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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Downey and it's getting

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Speaker 1: closer to Halloween, so we're getting a little bit spookier

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Speaker 1: in our series. Sarah had a really good pick for

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Speaker 1: today well, and this is a popular listeners suggestion too,

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Speaker 1: so it's not exactly my pick. But in the late

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Speaker 1: eighteen thirties, London and its outlying villages, places that are

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Speaker 1: suburbs now, were apparently terrorized by this mystery assailant. And

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Speaker 1: sometimes he was dressed as a bear or a devil,

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Speaker 1: or dressed in a coat of armor, and he tormented

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Speaker 1: his victims, who are usually young women, by tearing at

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Speaker 1: them with sharp talents, sometimes shooting flames at them, and

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Speaker 1: then he would escape with great agility across the countryside.

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Speaker 1: And that agility earned him the name of spring heeled Jack,

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Speaker 1: which is something people eventually began to take literally, like

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Speaker 1: he was running around in these shoes with giant springs

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Speaker 1: on the bottom. But he made such an impression on

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Speaker 1: people across the country that other mystery attacks ten years,

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Speaker 1: forty years, even seventy years later were chalked up to

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Speaker 1: this Springman, who grew even more fantastic as the decades

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Speaker 1: went by. Yeah, and he started to appear in Penny Dreadfuls,

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Speaker 1: which were the best phrase, it makes me ful happy.

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Speaker 1: It's cheap, lurid fiction. I guess it makes me less happy.

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Speaker 1: But Penny Tacles is the name of my next imaginary

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Speaker 1: fun to read through. And he took on this folklore

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Speaker 1: persona to this wronged aristocrat who was inflicting vigilante justice.

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Speaker 1: And if you look at pictures of Jack from the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century engravings, of course he looks a lot like

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Speaker 1: a proto Batman. And I'm kind of wondering what sort

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Speaker 1: of inspiration, if any, he had on the creators of Batman.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he's got the scalloped black cloth, he has

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Speaker 1: black boots, he flies and jumps, and you and I

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Speaker 1: saw the batmobile on Monday Cathy's uh car collection at

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Speaker 1: Chick fil A headquarters. So that's so. I like to

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Speaker 1: think there's things are coming together. But then spring Hill

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Speaker 1: Jack mostly faded from memory. He was replaced by these

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Speaker 1: more generic ghosts and boogeymen like we think of. But

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty one, this story kind of gets a

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Speaker 1: second win when it's used as an example of pre

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Speaker 1: space age UFO visitation in a magazine called The Flying

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Speaker 1: Saucer Review, which you know, I mean, if you want

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Speaker 1: to buy us a subscription for Christmas, you totally could.

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Speaker 1: But since the nineteen eighties, the subject of Springhill Jack

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Speaker 1: has been seriously studied by one man in particular, who's

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Speaker 1: named Mike Dash. So the legend is obviously huge. But

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Speaker 1: was there ever a real Springhilled Jack? And what was he? So,

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Speaker 1: just to give you some bearings before we launched into

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Speaker 1: this very mysterious before we spring and ring into the

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Speaker 1: story of our subject today, could have been an alien

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Speaker 1: at least according to Flying Saucer Review, a supernatural being,

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Speaker 1: a nobleman carrying out some thick terms of a bet,

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Speaker 1: a series of copycats feeding off of a rural rumor,

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Speaker 1: or just an urban legend. And Sarah was saying that

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Speaker 1: the cool thing about this story is that even if

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Speaker 1: you walk away from it believing that nothing happened at all,

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Speaker 1: it's still really interesting to take a look at the

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Speaker 1: urban terrors and hysteria in the nineteenth century, Like if

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Speaker 1: you if you think about ours the Satanist cults at Daycares.

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Speaker 1: Thing that was going was in the nineties, so yeah,

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Speaker 1: we had no spring heeled Jack. But if you were

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Speaker 1: back in England at this particularly weird stuff that happened exactly,

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Speaker 1: this is what you would be worried about. But first

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Speaker 1: we're gonna tell you a little bit of a ghost story.

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Speaker 1: So our scene is set February eight, it's less than

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Speaker 1: a year into Queen Victoria's reign, and we're at bare

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Speaker 1: Binder Cottage in old Ford, which is just east of London.

