Jack The Ripper: Francis Thompson

[Music] Providence Row is a homeless shelter that was established and run by the Sisters of Charity a Catholic organization a non-denominational Society which meant that any person of any religious persuasion was allowed to enter but it was run by Catholic nuns ideally for Francis Thompson who had started as a priest Providence Road have been the best place for him to have stayed during his homeless years by November 1888 which is when opened during the winter months Francis Thompson could have been admitted to the road and we know that fenceless Thompson stated Providence Road because he told that he stayed in Providence throw in the 1891 January edition of merry England where he wrote an article catholics in darkest England in that article he talked about the difficulties of living on the streets and the sadness of being a vagrant and how how difficult it was and he talked about how he waited it was great enos an inch of the road and so literally from the stairway of Providence Road on the night of the murder of Mary Kelly Francis Thompson cook looked out the window down to the covered archway that would have led into Miller's court out of the hundred or so suspects I don't think you have a suspect that we could actually pinpoint aliso close to one of the murder sites even suspects who spent their lives living in the east then we have ones who've lived in neighboring streets such as Jacob levy but even he is further away from one of the murder locations so Frances Thompson is the only suspect who we can show was closer to the murder than any other suspect he also happened to have six years of highly skilled medical training in anatomy and dissection and a dissecting scalpel and if you asked mr. Thomson what are you doing at Providence row he's answer would have been quite honestly I'm here seeking out a prostitute I'm hunting down a prostitute who left me because that's what occurred he'd had a relationship with a prostitute for a year in June when he first became published she said she was going to leave him he was devastated and he refused to leave the streets even though he was been paid by Wilfred mean all because he didn't want to lose it he was literally on the streets of spirits field hunting down a prostitute he left him at the very time that prostitutes had been murdered by someone that coroner's and doctors and police officers suspected had medical their non anatomical knowledge which Thompson did have [Music] [Music] my name is Richard Patterson and I live in northern New South Wales in Ocean Shores and I work at for research for a company that researches alternative medicine it surprised me that Francis Thompson wasn't a suspect he had all the things going for him and I was shocked that Nolan had conceived or bothered to write a book about him so I thought somebody had to write a book because he's such a good suspect so I thought well I'll do it and if somebody else is dead doing it then they can take over the role I really feel that if I didn't write a book somebody else would think of it very soon after me and they'd write a book and I thought well I'll just write a book and then give it to the experts and let them decide I read a plan by Francis Thompson it was a short book there was a nun on the way home from the city to my house in Melbourne and I thought to pass the time I'd read something so I purchase a tiny book on a part I never heard of I was reading one of these poems and halfway through burying the poem I thought to myself I think he could be Jack the Ripper and the poem not that I'm great with memory but it's called an eruv love song it was a very romantic poem in my city's poetry that was publishers is really beautiful and this better remember one of the key verses says leave thy father leave thy mother leave thy brother leave the black tents of our tribe apart am I not thy father and thy brother and late mother and thou what need us now if thy tribes black 10 who has the red villian of thy heart I thought well that's sweet but it's actually he's actually saying love nobody but me he's saying give up everybody sacrificed everything don't have a sister or brother or family just only loved me and he gives up nothing I thought well there's no way you know it's gonna be seduced by that sort of romantic poem but I thought but what if you're a prostitute and you're scared what if you worried that something's going to kill you what if you can't even get him room for the night and you're just in the cold and damp and then you this is meant to be a butcher on the streets about to kill you and then this Englishman comes up or he taps you on the back of it and you turn around and he smiles and says something sweet to you like that I thought maybe they might be seduced by it I thought he's pretty sinister and so I thought well I wonder what he was doing in 1888 well he had a major shift in his life from homelessness and drug addiction on the streets to becoming a well-known pilot I thought well he went through a major personal transition during the same year that the murders occurred I thought maybe there's a connection and I began to research it well it took me I suppose 20 years to write the book and the research involved and one way it was very easy and simple these are much of the material are already been published I sort of prided the theory in the fact that everything I was finding wasn't locked away hidden under beds or in teen chests there was in the local library there were lots of books about Frances Thompson and it just required reading those books with the eye that he's the Ripper I for some particular books particularly the 1913 are worth fifty by Everett mean or that if he just slept on the front of the cover the secret life of Jack the Ripper instead of the life of Francis Thompson and you read it from beginning to the end it pretty much tell you everything you need to know about Jason Brewer part but still I went to Boston College which is a Byrnes library so I did travel through diverse states and look at the archival material look at his handwritten notes look at his writing look at the original letters and I found information that I don't think anyone else had bothered to print or publish and that's in my book I did come to London and I did go to the murder scenes and I didn't visit racist Thompson's grave and I did have make forensic photography other dear boss letters so and spoke to descendants of the victims and descendants of the police officers so I did footwork and groundwork but primarily a lot of my material was all there in and I've sort of filled when I look at other researchers that they that sort of trawl through the archives that I had an easy time because so much was published as so much already Thomason loved to talk about himself and and and pretty much divulged everything I feel well not over 20 years was researching I pretty much had the material not the bulk of what could have been a book many many years ago and I wrote a synopsis for a book and I sent it to a publisher and they read it came back to their publisher and said that my book might is an oddity the theories and oddity and he can never make a book there won't be enough material so I was rejected by a publisher I then write some more and I wrote my self-published book called paradox and I received some sales for that but I didn't really know to market all the way from Australia internet was in its infancy I knew the market is really the UK and I sent that smaller version with a synopsis to another publisher that the reader of that publisher said that I got my facts wrong is a Dictionary of National Biography says that Francis Thompson was placed in there they're starting to monastery at the beginning of 1888 which was a type of type out of that from an Dictionary of National Biography but that was enough for the reader to say well Richard hasn't checked these facts because if he'd been in the monasteries instead of 1898 which is 80 kilometers away from the murders that sort of lessens the chance that he could have committed the crimes of course so they looked at so their readers looked at books but not all the books and they came to conclusion that those books were right when those books weren't right so I was rejected by another publisher so with material which I felt could've gone to a publisher I continued to build on the on the length of the book and and bring up more complex discussions one thing I'd