Lunatics Radio Hour
The history of horror and the horror of history.
Lunatics Radio Hour
Episode 160 - The History of Spring-Heeled Jack
Abby just couldn't get enough. This week is a true deep dive into the history of one of the most bizarre phantoms to haunt a major city. Reports and sightings of Spring-Heeled Jack were commonplace in Victorian London.
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Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Lunatics Radio Hour podcast. My name is Abbey Branker and today I am back to talk to you more about Spring-Heeled Jack. There's nothing incredibly graphic about this topic, but there is some allusions to sexual assaults and just being attacked personally, being attacked by somebody which you know I think can be a little bit intense. So I'm just going to put out that soft warning at the beginning of this episode. I talked a bit about Spring-Heeled Jack a few episodes ago, during our very first episode on the history of superhero horror, and, candidly, it was a tale that I'd been vaguely aware of. You know I have Spring-Heeled Jack coffee from last podcast on the left but I didn't really understand the lore behind it, and so when it came up as part of the superhero research, I was really hooked into it, and part of the reason why I was so hooked into it is because there's so many firsthand sources and interviews via articles and reporting on when it happened, which was in the mid 1800s in England. So I wanted to dive a little bit more deeply into the research of this phenomenon, if you will. We don't really know exactly what it was, whether it was a prank or just an amalgamation of different copycats or whatever it could have been. It's very rare I feel like to have so much reporting on something like this, on folklore, and that's why I wanted to just give it a little bit more airtime and read you some of these articles from the 1830s that talk about people's experiences. I think that's pretty cool. I want to say thank you to April Brinker, who found so many firsthand sources in the form of these newspaper articles. I'm going to quote from these extensively in this episode and I will cite them as I go, but thank you so much to my mom, april Brinker, for her help with that. There's going to be a little bit of redundancy to how I talked about this a few episodes ago, but we're going to fill it in with much more history and again with these articles in this episode.
Speaker 1:The thing about these sightings of Spring-Heeled Jack, which are so fascinating, is that while there's so many reports, all of them vary quite a bit and there's some similarities, of course, that string these together, but generally there's quite a lot of variance and I think that maybe Lens we'll talk about this more at the end, but probably Lens itself a bit to the theory of a copycat or a prank where multiple people were doing something, once the legend became a newspaper sensation. I think it's always been the case of humanity that when something is being reported on or made public, it suddenly becomes very interesting and exciting for people to try to use that as some sort of platform, even if they're masked, right? Even if they're hiding behind a costume or this existing caricature of a high jumping demon. You know, however, we want to define Spring-Heeled Jack. I still think that's certainly a motivator here. So Spring-Heeled Jack, like I said, is a figure from Victorian London. I mean, really, I would say he's in some ways like an urban cryptid, for lack of a better word, right. There's tons of sightings, tons of sort of variants around the legend, but he has this sort of cryptid energy to him and a lot of the articles that we're going to reference today. He's called a ghost and at the time that was certainly part of the zeitgeist.
Speaker 1:One of the reasons why we love Victorian England so much is because it's so inherently spooky, right? And one of the reasons why is because there was just a general commonplace belief in ghost sightings. Some city goers believed that pale entities would stalk and attack anyone walking home alone at night, and that's something that we've seen. A lot of different cautionary tales that are told to kids right, don't walk home alone at night because it's unsafe. And so this legend comes about, whether it's parents telling kids or whatever it is, but it's this cautionary tale, but just setting the scene a bit right. So about 30 years a little bit more than 30 years before Spring-Heeled Jack, around 1803 and 1804, sightings of something called the Hammersmith Ghost were reported on the western side of London. There were also rumors of a Southampton Ghost, both of these, of course, taking the names from the neighborhoods that they were spotted in.
