Did Jack the Ripper come from Aberffraw? How dates and a mysterious suicide link Whitechapel in London with Aberffraw in Anglesey. Click here for enlargement
The infamous murderer Jack the Ripper has been named as Dr William Evans Thomas of Aberffraw who committed suicide soon after the date of the last murder on 9th November 1888. For more than a century, residents have kept the dark secret quiet, passing his name on from generation to generation Dr Thomas was the son of local chemist and postmaster, Henry Parry Thomas, who was a comparatively wealthy man by the standards of 19th century Aberffraw.
William Thomas left Anglesey for London in the 1880’s where he worked as a GP. He lived in Spitalfields, near to Whitechapel, the scene of the murders. Little is known of his time in London. However, according to people living in Aberffraw at the time, Dr Thomas returned to the village immediately after each murder. Llewelyn St, a few years after the sucide of Dr Thomas. The Chemist/Post Office is on the far right of the picture. After the final murder Dr Thomas came home in a distressed state and his family were afraid he would harm himself. They watched him as closely as they could but one day he took some prussic acid poison from a drawer in his father’s shop and committed suicide Dr Thomas was buried in an unmarked grave on unconsecrated ground at the local cemetery on June 15th 1889. According the ‘Holyhead Mail’, which gave details of the coroner’s inquest, he died aged 33 from "suicide while in a state of temporary insanity." It is said that Dr Thomas’s family never got over the death and scandal. Reports state that Mr Thomas senior used to disguise himself when he went out in public. The family soon left the village for Llangefni and then moved on to Penmaenmawr. The story has survived through the generations of Aberffraw’s close-knit and, at that time, isolated community. There was not even a main road to the village until 1926. |