noticed when I looked at Jason River books is that there wasn't and there never has been apart from one book which is when I wrote in 2014 but a novelized version there wasn't just a book that gave acronym chronology of the murders a day-by-day account of the murders most books been the first few chapters going through the murders and then they spend the rest of their time going on about their suspect and I never seen a book that just says day 1 day 2 day 3 what's all the things that happened during each day and I thought a day-by-day account so I thought what I'd do is at first is constructed day by day account a chronology of the crimes and when I saw parallels that kanesha defenses Thompson I would create a new paragraph and to say hey this is what occurred but this is what was happening to Thompson at the time so I thought that would be the best way to display the work and I so my first attempt was to talk about Francis Thompson up into 1888 then spend 5 chapters each chapter on each murder and when appropriate bringing Thompson in tour to show how he relates to those murders and then after 1888 dr. Francis Thompson and continue with his life but the nonfiction which I'm going to publish instead is thematic where I talk about witnesses and then I'll talk about the dear boss letters and then I'll talk about the victims or then I'll talk about the location or lot about the police I think that gives I think for a reader it's much easier for a reader to delve into it but it was it was a difficult to write it was just a hard book to write because I actually I fly woman died people were actually were killed and at the beginning it wasn't a cerebral thing it was very emotional I felt that I'd come up with a suspect knowing the scene and because the suspect influenced oral history many aspects it's things that I loved for example I loved TS Eliot I love his poetry and I feel photos they all stayed in blood I felt a lot of the things I liked the ghs and I like Coventry Patmore's poetry I like so much of literature and then suddenly I saw this dark rain through things that I liked so it was difficult my control for me and also I was just sad that in some bunch of women have been killed and that Francis Thompson if he was a sus was guilty and got away scot-free and had this life of leisure afterwards and it to me just means how unjust well there's a lot more that I wrote that's not in the book I've got I think about 120,000 words at the moment in the book but I literally could have put 580,000 there were I there are three pages taken away for every one page put into the book it was I could have just continued to write and write and write there was so much because Francis Thompson was was really well read he knew heaps and heaps of history and for me to understand Thompson I had to read what he read for me to understand the life he lived lived and to understand the church I understand the streetscape to I understand the religious history to understand how he saw spears filled over many centuries to I understand how he might have perceived the women to understand all the literature he Red Bull written he read Thomas De Quincey I read Charles Dickens II read Shakespeare so I had to read all those things to understand a little minor references he made I then had to read about other serial killers so I could compare and those crimes so I became well-versed in all the other serial killers well-versed in in literature and that the literature stand back spanned centuries so those heaps and heaps and heaps of breeding everything became important I've pretty much had to read everything it's just again to grasp of the 19th century to understand the world he lived you the reason I left to maybe 400 words 400 thousand words out of my book was because I don't think your first-time authors going to get a publisher with a book there's many many many thousands of words pretty much a bullet yeah first time off we can get away of publishing when it comes to a printed versions 80,000 and I pretty much pushed the envelope of 120,000 but I could have written much more so my plan was it because I've got say less words that I wish I could have written I'll just write only things that show that Francis Thompson was Jack the Ripper and just feature that if I write a paragraph but it's not making the reader see how he could be the river I'll leave that paragraph out even though it's fascinating even though it gives you great insights into his life and the power and the struggle and you and give a true indication of the human condition I thought no I can't write this even if it is great philosophy I've got it leave it out but when writing a book of running a factual book you know I once heard a rumor that says I'm history is just the distillation of rumor and I soon discovered that what some people think of facts a really disappeared we pretty much nothing is true in a sense I've never been to the moon so how do I know it's not made of cheese I've just heard someone it's just faith so many things that we assume a facts of faith so when I when selecting facts for Francis Thompson and talking about he's like I'm talking about the Ripper crimes you might get two or three or four or five versions of events so I couldn't spend my time saying well this is what one person said happen and this is what one paper said and this is what the police said because then again I've got another two hundred thousand words so I had to be very selective and make decisions and I thought that what would stand the test of time is when I write what happened I'd used the police files I use the official record so we'd say so people could read and think well yeah this is what has insane but this is coming from what the people who actually cared the people actually wanted to catch this person thought Francis Joseph Thompson was born in Preston in 1859 Winkley Street is born in the family home his christening was a bit unusual because they spelled his name wrong they spotted without the Pete they also spelled his mother's name wrong and so there's doubt about the factory it was even a Roman Catholic if there's issues with his christening he it was a Catholic community in Preston Preston Thomas women were priests town so it hasn't grown strong long religious history Francis taught some was fortunate in the sense that his Catholic community was a large community in Preston so there wasn't much isolation there was society there were other people beyond the family and beyond the priesthood he could associate with during his first few years but it seems as if his first years were odd he was always a secretive child always a person who didn't really divulge things kept things to himself huddled away in on the top of a staircase and kept to himself he didn't really enjoy other people's company even when he was very young then later on at about the age of five her family moved and they moved to Ashton and online on the outskirts of Manchester and things are very different there there was a powerful fear felt by the Catholics at that time because the Catholic community was very small and most of the people surrounding them were Protestants and the Catholics were still seen as with suspicion in xenophobia since the Reformation so Katherine says Thompson suddenly it was more isolated the family friends of the Francis Thompson family was very Catholic priests the only new Catholic priest there was no one ours so and he's four other doctor Charles Thomson was it was a Catholic Leahy law as well as a homeopathic doctor and when he entertained guests in the house it was only Catholic priests Roman Catholics of course of different levels I guess understanding of a Catholic life but he had no other insight apart from the church so it was pretty much ordained that he became a priest himself and what he was brought up to believe and then he he went solely for the priesthood but already before I even studied he'd had a few incidences in his life when he was about eight years old I think him or 7 the 1868 anti-catholic agitated by the name of William Murphy defensemen people to the town eideriy had fiery speeches of anti-catholicism and had suggested that the catholics killed babies during the rituals and pretty much built upon that fear and a riot took place those arise in his town and Frances Thompson's family were directly affected people were killed and injured around him in the street that he lived in there were two Catholic churches one