29 Hanbury Street — Chapman

atmospheric · contested

A widely repeated but heavily contested strand of Ripper paranormal folklore concerns Robert James Lees (1849–1931), a spiritualist medium who reportedly told contemporaries — and later described in accounts reproduced by journalist W.T. Stead and by spiritualist press — that he had received psychic visions identifying the Ripper's next victim locations, and had even led police to the door of a suspect following a psychic impression in a London street. The claim first appeared in print in the Chicago Sunday Times-Herald in 1895, purportedly based on a Lees diary entry, though later researchers (most notably Paul Begg in 'Jack the Ripper: The Facts,' 2004) concluded the 1895 newspaper account was fabricated and that Lees's own diaries contradict the story. Nevertheless, the Lees psychic-medium narrative became a foundational element of Ripper supernatural lore and is recounted on multiple London ghost-tour operators' itineraries. Presented here as a named folklore record with contested attribution, not a verified claim.

Area: Spitalfields and Whitechapel — Robert Lees psychic-medium Victorian claim as documented in folklore record

29 Hanbury Street (original building demolished; Truman Brewery complex)

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