Speaker 1:I want to take a second here, because there's actually a really fascinating real life, real event associated with this belief in the Hammersmith Ghost. So there was actually a murder case in 1804 which set a really important legal precedent in the UK when it came to self defense. The idea is that someone could still be held responsible for their actions, even if they were the consequences of a mistaken belief. So the Hammersmith ghost was believed by many local residents to be the spirit of someone who had taken their own life, and sadly, on January 3rd, someone who had taken their own life and sadly, on January 3rd 1804, a 29-year-old excise officer which is like a tax officer named Francis Smith, shot and killed bricklayer Thomas Millwood. He mistook the white clothes that Millwood was wearing because he was a bricklayer for literally a ghost Like. He thought that he saw this man dressed in white and he must be a ghost. So he shot him. And while that's horrifying and tragic which it is it also just shows you how much people really believed in this right. Like someone believed in it so much that they shot and killed someone. And obviously I don't know the state of Francis Smith's mental health or anything else that goes into it. But still just to say the rumors of the Hammersmith ghost were so relevant that that was his defense. The court found Smith guilty of murder and actually sentenced him to death, but later the sentence was commuted to one year hard labor, which seems like quite the pivot to me, and a lot of the issues that were surrounding this case were not settled for 180 years. It was actually finally decided by an appellate court in 1984.
Speaker 1:There's also another interesting point of discussion that comes about with the legends of the Hammersmith ghost and that's about those who decide to take their own lives and this local belief that they should not be buried in the churchyard. And so this person who had taken their own life and that locals believed was the entity, the Hammersmith ghost, was buried in Hammersmith churchyard. And people believe that because he was buried in Hammersmith churchyard and because you shouldn't be buried in a churchyard, if you had died that way, the belief was that their soul would not rest right. The soul was active and out every night, haunting the town. Sometimes the entity was described as ghostly white, right Of course, like we see all other ghost stories in the world, but sometimes there was an added description of this entity wearing a calfskin garment with horns and large glass eyes. So again, some variants similar to Spring-Heeled Jack, some variants glass eyes. So again, some variants similar to Spring-Heeled Jack, some variants According to local legend, which I have not vetted historically, but part of this legend reported is that two different women had claimed having been walking alone at night near this churchyard, to have been attacked and held by the Hammersmith ghost.
Speaker 1:One of them was an elderly woman, one of them was a pregnant woman, and the local legend says that both of them eventually were so frightened that days later they died. Local Thomas Groom also testified that while he was walking along the churchyard late at night, an apparition rose from behind the tomb somewhere around 9 pm and grabbed him by his throat. Another example on December 29th, william Grindler, a night watchman, claimed to have seen this apparition near Beaver Lane. He actually decided to chase the ghost. So I know that the Hammersmith ghost is not Spring-Heeled Jack, but it's just interesting. This was 30-something years before the sightings of Spring-Heeled Jack started and there's so much similarity. In this case it's a bit more contained, right, because the Hammersmith ghost is part of the Hammersmith neighborhood of London, which is right next to Kensington and near Chelsea, and this is just one example right From one neighborhood in London that was happening as a precursor to Spring Hill Jack. But this certainly isn't the only example, right. It's just a really good reflection of the belief at the time. I've also read here and there that part of the reason why there was so much fear of the paranormal, but fear in general in London at this time was because the police of the city were really disorganized and so generally people just didn't feel safe.
Speaker 1:In 1837, residents of a London neighborhood started to report strange encounters and incidents with a mysterious and terrifying man. Spring-heeled Jack was a folk figure that scared locals. Though some believed he was a demonic, fire-breathing demon-like entity, others believed him to just be an incredibly agile human. But the through line with a lot of these sightings seems to be that Jack has this supernatural ability to jump really high.
Speaker 1:Almost all of Jack's claimed attacks happened against women not all, but most of them and the very first sighting of Jack is often traced back to October of 1837. It was reported by a woman working as a servant who is named Mary Stevens. She was walking on Lavender Hill after visiting her parents in Battersea. As Mary walked through Clapman Common, a terrifying shadowy figure leaped out in front of her. The man held her arms and kissed her while he ripped at her clothing. She described his hands as quote cold and clammy, as those of a corpse end quote. After screaming, the man fled the scene and a search ensued, but he was never found.