was gutted and burnt down he's family now to the garden side of the other small Catholic congregation with the priests and they blocked the doors will write as Detective bottles and stones and try to shoot into the church and try to set it on fire the writing went for three days and finally the militia was called in to quell the rioting and that had a profound effect people will say do I'm sure there's the idea that serial killers have traumatic childhoods where they'd beat him Frances Thomason was in the middle variety and where he thought he was going to die and they all thought they're going to die I think about 120 houses were gutted and many were burnt down the entire clergy had to leave town so there was just no priesthood for quite a few months just because for fear of their lives and that had profound effect on Francis Thompson he was already withdrawn isolated and secretive but the paranoia began to build from that stage that led onto when he studied as a priesthood he went to Usher College near Durham to study to become a priest and even on the train ride the boys bullied him and they crushed his jam tarts and he reacted badly to that when he first entered the school and got to know the other students and they whipped him and beat him up but that was more of initiation ceremony and I've heard other tales from other students who've been there and sons of writers who have said that they just talking in their stride you know this is how you got in this is how you prove that you're a grown man but he called him murky Aboriginal demons from hell he said how could they do that the idea that I'd nothing wrong and they just attacked me it's something he never got over he used to build little fortresses he's always hide in the library and he made portraits out of books while the other boys would throw pellets or chewed up paper at him and to escape that he escaped him into literature he escaped into reading histories of a church the usher College had I believe the largest Catholic library in all of England and had Catholic rallies it was a syllable of Catholicism and Francis Thompson went to the heart of laughter to to just bury himself away from what he thought were the tormentas but also transpired that he was a genius even to that age the age of 14 he could speak and write and read classic Greek Latin French German I think several languages even the age of 14 and he and out of the 21 competitive exams held in the school during his time there he won 16 of them and I think that was against 2400 other students but he was often too timid to read out Italy he's his essays which are mainly about battles and Wars he usually had another Street ridden amount for him so that they pretty much decided that he could become anything in the church because it was just so intelligent and I just had a massive reading speed even at that age and knew several languages even at such a young age but he something was wrong with him finally it was decided that he couldn't become a priest they put it down to idleness they said there's something quite not right about him and it wasn't until the final months of over several years of priests training that his parents were told that he can't be a priest and then they sent him back back home and they were shocked he had set fire to a few churches during his time accidental otherwise and had caused a few problems which may have led to the decision finally of the priests but they just felt he didn't have the temperament to become a priest all that they even felt he didn't have a temperament become anything apart from the fact that he was incredibly intelligent and astute and articulate but he was he was very different we've drawn and then when you returned home he mother suggested he studied to be a doctor and then he studied to be a doctor but there even at that stage there was pretty much hope of him if not even if he did pass eventually gained living for himself he acted like a child most of the time he would build fortresses it in the house using furniture he'd make fortresses with kitchen furniture and chairs and turn the whole house into a fortress and reenact battles and try to get his sisters and join in on him on those things even at the age of 17 he was role playing and playing strategy games using the entire house not really connecting with reality but we know he studied we know he went to he studied as a surgeon because his names on the register for every day at Owens Medical College if he missed the day his parents would have been informed he there's no indication his father thought he wasn't studying so he sat through the practical work he actually entered with honors to enter his college you need a high physical endurance which somehow he managed to master and also particularly what we call cutting edge institution they're favored practical work over Theory so they brought in hits of cadavers and it was a big push for the study of a nationally and as a student surgeon cutting into bodies and he went through that he cut many bodies up he had to as part of his training year after year but when it came to doing the his aims he just would never take the exam he never seemed to want to pass partly the estimation by other biographers is he if he did passing he'd actually have to leave home and fend for himself and didn't want to grow up he didn't want to always be like a Peter Pan figure the other suggestion I've had from other biographies is that if he passed he would have had to swear the aprotic oath which is that you can't hurt anyone you can't do ill and so there are two reasons perhaps not but when the exams happened and they usually happen in London he come to London and go to the Opera or visit the museum can return home and say I failed and say nothing more so his father would pay in for the college tuition plus extra money because he wanted extra money from him to cut extra cadavers up and this continued until the third time he failed the examinations in 1883 and then his parents were distraught all these father was bizzy's mother died the day after he turned 21 which devastated him and now it's just his father caring for him and also he then knew that his father had eyes for another woman that he planned to marry which upset Francis Thompson very much and he wrote some very bitter and horrible poetry where he considered himself to be tortured and mutilated by stepmother to be and so they tried to get him other work and they they suggested that he work as encyclopedia salesman so he got the Encyclopedia to sell and I researched which exactly which his Hoka leader is and it does seem to be this a competitive return he cut even though there are quite a few additions but he didn't sell a single volume in that month but he'd read it all and if you'd look at the reading speed of this cyclopædia that came out at that time he had a reading speed of about 180 words a minute which meant to be able to breed all the volumes so he was a rapid reader he just absorbed everything like a sponge but once more got more into literature and and romantic writing and began became more convinced that beauty was it was medieval that true chivalry and Romanticism was something that was part of the medieval life and that the modern age to him was it was where Beauty had expired he said it all aspired during the Reformation when the Catholics collapsed then his parents asked him to become a soldier and he became a soldier for a while while he trained he learned how to use a bay in there too and his weaponry and and but he eventually failed I've heard an account that he failed because he refused to perform the drill on the marching I've heard another count that he fouled because he's chest measurement was too small but other way he then got kicked out of that and then there was a final attempt front working medical the instrument factory where he I think he just worked on an assembly line where just medical lives I mean up towards him I think he just had four pack boxes beneath and he held that job for three weeks and I'm not quite sure why that why that suddenly stopped and the by now his father had had had pretty much prepared to remarry and he had a huge argument of his father also for instance on some by now had become a Lord an addict he'd been ill while his mother was still alive and she gave him laudanum to help him if his illness or not quite sure what the illness was wasn't long-lasting but she gave him laudanum and that began his