Spring-Heeled Jack

Panic swept through Victorian London as a fire-breathing masked villain attacked residents, but was it all part of an elaborate practical joke?

- Lawrence Alexander

In the autumn of 1837 whispers of mysterious attacks in south London sparked local panic. Over the next 70 or more years, terror spread across the country, infesting the popular imagination and even, some claim, sparking an entire comic-book genre.

Things escalated in January 1838, when the Lord Mayor of London published, in The Times, an anonymous tip-off he had received from “a resident of Peckham”. The letter spoke of a bunch of aristocratic wags who had laid a wager with “a mischievous and foolhardy companion”. The blue-blooded bandit was charged with visiting the villages of London in three disguises – a ghost, a bear and a devil – to scare locals.

“The wager has been accepted,” the letter said, “and the unmanly villain has succeeded in depriving seven ladies of their senses.”