Speaker 1:The very next day a figure leapt out in front of a traveling carriage, causing a crash. So Jack seemed to attack in a few different ways. Sometimes he was reported to ring a doorbell and again he would use what people described as claws, quite often to shred the clothing of the person coming to the door. Other times it was reported that he would attack people as they walked along this street or, like in this case, even jumping out in front of a carriage. Other reports around this time also claimed that the assailant presented as a ghost or a bear. And again, I know that maybe that sounds ridiculous to us, right, but thinking back to the Hammersmith ghost, people were so afraid of ghosts in London at this time that even a bricklayer who was simply wearing his white uniform was shot and killed because somebody believed that he was actually an apparition. Some reports of Jack claimed that he was wearing red shoes and armor, and others that he could breathe blue fire. So again, it's sort of all over the place, but the unifying factor seems to be his ability to jump and then also the way that the attacks come about right, either while you're walking home alone at night or coming to answer your door.
Speaker 1:So while the press reported on this quite a bit and we're about to get into some of the firsthand articles that talk about this they generally remained pretty skeptical of the reports. But they still published them, and in January of 1838, john Cohen, the Lord Mayor of London, actually made a public statement. It had become that much of a nuisance right that he needed to address it publicly. He tried to reinforce the theory that the attacks were due to a band of wealthy men causing chaos. We'll talk a bit about some of the theories at the end, but let's talk a little bit about the report of Jane Alsop. So in 1838, a man rang the doorbell of Jane Alsop or the Alsop house right, but Jane came to the door. He was yelling that Spring Hill Jack had been caught but that they needed her help. Jane delivered a glowing candle to the man on the street outside of her home, but he rewarded her by blowing blue flames into her face and again shredding her clothes and scratching her with metal claws. Jane was unable to get away until her sister came to her rescue. She would later describe the man as having red, fireball-like eyes, wearing a tight white outfit and a helmet. So this account is really important because it helped to fuel the rumors that Jack indeed was a devil. I'm going to read you this excerpt from the Examiner, which was published on February 25th 1838.
Speaker 1:Lambeth Street Outrage on a young lady. Many among the public have hitherto been incredulous as to the truth of various representations made to the Lord Mayor of the gambles of Spring-Heeled Jack, the suburban ghost. The following particulars, however, will remove all doubt on the subject. At Bearbind Cottage in Bearbind Lane, a very lonely spot between the villages of Bow and Old, ford, accompanied by his three daughters, waited upon Mr Hardwick and gave the following particulars of an outrage committed on one of the latter. Miss Jane Alsop, a young lady 18 years of age, stated that at about a quarter to nine o'clock on the preceding night she heard a violent ringing at the gate in front of the house, and on going to the door to see what was the matter, she saw a man standing outside of whom she inquired what was the matter and requested he would not ring so loud. The person instantly replied that he was a policeman and said for God's sake, bring me a light. We have caught Spring-Heeled Jack here in the lane.
Speaker 1:She returned into the house and brought a candle and handed it to the person who appeared enveloped in a large cloak and whom she at first really believed to be a policeman. The instant she had done so, however, he threw off his outer garment and, applying the lighted candle to his breast, presented a most hideous and frightful appearance and vomited forth a quantity of blue and white flame from his mouth, and his eyes resembled red balls of fire. From the hasty glance which her fright enabled her to get at his person, she observed that he wore a large helmet, and his dress, which appeared to fit him very tight, seemed to her to resemble white oilskin. Without uttering a sentence, he darted at her and, catching her partly by her dress and the back of her neck, placed her head under one of his arms and commenced tearing her ground with his claws, which she was certain were of some metallic substance. She screamed out as loud as she could for assistance and, by considerable exertion, got away from him and ran towards the house to get in. Her assailant, however, followed her and caught her on the steps leading to the hall door when he again used considerable violence, tore her neck and arms with his claws, as well as a quantity of hair from her head, but she was at length rescued from his grasp by one of her sisters. Miss Alsop added that she had suffered considerably all night from the shock she had sustained and was then in extreme pain, both from the injury done to her arm and the wounds and scratches inflicted by the miscreant about her shoulders and neck with his claws or hands.
