The Ripper Profiles of John Douglas and Dr. Thomas Bond applied to Francis Thompson.
Examining two profiles for what to look for in a suspect strengthens that Francis Thompson may be Jack the Ripper. These profiles come from two authorities on the subject, John Douglas and Dr. Thomas Bond. Douglas is a criminal psychology profiler and a former special agent with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Douglas has personally interviewed dozens of serial killers including David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Charles Manson, Edmund Kemper, Dennis Rader, and Richard Speck. In 1988, on the first centenary of the ripper murders, Douglas composed a detailed profile of Jack the Ripper. Our other profile is less detailed but is authentic to the ripper case. It comes from Dr. Bond, (1841–1901) who was a British surgeon and considered by some to be the first offender profiler. Bond was asked to examine the Ripper murders and he performed the autopsy on Mary Kelly, the last Ripper victim on November 9, 1888.
Here is a comparison of, Douglas’s profile of the Ripper and our suspect. All these facts on Thompson are common knowledge and well documented. The Profile says the ripper may have a physical abnormality. Thompson said he was denied entry into the army because of his small chest. His arms and legs were thin and his literary heir, Meynell, said he only had one lung. The profile says he was single, like Thompson. It said he had an aversion to blood, like Thompson who stated he hated the sight of flowing blood. It says he may have only had relationships with a prostitute and Thompson’s only relationship was with a prostitute. It said he was a local and so was Thompson. A biographer, John Walsh said the police might have interviewed Thompson for the murders but let him go. Douglas suggested the same thing for the ripper. Douglas told the ripper had knowledge of anatomy and may have had a job in the medical field. Thompson had trained as a surgeon for six years. Douglas described how the Ripper was absorbed in the ritual of the crimes. Thompson governed his life with ritual down to small detail. Thompson was loner and kept to himself, as too did the ripper in the Douglas’s profile. Douglas said the ripper would be in his mid to late twenties. Thompson was 27. He said the ripper would have a disheveled appearance. Thompson was widely described as appearing dingy and untidy. Douglas described the Ripper as nocturnal and known to cover large distances by foot. Thompson was a habitual long-range walker at night, often sleeping in until the late afternoon. Douglas thought the ripper would not have committed suicide and stopped murdering by being confined. After the murders, Thompson was placed in a far away male only country priory and went on to live twenty more years. These are just some of many more similarities between John Douglas’s profile and Thompson.
Here is Dr. Bond’s profile of the ripper compared to Francis Thompson. Bond wrote, ‘I think he must be in the habit of wearing a cloak or overcoat or he could hardly have escaped notice in the streets if the blood on his hands or clothes were visible’ Thompson was known for his insistence on wearing a long dark brown inverness style coat, in all weather. Bond said, ‘he would probably be solitary and eccentric in his habits,’ and as told in Douglas’s profile Thompson lived virtually as a hermit. Bond told that, ’also he is most likely to be a man without regular occupation, but with some small income or pension’ Thompson in 1888 was without regular employment and living homeless on the Street’s of London. His only income was cash given to him for the first publication of two poems and essays in a magazine, which was used to buy new clothes. Bond wrote that, ‘He is possibly living among respectable persons who have some knowledge of his character and habits and who may have grounds for suspicion that he is not quite right in his mind at times. Such persons would probably be unwilling to communicate suspicions to the Police for fear of trouble or notoriety, whereas if there were a prospect of reward it might overcome their scruples.’ Prior to 1888 Thompson had been largely homeless. His publisher and editor, Wilfrid Meynell, had taken Thompson into his home and offered to find him accommodation. Thompson rejected this offer telling him that he wished to remain on the streets to seek out a prostitute that had left him after a year-long relationship. When Meynell had published Thompson’s first poem in April 1888, he knew little about him, but by August 1888, when the murders began, Meynell had come to discover that Thompson had studied as a surgeon. He had also been given by Thompson a poem, which he never published, called the ‘Nightmare of the Witch Babies’ This poem was about a knight who wanders the land after dark hunting down women and disemboweling them with a knife. By the time the murders began, Meynell had already published Thompson’s poems, had him visit and bathe in his house and paid him to money to make him look respectable. Even if Meynell were possibly suspicious of Thompson he may have been afraid to approach the authorities.
