Spring-Heeled Jack was a sinister figure from the Victorian era. Tall, rake-thin, with glowing red eyes, a monstrous, devilish face, possessing razor-sharp metallic claws and the ability to breathe blue/white flames – this supposedly demonic (or alien) creature terrorized the realm for almost 60 years.
The first claimed sighting of Spring-Heeled Jack was in London in 1837, but he was later reported all over the United Kingdom, and was especially prevalent in suburban London, the Midlands and Scotland. There are many theories about the nature and identity of Spring-heeled Jack. He was described by people who claimed to have seen him as having a terrifying and frightful appearance, with diabolical physiognomy, clawed hands, and eyes that "resembled red balls of fire". One report claimed that beneath a black cloak, he wore a helmet and a tight-fitting white garment like an oilskin. Many stories also mention a ‘Satanic’ aspect to him. Some witnesses claimed the mischievous sprite was able to speak English well.
Jack’s first recorded victim, servant girl Mary Stevens, was walking one evening through Clapham Common when a strange figure leapt at her from a dark alley. Fastening her with the tight grip of his arms, he began to kiss her face, while ripping her clothes and touching her bare flesh with his sharp claws, which were, according to her deposition, "cold and clammy as those of a corpse". When the lass screamed, the ghoul fled. The next day, a man resembling her attacker was seen near Mary’s employer’s house, but was scared off by a passing carriage. Jack jumped in front of the carriage, causing it to crash and injure the driver, but the cackling creature creature escaped by leaping over a nine foot wall.
Continued sightings of Spring-Heeled Jack
Other sightings of Spring-Heeled Jack occurred over the following decades, where he exhibited similar behaviour - clawing, jumping and giggling with glee. Soon after the first attack, he reportedly attacked two teenage girls, Lucy Scales in London’s Limehouse and Jane Alsop, another Londoner. Alsop was apparently tricked by Jack when she answered the door of her father's house to a man claiming to be a police officer. He told her to bring a light, claiming "we have caught Spring-Heeled Jack here in the lane”. When Alsop handed the candle to the supposed copper, he threw the cloak from his shoulders and proceeded to spit out blue and white flames from his mouth. He then grabbed hold of the terrified girl, clawing at her with his sharp fingers. Jane’s screaming bought her sister running to her side, dragging Jane back inside the house. As soon as the door slammed shut, Jack knocked on on the door, waited for a response, and when he got none, left by his usual method of leaping.
As his fame grew, reports of Spring-Heeled Jack's appearances became less frequent but more widespread. Five years later, in 1843, a wave of sightings swept the country again. A Northamptonshire report described him as "the very image of the Devil himself, with horns and eyes of flame"; in East Anglia attacks by the entity on mail coach drivers were common. July 1847 saw "a Spring-Heeled Jack investigation" in Teignmouth, Devon leading to one Captain Finch being convicted of assault against women, "disguised in a skin coat, which had the appearance of bullock's hide, skullcap, horns and mask".
The story was linked by locals with the so-called "Devil's Footprints" phenomenon which swept Devon some years later in February 1855.
In the I870s, Jack was seen again in several places distant from each other; in 1872 in London’s Peckham; in May 1873, there were numerous reported sightings in Sheffield and in August 1877 one of the most famous reports about his antics came from a group of soldiers in Aldershot Garrison.
A sentry on duty recounted a strange figure "advancing towards him." After he issued a challenge, the figure came up beside the trooper and slapped his face. The guard shot at him, but with no discernible effect; the odd figure then disappeared into the surrounding darkness "with astonishing bounds." The panic became so great in Aldershot that sentries were issued ammunition and ordered to shoot "the night terror" on sight, after which the appearances swiftly ceased. In 1877, Spring-Heeled Jack was spotted at the Roman Newport Arch, in Lincoln. A furious mob supposedly chased and cornered Jack, firing at him, but to no effect, as he creature leaped away from harm, as per usual.
By the end of the 19th century the reported sightings of Spring-Heeled Jack gravitated towards the north west of England. The last widely reported sighting of Spring-Heeled Jack was in Liverpool in 1904, where he jumped between rooftops to the horror of the crowds below. By this time, most alleged appearances were dismissed as attention-seeking imitators, and Jack the Ripper had easily replaced him as England’s most terrifying character/boogey man.
The Hellfire Club Theory
One popular theory was that there was no singular demonic entity called Spring-Heeled Jack, but rather a group of eccentric Hellfire Club inspired aristocrats betting on the number of victims they could scare sh*tless while wearing their creepy costumes. The Sun newspaper reported, apparently without any evidence, that a stake of £5,000 had been agreed on by “this gang of ghosts and hobgoblins”. This gives credence to how Spring-Heeled Jack could be in multiple places at once. The Marquess of Waterford, aka "the Mad Marquis", was famed for his rowdy behaviour and became a popular suspect, despite there being no real evidence to back this up, although it was noted he held some considerable animus towards both women and police officers.
Spring-Heeled Jack an extraterrestrial entity or demon
That Spring-Heeled Jack’s escapades continued long after the peer’s death in 1859 did little to quash the rumour. Other sightings were thought to have been carried out by youths seeking a ‘lark’ to spook people. Mass hysteria is believed to account for some of the early reports, but for other later ones, there is no unifying explanation. Little, if any real physical evidence exists for any of Jack’s attacks, aside from the ‘terror’ inflicted on his victims, with so recorded signs of claw marks, burns etc.