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Speaker 1: So Jane alsop who's a young woman who lives with

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Speaker 1: her parents. Here's somebody ringing the bell at her family's

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Speaker 1: front gate. It's a little late for visitors to be calling.

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Speaker 1: It's about a quarter to nine, So she goes out

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Speaker 1: and sees the man and asks him what's wrong and

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Speaker 1: could you please stop bringing the bell so loudly? And

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Speaker 1: he says, for God's sake, bring me a light, for

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Speaker 1: we have caught spring hild Jack here in the lane.

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Speaker 1: So she hurries in. She grabs this candle and she

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Speaker 1: hands it to the man, who thinks she thinks is

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Speaker 1: a policeman. But that's not what she sees. At that point,

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Speaker 1: he throws off his cloak, holds the candle up to

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Speaker 1: his chest and it illuminates this horrible face with red

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Speaker 1: eyes and a helmet and tight fitting white clothing. And

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Speaker 1: then he shoots blue and white flames from his mouth

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Speaker 1: and grabs her starts to tear her clothes and her

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Speaker 1: skin with his metal claws, and somehow she escapes from

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Speaker 1: him and she runs to the door of her home.

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Speaker 1: There he grabs her again, keeps on ripping out her

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Speaker 1: hair and tearing at her clothes. Finally one of her

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Speaker 1: sisters opens the door and saves her. So that sounds

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Speaker 1: completely terrifying even today. And this is the first firsthand

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Speaker 1: account of spring Hill Jack, which is published in the

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Speaker 1: Times of London. And the story was followed up by

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Speaker 1: two investigations, one by the newly formed Metropolitan Police and

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Speaker 1: other by a for higher detective James Leah, who's considered

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Speaker 1: one of the most famous early detectives. But Jane's account

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Speaker 1: was almost entirely backed up by her family as well

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Speaker 1: as other witnesses, so she was believed to be an

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Speaker 1: entirely credible witness, at least from most of the story. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: someone I think was at her then who said there

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Speaker 1: was no A neighbor. Yeah, so the one sort of

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Speaker 1: major contested point. A neighbor said, yeah, I definitely didn't

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Speaker 1: see any flames, even though you know, I heard someone

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Speaker 1: ringing at the bell. But the rest of the creepiness

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Speaker 1: everything seemed to add up pretty well. Um, but that's

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Speaker 1: not where our story is going to start, because months

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Speaker 1: before Jane's attack, rumors of a mystery assailant had already

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Speaker 1: swept through the countryside, and they started in Barns, a

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Speaker 1: village southwest of London in September eighteen thirty seven, where

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Speaker 1: a quote ghost imp or devil was believed to be

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Speaker 1: attacking mostly women, and over the next two months there

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Speaker 1: were reports from more than two dozen other villages of

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Speaker 1: a similar phantom. So the story spreads. Of course, it's exaggerated,

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Speaker 1: maybe it was all made up. Serious newspapermen and police

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Speaker 1: who looked into these tales couldn't find anyone who would

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Speaker 1: actually admit to having seen the assail and it was

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Speaker 1: more like, oh, my gosh, yes, I've heard you know,

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Speaker 1: you should go ask Sarah. And then Sarah would come

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Speaker 1: to me. I'd say, oh, I haven't seen it myself,

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Speaker 1: but go see old Joe down the road. What about me, Sarah,

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Speaker 1: You could have asked me about the imp. He can't

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Speaker 1: send him right back to you, Katie. So it seemed

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Speaker 1: like everybody had heard of this ghost, that nobody had

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Speaker 1: actually seen him and the other thing. And they'd look

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Speaker 1: into some of these accounts and they'd find that sensational

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Speaker 1: stories had pretty normal sounding causes. You know, they were

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Speaker 1: seeing a mounted policeman or something. It wasn't spring heeled Jack.

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Speaker 1: But still it seemed like something had been happening, because

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Speaker 1: by January eight, the Lord Mayor himself of London made

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Speaker 1: public a letter he had received from quote, a resident

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Speaker 1: of Peckham, and this was published in the time. Some

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Speaker 1: individuals of as the writer believes, the higher ranks of life,

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Speaker 1: have laid a wager with a mischievous and foolhardy companion

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Speaker 1: name as yet unknown, that he durst not take upon

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Speaker 1: himself the task of visiting many of the villages near

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Speaker 1: London in three disguises, a ghost, a bear, and a devil.

