Stabbed in the Butt: The Mass Hysteria Behind the London Monster of 1790 and the Tragic Case of Rhynwick Williams

 At the end of the eighteenth century between 1788 and 1790 there was a man on the loose roaming  the streets of London who attacked unsuspecting beautiful aristocratic women at will.  The penny press of the Georgian Era quickly dubbed the assailant “The London Monster” and over fifty such attacks were reported in just under a two year span.

            The London Monster became a cause celebre almost overnight.  Armed vigilante groups formed in all of the city's neighborhoods; well known politicians, authors, actors and entertainers all called upon the city government to do something, anything, to capture the fiend that was terrorizing London's most lovely ladies and bring him (or them) to justice.

All of the city’s well-to-do ladies were up in arms and sent into a near panic, the likes of which would not be equaled again until the 1880’s during Jack the Ripper’s reign of murderous terror.  The working class and London’s poor avidly read the scandalous reports, with undertones of sexual innuendo, as they appeared weekly in the capital city’s seemingly innumerable broadsheet newspapers.

The so-called”London Monster’s” method of assault was both unusual and unpredictable.  His attacks on women seemed designed to not only inflict harm, but also to degrade and humiliate them in public.

1790 London Broadside Newspaper

According to the victims, it was reported that a large man would surreptitiously follow the unsuspecting woman down the street in London’s wealthier neighborhoods to their homes.  Once outside their place of residence, victims claimed that the man would shout obscenities in their face and then grab the women, turn them around and stab them in the buttocks with a small dagger before fleeing.

At the time the streets of London, Europe’s largest and most populous city were patrolled by a group of loosely organized enforcers of the law called the Bow Street Runners--named after the street on which their headquarters were located.  And although the Bow Street Runners are today considered to be the forerunner of modern policing they were helpless in the face of the London Monster’s seemingly random and senseless attacks.

Some victims of the London Monster described him as a well dressed young man who would invite the women to smell flowers that he was carrying for them out of admiration for the woman’s beauty before grabbing them, holding them over his knees and giving their backside a firm spanking.  Others reported that the London Monster walked with sharp knives strapped to his knees that he used to slash at the rear ends of London’s most fashionable ladies.

Well known, and apparently lovely, Sarah Sophia Banks sister of famed scientist Joseph Banks, led the charge in making sure that all of London’s ladies, and the general public at large were made aware of the dangers posed by the Monster.  Joseph Banks had been the primary botanist aboard James Cooks’ voyages of discovery and exploration in his famed attempt to circumnavigate the world back in the 1770’s, and at the time when the Monster supposedly haunted the streets of London in 1790, Joseph Banks was a leading figure in the powerful and influential Royal Geographic Society of Great Britain.  His sister Sarah with petitions, public speeches and by handing out free copies of newspapers to London’s citizens ensured that the plight of the female victims of the Monster was not forgotten by either the press or the British general public.

Sarah Sophia Banks

One such victim of the London Monster was young, aristocratic and beautiful Anne Porter who was attacked outside her home in March of 1790 and stabbed by the London Monster’s dastardly dagger.

On June 13, 1790 while taking a stroll  in central London’s St. James Park Anne Porter told her fiancee John Coleman that she believed she was being watched and followed by the same man who had attacked her only three months before.

Anne Porter’s betrothed began to follow the suspicious looking man that his lover claimed had attacked her in the guise of the London Monster.  Soon, the man realized that he was being followed through the park by Coleman and broke into a sprint at which point Miss Porter’s fiance shouted, “Stop him!  It’s the London Monster!”

Coleman continued his pursuit outside the park and caught up to the man, twenty-three year old Rhynwick Williams outside the boarding house where he was a lodger.  John Coleman attempted to seize Williams but the poor, unemployed young man turned around and defended himself.

A scuffle between the two ensued, during which apparently, Rhynwick Williams, admitting that he knew who John Coleman’s fiancee was, challenged him to a duel over the honor of Anne Porter.

