Queen Victoria was furious with PM for not catching Jack the Ripper, TV historian Lucy Worsley says after finding bombshell telegram

Queen Victoria was furious with then Prime Minister Lord Salisbury for his government’s failure to bring Jack the Ripper to justice during his infamous 1888 killing spree.

The revelation comes from TV historian Lucy Worsley, who made the bombshell discovery after digging up a telegram sent by the monarch as she filmed her new BBC series.

Contained in the telegram were Queen Victoria’s admonitions from Lord Salisbury about the inability to solve the Ripper case despite his repeated assurances.

While exploring Kensington Palace, Queen Victoria’s childhood home, Worsley found the telegram which read: ‘This new most horrible murder shows the absolute necessity of definite action.

‘All these courts (the narrow streets of Whitechapel, east London) need to be lit up and our detectives improved. They are not what they should be’.

The television historian also revealed that the telegram was written in code to prevent others from reading her top secret remarks.

Included in the code was an impersonation of the prime minister in which the monarch said: ‘You promised when the first murder happened to consult with your colleagues. These things have not been done’.

Reflecting on the discovery of the nearly 140-year-old telegram, Worsley shared her excitement and how she felt tremors.

Television historian Lucy Worsley (pictured) discovered the telegram sent by Queen Victoria to then Prime Minister Lord Salisbury while filming her new BBC series

A screengrab of the Jack the Ripper episode of Lucy Worsley’s new BBC series

While some may be surprised to see a monarch take such a hands-on approach to the affairs of the day, this was not uncommon for Queen Victoria, according to Worsley.

‘Queen Victoria is putting serious pressure on her Prime Minister to track down and catch the killer. She was appalled by these heinous crimes.

“It’s actually very Queen Victoria to throw herself into the details of something that’s going on and have very firm views on it,” she said.

Worsley also commented on the Queen’s sense of female solidarity in showing compassion for Jack the Ripper’s victims.

The gruesome saga also paved the way for a whole new sect of the media, where outlets fixate on a particular story in an attempt to get readers to obsess over it. The tactic has now even been called ‘ripperology’.

More than a century later, the fascination of the case lives on with the killer still on the loose, and the way the case was originally covered proves to be a prototype for covering crime stories to this day.

The show, Jack the Ripper: Lucy Worsley Investigates, airs on BBC2 at 9pm on January 3.