Is Thompson the Ripper in Three Questions

[Herlock Sholmes]

Another question for Richard to ignore……

If Thompson was staying at the Providence Row Refuge during the murders as he claims as a fact…

why did Smith send his two men to Rupert Street?

[Doctored Whatsit]

No one can take someone seriously who keeps stating that Thompson is a match for Smith’s suspect when we know the actual identity through documented police evidence. An absolutely cast iron source.

You can dispute an opinion or an interpretation but you can’t dispute a proven fact…unless your name is Richard Patterson of course.

Also, I have a huge problem with the concept of "Smith's suspect" being treated as especially significant compared to other suspects. Smith was a "man about town", then a "sporting country gentleman" when in 1885 he applied for, and became chief superintendent of the City Police. He had no experience whatever as a serving police officer, despite calling his memoirs "From Constable to Commissioner" which rather suggests a successful career and numerous deserved promotions. He was never a serving detective, so why are his suspicions considered to be particularly relevant? So caution!

If he wasn't an experienced detective unlike most of the others, can we at least consider his recollections to be reliable - well, it has to be said that the copy of Smith's memoirs in the Scotland Yard library carries the message that "Smith's veracity was not always to be trusted." So, a little caution therefore! For example, this is the man who claimed to have been "within five minutes of the perpetrator one night, and with a very fair description of him besides". Allegedly the Ripper had washed his bloodied hands in a public sink. However, we know from his original account of the Eddowes' murder that Smith's movements never put him within an hour of the Ripper. To have known it was just five minutes, and to have JtR'S description, there had to be a witness providing this information, but there is no evidence of such a witness, and no description. So caution!

The City police were not involved until the fourth of the canonical five murders, and I believe that Smith's suspicions date from his temporary involvement before this, which was before the City police had any formal and detailed briefings of the known facts. His information seems to have come from newspapers, which is why he referred to coin trickery as a trait, whereas there was no coin trickery as far as JtR himself was concerned. That story existed only in newspapers, so the coin trickery trait is totally irrelevant to the investigation, and demonstrates Smith's ignorance of the facts, and not his detective skills. So caution!

Smiths five traits are merely traits he saw in a suspect, and they are not even remotely identified as traits demonstrated by the Ripper. There is absolutely no reason whatever to suppose that Smith's suspect could have been JtR. So caution!

[Herlock Sholmes]

Also, I have a huge problem with the concept of "Smith's suspect" being treated as especially significant compared to other suspects. Smith was a "man about town", then a "sporting country gentleman" when in 1885 he applied for, and became chief superintendent of the City Police. He had no experience whatever as a serving police officer, despite calling his memoirs "From Constable to Commissioner" which rather suggests a successful career and numerous deserved promotions. He was never a serving detective, so why are his suspicions considered to be particularly relevant? So caution!

If he wasn't an experienced detective unlike most of the others, can we at least consider his recollections to be reliable - well, it has to be said that the copy of Smith's memoirs in the Scotland Yard library carries the message that "Smith's veracity was not always to be trusted." So, a little caution therefore! For example, this is the man who claimed to have been "within five minutes of the perpetrator one night, and with a very fair description of him besides". Allegedly the Ripper had washed his bloodied hands in a public sink. However, we know from his original account of the Eddowes' murder that Smith's movements never put him within an hour of the Ripper. To have known it was just five minutes, and to have JtR'S description, there had to be a witness providing this information, but there is no evidence of such a witness, and no description. So caution!

The City police were not involved until the fourth of the canonical five murders, and I believe that Smith's suspicions date from his temporary involvement before this, which was before the City police had any formal and detailed briefings of the known facts. His information seems to have come from newspapers, which is why he referred to coin trickery as a trait, whereas there was no coin trickery as far as JtR himself was concerned. That story existed only in newspapers, so the coin trickery trait is totally irrelevant to the investigation, and demonstrates Smith's ignorance of the facts, and not his detective skills. So caution!

Smiths five traits are merely traits he saw in a suspect, and they are not even remotely identified as traits demonstrated by the Ripper. There is absolutely no reason whatever to suppose that Smith's suspect could have been JtR. So caution!

Exactly. We know who Smith’s suspect was but he had an alibi as his landlord had said that he’d slept there on the nights of the murders.

[Richard Patterson]

Also, I have a huge problem with the concept of "Smith's suspect" being treated as especially significant compared to other suspects. Smith was a "man about town", then a "sporting country gentleman" when in 1885 he applied for, and became chief superintendent of the City Police. He had no experience whatever as a serving police officer, despite calling his memoirs "From Constable to Commissioner" which rather suggests a successful career and numerous deserved promotions. He was never a serving detective, so why are his suspicions considered to be particularly relevant? So caution!

