Francis Thompson. The Perfect Suspect.

[Ms Diddles]

Hi Ms D,

It’s just a biography of Thompson. It’s a really good book though and I’ve just looked on the price check site that I use and there’s one on sale on Amazon for £9.93 inc p+p.

Thanks Herlock!

I'll check it out.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock!

I haven't come across Strange Harp, Strange Symphony before.

Is it a simple biography of Thompson or is it proposing that he's the Ripper?

Hi Ms D,

It’s just a biography of Thompson. It’s a really good book though and I’ve just looked on the price check site that I use and there’s one on sale on Amazon for £9.93 inc p+p.

[Ms Diddles]

It’s been a while since I read Patterson’s book but I also read ‘Strange Harp, Strange Symphony: The Life of Francis Thompson by John Walsh on the recommendation of Gary Barnett, which is an excellent biography.

From what I can recall Thompson simply admitted to using a razor for shaving when he was wandering around and this is the only evidence of any ‘weapon.’ He was also in search of a woman that he had feelings for who I believe was a prostitute but she wasn’t an East End prostitute and I believe that he only ever talked/wrote of her in glowing terms. I seem to remember that he did spend some time in the East End though and near to Miller’s Court but I don’t think that it could be tied down to the time of the murders (I’ll stand correcting on this of course because I’m just working from memory ad I’m far from sure that his presence in the East End was proven). He did study medicine for a time but without much enthusiasm but of course he would have picked up medical/anatomical knowledge (if the ripper did have such knowledge)

Thompson reminds me in some ways of Van Gogh. A troubled man whose life was blighted by mental issues whether caused by or exacerbated by an addiction to opium. He appears to have been someone who was well liked by many. Personally I don’t see him as the ripper by any stretch but he had an interesting life and I don’t see that we have any reason for dismissing him.

Hi Herlock!

I haven't come across Strange Harp, Strange Symphony before.

Is it a simple biography of Thompson or is it proposing that he's the Ripper?

[GBinOz]

Ability:
Thompson trained as a surgeon for 6 years, at Owens Medical College Manchester, where he cut up hundreds of cadavers. There he was taught the very new and rare technique of heart removal called the Virchow method. This entails the removal of the heart via the pericardium. Doctor Thomas Bond, who performed Mary Kellys Autopsy, told the killer had used this method to remove her heart.

This is what originally caught my attention regarding Thompson, but when I googled the Virchow method this is what was returned: "In the Virchow technique, the organs are re- moved one by one and dissected as removed." I can't really see how this relates to Bond's comment, as the pericardium is the fibrous sac that enclosed the heart and great vessels. Perhaps a member with medical knowledge could explain?

Cheers, George

[FISHY1118]

Should've let sleeping dogs lie.

[MrBarnett]

According to Walsh, Thompson was in hospital for six weeks between October and December, 1888. He had been sent there having been examined by a doctor who said he was in a state of near total physical collapse.

Patterson suggests this physical wreck of a man somehow entered the London docks and started fires as a distraction from his activities in Bucks Row.

Did he overpower the Dock police manning the gates or did he scale the walls?

[MrBarnett]

Yet we dont know that he in fact didnt carry one around with him , just sayin its possible .


So its also possible he could have being staying at the refuse , which would technically make him a resident ?

We just dont know he/they [other suspects] were there at the time of the murders , have i got that bit right ?

Of course there are other suspects for whom there is no evidence of their being in the East End at the time. There are lots of weak suspects.

If we compare people like Joe Barnett or Charles Lechmere, long-term residents who had reason to be in or very near the murder sites, to Thompson who may or may not have been anywhere near them in 1888, I fail to see how he warrants a high score.

[Harry D]

Very interesting suspect .

Should've let sleeping dogs lie.

[FISHY1118]

The answer to your first question is obviously yes. Many of the suspects that have been put forward were East End residents.

Every adult in the country had access to a knife.

Patterson takes a throwaway comment by Thompson that he had once shaved with a scalpel as evidence that he carried one around with him in the East End in 1888.

Yet we dont know that he in fact didnt carry one around with him , just sayin its possible .


So its also possible he could have being staying at the refuse , which would technically make him a resident ?

We just dont know he/they [other suspects] were there at the time of the murders , have i got that bit right ?

[MrBarnett]

Is there any hard evidence any suspect was in the east end at the time of the murders ?,

He once had a knife , which he may used to kill who knows ?

The answer to your first question is obviously yes. Many of the suspects that have been put forward were East End residents.

Every adult in the country had access to a knife.

Patterson takes a throwaway comment by Thompson that he had once shaved with a scalpel as evidence that he carried one around with him in the East End in 1888.

[FISHY1118]

There is no hard evidence that Thompson was in the East End at the time of the murders.

He once had a knife.

He wrote some strange poems, although none of them ever mention prostitutes.

He had some medical training, but it seems he spent a lot of his time as a student going to the theatre and other entertainments.

Is there any hard evidence any suspect was in the east end at the time of the murders ?,

He once had a knife , which he may used to kill who knows ?

[MrBarnett]

So was he in the mens section ?

We have no idea. As I say, he wrote an article describing men queuing to get into the refuge, but it’s not clear in that whether he ever got in himself. At least not in the extract quoted by Walsh, which is what Richard Patterson bases his claim on.

It’s also not clear when he attempted to get into the refuge, it could have been in 1887.

[Pcdunn]

Not poor Francis Thompson, again! I argued for his innocence back a few years ago, and I'm sorry to see he is still being discussed as a "suspect."
He's one of the most renowned British Catholic poets of his time. He wrote the "Hound of Heaven"!
Circumstantial "evidence" based on misunderstood writings and the fact that he was sometimes a poverty-stricken street person, mixed with a likely myth about his prostitute lover-- do not a theory make.

[MrBarnett]

Patterson says:

Opportunity:
Thompson was able to walk the streets at all hours. Being homeless for 3 years in the East End, he was part of the landscape and could come and go without rousing suspicion.


Walsh, on the other hand, says:

How long a period of such doss-house misery and actual street Thomson endured remains uncertain - it was at least six months, perhaps as much as eight or nine - but the worst of it came to and end when he was rescued by from some particularly dire situation by one of the army of harlots that infested London’s West End. With this nameless prostitute he eventually entered a more or less steady relationship.

Thompson supposedly met the prostitute in 1887, and his notes about the doss-house phase mention places in west London.

‘3 years in the East End’ is a complete fiction.

[FISHY1118]

At one stage Patterson was claiming that Thompson could look through the window of the room he was staying in at the Night Refuge and see the entrance to Miller’s Court. He dropped that claim when it was pointed out to him that only the windows in the women’s section of the refuge looked down Dorset Street. The men’s section was at the rear of the building.

So was he in the mens section ?