Jack the Ripper

by The Whitechapel Society

  Depression can be a major cause of suicide, especially amongst young men. Druitt seems more likely to have been going through some personal turmoil; as such a suicide would indicate. It is a reasonable scenario that dismissal from the school could have been related to depression; it could have been affecting Druitt’s mental equilibrium and conduct at the school, or the cordiality of his relations with his employer, Mr Valentine. Being in the employ of such an establishment as Mr Valentine’s, despite its low pay and Druitt’s other activities, shows a man who had actively tried to engage himself within a rigid social circle of people. Such a fracturing of these relations, as a result of depression or such related problems, could have caused ostracisation for Druitt; as the Victorian elite looked to avoid association with the ‘mentally’ ill. This, in turn, could only have compounded Druitt’s problems.

  There is additional evidence that Druitt was suffering from serious depression; amongst his possessions in his room was a suicide note, in the form of a letter addressed to his elder brother, William. In this letter he indicated the reason for his decision to take his own life: ‘Since Friday I felt that I was going to be like mother, and it would be best for all concerned if I were to die.’ Far from explicating reasons for being a serial killer, the note actually points very strongly to personal reasons for his suicide and being in a depressed state of mind.

  Druitt’s mother had been confined to an asylum in July 1888, following a serious bout of depression, which seemed to be aggravated by her husband’s death in 1885. It had been a suicide attempt, in 1888, which initiated the decision to place her in an asylum in Clapton, where she was certified insane. Her mental state had been exacerbated by her suffering from the, then untreatable, condition diabetes. This was, seemingly, hereditary in the Druitt family. It is an interesting point that whilst Druitt’s mother and an aunt attempted suicide, his maternal grandmother and his eldest sister both actually committed suicide. These were less enlightened times, as mentioned before, when the notion of suicide was seen as both a sign of weakness in person and, more specifically, mind. There were no support agencies to help cope with such desires, and no benevolent approaches from groups within authority to address such an issue. Druitt’s depressed mental state, in late 1888, could undoubtedly have been influenced by the prospect that he might end up as his mother had – either attempting suicide or being committed to a mental institution. Druitt’s case, in 1888, seems to highlight the extreme prejudice with which Victorian society viewed not only suicides, but also cases of mental infirmity, which today would be deemed as treatable. Such prejudices, then, could begin to explain the formulation of a familial suspicion against Druitt, although, how this gets linked with his potential for being the Whitechapel murderer is still far from clear.

  An interesting aspect of Druitt’s professional life, in 1888, and one that might explain a lot of the events that surrounded his potential decision to commit suicide, is his second career. It has often been described by scholars on this subject that Druitt was a failed barrister. This, simply, is not the case. He actively maintained chambers at a practise address at No.9 King’s Bench Walk, in the illustrious Temple area of London, which was at the heart of the legal profession. Druitt had been active in highly demanding cases in the late 1880s, and seemed to show a tremendous degree of skill in successfully completing them. We must remember that he came from a semi-legal family and his older brother had a successful legal practice in Bournemouth.

  One case that Druitt fought, in September 1888, during the Whitechapel murder scare, was at the Old Bailey itself. The case was one concerned with the malicious wounding of Peter Black by a former friend, Christopher Power, in the Kilburn area of London, in August 1888. Druitt, acting as defence counsel, realised the untenable nature of a ‘not guilty’ verdict based on the simple aspects of the case. Druitt instead pushed for a plea of insanity. He was also up against the formidable Charles Frederick Gill, acting for the prosecution as Senior Counsel for the Post Office, as there was evidence of some use of obscene letters by the accused.

  With a great degree of skill and persuasive arguing, Druitt essentially ‘won’ the case with a successful ‘guilty, but insane’ verdict. Not only does this case, amongst the many others he fought during this period, show that Druitt was becoming a proficient and expert legal practitioner, he was also conducting this particularly stressful case during a period in which many have argued he could have been Jack the Ripper.

