One of the many people who gets a mention as a ripper suspect is Francis Thompson, he is named by Richard Patterson in his 1999 book 'Paradox'. Francis Thompson a poet and author. His best remembered work, 'The Hound of Heaven'. was published in 1893 it sold over 50,000 copies.  Francis Thompson was born at 7 Winckley Street, Preston on the 18th December 1859.

He entered the Catholic school of St Cuthbert's, Ushaw College in Durnham, he excelled in Latin, English and Greek. Taking an interest in poetry from an early age, his writing ability was described by the English master as the best production from a lad of his age. In 1878 he entered the Manchester royal infirmary, where he studied anatomy. He continued writing poetry, and in April 1888 had one of his poems published in Merry England, a minor Catholic literary magazine. It was around this time, 1879, that he became addicted to opium, after being treated with laudanum for a lung infection.

It is thought that while under the influence in 1889 he wrote a short story, his only one named ‘Finis Coronat Opus’ his translation End Crowning Glory  The 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 dwells on the point of a man in a killing frenzy with a knife to a fine degree. The story continues with the so called ‘hero’ smashing a crucifix upon an alter after he becomes aware that the entity he has conjured envelopes 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. 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'. Thompson had died a lonely man on November 13th 1907 after spending some 10 days in St Johns Wood hospital some 19 years after the murder of Mary Kelly.

I never saw his short story or poems in our school library, but leads me to ask did Mr. J. B. Dempster, the school master who came up with our school motto in 1926 know of the story or of Francis Thompson? It was this information and the author of one Book who had put Thomas Barnardo forward as a suspect that led to this page of information.

This article was gleaned from many sources, books and the web. it is only in place on Goldonian web because some misguided people believe it was Dr Thomas John Barnardo  who was AKA JTR suggested by Donald McCormick in 1970, and again in2005 by theorist Gary Rowlands in the book 'The Mammoth Book Of Jack The Ripper'. Rowlands put forward the notion that Barnardo's lonely childhood and religious zeal led him to slaughter prostitutes to clear them from the streets, and that he only stopped killing because of an accident in a swimming pool shortly after murdering Mary Kelly left him totally deaf. This was not fact, Thomas did have a hearing problem, but this had started at a young age and had got worse as his age increased. Then in 2006 Vanessa A. Hayes wrote 'Revelations of the True Ripper' that has Thomas Barnardo as JTR. Personally I feel she wasted a year of her life in writing this book.

The information that is written about Thomas is an authors opinion of the facts he or she has seen in books or documents, that don't hold water, if you study the inquest reports of the day along with the post mortem reports and press cuttings that are available you may come to your own conclusion of the Whitechapel murders. While studying the inquest reports please remember as fact Thomas Barnardo was only 5 feet 3 inches, his weak eyes meant he always had to wear spectacles and he was right handed plus he was well known around the area of Whitechapel.

Thomas Barnardo's first home Stepney Causeway is open along with his Girls Village Home at Barkingside. Thomas has also established over fifty other orphanages in and around London. The year is 1888 the second week of August on Tuesday 7th in the early hours at George Yard Martha Tabram is stabbed to death. The Whitechapel mystery had started and was to run for four months and stop as quick as it started as if somebody had just switched a light off in November of 1888, I think I know why, but lets start at the beginning.

The Whitechapel area is adjacent to the City of London, and only a mile from the Bank of England yet Whitechapel was synonymous with urban poverty and squalor, Charles Dickens could only just hint at the poverty that was around. Whitechapel had over 1400 known prostitutes, 80 brothels, and countless pubs. Little wonder that alcoholism was rampant, It was often known to middle-class Londoners as the `Abyss'. Nevertheless, it is important not to exaggerate conditions. In 1887 only three murders are recorded within the Whitechapel area. This period falls in the last few years of Queen Victoria's reign, life was still pretty dreary for the British working classes. There was no welfare state, the residents of Whitechapel did whatever was necessary to make ends meet, and many of the women and young mothers sold their favours in order to pay their rent, or even just to buy a drink of gin, remember  water in the Whitechapel area was still not safe to drink it could be a killer.

