Gripped by the Ripper: The enduring fascination with London's most infamous killer

It’s a Friday night towards the end of October, and I’m standing outside a salad bar in Spitalfields, angling my head to better see a photograph of a woman’s mutilated corpse displayed on an iPad. Though the weather is spooky — it’s blustery, the trees are about as orange as they’ll get, the leaves are not yet mulch on the pavement — the mixed-use development we’re standing in is decidedly not. Shortly before pulling up the photo of her bloodied body, Tyson, our Canadian guide for tonight’s Jack the Ripper tour, tells us that on the night of her murder, 25-year-old Mary Jane Kelly was last heard singing in her room. It’s a poignant, haunting detail undercut slightly by his waggish suggestion that she might’ve been singing along to Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift, and the titters that follow from the sold-out crowd.

Tyson is “trying to honour the history of the women” through his tour, he tells me afterwards outside the Ten Bells, a pub with a historical connection to the case (several of the victims drank there), but which tonight is absent any spine-tingling atmosphere or Ye Olde London signifiers. Eschewing the Dickensian top hats and capes adopted by some of his rivals, Tyson, who also works as an actor and stand-up comedian, embodies a more contemporary east London aesthetic: a beanie that’s either Carhartt or something similar, monochromatic workwear and a hipster moustache. 

These kinds of comments about the Rippers’ victims reflect a major talking point around these tours, particularly since the 2019 publication of The Five, a revisionist history by Hallie Rubenhold that tells the story of the women’s lives and challenges some of the received wisdom around them. But the runaway success of the book has done little to dampen enthusiasm for the more lurid aspects of the case, even if most tours now offer some lip service towards the notion of honoring the victims. Just as the murders were a media sensation as they were happening, the Ripper is now a booming cottage industry. 

The streets of Spitalfields are swarming with rival tours, offered in French, Spanish and German along with English; one of them, Ripper-Vision, promises to bring the fog-drenched atmosphere of Victorian London to life by projecting images (including those of the murders) onto walls around east London. While Tyson prefers to let the facts speak for themselves, many of the tour guides push their favourite theories about the identity of the killer; some are even convinced they alone have cracked the case. 

The tours have recently been promoted on VisitLondon’s official Instagram account, and TikTok is full of influencers retracting the killer’s steps, providing either tongue-in-cheek commentary (“Jack would've had no chance against Waitrose’s militant security guards!” one quips) or grave warnings about the presence of spirits. Before we set off, a Ripper-loving attendee on our tour laments the idea that the culprit may ever be found: “I dread the day someone comes forward with indelible evidence, as that will destroy something which brings so much money to this economy”. Tyson says that he conducts the tours in all seasons, to visitors from all over the world — one of the city’s most iconic figures, the Ripper is perennially popular. 

There is a £14-entry Jack the Ripper museum, which features a diorama of a policeman discovering the prone body of a petticoat-clad woman and sells a range of merchandise adorned with the murderer’s elegant silhouette, along with branded teddy bears and water bottles. Some tourist cash-ins dispense with the facade of education altogether: nearby, there is also a barbershop named Jack the Clipper; and a chip shop named… you can probably guess.