  Montague John Druitt. (Moody/Morris Collection)

  Druitt committed suicide in early December 1888. This is an obvious fact that we know about this rather enigmatic person, while there is a distinct dearth of knowledge about his private life, which mere speculation can only assume. However, there are rather telling features in the court case concerning, Christopher Power, in September 1888. The details of the case illustrated that the defendant Christopher Power was suffering some form of mental illness. This was affecting his work as a draughtsman and he was dismissed from his employment for ‘slackness’ and conflict with fellow workers in the same establishment. One of his colleagues, Peter Black – a former friend – Power later decided to attack both verbally, via obscene letters and innuendo, and ultimately violently by use of a knife. Obviously, without reference to elements of the Ripper case, let us restrict ourselves to Druitt’s personal world. The situation Power found himself in September 1888, in the mental aspect at least, was not unlike the situation Druitt would find himself in a few months later; which culminated in his suicide.

  Power was eventually committed to an asylum, due to his ‘guilty, but insane’ plea that Druitt had worked for. Is it not possible that Druitt’s world was seemingly beginning to mirror Power’s in certain aspects, albeit without the obvious violent overtones? Certainly, as we saw earlier, Druitt did, as a matter of documented fact, believe his mental state was weakening for he left a note proclaiming so: ‘Since Friday I felt I was going to be like mother…’

  We can speculate on the specific events that took place on that previous Friday, but it is more than possible it may have involved a visit to his mother, or some such related episode on behalf of his mother who was residing in an asylum in Clapton.

  I would therefore say that Druitt was probably suffering from depression; a common reason for suicide. Of course, without the benefit of medical examinations and opinion (Druitt seems not to have been under any such observation) we can not be specific on his actual mental health in late 1888, but I do advance that he was suffering from depression, possibly aggravated by the sometimes extreme pressure on him from all areas of his life, not least a demanding and stressful career in the legal profession.

  In the late nineteenth century the study of mental illness, despite the introduction of maiden treatments and continued academic discourse, was still in its infancy. We may wonder that in our ‘advanced’ age, the mysteries of the mind might still set us at the foothills of knowledge. For a man like Druitt, in 1888, engaged in a world of reputations and social climbing, maintaining a strict social contract, meant that he had to keep up appearances and take on responsibilities within a rigid class system, even at the acceptance of a relatively low-paid job at Mr Valentine’s educational institution. For men like Druitt status was all. Nevertheless, he would have felt that he had to traverse such a system to reach a position that gave him the social standing he needed and desired. As we have seen, a burgeoning legal career was growing into a very successful one by the end of 1888, allowing him to earn much more money than in his official job with Valentine. This may have caused friction with Mr Valentine, leading to an argument and ultimately his dismissal, made worse by his weakened mental state.

  If we take into account the lack of support for those suffering from depression in Victorian London, coupled with the self-doubt a young man like Druitt would have had, we see the significance of his dismissal. It meant he was cut off from all he wanted to be. Before he was a peer and even influential amongst the Victorian elite and so his
enforced ostracisation was the death knell to this depressed, young social climber. At the same time, Druitt could not have accepted such a course of action on his own; it was for others to initiate like his family and friends. In Druitt’s personal circumstances in 1888, although surrounded by copious work colleagues in his day-to-day activities, his eventual dismissal from Valentine’s school isolated him. This seems to be a more likely reason for Druitt’s suicide in late 1888. However, some still feel he could be Jack the Ripper because, as a suspect, he ‘was more likely than Cutbush!’

  Bibliography

  Begg, P., Fido, M. & Skinner, K., The Jack the Ripper A–Z (Headline,1996)

  Adrian Morris hails from Neasden in north-west London. He was born only a stone’s throw from Dollis Hill House, where both the great Victorian Prime Minister William Gladstone and the brilliant American writer Mark Twain once lived. He studied Political Science at Birkbeck College, London University, and has a long-standing interest in Irish history and post-1945 American history. He is a founding member of The Whitechapel Society and has been the editor of its journal since its modern inception in 2005.

