Montague John Druitt has long been considered one of the principal Ripper suspects. He was born in Wimborne Minster in Dorset, the son of William Druitt F.R.C.S., a wealthy local surgeon who died of a heart attack in 1885, and Anne Druitt who was later committed to the Brook Asylum, East London, then Manor House Asylum in West London, where she died.

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A talented cricketer, Monty attended Winchester College, then New College, Oxford before qualifying as a barrister, supplementing his income with work as an assistant school teacher in Blackheath, from which position he was fired in November 1888 for reasons unknown.

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Monty was found drowned in the River Thames shortly after midday on New Year's Eve, 1888; his overcoat pockets were weighed down with four large stones. The coroner returned a verdict of “suicide while in an unsound state of mind.”  He was 31.

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Apparently, a Ripper file at Scotland Yard reads:  “A Mr M. J. Druitt, said to be a doctor and of good family, who disappeared at the time of the Miller’s Court murder – and whose body (which was said to have been upwards of a month in the water) was found in the Thames on 31st December – or about 7 weeks after that murder. He was sexually insane and from private information I have little doubt that his own family believed him to have been the murderer.” 

 

Make of that what you will.

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By the way, 13 Miller’s Court is where the supposed final victim of the Ripper, Mary Kelly, was found mutilated on 9th November 1888.

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Montague John Druitt is buried in Wimborne Cemetery, Cemetery Road, Wimborne BH21 1EX. His grave can be found by the western side of the chapel.