Francis Thompson. The Perfect Suspect.

[Richard Patterson]

Richard,

You say:

It is true that my article says that Walsh confirms that Thompson was at Providence Row in November 1888, but he does not state this directly in any edition of his book that I have read.

What Walsh does state directly is that Thompson was hospitalised for six weeks from October, 1888.

What evidence do you have to contradict Walsh on this matter?

Gary

Hi Gary,

It seems that Walsh’ himself is uncertain about when Thompson was hospitalised. Let’s assume that Thompson was hospitalised in October. Wilfrid Meynell, who would have known, wrote that Thompson was in hospital for six weeks. Walsh does not say when in October Thompson was put into the hospital. Assuming we stick to October then depending when in the month he was admitted, he may have been out from between mid-November to mid-December.

On Page 78 of my first edition of Walsh’s book, he writes, ‘By December Thompson was out of hospital and living in lodgings, probably in Paddington.’ If this is true then it means that Thompson was admitted in the middle of October. The problem lies in the fact that at sometime Thompson stayed at the Row and given this refuge’s strict entry requirements Thompson could not have been able to before November 1888. But from this quote there is hardly any time for Thompson to lodge there given that by the year’s end he was bound for the Storrington monastery.

In Footnote 35 on page 257. Walsh writes, ‘three months or so intervened between his leaving hospital and his going to Storrington.’ If this is true then with the start of 1889 and Thompson heading for Storrington then his admittance would have to be not October but the middle of August. Because Thompson himself wrote of his experiences of the being at Providence Row but nothing of being in hospital, and with the added peculiarity that of the alleged hospital stay the, name of the institution, its location or whether it allowed out on their own cognizance nothing at all has been recorded. I wonder if we can even rely the truth of his stay at all.

The added conflicting detail comes from Walsh, who in his footnote tells us that during the very weeks that London was in an uproar over the Jack the Ripper murders Thompson was on the streets seeking his friend. The uproar spanned September 1 and November 9. If Thompson were in hospital in October it seems odd to state, as Walsh does, that Thompson was on the streets during the very weeks of the murder if he spent most of them in hospital. To agree with this statement then Thompson would more likely have been hospitalised after the murders, if at all.

In truth it would be easier to show innocence to Thompson if we were to say he did not spend six weeks in hospital, because the window of him then staying at the Row would not be the first weeks of November but from anytime onwards until the end of December. As it is to fit the six-week hospital stay in the timeline as well as him leaving for Storrington by 1889 and his being at the Row, the only choice to state that he was there in the first weeks of November.

Richard.

[MrBarnett]

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[Pcdunn]

I was surprised at how little I could find on Thompson when I tried to research him using the 'Net. His two 20th century biographies are getting elderly (the newest is copyrighted 1988), and while the Catholic Encyclopedia has an article about Thompson which can be read online, not a great deal more turned up.

One thing I am questioning: the idea that Thompson carried a sharp knife under his long coat. This is generally sourced to the letter he wrote his editor, requesting a razor to shave with. Thompson doesn't (as I understand it), state he currently has a "dissecting knife" with which he shaves, but is half-jokingly saying that the quality of the razor doesn't matter, as he has in the past shaved with a dissecting knife. This is an example of Thompson's wit which I think is misunderstood by some interpreters.

[MrBarnett]

The address of the Refuge was Crispin Street and Raven Row. It is true that some of the windows overlooking Crispin Street would have afforded a view along Dorset Street, but those overlooking Raven Row would not have.

The male and female sections of the Refuge were kept separate. The entrance to the female section was in Crispin Street, the entrance to the male section was in Raven Row. The Goad map would seem to confirm this division. So unless Richard has some evidence otherwise, my best guess would be that the dormitories overlooking Crispin Street, and thereby affording a view along Dorset Street, would have been off limits to the male residents.

[MrBarnett]

Richard,

You say:

It is true that my article says that Walsh confirms that Thompson was at Providence Row in November 1888, but he does not state this directly in any edition of his book that I have read.

What Walsh does state directly is that Thompson was hospitalised for six weeks from October, 1888.

What evidence do you have to contradict Walsh on this matter?

Gary

[Richard Patterson]

Hi Richard, on another thread you linked to your Ripperologist article

http://www.francisjthompson.com/article-ripperologist-october.html

On page 39 of your article you wrote the John Walsh biography stated that Francis Thompson stayed at the Providence Row Night Refuge in November 1888. Maybe we have different editions of Walsh. Mine didn't say November 1888. Do you have a page number where Walsh wrote November 1888 please?

