CHAPTER 21

Spring-Heeled Jack in Everton

1904

Someone was yelling, in panic, that Spring-Heeled Jack was in Shaw Street …

n 1938, a Lincoln man called Rollins wrote to the local paper to tell the readers that Spring-Heeled Jack had been in Lincoln. He wrote: ‘In 1877 I lived at a farm in Newport … In that winter Spring-Heeled Jack came to Lincoln and jumped over Newport Arch … the young men of the town used to come out and try to catch him …’

This mysterious street prowler had been supposedly seen in England’s streets since the autumn of 1837 when he appeared in London. Most accounts of this rogue who used to assault people at night agree that he wore a black cape and a bat-like cap. He was supposed to have had springs in his shoes, enabling him to jump twenty feet in the air.

A witness in Old Ford, near London, in 1838, said that Jack appeared in the dark street and asked for a light before shoving and robbing the man. Often, he used claws on his fingers to tear clothes before robbing victims. One alleged victim, Lucy Scales, was said to have had flames spat at her by him. All through the nineteenth century he appeared in all kinds of places, so the legend goes. Some of the appearances were closer to what we now call ‘happy slapping’ than anything else. So powerful was this mythic figure in the popular imagination that, in 1888 when Jack the Ripper was about in Whitechapel, some thought both Jacks were one and the same.

In 1904 he appeared in Everton. First he was seen leaping from the top of the High Park Street reservoir; then witnesses said they had spotted him jumping over garden walls, notably in St Michael’s in the Hamlet. Around 1950, when Liverpool writer Richard Whittington-Egan was researching the phenomenon, an old man told him how, in 1888, he had had a sighting. He said he was playing with some friends at St Francis Xavier’s Boys’ Guild when someone came in, excited, someone yelling in panic that Spring-Heeled Jack was in Shaw Street. The tale continues, as Whittington-Egan tells it: ‘When, however, they reached Shaw Street, they saw no sign of the weird creature, although the exited crowd told them that he was crouched on top of a nearby steeple.’ Many said that he had been running across the Liverpool rooftops.

A Mrs Hudson in that same street (William Henry Street) told reporters that she had seen a large shadow on her wall, caused by someone or something outside her window. When she investigated, with some bravery, she said that she saw what she thought was a giant bat on the street-corner. Strangely, the form appeared at the same time the next night. One might think that Mrs Hudson would have left the house gingerly by the back door; but no, she was ready to observe and even to follow. She stated that she ran out to see a figure running down her street, and that it had a dark cloak and wore high boots. When it moved, it did so in leaps. Many of the people in the street had seen the same thing.

Later that week, some groups of young girls reported that they, too, had seen the figure. It seems ludicrous to report, but even in daylight he appeared, and was seen to leap twenty-five feet in the air. Over a hundred people said they saw him.