George Bagster Phillips

Who was George Bagster Phillips?

Dr George Bagster Phillips MBBS, MRCS Eng, L.M., LSA, was, from 1865, the Police Surgeon for the Metropolitan Police's 'H' Division, which covered London's Whitechapel district. He came to prominence during the murders of Jack the Ripper when he conducted or attended autopsies on the bodies of four of the victims, namely Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catharine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. He was called by the police to the murder scene of three of them: Chapman, Stride and Kelly.

Detective Chief Inspector Walter Dew, who was a detective constable in the Whitechapel CID throughout the Ripper investigation, and who knew Phillips well, remembered him as being in his fifties in 1888. "He was a character," Dew later wrote, " An elderly man, he was ultra old-fashioned both in his personal appearance and his dress. He used to look for all the world as though he had stepped out of a century-old painting. His manners were charming: he was immensely popular both with the police and the public, and he was highly skilled"

Phillips lived at 2 Spital Square in Whitechapel.