  5

  Sir William Gull

  M.J. Trow

  ‘Since every Jack became a gentleman, there’s many a gentle person made a Jack.’

  (Shakespeare, Richard III, Act I, Sc. 3)

  The Facts

  William Withey Gull was born aboard the Dove, a barge owned by his father, John, on the last day of 1816, while they were moored at St Osyth Mill, Colchester. John Gull was a wharfinger – a man who made his living ferrying cargo between Colchester and the Thames; William was the youngest of eight children. When he was four, the family moved to Thorpe-le-Soken in Essex. Within five years, John had died from cholera; a new epidemic sweeping London in those years.

  It was William’s mother, Elizabeth, a devout and hardworking woman, who was responsible for her children’s education. She inspired her youngest to become a pupil teacher (one of the few ways upward for a working-class child), studying Latin and Greek. Through a local connection – Benjamin Harrison was a neighbour of the Gulls and Treasurer of Guys Hospital – the twenty-one-year-old joined the hospital as a medical student, with two rooms and a yearly income of £50.

  He was very bright and exceptionally hard working, obtaining his first degree (by convention a BA), in 1838. He obtained his MB (Bachelor of Medicine) three years later and was lecturing in Materia Medica (Pharmacology) at Guys a year after that. He became MD, in 1846, and for the next three years was Fullerian Professor of Physiology, during which time he became friends with the scientist Michael Faraday.

  In 1848, while Europe convulsed with revolution and the Chartists met on Kennington Common in London, William Gull married Susan Lacy, the daughter of an army colonel from Carlisle. The young couple moved to genteel premises in Finsbury Square and Susan gave birth to three children over the next twelve years. Caroline was born in 1851 and William nine years later. The third child, Cameron, probably born in 1858, died in infancy.

  By the year of his marriage, Gull had become a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and, by 1869, was a Fellow of the Royal Society. He lectured regularly and was at the cutting edge of research, turning him into an international star in medical circles. He was an expert in myxoedema (thyroid problems), Bright’s disease (a disease of the kidneys), paraplegia and anorexia (it was Gull who first coined the term).

  What really made Gull’s name, however, was his treatment of the Prince of Wales, when he suffered from the life-threatening typhus fever in 1871. ‘Bertie’s’ father, Albert, had died of the disease ten years earlier and Victoria was distraught, in case another member of her family should go the same way. Bertie recovered – The Times describing his care as ‘nursing so tender, ministry so minute’– and the grateful Queen made Gull one of her four Physicians-in-Ordinary and a baronet. He was now First Baronet Gull of Brook Street, a far more imposing address than Finsbury Square and his coat-of-arms is a true Victorian monstrosity, in-keeping with the poor heraldic artwork of the time.

  Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, honours continued to be heaped on Gull. He received honorary degrees from Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh universities and sat on the General Medical Council. He championed the cause of women in medicine (there were no female doctors in his day) and worked with his usual passion and enthusiasm until 1887, when he suffered a stroke at his Scottish retreat, Urrard House, in Killiecrankie. The cerebral haemorrhage had caused, in medical terms, hemiplegia (paralysis of one side of the body – in Gull’s case, his right) and aphasia (loss of speech). He recovered sufficiently to work in his London practice but knew it was the beginning of the end. ‘One arrow had missed its mark,’ he wrote, ‘but there are more in the quiver.’

  He was right. After a third stroke, he died at 12.30 p.m. on 30 January 1890. He was seventy-four. Gull was buried in the family plot, in the parish churchyard at Thorpe-le-Soken, next to his parents. A special train had to be laid on to bring all the mourners from London. Eulogies came from all over the world – the American novelist Mark Twain noted the death in his diary – and on the headstone they carved the lines:

  What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with God?

  All in all, a well respected gentleman. William Gull’s story can hardly be called conventional. From humble beginnings, he made his mark in medical science and can stand alongside the great doctors – not just of his day but of all time.

  Then, eighty years after his death, someone claimed that he was Jack the Ripper.

