Spring-Heeled Jack: the fire-breathing phantom that terrorised Victorian England

Newspapers struggled to keep up with an influx of alleged sightings, which saw this phantom appear miles apart in quick succession. Police forces across the country were likewise bombarded with reports of the ghost, which could not be captured on account of its ability to leap away at extraordinary speeds and distances.

And this earned it a moniker which was to become synonymous with the paranormal for nearly a century: Spring-Heeled Jack.

When was Spring-Heeled Jack first seen?

The earliest rumours of this ghostly entity emerged from rural villages south of London. In late 1837, villagers in Barnes reported that a white bull had attacked several people (mostly women) at night. Reaching East Sheen, it assumed the form of a white bear and was referred to by locals as the ‘Evil One’.

Spring-Heeled Jack first took human form in January 1838, when he appeared wearing brass armour, claw gloves, and the spring-loaded shoes that were to become his hallmark. He was occasionally accompanied by other apparitions, and evaded capture by scaling walls and jumping away – to heights of up to nine feet.

Gossip, rumour and occasional newspaper reporting quickly spread these alleged sightings of a fearsome, dangerous devil-man. Victorian Londoners were fascinated and horrified by this supernatural attacker that appeared to be closing in on the capital.

In January 1838, the Lord Mayor of the City of London announced that he had received a letter from a ‘Peckham resident’, who alleged a group of people had been donning different disguises – including those of a ghost, the devil, and a bear – and frightening women as part of a dare.

But this could hardly explain the apparition’s supernatural athleticism or its occasional targeting of male victims. If this was an attempt to assure the public that there was nothing supernatural to fear, it backfired. A report in The Times the next day marked the phantom’s entrance into the mainstream press.

Referred to as “the suburban ghost”, “Steel Jack” and “Spring Jack”, among other names, the press had until now struggled to agree on nomenclature. By the end of the following week, however, the Penny Satirist had put in print the moniker which was finally going to stick: Spring-Heeled Jack.

Soon, a “committee of gentlemen” had assembled to raise funds for a jackpot that would be rewarded to anyone able to capture Spring-Heeled Jack. But the question on everyone’s lips was the same: who, or what, was responsible for the hauntings?

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Was Spring-Heeled Jack real?

Many Victorians genuinely believed that Spring-Heeled Jack was a demonic entity endowed with supernatural abilities. His reputation as a devious and violent ghost was sustained by word-of-mouth rumours, which spread within and between communities. While newspapers often approached sightings sceptically, witnesses and many of their neighbours were gripped by a genuine fear of the supernatural.

But for many, there were less otherworldly explanations.

One prevailing theory was that there was no singular demonic entity called Spring-Heeled Jack, but rather a conspiracy of eccentric aristocrats who had placed a wager on the number of victims they could frighten while wearing costumes.

The Sun reported, apparently without any evidence, that a stake of £5,000 had been agreed on by “this gang of ghosts and hobgoblins”. This would explain how Spring-Heeled Jack appeared to be in multiple places at once.

The Marquess of Waterford, a nobleman known for his rowdy and unruly behaviour, was also a popular suspect, despite there being no solid evidence to back up this claim. Even the fact that Spring-Heeled Jack’s escapades continued long after the Irish peer’s death in 1859 did little to dampen the rumour.

Who were Spring Heeled Jack’s most famous victims?

On the evening of 20 February 1838, Spring-Heeled Jack ventured into the capital for the first time.

At about 8.45pm, 18-year-old Jane Alsop heard “violent ringing” at the gate in front of her family’s home in East London. Standing outside was an agitated man who claimed he was a policeman and implored the teenager to “bring me a light, for we have caught Spring-Heeled Jack here in the lane”.

But when Jane fetched a candle and handed it to him, the visitor suddenly threw off his coat, “presented a most hideous and frightful appearance, and vomited forth a quantity of blue and white flame from his mouth”. Glaring at her with fiery red eyes, he then began tearing at her skin and clothing with metallic claws.

