In 1888, at the conclusion of the London Metropolitan Police's investigation into the still-unsolved Whitechapel murders committed by Jack the Ripper, the staff at Scotland Yard presented Chief Inspector Frederick George Abberline with a curious gift: a cane Jack's head carved into the handle based on a composite of eyewitness descriptions. The cane had been missing for almost a decade after its home at the Bramshill Police Staff College was shuttered. Recently though, it turned up buried in a storage space containing some of the College archives.
From the College of Policing where the unusual artifact is currently on display:
Antony Cash, Content Creator at College of Policing, said: "Finding this cane was an exciting moment for us. Jack the Ripper is one of the biggest and most infamous murder cases in our history and his crimes were significant in paving the way for modern policing and forensics as it caused police to begin experimenting with and developing new techniques as they attempted to try and solve these murders, such as crime scene preservation, profiling and photography.
"This walking cane is such a fascinating artifact which represents such a historically significant time in policing, and it's amazing that we can put it out on display here in Ryton, alongside the original newspaper cuttings, so that our officers can see first-hand how far we've advanced in policing since then."