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Speaker 1: The wager has however, been accepted, and the unmanly villain

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Speaker 1: has succeeded in depriving seven ladies of their senses. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so this is putting forth this wager idea, and sketchy

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Speaker 1: rumors start flying all over the countryside. But possibly something

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Speaker 1: really is going on here. I mean, if the Lord

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Speaker 1: Mayor thinks that it's worth publishing, you never know. The

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Speaker 1: gentleman in disguise story seems half plausible. And then in

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Speaker 1: February we have our first firsthand attack, which is the

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Speaker 1: Jane all Stop story from earlier. Um. In that case,

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Speaker 1: the principal suspect is this carpenter named Millbank, who's a

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Speaker 1: squat man. He doesn't really match the description that Jane

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Speaker 1: gives of her attacker, who's this imposing, enormous fire breather

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Speaker 1: with a helmet. But Millbank admits to being so drunk

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Speaker 1: at the time that he can't remember what happened. And

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Speaker 1: Jane and her sister are both very adamant that the

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Speaker 1: assailant was not drunk, So when how would he be

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Speaker 1: a fire breather if he was well? And that's the

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Speaker 1: other thing if we're gonna if we're gonna take the

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Speaker 1: fire breathing, seriously, it's very dangerous to do fire breathing

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Speaker 1: unless it's absolute calm, right, because got everything under control

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Speaker 1: and you're doing everything correctly, the wind blows the wrong

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Speaker 1: way and your face explodes. It's pretty dangerous. It would

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Speaker 1: be especially dangerous to do while you were drunk. But

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Speaker 1: still now it is spring healed Jack fever, and not

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Speaker 1: just in the countryside but in London too. So we're

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Speaker 1: gonna move on to talk about a couple of attacks

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Speaker 1: and these are the classic attacks from Yeah, a short

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Speaker 1: string of events from eighteen thirty seven to eight thirty eight.

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Speaker 1: So the second one was five days after Jane's attack,

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Speaker 1: and again it was in the East end of London.

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Speaker 1: The assailant knocked on the door of a house and

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Speaker 1: when a servant boy came to the door to open it,

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Speaker 1: Jack frightened him so much that he started screaming his

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Speaker 1: head off, and Jack was forced to get out of

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Speaker 1: there before anybody heard. The third classic attack was when

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Speaker 1: Lucy Scales and her sister were walking home from their

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Speaker 1: brother's butcher shop down Green Dragon Alley, which sounds very

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Speaker 1: Harry Potter. They're ambushed and the assailant shoots blue flames

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Speaker 1: and then flees. And this story doesn't gain as much

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Speaker 1: attention as Jane's for some reason, but I think it's

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Speaker 1: pretty good. One possibly because Lucy was Jane was the

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Speaker 1: daughter of a pretty well off family, Lucy less. So

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Speaker 1: so at this point we enter the copycat stage and

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Speaker 1: you have angry men calling themselves bring you know, just

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Speaker 1: standing up in the bar and so I'm spring heeled

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Speaker 1: Jack and attacking women and boys dressing up as Jack

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Speaker 1: to play pranks on each other. Some men are arrested,

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Speaker 1: but people are also so obsessed by this story by

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Speaker 1: now and frightened frightened of it that nearly any mystery

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Speaker 1: assault gets added to Jack's rap sheet. So it doesn't

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Speaker 1: matter if it doesn't exactly follow the pattern for what

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Speaker 1: we've what we've seen. If it's mysterious, it must be

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Speaker 1: springhilled Jack. When it goes on for years and years,

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Speaker 1: his name is associated with later attacks in the Midlands

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Speaker 1: and the Home counties in Middlesex, in Peckham and Sheffield,

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Speaker 1: and famously an alder shot in eighteen seventy seven which

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Speaker 1: is where a British Army campus station, and that's where

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Speaker 1: he would lay his chill hand over an isolated sentries

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Speaker 1: face and then bound off on giant springs. So apparently

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Speaker 1: he's gone from fire breathing to chill hands and again,

