Francis Thompson

For others with this name, see Francis Thompson (disambiguation).
Francis Thompson

Thompson in 1877.
Born (1859-12-16)16 December 1859
Preston, Lancashire
Died 13 November 1907(1907-11-13) (aged 47)
St John's Wood, London
Resting place St. Mary's Cemetery, Kensal Green
Nationality English

Francis Thompson (16 December 1859 – 13 November 1907) was an English poet and ascetic. After attending college, he moved to London to become a writer, but could only find menial work and became addicted to opium, and was a street vagrant for years. A married couple read his poetry and rescued him, publishing his first book Poems in 1893. Thompson lived as an unbalanced invalid in Wales and at Storrington, but wrote three books of poetry, with other works and essays, before dying of tuberculosis in 1907.

Life and work

Thompson was born in Winckley Street, Preston, Lancashire. His father, Charles, was a doctor who had converted to Roman Catholicism, following his brother Edward Healy Thompson, a friend of Cardinal Manning.[1] Thompson was educated at Ushaw College, near Durham, and then studied medicine at Owens College, now the University of Manchester. He took no real interest in his studies and never practised as a doctor, moving instead to London in 1885, to try to become a writer.[2] Here he was reduced to selling matches and newspapers for a living.

During this time, he became addicted to opium, which he first had taken as medicine for ill health. Thompson started living on the streets of Charing Cross and sleeping by the River Thames, with the homeless and other addicts. He was turned down by Oxford University, not because he was unqualified, but because of his addiction.

Thompson attempted suicide in his nadir of despair, but was saved from completing the action through a vision which he believed to be that of a youthful poet Thomas Chatterton, who had committed suicide almost a century earlier. A prostitute, whose identity Thompson never revealed, befriended him, gave him lodgings, and shared her income with him. Thompson was later to describe her in his poetry as his saviour. She soon disappeared, however, never to return, in his estimation, because she feared she would taint his growing reputation.[3] In 1888, he had been 'discovered' after sending his poetry to the magazine Merrie England. He had been sought out by the magazine's editors, Wilfrid and Alice Meynell. Recognizing the value of his work, the couple gave him a home and arranged for publication of his first book Poems in 1893. The book attracted the attention of sympathetic critics in the St James's Gazette and other newspapers, and Coventry Patmore wrote a eulogistic notice in the Fortnightly Review of January 1894.[2]

Concerned about his opium addiction, which was at its height following his years on the streets, the Meynells sent Thompson to Our Lady of England Priory, Storrington.[2]

Thompson subsequently lived as an invalid at Pantasaph, Flintshire in Wales and at Storrington. A lifetime of extreme poverty, ill-health, and an addiction to opium took a heavy toll on Thompson, even though he found success in his last years. He would eventually die from tuberculosis at the age of 47, in the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth and he is buried in St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Kensal Green.[4] His tomb bears the last line from a poem he wrote for his godson - Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven.[5]

Style and influence

Memorial plaque to Thompson, Winckley Street, Preston

His most famous poem, "The Hound of Heaven",[6] describes the pursuit of the human soul by God. This poem is the source of the phrase "with all deliberate speed," used by the Supreme Court in Brown II, the remedy phase of the famous decision on school desegregation.[7] A phrase in "The Kingdom of God"[8] is the source of the title of Han Suyin's novel A Many-Splendoured Thing. In addition, Thompson wrote the most famous cricket poem, the nostalgic "At Lord's". He also wrote Sister Songs (1895), New Poems (1897), and a posthumously published essay, Shelley (1909). He wrote a treatise, On Health and Holiness, dealing with the ascetic life, which was published in 1905.

G. K. Chesterton said shortly after his death that "with Francis Thompson we lost the greatest poetic energy since Browning."[9] Among Thompson's devotees was the young J. R. R. Tolkien, who purchased a volume of Thompson's works in 1913-1914, and later said that it was an important influence on his own writing.[10] Halliday Sutherland borrowed the second line of "The Hound of Heaven" for the title of his 1933 autobiographical best-seller "The Arches of the Years".[11] The American novelist Madeleine L'Engle used a line from the poem "The Mistress of Vision" as the title of her last Vicki Austin novel, Troubling a Star. In 2011, Thompson's life was the subject of the stage play and film script HOUND (Visions in the Life of the Poet Francis Thompson) by writer/director Chris Ward, which has been performed in various venues around London.

