Why Thompson might be Jack the Ripper. In 1,200 words.

[Harry D]

Let's be honest, it most likely wasn't Thompson. The tortured poet vowing revenge on the class of woman who broke his heart is a nice story, and I can see why you'd want to keep it alive, but it's also a fanciful one. And that's without accounting for Thompson being left-handed and not in the best physical condition to carry out the murders.

[Amanda]

Question.....

Hi Richard,
I'm a bit perplexed as to why a lady of the night would go down an alley with a dirty vagrant who wouldn't have two pennies to rub together.

If Thompson looked as though he couldn't pay for their services, surely prostitutes would give him a wide berth let alone go somewhere quiet to get down to business.

As much as I'd love to consider your theory as a real possibility something doesn't quite gel for me. From your synopsis I gather that Thompson was in a somewhat deranged state of mind in 1888 whereas I personally feel that Jack was a much more calculating individual.
Then you have to consider the practicalities, if Thompson was Jack, he would have no doubt got blood on his clothes. So how does a vagrant living in a refuge get a change of clothes?
Lastly, the fact that Thompson knew how to remove a human heart does not make him an expert in removing female reproductive organs.

Not trying to be picky, just hoping that you can quash my doubts.
Amanda

[Richard Patterson]

Let's be honest, it most likely wasn't Thompson. The tortured poet vowing revenge on the class of woman who broke his heart is a nice story, and I can see why you'd want to keep it alive, but it's also a fanciful one. And that's without accounting for Thompson being left-handed and not in the best physical condition to carry out the murders.

Thanks being honest in your views about the theory that Thompson was the murderer.

Why is it fanciful?

Why do you think he was not in the best physical condition?

Why do you think the Ripper was right handed?

Given that the reasons you give are debatable. (Example: That the Ripper was right or left-handed. I'm of the opinion that the killer cut his victim's necks from behind myself.) Do you suggest we drop the notion? I tell you what, there are so many people, with so many theories, some think Barnett did it for example. I might just stick with Thompson until you give me something that rules him out. Thanks for your feedback.

[Richard Patterson]

Answers?

Hi Richard,
I'm a bit perplexed as to why a lady of the night would go down an alley with a dirty vagrant who wouldn't have two pennies to rub together.

If Thompson looked as though he couldn't pay for their services, surely prostitutes would give him a wide berth let alone go somewhere quiet to get down to business.

As much as I'd love to consider your theory as a real possibility something doesn't quite gel for me. From your synopsis I gather that Thompson was in a somewhat deranged state of mind in 1888 whereas I personally feel that Jack was a much more calculating individual.
Then you have to consider the practicalities, if Thompson was Jack, he would have no doubt got blood on his clothes. So how does a vagrant living in a refuge get a change of clothes?
Lastly, the fact that Thompson knew how to remove a human heart does not make him an expert in removing female reproductive organs.

Not trying to be picky, just hoping that you can quash my doubts.
Amanda

Thanks for all the questions Amanda, let me quash your doubts,

Thompson hated the sight of flowing blood. His six years full time training as a surgeon with half that time in the Manchester infirmary with its surgery gave taught him techniques to perform operations without allowing blood to mess his clothes. Since he had three times the medical training than most surgeons, it makes him more than capable in removing internal organs.

As to his appearance, just before the murders, Thompson came to money intermittently, three or four times, in his vagrancy years. A recent sum came from his publisher in September 1888. His publisher, seeing Thompson’s derelict condition of dress told him to clean himself up and buy a new suit with his money. His publisher, Wilfrid Meynell also paid Thompson’s opium debts. Thompson used the money to buy a suit, a long dark overcoat, and a wide felt hat. During the murders he received another sum of money. The payment by Meynell was for a further essay by Thompson for the publisher’s magazine. Thompson’s essay came out November 1888 edition. Thompson was his typical, calculating self, when he wrote, in this essay, on the eve of the Kelly murder,

'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"'

Thompson’s mind was stable enough in 1888 to form a relationship with a publisher and write and deliver sophisticated essays, which were remarkable in the range of writers, and poets he referenced, purely from memory, including lengthy word-for-word quotations.

[Ausgirl]

when Walsh stated that Thompson stayed at Providence Row, he was given an ascertained fact, rather than an uniformed remark.

I am certainly not accusing anyone of being 'uninformed' here.

What I'm saying is, you have a good enough suspect, IMO, as to be one of the few 'new' suspects which make any kind of sense. Therefore, you do your argument a vast disservice by doing what every half baked theorist does and "stretching" a perhaps into a definite in the attempt to make it all more convincing, and it just achieves the opposite.

He may have stayed at the Providence place, but was he there for the period of the murders? Was he moving between places? If you found a bit of info that contradicted your theory, would you include it, or push it under the nearest bit of furniture with the toe of your shoe and hope nobody notices?

I want to trust you as a researcher and an author, is what I am saying. Because this all looks actually quite feasible.

