Jack the Ripper Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
50 free Jack the Ripper trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Jack the Ripper trivia quiz covers the unsolved Whitechapel murders of 1888 and everything that grew up around them. The easy questions are the ones any true-crime fan knows: the year, the London district, how many canonical victims there were, and where the name Jack the Ripper came from. From there it moves into the details of the case: the eleven murders in the police file, the double event of 30 September, the chalk graffito the Police Commissioner ordered scrubbed away, and the half kidney that arrived in the post. The harder end is for people who have read the books: the detectives who ran the investigation, the police surgeon whose report is the earliest offender profile, the suspects named in Macnaghten's 1894 memorandum, the journalists who probably wrote the letters, the shawl DNA study that could not be replicated, the Vigilance Committee's reward, the newspaper poll that named the Ripper the worst Briton in history, and the writer who coined the word ripperology. The questions stick to the documented record and avoid gratuitous detail. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on the murders, the suspects, the victims and the detectives before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Victorian era, Sherlock Holmes and unsolved mysteries quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed the 1927 Ripper-inspired film The Lodger?
Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock. His film came from a 1913 novel in which a couple begin to suspect their quiet lodger of a string of killings, a story filmed several more times since.
Q 02In which part of London did the Ripper operate?
The East End
The East End. All the killings fell within about a mile of one another around Whitechapel and Spitalfields, which is one reason many think the killer lived locally.
Q 03Besides Jack the Ripper, what other nickname did the police files and press give the killer?
Leather Apron
Leather Apron. Police arrested John Pizer, a local bootmaker known by the name, but his alibis held, and he then appeared at an inquest to clear himself in public.
Q 04Who is widely believed to have written the letter that coined the name 'Jack the Ripper'?
A journalist
A journalist. Two police chiefs later wrote that they saw a newspaperman's hand in it, one claiming to know exactly who, and most researchers still treat the letter as a hoax to sell papers.
Q 05Which woman stabbed 39 times do some count as the Ripper's first victim?
Martha Tabram
Martha Tabram. Police at the time counted her in the series, but she was stabbed rather than slashed across the throat, so many later writers leave her out.
Q 06What term is used for the group of victims widely believed to be the Ripper's work?
The canonical five
The canonical five. The grouping goes back to a police chief's 1894 memo insisting on 'five victims and five victims only', yet writers still argue for as few as three or four, or for six or more.
Q 07Who was the first of the five widely accepted victims, found in Buck's Row on 31 August?
Mary Ann Nichols
Mary Ann Nichols. Turned out of her lodging house for want of fourpence, 'Polly' told the deputy she would soon earn it: 'See what a jolly bonnet I've got now.'
Q 08Who first came upon the first accepted Ripper victim's body in Buck's Row?
A cart driver heading to work
A cart driver heading to work. Charles Cross called over a second carman, Robert Paul; in the dark neither noticed her wounds, and they walked on to tell the first policeman they met.
Q 09Annie Chapman was found on 8 September in the back yard of number 29 on which road?
Hanbury
Hanbury Street. That morning a neighbour in the next yard heard a woman say 'No' and something fall against the fence, but he did not look over.
Q 10What did the press call the two murders committed in the early hours of 30 September?
The double event
The double event. The phrase was lifted from a taunting postcard sent to the press the next day; Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes had been found three-quarters of an hour apart.
Q 11Catherine Eddowes was killed in Mitre Square, which lay in whose jurisdiction rather than the Met's?
The City of London force
The City of London force. The square mile kept its own police, so from that night two forces were hunting one killer, and most of the City's files on the case were later lost in the Blitz.
Q 12Why is there doubt over whether Elizabeth Stride was a Ripper victim?
Her body bore no further mutilations
Her body bore no further mutilations, only a single cut to the throat. One theory is that the killer was disturbed by a hawker driving his pony and cart into the yard, where the pony shied in the dark.
Q 13A chalk message about 'the Juwes' was found above a piece of bloodied apron on which road?
Q 21Where was the head of the CID, Robert Anderson, during the September murders?
On leave in Switzerland
On leave in Switzerland. Anderson took over the CID and left on doctor's orders within days; he was called back a month later, after three more murders and a storm of bad press.
Q 22Police surgeon Thomas Bond's 1888 report on the Ripper is regarded as an early example of what?