Jack the Ripper hypothesis

In 1999 an Australian teacher by the name of Richard Patterson added Thompson's name to the list of people (that as of 2016 extends to more than 100 individuals) suggested as possible suspects in the 'Jack the Ripper' murders.[12][13]

Home

Inscription on memorial plaque

Thompson's birthplace, in Winckley Street, Preston is marked by a memorial plaque.[14] The inscription reads: "Francis Thompson poet was born in this house Dec 16 1859. Ever and anon a trumpet sounds, From the hid battlements of eternity." The home in Ashton-under-Lyne where Thompson lived from 1864 to 1885 was also marked with a blue plaque. In 2014, however, the building collapsed.[15]

Notes

  1. ↑ Thomson, John (1913). Francis Thompson the Preston-born Poet. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent.
  2. 1 2 3 Chisholm 1911.
  3. ↑ Hound of Heaven, presented by Michael Symmons Roberts, BBC Radio Four
  4. ↑ Meynell 1912.
  5. ↑ Hound of Heaven, presented by Michael Symmons Roberts, BBC Radio Four, 2003
  6. ↑ The Hound of Heaven at ElCore.net
  7. ↑ Chen, James Ming (2012). "Poetic Justice," University of Louisville School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper, Series No. 2007–01; Cardozo Law Review, Vol. XXIX, 2007; Minnesota Legal Studies Research Paper, No. 05–30. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=778884
  8. ↑ The Kingdom of God at Poets' Corner
  9. ↑ Chesterton, G.K. (1909). "A Dead Poet." In: All Things Considered. New York: John Lane Company, p. 275.
  10. ↑ Tolkien, J.R.R. (1984). The Book of Lost Tales. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, p. 29n.
  11. ↑ "Making the List: A Cultural History of the American Bestseller" by Michael Korda. Barnes and Noble Books, 2001. Page 67.
  12. ↑ "Jack the Ripper: A Suspect Guide - Francis Thompson". Casebook. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
  13. ↑ Chan, Melissa (November 6, 2015). "Jack the Ripper's Real Identity was Poet Francis Thompson, Teacher Claims". New York Daily News. Retrieved April 19, 2016.
  14. ↑ Good Stuff. "Francis Thompson bronze plaque in Preston". Blue Plaque Places. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
  15. ↑ Dramatic video shows moment dangerous building collapses in Ashton town centre, by John Scheerhout, in the Manchester Evening News; published 27 March 2014; retrieved 19 April 2014

References

Further reading

  • Abrams, M.H. (1934). The Milk of Paradise: the Effect of Opium Visions on the Works of De Quincey, Crabbe, Francis Thompson, and Coleridge. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
  • Boardman, Brigid M. (1988). Between Heaven and Charing Cross: The Life of Francis Thompson. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  • Braybrooke, Patrick (1966). "Francis Thompson: Poet and Mystic." In: Some Victorian and Georgian Catholics. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, pp. 69–102.
  • Burdett, Osbert (1925). "Essay in Perspective." In: The Beardsley Period. London: John Lane.
  • Butter, Peter H. (1961). Francis Thompson. London: Longmans, Green.
  • Breathnach, Caoimhghin S. (1959). "Francis Thompson—Student, Addict, Poet". Journal of the Irish Medical Association. 45: 98–103. PMID 13804081. 
  • Breathnach, Caoimhghin S. (2008). "Francis Thompson (1859-1907): A Medical Truant and his Troubled Heart". Journal of Medical Biography. 16 (1): 57–62. doi:10.1258/jmb.2006.006075. PMID 18463068. 
  • Cock, Albert A. (1911). "Francis Thompson," The Dublin Review, Vol. CXLIX, pp. 247–277.
  • Figgis, Darrell (1918). "Francis Thompson." In: Bye-ways of Study. Dublin: The Talbot Press ltd., pp. 25–43.
  • Hutton, John Alexander (1926). Guidance from Francis Thompson in Matters of Faith. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
  • Le Gallienne, Richard (1925). The Romantic '90s. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company.
  • Madeleva, Mary (1927). "The Prose of Francis Thompson." In: Chaucer's Nuns, and Other Essays. New York: D. Appleton and Company, pp. 43–88.
  • McNabb, Vincent (1935). Francis Thompson & Other Essays. Hassocks: Pepler & Sewell.
  • Mégroz, R.L. (1927). Francis Thompson: the Poet of Earth in Heaven. New York: Scribner.
  • Meynell, Everard (1926). The Life of Francis Thompson. London: Burns, Oates, & Washbourne.
  • Meynell, Viola (1952). Francis Thompson and Wilfrid Meynell: A Memoir. London: Hollis & Carter.
  • O'Conor, J.F.X. (1912). A Study of Francis Thompson's Hound of Heaven. New York: John Lane.
  • Owlett, F.C. (1936). Francis Thompson. London: J. & E. Bumpus, ltd.
  • Reid, J.C. (1959). Francis Thompson, Man and Poet. London: Routledge & Paul.
  • Shuster, George N. (1922). "Francis Thompson the Master." In: The Catholic Spirit in Modern English Literature. New York: The Macmillan company, pp. 127–146.
  • Walsh, John Evangelist (1967). Strange Harp, Strange Symphony. New York: Hawthorn Books.
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