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A discussion of
Springheeled Jack from the BBC
When and where would he
appear next?
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Spring-Heeled Jack
We tend to regard
the Victorian era as an age of
science and reason, not unlike our
own. However, there was another
Victorian age, running parallel with
this, an age that believed in
phrenology (reading fortunes via
bumps on the head) and fairies, in
ghosts and galvanism, in photographs
and séances. And some Victorians, at
least, believed in a man called
Spring-Heeled Jack.
A different depiction |
Sightings of
Spring-Heeled Jack are recorded
across England, from London and
Chichester up to Liverpool, but they
were especially prevalent in the
Black Country, where they peeked in
the 1880s. Descriptions of the
creature vary, but the salient
characteristics were his goatee
beard, pointed ears and horns, and
flashing, fiery eyes. Illustrations
in the popular (and sensationalist)
magazines called Penny Dreadfuls,
show him as a kind of Hispanic
version of the Devil. The one
feature that never varied was his
ability to jump; to leap over
rooftops and across hedges. Such
agility always allowed him to
terrify his victims and to escape
his pursuers. A bounder, indeed.
Jack was up and about in the Black
Country, at least from 1855, when he
was reputedly seen in Old Hill,
leaping from the roof of the Cross
Inn onto the roof of a butcher’s
shop across the road. This sighting
was typical of many, and was
invariably followed by a spate of
further sightings, until the panic
died down. However, after a few
months or sometimes years, he
returned. There were numerous other
sightings at Blackheath in 1877 and
again around Dudley and the Acocks
Green district of Birmingham in the
1880s. As the Birmingham Post
reported in September 1886:
“First a
young girl, then a man,
felt a hand on their
shoulder, and turned to
see the infernal one
with glowing face,
bidding them a good
evening.”
Would Jack appear on Dudley
Street, Wolverhampton, in
1900?
© Wolverhampton Archives &
Local Studies |
The
Black Country of the 19th Century
was a somewhat superstitious,
inward-looking place; some would say
that it still is.
Can you spot Jack?
© Courtesy of Ian Britton,
freefoto.com |
Jumping with Jack
© Courtesy of Ian Britton,
freefoto.com |
It was very easy for
stories - true or imagined - to
spread like wildfire and, as is the
case in a largely oral culture, to
become embellished along the way.
Nor is it surprising to read of
Spring-Heeled Jack being seen on the
roofs of pubs or churches; his image
was certainly being employed by
local preachers as a warning against
the perils of drink.
However, such stories were not
limited to the pulpit. Very rapidly
Spring-Heeled Jack was added to the
arsenal of the beleaguered parent,
labouring to get their child to
behave. In short, Jack was recruited
to the company of bogeymen.
Such characters pop up throughout
European folklore, from Uomo Nero
(the Black Man) in Italy to Wee
Willie Winkie in Scotland and Der
Kinderfresser in Germany. They
punished recalcitrant children by
nipping their toes or stealing their
presents or (in moments of parental
desperation) removing them entirely.
Spring-Heeled Jack, as unleashed by
harassed parent against troublesome
offspring, had a particularly
vindictive trick.
He would leap up at
the bedroom window to stare at the
child in its bed. I find this a
terrifying prospect even as an
adult!
As such Spring-Heeled Jack has still
not entirely deserted the region,
though his appearances are now only
part of an agreed code of behaviour
between mother and child. Older
Black Country residents still recall
being threatened with an appearance
by Jack if they failed to go to bed
on time. The last publicly testified
sighting that reached the newspapers
was in September 1904, when the
newspapers reported a figure seen
"jumping over a building in William
Henry Street".
1870s, Dudley Street,
Wolverhampton
© Wolverhampton Archives &
Local Studies |
If we accept that such a creature never actually existed,
it’s interesting to speculate what
is going on here; figures called
Jack are common in rural, and urban,
folklore. In May processions, the
Queen is often accompanied by an
anti-hero, a Green Man who feigns
death and then springs unexpectedly
to life; his name is Jack-in-the
Green. Welsh border tradition tells
of a character called Jack o’
Kentchurch, who made a pact with the
Devil.
Another Jack jumping out
© The Jack in the Box
Company |
There was also the
legendary individual who paid flying
visits to his neighbours, and then
was off again before they could
say...’Jack Robinson’. There are
countless other examples of these
mischievous little Jacks, including
the disturbing little toy we call a
‘Jack-in-the-Box’. And of course
there was one real one, the serial
killer who haunted the East End of
London, also in the 1880s, and who
was also popularly christened Jack.
There is no proven reason why Jack
should be the catch-all name of
these creatures, real or imaginary,
and as far as I can tell, no one
before has suggested a link between
them.
Our Jack, the rather less dangerous
one, has adopted many of the
peculiarities of the other Jacks. He
is unpredictable, elusive and
frightening without being
life-threatening. His appearance
from the 1830s is almost always in
urban areas, but that in itself
means little; Victorian Britain had
urbanized at a remarkable speed and
those moving into the towns from the
countryside inevitably brought their
old superstitions with them. The
historian, Charles Phythian-Adams
calls this phenomenon ‘prior
culture’, the survival of the
previous age into the Victorian
system of belief.
Victorian intrigue |
What is surprising
is how quickly panic could set in.
This seems to have happened in
Netherton in 1877. A terrifying
creature with one flashing eye had
been spotted by a number of
witnesses leaping hither and thither
near the canal. The police were
summoned to the spot, surrounded the
creature and detained it. It did not
take long to realize that Jack was
in fact Joseph Darby, later to be
the World Spring Jumping Champion,
who had been practising at night in
a pit helmet.
We are, of course, much more
sensible and rational in the 21st
Century, and likely to treat such
stories with a large pinch of salt,
but I’d like to bet that you’ll be
drawing the curtains in your bedroom
tonight.
Words: Chris Upton
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