Jack the Ripper royal conspiracy theories

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Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence & Avondale
Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence & Avondale

Among the many persons suggested as connected to the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888 is Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence (1864-1892). He was a grandson of Queen Victoria and eldest son of the Prince of Wales. He was then known as Prince Albert Victor of Wales, or, informally, as Prince Eddy.

The various theories that the Duke of Clarence either was the Ripper, or prompted others to perform the murders to cover up alleged misdeeds, have been comprehensively dismissed. There is strong evidence that the Prince was elsewhere at the times of the murders and there is no evidence that he was implicated in any other way.

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[edit] Claims of a royal killer

The first reference to the Duke of Clarence as a Ripper suspect appears to be in 1962, when Philippe Jullien author of Edouard VII, a biography of Prince Albert's father, made a passing reference to rumours suggesting that Prince Albert and the Duke of Bedford were responsible for the murders. Which Duke of Bedford was supposed to be Prince Albert's colleague at the time of the murders was left uncertain. During the Ripper murders, the Duke was sixty-nine-year old Francis Charles Hastings Russell, 9th Duke of Bedford (1819 - 1891). He would be shortly succeeded by George William Francis Sackville Russell, 10th Duke of Bedford (1852-1893) and then by Herbrand Arthur Russell, 11th Duke of Bedford (1858-1940), both in their thirties at the time. However, Jullien did not mention his sources for those rumours nor is any evidence mentioned, just the alleged existence of the rumour. His own book is believed to be the first recording of them. The date when the rumour first started remains unclear. Jullien claimed that it had been widespread during the lifetime of King Edward VII, but no corroborating evidence for this has been found.

In 1970, Dr. Thomas Eldon Alexander Stowell, CBE published his article A Solution in The Criminologist. Though Prince Albert was not named in the article itself, Stowell clearly presented him as being Jack the Ripper. Stowell claimed that Prince Albert actually died of syphilis, which he had picked up after a visit to the West Indies, and that the official report of his death by pneumonia should be dismissed. Stowell further claimed that syphilis had driven Prince Albert insane. In this state of mind he had perpetrated the five "canonical" Jack the Ripper murders. Following Mary Jane Kelly's murder, Prince Albert was restrained by his own family in an institution near Sandringham and so was unable to continue the series of murders. Stowell claimed that his sources for the article were accounts written in private by Sir William Withey Gull. The article was published shortly before Stowell's own death on November 8, 1970. His papers were reportedly burned by his family. It has been suggested that Stowell could have served directly or indirectly as Jullien's source.

Stowell's article attracted enough attention to place Prince Albert among the most notable Ripper suspects. However, almost all of Stowell's claims were soon demonstrated to be untrue:

  • Gull died on January 29, 1890, and so could not have been Stowell's source concerning Prince Albert's death.
  • At the time the Duke was supposedly in a mental institution he was actually in the British army, in the view of hundreds of other soldiers at almost all times.
  • There is no documentary evidence anywhere to independently substantiate Gull's supposed claims about the sexual health of the Duke, nor of any visits to any mental institution.
  • All Stowell's private papers were destroyed by his own family shortly after his own death, because, in his son's own words: "There was nothing of importance".[1]
  • While Stowell claims to have had access to Gull's papers, no-one else has been able to verify that Gull left any papers, much less see them.
  • If the Duke was known to be Jack the Ripper, why were women such as Princess Hélène of Orléans, daughter of Philippe, Comte de Paris, the future Tsarina of Russia Princess Alix of Hesse, Mary of Teck, and even Queen Victoria, not to mention numerous women who worked as servants in Balmoral, Osborne, Sandringham, Holyroodhouse, and Buckingham Palace all left alone with him without police protection?

In a subsequent letter to The Times, Stowell insisted that he never suggested that the Duke of Clarence was Jack the Ripper. By the time his letter was published he himself had died so any chance for academics or others to discuss his claims with him was lost within a short time of him making the claims.

But even if Gull were the source concerning the murders, records of Prince Albert's activities and whereabouts at the time of the five canonical murders do not confirm his presence in London. Independent evidence from among other sources the Court Circular listed the location of the Duke, and all members of the Royal Family, often on a daily or even hourly basis. On other occasions he was attending functions in public, or meeting foreign royalty, politicians or others, many of whom matter-of-factly recorded their meetings with him in their diaries, or which were reported in the newspapers. A variety of verified sources show the following pattern:

However, defenders of this theory have suggested that Prince Albert could have been secretly traveling to London or alternatively that the official records had been forged.

Another rumour even claimed Gull was Jack the Ripper, even though by the time of the murders he had had multiple strokes and could barely walk, much less carry out violent murders.