Also you wrote the custodians of the archives at Boston College confirmed that he lived at the Night Refuge in November 1888. Really? Because Walsh wrote that Francis Thompson kept no diary of this time in London. Was that a document held at BC or did the custodians tell you that? How did they know please?

Roy

Thank you for raising this. It is true that my article says that Walsh confirms that Thompson was at Providence Row in November 1888, but he does not state this directly in any edition of his book that I have read. Thompson never kept a diary as we would think of it but he did carry small notebooks in 1888, which I have read when I researched at Burns Library. They were written in pencil and many of the pages have very much faded. Although in some of the notes he seems to hint that he stayed at the Row, he does not give dates. In regard to Boston College, when I have approached the curators to ask to verify where Thompson stayed, Christian Dupont, who is Burns Library Associate University Librarian for Special Collections, directed me back to Walsh’s book.
What Walsh does say is that Thompson stayed at Providence Row without specifying a timeframe. How I can say Walsh concludes that Thompson was there in November comes from constructing a timeline as Walsh gives it. From sourcing Walsh’s book and the Biographer Bridget M Boardman’s book, 1888 ‘Between Heaven and Charring Cross. The Life of Francis Thompson’ the only conclusion we can make, unless we receive further information, is that it was in the first weeks of November that Thompson was at the refuge. Paul Begg, in his review of my book, agrees that my conclusion is the plausible one. I spend some time in my book in explaining why should place Thompson in the Row at the time of Kelly’s murder. Here is part of my explanation from my book,

‘When he attended the Row can be traced by the fact that he was shipped off to Storrington Priory, before the year’s end, after having spent the Christmas of 1888 in London. We also know that after his editor lost contact with him in August, Thompson returned ‘many days later’ suffering from exhaustion. From what he was exhausted from doing has never been fully explained. From July onwards both Meynell and Cannon Carroll had helped Thompson with money, clothes and food. He no longer needed to beg and surely if he needed extra money, now that he had become a published poet, he could have turned to either men for further assistance. Thompson was not pressured to write further, his earlier submission to Meynell, with its essay and poems, had freed his time. The only thing that was taking Thompson’s energy was that he was searching the streets for the prostitute who had abandoned him, during the time that the Ripper was seeking out prostitutes. Thompson, however, did return to Meynell severely fatigued. In response Meynell had him placed in the private hospital. The name of the hospital is still unknown, as well as the dates that he was admitted. When he was put into the hospital though can be deduced from the penciled note Wilfrid Meynell wrote into the margins of the manuscript of his son’s Everard Meynell’s 1913 biography on the poet. His father wrote of ‘Six weeks my son!’ We know from his editor that about four days after being released from the hospital, Thompson again tried to return to a life on the streets and by New Years day of 1889, he was in the country monastery, just outside the town of Storrington in Sussex.

The Row opened for the cold seasons, on the first Monday of the November, which would have been the fifth. He would have been allowed initially to stay for six weeks. This would have been reduced to only two weeks. This is because we must allow for his six-week stay at the private hospital and the four days between his release and being sent to Storrington before the year’s end. Using the 1888 calendar as our guide he would have entered the Row on the 5th and left by the Thursday the 15th.’

Walsh does not state explicitly that Thompson was at the Row on November 9 1888 but it can be implicitly inferred from what he wrote. I believe that Walsh, but not Boardman, state that Thompson was hospitalized in October but this cannot possibly fit into any logical timeline. The nuns of Providence Row to this day say that Thompson was a resident, and Thompson himself said he was in his 1891 article, ‘Catholics in Darkest England’, but neither the nuns or Thompson’s article says when he was there. To be honest with you almost every fact we have on Thompson, under scrutiny, is weakened into a probable. This is primarily because almost everything comes from Thompson. The same man who claims to have stayed at Providence Row is also the same man who claims to have been rescued by a ghost.

[Roy Corduroy]

Hi Richard, on another thread you linked to your Ripperologist article

http://www.francisjthompson.com/article-ripperologist-october.html

On page 39 of your article you wrote the John Walsh biography stated that Francis Thompson stayed at the Providence Row Night Refuge in November 1888. Maybe we have different editions of Walsh. Mine didn't say November 1888. Do you have a page number where Walsh wrote November 1888 please?

Also you wrote the custodians of the archives at Boston College confirmed that he lived at the Night Refuge in November 1888. Really? Because Walsh wrote that Francis Thompson kept no diary of this time in London. Was that a document held at BC or did the custodians tell you that? How did they know please?

