Goulston Street graffito: Jack The Ripper's missing clue?
After Jack The Ripper fled the scene of his fourth Whitechapel murder, police found the ‘Goulston Street graffito’ nearby. Did Jack create it to distract them?
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In the late Victoria era, Whitechapel was notorious as a hotbed of criminal activity. Nonetheless, in late 1888, the district saw a string of brutal murders shocking even by this East London area’s own contemporary standards.
Five women — Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly — have generally been deemed victims of the same killer. This killer has never been conclusively identified, but is known to history as ‘Jack The Ripper’.
Where did this name come from? A letter purportedly written by the Ripper and brought to light by the press during the killing spree. Modern-day perceptions of the Ripper were originally shaped by Victorian journalists, as explored in the new Sky HISTORY series Jack The Ripper: Written in Blood.
So, who was Jack The Ripper? Will we ever know? Possibly not. However, in a doorway off Goulston Street, a graffito offered what Victorian investigators perceived to be a possible — if also vague and tantalising — clue.
What was the Goulston Street graffito?
Jack’s third and fourth victims — Stride and Eddowes — met their demise on the same night. That was 30th September 1888, when police came across Eddowes’ body and noticed that part of her apron was suspiciously missing.
It wasn’t until later the same night that Police Constable Alfred Long found the missing piece in the Goulston Street doorway. The fabric was stained with blood, suggesting that Jack had used it to hurriedly wipe Eddowes’ splattered blood off himself or his murder weapon.
Especially eye-opening was a message scrawled in chalk above where the apron piece had been left. Numerous versions of this message, each differing slightly in phrasing and spelling, have been recorded. However, it is perhaps most often said to have read: ‘The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing [sic].'
Unfortunately, there is no way to verify which version, if any, is correct. That’s because the Goulston Street graffito was washed away on the order of the London Metropolitan Police head Sir Charles Warren. This was apparently out of fear that the graffito, if seen by the public, could lead to antisemitic rioting.
Did 'Juwes' really mean 'Jews'?
That’s certainly how Police Superintendent Thomas Arnold interpreted the peculiar spelling when he saw it in the Goulston Street graffito. He remembered one Jewish man, a bookmaker called John Pizer, who was forced to go into hiding after he was suspected of being Jack The Ripper.
Since the early 1880s, Jewish refugees had emigrated to the East End in large numbers, fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe. However, antisemitism was rife in Whitechapel, and had already sparked social unrest before the Goulston Street graffito was discovered in the wake of Eddowes’ death.
In this context, Warren’s decision to have the provocative scrawl removed was understandable. However, it has been suggested that Warren could have judged the ‘Juwes’ spelling to be the mark of a Freemason. As a Freemason himself, Warren could have feared the Freemasons coming under suspicion for the Ripper’s crimes.
Did Jack The Ripper create the Goulston Street graffito?
One theory is that Jack wrote the message in an attempt to throw the police off the scent. On his way home, he could have concealed himself in the dark passageway to elude police detection.
This would have been a convenient place for him to discard the bloodied apron and so avoid being seen with it. He would then have been at leisure to casually re-emerge from the shadows in innocuous fashion.
If all of this did happen, it suggests that Jack lived somewhere in the East End, as he would have moved in this direction after killing Eddowes. Nonetheless, if he did linger long enough to write the scrawl, he would have risked being caught in the act by police patrolling nearby.
The Goulston Street graffito did reportedly look faded, as though it had been created much earlier than 30th September. Indeed, antisemitic graffiti was already widespread in London. This has led many experts to suggest that the Goulston Street graffito location’s close proximity to the apron piece was likely mere coincidence.
Indulge your fascination with the Ripper mystery
How did the Victorian press capitalise on the Whitechapel Murders to whip the frightened public into an unprecedented frenzy? You can find out by catching up with Sky HISTORY’s Jack The Ripper: Written in Blood.
You can also keep yourself updated on new developments in the Ripper mystery by subscribing to the Sky HISTORY Newsletter.