Whitechapel was also the place that Thomas Barnardo was known to frequent, walking the streets and courts in his search for destitute children. Then in 1888 it became the haunt of Jack the Ripper, terrifying the East End and creating widespread panic, even at this early stage the newspapers were carrying theories as to the identity of the killer, including doctors, slaughterers, sailors, and lunatics of every description. It was a known fact that Thomas Barnardo had a refuge in the area since 1875 at Mitre Court,  Limehouse.

The first thing which becomes plainly obvious while looking at the Whitechapel murders is that the role call of suspects that confuses the issue and sheds very little light on the crimes. Some of the named suspects are clearly ridiculous, names like Thomas Barnardo, Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, Lord Randolph Churchill, Walter Sickert and even poor John Merrick to name but a few as probable Ripper's, but the evidence against them is slight and tenuous to say the least. How poor John Merrick got on the list and not the Artful Dodger escapes me! Walter Sickert and the "Royal Conspiracy" is so near with most of the facts fitting into place like a 2000 piece jig-saw but the four corners and middle part are missing . So what do we know as fact.

On Friday 31 August Mary Ann Nichols who was 44 years of age was found in Buck's Row, Whitechapel. She was thought by some to be the second victim, but I have her as the first victim. It is recorded Nichols lived in a lodging house at 18 Thrawl Street, Spitalfields. Nichols shared a room  with three others. Thrawl Street is parallel to Flower and Dean Street. Most of these common lodging houses catered to prostitutes. Flower and Dean is described in 1883 as "perhaps the foulest and most dangerous street in the whole metropolis." It and Thrawl Street are part of the area known as the "evil quarter mile." This being the area Thomas Barnardo opened a Lodging house for boys and girls in the later part of 1888.

On Saturday, 8th September at about 6.00 a.m. John Davis was returning home, he went into the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street where he had lodgings. In the darkness, he could just make out the body of a woman lying on her back next to a wooden fence. A report of the day stated,  Her legs were bent at the knees; Her feet were flat on the ground, pointing toward the shed; Her dress was pushed above her knees; Her left arm lay across her left breast; Her right arm at her side; The small intestines, still attached by a cord, and part of the abdomen lay above her right shoulder; two flaps of skin from the lower abdomen lay in a large quantity of blood above the left shoulder; Her throat was deeply cut in a jagged manner, The upper portion of the vagina, the uterus and the posterior two-thirds of the bladder had been entirely removed. The uterus was missing, apparently taken away by her murderer; A neckerchief was around her neck. It was also noted that two brass rings were missing - torn from the victim's fingers. Laid at her feet in a neat row were a few pennies and two new farthings. Ironically, Annie had been evicted from her lodgings at 35 Dorset Street at 2 a.m., that night because she had no money, the money found would have secured her a bed for the night.

The injuries Annie Chapman had suffered convinced George Bagster Phillips the pathologist, that the perpetrator of this killing must possess some surgical skill, or at the very least, some anatomical knowledge. It was Phillip's opinion that started the police looking a medical student or doctor. "A medical man" furthermore the name Jack The Ripper was not known until after the Annie Chapman murder. The press had named the perpetrator the ripper due to the fact the victims had been ripped open. The first time the name Jack is mentioned is in the first known ripper letter dated 25th September 1888 allegedly was sent by a national newspaper reporter to beef up the story so the name was born Jack the Ripper. In 1898 Journalist Thomas J. Bulling, was named in the Littlechild Letter to have written the 'Jack the Ripper letters'

With the reports that were doing the rounds of the Whitechapel area, due to word of mouth as most people of the area could not read and so by word of mouth the story had got further exaggerated. The then commissioner of police, Sir Charles Warren was criticized for not offering a reward in the hope that a person would come forward and inform against the Ripper. The Commissioner had no objections it was his superior, Henry Matthews, the Home Secretary of the day who refused the sanction of any reward being offered. This made people of the day think that the ripper must be a person of the aristocracy / Royal family or high status within the government or someone who had friends in high places.

