The historic serial attacker you’ve got by no means heard of: 100 years earlier than Jack The Ripper, how the London Monster terrorised the capital and should have impressed Whitechapel beast

Women refuse to leave the house alone as a madman prowls the streets of London.

He stalks his victims to slash and mutilate their bodies, with vigilantes on patrol night and day after police spend two years failing to snare him.

Rich men offered huge cash rewards to find the beast and newspapers are packed with stories of his gruesome crimes.

But this is not Victorian Whitechapel – and the man is not Jack the Ripper, the maniac in question is the London Monster, a far lesser known psychopath who terrified the capital 100 years earlier.

The Monster had more than 50 known victims – including six in one day – and struck in the parks of central London. He also attacked women outside bawdy houses in Mayfair and St James, driven by his sexual perversion to pierce the skin of women. 

His story was uncovered by academic and amateur historian Dr Jan Bondeson, who found a 200-year-old wanted poster in the annals of the British Library. He then fastidiously studied documents, newspapers, cartoons and court records to tell the Monster’s story for the first time.

Over a two-year reign of terror, from 1788 to 1790, the London Monster slashed women across the buttocks, stomach or face with a knife, spike or scalpel.  

He always approached his victim from behind so they didn’t see his face, before slicing them with a razor-sharp rapier. He was said to distract them by yelling: ‘Is that you?’.

Some women were stabbed with a sharp spike at the end of his knee and he was also known to carry a nosegay – a posie of sweet flowers – to brutalise and maim. Hidden inside the blooms was a spike, use to stab a woman in the face and nose when they were asked to sniff them.

As panic spread, some women sewed soup pots under their dresses to protect themselves – or the richer in society had metal petticoats made.

His crimes spread panic in a way only seen again when Jack the Ripper struck in London in 1888 and again when the Yorkshire Ripper killed 13 between 1975 and 1980 across the north of England.

The London Monster was motivated by piquerism, derived from the French for to prick, and relates to a sexual interest in penetrating the skin. 

A century later Jack the Ripper had the same fetish and it became a hallmark of his murders.

Dr Jan Bondeson has written about him in his book ‘The London Monster: Terror on the Streets’ and while Welsh florist and ballet dancer Rhynwick Williams was eventually arrested and prosecuted, doubts remain about whether he was the real Monster, or, in fact, if there was one or more copycat.

What isn’t in doubt, is that the London Monster will have inspired the Whitechapel Murderer Jack, whose identity has never been revealed.

‘The London Monster’s modus operandi was to approach his victim from behind’, Dr Bondeson said.

‘Sometimes he spoke to them with abusive language or shouted: “Oh ho, is that you?”, like some theatrical villain, and then he would cut them in the thighs or the buttocks with a sharp rapier.

‘Some of the victims he attacked using a spike protruding from his knee and with other victims he approached a nosegay of artificial flowers and he invited them to smell at it and when they did so he stabbed them in the nose with a sharp object hidden inside’, he told the BBC in 2022.

The Monster attacked women in the Mayfair and St James area of London, as well as close to where Buckingham Palace is today, around Green Park.

Women were terrified, and adopted extraordinary ways to protect themselves. 

‘To prevent being cut, well to do London ladies purchased “cork rumps” to attach underneath their skirts or even wore copper petticoats.

‘But the less wealthy ladies had to make use of a porridge pot instead’, Dr Bondeson said.

Despite some victims being violated, there were women who faked attacks for notoriety and other reasons.

‘Since it was considered he only cut young, beautiful, fashionable women, many women even faked Monster attacks to make people believe that they were still attractive’, Dr Bondeson said.

‘And one of these victims, Elizabeth Davis, said that when she was cut by the Monster she thought it was compliment because she was a washerwoman’.

He added: ‘There was also a possibility there was more than one Monster’.

By the time The Monster was finally apprehended, his tally of traumatised victims had reached over 50, although there were no fatalities.

The man blamed turned out to be a woman-hating Welsh ballet dancer who had been sacked from his role in the West End.

In the months before The Monster’s capture, hysteria gripped the capital.

Newspapers put up posters depicting his sleazy crimes and a £100 reward (£7,700 in today’s money) was placed on his head.

Vigilante ‘Monster hunters’ beat up innocent men who aroused suspicion, while women wore copper petticoats to protect themselves.

Some speculated The Monster was an insane nobleman bent on maiming every beautiful woman in the capital, or even a supernatural being who could make himself invisible to evade detection.

Finally, on June 13 1790, a suspect was arrested.

Rhynwick Williams, 23, had been sacked from a theatre for committing theft and was identified as The Monster by victim Anne Porter in Green Park, central London.

She pointed him out to vigilante John Coleman who apprehended him.

Williams, whose fall from grace had seen him descend into the seedy London underworld, was almost lynched by a mob.

He was living in a dirty crowded public house where he shared a bed with another man – leading accusers to believe he was on an ‘anti-woman crusade’.

Williams went on trial and was found guilty of his ‘misdemeanours’ at the Old Bailey, but was spared the death penalty and instead jailed for six years at Newgate Gaol.

What happened to him after his release remains a mystery.

However, Dr Bondeson, a consultant physician at Cardiff University, has revealed serious doubts about whether Williams was in fact responsible for all the sordid crimes.

He said police coerced victims to identify him at identity parades, and he was charged even when women didn’t pick him out.

While Williams was an ‘unsavoury’ character, he believes he may have been used as a scapegoat for the crimes in an attempt to end the panic on the streets.

After carrying out in-depth research, Dr Bondeson said it is more likely they were committed by a host of miscreants indulging in the first known ‘copycat’ crime.

Dr Bondeson said: ‘In 1790, nearly a century before Jack the Ripper haunted the streets of London, another predator held sway.

‘The Monster, as this mysterious miscreant was soon dubbed, used to walk up to a beautiful, well-dressed lady, insult her with coarse and earthy language, and then stab her in the thigh or buttocks.

‘He struck at regular intervals, wounding young and attractive women in the London streets.

‘Since this kind of sadistic behaviour was unheard of at the time, there was general outrage among the Londoners and the capital’s female world was in turmoil.

‘Throughout the first half of 1790, the newspapers were full of The Monster’s latest outrages.

‘Anne Porter, the Monster victim who had pointed out Williams in Green Park, was certain he was the man who had cut her.

‘She was seconded by her three sisters, all of whom testified that the Welshman had been in the habit of stalking them in the streets, making use of the most horrid and insulting language.

‘However, other Monster victims could not pick Williams out, and some declared themselves certain he was not the man who had cut them.

‘There is also evidence that the police deliberately coached at least one victim of The Monster to pick out Williams as the man who had attacked them.

‘The Welshman was probably a pervert who liked to insult women and one of the misogynistic characters who roamed the streets, but in my mind it is not proven that he stabbed anybody.

‘It is thus quite possible that the Welshman was just a scapegoat, unlucky enough to fall in the hands of the authorities when they needed someone to pay for The Monster’s crimes.

‘It is obvious that there were several copycat Monsters at large, imitating the original attacker – and this in fact constitutes the earliest known example of copycat crime.’