As with gender, issues of social class were intricately woven into the development and operation of Spring-heeled Jack's legend. This chapter firstly examines the way anti-aristocratic feelings informed both ‘official’ and popular interpretations of his suspected identity. At the same time the swirl of popular supernatural rumour that surrounded his name enabled the lower classes to be conceived and presented as a superstitious ‘other’ compared to the respectable bourgeoisie. Following from this, it then examines how social position informed the credibility (or not) of witnesses and victims and argues that it was only when middle-class witnesses spoke out that Spring-heeled Jack gained credibility. Thirdly, it uses the literary recreation of Spring-heeled Jack as a heroic and dashing aristocrat in the 1860s–70s to reflect on shifting class perceptions later in the century. These various considerations will be used to argue that Spring-heeled Jack provided an unusual lens through which differing elements of the social strata could view themselves and others, being a site for cross-class allegiances, as well as a means of reiterating bourgeois hegemonic ideals and of reinforcing social divisions.

Spring-heeled Jack and Perceptions of the Social ‘Other’

There appears no evidence to suggest that Spring-heeled Jack was perceived to have held a grudge against any particular social group, for he attacked domestic servants, laundresses, craftsmen and the daughters of respectable businessmen with equal impunity. Yet contemporaries were very quick to suspect that if Spring-heeled Jack was not a supernatural being then he was most likely a predatory aristocrat or gang of ‘gentlemen’ engaged in a malicious prank.