After the murder of Elizabeth Stride on Sunday 30th September Thomas had been questioned by the police of his whereabouts of the previous night of the murder. As he had been seen in his private coach late at night. But if he needed an alibi  his was good, he was raising funds at a dinner party, one of the dinner quest was none other than Thomas Arnold the Superintendent of H division, Leman Street Police Station, Stepney. Thomas was well known at Leman Street Police station, due to the fact the police could take any young person to Dr Barnardo for refuge day or night. Thomas was also well acquainted with Robert Anderson the new head of CID at Scotland Yard, who had been a member of the Barnardo's committee of management from its inception. Anderson an Irishman was an active member of the committee, fulfilling his obligations to visit the homes. This and other matters caused some to think the police were protecting Dr. Thomas Barnardo  and in more recent years people were looking into who could be the Dr T. who is referred to in the Littlechild letters, but they like most had grabbed the wrong end of the stick.

The next murder would lead some to believe it was a Mason who was the killer of these women as the sign M was cut into the next victims face, it was in Mitre Square and then we have the writing on the wall of which part was from the secret meetings of the Masons, but the wording had not been used since about 1814 in Masonic meetings.

The murder of 46 year old Catherine Eddowes on the same night 30th September which had taken place at Mitre Square, Aldgate. In the City of London between the hours of 01:35 and 01:45Hrs. Catherine Eddowes on the 29th September had been arrested for being drunk in Aldgate High Street  and was take to Bishopsgate Police Station where she stayed till 00:30 Hrs if only Catherine Eddowes had stayed the night! One strange thing when she was released from the police station she gave the name “Mary Ann Kelly“! Immediately after her murder a piece of her bloodstained apron that the Ripper had used to wipe the blood off his knife was found in a doorway in Goulston Street, Whitechapel. This was a clue in itself as it shows the route the killer took, back into the East End, also above the piece of apron,  on the brick fascia in the doorway , was the legend, in chalk, "The Juwes are The men that Will not be Blamed for nothing." A message from the murderer, or simply anti-Semitic graffiti of the day? But it could be pointed to Jewish suspects. Sir Charles Warren (the then Chief of the Metropolitan Police) ordered the removal of the writing,  before it was light enough to photograph, seemingly to avoid a confrontation with the immigrant population of the Whitechapel area. It is recorded that the area had so many Jewish immigrants, some signs were being printed in Hebrew which would not have pleased the locals. Some even say Sir Charles Warren had the writing removed as it showed a link to the Masons of which he was a member, this could have been the truth, but is as far as it goes.

One detective felt the murders where that of a Mason. The biggest clue as to what the Ripper murders were all about, comes in the way that the murderers were done. Their throats were cut from left to right and their torso's were ripped open before their internal organs were removed and placed about the corpse. In some instances the body parts were taken away from the scene of the crime. In the ancient Masonic texts there is a reference to how King Solomon sacrificed three Juwes who had murdered his master mason, Hirain Abif, the man who had built the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, I feel this was just one more red herring for the police to deal with even though this in part is played out at Masonic secret meetings.

So how did Thomas become involved with the JTR mystery.  Dr. Thomas Barnardo had been contemplating the establishment of  some shelters for young girls within the Spitalfields area and felt it would be wise to take council from the very people he wanted to help. And so it was Thomas was visiting No. 32 Flower‑and‑Dean Street in Spitalfields on the 26th September. He had found the girls and women in the kitchen in an obviously frightened and subdued condition. They knew of Thomas and of his work with children, he told them of his ideas regarding a special Shelter for Children and young mothers, and the outline of the scheme he had in mind. His suggestions had been listened to with deep interest, and not a voice had been raised in ridicule or opposition. One woman who is recorded as Elizabeth  Stride was under the influence of drink at the time, had exclaimed: "Nobody cares what becomes of us. P'raps some of us will be the next. If anybody had helped the likes of us long ago we should never have come to this."

