Robert Donston Stephenson and Jack the Ripper: A Mini-Essay

     The true identity of Jack the Ripper has been a subject of debate and controversy since the first victim, Mary Nichols, was found on August 31, 1888. Since then, a ceaseless throng of theories have emerged which propose the infamous killer was everyone from a simple London butcher to Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale.[1] One of the more intriguing conjectures comes from William T. Stead, the famed journalist and spiritualist. In the April 1896 issue of his journal Borderland, Stead disclosed that the illustrious serial killer was not a crazed doctor or misogynistic leatherworker, but a writer much like himself and an individual which he knew personally from years of friendship.[2] Although Stead never outwardly named the suspect, members of his closest set understood that he was speaking of Robert Donston Stephenson, also known as Dr. Roslyn D’Onston, who had contributed multiple articles to the Pall Mall Gazette commenting on the Ripper murders.[3] In fact, talk of Stephenson’s identity as the murderer had been circling through his group of acquaintances years before and years after Stead’s claim, with rumors circulating that he possessed a collection of bloody neckties which once held the stolen body parts of his victims.[4] More damning was the fact that Stephenson had been a subject in the case after accusing a doctor at the London Hospital, where he had checked himself in for neurasthenia, of being the notorious killer.[5] Although Stephenson was dismissed as an eccentric artist whose wild claims held no validity, Stead and others familiar with the individual maintained that he had faked his nervous exhaustion and institutionalization as an alibi, slipping out of the London Hospital at night to butcher the prostitutes and using their body parts to engage in black magic rituals.[6] On the morning of April 15, 1912, any truth behind Stead’s assertion was lost as the gentleman, along with 1,522 other individuals, perished during the sinking of Titanic.

Works Referenced

Dimolianis, Spiro. Jack the Ripper and Black Magic: Victorian Conspiracy Theories, Secret Societies and the Supernatural Mystique of the Whitechapel Murders. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2011.

Monaghan, David and Nigel Cawthrone. Jack the Ripper’s Secret Confession: The Hidden Testimony of Britain’s First Serial Killer. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2010.

Stonewall, Thomas. “Jack the Ripper: A Solution?” The Criminologist 5 (1970): 40-51.
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[1] Stonewall, 40-51.
[2] Dimolianis, 107.
[3] Dimolianis, 107.
[4] Monaghan and Cawthrone, 276.
[5] Monaghan and Cawthrone, 277. 
[6] Monaghan and Cawthrone, 227.