Mark Galloway founded the Cloak and Dagger Club in 1994. This in turn resulted in the formation of a club magazine, 'The Ripperologist'. Mark is president of 'The Whitechapel Society' which was formerly 'The Cloak and Dagger Club. He lives in London.

Q. HOW AND WHEN DID YOU BECOME INTERESTED IN THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS & JACK THE RIPPER?

Here's a question. What links Mary Kelly to a famous quotation from Winston Churchill? The answer is his description of Russia: "an enigma within a riddle within a mystery". Was she: "tall and pretty and fair as a lily" ( Elizabeth Prater and John McCarthy ), or: "short, stout and dark" with protruding false teeth ( Maurice Lewis and Elizabeth Phoenix )? What was her real name and age, where was she from originally and was she in hiding from someone? Was it even her corpse which was found at Miller's Court?

Had the Jack the Ripper murders taken place in 1988 and not 1888 then our response to them would have been markedly different. No one in 1988 would have doubted that the perpetrator was a sexual serial killer carrying out his own perverted agenda. Since 1888 we have learnt much about this type of killer, their damaged childhoods, misfit adulthoods and psychopathic alienation from the human race.

Two men died of poisoning in the last quarter of the 19th century. Charles Delauney Turner Bravo, April 1876 and James Maybrick, May 1889. Both were professional men, Bravo a London barrister and Maybrick a much travelled cotton broker. Their deaths are shrouded in mystery and intrigue. The wife of one was charged and convicted of murder receiving a death sentence, which was subsequently changed to a life sentence, while the other wife, although suspected of murder, was not charged. Charles Bravo's death was the subject of much speculation and even went to two inquests. We look at the lifestyle of both couples.