Speaker 1:Miss Mary Alsop, a younger sister, said that on hearing the screams of her sister Jane, she went to the door and saw a figure, as above described, ill-using her sister. She was so alarmed at his appearance that she was afraid to approach or render any assistance. Mrs Harrison said that, hearing the screams of both her sisters, first of Jane and then of Mary, she ran to the door and found the person before described. In the act of dragging her sister Jane down the stone steps from the door with considerable violence, she, mrs Harrison, got hold of her sister and by some means or other, which she could scarcely describe, succeeded in getting her inside the door and closing it. At this time her sister's dress was nearly torn off, both her combs dragged out of her head as well as a quantity of her hair torn away. The fellow, notwithstanding the outrage he had committed, knocked loudly two or three times at the door and it was only on their calling loudly for the police from the upper windows that he left the place get out of bed. But such was the alarm of the night before that they both got out of bed and he managed to get downstairs and found his daughter, jane, with her clothes torn and having all the appearance of receiving the most serious personal violence.
Speaker 1:The article goes on, but I'm going to stop there. So again, that was a quote from an article in the Examiner which came out February 25th 1838. I know it was a little bit long, but I just thought it was interesting because it talks in so much detail about what happened, but also because so many of the Alsop family saw this right. And then the police came and they saw it right. So it was validated in many ways. And also all three of the sisters saw the attacker, according to this account. So I think what it validates is that the attack is real right. Whether or not we believe that the entity is supernatural isn't that important, because I think generally most of us don't, but it's that there was copycats at least, or someone claiming to be this figure going around London, and whether it was one person or many people we may never know, but that the attack itself certainly seems to have happened.
Speaker 1:A few days after Jane Alsop was attacked, a woman named Lucy Scales was walking with her sister in a different London neighborhood when a man jumped in front of the pair. Again, he was described as breathing blue flames. This time Jack's breath actually caused one of the women to have a seizure-like fit, and both of the attacks on Lucy and Jane happened closer to London's city center than the others, which took place mainly in the suburbs. So this article from the Morning Post, which was a London newspaper from March 7th 1838, talks a bit about Lucy Scales' encounter, lambeth Street, the ghost alias Spring-Heeled Jack. Again Spring-Heeled Jack again.
Speaker 1:Yesterday Mr Scales, a respectable butcher residing in Narrow Street Limehouse, accompanied by his sister, a young woman 18 years of age, attended before Mr Hardwick and made the following statement relative to the further gambles of Spring-Heeled Jack. Ms Scales stated that on the evening of Wednesday last, at about half past eight o'clock, as she and her sister were returning from the house of their brother and while passing along green dragon alley, which sounds very cool, they observed some person standing in an angle in the passage. She was in advance of her sister at the time and just as she came up to the person, who was enveloped in a large cloak, he spurted a quantity of blue flame right in her face which deprived her of her sight and so alarmed her that she instantly dropped to the ground and seized with violent fits which continued for several hours. In reply to the question of Mr Hardwick, miss Gale said that on approaching the individual she thought it was a woman, from the headdress being apparently a bonnet or something of that description, but she was afterwards satisfied that it was a man. He appeared to her to be tall and thin, but her sister, who was with her, could give a more accurate description of this person as she had a better opportunity of noticing him. But she was not at home when the officer called, else she would have attended.
