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ot sorry.. but what's that dark building/place at cr of Albert & Underwood?
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Ausgirl ,
It was a model lodging house. I think this was it .
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The Guildhall library is in the heart of the City, not the East End.
If you draw a circle with Dorset Street at its centre and the West India Docks on its circumference you would take in most of Central London, North and South of the river.
Living near the West India Docks would have given Thompson no better access to Spitalfields than, say, living in Bloomsbury.Comment
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Thanks Mr.Barnett. Why 'model', though?Comment
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Yes you are right. The Guildhall library was in the city, though the West India Docks are closer to the East End than Bloomsbury. I have not drawn a circle from Crispin Street, in Whitechapel, where Thompson lived, to the furthest murder site, but I'm sure the circle would be a far smaller one than what you envision.Originally posted by MrBarnett View PostComment
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Hi Richard,Originally posted by Richard Patterson View Post
It depends on how you define the East End. Surely all that's relevant is how easily the killer could access the murder sites from his place of residence. The West India Docks are a fair distance from the murder sites.
If you walk the same distance West as the WID are from Spitalfields you are very definitely not in the East End (and you won't be far from Bloomsbury). I don't see how someone living in the WID area would have a geographical advantage over someone living in Bloomsbury or Clerkenwell or half a dozen other districts that aren't covered by the very vague term 'the East End'. And someone living in the City would be much closer. Dorset Street was virtually in the City.
If Thompson can be placed in Crispin Street in 1888, then he was very close to the action. If he was near the WID, he was not. The fact that they were East of the City and can be considered part of the East End is not in itself particularly significant.
MrBComment
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The geographical advantage would be that the West India Docks are closer to Whitechapel than Bloomsbury. Just as living in Cripin street would be geographically advantageous. I agree if he was in the WID it would still require at least a half hour walk to Whitechapel. If he choose to stay at Crispin Street's Providence Row, it makes every murder location a little stroll.Originally posted by MrBarnett View PostComment
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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.
MrBComment
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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 PostComment
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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.
MrBComment
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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.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')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.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?
JeffComment
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