[Ausgirl]

I actually don't think it's fanciful. I am a poet, I hang out with poets. Some are odd, some affect oddness to look more like the odd ones, which is odd in itself. Some are elderly physics/lit/whatever professors and would twitch to have a hair out of place, but some just make you want to hand them a bar of soap and a pamphlet on venereal disease... In any case, many are *charming* as hell, and attractive to a lot of women because of it.

So I don't see any problem with a scruffy Thompson enticing a tipsy woman anywhere, with a few sweet words. Especially if he was known around the streets and occasionally had spare coin. But really, he might not have even needed that if he was anything like some of the wordsmiths I know.. I'm as cynical as they get, and I catch myself getting swoony when they lay it on thick. It's a gift. That's what makes them such good poets.

Physical condition --- again, from personal knowledge: of old punk-era mates who went badly astray --- a junkie living rough on the streets can certainly hold his own in a fist fight against a fitter person, can certainly jump fences to evade the cops and can lift 1980's-weight TV's like nobody's business. Cutting a throat wouldn't be a huge challenge for some of them.

Unless they were sick. Sickness hits them hard. As does withdrawal.

So I don't see any problem that way with him being a killer. Bit dubious on whether he was in the area at the times of the murders. Pin that down, and IMO he's a solid contender.

I'd like to know if he was the poet MK was said to hang out with!

There's a lot of room to dig for concrete facts here, to back this all up (from more than one source..). I'm quietly hoping this happens.

[Amanda]

Thanks...

Thanks Richard,

Satisfactory answers there.

Think my game plan now is to buy your book, devour every page and then see how I feel as Thompson as a suspect.

I warn you, I may have dozens of questions, I'm a persistent pain in the a**e!
Amanda

[Trevor Marriott]

Let's be honest, it most likely wasn't Thompson. The tortured poet vowing revenge on the class of woman who broke his heart is a nice story, and I can see why you'd want to keep it alive, but it's also a fanciful one. And that's without accounting for Thompson being left-handed and not in the best physical condition to carry out the murders.

And we have a modern day forensic pathologist who states that it is almost impossible to tell a left handed killer from a right handed one.

So this is just another part of the Ripper myth that has found its way down the swanee river !

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Richard Patterson]

I am certainly not accusing anyone of being 'uninformed' here.

What I'm saying is, you have a good enough suspect, IMO, as to be one of the few 'new' suspects which make any kind of sense. Therefore, you do your argument a vast disservice by doing what every half baked theorist does and "stretching" a perhaps into a definite in the attempt to make it all more convincing, and it just achieves the opposite.

He may have stayed at the Providence place, but was he there for the period of the murders? Was he moving between places? If you found a bit of info that contradicted your theory, would you include it, or push it under the nearest bit of furniture with the toe of your shoe and hope nobody notices?

I want to trust you as a researcher and an author, is what I am saying. Because this all looks actually quite feasible.

My apologies. I’m not accusing you of accusing anyone of being uniformed. Perhaps Thompson did not stay in the Providence Row refuge. Perhaps, although a strong Catholic, with ties to priests and the church, for some reason unknown to me Providence Row was a last and not a first resort of Thompson’s. Should I not have mentioned Walsh’s observation? I know of some casebook members have read the same book in the past and thought it worth not reporting. My 1,200 hundred word essay on why Thompson might be the Ripper is merely a compilation of what anyone could find on Thompson if they bothered to read the few books on him or take a trip a Boston College and look in the archives which are open to the public. There is no secret informant or hidden chest. It’s all there for you or me or anyone to look at. The bulk of what I write even now on Thompson was found in a few short weeks back in 1997, by visiting my local library. All I have learned to do since then is merely distill the essence of my research. In the 18 years that I have been presenting information on Thompson, no one has been able to show that I am in the habit of hiding contradictory evidence. Considering that I am accusing a famed poet, who is much admired by many millions of people, of ripping five women apart, I would have thought someone would have done so by now, if this were my habit. Don’t think people haven’t tried, considering Thompson’s profound influence. Even Middle Earth is not untouched by Thompson. J.R Tolkien admitted that the ‘Profound expressions’ in Thompson’s poems had an important influence on his own writing. Tolkien came to know Thompson’s work in 1910 and in 1914 gave a long talk in Exeter College’s Essay Club where he praised Thompson and said that he was, ‘in perfect harmony with the poet.’ Tolkien took inspiration from Thompson. Tolkien’s elf maiden Lúthien came from Thompson’s coinage of the word Luthany from his poem, “The Mistress of Vision” Tolkien’s use of the word Southron for southerner, in his “Lord of the Rings” comes from Thompson’s poem “At Lords”. If a Tolkien fan found a bit of info, that suggested that a possible prostitute murderer inspired their favorite author, would they ignore it and hoped nobody noticed? Readers, authors, ripperologists, journalists, historians, cardinals, and people who still make money from Thompson’s poetry have tried to invalidate my claims. Why? Probably its simply because truth hurts, when worlds collide. My essay certainly paints Thompson in the worst possible way, but it does so in 1,200 words while book does more of the same using 125,000 words, without anyone able to find a bit of info to discredit it. I appreciate your wish to sort the wheat from the chaff. I acknowledge that speaking truthfully is important to you. I certainly didn’t mean to appear offensive or defensive, but placing Thompson under suspicion has never been an exercise of nicety.

