Philip Sugden (historian)

Philip Sugden (January 27, 1947 – April 26 2014) was an English historian, best known for his excessive study of Jack the Ripper case, including the books The Complete History of Jack the Ripper, first published in 1994, and The Life and Times of Jack the Ripper (1996). He was one of the few professional historians who worked on the case.

Biography

Philip Sugden was born on January 27, 1947 in Hull, England, the younger of twin boys. His father was a painter and decorator. Sugden left Ainthorpe High School at the age of 16 and spent four years in the park department of Hull City Council. He then took his A-levels at the Hull College of Commerce and began reading history in the University of Hull after his graduation in 1972. He immediately started working on his Ph.D., but the dissertation on early Stuart maritime expansion was unfinished partly because of Sugden's meticolous nature and repeatedly rewriting and parly because his grant ran out. In 1976, he took a job at Chenet School in Cannock, where he taught history, English and economics. At that time he became fascinated with the Georgian era and particularly the crime of 18th-century London.^[1]

In 1988, Sugden left teaching, having been disappointed in this profession, and switched to full-time writing. His book The Complete History of Jack the Ripper was completed after nine years of research and was first published in 1994. Sugden was the first professional historian to work on the case, in his book he tried to collect maximum facts and "cleanse" the story of many errors and myths spawned by other researchers. He shunned building theories on the true identity of the killer, and, though he had his favoured suspect, Polish-born English serial killer George Chapman, he always was far from certain. The book received both critical and popular success, having sold 100,000 copies.^[1]

Sugden contributed several articles to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, one of them on an early 18th-century London thief and gaol-breaker Jack Sheppard and another about English serial killer George Joseph Smith.^[1]

Sugden never married, he was a reclusive man who lived alone. He was found dead on April 26, 2014, having suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. After his death, two of his books left unfinished: one, A Cabinet of Curiosities, presented a collection of various historical mysteries, and the other, Forbidden Hero — The Georgian Underworld of Jack Sheppard, told about the crime in the 18th-century London.^[1]

Bibliography

• The Complete History of Jack the Ripper (1994)
• The Life and Times of Jack the Ripper (1996)
• Visions from the Fields of Merit: Drawing of Tibet and the Himalayas (2000)
• A Cabinet of Curiosities (unfinished)
• Forbidden Hero — The Georgian Underworld of Jack Sheppard (unfinished)

References