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The Victorian period is also of course a period of deep and sustained religious revival. There was an evangelical revival in the Christian church but also a host of dissenting, heterodox and millenarian cults. It was a golden age of belief in supernatural forces and energies, ghost stories, weird transmissions and spooky phenomena. For a long time historians ignored these beliefs as embarrassing errors or eccentricities, signs of the perturbations produced by the speed of cultural change.
In fact, it is much easier to grasp the religious and scientific strands of the century as closely intertwined. Every scientific and technological advance encouraged a kind of magical thinking and was accompanied by a shadow discourse of the occult. For every disenchantment there was an active re-enchantment of the world. Because the advances in science were so rapid, the natural and the supernatural often became blurred in popular thinking, at least for a time. And no area of the literary culture of the Victorians was left untouched by this interplay of science and magic.
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(8 January 1843 in Blandford Forum, Dorset – 10 December 1929) was a Chief Inspector, for the London Metropolitan Police and a prominent police figure in the investigation into the Jack the Ripper, serial killer murders of 1888.

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Watch the video

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In Borley, in the 13th century, there used to be a monastry. A young monk from the monastry fell in love with a nun from a nearby convent. They planned to escape, but were caught. The monk was sent to the gallows and the nun was bricked alive in one of the monastry cellar.

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Creepy facts about Victorian era which can help you understand this strange period better

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Creepy facts about Victorian era which can help you understand this strange period better

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Before its destruction. Follow this link to see it after the fire.

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It was a Victorian mansion in the pretty village of Borley, Essex. It was destroyed by fire in 1939, but gained a reputation as being heavily haunted after a series of locals reported some unexplained paranormal goings-on. In fact, the hauntings at Borley caught the nation’s attention when the story of Borley was covered in the Daily Mirror and by noted paranormal investigator Harry Price. The first indication that there was something paranormal happening at the house were footsteps heard in the dead of the night in the 1860s. The ghost of a nun, two headless horsemen, a phantom carriage, the phantom ringing of the servant’s bells and bottle-throwing are just some of the paranormal incidents reported at Borley.

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Follow this link to discover what the black country looked like in the Victorian period?

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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, and ghosts , in photographs and séances. And some Victorians, at least, believed in a man called Spring-Heeled Jack.

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"

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Follow this link and read the article to picture what White Chapel looked like in  1888

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The strangest suspects in the Ripper case

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The strangest suspects in the Ripper case

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Watch the video. Click on the picture, then on "view original" to watch the video.

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Scores of names have been put forward as Jack the Ripper's real identity since his heinous crimes in 1888.

Some were favoured by police who led the investigation, some have emerged only in recent years and some are downright ludicrous.

The latest candidate is Francis Spurzheim Craig.

Here is a selection of some of the main theories:

Montague John Druitt

A doctor who disappeared around the time of the final Ripper murder and whose body was discovered floating in the River Thames the following month.

There were allegations that Druitt, 41, born in Wimborne, Dorset, was "sexually insane".

Inspector Macnaghten of Scotland Yard believed Druitt was the Ripper.

Seweryn Klosowski

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Who was Jack the Ripper? The suspects so far

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Scores of names have been put forward as Jack the Ripper's real identity since his heinous crimes in 1888. Some were favoured by police who led the investigation, some have emerged only in recent years and some are downright ludicrous. The latest candidate is Francis Spurzheim Craig.

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A map of the Ripper's crimes in Whitechapel

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A map of the Ripper's crimes in Whitechapel

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Click on the document to see it full page

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The big story being covered by the newspapers the week ending 11th August 1888 was the discovery of the body of a woman in George Yard, a narrow thoroughfare that runs off Whitechapel High Street. The woman's identity had been established as Martha Turner (or Tabram), who some maintain was the first of Jack the Ripper's victims.The Daily News in its edition of 10th August 1888 reported that:-

"An inquest was opened yesterday in Whitechapel on the body of a woman who was found dead at George yard early on Tuesday morning. There were thirty nine punctured wounds on the body. There appeared to be some doubt about the identity of the deceased. The inquiry was adjourned."

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" The ship began its fateful voyage on November 7, 1872, sailing with seven crewmen and Capt. Benjamin Spooner Briggs, his wife, Sarah, and the couple's 2-year-old daughter, Sophia. The 282-ton brigantine battled heavy weather for two weeks to reach the Azores, where the ship log's last entry was recorded at 5 a.m. on November 25."

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Captain David Morehouse and Benjamin Briggs are having a talk in a New York Inn. They are both about to start a journey on board their ships and agree on meeting on the way.

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It was on December 5th in 1872 when The British brig Dei Gratia was around 400 miles east of the Azores when several crew members spotted a ship that was adrift at sea. Captain David Morehouse was surprised to find that the unguided vessel was the Mary Celeste. The ship had left out of New York City eight days before him and it had plenty of time to reach its destination in Genoa, Italy. Captain Morehouse changed his course in order to offer help and look for survivors.

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New York Herald (New York, New York), 15 March 1873

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New York Herald (New York, New York), 15 March 1873