Speaker 1:Mr Scales said that on the evening in question, in a few minutes after his sisters had left his house, he heard the loud screams of one of them and on running up Green Dragon Alley he found his sister, lucy, who had just given her statement, on the ground in a strong fit, and his other sister endeavoring to hold and support her. What had happened? She described the person to be tall, thin and gentlemanly in appearance, enveloped in a large cloak, and carried in front of him a small lamp or bull's eye similar to those in the possession of the police. On her sister, who was a little before her coming up to the person, he threw open his cloak, exhibited the lamp and puffed a quantity of flame from his mouth into the face of her sister, who instantly dropped, and such was the effect of the light upon her eyes that she had to cover them with her hands for an instant or two when she went to the assistance of her sister. She also stated that the individual did not utter a word, nor did he attempt to lay hands on them, but walked away in an instant. Mr Scales remarked that it was not a little singular that one of his sisters had been reading in a newspaper a few minutes before they left his house, the account under the head of his office of Springfield Jack. When he remarked that it was not likely that this personage would come to his neighborhood from the account, so far from alarming his sister appeared to have a different effect. Mr Scales then handed in a certificate of which the following is a copy quote this is to certify that on Wednesday the 28th, I visited Lucy Scales of Week's Place, limehouse, who was suffering from hysteria and great agitation, in all probability the result of a fright Charles Pritchard surgeon. End quote.
Speaker 1:So by April, spring-heel Jack seemed to have found his way to the coast, according to this article from the Times, published on April 14, 1838. Quote Spring-Heeled Jack has, it seems, found his way to the Sussex coast. On Friday evening between nine and ten o'clock he appeared, as we are informed, to a gardener near Rose Hill in the shape of a bear or some other four-footed animal and, having first attracted attention by a growl, then mounted the garden wall, covered as it was with broken glass, and ran along it upon all fours, to the great terror and consternation of the gardener, who began to think it time to escape. He was accordingly about to leave the garden when Spring-Heeled Jack leapt from the wall and chased him for some time. The dog was called, but slunk away, apparently as much terrified as his master, having amused himself for some time. So I find this one to be really interesting, because I don't really know the tone of this article. Is it a parody? Is it purposefully being silly, or do we believe that it was this bear? You know, it's hard to really interpret that one right now with the historical knowledge that I have. So if there are historians listening, that might have a better idea about the tone of this short little snippet claiming that this bear was Spring-Heeled Jack. Is it just that there was this incident with a bear and the reporters being cheeky. Or did the gardener believe that? You know? I don't quite know, but I thought that was an interesting one to throw into the mix here.
Speaker 1:Sightings of Spring-Heeled Jack lasted until 1904. So from 1837 until 1904, people continued to report sightings of Spring-Heel Jack and obviously there's a different range to these right. Some of them are more, some of them maybe feel more concrete than others, and many believe that the last sighting of Spring-Heel Jack actually happened in Liverpool. So in 1888 in Everton, which is like a neighborhood in North Liverpool, it was believed that he actually appeared on the rooftop of a church that was on Salisbury Street called St Francis Xavier's Church. And then the final sighting that is kind of well known or documented is from 1904. And it was claimed that he appeared on William Henry Street in Liverpool. It was claimed that he appeared on William Henry Street in Liverpool.
Speaker 1:So let's talk a little bit about some theories and then what I really want to talk about is the impact of this legend on horror and pop culture and generally just day-to-day life in Victorian London. So this was a point of contention when we first talked about Spring Hill Jack in episode 158. But the term that was used was a group of fancy men, meaning that was their group of wealthy sort of school boys or young gentlemen out in London drinking one night and just causing a bit of a ruckus, right? Maybe they were. I'm picturing them as sort of like private school athletes, right, who are jumping around and just being obnoxious and worse and attacking women, and maybe something like that turned into a copycat situation. Or maybe there was one person right who had some kind of advanced athletic ability to jump and obviously had some costuming, right. I think that's the important thing here.