  The Fantasy

  William Gull belongs to that strand of Ripperology involving the highest in the land. The logic (if it can be called that) runs something like this: a maniac killed a disputed number of women in the East End of London, in 1888, and was never caught. Why not? Because there was a huge cover-up. Who could have orchestrated such a cover-up? It had to be someone in the corridors of power, with supreme clout. Who could that be? Someone closely connected with the Royal Family – the highest in the land.

  The proverbial Elephant in the room, in respect of the Whitechapel Murders, is the likelihood that the killer had some medical expertise; evident, not in the killings, but in the post-mortem mutilations and removal of organs. Various police surgeons at the time – Thomas Bond and Frederick Brown were the most impressive – could not believe that a surgeon, having taken the Hippocratic Oath to save life, could carry out such crimes at all. Clearly, they had no notion of the impulses that drive a serial killer and were unaware of the depressingly long list of murderous doctors from William Palmer to Harold Shipman. They were probably right about the mutilations however; a practising surgeon had ample opportunity to cut and remove organs on a daily basis, without resorting to the dingy alleyways of the Abyss.

  But of course, in the case of the highest in the land, we are not talking about cold, rational fact, based on historical and empirical research, but a myriad of conspiracy theories. In the world of the mythological Ripper, William Gull fits like a hand in a glove. However much we try to shake it off, the image of the top-hat, cape and medical-bag-carrying monster will not disappear into the (equally irrelevant) London fog. As a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Queen’s doctor, of course, he wore those clothes and he would have carried a medical bag.

  Gull’s name first appears linked with the Ripper in The Criminologist, in November 1970, in an article written by Dr Thomas Stowell. To be fair to Stowell, his article was called ‘Jack the Ripper – a Solution?’, with the all-important question mark, and it was other Ripperologists who sought to put flesh on the bones and replace healthy scepticism with dogmatic certainty. Stowell had been a friend and medical partner of Dr Theodore Dyke Acland, Gull’s son-in-law. He believed that the Ripper was ‘Eddie’ (Prince Albert Victor, the Duke of Clarence), Victoria’s grandson and heir to the throne. There is little doubt that Stowell was more than a little confused. He claimed that Gull had
been seen in the Whitechapel area on more than one occasion, and was there shadowing the deranged Eddie, in order to certify him insane prior to his being locked away in an institution. Stowell was eighty-five when he wrote the article, which was heavily amended by the editor, and he died in the same year. Certainly his conversations with criminologist Colin Wilson show a scant regard for the facts. When his article, suggesting a royal connection, appeared, Stowell wrote a retraction to The Times, claiming that he was both a Royalist and a loyalist. But the damage had been done; Ripperology, with all its delicious and infuriating red herrings, took off from this point.

  William Gull moved from accessory after the fact, to protagonist three years later. Joseph Gorman Sickert, who claimed to be the son of the Victorian painter Walter Sickert, contributed to a BBC drama documentary and his story was seized upon by journalist, Stephen Knight in what is still, probably, the best known book on the case – Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution.

  In a long (and unbelievable) story cut short, Knight asserted that Eddie had married a Catholic shopgirl (Annie Elizabeth Crook) and her friends, led by Mary Kelly, tried to blackmail the government to keep the scandal secret. A worried Prime Minister (Lord Salisbury), anxious to save the Royal Family’s face, and to prevent a potential collapse of government, called in his old Freemason friend, William Gull, to silence Kelly and co. in any way he saw fit. Because Gull had medical training, he could kill easily with a surgeon’s knife and he left Masonic ritual mutilations as a warning to others. To explain how an eminent physician could track down the women concerned, find his way around Whitechapel and get away unobserved, Sickert and Knight brought in a coachman, John Netley. Netley not only drove the doctor to the murder sites, but allowed the killings to take place in his cab. With Walter Sickert – who knew Mary Kelly personally – as lookout (Joseph Sickert claimed that this was actually Robert Anderson, head of the CID), the Ripper became not one man, but three. All with the aim to conceal the terrible secret of the clandestine marriage, and the birth of a daughter (Alice Crook) who, it could be argued, should have become Queen of England.