Impressed by the seriousness of their manner, he had taken particular note of those present, especially the drunken Elizabeth Stride. Four days later, he found himself at the mortuary to identify the remains of the woman he knew as Elizabeth Stride, as one of those who had stood round him and listened with such sympathy and respect to his proposals. Thomas Barnardo became more involved with the plight of poor of the area, he wrote a letter to the Times dated the 6th October in support of The Rev. Lord Sidney Godolphin who had also had his letter published regarding the young children of the area who were left to fend for themselves. Elizabeth Stride is buried at the East London Cemetery on the same day the 6th October.

Dr. Barnardo was probably totally unaware that his name was among the list of those suspected, for soon after the double murder of Elisabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes on 30th September he again wrote a letter to The Times in which he begged for public support to enable him immediately to open two lodging houses for children only, where young children of the 'casual or tramp class' could take refuge. He wanted it made illegal for young children to enter licensed lodging houses, and he also wanted the existing laws relating to the custody and companionship of children more rigidly enforced. It could be that it was the letter itself that gave rise to the suspicions concerning Barnardo, for the police had to find someone who was familiar with the area, had a certain medical knowledge and was in the right age group. Barnardo was in his forties at the time and, as his letter shows, he made no bones about his close association with prostitutes of the type the Ripper chose as victims.

Dr. Thomas Barnardo was known to frequent the streets and courts where the murders had taken place, and was well known both to the police and in the common lodging houses. Evidence given by Dr Bagster Philips concerning the second victim Catherine Eddowes was of such a nature that it could only be reproduced in the Lancet. In his opinion the way in which the incisions were made could only have been the work of someone who had knowledge of anatomical or pathological examinations, and this view gave further weight to the theory that Dr. Barnardo could have been the murderer, qualified as he was both as a surgeon and accoucheur. If they had taken time to look further they would have noticed that Thomas to be only 5ft 3inch in height and was also right handed. These two fact should have confirmed Thomas was not JTR.

On 2nd October, 1888 the discovery of a female torso in the cellars of the new police building under construction at Whitehall New Scotland Yard added to the air of horror . The floodgates to a deluge of copy cat 'Jack the Ripper' letters were opened, and added to the problems of the police. In one hectic week letters to the police amounted to over a thousand at Scotland Yard,  each had to be tagged 'Whitehall Murders' and signed by Robert Anderson. A 10,000 petition had reached Queen Victoria who had cultivated an unusual interest in what were more politely referred to as the "Whitechapel Murders," and she demanded action, she wrote a letter to her Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury in which she insisted that all the back streets and courtyards of Whitechapel be lit and the detective department be greatly improved, this in an age when the Queen's orders were dutifully obeyed. The number of plain clothes officers in the area was increased from 89 to 143 they patrolled the streets of Whitechapel once darkness had fallen, some even dressed as women, nothing happened. The Ripper was not apprehended, and Queen Victoria was not amused.

The last known JTR murder took place on Friday 9th November the same day of the investiture of the new Mayor of London the celebrations became overshadowed by the news of the latest JTR atrocity. Mary Kelly aged 25 lay inside her tiny room at number 13 Miller’s Court. The sight of poor Mary Kelly would stay in the minds of the detectives and the person who found her Thomas Bowyer, he had been sent round to collect the rent that was overdue. Bowyer had knocked at the door with no reply, so he had removed some cloth from a broken window pain and pulled back the curtains to see Mary Kelly laid upon her blood soaked bed mutilated with such ferocity that it beggared description.

