In autumn 1888, Richard Mansfield’s stage performance as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was bleeding into Londoners’ sensibilities as the ‘Jack the Ripper’ killings filled newspapers and terrified locals.

In this talk, Dr Sophie Duncan examines how Mansfield spread panic over the Ripper from Whitechapel to the West End, from theatregoers’ subsequent ‘sightings’ of Hyde-as-Ripper to the journalists who used ‘Hyde’ as an alternative name for the Ripper. Mansfield’s transformation from middle-class Jekyll to homewrecking, predatory Hyde created a figure perhaps even more frightening than ‘saucy Jack’ himself.
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