Speaker 1:He's using props and one of the reason I really like that article about the scales encounter, the Lucy scales encounter, is because they talk about this lantern. He has this cloak and he has something on his head. Both of the Jane Alsop and the Lucy encounters talk about something on his head in this cloak, but then he's using something to breathe blue flames and he's using this lantern. So it seems like he has props and tools and stage magic to some degree. Right, he has something that he's trying to create, this illusion of the supernatural and right at this point I'm clearly in the camp that this is not supernatural. This is a person who's causing chaos. But to me I think maybe it's a person who's causing chaos dressed up in a certain way, using, again, stage props or something to kind of create this illusion. And then I think you have some copycats that are fueling the fire a bit and other people who are running around causing, you know, a muck. But really what all of this chaos went on to do was kind of create this atmosphere of a boogeyman. In London at the time, you know, people thought that he was looking in at them from their windows at night while they slept Spring-Heeled.
Speaker 1:Jack was memorialized in a handful of penny dreadfuls. For anyone who doesn't know, penny dreadfuls are sort of like affordable serial pamphlets or literature kind of predating comic books, I suppose, that were released during the 19th century and a lot of them were quite spooky or dark, but anyway. So he became a character in a handful of Penny Dreadfuls released in the late 1800s. Interestingly, he was first a villain in these and then he turned into a hero, which I think is quite fascinating and also quite related, I would say, to this very thin line that we talked about a lot during the history of superhero horror series between being a superhero and being a supervillain and how and like. That's why Batman is so popular, right? Because? Or why I love Batman so much is because I think it's really hard to be in the position of a superhero and be purely good. To have that much power and be purely good or evil is just kind of boring and flat right, and I think all people, if we're speaking of human nature, have dark sides and light sides and all those things, and so as characters, they're much more interesting that way. So, anyway, just think it's fun. That kind of Jack flipped the scales there.
Speaker 1:But he wasn't only memorialized in Penny Dreadfuls. His legacy has lived on in a few different ways. So in 1989, philip Pullman's Spring-Heeled Jack was a graphic novel that made Jack again into the hero, something that I find really interesting, especially because it sounds like the truth of the whole thing, if we're asking me, is that he was kind of a really bad human being, right, he was also depicted in the alternate history time travel novel, the Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack from 2010. But really a lot more like he's in video games. He's in different things, but even if we don't think about how he's, you know, sort of plucked out of history and transcribed verbatim into something we could also think about how his legacy has shaped the history of pop culture also, the history of folklore, the history of cryptids, the history of all these different things superheroes, right, it's really interesting.
Speaker 1:If you poke around online, you'll find a lot of really interesting theories. I mean, I have been trying to be better about doing this lately, but if you do head to his Wikipedia page it's quite extensive. And then under theories, there's a section for skeptical theories and paranormal conjectures. And again, while I don't believe that he was a paranormal entity, it's really interesting that some of the belief there is actually around him being an extraterrestrial entity, which I think is so interesting because you don't think of a figure from Victorian London, a folk figure, you know, being described as an extraterrestrial, and I love when there's sort of that like weird mind bending explanation for something, even if, again, we don't believe that it's true. But those who believe in it refer to his weird red eyes, his breath right, his ability to breathe blue flames, his unworldly ability to jump, I suppose just like the aliens and signs there. Authors Lorraine Coleman and Jerome Clark put him in a category called phantom attackers, which I think is a perfect way to describe him. Another person in this category would be the Mad Gasser of Mattoon. So they describe phantom attackers as being kind of these entities that appear human but that display these inhuman abilities.
Speaker 1:In the mid-1900s there was actually a sort of counterpart or copycat that popped up in Prague, who became known as the Spring man of Prague and was reported to have been seen in Czechoslovakia from 1939 until about 1945. And I'm saying this because there's something really interesting about this copycat or whatever this is, which is that people start to make the connection perhaps that we're going to tie it all together now, ready that there is a prog bear, a type of bear that can jump really high. And a lot of this comes from Mike Dash, who is a researcher and writer who's done a lot of research, um on, on Spring-Heeled Jack. But I think that's really interesting. Okay, what if the bear thing, or some people, claimed it was a bear? Maybe it was a bear, right, maybe it was a mix of all of these things. It was a fancy man who was drunk and being silly and dangerous, and some people who witnessed from afar bears who can jump really high and misinterpreted that as Spring-Heeled Jack or as the Spring man of Prague? I don't know, just throwing it out there. I want to read one more article from the Morning Post. This one is dated Wednesday, april 4th 1838. Capture of Spring-Heeled Jack.
