William Thompson (boxer) in 2000AD. Although Defoe is set in the seventeenth, rather than nineteenth, century, the character owes a lot to the real-life boxer, being a retired bare-knuckle fighter of note whose nickname was also "Bendy" and who famously defeated a Ben Caunt. William Thompson (boxer) William Abednego Thompson (11 October 1811 – 23 August 1880) was an English bare-knuckle boxer. Born in Sneinton, Nottingham in 1811, Thompson was one of a set of triplets named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, after the young men in the Book of Daniel who emerged from the fiery furnace of Babylon. He was the last of
Shadrach Dingle child, feeling this was disrespectful to Daniel's memory. On Arthur's first birthday, Laurel spoke to Shadrach and told him she'd never forget Daniel but she also loved Arthur. When Shadrach spoke of his memories of helping her give birth to Daniel, she reminded him that it had actually been Arthur. This helped Shadrach come to terms with Daniel's death. Through their shared grief, Laurel and Shadrach became good friends and in March 2008, Shadrach told Laurel that years before, he had an affair with a woman named Shirley Pascoe. Eventually he had decided to leave his wife as Shirley was