If he wasn't an experienced detective unlike most of the others, can we at least consider his recollections to be reliable - well, it has to be said that the copy of Smith's memoirs in the Scotland Yard library carries the message that "Smith's veracity was not always to be trusted." So, a little caution therefore! For example, this is the man who claimed to have been "within five minutes of the perpetrator one night, and with a very fair description of him besides". Allegedly the Ripper had washed his bloodied hands in a public sink. However, we know from his original account of the Eddowes' murder that Smith's movements never put him within an hour of the Ripper. To have known it was just five minutes, and to have JtR'S description, there had to be a witness providing this information, but there is no evidence of such a witness, and no description. So caution!

The City police were not involved until the fourth of the canonical five murders, and I believe that Smith's suspicions date from his temporary involvement before this, which was before the City police had any formal and detailed briefings of the known facts. His information seems to have come from newspapers, which is why he referred to coin trickery as a trait, whereas there was no coin trickery as far as JtR himself was concerned. That story existed only in newspapers, so the coin trickery trait is totally irrelevant to the investigation, and demonstrates Smith's ignorance of the facts, and not his detective skills. So caution!

Smiths five traits are merely traits he saw in a suspect, and they are not even remotely identified as traits demonstrated by the Ripper. There is absolutely no reason whatever to suppose that Smith's suspect could have been JtR. So caution!

You’re taking a dangerous shortcut here, Doctor. Dismissing Major Sir Henry Smith’s credibility because he wasn’t a career detective isn’t the same as disproving what he observed. It’s a rhetorical trick—one that has haunted the Ripper field for decades: when the evidence threatens a pet theory, the goalposts shift from data to ad hominem.

Let’s unpack it properly.

1. “From Constable to Commissioner” and the Myth of Inexperience

Smith wasn’t pretending to have risen through the beat ranks. His title was part of a long Victorian tradition of stylised autobiography. But by the time of the murders, he had nine years of senior policing behind him—as Assistant Commissioner and later Acting Commissioner of the City of London Police. That force, though smaller than the Met, was famously rigorous and legalistic. Smith was a barrister by training, versed in evidentiary standards most of his contemporaries lacked. He led an elite, courtroom-savvy force in one of the most densely patrolled areas of Europe.

Calling him “not an experienced detective” misses the point. He commanded detectives, directed the City’s entire investigative arm, and oversaw one of the five canonical Ripper murder scenes. The Mitre Square investigation—the most thoroughly documented of them all—was under his authority. That case file remains the cleanest and most professionally handled in the series.

2. “Veracity not always to be trusted”

That marginal note in the Yard’s library isn’t evidence of dishonesty; it’s a bureaucratic sneer written decades later by someone who disagreed with his memoir’s tone. Every senior officer who published recollections—Anderson, Macnaghten, Littlechild, Dew—was annotated or contradicted by rivals. Police infighting didn’t start with internet forums. Smith, notably, was the only senior officer who admitted he didn’t solve the case. That honesty alone makes his memoirs more credible than Anderson’s “definitely Kosminski” or Macnaghten’s “it was Druitt” pronouncements, neither of which had firsthand evidential basis.

3. The “Five Minutes Away” Claim

Even if we strip away rhetoric, his statement reflects something important: that he personally patrolled the East End in plain clothes, close enough to scenes of attempted or completed attacks to believe he nearly intercepted the killer. That level of involvement is rare among senior officers and speaks to his immersion in the field, not his unreliability.

4. The Coin Trickery Myth

The coin-trick confusion came from early press speculation—but Smith’s identification of a Rupert Street suspect wasn’t drawn from newspapers. He had the man investigated, and that description—medical background, Catholic connection, middle-class, lodging in West End slums—matches Thompson almost perfectly. The coincidence is remarkable, not dismissible.

5. Slippery Slopes and Convenient Amnesia

Once we start discrediting the competence of men like Smith to make the facts fit whichever suspect we prefer, the entire historical investigation collapses. If Smith can’t be trusted because he wasn’t a “career detective,” then neither can Anderson (a lawyer), Macnaghten (a civil servant), or Bond (a surgeon). The Ripper field then devolves into cherry-picked character assassinations instead of sober analysis.

Smith remains one of the few who didn’t claim to have unmasked the killer, who didn’t inflate his own role, and who did leave verifiable documentation of his movements, procedures, and suspicions. His candour, restraint, and professionalism make him one of the most reliable voices of 1888, not the least.

If the Ripper debate requires burning down the reputations of the investigating officers simply to keep Thompson’s name out of the frame, then the slope isn’t just slippery—it’s circular. You end up dismantling the very authority whose reports form the foundation of every suspect theory, including your own.

Smith deserves respect not because he was infallible, but because he was accountable, articulate, and there. And when a man of that calibre described a suspect in Rupert Street whose traits mirror Thompson’s to an uncanny degree, the proper scholarly response isn’t “so caution.” It’s: so, investigate.