The Ripper of Waterloo Road: The Murder of Eliza Grimwood in 1838

When Jack the Ripper first terrorised the streets of London, the Daily Telegraph reported that his crimes were as ghastly as those committed by Eliza Grimwood’s murderer. Grimwood’s is arguably the most infamous and brutal of all 19th-century murders. She was a high-class prostitute, and on 26 May 1838 she brought a client back home with her. The morning after, she was found with her throat cut and her abdomen viciously ‘ripped’. The client was nowhere to be seen. The convoluted murder investigation, with suspects ranging from an alcoholic bricklayer to a royal duke, was followed by the Londoners with great interest, including Charles Dickens, who based Nancy’s death in Oliver Twist on Grimwood’s. Indeed, there was much dismay when the murder remained unsolved. Jan Bondeson links this murder with a series of other opportunist early Victorian slayings, and, in putting forward a credible new suspect, concludes that the Ripper of Waterloo Road was, in fact, a serial killer. AUTHOR: Jan Bondeson is a senior lecturer at Cardiff University and is a respected true crime historian, having written some fourteen books, including ‘Rivals of the Ripper’ (The History Press, 2016). SELLING POINTS: . It reconstructs a once famous early Victorian murder mystery, making use of archival sources, contemporary newspapers and popular culture sources. . Charles Dickens was fascinated by the Grimwood mysteries, and wrote about it more than once. There has been speculation that the characters Nancy and Sikes in Oliver Twist were inspired by Eliza Grimwood and her boyfriend William Hubbard . The book makes use of the unpublished diary of the leader of the murder investigation, Inspector Charles Frederick Field, which is kept at the National Archives 60 b/w illustrations