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Speaker 1: this is nearly forty years later. Yeah, so it's extremely

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think we can discount that there would

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Speaker 1: be one person carrying out all these attacks. That would

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Speaker 1: be pretty ridiculous. But the last major Springhilled Jack appearance

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Speaker 1: occurs in nineteen o four in Liverpool, and he's more

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Speaker 1: apple than ever. I mean, he's practically flying by this

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Speaker 1: better springs. Springs have improved considerably over the decades, and

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Speaker 1: the account of this appearance is really sketchy. I think

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Speaker 1: there had been rumors of a Poulter geist in the

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Speaker 1: neighborhood before, so everybody's on edge, I guess. So the

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Speaker 1: legend begins to fade away after this, So there's you know,

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Speaker 1: if there's something scary and fishy going on in your village,

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Speaker 1: you're no longer so inclined to blame it on spring

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Speaker 1: Hill Jack. You might just go with a plane garden variety,

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Speaker 1: Poulter ghost. It's the boogey man whoever, So what happened?

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Speaker 1: We've got to look at this from a few different angles. One,

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Speaker 1: it was Jack just a convenient boogeyman to blame for

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Speaker 1: weird events happening in the nineteenth century. Weird stuff happens,

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Speaker 1: you have this convenient scapegoat. Did opportunistic hoaxeres and genuine

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Speaker 1: criminals sees this m O of eighteen thirty seven Jack

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Speaker 1: and make this rumor real. So you have all this

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Speaker 1: gossip and then you take the costume and the pared crime.

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Speaker 1: You can go do whatever you want. Or did an

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Speaker 1: original Jack terrorize the London area in eighteen thirty seven

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Speaker 1: and eight before giving way to these lesser copycats over

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Speaker 1: the next few decades. So, according to the Oxford Dictionary

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Speaker 1: National Biography, Folklori's usually assumed that spring Hill Jack was

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Speaker 1: just a combination of two urban legends. And there was

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Speaker 1: one legend among the servants and the working classes, and

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Speaker 1: that was Jack was real. He was a supernatural monster,

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Speaker 1: so like he really was the devil or a ghost

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Speaker 1: or whatever appearing in disguises. Among the more educated people,

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Speaker 1: there was a legend that it was a gentleman's wager,

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Speaker 1: and there was this gang of well off men with

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Speaker 1: access to costumes and transportation and money, and they had

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Speaker 1: made some sort of sick bet with each other to

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Speaker 1: go around and try to frighten people out of their senses.

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Speaker 1: There was even a suspect for the Sperry, the very

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Speaker 1: rakish Henry de la Poor Beresford, who is the Marquess

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Speaker 1: of Waterford, and he's still regarded by some people as

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Speaker 1: the chief suspect for the original eighteen thirty seven eighteen

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Speaker 1: thirty eight string of attacks, because he certainly would have

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Speaker 1: had the resources. And again it's possible that the lack

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Speaker 1: of concrete information in rural areas from late eighteen thirty

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Speaker 1: seven comes from some sort of cover up, cover up

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Speaker 1: the noble one. Maybe the first string of attacks ended

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Speaker 1: because there was pressure put on the police not to

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Speaker 1: investigate any further, or nor he was just getting it

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Speaker 1: was getting too risky to keep on doing this. The

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Speaker 1: police couldn't be expected to cover it up anymore, or

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Speaker 1: he fulfilled his his his bet that thing's all done

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Speaker 1: after those classic attacks exactly. And the magazine Folklore unsurprisingly

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Speaker 1: takes up this same position. I mean, it's called folklore

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Speaker 1: after all. Um that Jack was just a rumor and

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Speaker 1: part of this hysterical panic. He shouldn't be at the

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Speaker 1: seated with any one person because he was a product.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't a real flesh and blood man. But the

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Speaker 1: research of the historian Mike Dash forces to look at

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Speaker 1: Jack a little more closely and consider a few different angles.