As part of his profile Dr. Bond stated, ‘In each case the mutilation was inflicted by a person who had no scientific nor anatomical knowledge’. This has led many people to discount the popular opinion that the Ripper may have been some sort of doctor. When Doctor Bond said the killer had no anatomical knowledge he was giving his opinion based on his experience. He spoke about what he knew and he didn’t know the Virchow technique. Thompson studied as a surgeon for 6 years at Owens Medical College in Manchester. His own sister remarked on what a number of bodies he was cutting up, when he borrowed money for extra cadavers. The Virchow technique was a new German dissecting process that had only been taught in England in Thompson's medical school, and not to Dr. Bond. Part of the technique required the removing of the each individual organ, such as the kidney, and treating them as separate entities and also the cutting through membranes to reach them. To someone untrained in this, like Bond, such mutilation of the body would appear insensible. With Thompson, Douglas is right in saying he worked in the medical field and Bond is right in saying he saw no medical technique.
Both profiles sometimes seem to contradict each other, until we apply them to Thompson, then they complement each other. Both profiles go for Thompson. When Douglas states that the ripper may have worked in the medical field, this was the case for Thompson, who studied surgery for 6 years, prior to moving to London. He then became destitute and without, as Bond told, ‘regular occupation’. This suspect also has a history of fire starting, mutilation themes in childhood and he carried a knife on him kept from his days as a medical student. These are other traits looked in for a serial killer and the Ripper by both the FBI and CID.
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It is possible that Francis Thompson was the person named "Mr. Moring" from R Thurston Hopkins "Life and Death at the Old Bailey" and Mary Kelly’s supposed poet friend. The English writer Robert Thurston Hopkins (1884-1958), 1935 book, “Life and Death at the Old Bailey,” has a relatively early account of the Ripper murders. It introduced an unknown suspect who was a poet.Originally posted by Scott Nelson View Post
It was an Old Bailey officer offered Hopkins information on the case. Although the officer is not named, his knowledge the murders was strong being, ‘on duty in the East End throughout the whole run of the murders.’ Hopkins gave a brief, but surprisingly accurate account of the crimes and looked at several suspects. He pressed the idea that the Ripper may have had surgical skill, before introducing a poet as Jack the Ripper. Even 46 years after the murders, Hopkins was not ready to give his suspect an actual name so he used the name ‘Mr Moring.’ The name might have something to do with Thompson. The volumes of poetry published in his lifetime were all decorated with rings on the front cover. Thompson’s grave has ‘more rings’ with a symbol of two that are carved entwined onto his tombstone.
Hopkins remarked that his poet’s appearance was the same as the man seen by George Hutchinson outside Miller’s Court in Whitechapel’s Dorset Street. Hutchinson was the last person to see Mary Kelly. Here is a section of Hopkins’s chapter on the Ripper detailing the poet and his friendship with Kelly,
‘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…He had black, lank hair and moustache, and the long, dark face of the typical bard…. 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. "Alcohol for fools; opium for poets, was a phrase which recurred constantly in his talk. "To-morrow one dies," was his motto, and he would sometimes add " and who cares-will it stop the traffic on London Bridge?" After reading the above [George Hutchinson’s inquest testimony] statement I looked back on my memories of the wandering poet and curiously enough that description fitted him down to the ground! But I could not connect a man of such extraordinary gentleness committing such a dreadful series of outrages.’
