WILLIAM GULL
WILLIAM GULL
1816-1890
Doctor for Queen Victoria & Jack the Ripper suspect
William Gull was an English physician who saved the life of Victoria’s son and heir, Bertie (Edward VII). He made great advancements in the medical field, including anorexia nervosa (which he first named).
Gull is best known today as being a Jack the Ripper suspect. Between August and November 1888, five women were murdered and mutilated in Whitechapel, London’s East End. It was believed that Ripper may have been a surgeon (or a student) or a butcher, due to Ripper’s dissections on his victims. However, the perpetrator wasn’t a precise cutter and lacked technical knowledge.
Gull was aged 71 and was in ill health when the Ripper murders took place, many historians today don’t believe he would have been the perpetrator.
One newspaper reported that the perpetrator was a ‘medical man of high standing’, whose wife was worried about his erratic behaviour that opened up that her husband could have been the killer. It was alleged his house was search and they found ample proof of murder and he was committed to an asylum. There was no proof that what was reported was factual. There was another rumour that it was one of Gull’s patients who was the killer, this also couldn’t be proven. There was also a story that Gull was the murderer with the assistance of his coachman.
Gull was born in Colchester, Essex and first had an interest to become a botanist, working at sea and then later gained a strong interest in biology. This is what drove him to work in medicine and had the interest and skills to do well in the field. He married Susan Ann Lacy in 1848 and the couple had three children. After saving Queen Victoria’s son, he was appointed to working for her in an honorary position. Regardless, Queen Victoria would only see her doctor, Sir William Jenner. Gull was an advocate for women to work in the medical profession and went to a meeting to establish a medical scholarship to be awarded to women. He wanted society to have more liberal views of women working in the medical profession.
By 1887, Gull was in poor health and suffered several strokes at his Scottish home. After he recovered, he returned to London and lived at Grosvenor Square, London; he also had two other homes at Reigate and Brighton. He had more strokes and the fatal one took place on 27 January 1890, which took his life two days later.
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