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Speaker 1: He spent most of his working life researching the Jack mystery,

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Speaker 1: and his research has exposed some of the most notable

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Speaker 1: secondary sources on Jack as being nearly complete fiction. So

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Speaker 1: too famous Jack stories that of the eighteen thirty seven

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Speaker 1: attack on the servant Polly Hill by a man she

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Speaker 1: recognized as the popeyed gentleman who propositioned her earlier in

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Speaker 1: the day seems made up, and Sarah was saying that

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Speaker 1: was notable because Henry Waterford was known for being popeyed,

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Speaker 1: And another the attack and murder of prostitute Maria Davis

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Speaker 1: in eighteen forty five, also seems entirely fictional and has

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Speaker 1: no contemporary evidence to back it up. So instead of

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Speaker 1: relying on these obvious questionable secondary sources of literature, Dash

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Speaker 1: has poured through records and newspaper entries from around the country,

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Speaker 1: from not just the Times but all over the English countryside,

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Speaker 1: even from the US, because there are other similar events

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Speaker 1: happening here at the same period in time. So instead

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Speaker 1: of relying completely on some of this obviously sketchy secondary literature,

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Speaker 1: Dash has instead tried to go to the primary sources

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Speaker 1: as much as possible, which in this case there's some records,

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Speaker 1: but it's mostly newspapers. Just trying to figure out what

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Speaker 1: the reporting suggests actually happened. And from his research, Dash

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Speaker 1: has concluded that there were elements of reality and fiction

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Speaker 1: in the case of springhilled Jack, which I think is

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Speaker 1: an interesting way to look at it. So he's figured

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Speaker 1: that there may have been a few Jacks in the

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Speaker 1: first string of attacks from eighteen thirty seven through eight

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Speaker 1: thirty eight, but the attacks on Lucy Scales and and

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Speaker 1: Allsop we're probably done by the same person, and that

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Speaker 1: person was probably also the same one who was responsible

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Speaker 1: for those mysterious eighteen thirty seven attacks in the countryside,

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Speaker 1: and after Spring eighteen thirty eight, it was probably copycat

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Speaker 1: Jack's who were using this ruse to play hoaxes or

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Speaker 1: occasionally to sexually assault women. So there's rumor and panic

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Speaker 1: around this whole thing, but there's also a kernel of truth.

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Speaker 1: So where there's there's fire, yeah, we think. But he

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Speaker 1: also discounts to surprisingly popular theories going back to that

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Speaker 1: UFO idea. Yeah, so he's pretty sure Jack was not

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Speaker 1: a UFO and he was not a supernatural ghost or devil,

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Speaker 1: and educated people at the time never really thought he

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Speaker 1: was a ghost or a devil. Um But over the

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Speaker 1: years people have claimed that Jack couldn't have been human

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Speaker 1: because his talents, his fire breathing, his jumps would have

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Speaker 1: been out of range for Victoria in science. It sounds

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Speaker 1: so funny to actually say to someone, no talons, those

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Speaker 1: are beyond Victorian type. It does sound ridiculous, or fire breathing.

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Speaker 1: Even um So Dash has in his research looking through

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Speaker 1: all the papers, he's figured that jumping doesn't really have

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Speaker 1: enough concrete evidence to back it up. It does seem,

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Speaker 1: as you mentioned in the beginning of the podcast, that

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Speaker 1: people started to take the name spring heeled Jack, which

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Speaker 1: was applied to this July. Yeah, they started to take

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Speaker 1: it literally, like he has actual springs hidden in the

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Speaker 1: heels of his shoes, or he has India rubber soled shoes.

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Speaker 1: She would saying would make it pretty difficult to get

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Speaker 1: around the countryside. Actually, if you were actually wearing springs

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Speaker 1: on your feet, I think it would be very difficult

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Speaker 1: to not just wind up with a broken ankle and

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Speaker 1: caught by the detectives. So if we take the springs

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Speaker 1: out of the equation, you can say that the fire

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Speaker 1: breathing and the talents could easily have been produced in

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Speaker 1: the eighteen thirties, So if he did exist, we should

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Speaker 1: assume that he was at least as a man. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so I think it leaves it open to you guys

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Speaker 1: to think about it a little. You know, do you

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Speaker 1: think he's a combination of an urban legend and some

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Speaker 1: kernel of truth or is it just an outright folk tale? Um.

