Springheel Jack Investigation

PAGE MENU: The Investigation • Point Of Confusion Amongst Jacks • The Speculation

The Investigation

There appear to have been two investigations of the Alsop assault. The first was conducted independently by the recently-established Metropolitan Police. The second was in the charge of James Lea, a former member of the Bow Street Patrol employed directly by the Lambeth Street police office to look into cases that came before the court. Lea – who still enjoys, among authorities on police history, the reputation of having been the best detective in London during the 1830s – had more than a decade’s experience of tackling crime in the district. He was best known for the part he had played in solving the murder of Maria Marten at the Red Barn in Polstead, Suffolk, in 1827, which was by some distance the most sensational British crime of the early nineteenth century. It was Lea who had tracked down Marten’s murderer, William Corday, to a private girls’ school in Brentford and secured his arrest. The Alsop investigation could scarcely have been in better hands.

Officer Lea began his work on the same day that Jane gave her evidence, appearing next morning with this interesting report:

He stated that from what they had learned he had no doubt that the person by whom the outrage had been committed had been in the neighborhood for nearly a month past, frightening men as well as women, and had, on one occasion, narrowly escaped apprehension. A person, answering precisely his size and figure, had been frequently observed walking about the lanes and lonely places, enveloped in a large Spanish cloak, and was sometimes in the habit of carrying a small lantern about with him. On one occasion he partially exhibited his masquerade in Bow-fair fields, and was closely pursued by a number of men in the employment of Mr. Giles, a coach-master at Bow, but, by the most extraordinary agility and apparently a thorough knowledge of the locality of the place, he got clear off. The officer added he was perfectly satisfied of the truth of the statement of Miss Alsop as to the violence inflicted upon her by the person she described; indeed the whole family, all of whom had seen him, agreed precisely in this description; but he differed in opinion with Mr. Alsop that there was more than one person concerned in the outrage. The situation of Mr. Alsop’s house being at a considerable distance from any other, and in a very lonely spot, afforded ample opportunity for the ghost, as he was called, to play off his pranks with impunity; but besides this, it was quite evident that the family were not strangers to him, as he was well acquainted with the name of Mr. Alsop. After the outrage was committed, it appeared, the family threw up the windows, and called out loudly for the police and assistance, and their cries being heard at the John Bull public house, some distance off, three persons set out from thence in the direction of Mr. Alsop’s and on their way thither they met a tall person wrapped up in a large cloak, who said as they came up that a policeman was wanted at Mr. Alsop’s, and they took no further notice of him. This person, he felt convinced, was no other than the perpetrator of the outrage himself.

The initial results of the police investigation, conducted by Mr. Young, superintendent of K division, based in Stepney, were reported a few days later. By then Young and Lea had interviewed a number of additional witnesses. Their conclusion was that  "‘in her fright the young lady had much mistaken the appearance of her assailant" and that the whole affair "was merely the result of a drunken frolic, and not the act of the individual who was stated to have made his appearance in different outlets of the metropolis in so many different shapes."

The officers made their case at Lambeth Street on 28 February before no fewer than three magistrates and a considerable crowd. Two suspects, a local bricklayer named Payne and a carpenter named Millbank, were interrogated (though neither man was formally charged), and several witnesses who had been in Bearbinder Lane at the time of the assault were called to give evidence.

The testimony of a coach-wheelwright called James Smith seemed particularly devastating. He said that he had been walking up Bearbinder Lane when he heard screams coming from Bearbinder Cottage. Hurrying on, he had met Payne and Millbank walking away from the house. Millbank was wearing a white hat and a white fustian shooting jacket (which, Lea plainly believed, was the ‘white oilskin’ garment Jane Alsop had described). Moreover, Smith asserted that he had come across the two men again later that same evening, in the Coborn Road, and overheard the following extremely incriminating conversation:

Paynes said to the other, "It was rascally; I would not have had it done upon any account," or words to that effect. I was carrying my work upon my shoulder at the time, and they recognized me, and the man in the shooting-jacket said, "There's the –––– who was in the lane." He then came up to me, and caught hold of the wheel I was carrying, and pulled it off my shoulder, saying at the same time, "What have you to say to Spring Jack?" I desired him to leave my wheel alone, and then Payne came and took him away. I went into the Morgan's Arms public-house, and they followed me in, and went into either the top-room or parlor. I inquired of the landlord who the man in the shooting-jacket was, and he said that his name was Millbank, and that he resided nearly opposite to his house. I have no doubt but that the man Millbank was the person who had so frightened the Misses Alsop.

Questioned, Payne and Millbank denied they had carried out the assault, or had the conversation Smith claimed to have overheard, though Millbank did admit to being so drunk he had little recollection of anything that had happened that evening. Jane Alsop and her sisters were then recalled, and said they were quite sure that the person who had attacked them was not drunk.

While the conflicting testimony puzzled the Lambeth Street magistrates, they plainly felt that Millbank, in particular, had a case to answer. They ordered a further investigation; but this served only to muddy the waters further.

The results of the renewed investigation were heard on 2 March. A shoemaker named Richardson, who had also been in Bearbinder Lane shortly before nine, said that he had met not only Millbank and Payne, but also two other possible suspects – a boy and "a young man in a large cloak" who "in rather a joking or laughing manner" said "something about Spring-heeled Jack being in the lane". This too was a suspicious circumstance, since at that time no-one but Jane Alsop knew that her attacker had identified himself as Jack.

The identity of the cloaked ‘young man’ is one of the mysteries of the Alsop case. Smith was insistent that he was actually Millbank, while Richardson was equally adamant that he was not. Further information provided by a gentleman from the Old Ford area, who had conducted his own inquiry:

 "to allay, if possible, the terror that had spread over the neighborhood" served only to confuse the issue. He had identified a man named Fox, who admitted to being in the lane, accompanied by a boy, when Jane was assaulted, but who also asserted that he had not been wearing a cloak at the time.

Not surprisingly, little was resolved by this inconclusive investigation. At the end of the second day of hearings, Mr. Hardwick, the chief magistrate, told Millbank, the chief suspect, he now believed him innocent. He called for further enquiries to take place, but if Lea and Young were ever able to turn up any other information there seems to be no record of it in the press; nor does it appear that anyone was ever brought to trial for assaulting Jane Alsop.

Source: www.mikedash.com

Point Of Confusion Amongst Jacks

Jack Speculation