‘It’s bizarre to consider that Jack the Ripper was awarded an honorary doctorate from Reading University’ (Patricia Cornwell, 2017, Ripper: the Secret Life of Walter Sickert, p. 436)
Anyone reading my previous post about Walter Sickert’s degree ceremony might wonder why, in 2002, a famous American thriller writer should fund the conservation of Sickert’s drawings in the University’s art collection.
The author in question is Patricia Cornwell, best known for her series of crime thrillers featuring Kay Scarpetta, a forensic expert and medical examiner. Following an invitation to tour Scotland Yard in 2001, Cornwell became convinced that Walter Sickert was responsible for the Whitechapel murders, and has expounded on her theories in interviews, documentaries and three books.
Having once worked as an analyst for the Chief Medical Examination in Richmond, Virginia, she resolved to conduct a forensic investigation into Sickert’s connection to the Jack the Ripper cases:
‘Walter Sickert was connected with Jack the Ripper long before I appeared on the scene. I’m not the first one to think of him. But I’m the first to investigate him the same way we would a suspect today.’ (Cornwell, 2017, p. 448)
The Donation
Cornwell’s donation was news to me when I read about it in Naomi Lebens’ ‘Rubens to Sickert: the Study of Drawing’ (2021), but I remembered that in 2001 or 2002, Dr Sue Malvern, Senior Lecturer in the History of Art Department, had been approached by Cornwell while she was working in an archive somewhere. Dr Malvern remembers it like this:
‘The Cornwell story is fairly convoluted. I did meet her in an archive. I can’t remember exactly where, possibly the archives at the Tate. She was pursuing a theory that Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper, and was there with her assistant. I’m not a Sickert scholar but suggested Anna Robins who is. Anna Robins appears in a BBC Omnibus programme, Patricia Cornwell Stalking the Ripper, 30 Oct 2002. It’s still available on iplayer. So it was a long time ago, but I’m sure that’s how Cornwell came to make a donation…‘ (Email, 26 April 2024)
Anna Gruetzner Robins, Professor Emerita in the School of Art at Reading, is a leading authority on the art of Walter Sickert who advised Cornwell during the latter’s research into the Ripper connection. The contribution of Professor Robins and her department has been acknowledged in Cornwell’s books – Robins is mentioned as part of Cornwell’s team – and, of course, through Cornwell’s donation to the Art Collection.
Cornwell’s Mission
Patricial Cornwell has spared no expense in accumulating evidence for a link between Sickert and the murders and in identifying other possible victims. She has gathered together experts on Sickert, sex crimes, the history of art, forensic science and psychological profiling. She has overseen analyses of DNA, fingerprints, handwriting and writing paper and conducted simulated reconstructions of stabbing. She has gone to great lengths to root out coincidences and circumstantial evidence. These are hedged by frequent caveats in her books. Even by October 2002, she claimed to have spent over six million dollars in pursuit of her goal.
Her BBC Omnibus programme, ‘Stalking the Ripper’, is strongly autobiographical and addresses her motivation. Scotland Yard, she states, is too overwhelmed with recent crime to bother with historical cases, whereas she, Cornwell, has the time and resources to carry out what she refers to as ‘my crusade’:
‘…my mission is to bring about justice in the only way I know how which is to identify the person who did it.’
Controversy
It goes without saying that Cornwell’s views are highly controversial. Reviews of her books range from enthusiasm to total scepticism. After all, Sickert is only one of many suspects whose names have been put forward over the years. What seems a little worrying about Cornwell’s mission is her absolute, unwavering conviction and total commitment to proving her case
Professor Robins has herself commented on the claims that Sickert was the Whitechapel murderer. Originally in 1996, her position was that, ‘The case against Sickert is laughable’ (Robins, 1996, p. 32).
More recently, however, some two decades after the original collaboration, Professor Robins has published an overview of the most reliable evidence, though without a single mention of Cornwell: there appears to be no doubt that Sickert was obsessed with the murders and there is strong evidence that he was the author of letters purporting to come from the Ripper. Nevertheless she concludes that:
‘There is no proof that Sickert was Jack the Ripper and claims in books written on the subject cannot conclusively be verified…’ (Robins, 2017, p. 220)
Sickert’s identification with Jack the Ripper was deeply embedded in his psyche, but it does not mean that he was the killer… We will never know exactly why Sickert wrote those letters. Their confessional character, together with their taunting tone, is troublesome, but they could be part of a complicated game by a very complicated artist, who taunted ‘catch me if you can’. He was by no means the only one to confess to a crime that he did not commit.’ (Robins, 2017, p. 221)
Postscript
Cornwell’s books are not always a comfortable read; we are spared none of the gory details of the murders and of Sickert’s own affliction. In some ways these echo the moral outrage stirred up by the popular press of the time.
The Whitechapel murders have fascinated people for nearly 140 years. There are those, however, who are uncomfortable with the almost prurient focus on the killings themselves and the fixation on the identity of the perpetrator – an obsession that continues to this day.
At the same time, descendants of the murdered women have been expressing their own disappointment that the victims have simply been dismissed as common prostitutes who barely mattered (Sleator, 2025). Members of their families have been demanding an inquest in the light of DNA evidence suggesting the murderer was, in fact, a Polish barber called Aaron Kaminski, a conclusion that echoes that of the BBC’s ‘Jack the Ripper – The Case Reopened’ fronted by Emila Fox in 2019 (a programme that unequivocally exonerated Sickert).
It is interesting, therefore, that within the last few weeks the BBC has broadcast yet another documentary about the murders. The programme, in the series ‘Lucy Worsley Investigates’, bears the title ‘Jack the Ripper’ but has deliberately and overtly avoided any speculation about the Ripper’s identity. Instead, the focus is on the sensationalist press reporting, the moral panic, and particularly on the social conditions in Whitechapel where vulnerable, impoverished women could end up on the streets through no fault of their own.
The programme draws on research by the social historian Hallie Rubenhold whose book ‘The Five’ (referring to the ‘canonical five’ Ripper victims) has received critical acclaim for its compassionate insights into the lives of the murdered women and its rejection of previous popular stereotypes about the women as sex workers.
Thanks to:
Dr Hannah Lyons, Curator of University Art Collections, for permission to reproduce Sickert’s drawings; Dr Sue Malvern for confirming her original contact with Partricia Cornwell; Anna Gruetzner Robins, Professor Emerita in History of Art, for directing me to her chapter about Sickert and the Whitechapel murders.
Sources
Cornwell, P. (2002). Portrait of a killer: Jack the Ripper – case closed. London: Little Brown.
Cornwell, P. (2014). Chasing the Ripper. Seattle: Thomas & Mercer.
Cornwell, P. (2017). Ripper: the secret life of Walter Sickert. Seattle: Thomas & Mercer.
Lebens, N. (Ed.). (2021). Rubens to Sickert: the study of drawing. Reading: University of Reading.
Robins, A. G. (1996). Walter Sickert: drawings. Theory and practice: word and image. Aldershot: Scolar Press.
Robins, A. G. (2022). ‘Catch me if you can’: Sickert and Jack the Ripper. In E. Chambers (Ed.), Walter Sickert (pp. 220-22). London: Tate Publishing.
Rubenhold, H. (2019). The Five: the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper. London: Doubleday.
Sleator, L. (January 14 2025). Families of Jack the Ripper victims call for inquest ‘to show they mattered’. The Times, p. 17.