Edmund John James Reid (1846 – 1917) was a British policeman who rose through the ranks to become the head of the Metropolitan Police’s H (Whitechapel) Division’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) at the time of the serial murders attributed to Jack the Ripper in 1888.
Edmund Reid was born in Canterbury, Kent, on 21 March 1846 to Martha Elizabeth Olivia (née Driver, b. 1827) and John Reid (b. 1818). In early life, Reid was a grocer’s delivery boy in London, a pastry-cook and a ship’s steward before finding his true vocation.
One of the most remarkable men of the century
The Weekly Dispatch
Police Career
Reid joined the Metropolitan Police in 1872, Warrant no. 56100. PC P478. At 5 feet 6 inches tall, Reid was then the shortest man in the force. He transferred to the CID in 1874 as a detective in P Division, being promoted to Third-Class Sergeant in 1878 and Detective Sergeant in 1880.
In 1885 Reid was promoted to Detective Inspector and was based at Scotland Yard. In 1886, he organized the newly formed J Division’s CID Department in Bethnal Green, before moving to H (Whitechapel) Division in 1887 to take the position of Local Inspector and Head of the CID, succeeding Frederick Abberline. He was one of the principal investigators into the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.
In 1895 he transferred to L (Lambeth) Division, but retired from the Metropolitan Police in February 1896 due to ill health. At 49, he was then the oldest divisional detective inspector in the Metropolitan Police (The Times, 7 December 1917). Reid held “50 Rewards and Commendations from Magistrates and High Commissioners of Justice.”
reid and the Ripper
The forty-two-year-old had sixteen years’ experience of policing under his belt when the greatest case of his career, solving the Whitechapel murders, forced itself upon him. He was around the same age as many of the Ripper’s victims, but there any further similarity ends, of course it does. He was a seasoned policeman at the height of his career; they were fallen women at their lowest point.
Murder of Emma Smith, April 3, 1888
Initial police report on the murder of Emma Smith, no date, signed Edmund Reid. Notes that the police were not informed of her death until April 6. Chief Inspector West attended the inquest on April 7. West’s further report ends “Enquiry to be taken up by Inspector Reid.”
murder of Martha Tabram, August 7, 1888
Reid present at the inquest held at the Working Lads’ Institute Whitechapel Road on Thursday, August 9, as reported in The Times (Aug. 10). Police report dated August 16 signed Edmund Reid, concerning last known movements and police investigation. Further report of August 24 signed Reid, concerning resumption of coroner’s inquest at the Working Lads’ Institute. Chief Inspector Swanson’s summary of H Division’s inquiries noted that Reid had taken witness statements.
murder of Mary Ann Nichols, August 31, 1888
No reference in the records to Edmund Reid in this case.
Murder of Annie Chapman, September 8, 1888
Note by Acting Superintendent West to the H Division report of September 8, 1888, mentions that Reid is on annual leave. In his absence, Inspector Chandler has been leading enquiries, with Detective Sergeants Thick and Leach.
murder of Elizabeth Stride, September 30, 1888
At the coroner’s inquest, Vestry Hall, Cable Street, on October 1, The Times notes that “Detective-Inspector E. Reid, H Division, watched the case on behalf of the Criminal Investigation Department.” The inquest was held on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 23rd of October. Reid was more involved than in previous inquests, asking questions and giving an official statement.
Murder of Catherine Eddowes, September 30, 1888
Investigated by the City of London Police.
Murder of Mary Jane Kelly, November 9, 1888
Reid’s name is mentioned in connection with the case by the Daily Telegraph (November 10). Abberline and Reid had been sent for by Inspector Beck, Commercial Street Station, on the discovery of the body.
Reid’s name was again in the papers in connection with the arrest of Theophil Hanhart, 24, who confessed to having committed the Whitechapel Murders. At Dalston Police Court, Hanhart was “charged with being a person of unsound mind;” medical examination had pronounced him as “suffering from mental derangement, and not fit to be at large.” Reid was reported as being “satisfied that the prisoner could not have committed the murders” (Sunday Times, December 23, 1888). He was sent to Shoreditch Infirmary.