In 1978, Frank Spiering published his book Prince Jack further supporting this theory. Spiering claimed to have found a copy of Gull's private notes in the library of the New York Academy of Medicine. Supposedly the notes included a confession by Prince Albert himself under a state of hypnosis. Spiering also suggested that Prince Albert died due to an overdose of morphine administered to him under directions of Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, another Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and possibly his own father, the later King Edward VII of the United Kingdom. The New York Academy of Medicine has since denied possessing the records Spiering mentioned. Consequently Spiering's writings have been widely dismissed as a combination of Stowell's previous theory with Spiering's own fictions. Spiering himself has been accused of being more interested in sensationalism rather than genuine historical research. However the theory had already gained enough support to not be clearly dismissed.

[edit] Claims the murders covered up royal indiscretions

Meanwhile other theories had surfaced implicating in the Jack the Ripper murders not only Prince Albert but the Royal family and a number of notable figures associated with it. This idea first came into public attention thanks to the BBC documentary series Jack the Ripper. The series contained five episodes, aired weekly between July 20 and August 17, 1973.

The series contained testimonies by Joseph Gorman, an obscure London artist who took the name Joseph Sickert, claiming to be the illegitimate son of noted painter Walter Richard Sickert. Sickert claimed to have been an acquaintance of Prince Albert. Princess Alexandra, Prince Albert's mother who like Walter was from Denmark, had supposedly introduced the two men in the hope that Walter would teach Prince Albert about London social life.

Joseph Gorman was also the main source used by author Stephen Knight (September 26, 1951 - July, 1985) in his work Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution, first published in 1976. Gorman later denied that his alleged father was involved in the killings.

Gorman's claims have also been dismissed by historians and Ripperologists. This theory has become well known, especially through fictional adaptations of the case, including movies like Murder by Decree and From Hell.

The Marquess of Salisbury
The Marquess of Salisbury

Joseph Gorman's account makes the following claims, many of which have been criticised as inaccurate:

  • Prince Albert was not homosexual as is often stated (see #The Prince and the rentboys below). Walter Sickert had introduced him to Annie Elizabeth Crook, a shop girl. (Records of the time report her as daughter of William and Sarah Crook).
  • Prince Albert and Annie proceeded to have an affair that resulted in a pregnancy. Prince Albert decided to marry his lover in a secret ceremony despite the fact she was Catholic (although records show that her family actually was not Catholic). The sole witnesses to the ceremony were Walter Sickert and Mary Jane Kelly, as friends of Prince Albert and Annie respectively. Their child was born as Alice Margaret Crook. (Records of the time confirm Alice's birth to have happened between April and July, 1885 but not any information on her father[2]).
  • Prince Albert had his wife and daughter settled in an apartment in Cleveland Street and contacted them as often as he could. In 1888, the existence of an illegitimate great-grandchild came to Queen Victoria's attention. She informed the British Prime Minister, the Marquess of Salisbury, of the matter. The Queen and the Prime Minister were supposedly both afraid that knowledge of the existence of Alice as a Catholic heir to the throne would result in a revolution. (This claim fails to consider that such a marriage would have been invalid under British law due to the Royal Marriages Act, and thus that any child of such a marriage would not have been in line for the throne. Also, according to the Act of Settlement 1701, only Protestant descendants of the Royal family, who have not, furthermore, married a Catholic, can succeed to the English Crown. Members of the Royal family who convert to Catholicism or marry Catholics simply lose their rights of succession.)
  • Lord Salisbury proceeded to order a raid on the apartment. Prince Albert was placed in the custody of his family while Annie was placed in the custody of Sir William Withey Gull. The latter supposedly conducted experiments on her, to erase her memory of the secret royal marriage, driving her insane. She would die in 1920 after spending more than thirty years in a mental institution. (Records actually show she was alive and living with family during this time.) Severe epilepsy in fact ran on her mother's side of the family (her mother was prone to severe grand mal seizures). In any case, as a result of a series of strokes, Gull would have been unable to perform any medical experiments.
  • Alice was supposedly in the care of Mary Jane Kelly during and after the raid. Kelly at first was content to hide the child, but then she decided to blackmail the government along with her friends Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman and Elizabeth Stride (Ripperologists point out that the Ripper victims were not known to be acquainted to each other and reports of their activities and whereabouts during the year of their death don't seem to suggest a connection.) Freemasons and senior policemen in the London Metropolitan Police conspired with Queen Victoria and Lord Salisbury to stage a series of murders to kill women who knew about the relationship in order to stop a political scandal that would bring down the ministry. Lord Salisbury supposedly assigned Gull to deal with the threat they posed. The murders were supposedly performed by Gull with the assistance of coachman John Netley and Sir Robert Anderson (1841 - November 15, 1918) who was the Assistant Commissioner of the Criminal Investigation Division of Scotland Yard at the time (Knight replaced Anderson's role in the alleged murder plot with Walter Sickert). Catherine Eddowes' murder was supposedly a case of mistaken identity. She was known to have used the alias Mary Ann Kelly and supposedly got confused with Mary Jane Kelly.
  • Alice survived the events of the case and would live well into old age. She later became Walter Sickert's mistress and therefore Joseph's mother.

