# Whitechapel Vigilance Committee

* This article is part of a series aboutJack the Ripper
Whitechapel murders
Annie Chapman
Catherine Eddowes
Mary Jane Kelly
Mary Ann Nichols
Elizabeth Stride
Speculated
Emma Elizabeth Smith
Martha Tabram
Thames Torso Murders
Whitehall Mystery
Locations
Buck's Row
Dorset Street
Flower and Dean Street
Hanbury Street
Mitre Square
Ten Bells
Letters and clues
"Dear Boss" letter
"Saucy Jacky" postcard
"From Hell" letter
Openshaw letter
Goulston Street graffito
Investigators
Frederick Abberline
Robert Anderson
Walter Andrews
Thomas Arnold
Walter Dew
George Godley
Melville Macnaghten
Henry Moore
Edmund Reid
Donald Swanson
Charles Warren
Adolphus Williamson
Whitechapel Vigilance Committee
George Lusk
Doctors and coroners
Wynne Edwin Baxter
Thomas Bond
Roderick Macdonald
Thomas Horrocks Openshaw
George Bagster Phillips
Witnesses
George Hutchinson
Joseph Lawende
Charles Allen Lechmere
Israel Schwartz
Suspects
Montague Druitt
Jacob Isenschmid
George Chapman
Aaron Kosminski
Michael Ostrog
John Pizer
James Thomas Sadler
Francis Tumblety
William Henry Bury
Thomas Neill Cream
Thomas Hayne Cutbush
Frederick Bailey Deeming
Carl Feigenbaum
Robert Donston Stephenson
Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale
Joseph Barnett
Willy Clarkson
William Gull
George Hutchinson
James Kelly
Charles Allen Lechmere
Jacob Levy
James Maybrick
Michael Maybrick
Walter Sickert
Joseph Silver
James Kenneth Stephen
Sir John Williams, 1st Baronet, of the City of London
L. Forbes Winslow
Mary Pearcey
Legacy
In fiction
Jack the Ripper Museum :
vte :
The Whitechapel Vigilance Committee was a group of local civilian volunteers who patrolled the streets of London's Whitechapel district during the period of the Whitechapel murders of 1888. The volunteers were active mainly at night, assisting the Metropolitan Police in the search of the unknown murderer known as the "Whitechapel Murderer", "Leather Apron" and, latterly, "Jack the Ripper".

## Formation

The Whitechapel Vigilance Committee was founded by sixteen tradesmen from the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts, who were concerned that the killings were affecting businesses in the area. The committee was led by a local builder named George Lusk, who was elected chairman during its first meeting on 10 September 1888.
Other committee members included publican Joseph Aarons (treasurer), Mr. B. Harris (secretary), and Messrs. Barnett, Cohen, H. A. Harris, Hodgins, Houghton, Isaacs, Jacobs, Laughton, Lindsay, Lord, Mitchell, Reeves, and Rogers. The Daily Telegraph reported on 5 October 1888 that the leading members of the committee were "drawn principally from the trading class, and include a builder, a cigar-manufacturer, a tailor, a picture-frame maker, a licensed victualler, and 'an actor.'" The latter may have been the entertainer Charles Reeves.

### Civic duties

Members of the committee were unhappy with the level of protection the local community was receiving from the Metropolitan Police, so it introduced its own system of local patrols, using hand-picked unemployed men to monitor the streets of the East End every evening from midnight to between four and five the next morning. Each of these men received a small wage from the committee, and each patrolled a particular beat, being armed with a police whistle, a pair of galoshes and a strong stick. The committee itself met each evening at nine in a public house called The Crown, and once the establishment closed at 12.30am the committee members would inspect and join the patrols. These patrols were shortly to be joined by those of the Working Men's Vigilance Committee.

## Publicity

As chairman of the committee, Lusk's name appeared in national newspapers and upon posters in and around Whitechapel, appealing for information concerning the identity of Jack the Ripper and complaining about the lack of a reward for such information from the British government. Due to this publicity, Lusk received threatening letters through the post, allegedly from the killer. He is also mentioned in a letter dated 17 September 1888, reportedly discovered among archive materials in the late 20th century; however, most experts dismiss this as a modern hoax.
On 30 September 1888, the committee members wrote to the government under Lord Salisbury in an attempt to persuade them to offer a reward for information leading to the apprehension of the Ripper. When the Home Secretary Henry Matthews refused this request, the committee offered its own reward. The committee also employed two private detectives, Mr. Le Grand (or Grand) and Mr. J. H. Batchelor, to investigate the murders without the involvement of the police.

### Correspondence

The "From Hell" letter, which was sent with half of a preserved human kidney, was personally addressed to Lusk, who received the parcel on 16 October 1888. The letter was postmarked on the previous day.
Many scholars of the Ripper murders regard this letter as being the communication most likely to have been sent by the actual murderer.