London Monster
The London Monster was the name given to an attacker of women in London between 1788 and 1790. Renwick Williams, a Welsh maker of artificial flowers, was arrested for the attacks in June 1790, given two trials and sent to Newgate Prison for six years. The Monster's modus operandi was to verbally abuse women with lewd and suggestive comments and then attack them with a knife, cutting the clothing and slicing into buttocks, thighs or chest. Other forms of attack included having knives attached to his knees, possibly attached as a claw-like device to his hands or having a sharp implement hidden in a nosegay—a small flower bouquet. Over fifty women reported attacks, sometimes several on the same day, including up to six reported attacks in one night. Such was the number of attacks, variety of methods and discrepancies in the descriptions of the attackers, that historians are unsure if the Monster was one man or several.
There were five attacks in March and May 1788, eight attacks between May and December 1789 and forty-four between January and June 1790. Most of the women attacked in the first two years were described as being young, elegant and attractive, although this changed in 1790 to a wider range of victims. In April that year the philanthropist John Julius Angerstein met friends and like-minded people and arranged a reward of 100 guineas for the capture and conviction of the Monster. Increasing press interest and lurid reporting led to a moral panic in London. Over thirty innocent men were taken to Bow Street Magistrates' Court with their accusers hoping to claim the reward; all were released. Some women wore protection in the form of a copper petticoat for the wealthy, or a cork lining or porridge pot for the less well-off.
Williams was arrested when one of the attacked women claimed to recognise him as the attacker. In the magistrates' hearing several victims of the Monster said they did not recognise Williams as their attacker, although some did. At the Old Bailey trial he was found guilty but sentencing was deferred to the December Court of Sessions. Before that Williams was told he had been charged and tried under the wrong offence, so the Court of Sessions would be a retrial. He was again found guilty, despite having an alibi for at least one of the attacks. There is doubt among some historians whether he was the attacker as no hard or forensic evidence was ever found. It is likely that copycat attacks took place, particularly as some of the assaults were recorded as being committed by a group of men.
Attacks
1788
The first attacks by what became to be known as "the London Monster" were in March 1788 when a woman was attacked in Great Trinity Lane, off Queen Victoria Street, central London. A man approached her and cut through her petticoats, wounding her in the process. The attack was reported in The Times, which gave the description of the perpetrator as "a young man ... dressed in a blue coat, worsted stockings, about the middle size, harsh featured, sallow completion, thin faced, with hair tied behind". It was followed by a similar attack the same month on a Mrs Wright in nearby Bow Lane; she described the man as "of a shabby appearance, much like a hair-dresser".In May 1788 Maria Smyth, a doctor's wife, was approached by the Monster in Fleet Street. He started making obscene comments to her; she did not reply and walked away. He followed, continuing with the lewd commentary throughout her walk. As she knocked on the door of her destination, he stepped up beside her and stabbed towards her left breast and then her left thigh. Rather than escaping, he stood there until the door had closed after Mrs Smyth. She was found to have a cut on her leg and a slash on her chest, although this did not penetrate beneath the stays of her corset. Mrs Smyth was so affected by the attack that she fell ill and spent several months in bed. She described her attacker as:
... a thin man, rather below the middle size, pale, narrow face very remarkable, as well as his voice, in which there appeared to be a tremulous eagerness; a very ugly leg and foot, light dress, cocked hat flapped on one side and vulgar looking, without a stick, or any thing in his hands.
There were two more attacks that May. They included Mrs Chippingdale, a servant of Lord Malden, who was approached by a man who made obscene comments to her; when she knocked at a stranger's door—hoping the man would leave her—instead he stabbed her in the hip. He did not attempt to run away, but stood for a moment to watch her. Like Mrs Smyth, Mrs Chippingdale was ill for a while after the attack. There were no further reported attacks until the following May.