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Speaker 1: I do like this story because even if you are

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Speaker 1: in the camp that assumes nothing happened, there's nothing real

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Speaker 1: about it, you're forced to still examine the hysteria that's

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Speaker 1: for real, that really did happen. Well, and it's it's

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Speaker 1: just cool because ideas of ghosts and things. I remember

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Speaker 1: watching Poultergeist in middle school and being completely terrified. Stories

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Speaker 1: of the supernatural just I mean, they go back forever. Well. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: ghosts like Jack have appeared long before eight seven and

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Speaker 1: eighteen thirty eight. I mean they just weren't attributed to

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Speaker 1: spring heeled Jack, and weird stuff happened that we don't

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Speaker 1: have an explanation for. Sometimes even now, sometimes it has

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Speaker 1: a basis in actual weird people. Sometimes times it's just

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Speaker 1: folks getting hysterical and worked up about something. But this

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Speaker 1: is of course a story with a lot of research

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Speaker 1: left to be done. Sarah advises that you get out

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Speaker 1: your magnifying glasses and start pouring over newspaper archives. But

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Speaker 1: that brings us today to our listener meal. So our

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Speaker 1: first is a real meal and especially cool because it's

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00:20:26,119 --> 00:20:28,280
Speaker 1: made out of an MRI E, a meal ready to

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Speaker 1: eat box. UM. So I always saw this cardboard card

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Speaker 1: postcard among our letters, like what is this? It's pretty awesome.

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Speaker 1: But it's from Nick and he's in the U. S. Navy,

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Speaker 1: and he wrote, Dear Katie and Sarah, I'm sitting at

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Speaker 1: Fort Jackson this morning, not too far from Atlanta, waiting

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Speaker 1: for a plane to take me to Kuwait tomorrow in

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Speaker 1: Afghanistan next week. I love the podcast and have listened

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Speaker 1: to all the episodes you two have done. Through the

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Speaker 1: miracle of the Internet, I get to keep listening overseas.

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Speaker 1: It would be great to hear about the history of Afghanistan,

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Speaker 1: maybe Alexander or the Persians or the Silk Road. Thanks

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00:21:03,040 --> 00:21:06,399
Speaker 1: and keep up the good work. Thank you, Yeah, thank you,

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Speaker 1: and um Silk Road, that's definitely one on our list. Darius,

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Speaker 1: that's on our list, so for you, we'll see what

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Speaker 1: we can move them up the list. Yeah. We've also

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Speaker 1: got an email today about the Koey Nore podcast. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this one is from Jackie and she wrote, I just

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Speaker 1: listened to her podcast on the Kohn York Diamond and

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Speaker 1: just wanted to mention one instance when the koheyn Or

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Speaker 1: appears in pop culture. I'm a big Doctor Who fan,

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Speaker 1: and yesterday before I listen to the podcast, watched an

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Speaker 1: episode from the new series second season. The episode called

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Speaker 1: Tooth and Claw featured Queen Victoria traveling with Kohynore and

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Speaker 1: claimed that the reason Prince Albert had it cut was

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Speaker 1: so it could be used to dave the Queen from

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Speaker 1: a werewolf. So that's pretty great. Yeah, I kind of

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Speaker 1: wish we brought that one up. That would have been

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Speaker 1: been a nice solid ending to that podcast. We have

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Speaker 1: found the Queen Victoria ties into every thing, and when

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Speaker 1: we visit a Dragon Comics year, we also saw lots

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Speaker 1: of dor dor fol costumes. Yes, we even saw a

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Speaker 1: Stormtrooper crossed with Doctor Who's So Doctor Who accessory wouldn't

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Speaker 1: pick between the two, Well, how could you really? So?

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Speaker 1: If you would like to send us some email where

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Speaker 1: at history podcast at how stuff works dot com. We've

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Speaker 1: also got a Facebook fan page and at Twitter feed

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Speaker 1: at missed in History And I think we have an

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Speaker 1: article that would go with that letter, don't we We do.

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Speaker 1: It's called how where Wolds Work? And it ties into

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Speaker 1: the cornerea. I think it kind of ties into spring

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Speaker 1: Hills different natural Yes, So you can search for that

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Speaker 1: on our homepage at www dot how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is

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Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com and be sure to

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Speaker 1: check out the stuff you missed in History Glass blog

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Speaker 1: on the how stuff works dot com one page