addiction and she also gave him at the same time the worst of Thomas De Quincey his confessions of an opium leader and Frances Thomason loved that book began to see Thomas De Quincey as and ghostly older brother and he began to desire to follow into Quincy's footsteps and De Quincey went to London and lived a life of a vagrancy but managed to reach success DeQuincy also had a relationship with a prostitute who left him and Thomson decided to follow in his footsteps and so urged by De Quincey and his mother who now pass away Thompson finally had his massive argument of his father his father first of Tressel's Thomson IFIF his father saying why are you marrying this woman why are you marrying this and Richardson there you know did she love her mother and he the response from the father was your you must be drunk or maybe you're on drugs maybe you're still in London for my own supplies and the fight became quite a stir on both sides and on November the 9th 1885 he fled he played his home he lived in Manchester for maybe a week or two and then finally came to London some accounts say he walked to London which was quite a long walk but because he had of trains but eventually he reached London and he tried to gain a living doing odd jobs bookseller matchbox villa caring for horses and the other theaters shoeshine but each of those things just fell down he was going to small allowance from his father but finally him he ceased the kindly allowance that went to the Charing Cross post office and he became he just drifted into vagrancy and at the same time he got fascinated in any cult he started to read the voice of bull you listened and John Dean the ancient magicians were not ancient but for older magicians from the 17th century and became fascinated li literally devoured the worst of the cults and continued to read about a cult which would show all the way back from he says and to the ancient Egyptians and the and the Essene cults and the surest ruin cults and he became more more fascinated in other versions of what he thought were Christianity it didn't feel like it in a sense it was being pagan he thought they would have sort of echoes of Christianity to be so he had no worries about doing that he did have a stint of working for shoemaker in Haymarket for about four months and she maker tried to mend the rift between trans Thompson his father but they're just wild and apparently and then he'd injured a customer at the I think it wasn't in the 1886 injured customers foot and he dropped her shudder on him and then finally the shoemaker had to let him go but while there was where the shoemaker he wrote that's where he wrote he's I'm in 1886 he's partner which baby's a lusty Knight haha on a Swartz teed ho-ho rode upon the land where the silence feels alone rode upon the land rode upon the strand of a dead man's groan where evil goes to and fro a rotten mist ha ha like a dead man's flesh ho-ho was abhorrent in the air what is it he sees ha ha they're in the frightfulness hoho there he saw a maiden fairest fair that were her dusk eyes long with her hair sad were her dreaming eyes misty her hair and strange was her garments swiftly he followed her ha eagerly he followed her ho lo she corrupted ho ho and his paunch was rent like a brass stand drum and the blubbered fat from his belly doth come it was a stream ran blood ly under the wall o stream you cannot run to read under the wall with a sickening use hell made it so to which babies which he talks about well in the poem you have a lusty night that what wanders through the streets of London slaughtering unclean women and Rickon their intestines arjun and joyously yelling laughing ha ha ha ha ha as he got swimmin so he had already started quite morbid art poetry and then at that time he had a few other incidences which I think have have reservations with repair crimes but am I not going to right now but primarily then what occurred was he met a prostitute when he would not have been and there was least likely chance to remember a relationship of anyone because he was now looking pretty scruffy threadbare I think there footed prostitute took pity on him apparently and love affair began which last of the year began in June of 1887 and ended in June of 1888 so he spent pretty much a full year with this prostitute who lived in Chelsea and she encouraged him to submit his work and submit he's writing in his poetry to various publishers but they pretty much all said no and finally he wrote to the publisher called Wolford mean all who ran a catholic magazine called the Mary England and was a progressive Catholic magazine that Professor Thomas admired because although it's progressive and although it had many great writers right to it it also expounded the idea that anyone should become Mary again it should become like the medieval England the Catholic England before the Reformation time where the chivalry time of this high morality and Francis Thomson sort of saw that magazine as him business as a pupil to that magazine so he when he wrote to them it was important to him I believe that he they published his work I was like his last-ditch effort and he Brodin on London Stan stained paper a letter saying pretty much I'm like a villain in a Shakespeare character so if he gives all the marks and and the show leanness of what I'm sending you I don't have many books and you know I'm just doing a lot of this from memory but here's some essays and here's some poetry and he pretty much said if you don't like he just throw it in a rubbish bin or I'll kill myself type thing I don't care my life's gonna be worthless anyway and the other two grabbed this bulky package was several submissions in it and thought that's interesting I should read that and then he put in a pigeonhole and forgot about it and left it there Francis Thompson the meantime Toth of the editor had had rejected his work and he decided to kill himself he went to rubbish dump at the back of Covent Garden and he took enough laudanum with him to kill myself twice over and he says he talked the first half which should have killed him when he was visited by his account by a ghost and the ghost was a nother writer from a pass code Thomas Chatham man who'd committed suicide and apparently the ghost warned him silently that you shouldn't cure so if you have a special destiny here on earth and you'll be published if you don't kill yourself so he didn't take the second half and then Wilfred renal um six months later remember the package in his pigeonhole and you have to understand Wolford mental was a very busy man he was getting submissions all over the country he had many famous writers contributing to its magazine he knew half of London's literary elite and important political figures like Gladstone and Disraeli so he was just incredibly busy and he's office was just a mess papers everywhere so he could he can be forgiven for a forgotten about him getting about that particular package but he did open up and in there there amongst of submissions he and his wife did see the poem about gutting women but I just figured it was written by someone who was Opie on an addict a drug addict and pretty much the stayin laudanum on the paper suggested that as well but there was one pony read which took his interest it was about of thrown in the fire he was actually just gonna throw the submissions in the fire weasel from what he read into the letter he figured whoever ridden this had killed themselves so or had just succumbed to salvation or the exposure so he pretty much thought for alpha was dead and he was just going to toss all of the flames and forget about him to say oh well there you go but then he did breed a painful The Passion of Mary which was one of the submissions and in that it Francis Thompson in his poem writes about crucifying the Virgin Mary instead of Jesus and he thought well that's interesting take and it was quite a nice poem even though it's got crucifying a woman and he decided to publish it sort of not really thinking that that he'd have to pay anyone and not really thinking anything would come of it and he did publish it but a friend of Francis Thompson's family and person cord father Carol Carol felt read it because he was a reader of the magazine and when he found out that it was Francis Thompson and I think he might have recognized the poem because it was based on a sermon by Richardson another priest in Ashton implied then he contacted the magazine and said look