page_title: Thomas Horrocks Openshaw
section_title: Jack the Ripper
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas Horrocks Openshaw / Jack the Ripper
caption_attribution_description: English: Envelope containing the 'Openshaw Letter'. Español: Sobre correspondiente a la llamada 'Carta Openshaw'.
context_page_description: Thomas Horrocks Openshaw CB CMG FRCS TD, was an English Victorian and Edwardian era surgeon perhaps best known for his brief involvement in the notorious Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.
context_section_description: When a kidney, purportedly from Jack the Ripper victim Catherine Eddowes, was posted to George Lusk, Chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, together with the From Hell letter, Lusk was persuaded by his fellow Committee members to take them to Dr Frederick Wiles, who had a surgery nearby on the Mile End Road.
  Wiles was out, so his assistant, F S Reed, examined the contents of the box and took the kidney to Openshaw at the nearby London Hospital. Openshaw believed that the kidney was from the left side of a human body.
  As Openshaw was frequently mentioned in press reports at the time in connection with the kidney and From Hell letter, his name became known widely among the general public. On 29 October 1888 he received a letter through the post addressed to 'Dr Openshaw, Pathological curator, London Hospital, Whitechapel' and was postmarked 'LONDON E', 'OC29 88'. The text of the letter reads as follows:
  Old boss you was rite it was the left kidny i was goin to hoperate agin close to your ospitle just as i was going to dror mi nife along of er bloomin throte them cusses of coppers spoilt the game but i guess i wil be on the job soon and will send you another bit of innerds
  Jack the Ripper
  O have you seen the devle
  with his mikerscope and scalpul 
  a-lookin at a kidney 
  with a slide cocked up.
  This letter has become known as the  'Openshaw Letter' .  A copy of the letter is on display with other Ripper items in the Royal London Hospital's museum in Whitechapel.
  The letter was also used by author Patricia Cornwell to try to substantiate her claim that Walter Sickert was the Ripper. She claims that  the paper used for the Openshaw Letter came from the same manufacturers as paper used by Sickert. However, it was a brand of stationery that was widely available at the time. Also according to Cornwell, mitochondrial DNA extracted from the stamp on the envelope could not be ruled out as being the same as that found on other Sickert letters. Mitochondrial DNA, however, is not a definitive test of identity and the sequence found by Cornwell's team of experts could be from one of over 400,000 individuals.
caption: Envelope containing the 'Openshaw Letter'
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