Speaker 1:Yesterday, james Painter, a youth about 18 years of age and footman to Mrs Chather of Kilburn, was charged at Marylebone Police Office, before Mr Rawlinson and Lord Merriford, with having for some time past kept the fair inhabitants of the above village in considerable alarm by sallying out upon them during their evening preambulations, disguised as a ghost. Mrs Anne Amsnick, a most respectable married lady living in the place above named, stated that a little before eight o'clock on Saturday evening she was walking along Waterloo Place contiguous to Miss Charter's residence, accompanied by a female friend who was present, when all of a sudden she found herself seized by a most ghastly-looking figure, habited in a white sheet and wearing a hideous mask from which depended a long beard. The figure on clasping her exclaimed who the devil are you? And her friend, having recognized the voice of the ghost, replied very promptly we'll let you know who we are and that we are not to be frightened by you. The ghost then beat a retreat, followed by complainant and her friend, and seeing it vanish over the wall surrounding and seeing it vanish over the wall surrounding Miss Charter's premises, she was pretty well convinced that the defendant was the ghost. However, to make sure of the matter, they asked a water carrier named Snell, who had a good view of the ghost and who assured them that it was the defendant. Ms Charlotte Haggerstone, the companion, after corroborating her statement, said that she knew the defendant well. He had for a considerable period been playing his mischievous tricks upon females, some of whom he had frightened in a very serious manner. She recognized his voice the moment he spoke and he had attempted upon several previous occasions to frighten her. Samuel Snell, the water carrier alluded to, gave corroborative evidence. The defendant denied the offense and called the coachman for the purpose of proving an alibi in which he failed. He then proceeded to state that Mrs Amsnack had been to his mistress's house in a great passion and, seizing him in the hall, had bestowed summary punishment in the shape of sundry hard smacks on his face.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to leave this one here. But this ends up being an interesting sort of Spring Hill Jack caught moment, and clearly there's tons of different sightings and attacks that happened after this date. This is only April of 1838. And this goes on until 1904. But I think it tells you right that there are at least some copycats out there. So we have some proof for that theory. Here's a quote from the New York Sun, may 16th 1838. And so this I just find it to be really interesting, because this is a New York paper that's talking about this London phenomenon, right of Spring-Heeled Jack.
Speaker 1:The London ghost turns out to be a very unceremonious and villainous personage. Up to the 24th of February he had not been caught, and what added to the mischief was that many other persons thinking in a capital joke played the ghost too. From his quickness of heel, the unknown scamp has worn the subrack of spring-heeled Jack. The following is a specimen of his conduct, thus described by a young lady who was attended to the police office by her father. And then it goes on with the Jane Alsop story, another sighting from the Morning Post dated Saturday May 26, 1838.
Speaker 1:Spring-heeled Jack. No little sensation has, within the last few weeks, been created among the inhabitants of the peaceful village of Carshalton, surrey, by the mischievous pranks of some individual who has been personating the character of Spring-Heeled Jack. We regret, however, to add that in one instance his conduct has been attended with melancholy consequences For a few days, since a youth of the name of Thomas Worth, about 14 years of age, the son of a poor, hard-working widow woman living in the village, while going to his work at about six o'clock in the morning, was pursued, unperceived by the scoundrel in some awful disguise, who suddenly jumped upon his back, which so alarmed the unfortunate youth that he instantly became bereft of reason, in which state he still continues. He is totally unable to give any description of the fellow, who will therefore escape the punishment he so richly merits. End. Quote from the From the London Dispatch and People's Political and Social Reformer. Sunday October 28th 1838.
