Francis Thompson
by Richard Patterson
“Every Scope, by immoderate use, turns to restraint”
The motto of Francis Thompson
“I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled”
The motto of Jack the Ripper
The poet Francis Thompson was born on December the 18th, 1859
, in Preston Lancashire. He died in 1907 aged 48 in London. In
the 1890’s he was involved with the Aesthetic art movement,
a cricket enthuisast, Thompson’s most famous poem ‘The
Hound of Heaven’ described the pursuit of a human soul by
God.
In 1888, the publication of two of his poems in Wilfrid
Meynell’s Roman Catholic perodical the ‘Merry England’,
brought praise from the well known poet Robert Browning. Meynell,
and his wife Alice, befriended Francis Thompson and were said to
have induced him to enter a hospital for convalescence. In 1893,
the Meynells arranged the publication of a collection, of his
works called simply ‘Poems’. This collection was highly
praised by other writers such as William Butler Yeats and G.K
Chesterton. Thompson died of a tuberculosis-related illness in
1907.
The multiple murderer, destined to be known as Jack the
Ripper, is believed to have struck in the early hours of August
31st, 1888 with the murder of Mary Ann Nichols in the district of
Whitechapel, in the East End. By the 9th of November 1888 Jack
the Ripper had killed five women, his last victim being that of
Mary Kelly.
In all five murders the nearest landmark is Christ Church of
Whitechapel. It was built in 1714 and completed in 1729. It still
dominates the surrounding street-scape with its portico and
spire.
In the middle ages, when the Roman Catholic Church dominated
England, there were in existence areas of land, usually a church
and surrounding sacred ground, known as sanctuaries. A sanctuary
was a safe harbor for the accused.
Back then, if someone committed murder but reached a sanctuary
then they could avoid arrest. It was reasoned that if a suspect
was truly guilty then their fate was under the jurisdiction not
of the sherrif, but of God. If a suspect could enter sacred
ground without suffering a blight from heaven then it was
reasoned that they must be innocent.
Only a few sanctuaries were in London. All of the five
murders, by the hand of Jack the Ripper, took place within one of
these sanctuaries. By 1888, most of the people living in the area
had no knowledge of this.
The first murder, that of Ann Nichols, occurred on August
31st. In the Catholic calender of patron saints this date falls
upon the feast day of St. Raymond. The patron saint of innocence.
This 13th century Cardinal was also the patron saint of
MIdwives, childbirth, children, and pregnant women. Saint Raymund
was a missionary who was imprisoned by Moselms in Algeria for
attempting to convert the poor. His lips were pierced and his
mouth was shut up with a padlock. The lock was only removed when
he ate. After being freed Saint Raymund insisted in travelling as
a peasant In which manner he died on his way to visit the Pope.
The second murder, of Annie Chapman, occured on September the
8th. This date falls on the feast day of Saint Adrian. This saint
was an imperial officer who made himself a Christian before he
was baptised. He was imprisoned for this and was then martyred by
being thrown into a furnace. His wife kept his hand. Saint Adrian
is the patron saint of Soldiers & Butchers. He lived in the
East.
The night of the double murders, upon which Elizabeth Stride
and Catherine Eddowes were killed occured on September the 30th.
This falls on the feast day of Saint Jerome. This saint was a
scholar who settled in the eastern city of Bethlehem and was
known for his short temper. He is the Patron saint of Doctors and
Scholars. Saint Jerome translated the bible into a Latin work
known as the ‘Vulgate’. Thompson would write upon its
affects upon him in an essay on Saint Jerome. Thompson sometimes
signed his name Francis Tancred. This was after an eastern
crusading knight who captured Galailee in 1099 and set himself up
as prince of Nazareth.
The last murder, that of Mary Kelly, occured on November the
9th. This fell on the feast day of Saint Theodore. This saint was
a Roman soldier who, after setting fire to a temple, was
tortured. In prison Saint Theodore saw visions and was martyred
by being thrown into a furnace. He was known as one of the thre
great “soldier saints” of the East. Said to have
battled a dragon Saint Theodore is the Patron saint of Soldiers.