Hopkins poet was might have Thompson, who was a long time user and addict to opium. A John Walsh, a biographer on Thompson, in his 1967 book, tells of Hopkins’ connection to this poet in his “Strange Harp, Strange Symphony the Life of Francis Thompson.” Thompson died in 1907. In 1927 Hopkins visited people and places associated with Thompson. Hopkins for example went to Panton Street, in London’s Haymarket District. While there he spoke with John McMaster a shoemaker, who had briefly taken Thompson off the streets. This was in 1886. McMaster hired Thompson to deliver boots and learn the trade, but later was forced to fire Thompson after he injured a customer. Hopkins recalled McMaster’s description of Thompson when he found him as a vagrant on London’s streets, ‘He was the very personification of ruin, tumble-down, dilapidated opium-haunted wreck.’ Hopkins included this information in his 1927 book, “This London - Its Taverns, Haunts And Memories.”
Not all of what Hopkins wrote about his poet friend matches Thompson. Hopkins said he was the son of a prosperous tradesman in the East End. Much of what he wrote he knew of the ripper does have some similarity to Thompson’s background. For example Hopkins starts his chapter on the crimes, in his “Shadowing The Shadow Of A Murderer,” with the idea that Ripper was motivated by religious fanaticism. This is of interest considering Thompson, was an obsessive religionist. Hopkins also thought the Ripper might have had surgical training and Thompson was medically trained.
Some writers have suggested the poet Ernest Dowson (1867-1900) was Hopkins’ friend, but Dowson, unlike his poet, wasn’t a drug addict. Hopkins tells us his “Moring” constantly would say, ‘Alcohol for fools; opium for poets’. This maxim is the opposite for Dowson, who was a drinker and not an opium user. Dowson died of alcohol poisoning. It does fit Thompson, who was an opium user and not a drinker. Thompson is said to have died from opium usage. Hopkins was only sixteen when Dowson died in 1900, though he was twenty-three when Thompson died in 1907. Of the two poets, it more likely Hopkins had time to strike up a friendship with Thompson, rather than with Dowson. Thompson might have stayed at Providence Row, in Whitechapel. This was a Catholic refuge at 50 Crispin Street, opposite the entrance to Dorset Street, where Mary Kelly was murdered. Kelly is said to have once found shelter at the same refuge. Limehouse, where Dowson lived, was about 6 kilometers away from her. Interestingly both Dowson and Thompson were associated with each other. Dowson was a member of the “Rhymers Club” a group of poets who would meet at each other’s home or more often at the Cheshire Cheese tavern in Fleet Street from 1891 to 1894. Members also include, W.B Yeats and Oscar Wilde. Francis Thompson once attended a meeting, where he encountered these poets and sat next to Dowson.Leave a comment:
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Richard,
Maybe you mentioned this before, but could Thompson be the character of "Mr. Moring" from R Thurston Hopkins "Life and Death at the Old Bailey"?Leave a comment:
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Hi Mr. Patterson,Originally posted by Richard Patterson View PostOne in the same.
Here is a rundown on Walsh & Thompson.
This information was found, in the1967 book “Strange Harp, Strange Symphony The Life of Francis Thompson”. The biographer, John Evangelist Walsh, painstakingly compiled his information from original documents including notebooks, letters, and manuscripts.
To outline Walsh’s research. He had access to Thompson’s papers at Greatham cottage with permission granted by a daughter of Thompson’s publisher. Here he took notes from Thompson’s notebooks from his time on the streets, between the years 1886-1888. Walsh examined Thompson’s papers at Chichester kept by a granddaughter of Thompson’s publisher. In London he went through the papers on Thompson, which were held by another granddaughter. Walsh interviewed Sir Francis Meynell. This was Francis Thompson’s godson and son of Thompson’s publisher. Sir Francis gave Walsh access to further letters by Francis Thompson. Walsh was given complete access, by the director of libraries of Boston College, to the Francis Thompson collection. Walsh went to St. Mary’s priory in Storrington, and made an extensive search of their archives. Walsh interviewed Norbert Thompson, the half brother of Francis Thompson, who supplied him with much information. Amongst other people and organizations that supplied him with information included a host of people, who knew Thompson from where he lived. This included Newbuildings in Sussex, Ashton-upon-Lyne, Manchester, Pantasaph, Ushaw College, Crawley, Owens College Manchester, Preston, The Guildhall Library, and the British Reading Room.