Paranormal explanations by the likes of John Keel (author of The Mothman Prophecies) seek to explain Spring-Heeled Jack as an extraterrestrial entity with a non-human appearance and features (e.g., retro-reflective red eyes, or phosphorus breath) and a superhuman agility deriving from life on a high-gravity world, with his jumping ability and strange behaviour. Or alternatively that he was an ACTUAL demon, summoned into this world by witches/warlocks or who manifested himself by his own means, purely to create spiritual turmoil and enjoy spooking mortals.
Or perhaps a deranged kangaroo, a theory proposed during the original Victorian-era panic.
Spring-Heeled Jack in popular culture
Jack has appeared in popular culture over the years, in plays, movies, novels, TV and in comics, both as a villain and (very occasionally) a hero. In the popular Penny Dreadful booklets, Spring-Heeled Jack was transformed from an evil entity who terrorized women into a masked vigilante figure, an early kind of superhero, a Batman-like vigilante. One of these serials, titled Spring-heel’d Jack: The Terror of London, was published weekly in 1863 and saw 40 issues published. Anticipating that readers would be suspicious of the character’s new-found heroism, Spring-Heeled Jack described himself as “one who is not so black as he is painted”.
In the British comic book The Hotspur, Spring Heeled Jack was actually a mild-mannered Victorian forensic investigator who uses the identity, along with a pair of spring-loaded boots to give him incredible leaping powers, investigating and punishing crimes that the rest of the police force consider unsolvable.
Jack also appeared as the villain in a 2000 Scooby Doo comic.
In 1946’s The Curse Of The Wraydons, an adaption of the play set in the Napoleonic era by W.G. Wills, Jack Wraydon (dubbed Spring-Heeled Jack for his athleticism) is a young officer in the British Army. When several women are strangled, suspicion falls on Jack due to the Wraydon’s reported history of mental illness, but the real murderer is actually uncle Philip Wraydon. An evil psychopath with a collection of torture instruments and death traps, Philip frames his nephew, hoping to ensure he will gain the Wraydon family fortune and also win Boney’s favour by passing the French secrets whilst continuing his homicidal activities. A twofer, if you will, combining business with pleasure.
Jack has made a comeback of sorts since 2000, with ITV demonstrating a dearth of imagination by featuring him in two period adventure series in quick succession:
Jekyll and Hyde (2015) - Hyde vs. Spring Heeled Jack
Houdini & Doyle (2016) - Spring Heel'd Jack
In Kolchak: The Night Stalker‘s first series episode, "The Ripper" (1974), the supposedly immortal killer displays Spring-Heeled Jack's abilities, leaping from fire escapes and four-story buildings without injury, and possessing superior strength.
Spring-Heeled Jack also appeared in some fictional form in the sci-fi series Sanctuary (2008-11), and in Luther (2010-) where Cameron Pell, the chief baddie of season two’s first half, is revealed to have had a lifelong obsession with Spring-Heeled Jack, donning a Mr Punch mask and going on a killing spree, believing it will immortalize him in a similar fashion.
Has Jack returned in 2025 - if he ever existed?
From 2012 - a modern UK sighting?
”Scott Martin and his family were travelling home by taxi on Tuesday, February 14th, at about 10.30pm when they saw the terrifying figure they have likened to the legendary Spring Heeled Jack dart across the road before leaping 15ft over a bank as they approached Nescot College on the Ewell bypass.”
Your Local Guardian, March 12th 2012
The US: Probably influenced by sales of Penny Dreadfuls in North America, Jack was allegedly sighted in Louisville, KY in the 1880s, and dozens of attacks were reported in Cape Cod between 1938 and 1945, more than a century after his first appearance in Great Britain. Assaults and pranks by Spring-Heeled Jack continued across the US into the late twentieth century.
Before Spring-Heeled Jack: The Hammersmith Ghost, London Monster and ‘Whipping Tom’
In late Autumn 1803, many people claimed to either have seen or been attacked by a ghost in the Hammersmith area of London, a ghost believed to be the spirit of a suicide victim. On January 3, 1804, a 29-year-old excise officer named Francis Smith, a member of one of the armed vigilante patrols set up to thwart the ‘ghost’, shot and killed bricklayer Thomas Millwood, mistaking the white clothes of his trade for the shroud of a specter. Smith was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, which was later commuted to one year's hard labor.
The apparition was described by witnesses as being exceedingly tall and dressed completely in white; some reportedly saw horns and huge glass eyes. This may have been a hoaxer, whose inane pranks resulted in the eventual death of Millwood.
Locals say the ‘ghost’ returns to Hammersmith churchyard every 50 years, its last visit being in July 1955. Nothing mentioned about a reappearance 2005, according to my research, but of course I could be mistaken.
See also the London Monster, a non-paranormal attacker of women in London between 1788 and 1790. He verbally abused his victims with perverted sexual comments, attacking with a knife, slicing into their buttocks, thighs or chest. He apparently had knives attached to his knees, with ‘Wolverine’-style claws on his wrists and a sharp implement hidden in a fragrant nosegay (a small flower bouquet). Over fifty women reported attacks, which gives rise to the theory of copycat assailants.
Earlier still, there was Whipping Tom, a figure (or figures) who terrorized London’s Hackney village between 1672-1712, where women walking alone had their buttocks thrashed, sometimes leading to serious injuries and—in one case—miscarriage and death.
Links
Spring-Heeled Jack in song
Spring Heeled Jack by Zombina And The Skeletons
Spring Heeled Jack - Lemon Demon
Spring Heeled Jack - Paul Roland
Spring-Heeled Jack - John Harle, Marc Almond and The Tyburn Tree Band
David Bowie sang of the character “Halloween Jack” in the song Diamond Dogs; a relation of the Spring-Heeled One?
The Halloween Jack is a real cool cat
And he lives on top of Manhattan Chase
The elevator's broke, so he slides down a rope onto the street below
More links:
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