Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 12:08 am Post subject: Spring-Heeled Jack
The first accounts of Spring Heeled Jack were made in London in 1837.
A businessman was returning home late one night from work, who told of being suddenly shocked as a mysterious figure jumped with ease over the high railings of a cemetery, landing right in his path. No attack was reported, but the submitted description was disturbing: a muscular man with devilish features including large and pointed ears and nose, and protruding, glowing eyes.
Later, in October 1837, a girl by the name of Mary Stevens was walking to Lavender Hill, where she was working as a servant, after visiting her parents in Battersea. On her way through Clapham Common, according to her later statements, a strange figure leapt at her from a dark alley. After immobilising her with a tight grip of his arms, he began to kiss her face, while ripping her clothes and touching her flesh with his claws, which were, according to her deposition, "cold and clammy as those of a corpse". In panic, the girl screamed, making the attacker quickly flee from the scene. The commotion brought several residents who immediately launched a search for the aggressor, who could not be found.
The next day, the leaping character is said to have chosen a very different victim near Mary Stevens' home, inaugurating a method that would reappear in later reports: he jumped in the way of a passing carriage, causing the coachman to lose control, crash, and severely injure himself. Several witnesses claimed that he escaped by jumping over a nine foot-high wall while babbling with a high-pitched and ringing laughter.
Gradually, the news of the strange character spread, and soon the press and the public gave him a name: Spring-heeled Jack.
The Lord Mayor London himself was in two minds about the affair: he thought "the greatest of exaggerations" had been made, and that it was quite impossible "that the ghost performs the feats of a devil upon earth", but on the other hand someone he trusted had told him of a servant girl at Forest Hill who had been scared into fits by this strange figure.
A peculiar report from The Brighton Gazette, which appeared in the April 14, 1838 edition of The Times related how a gardener in Rosehill, Sussex, had been terrified by a creature of an "unknown nature".
The Times wrote that "Spring-heeled Jack has, it seems, found his way to the Sussex coast".
The incident occurred on April 13. Having attracted the gardener's attention by a growl, it then climbed the garden wall and ran along it on all fours, before jumping down and chasing the gardener for some time. After terrifying the gardener, the apparition scaled the wall and made its exit.
Perhaps the best known of the alleged incidents involving Spring Heeled Jack were the attacks on two teenage girls, Lucy Scales and Jane Alsop. The Alsop report was widely covered by the newspapers, including a piece in The Times.
Miss Jane Alsop reported that on the night of February 19, 1838 she answered the door of her father's house to a man claiming to be a police officer, who told her to bring a light, claiming "we have caught Spring-heeled Jack here in the lane".
She brought the person a candle, and noticed that he wore a large cloak. The moment she had handed him the candle, however, he threw off the cloak and "presented a most hideous and frightful appearance", vomiting blue and white flame from his mouth while his eyes resembled "red balls of fire".
Miss Alsop reported that he wore a large helmet and that his clothing, which appeared to be very tight-fitting, resembled white oilskin. Without saying a word he caught hold of her and began tearing her gown with his claws which she was certain were "of some metallic substance".
She screamed for help, and managed to get away from him and ran towards the house. He caught her on the steps and tore her neck and arms with his claws. She was rescued by one of her sisters, after which her assailant fled.
Eight days after the attack on Miss Alsop, on February 28, 1838, 18-year-old Lucy Scales and her sister were returning home after visiting their brother, a butcher who lived in Limehouse.
Miss Scales stated in her deposition to the police that as she and her sister were passing along Green Dragon Alley, they observed a person standing in an angle of the passage.
She was walking in front of her sister at the time, and just as she came up to the person, who was wearing a large cloak, he spurted "a quantity of blue flame" in her face, which deprived her of her sight, and so alarmed her, that she instantly dropped to the ground, and was seized with violent fits which continued for several hours.
Her brother added that on the evening in question, he had heard the loud screams of one of his sisters moments after they had left his house and on running up Green Dragon Alley he found his sister Lucy on the ground in a fit, with her sister attempting to hold and support her. She was taken home, and he then learned from his other sister what had happened. She described Lucy's assailant as being of tall, thin, and gentlemanly appearance, covered in a large cloak, and carrying a small lamp or bull's eye lantern similar to those used by the police. The individual did not speak nor did he try to lay hands on them, but instead walked quickly away.
This was followed with an account of the trial of one Thomas Millbank, who, immediately after the reported attack on Jane Alsop, had boasted in the Morgan's Arms Pub that he was Spring Heeled Jack.
He was arrested and tried at Lambeth Street court.
Millbank had been wearing white overalls and a greatcoat, which he dropped outside the house, and the candle he dropped was also found. He escaped conviction only because Jane Alsop insisted her attacker had breathed fire, and Millbank admitted he could do no such thing.