Roy

[Richard Patterson]

Hello Richard!

To continue things on here: Did you end up finding some more supportive evidence of Thompson's alleged peeping from windows onto Dorset Street? Or .. not?

Oh why don't I just purchase your book and see for myself!? Well, aside from being rather tremulous at the very thought of there being in it chapters on saint's days and occultish join-the-dot geometries and the like, I'm actually a bit skint at the present, so needs be it must wait.

You know I've never disapproved of your theory, surely. I have, though, disapproved if some of your methods of arguing it.. Anyways I am glad your theory is gaining momentum and look forward to wading through your book for the convincing bits. =P

Hello Ausgirl.

It’s probably a good thing that you don't have the spare cash to buy my hardcopy, because that has a few thousand words extra and only the hard copy contains the chapter that discusses the saint days which you feel do nothing to raise his candidacy. I admit that the saint day argument does not currently do much to increase Thompson’s credentials as a suspect. However I do not regret taking that path early on. Whatever we learn about him we cannot escape the fact that he studied as a priest for several years and religion was paramount feature of Thompson’s life. People are bound to ask questions about how he assimilated his beliefs into the murders if they increasingly decide he is worth examining as a candidate. If they come to me for answers, I now already have my answer wrapped conveniently into a single chapter. Thankfully for you and most readers though, the cheap kindle edition does not take that route and instead focuses on the more ordinary arguments such as where was he living, and what personal or unique circumstances point to him being capable of these crimes. I leave most of the imaginative speculation for the hardback

Now to the window peeking. Let me explain that when I say that from his room Thompson could look out from his window down Dorset Street I do not claim to be able to prove this is something he did. I feel I can safely state that he used Providence Row because he told us he did. In addition, several books and those who command his archives in Boston College say so. Also the nuns at Providence Row say that he did. Was he in Providence Row during the times of the murder? My book states that this was the most likely time that he stayed there and experts, like Paul Begg agree that my book’s explanation to the timings is a plausible one. The image I give of Thompson being able to peer out his window down to the entrance of Miller’s court is imaginative only but does not lesson the possibility that he could. I have given it and will continue to give it even though taken literally if we was indeed looking out the window of the window at the time of Kelly’s murder then he could not have killed her. (Even several years as student surgeon could not have enabled him to kill her regardless of how sharp his dissecting scalpel was.) I use the image of him at the window to contrast with other heralded suspects. Unlike MOST others Thompson did not have to take a train from another part of London or England or a boat across the English Channel to commit these crimes. He lived in the heart of Spitalfields.

I know I have not said it before Ausgirl but I am glad you find my suspect to one of the better ones, even if I, who promotes him, does not always do it in the fashion you would see as sensible. Thank you for your interest. If you reading my book looks to be a thing you will be doing later than sooner I do suggest you check out the reviews of the book and news articles on it which my website contains. I am particularly happy with the following review on it. It may answer other questions you have about him. Or better still lead you to ask ones neither of us have thought about yet.

http://www.crimebookshelf.com/francis-thompson-ripper-suspect/

Thanks,
Richard.

[Roy Corduroy]

Thanks for the interesting question,

My pleasure Richard,

Thompson for example, as well as becoming a newly employed journalist, also sold matchboxes. He said that this required him to be outside till late at night to sell his matches to theatregoers as they left evening performances. It’s plausible that with Thompson being used to living on the street and with the staff of the row probably being partly aware of his history, it would not have been considered unusual if occasionally Thompson stayed out all night.

it would not have been considered unusual if occasionally Thompson stayed out all night

If I were warden of the Night Refuge I would be alarmed he stayed out all night selling matches THAT night.

Roy

[Ausgirl]

Hello Richard!

To continue things on here: Did you end up finding some more supportive evidence of Thompson's alleged peeping from windows onto Dorset Street? Or .. not?

Oh why don't I just purchase your book and see for myself!? Well, aside from being rather tremulous at the very thought of there being in it chapters on saint's days and occultish join-the-dot geometries and the like, I'm actually a bit skint at the present, so needs be it must wait.

You know I've never disapproved of your theory, surely. I have, though, disapproved if some of your methods of arguing it.. Anyways I am glad your theory is gaining momentum and look forward to wading through your book for the convincing bits. =P

[Richard Patterson]

Hi again Richard and best wishes on your trip to London to speak.

I think we touched on this before but with no resolution. So I was wondering if you have given it further thought or researched the matter.

Providence Row being a Night Refuge, I assume those staying were locked in overnight just as the public was locked out. Would you think this is a correct assumption? If not, what do you know about it, or propose otherwise?

