New claims Jack the Ripper was noted poet who studied as a priest in the North East

[Herlock Sholmes]

I was too late to add as an edit : Further research may turn up some categorical disproving fact but I can't see one as yet. Further research could also strengthen his candidacy. I will be very interested to see what, if anything, more can be revealed about Thompson.
Let's face it. Candidates like Lechmere/Cross, Hutchinson, Mann, Barnett etc have only location to recommend them. Others might tick 2 or maybe 3 boxes. Thompson ticks more and so to me, provisionally, I have to consider him, at least, the right 'type.'

Regards

HS

[Herlock Sholmes]

My opinion for what it's worth

I've just finished the book. I enjoyed reading it and have just ordered the John Walsh biography. I think that most people would have to agree that no suspect has yet been proven to have been Jack. So do I believe that Richard Patterson has categorically proven Thompson was the ripper? No. All I can do is try tick boxing the criteria. This is my view after one reading:

Age/physical ability - no issues there for me. 28 years old, average looking build. I've known people addicted to drugs and that addiction didn't make them weaklings or idiots.

Location - no issues. Thompson was obviously within easy reach of all murder sites.

Medical Knowledge - yes it has been debated whether Jack would have required it or not. Nevertheless Thompson had 6 years medical training with plenty of dissection.

Unsound mind - fairly obvious religious mania added to the effects of drug abuse

Link to prostitutes - a link to at least one. His only love a prostitute that left him causing him to spend nights roaming the East End in search of her.

Violence - no actual violence but plenty of graphic stuff in his writings (dissembowling fallen women etc)

Weapon use - no use, but he carried a dissecting scalpel.

Why Jack stopped - soon after MJK's death he was placed in a private hospital and then the Priory at Storrington. In the later part of his life Maynell appears to have had him 'watched.' He also discouraged his second love Katie King from seeing him; telling her mother he was a danger.

For me Thompson straight away leapfrogs over about 98% of the suspects proposed to date. I congratulate Richard Patterson. I don't consider myself an expert and many will disagree with me but this is my opinion.

Was Thompson definately Jack? No

Could he have been Jack? Absolutely

Regards

HS

[Richard Patterson]

A great poet but was he a good man?

Francis Thompson was a great man but was he a good one? How would a man react if he were investigated for the murders of several women? A good man would be innocent of such crimes. A good man would want the murderer caught. A good man would welcome any research done against him because, once he is eliminated as a suspect, there would be one less man to investigate. Francis Thompson, if he were a good man, would not be against a book suggesting he was Jack the Ripper. Any temporary suspicion raised against him would pale in comparison to the serving of justice to the victims. Anyone who resists a close examination of Thompson, as candidate for the Ripper crimes, may believe that Thompson was a great poet but they do not believe he was good man. Anyone who thinks it is right to dismiss Thompson as the being the ripper as groundless, without first contemplating the possibility, cannot therefore be a good man.

[Harry D]

There is absolutely no grounds to suspect Thompson, let alone definitively state that he was the Ripper. But don't let the facts get in the way of vainglorious self-promotion!

[harry]

Alice and Wilfred Maynell befriended the destitute starving poet,and took him into their home.I believe Alice wrote poetry.

[Richard Patterson]

Hello John,

No, but I can see why you might thing so. I think I noted,

-He left his landlady to die in that fire and later jested about it. Of the fire, a business associate, Lewis Hind, asked Thompson, ‘But Francis, did you not rouse your landlady?’ Thompson’s reply was typical of his callous view on outsiders. ‘My dear Hind, a house on fire is no place for tarrying.'-

I did not mean that literally his landlady died. I mean it in the sense of someone who might say, 'and then they took the kayak off me and left me to die on the river bend.' Sorry for the confusion. I think if the landlady had actually died, then Thompson would have faced some sort of criminal charge. I'm not a lawyer so I can not say if leaving his landlady to die (even though she didn't) is in itself a crime.

[John G]

You are fortunate to be a librarian with so many books at your ready disposal. Perhaps you could read one on Thompson. You might want to start with.

“Francis Thompson. A Critical Biography.” Paul Van Kuykendal Thomson’s 1973 book.

You have written, ‘Thompson attended six years of medical school because his father was a doctor who wanted him to follow in his footsteps.’

On page 30 of “A Critical Biography,” Anyone can read.

“It seems quite clear from what he later told Wilfrid Blunt that Thompson was in no sense placed in the position of having to agree to a stern paternal insistence that, having failed to become a priest, he should follow Dr. Thompson’s professional example. On the contrary, it appears to have been his mother’s wish that since her son could serve at the alter of God, he should choose “the next best thing” and serve God’s afflicted creatures.”

Your claim, that the poet’s training as doctor was his father’s wish, is not a fact.

I note that you think it is a fact Thompson had no real interest in becoming a doctor.You think it is a fact that Thompson's rhetoric is not unusual for the time-period.

You might want to check your sources and where they have gained their information or you could save yourself the effort and just read my book.

Hello Richard,

I seem to remember that you previously noted that Thompson's landlady died in a fire that he had started, and when asked why he had made no effort to rescue his response was something like, " One doesn't tarry when the house is burning down". Is this correct?

[Richard Patterson]

Oh, for Heaven's sake, Mr. Patterson, the information about Thompson's family and background, including his failed attempts at becoming a doctor-- as well as a Catholic priest-- are in those encyclopedia articles I linked to in an earlier post.
You know, I hope, that encyclopedias rely on facts, not myths.