this is Francis Thompson I know him he's homeless on the streets and then wolfram inor thought well I oh maybe I'll try contacting somehow somehow father Richardson managed to reach Francis Thompson I think through the chemists that Francis Thompson obtained his laudanum from and alerted Francis Thompson to the fact that his payment had been published so Francis Thompson then wrote to Warford mantle and said hey you know you publish my poem and you never got back to me I know you didn't there mustn't been in heal intent but here I am I'm alive and then Wolfram II all then said and let you know I wrote back to him saying come to the office and a few weeks later Francis Thompson did apparently the door half opened and a bare bare foot threads not even wearing a shirt sort of Pete his head in and then pull his head back out and disappeared for a moment then slightly injured and then he was shy and reticent and the first thing that Wolfram enal said was great rioting and you must have had lots of made a lot of research you must have many books and professors Thompson said no I pretty much sold all my books it was pretty much all from memory and they began to have a friendship so Wolfram itll began to learn some things about Francis Thomson I don't think he may have known about the ridership of a prostitute but I'm not quite sure but he definitely began to know that he had come from the so there's a doctor that he lived homeless and began to know a few facts about Francis Thompson and he urged Francis Thompson you know tied himself up and he bathed him and he gave him some money for that what he'd had published for Francis Thompson and he fed him in the family home and then Francis Thompson returned to his prostitute friend and this is about June of 1888 and said to her I'm published finally has happened and she said that's wonderful but now we can ever see each other ever again and he was shocked because he believed he loved her and she loved him and when he inquired why she wanted to leave she said well you're going to be a famous poet and I'm a prostitute that's not gonna look good but possibly she might want to leave him because she had the upper hand she was the matronly motherly the dominant one in the relationship when and suddenly it was all gonna change somebody was gonna be the poet and the writer and know everybody and she was going to be the prostitute and that might have uneven the balance possibly she also knew about the poetry in which he writes about cutting prostitutes apart and ripping out their intestines and and she might have thought that might look bad on her but anyway she fled him and he was he was shocked it was it was hugely profound traumatic influence on him that she could do that and when will from men all said look you can get you off the streets you don't have to be homeless anymore because I can get a room for you he said no I'm not gonna leave the streets I'm gonna stay on the streets and seek her out and that's the situation so by the first murder of August 31 festers Thomson was on the streets see you know and his prostitute friend that left him and he was also living I believe in the Salvation Army in Limehouse so she lived in the West Energy fled and even though there's huge areas of prostitution in London the bulk were prostitutes lived in the East End and this is where Francis Thompson seemed to have headed to seek her out I'd like to tell you about the five Geoffrey murders and how they connect to Francis Thompson with each murder but to understand the very first murder we need to know a little story about Francis Thompson regarding the Rothschilds when Francis Thompson was homeless he had this great fear that you know he's dreaming becoming a writer was going to just fall apart and he really was going to die on the streets he was panicky he didn't want to be seen as a beggar he wanted to have some vestiges and of being a citizen of being accepted in society and not being amongst the outcast and lost so what he did was he took a job a brief job at selling newspapers so you have to imagine someone who wants to be in the newspapers now selling them and he was on a street corner selling newspapers just clinging to to any sort of profession so the lease sale at least I'm a newspaper seller at least I'm that way connected into the publishing world when a rough child's walk passed in and picked up a newspaper from him and walked on and he started to disappear around the corner and then when France was Thompson looked down at the coins in his hands he realized he'd been overpaid he was paid like I think right maybe 40 times more basically the Rothschilds gave him a huge tip and there was actually before I understand looking at the Rothschilds history was I had to read their history as well it was sort of a family tradition it was sort of like good luck to their very charitable people and but they didn't like the thanks that would come after they didn't give money to hear the gratitude so he came on as a game apparently the Rothschilds to tip and then sort of disappears they so the person they tipped will go charity to wouldn't have been able to say thank you because they didn't want the face so that Rothschild had become very adapted given that charitable money and disappearing amongst the crowd and Francis Thomson saw the money in his hair and then dawned on him that this person didn't think he was selling newspapers but was a beggar maybe Francis Thompson he found the newspapers already used and carefully folded them and tried to sell them and look legitimate and Francis was so shocked that this stranger had decided that he was a bit begging and wasn't working that he'd try to seek him out and he pretty much left the newspapers where they were and race for the crowds trying to seek out this particular Rothschild and and and ran and ran through the streets that became hopelessly lost and actually then became delirious on the streets and that was just before the murders so I need to talk about the Rothschilds for a moment the first murder occurred in in Bucks Road on August the 31st and if you look at where the murders occurred they have these weird sort of echoes to Frances Thompson firstly Bucks wrote about 40 years earlier was known as duck in pond lane or ducking pond row because there was a duck in pond there was a small pond where during the medieval days and up to the 17th 18th century women women primarily suspected as witches would be ducked in there and sort of I guess tortured or tested and the murders the first murder occurred pretty much on top if you look at the old maps to compare them to the mass of a community aged pretty much occurred where the ducking point was now remember Francis Thompson early decided those who who who threatened him females who he considered to be evil he would depict as witches he described his stepmother as which described prostitutes as witches before the murders occurred so it's interesting to see that the first Jack the Ripper murder occurred where witches were tried second interesting thing about Bucks row at the time was 100 meters to the south was a little blonde in hospital and Francis Thompson had studied as a doctor for many years were constantly failed he had passed these hands he didn't have the courage to stand up on his own two feet and look after himself he might have been working at the London hospital which was prestigious institutions the other interesting thing is that a hundred meters or so to the north was the brady cemetery which was the jewish cemetery where the Rothschilds family was buried even though their wealthy family obviously like throughout Europe it was tradition that if you're a Rothschild knew died you were buried in the Rothschilds cemetery so exactly so for fact if you look at Francis Thompson's life and he had to choose where he's gonna kill someone you couldn't choose a better place in Bucks row right upon a ducking pond with the Jewish cemetery Rothchilds which is a non Catholic denomination who had sending delirious the London hospital they never barely get into it BC hadn't actually you know had a carriage and now you can imagine him now I'm brave and killing the witch I'm doing it between the Jewish cemetery in the Rothschilds I'm doing a bit with live in hospital there and that's interesting and then when you look at the entire area of spills field and you just slow it down people say I'm Jack the Ripper killings pillars field well I well spills