The whole of the surfaces of the abdomen and thighs had been removed and the abdominal cavity emptied. The breasts had been cut off, the arms mutilated by several jagged wounds and the face hacked beyond recognition,  The uterus and the kidneys, together with one breast, were found beneath her head. The other breast lay by her right foot. The liver had been placed between her legs, and the spleen by the left side of the body. Her heart had been cut out and was never discovered. One witness told a reporter, ”The sight we saw I cannot drive away from my mind. It looked more like the work of a devil than of a man. The whole scene is more than I can describe. I hope I may never see such a sight again.” JTR had now started to mutilate the victims face, Mary Kelly and Catherine Eddowes had both suffered this.

The JTR murders were big business for the newspapers, they had never sold so many copies on the reporting of Mary Kelly murder. On Monday 19th November the bell at St Leonard’s church in Shoreditch began to toll a mourning knell. The coffin of elm and oak, borne on the shoulders of four pallbearers watched by a reported crowd of some several thousand strong. Men and women alike could barely control their emotions as the funeral procession set off for St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cemetery in Leyton, onlookers jostled to touch the coffin and read its simple brass plate “Marie Jeanette Kelly, died 9th November 1888, aged twenty five years”

On the 13th November 1888 there was a well attended meeting at Dr. Barnardo's Homes. Stepney Causeway, Dr. Barnardo, who presided, said that the crimes of the past few months had revealed to them a state of things which made them heartsick, and the phase of the subject which came more prominently before them was in relation to the young. Large numbers of children lived among persons of the degraded and vicious class, and they would naturally yield to the influence of their evil surroundings. He thought, therefore, that some practical legislative step should be taken, but pending this, they must do what they could, and experience led them to begin their work by the rescue of the young. In this they must seek to make the admission of children into common lodging houses illegal. He told the meeting he had already begun negotiations for the acquiring of two houses in the area, one of which would be devoted to girls and the other to boys.

Thomas Barnardo now felt that the time for action had come, and proceeded at once to put his scheme into operation. He obtained possession of a house in Flower‑and‑Dean Street (the very street in which the unfortunate woman Stride had lodged), and another in Dock Street, Limehouse, (which became 81 Commercial Road) and also a shelter for older girls in Alfred Street. Thomas had them duly licensed under the Lodging‑house Act as Common Lodging‑houses for Children. The doors were opened between seven o'clock and ten o'clock, each night the place was packed.  A nominal admission charge of a penny per night was made, and a hot meal was provided at the cost of a halfpenny. No needy child was sent away, even if the penny for admission was not forthcoming.

The person who became known as Jack the Ripper had murdered at least four women in the London area of 1888. The fact that there was two murders on the 30th September and the bodies were found within 12 minutes of each other makes me think that only one was down to Jack, that of Catherine Eddowes, the other murder of  Elizabeth Stride had abdominal mutilation rather than parts removed which was a different MO along with the fact that Elizabeth was heard to scream three times as she was hit about her head, this from witness statements of the day. This was a copycat killer  I feel this one murder was down to Aaron Kosminski. Further more the Police had a witness to this murder naming Kosminski, but he had refused to give evidence against another Jew so Kosminski was released, but watched 24/7 by the police. It had been the murder of Elizabeth Stride that had brought Thomas Barnardo into the frame so to speak.

Listed below are the said victims of JTR their names and dates of the murder and location where the bodies had been found. Please remember the murders all took place before forensic science, finger printing, blood-typing, fibre analysis, or any of the high-tech methods modern detectives have at their disposal today,  worse still people of that date still believed that taking a photograph of the victim’s eyes soon after death would show them the image of the murderer. the only way to prove a murder was to catch person in the act, or get the suspect to confess.

Many people have been put forward as being Jack The Ripper.  Walter Sickert a leading English painter of his time (1860-1942) had been implicated in the Ripper crimes in the 1970s, with the release of the now infamous "Royal Conspiracy"  That Walter Sickert had introduced him to an Annie Elizabeth Crook.  Eddy (Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward) and Annie proceeded to have an affair that resulted in a pregnancy. Eddy decided to marry his lover in a secret ceremony despite the fact she was Catholic. The sole witnesses to the ceremony were Walter Sickert and Mary Jane Kelly. Their child was born as Alice Margaret Crook in 1885, Lord Salisbury proceeded to order a raid on the apartment. Eddy was placed in the custody of his family while Annie was placed in the custody of Sir William Withey Gull and was placed in a mental Institution/workhouse until she died in 1920.