Miss Anne Porter engraving ca. 1790

Well, the duel never took place.  Hearing the commotion on a busy street outside St. James Park, the Bow Street Runners came running, no pun intended.  They placed disheveled, unemployed and nearly homeless twenty-three year old Rhynwick Williams, an immigrant from Wales who reportedly spoke English with an apparently humorous Welsh accent that made him the butt of ridicule to all who heard him speak at his trial under arrest.

The London newspapers reported that when Rhynwick Williams was brought before Anne Porter to be identified as the man who had been stalking her in the park--she promptly swooned and fainted the moment that she saw him.

Upon recovering from passing out Anee Porter swore up and down that this not only was the man who had stalked her in the park but that this was also the man who had assaulted her outside her home and stabbed her in the ass back in March of 1790.  She accused Rhynwick Williams of being the London Monster and the press ate it up.

Daily, mobs numbering in the thousands gathered in the streets around London’s Old Bailey and sought  to lynch Rhynwick Williams. 

Charged with being the so-called “London Monster” during his trial, Rhynwick Williams was able to prove his innocence but he did admit under oath that he was acquainted with Anne Porter.

He testified, under oath, that he had seen her one day outside of her home and had been smitten with her beauty.  Williams said that once back in March of 1790, he had indeed approached the young lady Miss Porter and asked her out but had been rebuffed in public.  He said that he felt embarrassed by the rejection, and realized now how stupid he had been in approaching such an aristocratic young lady, when he himself was nothing more than an itinerant homeless man from Wales.

He even admitted that he had been following, from a distance, Miss Porter on June 13, 1790 in St. James Park while she strolled with her fiance John Coleman.   But he insisted that he had meant her no harm by doing so and said that he simply longed to be near her.

However, Williams defense attorney was able to produce many witnesses who proved that he could not have been the London Monster because he had ironclad alibis when it came to almost all of the days and times on which the London Monster’s supposed attacks over the last two years were said to have occurred.

Some of the London Monster’s victims even admitted under oath that they had simply made the whole thing up as means to gain attention from their husbands, would-be fiancees or the media.

Members of the press testified that they were unable to definitively say whether or not the London Monster had actually attacked anyone and admitted that most of what they had published in their newspapers was simply hearsay or secondhand information.

The judges struggled over what exactly to charge Rhynwick Williams with.  Though, undoubtedly, the unemployed and odd sounding Welshman seemed to be some sort of menace to London society, as the trial progressed it became obvious to all that Rhynwick Williams was not the so-called London Monster that stabbed and slapped the city’s most beautiful women in their backsides.

Many who witnessed the trial of Rhynwick Williams began to doubt if the London Monster had ever existed at all.

In the end, the court charged Rhynwick Williams with three counts of assault based on the trauma induced testimony of some of the Monster’s most beautiful victims and he was sentenced to serve six years at Newgate Prison.

After the trial of Rhynwick Williams all reports of attacks by the London Monster ceased.  Williams was released from prison after serving out the duration of his sentence in December of 1796 and went on to live the remainder of his life working quietly as a florist.

Rhynwick Williams at his Trial 1790

Today, and even in the immediate aftermath of Williams’ trial, many believe that he could not have been the London Monster at all based on the testimony that was heard and the evidence that was brought before the court.  Most believe that Rhynwick Williams was simply the victim of a bloodthirsty press, a vindictive aristocratic woman who was way out of his league and an insecure fiance who wished only to make what he considered a threat to his potential marriage in the form of another suitor disappear.

Was the London Monster even real at all or was he simply the creation of an overzealous 18th century press and a conservative and morally repressed public with an overactive imagination as well as an overactive libido?  Is it merely a coincidence that all reports of attacks by the Monster ended after Williams' arrest?

The answers to those questions remain a mystery and are lost to history.  The backsides of all of London’s most lovely ladies remain safe, at least for now, until the London Monster Strikes again…