field means hospital fields and other area for six hundred years as a Catholic sanctuary at the center of that cattle essentially was st. Mary's mat salon and not full on which is that which was later cordon watch right Chapel and it was called Whitechapel because of the it was whitewashed that is called natural on which means black felon from the name of originally the name of st. Mary's metal on according to Edward Stowe the historian probably came from a crime that occurred several hundred years earlier in which a jewel thief killed a woman and he claimed sanctuary on the land because there was also Catholic sanctuary that land and basically the idea during the time the sanctuary was that if you killed someone and he went to a sanctuary then you couldn't be arrested because the Catholics back then and many evil Pope's that have said that if you enter the sanctuary and you weren't struck by lightning if you didn't die instantly then you had to be innocent because how could you go into Church ground if you're a criminal and not be harmed by God so the moment you enter the sanctuary he could avoid arrest but the entire area where the murders occurred was once a religious sanctuary a Catholic sanctuary so if were for instance on someone's killing this woman and he is thinking I'm killing her which I'm killing this evil lady and I do it in a sanctuary yet I'm not be killed I'm not arrested to him it almost be as if God himself had given him a permission to commit the crimes you also see parallels on the dates of the crimes money to scene feature of the dates of the crimes off so there were five murders but they code on four separate dates the police at the time and throughout the murders were looking for Bolton looking for soldiers and butchers and doctors and even midwives and I'm looking for those occupations because soldiers and butchers and doctors and midwives by the very profession by the very trade had to had to carry knives and also had to cut into people cut into things and get blood on their hands and understand bodily organs and get viscous fluid on him and make them be and and pretty much unclean occupations and that's so that's why the police were looking for these particular occupations also coincidentally and I think it's coincidentally to 320,001 is I got a mathematician to check it out for me out of 365 days of the year back then the old Catholic calendar there were only 16 days of the Catholic calendar where that had patron saints of those professions and all those 16 days of the year the four of those days happened during the Jack the Ripper murders the patron saint of doctors and butchers and soldiers and midwives and all occurred on the same dates of the murders the very occupations the police are looking for now who would know this well Francis Thomson read voraciously he had a massive speed reading he read a church history for years at a time he spent his time the Guildhall library before the murders whether it's those accounts of the duck in Palma kept where the classical history the church history of London was kept in new church history he was otto Boyd he it was it was his lifeblood if anyone was going to know that the Catholic saint painted days during the murders and know the religious history of spittle Cyril hospital fields it be our X dr. student the second murder was was and and and Chapman or Annie Chapman and they occurred in 29 Hanbury Street Annie Chapman her name shared the name of Francis Thomson stepmother and the murder occurred in the backyard of that at that address at the front door of turned on Hamra Street written I believe it was red letters and white backgrounds was the words or the name H a Richardson because the lady caught an and Richardson owned the premises so the name of the place and the name of the victim match perfectly the name of Francis Thompson stepmother which was a cause of the argument for him leaving home in the first place the third murder was that of Lizabeth stride now Elizabeth stride was killed outside near the entrance of a socialist Club and socialist by being socialists or atheists the Frances Thompson was a deeply religious person and he wrote they didn't like anyone who wasn't religious who was ungodly and it's interesting to see that that murder occurred there September thirtieth was the night of the double murders and on that night you had Elizabeth strike killed in Berner Street and he had Catherine Eddowes killed mitre square and it's the doubling of the murders now Francis Thompson his own name means the word Thompson means between Thompson wrote a lot about twins he had this idea of of doubles but he had an occult significance to it he he believed in the vesica Pisces and vesica Pisces isn't is the old Christian symbol before the time that people use across the vesica Pisces he wrote about in his poetry the vesica Pisces he brought essays about the vesica Pisces is on his tomb in the form of a crown of thorns and a crown of laurels and the idea of it to put it simply is pain and beauty or good and evil of the the sacred and the profane meeting and that the brief if you look at the murders and if you use and lots of people made attempts at seeing the pattern of murder and there's lots of accounts for people getting maps and trying to connect the dots to try to see a shape but going from memory if you look at the murders and you look at the murder that happened of and I'm have attacked mirror this but you have you have the first murder was in Bucks row the second murder happened here which was Hamra Street the third murder was of on burner burner Street the fourth murder was - square v murder of Mary Kelly so if you just assume I could like a boat pilot and you'd say those directions because they're not perfect Russians but you just make them equidistant and true so you just use the compass and say north east or north or south east or west then they actually make the figure-eight the vesica pisces now if you're going to do so many satanic with a cross you invert the cross and francis um essentially talks about doing that in his murder story he talks about pulling the cross off the wall and trampling on the cross so there's the idea that's a reversal or an inverse event of a ritual would be sort of a dark version and you see can route you can reverse a crucifix but you can't reverse the vesica Pisces if you turn it around because the symmetrical it's the same thing so the next best thing you can do if they're seeking Pisces is turning on its side and that's what you have which the pattern of rejected Ripper murders and where the vesica Pisces meet what made the criss cross was the double murders so I believe that the defense's Thompson that wasn't significant that he had to kill to on that night at which once again was happening in what to him he can see the still been to be sacred ground which now prostitutes were now living in in on the ancient saint days of butchers and soldiers and doctors the final murder of Mary Kelly it happened underneath the shadow of Christ Church and Christ Church was a face ship for Protestantism it's still still stands there today if it's huge steeple and the bells at once rung and she was killed within a hundred meters of this huge symbol of Pradas ISM which celebrated their removal the Catholics from England and not only was she killed it in 100 meters Mary Kelly killed within a hundred meters of Christ Church which still stands today within literally the shadow of it 80 meters to the west you have problems rhodonite refuge where Francis Thompson was stayin during the very weeks of that she was murdered all indications indicate forcibly that he was there from sale in November of 1888 to have probably 1115 so November and she was killed over the 9th of November and so he lived 80 meters away and at the time he did have a dissecting scalpel because he he said he didn't he wrote that to his editor when he was moved out of the East End and he as we already know his medical training we already know that he had broken up a prostitute or to put it quickly she had flared him and he had gone to Spears filled to look for her and then there's lots of parallels defense of Samson's life in the dear boss letter of course Providence Road was a Catholic refuge even though any religion couldn't use it so it was nondenominational in theory and they did welcome Protestants or any religion that didn't seem to care but it was run by the Sisters of Charity a Catholic