One was not amused! Queen Victoria ordered her government to hunt down and ‘mitigate the evil’ of Jack the Ripper

• Queen Victoria issued the Royal decree due to her horror of the murders 
• Jack the Ripper murdered five women in Whitechapel, east London in late 1888 
• The monarch wrote to the Home Office and the PM demanding urgent action 

Queen Victoria issued a Royal decree to track down and capture Jack the Ripper because she was so appalled by his heinous crimes. 

The startling claim comes in a new book by renowned Royal historian Ian Lloyd. 

He has tracked down a note in the monarch’s private journal on October 4, 1888. 

Queen Victoria petitioned her government in 1888 to urge them to track down Jack the Ripper

The monarch was appalled by the brutal murders in Whitechapel in 1888

Between August 31 and November 9 in 1888, five women were murdered in Whitechapel 

She wrote: ‘Dreadful murders of unfortunate women of a bad class in London. There were six, with horrible mutilations.’ 

Between the period of August 31 and November 9 in 1888, five women were murdered in the Whitechapel area. 

According to the Express, Queen Victoria approached the Home Office ‘to mitigate the evil’ of Jack the Ripper. 

When Mary Jane Kelly was killed on November 9, the Queen went straight to the PM, the Marquess of Salisbury and wrote: ‘This new most ghastly murder shows the absolute necessity for some very decided action. All these courts must be lit, and our detectives improved. 

‘They are not what they should be. You promised when the first murder took place, to consult with your colleagues about it.’  

From hell: The infamous serial killer who terrorised Victorian London

Jack the Ripper is thought to have killed at least five young women in Whitechapel, East London, between September and November 1888, but was never caught.

Numerous individuals have been accused of being the serial killer.

At the time, police suspected the Ripper must have been a butcher, due to the way his victims were killed and the fact they were discovered near to the dockyards, where meat was brought into the city.

There are several alleged links between the killer and royals. First is Sir William Gull, the royal physician. Many have accused him of helping get rid of the alleged prostitutes’ bodies, while others claim he was the Ripper himself.

A page from the Illustrated Police News page covering the murders of Jack the Ripper

A book has named Queen Victoria’s surgeon Sir John Williams as the infamous killer. He had a surgery in Whitechapel at the time.

Another theory links the murders with Queen Victoria’s grandson, Prince Albert Victor, the Duke of Clarence.

At one point, cotton merchant James Maybrick was the number one suspect, following the publication of some of his diary which appeared to suggest he was the killer.

Some believe the diary to be a forgery, although no one has been able to suggest who forged it.

Other suspects include Montague John Druitt, a Dorset-born barrister. He killed himself in the Thames seven weeks after the last murder.

George Chapman, otherwise known as Severyn Kłosowski, is also a suspect after he poisoned three of his wives and was hanged in 1903.

Jack the Ripper is thought to have killed at least five young women in Whitechapel, East London, between September and November 1888

Another suspected by police was Aaron Kosminski. He was admitted to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum and died there.

Dr Thomas Neill Cream poisoned four London prostitutes with strychnine and was hanged in 1892.

Some of the more bizarre links include Lewis Carroll, author of the Alice in Wonderland books, who taught at Christ Church until 1881 – which was at the forefront of the Ripper murder scenery.

Winston Churchill’s father – Lord Randolph Churchill – has also been named as a potential suspect.

Crime writer Patricia Cornwell believes she has ‘cracked’ the case by unearthing evidence that confirms Walter Sickert, an influential artist, as the prime suspect. Her theories have not been generally accepted.

Author William J Perring raised the possibility that Jack the Ripper might actually be ‘Julia’ – a Salvation Army soldier.

In The Seduction Of Mary Kelly, his novel about the life and times of the final victim, he suggests Jack the Ripper was in fact a woman.

Police discovering the body of one of Jack the Ripper’s victims, probably Catherine Eddowes

In February 2019, it was suggested that Jack the Ripper may have been a sinister Dutch sailor who murdered two ex-wives in his homeland and bludgeoned to death two other women in Belgium.

Crime historian Dr Jan Bondeson has named Hendrik de Jong as a prime suspect for the most notorious set of unsolved murders in history.

At the time of the Whitechapel murders, de Jong is believed to have worked as a steward on board a ship which made frequent trips from Rotterdam to London, providing him with the perfect means of getting out of the country after his heinous crimes.

He later murdered two of his ex-wives in his native Netherlands in 1893 and bludgeoned to death two women above a pub before attempting to set their bodies on fire in Belgium in 1898.

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