How to Find Police Files on Jack the Ripper
The mysterious and gruesome case of the "Jack the Ripper" murders in late 19th-century London remains a source of fascination to this day, inspiring massive speculation, as well as a thriving cottage industry of Ripper-themed books and movies. For those who wish to set aside these mounds of media and return to the historical source material, the original police records of the case are available for public viewing.
Instructions
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Visit the London Metropolitan Police Service's website on the history of the Jack the Ripper investigation (see Resources). This site contains a brief overview of the Ripper cases, a list of recommended reading and references the location of the police files, which were moved from Scotland Yard to the Surrey public-records office (Metropolitan Police Service Homepage). They are available through the National Archives.
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Locate the Met Police Service website's list of file numbers for the National Archives. These numbers start with the letters "MEPO." Each one corresponds to a listed file of documents related to the Whitechapel murders, and can be used to locate them on the UK National Archives website.
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Go to the National Archives Catalogue site (see Resources). In the upper right-hand corner of the site, you will find a "Search" field. Enter the file number (include the letters "MEPO") for the documents you wish to locate. Note that some searches entered this way will bring up extraneous results, so look for the document titles as listed on the Met Police's web page. (Also note that, at the time of this writing, number 3/140 is mistyped as 31140).
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Click on the title of the record you'd like to locate. Read both the "Quick Reference" and "Full Details" tabs to make sure this is the one you want.
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Click the "Request This" button in the upper right corner of the page for details about purchasing copies of the specified documents. You can also view information about seeing the documents in person on microfilm if you wish to travel to Kew in Surrey, England.
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Resources
- Photo Credit Wikimedia Commons