Reid’s Ripper Theories
Reid believed that Jack the Ripper was responsible for nine murders, that of Frances Coles being the last, a position he made public in two letters to The Morning Advertiser in 1903. He added that he did not believe that the Ripper was possessed of any surgical skill, holding the view that the wounds to the victims’ bodies were merely slashes, inflicted even after the killer knew that the women were dead. He wrongly stated that “at no time was any part of the body missing,” and he also believed there was evidence that the Ripper’s knife was blunt.
Reid’s personal theory was that Jack the Ripper was a drunkard, driven mad enough with drink to commit murder and drunk enough to forget about it afterwards.
The whole of the murders were done after the public-houses were closed; the victims were all of the same class, the lowest of the low, and living within a quarter of a mile of each other; all were murdered within half a mile area; all were killed in the same manner. That is all we know for certain. My opinion is that the perpetrator of the crimes was a man who was in the habit of using a certain public-house, and of remaining there until closing time. Leaving with the rest of the customers, with what soldiers call ‘a touch of delirium triangle,’ he would leave with one of the women. My belief is that he would in some dark corner attack her with the knife and cut her up. Having satisfied his maniacal blood-lust he would go away home, and the next day know nothing about it.
Lloyd’s Weekly News (1912)
And was highly dismissive of anyone else’s opinion on the matter:
I challenge anyone to produce a tittle of evidence of any kind against anyone. The earth has been raked over and the seas have been swept, to find this criminal “Jack the Ripper,” always without success. It still amuses me to read the writings of such men as Dr. Anderson, Dr. Forbes Winslow, Major Arthur Griffiths, and many others, all holding different theories, but all of them wrong. I have answered many of them in print, and would only add here that I was on the scene and ought to know.
Lloyd’s Weekly News (1912)
Balloonist
Around 1877 he made the first descent from a parachute from 1,000 ft at Luton. He was awarded a gold medal in 1883 from the Balloon Association of Great Britain to commemorate his record-breaking ascent in the balloon “Queen of the Meadow” from The Crystal Palace; he had already received the Association’s bronze medal. In all, he made about twenty-three ascents by balloon.
Publican, Druid and Private Detective
After retiring in February 1896, Reid set himself up as landlord of ‘The Lower Red Lion’ public house in Herne in Kent in March, but by October he seemed to miss his old life and advertised his services as a private detective.
In 1903, Reid moved into No. 4, Eddington Gardens at Hampton-on-Sea. Here, he established himself as the local eccentric. He named his house Reid’s Ranch, painted castellations and cannon on its side. He kept a parrot and many photographs of his London cases decorated his house. His garden contained a cannonball found on his property, a post from the end of the old pier and a flagpole with a union flag. From a wooden kiosk in his garden named the Hampton-on-Sea Hotel he sold soft drinks and postcards featuring himself photographed by Fred C. Palmer. He was forced to abandon his house in 1916 due to sea erosion and moved to nearby Herne Bay, where he married again in 1917 to Lydia Rhoda Halling (1867-1938).
A man of many unexpected talents, Reid was also “a Druid of Distinction and was awarded the Druids Gold Medal.” He reached professional standards in acting, singing and sleight of hand. The Weekly Despatch described him as “one of the most remarkable men of the century”.
He died aged 71 on 5 December 1917 of chronic interstitial nephritis, which may have been connected with drinking, and cerebral haemorrhage and was buried in Herne Bay Cemetery, plot S62, on 8 December 1917. With his wife Emily Jane (née Wilson) (1846 – 1900) he had a daughter Elizabeth (b. 1873) and a son, Harold Edmund J Reid (b. 1882).
Physical Description
There are very few pictures of Edmund Reid. In what we do have, we see a round-faced man with short hair and beard, somewhat benign. During a court appearance he was described in the press as wearing his “usual dark blue serge coat and waistcoat” and “light striped trousers” (East London Advertiser, Aug. 25). In retirement he appears stouter, with a fuller beard.