Walsh is one of America's most distinguished historians. He is respected and award winning the author of dozens of books. These include Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allen Poe ; Unraveling Piltdown: The Science Fraud of the Century and Its Solution ; and The Shadows Rise: Abraham Licoln and the Ann Rutledge Legend. He was also the senior editor at Reader’s Digest. This is the same Walsh who cites Thompson sleeping at Providence Row nights refuge.
Precisely the one. In college I read his first book, regarding his studying the Mary Rogers Case, and his painstaking work showing how Poe wrote the story originally to test his abilities at detection (using "C. Auguste Dupin") but when new material arose he had to rewrite portions to mirror the new information. Excellent detective work by Walsh. I have his book on Poe's demise, and another book on Poe concerning a love affair (over Fanny Osgood, a female poet he and his enemy Rufus Griswold both romanced), and the Blake book, and the one on Piltdown. He is a first rate scholar, but I find he is terribly overlooked by many people.
JeffLeave a comment:
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The Ripper and Thompson - Both Disliked Blood.
Thompson gave an aversion to flowing blood as his reason for leaving medical school. Supposing that he killed the five victims if anyone could have done it and avoided being spotted or splashed with blood, it would have been Francis Thompson. One of the mysteries to the Ripper crimes is how did the murderer leave the scenes of the murders without showing noticeable amounts of blood on is person. Thompson trained as a surgeon and worked in infirmaries for six years. Without doubt students here would have been instructed into how to cut into vessels and artery so that the blood flows and sprays would have directed away from them. Descriptions of the crime scenes support this.
The method the Ripper used indicates someone who hated the sight of flowing blood performed it. The first murder of Nichols, in Bucks Row, happened in such darkness that the first people, who discovered the body, Paul and Cross did not even see blood on the victim or around her body and suggested that she was merely asleep. Here’s a description of how the Ripper killed his victims. This is detailed in the ‘Journal of Investigative Psychology’,
‘The physical evidence suggested that the perpetrator seized the victim from behind, by the chin and pressed her throat. This would have produced unconsciousness and suffocation. There was no evidence of a struggle or sexual assault. Then the victim was lowered to the ground and laid on her back. Her throat was then cut from left to right in two places, injuries were sustained to the abdomen, and her uterus was taken from the womb (Evans & Gainey, 1998; Sugden, 2002; Evans & Skinner, 2000).’
Using this method involved the least amount of interference from flowing blood. The victim laid flat and still like this is exactly how Thompson, who hated the sight of flowing blood, and had trained as a surgeon, would have had his patients and desired for his victims.
That Thompson hated the sight of blood is ironic since he seemed to love the stuff. Apart from the hundreds of references he makes to it in later life here are some words from the package he hand delivered, in February 1887, into the letterbox of his future publishers, the Meynells. Here are two quotes from the package’s contents. It includes his Paganism essay, and another from his 1886 poem, ‘Nightmare of the Witch Babies’
'Red has come to be a colour feared; it ought rather to be the colour loved. For it is ours. The colour is ours and what it symbolises is ours. Red in all its grades...to that imperial colour we call purple, the tinge of clotted blood,...proudly lineal; a prince of the Blood indeed.'
[Hutchinson saw the man pull out a red handkerchief and give to an evidently distressed Mary Kelly)
‘And the reeds they were pulpy
With blood, blood, blood!...