Speaker 1:Foul myth Spring-heeled Jack. On Saturday night, as Miss Simmons' eldest daughter of Mr J Simmons, who had been spending the evening with some friends, was returning to her father's house, attended by a manservant, when she had nearly reached the gate some miscreants caught hold of her dress, which terrified her to such a degree that on entering the house she became seriously ill and continued so until Tuesday morning when she expired from the effects of the fright". I mean, that is just a horrible, horrifying story. So this newspaper article is from 1887, from the Newscastle Weekly Chronicle, saturday February 29th Spring-Heeled Jack by W Lees, fleetwood.
Speaker 1:It has never been ascertained who carried out the extraordinary series of freaks or, to speak the truth, something much worse than freaks that the title of our subject will bring to the recollection of people a little past middle age, but they were very generally, though without any proof, attributed to the recollection of people a little past middle age, but they were very generally, though without any proof, attributed to the Marquis of Waterford. The probability appears to be that a number of young bloods worked together to produce the appearance we are going to describe. In that case, of course, spring-heeled Jack was not one, but many persons. However, as Jack was never caught in any of his performances, it is not now likely that the mystery will ever be cleared up or that we shall ever know whether one or a dozen or score performed the part. Certain it is that for some months, jack created the greatest terror in London and its neighborhood, and so this article goes on to describe, you know, the sightings of Spring-Heeled Jack and all of the history.
Speaker 1:It's a really interesting one. I'll pop it on to our Patreon. I'll put all these on to our Patreon if you guys want to read them firsthand. It's very long so I'm not going to quote the whole thing. But I think it's fascinating that it's saying, first of all, that it's common knowledge that the Marquis of Waterford is the person responsible for this, or at least who led, was involved in this, and I also love the language of saying this was a part that many people played and they played it, you know, just like we kind of mentioned earlier in the episode, with like stage magic or stage props. That's how it's kind of described in this article. So I just looked up who was the Marquis of Waterford in 1837. And that's a title, right of course. And it was held at the time by Henry Beresford, the third Marquis of Waterford. He was referred to as the Mad Marquis and was remembered as an eccentric. So that tracks.
Speaker 1:We're not making any assumption, we're not making any accusations in this podcast. I'm just chasing down the thread of that article. So this Marquis was born in 1811, which would make him 26 at the time that these attacks started, which I feel like is the proper age, to be honest. So there was a popular rumor I'm just finding this all out live now but there was a popular rumor that connected him to Spring-Heeled Jack. But the wrench in this theory is that this man died in 1859, and these sightings went on long after that. However, of course, again we've talked about the fact that this could have been multiple men, right, multitudes of people claiming to be Spring-Heeled Jack, and maybe some bears thrown in there too, so hard to say.
Speaker 1:So this piece is a little bit darker, but generally the theory holds that he had maybe a humiliating experience with a woman and a police officer and so, in order to kind of get revenge with women in general which is horrible behavior and with police in general, he decided to create this character and then maybe employ or encourage some of his friends to help live it out. And I will say this I don't know if any of this is true or not, but if it was true and if it was somebody in power, I could understand maybe why the police never caught him. You know, if it was widely known. Again, I'm not saying it is, we're not making any accusations. The theory around him goes even further that maybe, because he has, you know, access, he could have had someone help him design like even boots that had springs, some sort of spring apparatus in them to help with that piece of it.
Speaker 1:But generally, you know the Marquis of Waterford at the time was seen as not just eccentric but, I would say, problematic. He was in the news up until the late 1830s for getting into drunk bar fights and, you know, vandalism and really kind of inappropriate jokes. There was a saying that he would do almost anything for a bet. So I don't know, it seems like a possibility, certainly a possibility. Thank you guys so much for listening. I hope this has been as much of an adventure for you as it has felt like it has been for me. It's been really interesting. It was even just really interesting to see where this thread sort of went right, following these different theories and finding out about the Marquis of Waterford, this well-known secret that a lot of these articles don't mention. So that was fascinating, as always. Appreciate very much you guys listening. I hope everyone is hanging in there, staying safe, staying spooky. We'll talk to you soon. Bye.