Offender profile
Offender profile. Asked only about the killer's surgical skill, Bond went further: he pictured a solitary man given to bouts of homicidal mania, with no medical or even butcher's knowledge.
Q 23Catherine Eddowes was murdered less than an hour after being let out of where?
A police cell
Goulston
Goulston Street. The constable who found the apron piece at 2.55 am swore it was not there 35 minutes earlier, but he could not say whether the chalked words were new.
Q 14Which Police Commissioner had the chalked 'Juwes' message washed off a wall before dawn?
Sir Charles Warren
Sir Charles Warren. With Sunday market crowds minutes away he feared attacks on Jewish residents, so he had the words sponged off before they could be photographed; within six weeks he had resigned.
Q 15Which victim was killed indoors, in her room at 13 Miller's Court, on 9 November?
Mary Jane Kelly
Mary Jane Kelly. She was found by a man sent to collect her overdue rent, who got no answer at the door and pushed aside the curtain at a broken window pane.
Q 16Which cry did two women in Miller's Court hear and ignore?
Oh, murder!
Oh, murder! The cry was so common in the district that neither woman stirred, though one had just been woken by her kitten walking across her neck.
Q 17At Miller's Court, the fire in the grate had burned fiercely enough to melt part of what?
A kettle
A kettle. Its spout had melted off, and police concluded the killer had fed the fire with women's clothing to see by, since the only other light in the room was one small candle.
Q 18Which police official wrote in 1894 that the Ripper had 'five victims and five victims only'?
Melville Macnaghten
Melville Macnaghten. He joined Scotland Yard only after the murders, and wrote the memo to rebut a newspaper's claim that a man named Cutbush was the killer, offering three likelier suspects of his own.
Q 19Which Scotland Yard inspector on the Ripper case has been played on screen by Michael Caine and Johnny Depp?
Frederick Abberline
Frederick Abberline. He had spent years as the local inspector in Whitechapel before moving to Scotland Yard, so he was sent back to lead the detectives on the ground because he knew the district.
Q 20Which hanged suspect did the Ripper inquiry's lead detective favour?
George Chapman
George Chapman. Born Seweryn Kłosowski, a London barber in 1888, he was hanged in 1903 after poisoning three wives; the detective is said to have told the arresting officer, 'You've got Jack the Ripper at last!'
A police cell. Picked up drunk in Aldgate, she slept it off at a police station and left at about 1 am with a cheery 'Good night, old cock'; her body was found in Mitre Square at 1.45.
Q 24Which prominent person asked the government whether the cattle boats had been searched for the Ripper?
Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria. She told her ministers she feared the detective department was 'not as efficient as it might be'; police did check the cattle boats, but no vessel's sailings fitted the murder dates.
Q 25Which minister refused repeated pleas to offer a government reward for the Ripper's capture?
Home Secretary
Home Secretary Henry Matthews turned down the pleas, among them a petition from Whitechapel traders, so every reward on offer was put up locally or privately, never by the government.
Q 26Who led the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee?
George Lusk
George Lusk. A local builder, he was posted a small box with a letter headed 'From hell'; he took it for a practical joke and left it in a drawer until fellow members talked him into having it examined.
Q 27What was preserved in the box that came with the From Hell letter?
Half a human kidney
Half a human kidney. The writer claimed to have fried and eaten the other half; a hospital doctor could confirm only that it was human and from the left side, the side taken from Catherine Eddowes.
Q 28Which organisation received the Dear Boss letter in September 1888?
The Central News Agency
The Central News Agency. Its staff treated the letter as a joke for two days before passing it to Scotland Yard, which then had facsimiles posted up in the hope that someone would know the handwriting.
Q 29Which postcard, postmarked 1 October 1888, referred to the two killings of 30 September?
Saucy Jacky
Saucy Jacky. Its boast that 'number one squealed a bit' once looked like inside knowledge, but the card was posted a full day after the killings, when the details were already street gossip.
Q 30What did the Dear Boss writer promise to do to the next victim, seemingly borne out with Eddowes?
Clip her ears off
Clip her ears off. He promised to send them to the police 'just for jolly'; part of Catherine Eddowes's ear was indeed cut, but nothing was ever posted, and the wound is thought to be incidental.