The 19th and early 20th centuries saw an explosion of malicious letters penned by anonymous authors. As Emily Cockayne reveals via six cases, these messages often reflected the fears and prejudices that stalked Britain
“Red ink is fit enough I hope ha ha.” So read the infamous first ‘Dear Boss’ letter, written in September 1888 in the aftermath of the first gruesome murders in London’s East End. Penned in red ink and signed ‘Jack the Ripper’, it was sent to a London-based news distribution service. Hoax letters about the crimes continued to appear until 1896.
By that time, unsigned letters – or those signed with initials, symbols or a pseudonym – had become fairly common. Some were intended to unsettle the recipient; others were written to undermine a third person. Letters were sent to individuals, authority figures and even entire communities. Most malicious anonymous letters were concerned with reputation, or were written in response to real or imagined grievances and designed to wreak revenge. Most were destroyed after receipt, but a few became the focus of investigation if they were obscene, threatening or libellous. We can’t be entirely sure what types of people wrote anonymous letters, because we can only analyse those that were investigated, and that sample will reflect the biases, norms and preoccupations of society at the time. However, examining the letters does offer us certain clues.
The introduction in 1840 of the pre-paid Penny Post improved the privacy of the mail, which increased still further in the 1850s with the installation of pillar boxes. In 1870, attention was drawn “to the nuisance that the new half-penny post was likely to become by mischievous persons sending obscene, slanderous, or grossly offensive remarks on the open cards”. Half a century later, during the interwar period, the media fixated on reports of ‘epidemic’ campaigns during a heyday of anonymous letter-writing.
Victorian fears that poor people with ill intent would be likely to send abusive anonymous mail had turned out to be unfounded. Anonymous writers were often affluent men who appeared, outwardly at least, to be respectable members of their communities.
Some messages took the form of tip-off letters, accusing officials of malpractice. In Somerset in 1846, brothers John and William Rees-Mogg (great-great-grandfather of Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg), clerks to the Guardians of the Clutton Poor Law Union, were forced to respond to an anonymous allegation sent to the Poor Law Board that the inmates of the local workhouse were fed dripping in place of butter. The
