Only one suspect can be shown to have carried a knife.

[Richard Patterson]

It's deja vu all over again

click here - http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?p=378599

You and Barnett had this entire conversation last year with different results. Be sure to read the very last sentence on the page

Roy

It is deja vu all over again Roy, but with one exception. I changed my mind. I decided as MrBarnett wisely wrote in the last post you have directed me to that,

'The Casebook dissertation is an excellent overview, but the reality seems to have been more complicated than it suggests.'

The readership of the Catholic Magazine, 'The Tablet' was far different to those who sought refuge at Providence Row. While 'The Tablet' may have wanted their readers to believe just how open and accepting they were of the homeless, I believe that the reality is more in line with how Casebook described it. That in practicality the refuge operators did vet their applicants by requiring a work reference. That is why I have left that condition of entry in my book.

[jerryd]

Not sure if this helps, but has some information about the refuge and how to apply.

http://spotlight.nottingham.ac.uk/story001/transcripts/page4Item2.asp

[Richard Patterson]

Not sure if this helps, but has some information about the refuge and how to apply.

http://spotlight.nottingham.ac.uk/st...page4Item2.asp

Thanks Jerryd.

I read from the link you give that,

'All the inmates are called upon to make a statement as to their last employment, and the cause of their misfortune, which is afterwards inquired into'

If this was the truth, between needing a reference of present employment or none needed at all, I wonder how they would have dealt with Thompson. His last and only employment, apart from with his editor from the middle of 1888 was with the shoemaker who fired him after Thompson inured one of his customer. The shoemaker said that of all those he employed Thompson was his only failure.

[MrBarnett]

You're apparently the expert on the subject, why didn't you make the effort to obtain this crucial documemt before you wrote your book or approached your documentary producer?

Richard,

Do you really believe that every single one of the homeless people who gained entrance to the refuge were carrying a written reference when they arrived?

As Roy says, we have been through this all before.

I once posted a report which described how during one particularly savage winter (1889, I think) volunteers from Providence Row scoured the streets of London looking for rough sleepers and gave them entry tickets to the refuge and where appropriate bus passes to Whitechapel.

Some of them were so dirty and ragged that they were refused entry to the buses, but when they got to the refuge they were admitted.

According to you, though, no one who looked like a beggar or who did not have a written reference was ever admitted to the refuge.

Let's not forget that, scruffy or not, Thompson was an educated and deeply religious man who had contacts in London, some family and others from his student days (according to Walsh). How can you be so sure that prior to his meeting with Meynall hr would not have been able to get into the refuge for a single night. (Assuming he ever did.)

By the way, when he wrote to Meynell from hospital he was apparently still wearing the old boots he had worn while on the streets and he had nothing to shave with, so even at that late stage he was still doing a passable impression of a beggar.

[MrBarnett]

Thanks Jerryd.

I read from the link you give that,

'All the inmates are called upon to make a statement as to their last employment, and the cause of their misfortune, which is afterwards inquired into'

If this was the truth, between needing a reference of present employment or none needed at all, I wonder how they would have dealt with Thompson. His last and only employment, apart from with his editor from the middle of 1888 was with the shoemaker who fired him after Thompson inured one of his customer. The shoemaker said that of all those he employed Thompson was his only failure.

Richard,

Surely you're aware that the job at McMaster's was not his only job while he was in London?

And I'm glad you'be touched on his clumsiness, which in my mind serves to dispel the notion that he was some kind of twisted fire starter.

Gary

[Joshua Rogan]

Thanks Jerryd.

I read from the link you give that,

'All the inmates are called upon to make a statement as to their last employment, and the cause of their misfortune, which is afterwards inquired into'

If this was the truth, between needing a reference of present employment or none needed at all, I wonder how they would have dealt with Thompson. His last and only employment, apart from with his editor from the middle of 1888 was with the shoemaker who fired him after Thompson inured one of his customer. The shoemaker said that of all those he employed Thompson was his only failure.

The link, after the extract you posted, goes on to say;

"t must be distinctly understood however that the poor applicant is not kept waiting for relief, but is lodged and fed, whilst the investigation is proceeding."

[MrBarnett]

The link, after the extract you posted, goes on to say;

"t must be distinctly understood however that the poor applicant is not kept waiting for relief, but is lodged and fed, whilst the investigation is proceeding."

Elsewhere It was said that if there was room, no deserving case was ever turned away. Thompson had studied for the priesthood - but according to Richard he would not have appeared a deserving case to the nuns at the refuge.

[MrBarnett]

What it all boils down to is that we have no idea whether Thompson was in Spitalfields in 1888 or whether he carried a dissecting knife during his homeless period. He was a clumsy individual who was a heavy smoker and had a couple of accidents involving fire. He seems to have been genuinely fond of the Chelsea prostitute who took him under her wing and when she disappeared he searched for her in the West End. Walsh dates the search to Aug/Sept,1888. And he places Thompson in hospital for approx 6 weeks starting at some point in October, 1888.

I shan't comment on this subject again.

[Richard Patterson]

Let's suppose at it's worst, that the theory that Francis Thompson was Jack the Ripper is all maybe and might, none come from thin air.

Thompson might have had a dissecting scalpel at the time - an idea got from the fact that he wrote a letter in February 1889 stating that he had shaved with a dissecting scalpel 'before now.

Thompson might have stayed at Providence Row - an idea got from an article in which he described applying to stay there and from a respected biographer that stated that he often gravitated there, seeking shelter.