Roy

I appreciate the well wishes for the conference in November. I don’t recall being asked this exact question before although I am sure we did discuss something of the same nature. Because providence Row was run differently to most refuges, I don’t think it is the correct assumption. Unlike other refuges Providence Row, had strict entry requirements. They only allowed those who could show that they had paid work. They had residents that were commercial travellers, mechanics, surgeons and the like. No doubt some of those who worked would have had jobs that were outside the usual 9 to 5 hours. I doubt that they would have been locked in and not allowed to leave for work.

Thompson for example, as well as becoming a newly employed journalist, also sold matchboxes. He said that this required him to be outside till late at night to sell his matches to theatregoers as they left evening performances. It’s plausible that with Thompson being used to living on the street and with the staff of the row probably being partly aware of his history, it would not have been considered unusual if occasionally Thompson stayed out all night.

Thanks for the interesting question,

Richard.

[Roy Corduroy]

Hi again Richard and best wishes on your trip to London to speak.

I think we touched on this before but with no resolution. So I was wondering if you have given it further thought or researched the matter.

Providence Row being a Night Refuge, I assume those staying were locked in overnight just as the public was locked out. Would you think this is a correct assumption? If not, what do you know about it, or propose otherwise?

Roy

[Richard Patterson]

Mary was the commonest first name for women of the era. Plus many families name offspring after parents and grandparents so names are often in family "clusters".

I honestly don't think any thing can be read into victims having this particular name in common with his family when so many other women around were also called Mary.

This is from my book. Should you ever want to read it.

‘The animosity between Francis Thompson and his stepmother only increased. In 1891, Ann Richardson convinced her new husband to cut Thompson out of the family will. In 1896, when Thompson’s father died, and he returned to Manchester for his funeral, she would not allow him into the home. Ann Richardson’s loathing of Thompson meant that he was forced to find paid lodgings. It is probably pertinent to remember 'Mrs A. Richardson' was written on the front the Hanbury Street building where the second Jack the Ripper victim, Ann Chapman was cut open. In this instance the victim, Ann, and place of execution, Richardson, shared the same name as Thompson’s stepmother. Of the sixteen residents, at this address, were a Francis and a Thompson. Another correlation is that the night Thompson ran away from home, [over his father’s plan to marry Ann Richardson after the death of his mother Mary] November 9th was the same date that three years later, the Ripper embarked on his most bloody murder of fifth victim Mary Kelly, less than a hundred yards from where he was staying, at the Providence Row refuge.’ [with his blade and several years of medical training]

[Azarna]

Hello John.

Interesting question and on the face of it I saw a strong possibility. Thompson had a thing for names. Thompson’s sister was named Mary and so was his mother. The root of Thompson’s conflict with his doctor father was over his remarrying. After the death of Mary, the mother, Dr. Charles Thompson, became engaged to a woman named Anne. What I think is more than a coincidence is that almost all the victims shared the same names as with members of Thompson’s family. As you know two of the Ripper’s victims were named Mary, and another was called Ann. In the 1901 murder, the victim does too with, her name being Mary Ann Austin

Mary was the commonest first name for women of the era. Plus many families name offspring after parents and grandparents so names are often in family "clusters".

I honestly don't think any thing can be read into victims having this particular name in common with his family when so many other women around were also called Mary.

[Richard Patterson]

Richard, your research is impressive. The devil is in the detail. Whether one agrees or disagrees with your conclusion, it is one of the most thorough investigations into a suspect. Thompson was fascinating in his own right. I have an open mind about him but he scores much higher than many so called suspects.
With regards to Providence Row, have you searched The London Metropolitan Archive online. A quick look reveals they have Correspondence and papers pertaining to the night shelter.A/FWA/C/D/049/001

Regards Miss Marple

Hi Miss Marple,

You are very kind to speak well of my book. I also appreciate the tip with searching Providence Row at the London metropolitan archives. I live in Australia but I hope to visit London in November and while there I should pay a visit to the archives to access the documents they have on the refuge. I am certain these documents will provide some fascinating insights into the workings of the institution and what Thompson may have experienced wile sleeping there. My book may not have convinced you that Thompson is Jack the Ripper but I am glad to have introduced you to a 19th century figure who lived a fascinating life imbued with experiences that so much relate to the very best and worst of the revolution and the Victorian age. I hope my book shows up these murders in a different light and also returns to the essentials of what we should be looking for regarding finding the murderer.

All the very best,
Richard