order and Francis Thompson was a Roman Catholic it started as a priest for several years his father was a Catholic layman Wilfred men'll ran a prestigious Catholic magazine the new Cardinal Manny it was it was father Carroll who had alerted were forming all offenses Thompson's existence has probably still been alive and and told romina love Francis Thompson's history so Francis Thomson it could would you think would be able to enter the refuge at any time but he couldn't because one of the prerequisites are going getting into the refuge was he needed to have work you needed to have reference from employee to say that you were working that's there was a very good refuge unlike most other refuges and Doss houses or work houses it had a shower facility the nuns were quite nice you got your own bed it was clean you had your own space in the dormitory and fast Thompson could only get in there in the November of 1888 and what made it unusual was it had an open-door policy you could leave and enter at any hour because people will consider to be working to get in but the workers were usually artisans or tradesmen who had to leave say 4:00 in the morning or 3:00 in the morning to light lamps and put lamps out or work at the markets to get the carts ready or be night watchmen so Francis something entered a muse of refuge where you could leave it all out as if no questions asked 80 metres away from Mary Kelly it's interesting too that a writer called Hopkins mentioned that Mary Kelly used Providence Road and a few other writers mentioned it Mira Kelley had the legends growing that Mary Keller yourself at one time used a institution so it's not beyond possibility they even lived at the same address at the same time what's also interesting is that Hopkins to the writer talks about Mary Kelly having a friend who was a poet and then coincidentally you've got Mary Kelly 80 meters down the road damn Dawson story where Thompson's refuge faced who's meant to have had a friendship with a poet while our poet Frances Thompson's in Providence Refuge who's meant to it had a relationship with a prostitute so to have that's just another remarkable coincidence or perhaps it's not if Mary Kelly was the prostitute that Francis Thompson knew why would he slaughter her well it would be because he thought he'd be living forever with her he thought that they had that pure love he thought that even though he'd he would never broken a religious vow say sex before marriage that he could give up his entire belief system to be with her and she would do the same so her belief system would have been I sleep with many men but now I'm just going to sleep with you these would have been I sleeping no one until we were married but I'm I'll I'll do it with you I'll sleep with you and then she flat left him and shattered his world showed her all concept and hope that he'd ever have any normal relationship of a woman which he had never did so why would he kill her well you could just say it's an attitude perhaps she was just a nice guy perhaps he didn't care perhaps he went to Providence register maybe kill the other woman maybe to scare into it back to his arms I personally do not believe that Mary Kelly was the prostitute that he was with and my book discusses who I think that was and what her often would faith was but it's still very interesting that the legend grew that Mary Kelly knew our pod and we have a poet who knew a prostitute Frances Thompson is commonly seen as the greatest Catholic poet of the 20th century he's these verses in many poetry anthologies but I just like to explain that Francis Thompson although born a Roman Catholic was not was it I don't believe is it within the Catholic tradition if anything he was an aberration has stood outside of it he in his own age in his own time people accused Francis Thomson not being Catholic believe he had ideas about heaven and hell ideas about the occult ideas about other religions ideas about what it meant to be a Catholic that Catholics back then didn't really agree with and he's although his poetry such as how that heaven reached a height of sort of prominence in the 1940s and 50s and really just around World War two very soon after he fell out his favor if you ask most people on the street they're even Catholics who was Francis Thomson most would say I'd never heard of him and that's because he was seen as too zealous to hardline chief fanatical and to a little bit warped in how he saw the the religion and he was kicked out of the priesthood there are doubts about his baptism at whether you know whether it was actually correct so I don't see transfers Thompson personally as a Catholic poet I see him as a poet who had Catholic who has very very strong Catholic influence but he definitely I felt feel is without outside the circle of Catholicism myself Francis Thompson's clothing during the time of the murders was unusual but it actually helped him blend in Francis Thompson essentially wore a long brown coat that covered his shoes he wore coats like that or even that same coach all his life he was described as a person who who had a newness that was through dazzling to last he quickly become disheveled so if he looked brand new and clean and and had just got the latest outfit within a few weeks it looked a little shabby and so he had a sort of a shabby genteel look so he wore a dark coat long coat their lot was often marked and stained with little burn master means smoking his clay pipe or wax stains or laudanum stains or just mud splatter he didn't mind whether he stood out in the rain he wore a hat which Anne was described to resemble a fisherman style hat or hat that came from a pictures of engravings by an artist called Osler which was very much a sort of like a wide floppy hat that sort of came out this long but it could be easily formed and molded so it can be tucked in to be a cap or could be brought up as a wide brim cap but essentially a felt hat a brown felt out here in the stuff from the southern murders he would have been clean-shaven because he was looked after by the minerals but when you see photos of him in the beginning of 1889 he's got it he's got pretty much a mid beard so throughout the murders he would have gone from clean-shaven to moustache and beard that not very long and so he pretty much you also had kept a gold chain or chain around him at all times because he had a medal of Saint Mary which was given when he began the priesthood and he never removed it apparently even when he swam naked in the sea he never take this chain off him so he would have had a chain around his neck but he would have concealed and kept it kept it underneath the coat that's what he would have primarily anyway had a vest and he also had a necktie he was known as the next type poet so you're looking at a man he's got a vest long coat sort of wide brimmed felt hat that's brown but that wasn't the normal dress okay he would have looked unusual but in the East End he wouldn't have because he wouldn't look Jewish essentially if you look at the city Jews the Jews of that type they wore wide brim black hats and they wore long coats so he would have looked to see some of his Jewish Jewish ish but not Jewish but he wouldn't look to the most gentle most of Gentiles is someone who's foreign or perhaps Jewish but he wouldn't have stood out because he of the dark colors and the shabby clothing and also he would have been quite skilled living on the streets for three years to evade looking suspicious because he looked suspicious he had to move on not be out of sleep Francis Thompson's voice was it has been described as being having a musical quality to it and a voice of a man of culture but a heavy heavily accented Lancashire accent as well but I understand from reading other accounts of his voice that he could simply just change his voice as he changed his Brian depending on Hillary's address but if you heard his voice and you were in the east and someone said describe his voice he would say it was a voice foreign to the east and what evidence in research I had that I feelings Francis Thompson - the Ripper murders is what we were just cause at first glance would just be circumstantial evidence we've just got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pieces of circumstantial evidence perhaps he's not just the Ripper perhaps it's just as his biographer has said in 1965 John evangelist Walsh he called the the most remarkable coincidence in Francis