Jack the Ripper - SIR WILLIAM GULL

The London newspapers published endless stories about the Whitechapel-area murders.  This issue of the Illustrated Police News, from September of 1888, is an example of coverage for the Annie Chapman murder.  At this stage, no one had-yet referred to the murderer as "Jack the Ripper."  PD

Sir William Gull possessed a great deal of anatomical knowledge. He was Queen Victoria’s physician.

A brilliant practitioner and surgeon, William Withey Gull was the physician who wrote about, and named, the illness anorexia nervosa.

In the late summer and fall of 1888, Dr. Gull was in his seventies. Some accounts say he suffered a series of debilitating strokes a few weeks before the Ripper murders and was being closely monitored.

Another account, uncovered by Stephen Knight and popularized by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell in their book From Hell, reveals a very different Dr. Gull. Here we find:

• Someone who knew about Prince Eddie’s affair and secret marriage to Annie Crook.

• Someone who knew how to find Annie’s friends. Friends like Mary Kelly, the nursemaid of Prince Eddie’s daughter.

Did this famous doctor play a role in the East End murders? Was he, in fact, Jack the Ripper??