Spring-heeled Jack
The Terror of Victorian London
“Out of the darkness sprang a huge, cloaked figure. In an instant the man had thrown aside his cloak, revealing a hideous and frightful appearance. Blue and white flames vomited from his mouth, and his eyes appeared like balls of fire. The young girl who witnessed all this was so terrified that she fainted right away.”
---The Graphic, August 1876.
London has long been the abode of ghosts and urban myths. Her history, steeped in real tragedies such as The Great Plague, The Great Fire of London, and the exploits of Jack The Ripper, is filled with the uncanny.
The enduring myth of Spring-heeled Jack is no exception. His decades-spanning exploits were widely publicized, and witnessed by hundreds. He had a quite singular appearance, and possessed powers which set him apart from the usual ghostly encounters. Although descriptions varied, he was generally described as wearing a cape, a tight-fitting oilskin outfit, a metallic skullcap (sometimes with horns, sometimes without), long metal claws, and boots that let him leap great distances. He was often described as having a pale complexion, and eyes that glowed. According to some witnesses, he had the ability to spew flames from his mouth. It is no real wonder he inspired the terror and imagination of a whole era.
The first recorded sighting of Spring-heeled Jack occurred in October 1837. A girl by the name of Mary Stevens, walking to Lavender Hill near Clapham Junction railway, was making her way through Clapham Common when a man leapt from an alley and assaulted her. According to her police statement, he restrained her and kissed her face passionately against her will. He then proceeded to tear off her clothing, molesting her with claws which according to her description were “cold and clammy as those of a corpse.” Her screams, attracting the attention of neighbors, made the man flee the scene. A search was made but the assailant could not be found.(1)
The next day, Spring-heeled Jack was witnessed again, this time jumping before a moving carriage. The shocked coachman lost control of his horses and crashed, injuring himself in the process. Witnesses to the incident claimed the perpetrator escaped by leaping over a 2.7 m high wall, laughing insanely as he did.(1)
Through word of mouth and the newspapers, knowledge spread of this fearful character, his feats quickly earning him the name: “Spring-heeled Jack.”
Spring-heeled Jack gained official recognition on the 9th of January 1838. The Lord Mayor of London, Sir John Cowan, shared with the newspapers a letter of complaint he had received regarding a recent attack. Soon after, letters from all around London appeared in print, describing other assaults. For the most part, the attacks were against young women, the same vicious claws being mentioned as with the assault on Stevens.(2)
The most famous cases involved two young women, named Jane Alsop and Lucy Scales.
Alsop’s assault happened on the night of the 19th of February 1838. Upon answering a knock on her father’s door, she was greeted by a man wearing a dark cloak. He claimed to be a police officer, and said, “For God’s sake bring me a light, for we have caught Spring-heeled Jack here in the lane.” Miss Alsop brought him a candle, and as she handed it to him, he threw off his cloak and, “presented a most hideous and frightful appearance.” He proceeded to vomit blue and white flames from his mouth, his eyes being said to resemble: “red balls of flame.” She described him as wearing a large metal helmet like a skullcap, and that he was clothed in a tight fitting white oilskin. She described his claws as being “of some metallic substance.” Alsop succeeded in escaping her attacker, but upon reaching her father’s house, he caught up to her, assaulting her with his claws. The arrival of one of her sisters made him flee into the night.(3)
The next attack occurred nine days later, on the 28th of February. The eighteen year old Lucy Scales was heading home after visiting her brother, when she and her sister Margaret were accosted by a stranger near Green Dragon Alley. Described as a figure in a large cloak, he stepped before Scales and spat “a quantity of blue flame” into her face, causing her to collapse into a seizure. Her brother heard screams, and finding the pair in Green Dragon Alley, helped them home.
Margaret described the assailant as a tall thin man with the aspect of a gentleman. Apart from the flames, he made no attempt to attack the sisters, and walked away after Scales collapsed.(4)
A man was arrested for this attack, one Thomas Millbank. During his trial, the assailant’s ability to breathe fire was mentioned, and as Millbank could not do this, he was released without charge.(5)
The attacks continued after 1838, Spring-heeled Jack’s infamy growing even as the incidents grew further afield.
A victim in Northamptonshire in 1843 described him as “the very image of the Devil himself, with horns and eyes of flame.”(6) In East Anglia, he was said to attack coach drivers on a regular basis.
In Devon, in July 1847, an official investigation was begun, leading to the conviction of a Captain Finch for the assault of two women. The accused was said to have performed the assaults “disguised in a skin coat, which had the appearance of bullock’s hide, skullcap, horns and mask.”(7)
The 1870s brought a resurgence of sightings. Like the incidents a few decades earlier, these were widespread across the country.
