Royal scandals have fascinated the public of every monarchy, and almost a hundred years after the Whitechapel murders took place Britain had one that revolved around Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, grandson of Queen Victoria and an heir to the throne. It was suggested that the Prince was either directly involved in the murders or knew who was. Others who have been suggested as being involved in some way include Sir William Gull, the Queen’s physician, and John Netley, a royal coachman.
The theory about a conspiracy involving the royal family first surfaced in 1973 in BBC TV’s Jack the Ripper. The programme’s investigators had supposedly solved the Ripper mystery at last, citing a conspiracy and a cover-up at the highest levels of society. The story goes that, while researching the programme, they were told to contact a man named Joseph Sickert, who claimed to know about a secret marriage between Prince Albert and a poor Catholic girl named Alice Mary Crook. Sickert related a strange story involving Prince Albert, Lord Salisbury, Sir Robert Anderson, Sir William Gull and even Queen Victoria herself.
Joseph Sickert was the son of the famous painter Walter Sickert, who told him the story in his later years. The younger Sickert later retracted his account after great pressure was put on him by an unidentified figure or figures. Earlier he had said that his father lived in the East End during the time of the murders and was a close friend of the royal family. The Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, asked Walter Sickert to take Prince Albert Victor under his wing and look after him. Joseph Sickert’s father eventually introduced the Prince to a poor girl named Annie Crook, who worked in a shop in Cleveland Street, in London’s West End. The Prince became infatuated with Annie and soon got her pregnant. They set up home together in the East End and were living quite happily with their daughter, Alice, until the Queen discovered her grandson’s indiscretion and demanded that the relationship end. Annie was not only a commoner but also a Catholic, and Queen Victoria feared that the prospect of a Catholic heir to the throne would spark a revolution. She ordered Lord Salisbury to resolve the matter quickly and discreetly. He, in turn, allegedly went to Sir William Gull. The couple were traced and Prince Albert Victor was taken away and Annie was taken to one of Gull’s hospitals, where he performed experiments on her designed to erase her memory and drive her insane. Their child, however, escaped the raid unharmed with her nanny, Mary Kelly.
Kelly had been a co-worker of Annie’s, as well as a model for Sickert, and she became the child’s nanny soon after its birth. Knowing that baby Alice was in danger, Kelly hid her with nuns and fled back to the East End. Eventually she told the story to her friends and fellow prostitutes Polly Nichols, Liz Stride and Annie Chapman and the four decided to blackmail the government, as they needed money to pay local protection gangs. When Lord Salisbury learned of the threat of blackmail, he called on Sir William Gull again.
Gull devised an elaborate scheme, based on Masonic ritual, to silence the women. Enlisting the help of royal coachman John Netley, he created Jack the Ripper. Sir Robert Anderson helped cover up the crimes and acted as lookout during the murders, which were carried out by Gull in the royal carriage.
The killing of Eddowes, Joseph Sickert was told by his father, was a mistake. She often used the name of Mary Kelly and it was a case of mistaken identity. Once the truth was known, the real Mary Kelly was found and silenced. The conspiracy closed in upon itself and for some reason Montague Druitt was chosen as a scapegoat to take the blame for the murders and, Joseph Sickert hinted, was himself murdered for it. Alice grew up and later, by an odd series of twists and turns, married Walter Sickert and gave birth to Joseph.
Records show that there was an Annie Crook who worked in a shop in Cleveland Street and had an illegitimate daughter named Alice. However, there is no evidence that Crook knew Kelly.
My enquiries led me to conclude, for various reasons, that this story is pure fiction and that Prince Albert Victor cannot seriously be considered to be a Ripper suspect. Alice Margaret Crook was born on 18 April 1885, which means that her conception must have occurred between 18 July and 11 August 1884. At that time the Prince was 400 miles away in Heidelberg with his German tutor. He arrived there in June and returned to England on 18 August. These facts are confirmed by documents in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle.
As to the idea of the Prince and Crook having wed, the Royal Marriages Act was still operative and, under this, any marriage between them could have been set aside as illegal, because the Prince was under 25 at the time and had married without the Queen’s consent.
I wrote to Her Majesty the Queen informing her that it was my intention to exonerate Prince Albert Victor of being a Ripper suspect for all these years. Subsequently, I was sent documents from the Royal Archives that gave him cast-iron alibis for the murders.
The documents revealed the following facts. In a letter dated 8 August 1888, the Prince of Wales wrote that Prince Albert Victor was laid up in York with gout. At that time, Prince Albert Victor was stationed there with his regiment, the 10th Lancers, and so could not have been involved in the murder of Martha Tabram on 7 August.
Between 31 August and 7 September, the Prince was staying with Viscount Downe at Danby Lodge, in Grosmont, Yorkshire. The murder of Mary Ann Nichols occurred on 31 August.
Between 7 and 10 September, he was at the Cavalry Barracks in York. Annie Chapman was murdered on 8 September.
Between 27 and 30 September, he was at Abergeldie, Scotland, where Queen Victoria recorded in her journal that he lunched with her on the 30th. Stride and Eddowes were murdered between 1 and 2am on that day.
Between 2 and 12 November, he was at Sandringham. Mary Jane Kelly was murdered on 9 November.
On 17 July 1889, when Alice McKenzie was murdered, the Prince wrote in a letter to his brother dated 21 July that he was again in York.
On 13 February 1891, when Frances Coles was murdered, it is documented that he lunched at Marlborough House en route from Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight, to York.
In any event, can we really believe that any member of the royal family, and especially an heir to the throne, would be allowed to do as he pleased to the extent of setting up home in the East End of London with a commoner and living as a normal person?
I also examined the suggestion that Sir William Gull, the Queen’s physician, was involved in the murders and that they were committed in the royal carriage. This I can easily discount. The reports from the doctors who examined the victims at the murder scenes all clearly state that they were killed where they were found. If they had been killed in a carriage, their bodies could have been taken to and left in any isolated spot, rather than in places where someone was likely to see them being dumped. In fact, it would have been impossible to drive a carriage to some of the locations where the bodies were found.
Another important fact is that at the time of the murders Sir William Gull was 71 and had suffered a stroke. His physical condition would have rendered him incapable of murdering anyone, let alone mutilating the corpse savagely. He died of a further stroke in 1890.
Is there any other form of evidence to support Joseph Sickert’s story? The answer is no. What motive did he have for coming forward with this story? The answer is none, other than perhaps financial gain from the press and television. For the problem with the Whitechapel murders and the huge interest they continue to generate is that someone will always appear out of the woodwork with another suspect or another theory. All of these seem to offer nothing conclusive and no means of corroboration. But, because people all over the world remain fascinated by these horrendous crimes, the media will pounce on any story that promises to finally identify Jack the Ripper.