On this day … 13 November 1907

The Preston Guardian reported the death of the poet Francis Thompson, who is generally thought to have been born at 7 Winckley Street in 1859, although it has been suggested that his birth certificate shows him to have been born not there, but in St Ignatius’ Square. He was baptised at St Ignatius’ Church.

Can anyone locate that birth certificate?

Five years after his death, a biography was published, written by John Thomson, who lived in Great Avenham Street. The following post about his Preston childhood is based largely on that biography, as are most subsequent accounts of his life. The biography is now in the Preston History Library.

Soon after Francis Thompson’s death, a plaque was placed at the house in Winckley Street, and it was this that prompted Thomson (different spelling, no relation) to write his biography, as he recalls in the first edition of the book:

‘The idea of this brief outline of the life and works of Francis Thompson was suggested by the erection of the commemorative tablet on his birthplace and by inquiries then made concerning his life and career.’

Thompson, named after Francis of Assissi, was baptised at St Ignatius’ Church:

‘His full name, as it appears on the register of births, is Francis Joseph Thompson; but his first published poem having been signed “Francis Thompson,” it was thought advisable that he should (as he ever afterwards did) adhere to the shorter form. The commemorative tablet placed, on the 10th August 1910, over the doorway of the house where the poet first saw the light, gives his name in full. The tablet is the gift of Mrs. Catherine Holiday, of Hawkshead (formerly of Preston), and it is a sadly curious fact that, only after many inquiries, could the exact birthplace of one destined “down the annals of fame to carry a name immortal”—the greatest of his proud town’s sons—be found.’

Thompson’s stay in Preston was short, soon after his birth the family moved to nearby Chapel Street and then, according to the biography, to Winckley Square (does anybody know which property?). Afterwards, when Francis was aged five, they moved to Ashton-under-Lyne.

The biography gives the following account of Thompson’s family and his early years in Preston:

‘The poet’s father was Charles Thompson, a homoeopathic doctor of some note … his mother, Mary Turner Thompson, formerly Morton. Both parents were Catholics, and converts from Anglicanism some years before their marriage. Francis was the second of the five children, all of whom were born in Preston. Two babies, Charles Joseph, the first-born (who only lived a day), and Helen Mary, the fourth, are buried there.

‘Dr. Thompson appears to have lived in several houses in Preston—the one in Winckley Street, already mentioned; before that (probably from 1856 to 1858) at 12 St. Ignatius’ Square; and after the birth of Francis, first in Winckley Square, and later in Latham Street. Two of the doctor’s children were born at the house in Winckley Square—one in 1861, the other in 1862. It was whilst residing in Latham Street, in 1864, that his daughter Helen Mary died, and his fifth child was born.’

Such frequent changes of address where not uncommon in nineteenth-century Preston, when most people rented their houses. The former Preston Historical Society archivist Gill Lawson discovered that the family moved to 1 Chapel Street from the 1861 Census, which records a one-year-old Francis was living there. Gill’s researches, which she published in her series, Notable People of Preston, in Blog Preston, revealed that his mother had been a governess before her marriage, and ‘had failed in her attempt to become a nun’.

Religion was important to Francis’s parents; they had both been brought as Anglicans, but had converted to Catholicism at a time when the Oxford Movement and John Henry Newman were leading many to the faith. Francis had originally hoped to become a priest and his religion was to shape his poetry throughout his life.

There is a very good entry on Francis in the Dictionary of National Biography (accessible on line to anybody with a Lancashire County Library card), which includes this account of his life after he abandoned his medical training at Manchester’s Owens College:

‘Thompson went to London in the autumn of 1885 and after a few months’ desultory employment he was driven to live on the streets. The few pennies he could earn by calling cabs and selling matches went on the opium that was his only respite … Yet there was another side, for [his] notebooks record many small acts of kindness from his fellow outcasts.

‘One such encounter stands out from the rest. In autumn 1887 he came close to suicide, from which he was rescued by a prostitute who took him back to her lodgings and looked after him through that winter. Nothing is known of her or of their relationship except that she encouraged him to write his poetry and it continued until the turning point came for him the following spring.’

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Sources
John Thomson’s biography of Francis
Gill Lawson’s article: https://www.blogpreston.co.uk/2013/08/notable-people-of-preston-francis-thompson-1859-1907/
Dictionary of National Biography: https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/36489