From the rank, the greasy soil,
Red bubbles oozed and stood…
The ground plash plashes,
With a wet like blood;…
It was a stream ran bloodily
Under the wall
O Stream, you cannot run too red
It was a stream ran bloodily
Under the wall.’Leave a comment:
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He was institutionalized on a voluntary basis, living years at the time in male only monasteries and priories.Originally posted by John G View PostLeave a comment:
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One in the same.Originally posted by Mayerling View Post Here is a rundown on Walsh & Thompson.
This information was found, in the1967 book “Strange Harp, Strange Symphony The Life of Francis Thompson”. The biographer, John Evangelist Walsh, painstakingly compiled his information from original documents including notebooks, letters, and manuscripts.
To outline Walsh’s research. He had access to Thompson’s papers at Greatham cottage with permission granted by a daughter of Thompson’s publisher. Here he took notes from Thompson’s notebooks from his time on the streets, between the years 1886-1888. Walsh examined Thompson’s papers at Chichester kept by a granddaughter of Thompson’s publisher. In London he went through the papers on Thompson, which were held by another granddaughter. Walsh interviewed Sir Francis Meynell. This was Francis Thompson’s godson and son of Thompson’s publisher. Sir Francis gave Walsh access to further letters by Francis Thompson. Walsh was given complete access, by the director of libraries of Boston College, to the Francis Thompson collection. Walsh went to St. Mary’s priory in Storrington, and made an extensive search of their archives. Walsh interviewed Norbert Thompson, the half brother of Francis Thompson, who supplied him with much information. Amongst other people and organizations that supplied him with information included a host of people, who knew Thompson from where he lived. This included Newbuildings in Sussex, Ashton-upon-Lyne, Manchester, Pantasaph, Ushaw College, Crawley, Owens College Manchester, Preston, The Guildhall Library, and the British Reading Room.
Walsh is one of America's most distinguished historians. He is respected and award winning the author of dozens of books. These include Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allen Poe ; Unraveling Piltdown: The Science Fraud of the Century and Its Solution ; and The Shadows Rise: Abraham Licoln and the Ann Rutledge Legend. He was also the senior editor at Reader’s Digest. This is the same Walsh who cites Thompson sleeping at Providence Row nights refuge.Leave a comment:
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Hello Richard,
I must admit, to my embarrassment, that until these recent threads I new little about Francis Thompson, but the more I read about him the stronger he appears as a suspect.
For example, I now think it possible that JtR could have had quite a high level of anatomical knowledge, even surgical skill, and believe there may be some support for this view from modern experts.
I'm also intrigued at how closely he seems to match the FBI profile. I believe you mentioned, Richard, that he had a reputation for starting fires. Well, that's also another common trait that serial killers have: Richard Chase, for example, had a penchant for starting fires, as did David Berkowitz (The Son of Sam).
However, I am unsure of his history after 1888. I believe he lived until 1907 and, as think it unlikely that the Ripper would suddenly stop his activities, I would ask if he was institutionalized or, say, abroad for any period after 1888?
Regards,
JohnLast edited by John G; 03-18-2015, 08:21 AM.Leave a comment:
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John Walsh
Hello Mr. Patterson,
When you mentioned "John Walsh" as a biographer, are you referring to John Evangelist Walsh, who has written books on Edgar Allan Poe and the Mary Rogers Mystery, and on William Blake's last year of life, and on Robert Frost?
