Jack the Ripper: The Celebrity Suspects

Rippermania has driven a 120-year-old investigation to identify the depraved perpetrator of the savage murder of five prostitutes in the East End of London. Royal figures Queen Victoria, Edward, Prince of Wales, Prince Albert Victor, King Leopold II of the Belgians; prominent politicians Lord Salisbury, William Gladstone, Randolph Churchill; police officials Sir Charles Warren, Sir Robert Anderson; artists and writers Oscar Wilde, Frank Miles, Algernon Swinburne, Francis Thompson, Lewis Carroll, George Gissing, and Walter Sickert are among those who have been implicated in the hunt for the world’s first serial sex killer, Jack the Ripper. 

Rippermania has driven a 120-year-old investigation to identify the depraved perpetrator of the savage murder of five prostitutes in the East End of London. Royal figures Queen Victoria, Edward, Prince of Wales, Prince Albert Victor, King Leopold II of the Belgians; prominent politicians Lord Salisbury, William Gladstone, Randolph Churchill; police officials Sir Charles Warren, Sir Robert Anderson; artists and writers Oscar Wilde, Frank Miles, Algernon Swinburne, Francis Thompson, Lewis Carroll, George Gissing, and Walter Sickert are among those who have been implicated in the hunt for the world’s first serial sex killer, Jack the Ripper. 

Mike Holgate has been a regular feature writer for Devon Life since 1998 and has written a plethora of local history and crime books, including Crime & Murder. He is a part-time librarian and will use the library's archive to source high quality portraits of famous personalities and sketches of social conditions in East End London.