Although she was ultimately rescued by her older sister, who grappled with the assailant and forced him to flee, the assault left Jane injured and in shock. Her subsequent testimony to the police garnered significant press coverage, catapulting Spring-Heeled Jack even further into public consciousness.

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The supernatural fiend was apparently undeterred by an increasingly fervent public appeal for his capture. Only five days later, he reportedly terrified – but did not harm – a servant boy who had opened the door to his knocking.

A few days later, one Lucy Scales was walking home with her sister when the pair spotted a tall, thin man standing in the alley ahead of them. As Lucy approached the cloaked figure, he spewed blue flames in her face, temporarily blinding her and sending her into violent fits. He then fled.

Police investigators were by now exploring the possibility that the attacker’s fire-breathing abilities were in fact the product of a scientific contraption which used alcohol and sulphur, connected to a breathing tube, to produce flames when ignited.

How the media reacted to Spring-Heeled Jack

The newspapers of Victorian England were eager to capitalise on the attention being paid to Spring-Heeled Jack, though they rarely indulged the idea that he really was a ghost.

After the attacks on Jane Alsop and Lucy Scales, reported sightings of Spring-Heeled Jack appeared in press coverage across the country. Many of these were based on unsubstantiated local rumours which the media might not have entertained had Spring-Heeled Jack not already gained such notoriety.

Typically he appeared in the form that the two young women had witnessed – a tall man in a cloak who could transform suddenly into a monstrous figure.

The Bristol Mercury somewhat sceptically reported an appearance of the “mischievous personage” in June 1838. When the phantom was sighted in Surrey, the Morning Post shrugged him off as an impersonator.

Regional newspapers reported sightings of Spring-Heeled Jack throughout the next four decades, though his popularity was slowly waning. Even so, the more sensationalist newspapers continued to exploit reports of the phantom’s apparitions.

The Illustrated Police News reported in 1877 that Spring-Heeled Jack had climbed a Roman ruin in Newport, Lincolnshire, and been shot at by angry locals – but escaped unharmed. It provided a dramatic illustration of the encounter for readers to gawk at.

Was Spring-Heeled Jack caught?

There was no arrest which put a stop to the supernatural phantom’s exploits, but a number of very human copycats were caught red-handed. These included a Londoner who, in March 1838 chased after women and children while wearing a mask with blue glazed paper attached to his mouth to imitate fire.

In 1842, a man believed to be Spring-Heeled Jack, or one of his associates, was captured in the town of Eye, Surrey, but he soon disappeared from the police station in which he was being held. “Some suppose that by some chemical process Jack was converted into a spirit and so managed to make his escape,” the Ipswich Journal reported.

Though sightings of Spring-Heeled Jack dwindled towards the end of the 19th century, he had become a fixture of Victorian popular culture – the subject of street ballads, at least four plays, and a bogeyman used to scare unruly children into obedience.

In penny dreadful booklets, Spring-Heeled Jack was transformed from an evil spirit who terrorised women into a masked vigilante figure who used his supernatural powers to punish wrongdoers – an early kind of superhero.

One of these serials, titled Spring-heel’d Jack: The Terror of London, was published weekly in 1863 and saw 40 instalments. Anticipating that readers would be suspicious of its titular character’s new-found heroism, the writer had Spring-Heeled Jack describe himself as “one who is not so black as he is painted”. But its title suggests the apparition still had a less-than-stellar reputation.

The last widely reported sighting of Spring-Heeled Jack was in Liverpool in 1904, where he jumped between rooftops to the amazement of crowds of people. By this time, most alleged appearances were dismissed as attention-seeking imitators, and Jack the Ripper had dethroned him as England’s most terrifying character.

But Spring-Heeled Jack nonetheless continued to lurk in the shadowy margins of English society – as one of the country’s first urban legends which had caused generations of people to glance nervously behind them as they travelled the dimly-lit alleyways of Victorian Britain.

Spring-Heeled Jack is discussed further on this episode of the HistoryExtra podcast.