Jack The Ripper: Legends & Lore

[Anonymous]

I just got through reading yet another Jack the Ripper book, and I got to wondering, are there any legends, folklore, ghost stories surrounding this famous case? I was told by a business associate from London that people have been claiming to see Annie Chapman's ghost around Whitechapel.....and he told me that there's a house in Gloucester where the locals say Jack once lived.....I'm wondering how these murders perhaps affected urban folklore in ondon. Any info?

 

[carole]

I just got through reading yet another Jack the Ripper book, and I got to wondering, are there any legends, folklore, ghost stories surrounding this famous case? I was told by a business associate from London that people have been claiming to see Annie Chapman's ghost around Whitechapel.....and he told me that there's a house in Gloucester where the locals say Jack once lived.....I'm wondering how these murders perhaps affected urban folklore in ondon. Any info?

I suppose any alleged sightings of a female ghost in the Whitechapel area could be conveniently identified as a Ripper victim.

Which of the Ripper candidates supposedly lived in that Gloucester house?

Carole

 

[Anonymous]

I asked my friend the same question, but he didn't know, and apparently neither do the locals, they just tell tourists and the like "See that house? Jack the Ripper lived there." Although I do remember Martin Fido writing that the widow of one of the prominent detectives on the case (don't remember which one, although I vaguely remember Abberline) always told people that Jack was in an asylum at Stone.

I wonder about the ghosts, though. There was a thread a while ago about ghosts of serial murder victims, and I think a Ripper victim haunting the East End would be quite a nice touch. I was only in London once, and actually went to the East End with a friend to "see the sights", but most Ripper sites are apparently gone, although we did see the "Jack the Ripper" pub, which the bartender said had been in existence since the mid-1800's. This was over ten years ago, though, so it might be gone now, and the bartender might've been pulling my leg, as I'm an ignorant American tourist.

 

[Anonymous]

the "Jack the Ripper" pub

The pub used to be called Ten Bells. One of the landlords discovered that the body of Emily Annie Chapman had been discovered behind the pub, so changed its name. Her ghost is said to haunt the very pub you were in (even switching the radio on and off). Don't know if it's still there.

There were some other reports of ghosts seen around the murder scenes, including a "huddled figure, like that of a woman, emitting from all over it a ghostly light, frequently to be seen lying in the gutter" - in Durward Street where Polly Nicholls was found.

Or so it says in my copy of Ghosts of London by J. A. Brooks.

 

[faldor]

I dont no much about Jack the ripper

but i saw a thing on ITV a few months back about it

couple of things i remember from it are....

there were about 9 ripper murders though they dont think it was all the same guy, some where people pretending to be him

they dont no why "Jack the Ripper" is and they never probaly never will cos of the lack of ferensic (i know that spelt wrong) at the time, he could have said blood on his shirt was pigs blood!

Jack was the nickname of the era (one of the historians gave loads of examples of this)

The Ripper murders where kinda craze for the news papers with artist conceptions and stuff

letters were sent in to news agentcies claiming to be from him but this would have been unlikely because only people in the papers really knew about it at the time

as for ripper victims ghosts, all them dead victorians who hang about london these days look pretty much the same

 

[ogopogo3]

Although I do remember Martin Fido writing that the widow of one of the prominent detectives on the case (don't remember which one, although I vaguely remember Abberline) always told people that Jack was in an asylum at Stone.

It must not have been Abberline. Didn't he state publicly that he thought George Chapman was Jack the Ripper?

 

[Anonymous]

The Ten Bells is The Ten Bells once again. I had a pint in there last month. The Hawksmoor church looms right over it, leaving one feeling slightly oppressed.

In case anyone of a morbid frame of mind is interested, there is a surviving murder site. Except, um, I forget which one it is. Probably the first, as it's very near 'that big hospital that I forget the name of'. Precise, huh?

Round the back of the markets, not far from the Blind Beggar, there's a back road. Still standing is the corner post of a building where the body was found (as recreated in From Hell, I noticed). According to local folklore, the builders renovating the site refused to tear it down. I went and had a look, but I couldn't see anyone acting suspiciously (with the possible exception of myself).

 

[Anonymous]

I read a book where the author, a 'world reknowned psychic medium' (and rather less reknowned author with good reason) had done some psychic investigation of the murders and had come up with Mary Kelly's boyfriend (whose name I forget ) as a prime suspect. Having been hired by a shadowy power figure to shut up the girls after some sort of conspiracy, probably, according to the author, to do with Martha Tabrams early life as a nurse cum orderly in some sort of mental institution.
Has anyone else come across this book?
Although the methods of investigation require rather large leaps of faith, even for a psychic believer such as myself, it is a fascinating read.

 

[zygmunt_rocks_on]

The Ten Bells has just been bought after being shut for a while. The locals worried that it might be turned into a 'trendy wine bar' but it's still a pub for the moment. There are rumours that it will be restored to its vitorian heyday.


there is in fact a ghost story attached to the Ripper. The first (?) of the Ripper's victims was found in Hanbury street, about 50 yards as the crow flies from the pub (and about 300 yards from where I'm sat now). The house and yard where the body was found were pulled down in the late sixties to extend the Truman brewery (now fashion shops and units). One of the house's last tenants claims to have seen a 'classic ripper' figure (top hat etc) dragging a woman up the passageway next to the house, the exact same sequence being seen by him two or three times. Alan Moore wrote it into the Graphic Novel of From Hell, but I've read about it in at least one other source.


you can see more of the locations here

http://www.casebook.org/victorian_london/sitepics.w-han.html

 

[Anonymous]

I'm puting on my top hat...

Could you say that the popular image of Jack is itself an urban myth?

You know what I mean: the top hat and cape. Well it turns out that the only witness discription of London's most bizarly discused son says that he 'looked somewhat like a salor.' bloody seamen...