London Monster

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The London monster was a (possibly legendary) attacker of women in London between 1788 and 1790.

First reports of the Monster appeared in 1788. According to the victims (all of them women from wealthier families), a large man had stalked them. He had shouted obscenities at them and lashed at them with unusual blades. Sometimes he would lash their buttocks and hips, sometimes kick them with knives fastened to his knees. In other times he would invite them to smell a fake nosegay and then stab them in the nose with the spike hiding within the flowers. Then he would make his escape just before the help arrived. Luckier victims could get away with their clothes cut when others received substantial wounds. In two years the number of reported victims amounted to over 50.

The press soon named the maniac The Monster. However, descriptions of the attacker were varied greatly. When people realized that the Monster attacked mainly beautiful women, some women begun to claim that they had been attacked to gain attention and sympathy. Some of them even faked wounds. Some men, in turn, were afraid to approach a lady in the dark lest they scare her. Some of the reports of the would-be-attacks could have been fabrications or results of a lady being afraid of an innocent would-be-escort. Some men even founded a No Monster Club and began to wear club pins on their lapels to show that they were not the Monster.

Londoners were outraged when the Bow Street Runners, the London police force, failed to capture the man. Philanthropist John Julius Angerstein promised a reward of £100 for capture of the perpetrator. Armed vigilantes began to patrol in the city. Fashionable ladies began to wear copper pans over their petticoats. There were false accusations and attacks against "suspicious" people. Local pickpockets and other criminals used the panic to their advantage; they picked someone's valuables, pointed at him, shouted "Monster!", and escaped during the resulting mayhem.

On June 13, 1790 previous victim Anne Porter spotted her attacker in St. James Park. Her admirer John Coleman begun a slow pursuit of the man, who realized he was being followed. When the man, Rhynwick Williams, an unemployed 23-year-old, reached his house, Coleman confronted him, accusing him of insulting a lady and challenging him to a duel. He eventually took Williams to meet Porter, who fainted when she saw him.

Williams protested his innocence but, given the climate of panic, it was futile. He admitted that he had once approached Porter but had an alibi for another of the attacks. Magistrates charged Williams with defacing someone's clothing -- a crime that in the law code of the day carried harsher penalty than assault or attempted murder. During the trial, spectators cheered the witnesses for the prosecution and insulted those for the defense. One of the claimed victims confessed that she had not been attacked at all.

Realizing the absurdity of the situation, the First judge granted Williams a retrial. In the new trial Williams's defense lawyer was an Irish poet Theophilus Swift, whose tactic was to accuse Porters of a scheme to collect the reward. It only made Williams's case worse. He was convicted on three counts and sentenced to two years each, for a total of six years in prison.

Historians have speculated whether Williams was the culprit, and even have questioned whether the London Monster even existed beyond the rumors.