it - and explain some things as we progress. There are, however, things that need to be addressed.
1) Why were there rumors about Royalty being involved? Gull, as the personal physician to Royalty, enjoyed complete freedom to the Palace grounds. Much the same as any of us would receive a bumper or windshield sticker today for entry to a large corporation's parking lot, so Gull was given such a insignia. It was in the form of a white, rectangular shield that was attached to the right side door of his horse drawn carriage, and attached when necessary. The guard at the palace gate would see the shield, salute, and wave Gull's carriage onto the palace grounds.
Downtown London police constables on night duty would report an all-black carriage and black horse, with the royal insignia on the right door that would go through the east London streets on nights that the Ripper had struck. This gave rise to the speculation of the so-called Royal involvement. After the murders, Gull - obviously - didn't want to be stopped, because in some cases and according to testimony from his accomplice, the slitting of many women took place in the carriage itself. Most bodies were later dumped in back alleys, where they were found.
Since the inner carriage was now soaked and splattered with blood, Gull couldn't afford any stoppage by the local police. The Royal insignia on the right door took care of that problem. No one would dare stop a Royal carriage. No one did.
What about Gull's accomplice? It was his driver, a well paid ex-felon named Lees. More on that later.
2) The investigation. The two prime detectives on the case were, Chief Inspector Frederick Abberline, and Sergeant George Godley. After a few of the murders, they were at a stalemate and became convinced that they were dealing with an intermittent lunatic. So, they consulted a doctor-type-psychiatrist of the day. This doctor had heard of a madness that could be applicable in this case. Since the name "schizophrenia" was rarely used, and the early teachings of Freud were becoming abundantly extant at the time, all madness was being boiled down to one of two fundamental drives - survival or sex.
The teachings of William James would have better sufficed, as they delved into obsessions resulting from damaged mental physiology or brain lesions. This in turn gave any patient erratic behaviour and a schizophrenic personality. The cause of these lesions in pathology science was usually always the same . . . an early contact with a prostitute, resulting in syphilis that came to bear (sometimes 25 years later) in schizophrenic behaviour. Since penicillin wasn't isolated by Sir Alexander Fleming and used until the year of 1928, this leaves all syphilitic diseases incurable up to that time.
So, Abberline and Godley were still faced with a problem when the consulting doctor couldn't come up with an answer. But this doctor did know of another doctor - a specialist - who had delved into such matters, and he recommended the duo meet and discuss the matter with him. This new doctor's name was Sir William Gull.
When they met with Gull, Abberline and Godley learned that Gull lived with his daughter and son-in-law. This son-in-law was himself an eminent doctor who was a skilled surgeon at another London hospital. With profound surgical skills abounding in this household, Abberline started wondering.
When they left the house - after a partially unfruitful discussion on mental diseases with Gull - they met the son-in-law and daughter, stepping out of their all-black carriage with its black horse, and entering the home. The carriage was dirt splattered, and the driver, Abberline recognized as a professional hood named Lees.
Abberline remembered the reports of the rectangular Royal insignia that was reported to be on the side of the black carriage that was seen near the time of the murders. On the right side of the carriage, he saw a mud splattered door, but in the middle was a clean rectangle, showing something had been recently removed. Abberline spoke to Lees.
Since the police commissioner was now "being retired," Abberline knew he must move quickly if the case were to be solved in this commissioner's tenure. Leaving it to another superior would look bad on Abberline's record, since no new commissioner wanted to inherit the Ripper case. Abberline acted quickly.
Abberline managed to get a Royal, signed pardon for the driver Lees from the commissioner before he arrested Lees. Abberline took Lees to a cell, beat the tar out of him (more legal in those days than now), and got a confession that Lees was indeed the carriage driver for the household on the nights that Jack went Rippering. But Lees denied any part in the murders. He claimed that he was just the driver.
With charges of being an accessory as ammunition, Abberline told Lees he would make sure the latter would hang for complicity. When Lees pleaded for his life, Abberline offered Lees the deal of the century. Lees was to inform Abberline the next time the carriage would be required at night. If Lees did his part, then that complete pardon was his, and dismissal of any criminal charges in the Jack the Ripper killings.