JeffLeave a comment:
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FBI's John Douglas and his Profile of the Ripper & Thomspon
John Douglas is a criminal psychology profiler and a former special agent with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He has personally interviewed serial killers including David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Charles Manson, Lynette Fromme, Arthur Bremer, Sara Jane Moore, Edmund Kemper, James Earl Ray, Sirhan Sirhan, Dennis Rader, Richard Speck, Donald Harvey, and Joseph Paul Franklin. In 1888, the first centenary of the ripper murders. Douglas composed a profile of Jack the Ripper. I have found some matches in his profile with Francis Thompson. The Profile says he may have a physical abnormality. Thompson said he was denied entry into the army because of his small chest. His arms and legs were thin and his literary heir, Meynell, said he only had one lung. The profile says he was single, like Thompson. It said he had an aversion to blood, like Thompson. It says he may have only had relationships with prostitute and Thompson’s only relationship was with a prostitute. It said he was a local and it is a strong possibility that Thompson was a local. A biographer, John Walsh said the police might have interviewed Thompson for the murders but let him go. Douglas says the same. Thompson was quiet and kept to himself, as too did the ripper in the profile.It says the ripper would not have committed suicide and stopped murdering by being confined. Thompson was placed in a far away male only country prior and went on to lived twenty more years.Leave a comment:
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A description of Thompson & Hutchinson’s, a witness, description of the Ripper.
When deciding the candidacy for Jack the Ripper one of the things to do is see if they match any eyewitness descriptions of the murderer and examine the criminal the profile of Jack the Ripper to find out if they fit the suspect.
The best description of the ripper we have comes from a man called George Hutchinson. At around 2:00 he met Mary Kelly, the Ripper’s last victim in Thrawl Street, Whitechapel. Kelly asked him for some money but Hutchinson said he had none. Kelly walked away to the west in a homeward direction home to Dorset Street. Kelly was heading Commercial Road entrance. Dorset street was also joined this road about three blocks away. Kelly then met a man coming east from the Dorset Street direction. At least one biographer on Thompson, John Walsh, says that Thompson probably used the Providence Row night refuge in Crispin Street. This homeless shelter was at the east entrance to Dorset Street.
When reading eyewitness descriptions we should be reminded that what they saw was after dark. Street lighting in the Whitechapel was turned off after 11 pm. When operating the street lamps used oil of coal tar fuelled naphtha lamps. The brightness their yellow flames was that of a 25-watt electric bulb. The light radius of each lamppost was only about 5 meters.
Hutchinson saw the man tap Kelly on the shoulder and say something to her. Both the man and Kelly began laughing. Kelly said, ‘Alright', to him, and the man said, 'You will be alright for what I have told you', he put his right hand on her shoulder. Hutchinson followed the couple and at one point stood under the lamp outside the Queens Head pub a watched them as they walked passed him. The couple reached Dorset Street, near the narrow entrance to Kelly’s one room apartment in Miller’s Court. The man and her spoke for about three minutes and then Kelly said, 'Alright my dear, come along, you will be comfortable'. He then placed his arm on her shoulder and gave her a kiss. Whatever the man had or done may have made her weep, because he leant her, what Hutchinson thought was, a red handkerchief. They both went to the court together.
The man appeared to be aged in his mid thirties. He was about 5 foot and six inches in height. (173cms) He had a pale complexion, and dark hair. His eyes were dark and so were his eyelashes. H wore a slight moustache that was curled at the end. When the man had past the lamp outside the Queens Head, he had kept his head down covered by his dark felt hat that was turned down in the middle. He had given Hutchinson a surly look. The man wore a long dark coat, over a light waistcoat, which he described as an astrakhan style. The man’s trousers were dark and he wore a black tie with a horseshoe pin. He wore a very thick gold chain. In his left hand was a small parcel with a kind of strap round it. He was respectable appearance and walked very sharp though softly. Despite the man’s good dress Hutchinson believed he lived in the area. Hutchinson said he had possibly last seen him a few days earlier, on Sunday, in nearby Petticoat Lane.
Francis Thompson had a pale with very dark, brown hair. He was 29 years old, but three years on London’s streets may have made him appear older. He was around 5 foot 7 inches in height. (175cms) By November of 1888 he sported a moustache. Thompson had come to some money and had washed and bought a new clothes and suit. He wore a dark felt hat and as a practicing Catholic, he always wore his consecrated medal on a chain. He wore a long dark inverness style coat, waistcoat, black necktie and a wide brimmed soft felt slouched hat. Thompson carried a basket like parcel that that hung from a strap. If he were living the area, his new ostentatious clothing of a poet would have set him apart from the ordinary Whitechapel man, even more so when later he became the famous softly spoken poet.