One possible motive for The Ripper to have killed these five
women, and sent letters to the press, was that he thought that he
had been chosen be God, and that he thought that he was the voice
of God. Perhaps by killing these five women he would be
inflicting five wounds upon society’s church, goverment,
science,literature, and people.
Perhaps Jack the Ripper percieved himself as a ‘messiah’
who, by killing within a religious site in Londons east upon the
feast days of martyred saints, could sin and be forgiven. These
saints were all eastern crusaders, and parton saints of
Innocence, Butchers, Soldiers, Doctors, and Scholars. The Ripper
may have attempted to simulate the key concepts of the original
crucifixtion. Perhaps by killing five percieved ‘sinners’
Jack the Ripper was attempting to project the five wounds of
Christ’s crucifixion onto a stigmata of immediate social
impact. And thus, as a crusading knight, Jack the Ripper could
elect himself a key player in an apocalypse and be forgiven of
his sins.
Francis Thompson was named after Saint Francis of Assisi, who
in 1219 AD traveled with a crusading expedition to the East. In
1224 AD, Saint Francis was the first person to manifest the
wounds of the stigmata, bleeding from locations corresponding
with the wounds of the crucified Christ. Saint Francis, once a
beggar, was, by his request, buried in a cemetary for criminals.
The constant bleeding of Saint Francis’s stigmata took two
years to kill him.
Thompson’s father was Dr. Charles Thompson and his mother
was Mary Morton Thompson, both were Catholic converts. His mother
had only recently converted to Catholicism. It had casued her
Protestant family to disown her.
On December of 1868, When Thompson was nine years of age
rioting between Catholics and Protestants occured in
Ashton-under-Lyne, where he now lived. The riot entailed three
days of continual fighting in which the army was called in. By
the riot’s end 111 houses of the Catholic faithful had been
burnt, the interior of the church of St. Anne’s was
destroyed. The mob attempted to storm St. Mary’s but a gaurd
was posted inside. For a month the entire clergy was oblidged to
leave town. It is extremly likely that Thompson’s father
would have been pressed to render services by treating the
wounded in his own home. It was in this year that Francis
Thompson first read the ‘Apocalypse’.
In 1870, when Thompson was eleven years old he entered the
Catholic school of St. Cuthberts, Ushaw Colledge in Durnham. As
was standard practise in such schools his classmates, to initiate
Thompson, whipped him. In 1871, whilst still at Ushaw Colledge,
Thompson, then an alter boy studying for the priest hood,
unexpectedly seized another boys thurible. This was the device
used to hold burning incense. Thompson spun it aound over his
head causing the charcoal embers to be scattered, he had
previously unhinged the lid.
In 1877 Thompson failed the priesthood. In the Autumn of 1878
Thompson entered his name on the Manchester Royal Infirmary
registrar. The infirmary, in which he studied for the next six
years as a surgeon, required that its students had a strong
physique for the grueling workload. The study of anatomy, with
dissection classes was a major part of study from the first
semester.
In 1879 Francis Thompson fell ill with a lung infection,
Thompson was medicated with laudanum. His mother gave him De’Quincey’s
‘Confessions of an opium eater’. Thompson became
endeared to this writer, who also from Manchester, had died the
year Thompson was born. De’Quincey published, in 1827, a
work titled ‘Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts’.
It was an instructive piece upon how a poet could commit murder.
In 1880, after suffering a complaint of the liver Thompson’s
mother died, aged 58. It was the day after Francis Thompson’s
21st birthday.
In 1882 Thompson, now addicted to opium suffered a medical
breakdown after twice failing his medical examinations. His
poetry sent to publishers in secret were all rejected. By 1885
Francis Thompson had failed medical for the third time and after
a heated argument with his father over the theft of opium, and
possibly, his fathers plans was to soon have a second wife, Anne
Richardson. On November the 8th 1885, the night of the argument
with his father, Francis Thompson left home for London.
Between 1885 to 1888 Francis Thompson spent the majority of
his time as a homeless vagrant living in the Docklands south of
Whitechapel. Thompson tried his hands at a number of occupations.