Thompson might have stayed in November 1888 - and idea got from the fact that it opened on the start of November each year and that the practice was that applicant were reference checked on past employment. Thompson was not able to provide a good reference until November of 1888.

Thompson might have hated his prostitute that left him and had a motive to kill prostitutes - an idea got from the fact that his only story involved a woman who is killed with a knife. His only play involved a prostitute who was killed with a bayonet. He wrote poetry, even before 1888, in which described a corrupt women being disemboweled. His favorite prose to read was about a women is seduced by a man pretending to stab her in the heart with a sword.

[Richard Patterson]

Thompson being the Ripper is not a new idea.

The idea that Francis Thompson might have been Jack the Ripper is an old one. John Walsh in his 1967 biography "Strange Harp Strange Symphony. The Life of Francis Thompson." wrote:

‘During the very weeks he was searching for his prostitute friend, London was in an uproar over the ghastly deaths of five such women at the hands of Jack the Ripper ... The police threw a wide net over the city, investigating thousands of drifters, and known consorts with the city’s lower elements, and it is not beyond possibility that Thompson himself may have been questioned. He was, after all, a drug addict, acquainted with prostitutes and, most alarming, a former medical student! A young man with a similar background and living only a block away from McMaster’s shop was one who early came under suspicion.'

The young man with the similar background, that Walsh referred to, was the mentally ill ex-medical student that Major Henry Smith of the City police questioned for the murders. The Macmaster shop was a shoe shop that Thompson worked in for a brief time before the murders.

The idea that Thompson was Jack the Ripper continued with Doctor Joseph Rupp, an American forensic pathologist. His article "Was Francis Thompson Jack the Ripper?" was published in the UK journal The Criminologist, in 1988. Dr Rupp had this to say in his article.

‘Francis Thompson spent six years in medical school, in effect, he went through medical school three times. It is unlikely, no matter how disinterested he was or how few lectures he attended, that he did not absorb a significant amount of medical knowledge. Indeed, we know that he learned enough medicine to deceive his father, a practicing physician, for a matter of six years ... The Ripper was able to elude the police so many times in spite of the complete mobilisation of many volunteer groups and the law enforcement agencies in London. If we look at Thompson’s background, having lived on the streets for three years prior to this series of crimes, there is no doubt that he knew the back streets of London intimately and that his attire and condition as a derelict and drug addict would not arouse suspicion as he moved by day and night through the East End of London ... Francis Thompson was at least as good and perhaps a far better candidate for the role of Jack the Ripper than was the Duke of Clarence or any number of suspects that have been put forward over the past one hundred years.’

[Harry D]

A shame that a talented poet's legacy has become that of a half-baked Ripper suspect.

[Sam Flynn]

A shame that a talented poet's legacy has become that of a half-baked Ripper suspect.

Well said!

[Abby Normal]

Well said!

I have to agree with this. I know a lot of posters here that I respect give FT a shot but no. Hes one of the "non-suspects" in my book. another modern suspect trying to be fit up as the ripper who has absolutely ZERO ties to the case whatsoever.

[Trevor Marriott]

The idea that Francis Thompson might have been Jack the Ripper is an old one. John Walsh in his 1967 biography "Strange Harp Strange Symphony. The Life of Francis Thompson." wrote:

‘During the very weeks he was searching for his prostitute friend, London was in an uproar over the ghastly deaths of five such women at the hands of Jack the Ripper ... The police threw a wide net over the city, investigating thousands of drifters, and known consorts with the city’s lower elements, and it is not beyond possibility that Thompson himself may have been questioned. He was, after all, a drug addict, acquainted with prostitutes and, most alarming, a former medical student! A young man with a similar background and living only a block away from McMaster’s shop was one who early came under suspicion.'

The young man with the similar background, that Walsh referred to, was the mentally ill ex-medical student that Major Henry Smith of the City police questioned for the murders. The Macmaster shop was a shoe shop that Thompson worked in for a brief time before the murders.

The idea that Thompson was Jack the Ripper continued with Doctor Joseph Rupp, an American forensic pathologist. His article "Was Francis Thompson Jack the Ripper?" was published in the UK journal The Criminologist, in 1988. Dr Rupp had this to say in his article.

‘Francis Thompson spent six years in medical school, in effect, he went through medical school three times. It is unlikely, no matter how disinterested he was or how few lectures he attended, that he did not absorb a significant amount of medical knowledge. Indeed, we know that he learned enough medicine to deceive his father, a practicing physician, for a matter of six years ... The Ripper was able to elude the police so many times in spite of the complete mobilisation of many volunteer groups and the law enforcement agencies in London. If we look at Thompson’s background, having lived on the streets for three years prior to this series of crimes, there is no doubt that he knew the back streets of London intimately and that his attire and condition as a derelict and drug addict would not arouse suspicion as he moved by day and night through the East End of London ... Francis Thompson was at least as good and perhaps a far better candidate for the role of Jack the Ripper than was the Duke of Clarence or any number of suspects that have been put forward over the past one hundred years.’

I have one observation with regards to this article. Thompson is described as a derelict, a drug addict. If that be correct then his dress, and demeanour would also fit with the description of him.

I have to ask would a prostitute even of the lower class even proposition such a person? and if they did, and that person was interested, it would be "show me the money first", which a derelict and drug addict would surely not be able to do.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Varqm]

Somehow he managed to appear like a sailor and a shabby genteel.

Can somebody go in and out at Providence row at all times in 1888?