(It might be some interest to find that the 1991 book ‘The Ripper And The Royals’. The author who claims to have interviewed this witnesses son, Reginald Hutchinson. The son that when he asked his father who the Ripper could be his answer was 'It was more to do with the Royal family than ordinary people')Leave a comment:
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Thompson’s Medical Training & the Ripper Murders.
How the Ripper was made the perfect killing machine?
Francis Thompson passed, with honors; the entrance examination to Owens medical College in Manchester. A high physical endurance was mandatory for the grueling workload. From the first semester, the study of anatomy, with dissection classes, was a major course requirement. He spent six years here training as a surgeon. A description of life at College in Manchester for our medical student from 1878 onwards was given in Bridget Bordman’s, 1888, book on Thompson, ‘Between Heaven & Charing Cross.’ Here she described the curriculum and working conditions.
‘…Anatomy had always occupied a central place in training and the dissecting of cadavers was accompanied by far more practical experience in assisting at operations….his time was almost equally divided between the College and the Hospital.…Outside there was a constant flow of traffic with patients arriving on stretchers or in carriage-like ambulances drawn by police horses…In the main hall a huge bell was continually clanging, twice for medical aid and three times when surgery was needed. In the Accident Room staff and students waiting to be called for their services gathered round the fire…There were two operating theaters with wooden tables, to which were attached leather straps for controlling those whose fear let to violent protest…’
It’s important to note the similarity between this real life scene, which describes the ringing bell alerting Thompson from the fire to practical work with a knife and his murder story, ‘The End Crowning Work’ in which he describes how a ringing bell called his ‘hero’ to stab his unconscious female victim to death before a fire.
‘At that moment, with a deadly voice, the accomplice-hour gave forth its sinister command. I swear I struck not the first blow, Some violence seized my hand, and drove the poniard down. Whereat she cried; and I, frenzied, dreading detection, dreading, above all, her wakening, struck again…There was a buzzing in my brain as if a bell had ceased to toll. How long had it ceased to toll? I know not. Has any bell been tolling? I know not…Or—was it the cathedral bell?... Silence now, at least; abysmal silence; except the sound (or is the sound in me?), the sound of dripping blood; except that the flame upon the altar sputters, and hisses.’
It is interesting that the murderer, in Thompson’s story, confuses the sound of ringing bells commanding him to action with church bells. With the Ripper murders the victims were probably unconscious when they were stabbed to death. The area of Whitechapel where they happened, with its famous bell foundry, is known for its many churches and ringing bell towers. The great numbers of tolling bells are reflected in the names of pubs such as the ‘Ten Bells’. Churches with bells included Christchurch Spitafields that had bells installed in 1730.
In 1888 a relatively new a process of dissection had been developed in Germany. Named after is founder, Rudolph Carl Virchow, this method was the first to assess each organ as individual pieces. It was the precursor to modern pathology. The Virchow Method taught to have the heart severed by reaching beneath the ribcage and severing the heart via an opening made in the pericardium that was a membrane lining the heart. This was same method of severing the heart that the ripper used, according to Dr. Bond. He performed the autopsy of the Ripper’s last victim, Mary Kelly. The Ripper removed the heart via the pericardium, in Kelly’s murky, dark bedroom. The Ripper deployed the Virchow technique and knew it so well they could perform it under time constraint, with a single knife, and purely by feel. Because it was such a new technique its method may have gone unnoticed by the doctors who performed autopsies on the Ripper victims because they would not have been schooled in it. Boardman in her biography on Thompson details his focus of study over the next 6 years.