As well as a surgeon and a priest Thompson tried his hand at
being a soldier but was dismissed for failing in drill. He also
worked in a medical factory. This may have been where, apart from
his years as a surgeon, Thompson may have procurred the disecting
scapel which he claimed to have possessed when he wrote to the
editor of the ‘Merry England’ in January of 1889 of his
need to swap to a razor for shaving.
The first reports of a suspect in the Whitechapel murders gave
the desription as someone owning a leather apron. Francis
Thompson later claimed that he owned a leather apron during his
homelessness during 1888. Thompson claimed , apart from a suicide
attempt involving a ghost, that he fell in love with a
prostitute. Even the name of this prostitute is still unknown. It
was at the very time of the ripper murders that it is claimed
Thompson took to the streets to find her. Previously to this
Thompson had recieved indirect news of the publication of his
poem ‘The Passion of Mary’ in the ‘Merry England’.
Thompson, still adicted to opium, which is known to produce
hallucinations, sent amongst his writing to Alice and Wilfrid
Meynell a poem titled ‘The Ballad of the Witch Babies’,
never published, it conerned a lusty young knight who roams the
midst laden darkness hunting down and disembowling women.
Thompson, who was predominately left handed, wrote a short
story, in 1889, his only one. It was named ‘Finis Coronat
Opus’ which is latin for the ‘End Crowning Work’.
Thompson’s story concerned a young poet who sacrifices a
women in a pagan temple. His motive is to gain inspiration for
his poetry from the gates of hell and thus achieve fame. Within
the story Thompson’s attention to the percieved thoughts of
a man in a killing frenzy with a knife is recorded by Thompson to
a fine degree. The story continues with the so called ‘hero’
smashing a crucyfix upon an alter after he becomes aware that the
entity he has conjured envolopes reality and forces his suicide.
Thompson most lauded poem ‘Sister Songs’ records a
poets realisation of the birth of a female entity in a visionary
trance.
In early 1889 Francis Thompson was sent to the Franciscan
priory of our Lady of England. Women were not allowed to enter
the guard dog, which attacked Thompson patrolled the grounds.
Franciscan monks are still known their swearing to a vow of
silence.
Francis Thompson was generaly despised by most of the Meynell
children. Thompson’s father cut him from his will worth 1500
pounds. Thompson’s sister, Margaret Thompson changed her
name, shifted to Canada and pretended no knowledge of Francis.
Any letter he sent Margeret burnt. Margaret’s daughter, who
was a nun in 1949 when her mother died said her mother thought
Thompson a failure and a disgrace.
Mary Thompson, Francis’s other sister described her
brother when she was a nun known Mother Austin. When asked to
recall in 1937 Mother Austin told that his eyes were a dark grey
with a shade of blue, full of intelligence and light. His hair
was very dark brown, so dark as to appear almost black at first
sight. His complextion was sallow rather than pale.
A friend of Francis Thompson’s for two years Sarath Kumar
Ghosh told of Thompson being of medium height, but very slight
frame, which made him taller. His cheeks were sunken giving
prominence to a little grey beard that was pointed at the end.
His clothing was frayed and he often wore a great ulster coat .
Thompson was also noted for his habit of wearing neckties which
he was known to adjust with his expression. Many theorists allow
that the weapon used to strangle the Whitechapel women was a
necktie.
Thompson died in 1907. He weighed only 32 kilograms. Many
biographiers upon Thompson have questioned the circumstances of
Thompson death and point towards an undiclosed autopsy. When
Thompson was buried in Kensal Green cemetary in London no
relative and only a dozen mourners attended. Thompson died when
it seemed his reputation as a poet was at its height. Within
three years a single poem, Thompson’s ‘The Hound of
Heaven’ , had sold over 50,000 copies. The Meynell’s,
who owned royalties recieved a small fortune. Thompson who
considered himself a prophet and wrote of himself as being the
Omen in his poem 'Sister Songs is marked by his grave with the
words. 'Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven'.
