The London Monster: An Eighteenth-Century Spiking Scare

During the late eighteenth century, the London Monster purportedly stalked the streets of Britain’s largest city, pricking women in public spaces with sharp objects. The parallels with contemporary needle-panics are striking. Some historians have cast doubt as to whether these encounters ever occurred, attributing their appearance to rumors, urban legends, embellishment, and hoaxes. The Monster mania that gripped London resulted in angry mobs who vented their fury on innocent men. We examine the influence that moral entrepreneurs and headline hungry newspapers played in spreading the panic. We also look at how the London Monster scare paralleled the Whipping Tom panic of the previous century and subsequent panics involving claims of pricking, stabbing, and jabbing in Britain and France.