[Richard Patterson]

...
I'd like to know if he was the poet MK was said to hang out with!
...

I think that the idea that Mary Kelly had a friendship with a poet comes from 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.

It was an Old Bailey officer who offered Hopkins information on the case. Although the officer is not named, his knowledge of all 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. The Catholic poet Francis Thompson, had trained for six years as a surgeon at Owens Medical College Manchester, dissecting hundreds of cadaver. Even 46 years after the murders, Hopkins was not ready to give his suspect an actual name so he made one up, calling him Mr Moring. Funny thing about Thompson, but 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. Both Francis Thompson and Hutchinson’s man carried a parcel with a strap around it, were near the same height, were pale, had very dark hair, had a moustache, wore a dark coat and sported chains.

Here is a section of Hopkins’s chapter on the Ripper detailing the poet and his friendship with Mary 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.’

That Hopkins's poet may have been Thompson, a long time user and addict to opium, is reinforced by Walsh's 1967 biography on Thompson. It tells of Hopkins’ connection to Thompson, who 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 after a few months was forced to fire Thompson after he injured a customer. Hopkins included these details in his 1927 book, “This London - Its Taverns, Haunts And Memories.”

[Ausgirl]

Should I not have mentioned Walsh’s observation? I know of some casebook members have read the same book in the past and thought it worth not reporting?

Heck no, it deserves a mention. It helps you theory along, and if you do happen to find some further circumstantial evidence, it can only help.

Just, it's one thing to say he stayed there, another to put him in the area during the necessary time frame.

Also, the dislike of blood - and I know you've addressed this elsewhere here, but all the same -- makes me wonder why he's pick such a bloody way to express himself. Really, it does.

I too look forward to reading, however. I think the Royal conspiracists, Patty Cornwell, the Van Gogh guy, etc., have made your case harder to argue than it might have otherwise been.

[Ausgirl]

One of Mary Kelly's friends was a poor devil-driven poet who often haunted the taverns

What I'd like to see, if this guy was known about the area (and being a poet, I doubt he didn't make some sort of spectacle of himself, silent or loud), is mention of him anywhere else at all.

This is at present a tenuous thread - but an exciting one!



Description fits. I call it the "Nick Cave aura", lol. And I know a handful of poets who have it. They're the ones I fall for, in a moment, and spend years regretting it. And not regretting it, all at once.

[Wickerman]

And we have a modern day forensic pathologist who states that it is almost impossible to tell a left handed killer from a right handed one.

So this is just another part of the Ripper myth that has found its way down the swanee river !

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

I sometimes wonder Trevor, just how precise your questions are to these 'professionals' who you approach.
A vague question will undoubtedly produce a vague reply.

As the body in Millers Court was only accessible from one side I am sure a professional will be able to determine whether the sweeps of the knife were left-to-right (left-handed), or right-to-left (right-handed).
Likewise with the case of Chapman, positioned too close to the fence for a killer to stand on her left side.

It would be extremely awkward for a left-handed killer to slice the abdomen from breastbone to pubs when he is positioned by her right side, but quite easy for a right-handed killer. Likewise, the facial bruises on Nichols are consistent with them being caused by a left hand, holding the head firm while the knife is used in the right hand to slice her throat.

There are indications in all the victims, we just have to look close enough.
Or, when consulting the opinions of others, ask the right questions.

[Roy Corduroy]

[ATTACH]16616[/ATTACH]

Our Lady of England Priory Storrington, Sussex where he stayed in 1889. Francis Thompson's room was on the third floor, extreme left.

Thanks for the terrific photo of the priory. When you say the 3rd floor are using the British convention that has the street level as the ground floor and the floor above it as the first floor, or the American English, where street level is the first floor? The incident with Thompson and an attack dog is not in Walsh’s biography.

You're welcome, Richard, I don't know which convention, simply repeating the caption from the John Walsh bio page 83.

[Wickerman]

What I'm saying is, you have a good enough suspect, IMO, as to be one of the few 'new' suspects which make any kind of sense. Therefore, you do your argument a vast disservice by doing what every half baked theorist does and "stretching" a perhaps into a definite in the attempt to make it all more convincing, and it just achieves the opposite.

Over baking the cake, yes, an easy trap to fall into.
Although I admit to not having read everything Richard has written about his suspect, I also agree this suspect appears a good deal more acceptable than many others that come to mind.

Also, too many theorists try to sell a belief as a fact, or a possibility as a certainty. Let the reader draw their own conclusions. A theory cannot provide answers to every question, and any theory that tries to do this immediately draws suspicion.

I want to trust you as a researcher and an author, is what I am saying. Because this all looks actually quite feasible.

Unless I have missed something significant, yes this suspect appears quite feasible.