A November 1872 issue of the News of the World stated the town of Peckham was “in a state of commotion owing to what is known as the “Peckham Ghost,” a mysterious figure, quite alarming in appearance,” The newspaper claimed this was none other than the return of Spring-heeled Jack.(8)
In August 1877, at the Aldershot Barracks in Hampshire, it was reported that Spring-heeled Jack assaulted a group of soldiers. He was shot at to no effect, and was said to have “disappeared into the darkness with long leaps.”(9)
In Lincolnshire that autumn, Spring-heeled Jack was encountered near Lincoln’s Newport Arch wearing a sheep skin. A mob of angry locals pursued and cornered him, but he again proved impervious to gunshots and escaped by leaping away.(10)
Sightings continued through to the end of the 19thcentury and beyond. In 1888 in Everton, he was witnessed walking atop the rooftop of Saint Francis Xavier’s church. The Everton sightings continued up to 1904.(11)
Though some suspects were arrested and charged, no definite culprit was ever identified or captured. One theory was that Spring-heeled Jack was a group effort. On the 8th of January 1838, the Lord Mayor of London received an anonymous letter, claiming a gang of young noblemen were the chief offenders and that: “some men of high rank had laid a bet with 'a mischievous and foolhardy companion. challenging him: (to visit) many of the villages near London in three different disguises-a ghost, a bear. and a devil; and, moreover enter a gentleman's gardens for the purpose of alarming the inmates of the house. The wager has, however, been accepted, and the unmanly villain has succeeded in depriving seven ladies of their senses.”(12)
One man, suspected of being Spring-heeled Jack as early as 1840, was Henry de La Poer Beresford, 3rd Marquess of Waterford. He was in London at the time of the first attacks, and was a well-known trickster with violent tendencies.(13)
Over the years, Spring-heeled Jack has been given paranormal and even extraterrestrial origins, with the more sober explanations being of an oral tradition run amok and mass hysteria.
Whoever Spring-heeled Jack was, his exploits had a massive impact on Victorian popular culture, and he became one of the most popular urban myths of the Era. His fame grew as he became the subject of non-fiction pamphlets and Penny Dreadfuls, the latter eventually transforming him from a figure of nefarious intent, to a Robin Hood-style character who righted the wrongs of evildoers and fought for the justice of the innocent.(14)
Though the public’s passion for his exploits faded as we entered the modern era, a fascination with his myth exists to this very day. Numerous books, both fact and fiction, have been published on the subject, and Spring-heeled Jack has been no stranger to comic books and the cinema. This enigmatic character may have been the product of imagination and mass hysteria, but this in no way diminishes the legend that is Spring-heeled Jack.
References
1) Reed, Peter. “Spring-heeled Jack.” Epsom and Ewell History Explorer. Retrieved 17th September 2024.
2) Haining, Peter. The Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring Heeled Jack, (1977) pp. 23 – 25, London. Muller, (from The Times of 10th and 12th January 1838).
3) The Morning Post of 23rd February 1838. The British Newspaper Archive. Retrieved 17th September 2024.
4) The Morning Post of 7th March 1838. The British Newspaper Archive. Retrieved 17th September 2024.
5) “The Late Outrage at Old Ford.” The Times. 2nd March 1838. The British Newspaper Archive. Retrieved 17th September 2024.
6) Haining, Peter. The Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring Heeled Jack, (1977) pp. 78 – 79, London. Muller, (from Lloyd's Penny Weekly Miscellany, August 26th 1843)
7) “British And Foreign Gleanings.” The South Australian. 27th July 1847. National Library of Australia. Retrieved 17th September 2024.
8) Haining, Peter. The Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring Heeled Jack, (1977) pp. 87 – 88, London. Muller, (from News of the World, 17th November 1872).
9) “The Aldershott Ghost”, The Times, 28th April 1877, cited in “Fortean Studies volume 3” (1996), p. 95, ed. Steve Moore, John Brown Publishing. Internet Archive, Retrieved 17th September 2024.
10) Illustrated Police News, 3rd November 1877. The British Newspaper Archive. Retrieved 17th September 2024.
11) News of the World, 25th September 1904, cited in “Fortean Studies volume 3,” (1996) p. 97, ed. Steve Moore, John Brown Publishing. Internet Archive, Retrieved 17th September 2024.
(12) Simpson, Jacqueline. Westwood, Jennifer. The Lore of the Land: A Guide to England’s Legends, from Spring-heeled Jack to the Witches of Warboys, (2005) p. 480, Penguin; First Edition.
(13) Haining, Peter. The Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring Heeled Jack, (1977) pp. 54 – 73, London. Muller.
(14) Haining, Peter. The Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring Heeled Jack, (1977) p. 123, London. Muller.