Alice was in the care of her nanny Mary Jane Kelly during and after the raid. Kelly at first was content to hide the child, but then Kelly hid Alice with nuns and fled into the East End. Eventually, she told the story to several of her prostitute friends and they decided to blackmail the government for money. Lord Salisbury supposedly assigned Sir William Withey Gull to deal with the threat they posed. Catherine Eddowes' murder was supposedly a case of mistaken identity. She was known to have used the alias Mary Ann Kelly.

Alice survived the events of the case and would live well into old age. She later became Walter Sickert's mistress and they allegedly had a son named Joseph who has a cheque account in the name of HRH Joseph Sickert, confused? The Royal Conspiracy nearly got my vote as it ties most of the names up quite neatly, but one big problem the would be JTR Prince Albert was not in the east end for most of the murders. One he was at a dinner party in Scotland.

Then we have Patricia Cornwell who has claimed to have found mitochondrial  DNA  (1 in 100 people would  share the sequences) evidence linking Sickert to at least one "Ripper letter". One problem is that there is no proof the letters sent to Scotland Yard are actually the hand of  Jack the Ripper but that of Thomas J. Bulling? A reporter who worked for the Central News agency. Patricia Cornwell may have found evidence to suggest that Walter Sickert hoaxed one or more Ripper letters – but the fact remains that Walter Sickert was in France on the nights of at least four of the five Ripper murders. He was not Jack the Ripper.

The person who gets my vote for some of the ripper murders is one Dr Francis J Tumblety who only came to notice in 1993 after a bookseller had retired and was selling off his stock. A box of documents came to light including was has become known as the Littlechild  letter which is worth reading. While Littlechild does not tell the hole truth in his letter which misleads George Sims into thinking Tumblety had committed suicide when in truth he died of old age on May 28th 1903 aged 73 and was buried at Rochester Monroe County New York cemetery. Amongst his personal belonging was a collection of preserved uteruses in glass jars. The most enticing point is that an inventory of personal belongings was taking on his death, as well as some extremely expensive jewellery , $1000 in bonds and over $430 in cash, he also had two cheap imitation brass rings to the value of $2-3,  A serial killer's trophy? from his last London killing.

For more information on Dr T or Francis J Tumblety click here

In 1889 Whitechapel returned to its relatively normal existence of drunkenness, domestic violence, prostitution and daily survival against hunger and poverty. The main killer was still cholera as the Bazalgette sewage system still had not been connected to the Whitechapel area. Dr. Thomas Barnardo was still saving the children. For those of you who still think Dr. Barnardo was JTR let me put this to you. Dr. Thomas Barnardo was well known in the area as he often went out late at night looking for waifs & strays if he had room at his Stepney home. Thomas should be placed just in front of John Merrick as not being a JTR suspect as I feel he would stand out as much as Dr. Barnardo! QED

Records show the search for the ripper in the Whitechapel area ended in the December of 1888 and all the extra constables drafted in were returned to their home stations. The Ripper file was officially closed in1892 since then over the years the mystery has deepened to the degree that the truth is almost totally obscured. Innumerable press stories, pamphlets, books, plays, films, and even musicals have dramatised and distorted the facts to such a degree that the fiction is publicly accepted more than the reality, but one thing that is fact Dr Thomas John Barnardo along with the Artful Dodger were not anything to do with the Jack the Ripper murders.......Now that's fact.

Sources: Gillian Wagner "Barnardo" Weidenfield and Nicholson 1979 A. E. Williams Barnardo of Stepney Casebook: Jack the Ripper. (excellent web site) Ryder, Stephen P. (Ed.). Police News www.met.police.uk/history/