1789
In May 1789 Sarah Godfrey was followed from Bond Street to Piccadilly by a medium-sized man who looked to be about thirty. When she stepped into the doorway of a shop in Piccadilly, he stepped up beside her and made lewd propositions; she ignored him and went into the shop. On the way out he followed her back to her home in nearby Charlotte Street and stabbed her in the upper thigh as she was about to enter her house. There were seven more similar attacks on women in London in 1789, including five between September and December that the historian and criminologist Christopher Hamerton described as "serious unprovoked incidents of wounding". In all five the physical attacks—cuts to their bodies with a blade—were preceded by lewd suggestions in obscene language.1790
The attacks of 1788 and 1789 had followed a pattern of a woman—often being described as being young and pretty—being approached and addressed with lewd or obscene language, then stabbed or sliced. This changed in 1790 with the Monster taking a different approach, using different weapons and an increasing frequency of attacks.Six attacks took place on 18 January 1790, five in St James's Street and one in nearby Dover Street. The victims included two sisters, Anne and Sarah Porter, who were returning from Queen Charlotte's birthday ball in St James's Palace when they were attacked; Sarah was knocked on the head and Anne received a deep cut from a blade. On examination the cut was found to be six inches long and up to three inches deep in the middle; it ran up the back of her thigh and into her buttock. The sisters described the attacker as "middle sized, rather slender and thin, a face sharp, thin and remarkable; pale countenance and with a tremulous agitated voice". According to Hamerton the attacks on the Porters marked "the turning point in public awareness and scrutiny" of the attacks. The Porters' father reported the crime to the magistrates at Bow Street Magistrates' Court a few days later; he was informed by Sir Sampson Wright, the Chief Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate, that there were four other attacks the same night and that there was a serial offender active. Reflecting on the evening the philanthropist John Julius Angerstein—who was interested in the events surrounding the Monster—wrote that given the number of:
different attacks on ... different parties of ladies, in as many different streets, at the same period of time, we may conclude, to a certainty of conviction, that there must be a gang, or, at all events, there must certainly be several of these horrid monsters ...
The attacks continued in January 1790, including on one Mrs Drummond, who returned home from the theatre to find that not only had her clothes been cut, so had her hair. An attack on a maidservant in late January consisted of a man grabbing her from behind and kneeing her buttocks while shouting abuse at her. She found afterwards that she was badly cut around the buttocks and thighs; Angerstein wrote the blades "must have been fastened to the man's knee". There was only one reported attack in February 1790; the victim's clothes were cut, but she was physically unharmed. In mid-March Mrs Charlotte Payne, the lady's maid to the Countess of Howe, was also cut by being kneed by her assailant. He followed her along Bond Street and Grafton Street making lewd suggestions before assaulting her when she reached home. While assaulting her, the attacker verbally abused her, including saying "Damn you, you bitch, I would enjoy a particular pleasure in murdering you, or in seeing you murdered, and in shedding your blood".
In April 1790 the attacker used a different tactic when he assaulted a servant. She was approached in Holborn by a man carrying a nosegay—a small flower bouquet—who asked her to smell the flowers. When she did, she was stabbed in the nose by a sharp implement hidden within the blooms. This was followed by a different servant being approached by four men in the Strand and an offer made to smell their nosegay; she was stabbed just beneath the eye by a hidden blade. The men walked off laughing. The attacks were among the twelve that took place in April.
Letters in the London press bemoaned the lack of action by the Bow Street Runners, the law enforcement officers of the Bow Street Magistrates' Court. Some of the letters received accused the Runners of colluding with the attacker. William Smyth—the husband of Maria Smyth who had been attacked in May 1788—wrote to several of the victims and asked for a full description of the attackers. He came to the conclusion that they had been attacked by different people. Maria thought she saw her attacker on 14 April at a public auction; her husband followed the man to his home and established he was a man named William Tuffing. Tuffing was arrested and held for questioning while he pleaded his innocence. At a hearing on 19 April several of the victims were brought to him to identify him, but none identified him as their attacker. He was only freed after a Runner delivered news of another attack, which had taken place while the hearing was in progress.
On 15 April Angerstein met several friends and like-minded people at Lloyd's Coffee House in Lombard Street to discuss the problem of the London Monster. They agreed to offer a reward of £50 for anyone who apprehended the attacker or provided information for his arrest, with an additional £50 once the perpetrator had been convicted. Angerstein had reward posters put up across London. The offer of a large sum of money when the average wage in the UK was 22 d a day led to an influx of information to the Bow Street Runners. Many citizens took matters into their own hands, arresting people without any evidence at all; these included someone who arrested their employer and another who arrested a relative. None of those brought into the court were identified by Porter or the other victims as being the attacker.
The attacks continued into May 1790, when there were seventeen that month. This may have been despite the increased publicity from the newspaper reports and the reward, although the historian Robert Shoemaker suggests "the extensive printed reports of the Monster appear to have stimulated some of the very attacks about which they complained". The attacks included one on a servant-girl, Mary Carter, who was accosted by a man on her way home. He swore at her and seized her arm, then struck her on the side; she was saved from injury by her whalebone corset. Two nights later she was attacked again by the same man. While holding one hand over her mouth, he clawed at her arms with an instrument attached to his other hand. When she reached home she found her arm had been cut thirty or forty times.