Jack the Ripper And The Royal Conspiracy Theory
Probably the best-known theory about the Jack the Ripper murders is the one that explains that the murders were part of a conspiracy designed to protect those at the very top of Victorian society.
The theory has the basic ingredients to make a great story, which is why this theory has been featured in films and books.
The theory began to take shape in 1973 when the BBC put together a six-part programme examining the Jack the Ripper case. Two television detectives investigated the case, and their discussions were interspersed with dramatised scenes set in the 19th century.
Z Cars, Softly Softly, and Barlow at Large were hugely popular series featuring Chief Superintendent Barlow, played by Stratford Johns and Chief Superintendent Watt, played by Frank Windsor
It was an interesting way to present the murders of 1888 to a TV audience of the 1970s, and it is still entertaining an audience today because the DVD of the series is available.
Theories, suspects, and conspiracies are discussed, although the conclusion is that there just isn’t enough evidence to say who Jack the Ripper was. Of course, that is true, but as Mark Twain said, “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
Research during the making of the BBC programme led to a man calling himself Joseph Sickert, who told them a remarkable story. Joseph Sickert claimed he was the illegitimate son of the Victorian painter, Walter Sickert.
Walter was a friend of Eddy, Prince Albert Victor and the pair of them seemed to enjoy slumming in London’s East End.
During their adventures Eddy falls for a young working class girl called Annie Elizabeth Crook and the result is that in 1885 a baby daughter, Alice Margaret Crook is born.
Walter Sickert helps out by finding them a babysitter. This is Mary Jane Kelly, who became the fifth and final victim.
Queen Victoria
The couple’s romance is doomed when Eddy’s grandmother, Queen Victoria, is alerted to this affair. She is furious. Well Annie Elizabeth Crook isn’t just a commoner she is a Roman Catholic. A Catholic heir to the throne could cause a revolution in the land.
Fortunately, her Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, is on hand. The love nest is raided, and Eddie and Annie are removed in separate cabs.
The Queen’s personal physician, Sir William Gull, then steps in and performs an operation or two on Annie, conveniently leading to loss of memory, epileptic fits and eventually insanity.
Baby Alice is more fortunate because Mary Jane Kelly is able to rescue her and place her under the protection of nuns.
Mary is fully aware of who Alice’s father really is, and she shares this information with three friends: Polly Nicholls, Annie Chapman, and Liz Stride. They devise a plan to make some money and decide to blackmail the government.
Sir William Gull
Prime Minister Lord Salisbury decides the blackmailers must be dealt with, and the very man to deal with them is the 71-year-old Royal physician, Sir William Gull.
Despite very poor health and a series of strokes beginning in 1887 the good doctor along with the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Robert Anderson, travel the grimy lanes of Whitechapel in a shiny black coach pulled by two shiny black horses controlled by Prince Albert Victor’s coachman, John Netley.
Rattling through the narrow, cobbled lanes around Buck’s Row might have attracted some attention, but somehow, they hunt down the blackmailers and Sir William Gull and his knife go to work.
The fourth victim, Kate Eddowes, was a mistake.
They thought she was Mary Jane Kelly. Kate, it seems, only had herself to blame because she sometimes called herself Mary Kelly.
However, the murders were successfully kept secret, and they even found a patsy. They laid the blame on the barrister, Montague John Druitt, and then murdered him.
There was sort of a happy ending in that the nuns nurtured little Alice. She married Walter Sickert and gave birth to a baby who grew up learning about this remarkable story. That baby was Joseph Sickert the man that the BBC researchers had been led to.
Joseph Sickert’s story was so amazing that a young journalist named Stephen Knight asked him for an interview. The result was a book by Stephen, published in 1976, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution.
The book's story follows the BBC programme, but it differs in that Knight does not clear Sir Robert Anderson. Instead, he says the third man in the dastardly plot was, in fact, Joseph Sickert’s own dad, Walter Sickert.
Now, it’s probably worth having a little background on the man who first told this tale: the man who called himself Joseph Sickert, the illegitimate son of Walter Sickert.
Joseph was one of five children born to William and Alice Gorman, who had been married for seven years when Joseph was born.
However, it’s all slightly more complicated in the Gorman household because, according to Joseph’s tale, his mother, Alice, was the love child of Prince Albert Victor and Annie Crook.
The child whose nanny and saviour was Mary Jane Kelly. Mary Jane Kelly, who was introduced to the family thanks to the kind consideration of Walter Sickert.
Then, after nearly 40 years, the pair reunite. 40-year-old Alice and 65-year-old Walter have an affair, which produced little Joseph in 1925. Walter may have been pleased because although he married three times, the marriages did not produce any children.
It is a remarkable story; however, there is one big problem. There is no evidence to support any of it.
Apart from what Joseph told the researchers at the BBC and what the 22-year-old journalist, Stephen Knight, recorded in interviews with Joseph and then turned into a best-seller Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution.
Like so many other books that claim to have discovered ‘the final solution,’ there is just no hard evidence.
The story is based on assumptions. Conspiracy is the hook on which the story hangs with the Freemasons as the prime movers.
And, of course, a conspiracy, by definition, will explain why there is no hard evidence because the conspirators made sure that evidence was destroyed.
Stephen Knight’s theory, though, remains one of the most popular theories. It has inspired other works, including the graphic novel From Hell, which led to the 2001 film of the same name.
It does deliver a great story of power, corruption and conspiracy and Mark Twain is right. “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
Thank you for checking out this post.