Godley, meanwhile, was bribing a French prostitute to act as a decoy. If she played her part, she'd get her much needed fare back to Paris and home.
And so, the proverbial trap was set.
Came the eventful night, and Abberline was informed. He requisitioned a revolver, and took Godley with some constable backup. It was into a prearranged street that Lees took Gull to meet with the French prostitute. When Gull went to step from the carriage to grab and accost the girl, the police grabbed him, and Lees fled.
Even at seventy two, Gull was a powerful man, and fought as a crazy brute with the police. He broke free, ran, and would have been shot by Abberline except Godley tackled Gull, bringing him to the ground and smashing Gull's head on the pavement. Gull was brought back unconscious to the carriage and taken to his home, and his son-in-law and wife.
After some time in their home clinic, it was determined by the son-in-law with another doctor, that Gull had suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage. The medical opinion was that he would last only a few hours, but with an operation, he would last longer - if only as a vegetable. It appears he lasted many more months in that condition.
The commissioner (retiring that particular night at midnight) met with Abberline at Gull's house around 11:30 pm. Abberline extracted a confession from the son-in-law that Gull was indeed "mad" and that the family had tried to hide the fact.
It was then that the commissioner - having now received instructions from his superior at the Palace - told Abberline that the case must be closed, and marked: "Unsolved." It was clear that if the commissioner had not made these instructions, he would have forfeited his chunky pension. Abberline was furious, but he obeyed. He also had a healthy pension to protect. There were no more Ripper killings after that night.
3) The surgeon and madness. The fact that Gull was a brilliant surgeon is not doubted. His skill with one sweep of a knife in removing organs was legendary. With one cut, he slit the throats of the women, and with some, he flawlessly peeled back the skin over the head, revealing the details of the bloody skull. He cut, with one long incision, the bodies of some of the prostitutes from the crotch to the neck and peeled back the skin to show the inner body.
He appeared to be looking for something in the organs of the prostitutes themselves. It was something he never found. We can only suppose he may have been looking for a cure to his own madness. Such was his belief in this type of medical procedure. As his bio said:
("The road to a clinic goes through the pathologic museum and not through the apothecary's shop") and, defended the use of vivisection and clinical investigation.
Gull appears to have had brain lesions that gave him the schizophrenic personality (most possibly from earlier syphilis), and it's particularly interesting that his studies over the years led him in this direction. Once again, his bio says:
He was one of the first clinicians to describe pathological lesions in tabes dorsalis (1856),
The "tabes dorsalis" described in this bio is third degree syphilis.
4) The cover up. Since the Royals "owned" just about everyone in those years, all they had to do (when they learned of the truth), is to cover up the whole thing. This was done, by Royal decree, for 100 years. In 1988, the files were opened, and the truth was revealed for anyone in London who bothered to look.
After all, the whole incident would have been totally embarrassing and disgraceful to the Royals if the truth had been known. They would have never lived down the shame. Here was a trusted doctor - a knight of the First Order and Baron - a man who enjoyed both the friendship and confidence of Royalty, and a prominent British gentleman and personal physician to Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales, but in reality, was actually Jack the Ripper.
Enough said.
All the above has been taken from the official records which were opened in 1988 and made available to the public. With this scenario, all the enigmas are now answered. This true outline (above) explains and answers all the rumors and confusion.
It fully explains: 1) Why the "madness" of Jack the Ripper that compelled him to commit such gruesome crimes, 2) Why it is that the murder slicing and carving up of the victims was done with such methodical and professional precision, 3) Why a carriage with the Royal seal was seen in the London streets leaving the murder area after several of the crimes, 4) Why is it that there has been a complete cover-up of the entire affair for one hundred years.
Even with the opening of the files, the Royals have seemingly done all they could to keep this matter quiet, and it appears they would rather "forget" the whole matter. After all, they would be the height of ridicule and embarrassment if it became known that their trusted friend, a member of high society, and their own personal physician was none other that the notorious Jack the Ripper. The Royals would be the laughing stock of the world, and they would never live down the shame. They are still trying to suppress this evidence.
Case solved.
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