Joseph Gorman's claims have been dismissed as fantasy by historians. Even if, as has been alleged, a conspiracy of the British establishment could somehow have falsified evidence to suggest that he was out of London when he really was there, his location in Balmoral was witnessed by large numbers of servants on the estate. Had any effort been made to silence a large number of servants and get them to lie about his whereabouts, someone would have been bound to have confided in a family member or friend, or recorded the request in a diary. The absence of any evidence from among the couple of hundred people, staff, politicians, or royalty, that any attempt was made to lie about his presence in Balmoral is taken by historians as conclusive evidence that he really was there and so could not have committed the murder that occurred that day. Similarly, other evidence conclusively places him elsewhere when the other murders took place.

Other authors have made further modifications to this theory. For example, Jean Overton-Fuller promoted Sickert from a knowing accomplice to being Jack the Ripper himself (a theme later followed by crime novelist Patricia Cornwell in her book Portrait of a Killer but without the royal connection). Authors Andy and Sue Parlour have used the basic royal conspiracy theory but with Prince Albert getting Ripper victim Mary Jane Kelly pregnant instead of Annie Crook.

[edit] The Prince and the rentboys

For the full story, see: Cleveland Street Scandal
The American Daily Northwestern 1890 report of the Cleveland Street Brothel scandalThe international press reported the Duke of Clarence's involvement in the affair. Some British newspapers hinted at a "prominent personage" linked to the affair.
The American Daily Northwestern 1890 report of the Cleveland Street Brothel scandal
The international press reported the Duke of Clarence's involvement in the affair. Some British newspapers hinted at a "prominent personage" linked to the affair.

A house in Cleveland Street in London was used as a male brothel and frequented by young aristocratic men who were homosexual or bisexual, where they engaged in sexual acts with rentboys. In 1889 the Cleveland Street Scandal erupted and the solicitor of one of the accused, Lord Arthur Somerset, threatened to implicate Prince Albert Victor, even though there was no evidence of his involvement. Police papers published in 1975 do not explicitly implicate the Prince. They do show however that some of his close associates were involved in the affair, causing serious worry in royal and governmental circles. However the threat of involvement of the Prince was sufficient for the establishment to allow Lord Arthur to go into exile.

The Prince's sexuality had been the subject of rumours while at Cambridge. Given the nature of his rumoured involvement with both men and women, many authors have concluded that he was bisexual.[3][4][5] However, these rumours have since been discredited and are now considered "to be a lie, fabricated...to take pressure off" the real culprits.[6]

Having heard rumours linking the elder son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales and Alexandra of Denmark to a male brothel, it was hardly surprising if some people were willing to believe that the Duke was capable of murdering prostitutes. In addition the rumours linking him to a supposed secret and illegal marriage was considered by some to be believable. Illicit marriages had been quite common in the Royal Family, particularly with some of George III's sons, while the Prince's own father, Albert Edward, led a promiscuous sex life.

Though (as shown above) the evidence is overwhelming that the Prince was not in any way associated with the Jack the Ripper murders, and the evidence strongly suggests that he was not directly involved in the Cleveland Street brothel scandal, the Prince has been the subject of widespread (and frequently conflicting) rumours about his private life (as indeed was his younger brother Prince George (see British royalty and urban legends#Rumour: King George V's secret Maltese wife or Irish wife and three daughters).

[edit] Fictional portrayals

Through his connection to the above mentioned theories, the Duke of Clarence and Avondale has occasionally been portrayed in fiction. His appearances in film include:

[edit] References and Sources

  1. ^ The Times (London), Saturday 14 November, 1970 p. 12 col. E
  2. ^ Civil Registration Indexes: Births. General Register Office, England and Wales Apr-Jun 1885 Marylebone vol. 1a p. 537
  3. ^ Theo Aronson, Prince Eddy and the Homosexual Underworld. (Barnes &Noble, 1994)
  4. ^ Dennis Friedman, Ladies of the Bedchamber: The Role of the Royal Mistress. (Peter Owen, 2003) ISBN 0-7206-1160-1.
  5. ^ Channel 4: Real lives.
  6. ^ [1] Prince Eddy: The King We Never Had Channel 4 Thursday 14 December 2006


  • Jack the Ripper: The Facts by Paul Begg
  • Jack the Ripper: A Cast of Thousands by Chris Scott
  • Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution by Stephen Knight
  • Casebook: Jack the Ripper

[edit] External links

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