Spring Heeled Jack became one of the most popular characters of the period. His alleged exploits were reported in the newspapers and became the subject of several Penny Dreadfuls and plays performed in the cheap theatres that abounded at the time. The devil was even renamed "Spring Heeled Jack" in some Punch and Judy shows.
But, even as his fame was growing, reports of Spring Heeled Jack's appearances became less frequent if more widespread. In 1843, however, a wave of sightings swept the country again. A report from Northamptonshire described him as "the very image of the Devil himself, with horns and eyes of flame", and in East Anglia reports of attacks on drivers of mail coaches became common. He was linked with the so-called "Devil's Footprints" that appeared in Devon in February 1855.
In the beginning of the 1870s, Spring Heeled Jack was reported again in several places distant from each other. In November 1872, the News of the World reported that Peckham was "in a state of commotion owing to what is known as the "Peckham Ghost", a mysterious figure, quite alarming in appearance". The editorial pointed out that it was none other than "Spring Heeled Jack, who terrified a past generation".
Similar stories were published in The Illustrated Police News. In April and May of 1873, there were numerous sightings of the "Park Ghost" in Sheffield, which locals also came to identify as Spring Heeled Jack.
This news was followed by more reported sightings, until in August 1877; one of the most notable reports about Spring Heeled Jack came from a group of soldiers in Aldershot's barracks.
This story went as follows: a sentry on duty at the North Camp peered into the darkness, his attention attracted by a peculiar figure bounding across the road towards him, making a metallic noise. The soldier issued a challenge, which went unheeded, and the figure vanished from sight for a few moments.
As the soldier turned back to his post, the figure reappeared beside him and delivered several slaps to his face with "a hand as cold as that of a corpse". Attracted by the ensuing noise, several men rushed to the place, but they claimed that the character leapt several feet over their heads and landed behind them.
One of the guards shot at him, with no visible effect other than to enrage his target; some sources claim that the soldier may have fired blanks at him, merely used to make warning shots. The strange figure then disappeared into the surrounding darkness.
In the autumn of the same year, Spring Heeled Jack was reportedly seen at Newport Arch, in Lincolnshire. An angry mob supposedly chased him and cornered him, and just as in Aldershot a while before, residents fired at him to no effect. As usual, he was said to have made use of his leaping abilities to lose the crowd and disappear once again.
By the end of the 19th century, the reported sightings of Spring Heeled Jack were moving towards western England.
In September 1904, in Everton, in north Liverpool, Spring Heeled Jack allegedly appeared on the rooftop of Saint Francis Xavier's Church, in Salisbury Street.
Witnesses reported that he suddenly jumped and fell to the ground, landing behind a nearby house. When they rushed to the point, so the story goes, they faced there a tall and muscular man, fully dressed in white and wearing an "egg shaped" helmet, standing there waiting. He laughed hysterically at the crowd and rushed towards them, making several women gasp in dismay. Clearing them all with a gigantic leap, he disappeared behind the neighbouring houses.
In South Herefordshire, not far from the Welsh border, a travelling salesman named Marshall claimed to have had an encounter with a Spring Heeled Jack–like entity in 1986. The man leaped in enormous, inhuman bounds, passed Marshall on the road, and slapped his cheek. He wore what the salesman described as a black ski-suit, and Marshall noted that he had an elongated chin.
It seems odd that he liked to slap people and then bound off.
He seemed to be more of a joker than someone out to scare people. I'm sure it would have been quite easy for him to kill people if he wanted to but he just seem to prefer to shock them.
All this jumping over high walls and spitting blue flames adds the paranormal aspect. I have always found this case extremely fascinating.
I've always been surprised this story was never made into a bigger thing in recent years but I suppose you have to remember that the Spring Heeled Jack story happened around the same time as Jack the Ripper and once that story broke it eclipsed everything else.
It does provide us with some wonderfully romantic notions of dark goings-on in foggy Victorian London streets though.
I offer no explanation or realisation, but let me say that when I was in trance spiritualist mode I received many smacks around the face from :"spirit", and I mean that literally
i love things like this. I read a book once about spring heeled jack. I found it after i was reading about Jack the ripper as it's all roughly the same time and in the same part of london. I would love to visit the areas where all this happened.
I live in spitting distance from both places where both Spring Heeled Jack and Jack The Ripper did their stuff.
In fact, Commercial Road (one of the places where Spring Heeled Jack was supposedly seen) is the next street to where I live.
Anytime you're up this way Scott I'd be happy to take you around Whitechapel.
In fact, I was in the Ten Bells pub the other day. That's the pub where Jack the Ripper is beleived to have gone for a swift half after a good night's ripping.
I've been on one of those tours as well Scott. I had a really interesting time until we all ended up in the Ten Bells and I got pissed up on vodka. Oh well.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Join! (free) 
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
