Mr Good morning ( i think that's his name)

[Leighton Young]

I have heard about a chap called Mr Goodmorning. in the A-Z he is mentioned as a drug addicted poet who sported rather swish clothings and was a friend of mary kelly.
can anyone else add any further light on this character? it could be that he was francis Thompson as he seems to be like this character, he could also be that rather dashing chap seen by Hutchinson.. where did the information on him come from in the first place... i'd love to find out more about him...

hope that you can help

Leighton

[Tom_Wescott]

I believe you mean Mr. Moring. If Memory serves, Martin Fido identified this chap to the satisfaction of most years ago in a piece in Ripperana magazine. Having said that, I'm experiencing a total brainfart at the moment and cannot recall the poet's name. Perhaps someone else can help?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Leighton Young]

that's smashing stuff.. thanks for that. i'd very much like any info from the copy of Ripperana if anyone has it.

Mr Morning is the suavest gent this side of commercial road. ha ha ha

[Chris Scott]

Press Articles & Reviews.

Ripperanna

"Mr Patterson identifies the Ripper as the gifted though drug-addicted poet, Francis Thompson (1859-1907), who was born in his twin town Preston, Lancashire, the son of a doctor. Thompson was addicted to opium between the years 1879-1889, a form of laudanum. A confirmed drug addict he died of "morphomania" on November 12 1907. aged 48 years and weighing 70 pounds (5 stone) He was buried four days later at Kensal Green Cemetery, his 250 poems unrecalled. Thompson's tale may have inspired the account given by R Thuston Hopkins in 1935 about a man "fitting George Hutchinson's description". Identified only as "moring," he was known to be a friend of MJK, and a drug addicted poet, the son of someone well to do."


This is from:

http://www.geocities.com/darkly_burning/article.html

Just for info:
Robert Thurston Hopkins, (1884-1958), was a prolific author, writing topographical works, ghost stories and much more, including biographical works on such great British figures as Oscar Wilde, H G Wells and Rudyard Kipling. His 1935 book 'Life and Death at The Old Bailey' is often quoted in discussions of the identity of the infamous London serial killer 'Jack The Ripper'. Much of his work was related to the English countryside, with books on Sussex, where the family lived, and Cornwall, as well as several on London. He also wrote some of the early classics of industrial archaeology, on windmills and watermills, as well as the 'Moated Houses of England', published by Country Life in 1935. One of his other works was the 'Every Boy's Open Air Book' of 1925.

The chapter in question is on Caebook at

http://www.casebook.org/ripper_media/rps.hopkins.html

which article starts:
R. Thurston Hopkins inlcluded a chapter on Jack the Ripper entitled "Shadowing the Shadow of a Murderer" in his 1935 book, Life and Death at the Old Bailey. He provides a general overview of the case, and some discussion of Leonard Matters' Dr. Stanley theory. Of particular interest are some snippets of information he provides on Elizabeth Jackson, a putative Ripper victim in his eyes, as well as a "Mr. Moring" who Hopkins claimed was a poet who was close friends with Mary Jane Kelly. "Mr. Moring" was by Hopkins own admission a pseudonym, but Martin Fido has suggested that it may have been the poet Ernest Dowson (see Ripperana #29).

Hopkins describes him thus:
One of Mary Kelly's friends was a poor devil-driven poet who often haunted the taverns around the East End. I will call him " Mr. Moring," but of course that was not his real name. Moring would often walk about all night and I had many long talks with him as together we paced the gloomy courts and alleys. Of externals Moring was utterly heedless. He wore a blue pea-jacket, baggy trousers (much like the modern Oxford bags) and pointed button boots. His collar was, I distinctly remember, tied together with a bow of wide black moire ribbon, and like his boots, seemed to be crumpled into folds of sympathetic irregularity. He was what the Victorians called a ne'er-do-well, and a decadent. He had black, lank hair and moustache, and the long, dark face of the typical bard. It was said that his father -a prosperous tradesman in the East End-had disowned him because he had become a drug addict. Occasionally he returned home and begged money from his parents, and on his return to old haunts lie would enjoy a short period of luxury and sartorial rehabilitation. Moring, who knew every opium den in the East End, although at that time they were not counted in with the sights of London, often gave himself up to long spells of opium smoking.

[Tom_Wescott]

Thanks, Chris. Ernest Dowson is who I was thinking of. Fido determined that 'Moring' was not Francis Thompson but was probably Dowson. One of Dowson's poems inspired the title 'Gone With the Wind', I recall. An interesting aside is that both Ernest Dowson and Sickert were reputed to have known Mary Kelly, and as it happens, they were both close friends. So although neither of them were, in fact, the Ripper, it's within the realm of possibility they actually knew Mary Kelly.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Chris Scott]

Hi Tom
Many thanks for the message

A bit more info:
Robert Thurston Hopkins
Born 1883 in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

1891 Cenus:
112 Crouch End Hill, Hornsey
Head: Frederick Hopkins aged 43 born St Lukes - Furniture broker
Wife: Mary Hopkins aged 47 born Norfolk
Children:
Oliver aged 20 - Furniture broker
Catherine aged 19 - Day school teacher
Thomas aged 18 - Apprentice furniture broker
John aged 16 - Apprentice to Furniture warehouse
Robert aged 7
All children born in Bury St Edmunds