‘But from the first session anatomy occupied a central place, with practical classes in dissection accompanying almost all the theoretical work. Before the discovery of X-rays, it was the only adequate means for students to gain the knowledge they needed, and only adequate means for students to gain knowledge they needed, and they were deliberately discouraged from using the library in preference to the dissecting room.’ BHCC p41
During Thompson's years at medical school where he was medically trained, the Virchow technique taught in England exclusively in Thompson’s student college and medical infirmary. From 1878 to 1883 Thompson studied to be a surgeon at Manchester’s Owens Medical College. Thompson also trained at Manchester’s Royal Infirmary. Francis Thompson’s lecturer of pathology and his infirmary director was Doctor Julius Dreschfeld. This professor of pathology had just returned from Germany where he was a pupil Rudolf Virchow. Having learned the Virchow method, Dreschfeld taught in Thompson’s classes in the infirmary’s surgery. He was said to be a brilliant and popular instructor who was followed by a trail of students. A peculiarity of Dreschfeld, was his concern that students attend his rounds and lecture. They took notes from his demonstrations on patients and cadavers and his students were in awe of his photographic memory for the science and practice of pathology. Dreschfeld, Thompson’s teacher was seen as the authority on the Virchow method and was instrumental in introducing it to England.
The regulation for attendance for students at Owens Medical College, was, ‘a daily record is kept of the attendance... in the lecture-rooms…absences will be reported to the Principal, who will, at his discretion, cause the same to be notified to the parent or guardian of the defaulting student. Thompson is listed as a student in all the University calendars of those years, with attendance for most terms credited to him. Since he effectively studied a full course of surgery three times, even if he had been absent half the time, he would have had learnt a great deal of surgery. The idea that Thompson slinked off to the library during those 6 years is unfounded because even if he skipped a day of school, his parents, who were paying the $500 pound yearly tuition fee, would have been informed. Thompson is listed every day in the daily registers. Apart from the start of the 1882 summer session, because he was sick, he attended every day. He also skipped all his final examinations and automatically failed the course. After trying three times Thompson quit being a medical student and took odd jobs. The last position he held, before leaving for London was working for three weeks at a medical instrument factory.
Unable to find proper work in London, Thompson’s sold his medical books but kept his dissecting scalpel. Even when he was most likely in living in the Providence Row night refuge oat 50 Crispin Street Whitechapel, opposite the entrance to Dorset Street where Mary Kelly was murdered. Thompson’s first published essay came out in the November 1888 edition ‘Merry England’ magazine. He was his typical, calculating self, when he wrote, in this essay published in the month that Kelly was killed.
'He had better seek some critic who will lay his subject on the table, nick out every nerve of thought, every vessel of emotion, every muscle of expression with light, cool, fastidious scalpel and then call on him to admire the "neat dissection"'
Richard Patterson 2015. Paradox.Leave a comment:
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A poet who enjoyed the seedy underbelly of inner city life. The further East you go, the less of an inner city buzz there is. Of course there are pubs and dockside doxies, but why go so far? Opium seemed a possible answer to me. And I doubt there's any way we can be sure that Thompson's opium intake came exclusively from laudanum.
And the point still remains that Thompson's being in the WID area is no more or less significant than if he had lodged in Bloomsbury. The fact that Spitalfields and Poplar are both in 'The East End' is not particularly significant.
MrBLeave a comment:
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Thompson was addicted to Laudanum. This was wine mixed with opium tincture. This drug could be purchased at any chemist in any part of London. What do you mean, 'a man like Thompson'?Originally posted by MrBarnett View PostLeave a comment:
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From Commercial Street, the WID Road and Bloomsbury are roughly equidistant. But let's not get hung up on Bloomsbury. Finsbury, Islington, Holborn would serve just as well.Originally posted by Richard Patterson View Post
And we have to ask ourselves why a man like Thompson would venture so far east. My guess would be that it had something to do with his taste for opium. So are we saying he schlepped all the way to Poplar to score, then nipped out to Spitalfields for a quick rip before trudging all the way back?
That doesn't found very convincing to me.
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