About George Lusk

[JustMe71]

Is there a biography available concerning Mr. Lusk? Or any other information? Everything / anything will be most highly appreciated...

[Sam Flynn]

Hello,

Lusk was a local builder, and a somewhat ordinary character to have warranted a full biography, I'd have thought. If it weren't for the From Hell letter, he might only have been a footnote in even the most serious books about the case. Indeed, if the Ripper murders had never even happened I doubt that posterity would have remembered him at all. Wikipedia has a very brief entry on Lusk here.

[Chris Scott]

One of the links from the Wikipedia site leads to a site called Your Archives, run by the National Archive, so it should be expected to be accurate.

http://yourarchives.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php?title=Jack_the_Ripper

However, with the regard to the Lusk letter I'm sure this is wrong:
It is commonly accepted by the experts who have worked on the case that all but one of the letters purported to have been written by the Ripper were in fact not written by him. The exception, thought to be genuine, was sent on 16th October to George Lusk, who was head of the Mile End Vigilante Committee. It came with a piece of human kidney, which the author claimed had been taken from Kate Eddowes, one of the victims. He signed his letter 'From Hell'; this letter is held at Royal London Hospital Archives and Museum.

I am certain that the Lusk letter is only known from copies and the original is not known to have survived. Is this correct?

[Monty]

ordinary character?

Gareth,

Lusk was more than a builder. He was a music hall renovator, a vestryman, a freemason, a vigilante, a reformer, a patrolman, a hounder of both the Home Office and Royalty alike, a Jack the Ripper composite match and a bankrupt.

Ordinary indeed.

Monty

[Jon Guy]

I am certain that the Lusk letter is only known from copies and the original is not known to have survived. Is this correct?

Hi Chris

Yes, the original is missing.

[Sam Flynn]

Lusk was more than a builder. He was a music hall renovator, a vestryman, a freemason, a vigilante, a reformer, a patrolman, a hounder of both the Home Office and Royalty alike, a Jack the Ripper composite match and a bankrupt.

Ordinary indeed.

What I meant was that he was nothing remarkable, Neil - and I really don't think he was, certainly not in the Toynbee/Barnardo/Besant mould, nor even a Wess/Winchevsky/Rocker. I know quite a few local businessmen, who are variously freemasons, rotarians, church elders, school governors, neighbourhood watch coordinators, avid letter-writers to the press, and councillors. Quite ordinary people in the main - some of them rather bumptious, and one of them (not a bumptious one) has gone bust more times than Cyril Smith's waterbed.

The JTR composite-match has got me thinking, though...

[Monty]

I was kinda teasing you..

...Gareth,

Though no one, in my opinion, is ordinary.

The composite? Look at Packers composite and compare it to Lusk.

Cheers

Monty

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Monty,

Indeed - and I daresay that by local standards Lusk may have been "a cut above", at least in terms of the "lower middle class", as we used to say before Northern Rock and HBOS started going down the tubes. That's what I like about recessions - they're such great levellers, don'tcha think?

[JustMe71]

Thank you

My thanks to You people bothering to answer my question.
Still, what I was looking for is somewhat more detailed information.
Why and how did Lusk become the leader of the watch? What did he
look like? ( height, weight )... Did he have any connections
to the so called "jewish link" mentioned in the "Ripper case" ?
Basically, I'm just curious there's so little information available
about a man so deeply connected to the case...

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Justme,

I'll probably get into trouble again, but I don't think Lusk was as deeply connected to the case as we might think. There was nothing new about Vigilance Committees, and the one of which Lusk was a member was neither the first, nor the last, such body to have been set up in London.