1901 Census:
23 Crouch Hill Road, Hornsey
Head: Mary A Hopkins aged 58 born Norfolk (Widow)
Children:
Oliver F aged 29 - Furniture dealer
Maude C aged 28
Ray C aged 22 - Furniture dealer
Robert T aged 16 - Banker's clerk
All born in Bury St Edmunds

Hopkins had a son also named Robert, born 1913, who became a noted photographer. As far as I can determine, Robert Jnr, is still alive

[fido]

Dowson as Moring points: Dowson's family had a company in Limehouse, and Dowson lodged in the East End to manage it. He was known to walk at night (often to and from the West End). He was a victim of drink and drugs. I can't remember more detail of how he fitted Moring - (his clothes and his relations with his father matched, if I remember aright, but I can't recall how), but certainly he is a far better fit than Francis Thompson.
Martin F

[Dan Norder]

When John Barlas (another poet) was identified as a Ripper suspect some of us looked into the possibility that the "devil-driven poet" Hopkin's called Mr. Moring might have been a reference to Barlas instead, but Martin's arguments in favor of Dowson were pretty conclusive.

Martin's article is from the July 1999 issue of Ripperana for anyone who has it and wants to look it up.

[Sister Hyde]

I don't really belive this person as a good suspect, but, some have suspected this man to be the writer of Kelly's murder anniversary letter (the poem). I don't believe this letter came from the Ripper, ut it's still a disturbing letter, and it contains a lot of weird/unclear implications, could this person have been aware of some things?

[Tom_Wescott]

Mr. Moring was never a suspect

Mr. Moring, identified by Martin Fido as poet Ernest Dowson, was never a suspect. I cleared this up in a recent article for Casebook Examiner entitled 'Mary Kelly & the Decadents.' The idea that the pseudononymous 'Mr. Moring' was the Ripper comes from a misunderstanding of the character's creator, R. Thurston Hopkins, who knew Ernest Dowson personally. Here is a little of what I had to say...

'Whenever considering Hopkins’ writings on the Ripper, it must be remembered that he was born in 1884, making him only four years old at the time of the murders, and but a lad of 16 when Dowson died. Hopkins was a prolific writer on many topics, and it would make perfect sense for a young man in his teens to seek out professionals such as Ernest Dowson to learn from. Incidentally, Hopkins also came to know John Barlas, spending evenings drinking with him in taverns, apparently during one of the brief periods Barlas was at liberty.
Ernest Dowson, who has achieved immortality by providing us prose that has left us with memorable phrases such as ‘these are the days of wine and roses,’ and ‘gone with the wind’, strikes a very tragic but also harmless figure. Because of Hopkins’ innocent remark that George Hutchinson’s suspect dressed eccentrically as did ‘Mr. Moring’, it has caused many writers to assume that Hopkins was pointing the finger of suspicion at ‘Moring’, and by association, Ernest Dowson. However, Hopkins was very clear that he entertained no suspicion at all against ‘Moring,’ stating ‘but I could not connect a man of such extraordinary gentleness committing such a dreadful series of outrages.’
So Ernest Dowson a.k.a ‘Mr. Moring’ can now be struck from all suspect lists, and we can view Hopkins’ tale with a fresh perspective. He was not trying to ‘beef up’ his Ripper chapter by offering his own suspect, but instead was simply sharing the story of an old friend who had a tangential, but perhaps significant, connection to the Ripper case.
Dowson was ‘one of Mary Kelly’s friends.’

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Sister Hyde]

thanks Tom!!!

what i was suspecting about this letter was not that it was written by the ripper at all, i though "IF we admit this letter really came from a "drug addict poet" friend of Kelly, it would actually be more of a tribute to his "friend", it's cleary not the kind of works you just write quickly while drunk in a fit of anger at the corner of a table of a pub, but something you spent a lot of time working on, so IF the letter was indeed written by a gifted friend of Kelly on this very date, it would be more like something a friend wrote for "rememberance" of his friend, that he was working on for quite a while already and then sending it to the police in anger to confront them with the fact that they still haven't made "justice", and i never considered this letter as coming from the murderer, it's a common and very easy thing to do when you are a gifted writter to "speak from the mouth of another", a form of recit which is very classical, and it would actually make this letter a very very beautiful gesture, BUT the person might have been aware of more things which he would have never dare to say to the police in regular circumstances since in some lines, the author clearly makes the reader understand that he was being seriously blackmailed, and maybe just some words in it are worth actually paying attention to." it might sound almost retarded but i thought this letter had something a bit different from all the others. we never know, but if it really came from a good friend of Kelly on this very date, it might be worth looking a bit closer ("you always say mister fawlty but i learn! i learn!")

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Sister. Are you referring to the letter received by Forbes Winslow?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Sister Hyde]

i'm refering to the poem in 77 ryhmes sent to the London Metropolitan Police on the first anniversary of Kelly's death, i couldn't find it on the site that's why i tried to post a thread about it, the letter was never taken seriously since it's obvious that it's not coming from the murderer, but it was said to be the work of Mr Moring. is it that one? (sorry i still have a bit hard with the "reference names" given to the elements since i've only been on my own so far and didn't even know the common terms for ripperologists, i lived in the ignorance that there existed other ripper addicts)

[Tom_Wescott]

That doesn't ring a bell. And exactly WHO has suggested it was the work of 'Mr. Moring'?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Sister Hyde]

Mr Thurston Hopkins.