I'm a Catholic, and a librarian, and have read other articles from the Victorian time period, and I feel reasonably sure that his writing about the poor of Spitalfields and Whitechapel and how awful the life was for the children is in keeping with the period

However, I will admit that the comment that his poem about the "witch-babies" stemmed from an opium dream is a guess, but it is an educated one, given that we know he was an addict.

You are fortunate to be a librarian with so many books at your ready disposal. Perhaps you could read one on Thompson. You might want to start with.

“Francis Thompson. A Critical Biography.” Paul Van Kuykendal Thomson’s 1973 book.

You have written, ‘Thompson attended six years of medical school because his father was a doctor who wanted him to follow in his footsteps.’

On page 30 of “A Critical Biography,” Anyone can read.

“It seems quite clear from what he later told Wilfrid Blunt that Thompson was in no sense placed in the position of having to agree to a stern paternal insistence that, having failed to become a priest, he should follow Dr. Thompson’s professional example. On the contrary, it appears to have been his mother’s wish that since her son could serve at the alter of God, he should choose “the next best thing” and serve God’s afflicted creatures.”

Your claim, that the poet’s training as doctor was his father’s wish, is not a fact.

I note that you think it is a fact Thompson had no real interest in becoming a doctor.You think it is a fact that Thompson's rhetoric is not unusual for the time-period.

You might want to check your sources and where they have gained their information or you could save yourself the effort and just read my book.

[harry]

Thompson was also a very keen cricket follower.He wrote a poem of a match between two county cricket teams.Gloucestershire and I believe Lanckashire.

[Pcdunn]

You are simply regurgitating the same old myths.

How do you know "Night of the Witch Babies" was simply an opium dream?

How do you know his father wanted him to follow in his footsteps?

How do you know he had no real interest in becoming a doctor or even if he had not no interest in his medical studies?

How do you know his rhetoric was not unusual for the time-period?

My book gives evidence that dispels all these myths. Each one is tackled and shown to be simply hearsay given by others after Thompson's death.

You are just giving opinion, and there is nothing wrong with that, but you are scant on any factual basis for your statements. Read my book Pcdunn then see if you can say the same.

Oh, for Heaven's sake, Mr. Patterson, the information about Thompson's family and background, including his failed attempts at becoming a doctor-- as well as a Catholic priest-- are in those encyclopedia articles I linked to in an earlier post.
You know, I hope, that encyclopedias rely on facts, not myths.

I'm a Catholic, and a librarian, and have read other articles from the Victorian time period, and I feel reasonably sure that his writing about the poor of Spitalfields and Whitechapel and how awful the life was for the children is in keeping with the period

However, I will admit that the comment that his poem about the "witch-babies" stemmed from an opium dream is a guess, but it is an educated one, given that we know he was an addict.

[Richard Patterson]

You are simply regurgitating the same old myths.

How do you know "Night of the Witch Babies" was simply an opium dream?

How do you know his father wanted him to follow in his footsteps?

How do you know he had no real interest in becoming a doctor or even if he had not no interest in his medical studies?

How do you know his rhetoric was not unusual for the time-period?

My book gives evidence that dispels all these myths. Each one is tackled and shown to be simply hearsay given by others after Thompson's death.

You are just giving opinion, and there is nothing wrong with that, but you are scant on any factual basis for your statements. Read my book Pcdunn then see if you can say the same.

[Pcdunn]

Well posted, Flower and Dean.

Yes, the "Nightmare of the Witch Babies" poem you linked to elsewhere on Casebook is the poem Mr. Patterson was referring to. I think it came from an opium dream, frankly.

I think we need to remember that Thompson attended six years of medical school because his father was a doctor who wanted him to follow in his footsteps, and that Thompson kept failing to pass his medical exams, so he stayed longer in medical school. He, apparently, had no real interest in becoming a doctor, and eventually simply left.
How that translates to being an experienced surgeon, who could use a special, newly-invented form of surgery, is beyond me.

Another point, Thompson didn't write about his anxiety about female sexuality, he wrote about his discovering God. He is a renowned English Catholic poet and writer, and the rhetoric he uses in his social awareness prose is not unusual for the time-period.

[John G]

Thompson, of course, had a history of starting fires. It's worth noting that this is a common trait of serial killers, such a David Berkowitz, for example.

[Richard Patterson]

The Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Review

My book has begun to make news in the United States. The Corpus Christi Caller-Times, a Texan newspaper, with a readership of around 55,000 daily, has just released this article. Here is some of it and a link to the full article.

‘Thanks to a marvelously researched book by Australian author and sleuth Richard Patterson and the help of Dr. Joseph Rupp, former Nueces County Medical Examiner, we may have uncovered the truth behind the ghastly murders of five women (and maybe more) between April and November 1888 in London. We now know whom Jack the Ripper is (was). Patterson’s book and Rupp’s chapter and introduction within the book argue that the Ripper is renowned English poet Francis Thompson. … Yet, it must have been his genius that helped him write the insightful words and escape capture from authorities for the appalling murders he must have committed. Patterson and Rupp are so convincing in their writings that readers of this book may agree that the 130-year-old mystery of the London murders has been solved.’

http://www.caller.com/story/life/columnists/2017/05/20/texana-reads-how-corpus-christi-figures-solving-jack-ripper/101885952/

[Richard Patterson]

Please enjoy my book Ron, and come back to discuss it when you have finished. It would be good to discuss here the book and not just the theory. Then I know we will all be on a level playing field.