As well as specific individuals, criminal gangs were also suspected of being involved in the Whitechapel murders. This line of reasoning was based on the attack on victim Emma Smith, who had been set upon by a group of three men nd subsequently died of the injuries received. These men may have been from the nearby slum around Old Nichol Street known as “The Nichol,” giving rise to the name of the “Old Nichol Gang.”
Chaim Bermant described the location in his 1975 book Point of Arrival:Â “the Old Nichol, home of a notorious pack of cut-throats known as the Old Nichol gang” (p. 177).
High-Rips and Forty Thieves
Other gangs operating in the East End during the 1880s were also possible suspects. These included the race-track pickpockets known as the “Blind Beggar Gang,” the “Hoxton High-Rips,” the “Green Gate Gang” of Bethnal Green, a Jewish gang called the “Coons” led by Isaac “Darky the Coon” Bogard and the “Limehouse Forty Thieves.”
There was also contemporary speculation that members of the Liverpudlian “High-Rip Gang” may have been involved. The name “Jack the Ripper” may well be an attempt to make such a connection with the so-called “high rip” gangs, known for their violence and use of knives.
Bug Hunters and Lurkers
According to another source, other criminal gangs included “the Bearer Uppers, the Bug Hunters, the Demanders, the Rollers, the Lurkers,” and others; however, some of these were not gangs, as such, but types of criminal. Bug hunters, according to Henry Mayhew, were a class of thieves known for visiting public houses in search of drunks to plunder, their rummaging through the victim’s clothes no doubt reminding the onlooker of someone searching for lice and other vermin. Similarly, Lurkers were what Mayhew called “Dead Lurkers,” thieves who steal items (typically, coats and umbrellas) from passageways at dusk or on Sunday afternoons. The style of “Demanders and “Rollers” is easy to imagine and “Bearer Uppers” conjures up an interesting spectacle. A group of thieves practising their art together could easily become known as the Bug Hunters, but this still would not be a gang name as such.