Thompson's life perhaps it's just a most remarkable coincidence in his life that he happened to be in the very streets seeking out a prostitute during the time that someone was killing prostitutes and perhaps even though I've dropped literally like thousands of little pieces of information that draw this picture there transoms Thompson do it it's all circumstantial evidence but saying that there is some interesting what I suppose people call factual evidence or hard evidence and there was a letter written by Jack the Ripper and this was found this year by a lady called Elsie lively and she sent by serendipity research and another suspect found a jet River letter that has written on the top of the initials ft within the date so we've got j34 with frances Thompson's initials on it even if it's not Francis Thompson that's interesting other evidence could be the hair of the puppet theater he he had a puppet theater a cowboy puppet theater they kept all his life he went to his father died he went to Manchester and retrieved it and was found amongst his belongings after his death and that puppet theater he'd replaced the doctor the string with human hair primarily of the wolf Ramin all daughters but when I read about that and he labeled the the age doll he liked Sylvia's hair shall work the figures and things like that and I also read that some of the dolls had the names there was a Mary and there was an N and you could argue that the Mary in the end could be his sister Mary oh it's just the end but it's interesting the Ripper victims from caught Marian and and if we have a stumble upon that puppet theatre it might be interesting to see if the human hair which replaced strangely from the stream happens to match maybe one or more victims we also have a hand cast by Frances Thompson a live cast of his hand mayor pastor and it's apparently quite detailed and there's a dear boss letter or one of the jetter of lives I think the dear boss fella that had an imprint of a fun with a thumbprint with red ink and it'd be interesting to see whether he's thumb on his hand cast matched that that just regulator but if that did happen it just pretty great letters to the police it wouldn't previous Jack the Ripper of course Francis Thompson had had we know he had a died seekin scalpel my research into medical students back in that day said they didn't just possess but decisions capable if you have a dissection scalpel you actually had a medical tool kit it would have most likely because Macmillan students did especially since he was there for several years had his own medical kit his own knife kit which would been maybe in a folding pouch and we know that of that medical kit that he boasted of having one having the dissecting scalpel and that he was carrying at the time of the murders and people people normally wouldn't use this in dissection scalpel to shave with that's what he said he did when he boasted in the laboratory zero sarin in February of 1889 and it was something he had to carry on him at all times because he was homeless he couldn't put it in in a drawer somewhere in just hope it was going to be okay or even at home so literally if you met Francis Thompson any time of the day 24/7 he would have had his that setting scalpel from speaking with pathologist dr. Joseph rapid first came up with a theory and connected Francis Thompson and Geoffrey friend in his 1988 article and he's performed nine thousand autopsies and he has been expert witness for American cases high-profile cases he says yet that Ripper would most likely have had a dissection scalpel or short knife because people have this image of a long blade of the instrument looking at the deaths of the wounding but to do precision were to remove organs in the dark in a time a very short timeframe just by feel alone to do that and not even cut your own hands as difficult to carry uh such a sharp razor blade knife in your pockets without tallien three would be difficult but you were short a knife you can just put a cork over to make it harmless with a decision scalpel do the fun work caffeine heroes and martyrs square shared little triangles cut under her eyes switch hug him back to the triangular vesica Pisces shed lost let's put into her eyelids and find sort of precision work even though she was mutilated really badly her death was in the coroner's report sizzles insert insert a Gnaeus by a small Nick to the left carotid artery which is very difficult to do with a large knife so the precision work that we've seen in Jess River most likely was done I believe it does it can scaffold and I've had other people agree with me who've got medical school and trainee that doesn't mean the Francis Thomson didn't have a whole medical kit since she since he did work as a student study as a student since he did work in a medical instrument Factory just before leaving Manchester Victorian dissecting knife was different to modern one for one thing though they weren't as short a modern decisions scalpel maybe say an inch long but Victorian ones were 2 inches to two and a half inches in length so they were just longer to is that it's of any interest firstly what I look for in a Jack the Ripper book is I look for possibility I try not I'd tried to look for a book that doesn't make too many leaps of logic I try to have a book that doesn't use a motive language I'd like a book that persuades me using logic I know a lot of suspect books we'll go through the crimes and sort of rile up the reader and make the really so aghast and so horrified at what's happened at the moment she mentioned name he just literally want to you know put it on blaming on someone so I've seen many writers that will go into such gory detail and make you feel so sorry for the victims that the moment they mention their suspect you you just want to point the finger you want to look for the scapegoat and I don't like that sort of style of the suspect book and I've tried not to do that with Frances Thomason I also know a lot of books like - for almost insatiable eyes it by showing really graphic images - to once again push a theory or suggest things but I don't like to do that either so I look for a book that that shows logical sequences that says I at premise a and premise B therefore conclusion see and with and I don't like books that such as suspect books that say so he must have done it and he's unique and they've sort of wild sort of conclusions I like books that say maybe possibly and as well what am I trying to say with my book I'm trying to say Francis Thompson someone we should look at I think it's some we should look at not only be is an interesting suspect that because he influenced world history and people even today millions of people around the world are forced to study Francis Thompson's poetry he's on the curriculum of schools from all the way from here to India and there are students there are young people grown up for forming their opinions through performing psychologies and and and personalities being told read these words read the words of this man because he was a good man he was a holy man when Francis Hanson himself said the words have power and changed people's belief was a magical or were magical to Francis Thomason and there are people out there today reading in his words thinking he's just a nice guy and we should follow his doctrines and we should follow his morality and I'm saying in my book let's look at Francis Thomason because if Francis Thompson was just a river then Gandhi's favorite book was written by Jack the Ripper it means j.r.r tolkien in Lord of the Rings the Olin Cities come from words made by Jack the Ripper means when the US Supreme Court made the 1955 Brown versus the Board of Education decision the most important decision in US Supreme Court history they quoted the words of Jack the Ripper I think we should really think not just because it's an interesting case it happened 120 years ago but because he profoundly influenced modern history and we're living his history and maybe it's good idea to not just have a look at him but to decide boy CJ the Ripper was he not I think for our own mental health and I think for our in solace I think it'd be good and also to do just as the five women that were killed [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Demon House

Views: 53,051

Keywords: Francis Thompson, Jack the Ripper, Victorian London 1888

Id: Ar9oG_Wu7y0

Length: 68min 39sec (4119 seconds)

Published: Fri May 17 2019